PICATINNY ARSENAL, N.J. - With the surge to Afghanistan now underway, thousands of XM-153 Common Remotely Operated Weapons Stations, known as CROWS, will soon be taking flight to strengthen U.S. Army forces in theater.

Program Executive Office Soldier is ramping up its stateside logistics efforts and is in the process of establishing three new CROWS support sites in Afghanistan. The sites -- under PEO Soldier 's Project Manager for Soldier Weapons -- will manage the fielding, training, and sustainment of the XM-153 CROWS.

The CROWS systems mount what is essentially a small turret on top of Army combat vehicles that provides Soldiers the ability to employ their machine guns while using a control grip and video monitor from inside the protection of an armored vehicle. There are currently about 1,000 CROWS systems already in use in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We are embedding the new CROWS support sites with units that are farther afield to enhance our support of the warfighter," said Lt. Col. Michael Ascura, product manager for crew-served weapons. "We fielded one new site in December and will bring two more online by April in Afghanistan."

The complexity of the fielding is magnified by the sheer number of military vehicles and vehicle variants that are now employing CROWS; including MRAPS, Humvees, route clearance vehicles, the new MRAP All-Terrain Vehicles or MATVs, and others.

Each vehicle requires customized vehicle integration kits to bring the units online, PEO Soldiers officials explained. They said CROWS field service representatives are charged with meeting those challenges in the combat zone as they staff support sites in some of the toughest and most dangerous environments on earth.

'Building in a Box'

Staffed by Department of Defense civilians and contractors serving six-month deployments, the CROWS support sites need to serve as a one-stop shop in theater, PEO Soldier officials said.

Maj. Michael Pottratz, assistant product manager for crew-served weapons, manages the logistical field support of the entire system. To accomplish his mission, he has devised a "building in a box" concept that enables field service representatives to independently set up support sites in a matter of days. All they need is a piece of real estate and some JP-8 to get underway.

"We wanted to put together a custom kit for our field service reps that enables them to become fully operational as soon as possible," Pottratz said. "All the components necessary to establish the support site come in a single container: tools, equipment, computers, classroom space and materials, generators, air conditioners, even a Gator ATV. Our FSRs can provide CROWS support within 48 hours after offloading."

Once operational, FSRs can begin comprehensive, hands-on training sessions with Soldiers, which run 40-60 hours. To begin, Soldiers learn all the functions of the sensors and fire control system, including how to lase and engage targets. Soldiers also learn how to mount four different weapons systems on the CROWS, including the M-2, Mk-19, M-240B, and M-249 machine guns.

Soldiers conclude their training with a day and night operation, and fire live ammunition. To enhance a unit's operational capabilities, Ascura recommends that every member of a unit receives training on the system, not just operators. CROWS training provides leaders with critical knowledge on how best to employ CROWS to support a diverse set of missions, he said.

With its day and night cameras, CROWS provides target identification and surveillance capabilities that are well beyond what small-unit leaders have had previously.

"Soldiers learn how they can turn 'area weapons,' such as the M-2, into precision engagement weapons," Ascura said. "Beyond the guns, leaders begin to think about how to integrate the system capabilities into their tactics, techniques and procedures. In the past, Soldiers had to perform the same functions with the naked eye from an exposed position in the turret. Those days are coming to an end."

As a next step, PM Soldier Weapons is developing a stateside home-station training program. The initiative is designed to enable a unit to be operationally ready upon arrival in theater and improve Soldiers' confidence on the system's ability to successfully support their mission.

Field Service Goes Mobile

When it comes to FSRs, "instructors repair, and repairers instruct," said a PEO Soldier official. That means experts that deliver the training often find themselves working in all types of environments. Many units are positioned in remote areas, and getting a damaged CROWS system back for support may be difficult given the unit's mission. Moreover, travel along poor or nonexistent roads exposes Soldiers and FSRs to ambushes or IEDs.

To reduce risk, FSRs will travel out to unit locations by air, performing on the spot servicing for CROWS. FSRs jump on supply helicopters with their bag of tools and parts and are flown hundreds of miles to remote outposts.

