Kamdesh Battle Analysis

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The battle of Kamdesh occurred on October 3rd, 2009 when a large group of Taliban fighters launched an assault on combat outpost Keating in the Kamdesh province of Eastern Afghanistan. The coalition soldiers defending COP Keating consisted of Americans, members of the Afghanistan National Army, and a few combat advisers from Latvia. The outpost was placed in a natural bowl created by three surrounding mountains and was not easily defensible. This led to the establishment of OP Fritsche, which was designed to provide support to COP Keating with 120mm mortars. The attack came shortly before the outpost was scheduled to be abandoned due to the coalition’s focus moving to areas with a larger civilian population. It was well organized and had been …show more content…
When the time came to attack the coalition forces, the Taliban knew where the coalition heavy weapons were located as well as where the perimeter was weakest. “Enemy fighters applied the information gathered from probing attacks and immediately inflicted casualties on the COP’s guard force and suppressed COP Keating’s primary means of fire support, its 60mm and 120mm mortars.”(US Army.) By attacking OP Fritsche and the mortar pits, the Taliban had a much easier time breaking through the perimeter around COP Keating. A major point in the attack was the Taliban’s attack on the Afghanistan National Army positions. “The Afghan National Army guards on the scene broke quickly, some fleeing to buildings in the American position.” (Sofmag.) The Afghani desertion led to a gap in the defenses that the Taliban quickly exploited and pushed the American forces back to a secondary perimeter around their headquarters and aid station where they called in airstrikes and mortar fire from OP Fritsche once the outpost had regained control of the mortar pits. After twelve hours of constant fighting, the American forces were able to drive the attackers out of COP Keating and were

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