Cairo, July 27: Battling more efficient, resilient resistance, US Iraq veterans are complaining about a tougher Afghanistan mission.
“They are two totally different worlds,” Marine Sergeant Jacob Tambunga, who has been recently deployed in the restive southern Afghan province of Helmand, told The New York Times on Sunday, July 26.
“In Iraq, they’d hit you and run,” said Tambunga, a squad leader in Company C, First Battalion, Fifth Marines who fought the deadliest Iraqi resistance in the so-called Sunni death triangle.
“But these guys stick around and maneuver on you.”
A British soldier was killed when a bomb exploded on Saturday, July 25, in Helmand, the 20th British serviceman to die in Afghanistan this month.
Thousands of British and US troops are pressing offensives in Helmand, a stronghold of Taliban, ahead of the August presidential polls.
In his first days in Helmand, Tambunga fought through three ambushes, each lasting as long as the most sustained fight he saw in Iraq.
Western military casualties have hit record levels in Afghanistan, with at least 66 NATO troops killed this month.
More than 30 US soldiers were killed just in the first three weeks of July, the deadliest month for international forces since the 2001 invasion.
The independentww.icasualties.orgwebsite, which tracks military losses, says 223 foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year.
Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until ousted by the US in 2001, has been engaged in protracted guerrilla warfare against US-led forces and the West-backed government of Hamid Karzai since then.
Over 1,270 from the foreign soldiers were killed and thousands others injured in the fighting with Taliban since 2001.
Efficient, Bolder
US Marines said they had even discovered that Taliban fighters are surprisingly proficient at tactics they themselves learned in infantry school.
“One force (from Taliban) will put enough fire down so you have to keep your heads down, then another force will maneuver around to your side to try to kill you,” Sgt. Brandon Tritle, another squad leader in Company C, told The Times.
“That’s the same thing we do.”
Sgt. Jason Lynd, a third Company C squad leader, agrees.
“They’d flank us, and we’d flank them, just like a chess match.”
Taliban do not seem to have access to large artillery shells and other powerful military munitions.
“If they had better weapons, we’d be in real trouble,” said Lance Cpl. Vazgen Matevosyan.
Many Marines believe that what the Taliban lack in munitions they make up for in tactics, even practicing “information operations” and disinformation.
Knowing the Marines listen to their two-way communications, the Taliban describe phony locations of ambushes and bombs.
“They’re not stupid,” contends Lance Cpl. Frank Hegel.
“You can tell they catch on to things, and they don’t make the same mistake twice.”
–Agencies