Gary Decker, Crows II FSR fielding team chief at PM Soldier Weapons, manages the FSR program out of Picatinny Arsenal, N.J. A former Marine and combat veteran of the Gulf War, Decker himself has 24 months of deployments between Iraq and Afghanistan as an FSR. On one of his most memorable trips, he flew out to a fire base to repair a CROWS system for a Special Forces team.

"Helo supply runs can be days apart and sometimes an FSR can find himself sitting in an outpost for 10 days after finishing a 10-minute repair job," Decker ," said. "At that point, the FSR makes the best use of his time by supporting the unit any way possible. When you get back, you turn in the damaged parts and get ready to go on the next mission."

With thousands of CROWS on their way to Afghanistan, there is no shortage of work to be done to get the new systems in place and deployed, PEO Soldier officials said. They added hat soon, thousands of Soldiers will be able to employ all the advanced capabilities of this high-tech weapons system while benefiting from an increased level of safety.

Decker said the Army has come a long way from the days when Soldiers drove around in Humvees with no doors and with the M-2 gunner riding on the top with nothing but a flak vest on.

"In Desert Storm, we were totally exposed," Decker said. "Then we armored up with the gunner protection kit. Now, Soldiers are coming out of the turret thanks to CROWS. It's no surprise that the Soldiers just love it. CROWS saves lives."

KABUL --- A suicide bomber wearing an Afghan border policeman's uniform blew himself up Thursday at a U.S. base near the Pakistani frontier, wounding five Americans, an Afghan official said. 

The spokesman for Paktia province, Roullah Samoun, said the attack occurred after sundown in a barracks at a U.S. facility in the Dand aw Patan district in eastern Afghanistan, about 35 miles (70 kilometers) east of Gardez.

He did not identify the base by name or say what kind personnel are stationed there.

A U.S. statement said "several" U.S. service members were injured in an explosion at a joint U.S.-Afghan outpost in Paktia but gave no further details.

On Dec. 30 a Jordanian believed to be a double agent blew himself up at a CIA base in another border province, Khost, killing seven agency employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer.

The attack reported Thursday occurred about 400 miles (640 kilometers) northeast of the Taliban town of Marjah, which is under siege by U.S. and Afghan troops. 

MARJAH, Afghanistan - It could take weeks to reclaim the Taliban stronghold of Marjah, a top Marine commander said Sunday as thousands of U.S. troops and Afghan soldiers fought for a second day in NATO's most ambitious effort yet to break the militants' grip on Afghanistan's dangerous south.

"That doesn't necessarily mean an intense gun battle, but it probably will be 30 days of clearing," Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson said. "I am more than cautiously optimistic that we will get it done before that." 

Squads of Marines and Afghan soldiers occupied a majority of Marjah, but gunfire continued as pockets of militants dug in and fought. Sniper fire forced Nicholson to duck behind an earthen bank in the northern part of the city where he toured the tip of the Marines' front line held by Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines.

"The fire we just took reflects how I think this will go - small pockets of sporadic fighting by small groups of very mobile individuals," he said.

Explosions from controlled detonations of bombs and other explosives were being heard about every 10 minutes in the area.

"There's really a massive amount of improvised explosive devices," Nicholson said. "We thought there would be a lot, but we are finding even more than expected."

The second day of NATO's largest offensive since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan also was marked by painstaking house searches.

Using metal detectors and sniffer dogs, U.S. forces found caches of explosives rigged to blow as they went from compound to compound down streets riddled with thousands of homemade bombs and mines. Shots continued to ring out in some neighborhoods.

They also discovered several sniper positions, freshly abandoned and booby-trapped with grenades.

The troops also found two large caches of ammonium nitrate - a common ingredient in explosives - totaling about 8,800 pounds (4,000 kilograms), said Lt. Josh Diddams, a Marine spokesman.

"We're in the majority of the city at this point," Diddams said. He said the nature of the resistance has changed from the initial assault, with insurgents now holding ground in some neighborhoods.

"We're starting to come across areas where the insurgents have actually taken up defensive positions," he said. "Initially it was more hit and run."
NATO said it hoped to secure Marjah, the largest town under Taliban control and a key opium smuggling hub, within days, set up a local government and rush in development aid in a first test of the new U.S. strategy for turning the tide of the 8-year-old war.

