From the #TheWrongEnemy Book the spring, the Taliban were almost all gone from Afghanistan. In a last stand in April 2002, a group in southeastern Afghanistan, a mix of Taliban and some Arab and Central Asian fighters, fought a ferocious battle in the mountains of Shahikot in Paktika province. For American troops, it was their deadliest fight so far. Eight Americans dropped in by helicopter were trapped on the snow-covered mountain bowl and died fighting off an encirclement of insurgents. It was a sharp lesson in how the Taliban’s well-trained foreign fighters could battle in the forbidding terrain of Afghanistan’s mountains when they chose to make a stand. The Taliban vanished after that. The survivors were seen trekking out along the well-worn mujahideen trail through the border village of Shkin, into Pakistan, by villagers living there.18 In May 2002, British Marines made a painstaking sweep through the mountain range of Shahikot and found the insurgents were gone. The commander of the British task force, Brigadier Roger Lane, declared the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan “all but won.” The Taliban were not showing signs of regrouping for offensive operations, he added. The British units packed up and left Afghanistan, and did not return in large numbers until 2006.
Posted on: Thu, 12 Jun 2014 06:04:55 +0000
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