At least two shuras, or meetings, have been held with local Afghan residents - one in the northern district of Nad Ali and the other in Marjah itself, NATO said in a statement. Discussions have been "good," and more shuras are planned in coming days as part of a larger strategy to enlist community support for the NATO mission, it said.

Afghan officials said Sunday that at least 27 insurgents had been killed in the operation. 

Most of the Taliban appeared to have scattered in the face of overwhelming force, possibly waiting to regroup and stage attacks later to foil the alliance's plan to stabilize the area and expand Afghan government control in the volatile south.

Two NATO soldiers were killed on the first day of the operation - one American and one Briton - according to military officials in their countries. At least seven civilians had been wounded, but there were no reports of deaths, Helmand provincial spokesman Daoud Ahmadi said.

More than 30 transport helicopters ferried troops into the heart of Marjah before dawn Saturday, while British, Afghan and U.S. troops fanned out across the Nad Ali district to the north of the mud-brick town, long a stronghold of the Taliban.

Maj. Gen. Gordon Messenger told reporters in London that British forces "have successfully secured the area militarily" with only sporadic resistance from Taliban forces. A Taliban spokesman insisted their fighters still controlled the town.

President Barack Obama was keeping a close watch on combat operations, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.

Vietor said Defense Secretary Robert Gates would have the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, brief Obama on Sunday.

In Marjah, most of the Marines said they would have preferred a straight-up gunbattle to the "death at every corner" crawl they faced.

"Basically, if you hear the boom, it's good. It means you're still alive after the thing goes off," said Lance Corp. Justin Hennes, 22, of Lakeland, Florida.

Local Marjah residents crept out from hiding after dawn Sunday, some reaching out to Afghan troops partnered with Marine platoons.

"Could you please take the mines out?" Mohammad Kazeem, a local pharmacist, asked the Marines through an interpreter. The entrance to his shop had been completely booby-trapped, without any way for him to re-enter his home, he said.

The bridge over the canal into Marjah from the north was rigged with so many explosives that Marines erected temporary bridges to cross into the town.

"It's just got to be a very slow and deliberate process," said Capt. Joshua Winfrey of Stillwater, Oklahoma, a Marine company commander.

Lt. Col. Brian Christmas, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, said U.S. troops fought gunbattles in at least four areas of the town and faced "some intense fighting."

To the east, the battalion's Kilo Company was inserted into the town by helicopter without meeting resistance but was then "significantly engaged" as the Marines fanned out from the landing zone, Christmas said.

Marine commanders had said they expected between 400 and 1,000 insurgents - including more than 100 foreign fighters - to be holed up in Marjah, a town of 80,000 people that is the linchpin of the militants' logistical and opium-smuggling network in the south.

The offensive, code-named "Moshtarak," or "Together," was described as the biggest joint operation of the Afghan war, with 15,000 troops involved, including some 7,500 in Marjah itself. The government says Afghan soldiers make up at least half of the offensive's force.

Once Marjah is secured, NATO hopes to quickly deliver aid and provide public services in a bid to win support among the estimated 125,000 people who live in the town and surrounding villages. The Afghans' ability to restore those services is crucial to the success of the operation and in preventing the Taliban from returning. 

OUTPOST BELLEAU WOOD, Afghanistan - Take a desert of yellow-orange dust so flat it looks like Mars, with a freezing wind that blows so hard it can lift a large tent. 

Add hundreds of U.S. Marines, squads of Afghan soldiers, some Drug Enforcement Administration agents, a few private contractors, along with dozens of armored cars, mine breachers and an improvised helicopter landing zone.

That's Outpost Belleau Wood, a Marine base near the edge of the Taliban-controlled town of Marjah, which the Marines plan to attack in the coming days.

It took barely a week for the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment to create the outpost from scratch.

They bulldozed earth berms to make a protection wall, pitched lines of pup-tents that bend and wobble in the gale, and set up batteries of mortars and 155-millimeter artillery cannons.

"Those guns started shooting the night they got here," said the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Brian Christmas, as he leaned forward against the wind while walking through the base in full body armor and helmet.

Named after a World War I battle where the 6th Marines earned the label "devil dogs" for the ferocity of their fight against German troops, Belleau Wood lies about 7 miles (10 kilometers) north of Marjah.

Several units from the battalion are already pushing in toward the town, where an estimated 600 fighters are entrenched. While the outpost has been hit only once, companies closer to Marjah face daily skirmishes and bombings.

Marjah is the biggest community in southern Afghanistan that is under Taliban control and a center of their logistical and drug-smuggling networks. The NATO command believes restoring government control there would go a long way to discrediting the Taliban among Afghans in a part of the country where the militants have been strong for years.

The offensive proper is expected to be the biggest in the nine-year Afghan war, and troops on the outpost are all waiting for battle.

Dozens of Marine engineers have been rehearsing how to lay out massive metallic bridges they plan to use when troops will need to cross the canals surrounding Marjah. Route clearance teams were also fine-tuning their tactics to detect the bombs that litter the area.

NATO commanders have been outspoken on their plans to take Marjah. But they've remained tightlipped on one key bit of information: timing.

Few know when the offensive will begin, and those who do are saying nothing. So the Marines are in the starting blocks, waiting in the cold.

"The wait is part of the fight," says Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Daniel Perez, a Navy medic. "It gives people the time to pump up with anticipation."

Marjah is suspected to be one of the biggest, most dangerous minefields NATO forces have ever faced, and hundreds of the fighters barricaded inside could be planning to fight until death.

But Perez said he hasn't seen anyone frightened by the fight - "or if they are, they're hiding it very well."
He says waiting, however long, doesn't matter for the Marines.

"It's almost like the Olympics," he said. "You train and train and train ... and this is finally the big show." 

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan - U.S. troops and their Afghan and NATO allies are planning their biggest joint offensive since the Afghan war's start, targeting a town in the volatile south known as a Taliban stronghold and a hub of their lucrative opium trade, officers said Wednesday.

No date for the start of the offensive has been released for security reasons. But U.S. commanders have said they plan to capture the town of Marjah, 380 miles (610 kilometers) southwest of Kabul, this winter.

It is to be the first major offensive since President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, and many of the Marines set to participate arrived as part of the surge.

Up to 125,000 people are believed to live in the district around Marjah, an agricultural center in Helmand province surrounded by a maze of irrigation canals built with American aid in the 1950s and 1960s. About 80,000 people live in or around the town itself.

Between 600 and 1,000 Taliban and foreign fighters are thought to operate in the area, U.S. officers say. NATO officials won't say how many NATO and Afghan troops have been earmarked for the offensive, but they are expected to vastly outnumber the Taliban and their allies.


In Kabul, NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay told reporters that the operation will include at least 1,000 Afghan police and thousands of Afghan soldiers as well as thousands of NATO troops. U.S. officers say the offensive will involve the highest number of Afghan forces in any joint operation to date.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi did not specifically mention Marjah, but told reporters in Kabul that a large operation is coming "in the near future" in Helmand. He said it will "separate the local people from the terrorists in the area."

Fighting escalated in Helmand in 2006, and the sprawling southern province was transformed into one of the deadliest parts of the country for NATO forces.

Last spring, thousands of U.S. Marines arrived in the province to reinforce the British military. British and American forces launched twin operations to try to stabilize the area before the August presidential election, in which turnout in Helmand was extremely low.

U.S. officials have spoken publicly about plans to take Marjah in hopes that many civilians will leave the town, along with Taliban fighters who are not deeply committed to the insurgency.

Commanders believe support of the local population is crucial to establishing an Afghan administration as quickly as possible and to help NATO troops detect the numerous improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, that they expect to face in Marjah.

Two U.S. service members were killed by a bomb Tuesday in southern Afghanistan, but NATO did not specify the precise location.

Col. George Amland, the deputy commander of Marines in Helmand province, said the Taliban force includes "hundreds of idiots running around Marjah right now waiting to aggregate" and confront the NATO and Afghan troops.

He expects the Taliban ranks will "dwindle very quickly into a very manageable number" by the time the fighting begins.

Amland dismissed most of the Taliban force as just "in the Taliban's employ" and said that local opium poppy growers and opium dealers will abandon the militants quickly.

That leaves the "dyed-in-the-wool Taliban," Amland told reporters in Camp Leatherneck, the main Marine Corps base in southern Afghanistan. He estimates there are "a couple of hundred of those that are rallying the rest of the cause." 

The militants are believed to include about 100 to 150 foreign fighters, including Arabs, Pakistanis, Uzbeks, Chechens and a few Yemenis, said Maj. Jundish Jang Baz, of the Afghan National Army.

The problem, he added, is that NATO isn't completely sure whether it can rely on all the forces supposed to be on its side. Jang Baz said the locally hired Afghan police were less than reliable.

"We think they're working with al-Qaida in Marjah," Jang Baz said, adding that he expected the Taliban to "scatter like ants."

"The real challenge is to make sure they don't flee with enough weapons to start another fight somewhere else," he said.

Azimi also said an investigation was still under way into a NATO airstrike that killed four Afghan soldiers last week in Wardak province.

The fighting broke out when a joint U.S.-Afghan force came under fire near a remote highway outpost and called in the airstrike. Both sides have said it appeared to be a case of mistaken identity.

The U.S. Army Special Operations Command denied claims by Afghan officials that the troops involved were special forces. 

Anger, frustration and a hunger for revenge are running high among U.S. Marines as casualties mount on the frontline of the battle against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

On a base near Marjah, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand province, Marines are grieving the deaths of a sergeant and corporal killed by the remote-controlled bombs that have become the scourge of the long-running conflict.

Commanders try to keep the men's rage in check, aware that winning over an Afghan public wary of the foreign military presence and furious about mounting civilian casualties is as crucial as any battlefield success.
"It causes a lot of frustration. My men want revenge, that is only natural," says First Lt. Aaron MacLean, 2nd Platoon commander of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Regiment.

"But I keep telling them that the rules are the rules for a reason. If we simply go crazy and start shooting at everything, in the long run we will lose this war because we will lose the support of the population."

He too is frustrated, accusing the Taliban of manipulating the rules of engagement by using women and children as shields and shooting from hidden positions before dropping their weapons and standing out in the open.

"They know we can't shoot them if they don't carry guns or without positive identification. They are fighting us at another level now," MacLean said.

MacLean recently led his unit on a routine foot patrol near Marjah, expected to be the scene of a major offensive this month to drive the insurgents from one of their last bastions of control.

What the Marines encountered was a likely precursor of the battle to come.

They were met by fierce gunfire from Taliban gunmen who pinned them down for three hours at the expense of two of their men.

One corporal stepped on an improvised explosive device (IED) --- the remote-controlled bombs now the main weapon in the Taliban arsenal and which military intelligence officials say claim up to 90 percent of foreign troop lives.

The corporal's legs were blown off and he was thrown yards into the air.

A second IED killed a sergeant who rushed to the corporal's aid as bullets flew everywhere, MacLean said.

Three others were wounded in the clash, making it one of the bloodiest days for U.S. Marines since President Obama's December announcement of a fresh troop surge in the war to eradicate the Taliban.

The death toll of foreign soldiers fighting in Afghanistan under U.S. and NATO command hit 44 in January --- the highest for the month since the war began more than eight years ago --- compared with 25 in January 2009.

The number of Americans who died last month in the conflict now in its ninth year was almost double the number for January last year, at 29 compared with 15, according to the icasualties.org website, which keeps a running tally.

The U.S. and NATO currently deploy 113,000 troops in Afghanistan, with another 40,000 due over the course of the year as part of a renewed strategy that emphasizes development and the "reconciliation" of Taliban fighters.

Most of the incoming troops will be deployed in Helmand, which along with neighboring Kandahar province 
has been the hub of the insurgency since the Taliban regime was removed from power in late 2001.

MacLean's unit is among the first Marine outfits to be sent into Helmand since the surge was announced.

On the day of the ambush, Marines hunkered down in tents inside the camp as information about the encounter came in.

Some had tears in their eyes as the names of casualties were made known. Others held tightly to their weapons and yelled at their enemy on the horizon.

"We were attacked treacherously. We came under fire from everywhere, but the rules of engagement prevent me from doing my job," said Lance Cpl. Mark Duzick, who was in the unit that was ambushed.

Outside a tent housing the Marine unit responsible for firing mortars stands an improvised cross bearing the inscription: "Here lies the 81st, death by stand down."

Last year was the worst yet for foreign troops fighting in Afghanistan, with 520 soldiers dead, up from 295 in 2008. More troops will mean more casualties, military experts say.

For the Afghan people, too, 2009 was the deadliest, with the U.N. putting civilian deaths at 2,412 for the year, compared to 2,118 in 2008.

While most are caused by the Taliban, the insurgents easily exploit civilian casualties to spread distrust among the public for foreign and Afghan troops.

As the nature of the fight has changed, with the Taliban increasingly using suicide attacks and IEDs, there had been no traditional winter hiatus and defence ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimi said spring is likely to be ferocious.

"We will have the most intense clashes come the spring, and will shed the most blood this year," he told AFP.

KABUL - U.S. Soldiers shot and killed an Afghan cleric as he drove Thursday with his young son near an American base on the eastern edge of Kabul, underscoring the dangers facing civilians despite NATO efforts to minimize casualties.

The shooting occurred as Mohammad Yunus, 36, approached a four-lane highway with one of his sons, according to police and witnesses.

Yunus was struck by four bullets fired at his Toyota Corolla and died on the way to the Wazir Akbar Hospital, according to his son-in-law, Abdul Qadir. His son was not injured. Yunus left two wives and 10 children, Abdul-Qadir said.

NATO said the troops fired at "what appeared to be a threatening vehicle" near Camp Phoenix, an area where suicide attacks are not uncommon, but later described the incident as "regrettable" and promised an investigation.

A shopkeeper who witnessed the shooting said a military convoy was traveling from Kabul toward the eastern city of Jalalabad when the gunner in the lead vehicle opened fire as Yunus pulled onto the same highway.

The 25-year-old shopkeeper, who identified himself only as Aymal, said he heard no warning shots.

NATO said an investigation was under way and appropriate action would be taken to ensure troops complied with policies aimed at protecting civilians. It said Yunus' family would be compensated in accordance with local customs.

In London, President Hamid Karzai called on NATO-led forces to do more to prevent innocent Afghans from being killed and wounded.

"Ladies and gentlemen, regrettably, civilian casualties continue to be a great concern for the people of Afghanistan," he told an international conference on Afghanistan. "We should put the protection of people's lives and property at the top of our agenda."

NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay said despite measures in place to protect Afghans, "regrettable incidents such as this one can occur."

"On behalf of (NATO), I express my sincere regrets for this loss of life and convey my deepest condolences to his family," he said.

Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside Camp Phoenix to protest the killing. They dispersed after police promised the Americans would discuss the death with local elders, according to district police chief Col. Rohullah, who like many Afghans only uses one name.

The cleric's brother, Mohammad Youssef Ajami, said no compensation could make up for the loss of a life.

"It is totally cruel. Mr. Karzai sitting on his throne has no control over the foreign forces," he said in a telephone interview after the funeral in Laghman province. "They should try these Soldiers who shot my brother, who had done nothing wrong and was on a major road in a safe part of Kabul."

A recent U.N. report showed that the number of civilians killed by NATO-led forces has dropped after U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, imposed limits on the use of airstrikes and other measures to protect the population. It said civilian deaths at the hands of the Taliban have increased.

But that hasn't dimmed public outrage as such incidents continue to occur among a population weary of the presence of foreign forces and more than eight years of war.

Also Thursday, a U.S. service member was killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, according to the international force. The death brings to at least 26 the number of American deaths in Afghanistan this month, nearly double the 14 killed in all of January last year.

An Afghan policeman also was shot to death by two militants on a motorcycle in the southern city of Kandahar, provincial police chief Gen. Sardar Mohammad Zazai said.

NATO also confirmed as many as 20 suspected militants were killed Wednesday in fighting in northern Afghanistan.

Provincial police said Wednesday 11 insurgents, including two senior commanders, were killed in a joint air-and-ground assault targeting a Taliban compound west of Pul-e-Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province.
Joint forces called in air support after coming under fire from a large number of insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades, NATO said in a statement issued Thursday. It said attack aircraft "bombed and strafed insurgents in a tree line," killing 12 to 20 of them.