Fighting kills nine American soldiers
By Pauline Jelinek
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Nine American soldiers have died in a U.S.-led assault in Afghanistan, including at least eight killed when two helicopters took enemy fire in the largest offensive of the five-month war against terrorists, Pentagon officials said Monday.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said enemy forces had sustained “much larger numbers of killed and wounded, and there will be many more.” He said the assault would continue.

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said several hundred al-Qaida fighters were in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, well dug-in, well-fortified and with “lots of weapons.”

“We knew that al-Qaida would have two choices, to run or stay and fight,” Myers said. “It seems they have chosen to stay and fight to the last, and we hope to accommodate them.”

In one incident, a Chinook helicopter was shot at and crashed. Seven died in the crash or ensuing fire fight on the ground, said a senior defense official on condition of anonymity.

In the second incident, Rumsfeld said, one American was killed when a helicopter was fired on by a rocket-propelled grenade, made a hard landing and then managed to take off again. The grenade apparently bounced off the helicopter and did not explode, Rumsfeld said. The soldier who died may have been knocked out of the helicopter by the force, he said.

The ninth U.S. soldier was killed Saturday.

At least 40 American soldiers also were wounded in the incidents, which occurred in an operation started Friday against suspected al-Qaida and Taliban believed regrouping near Gardez in eastern Afghanistan.

Rumsfeld said the casualties, including wounded, had been evacuated from the region. He said half of the wounded were already back in the fight.

The Chinook helicopter, normally used to ferry special forces troops and supplies, was downed on its way to the battle near Gardez.

The helicopter was the first American aircraft taken down by enemy fire in the war, and the seven killed represented the largest death toll from one incident caused by enemy fire. There were accidental crashes of other craft since the anti-terror campaign opened Oct. 7, including one in which seven Marines were killed when a tanker plane crashed in Pakistan.

The two helicopter incidents came as the largest coalition force assembled so far in the campaign — combining troops from America, Afghanistan and at least six other nations — engaged an estimated several hundred al-Qaida and Taliban in intense fire fights backed by airstrikes.

Rumsfeld said because of the efforts of al-Qaida fighters — and their leaders — to regroup inside Afghanistan, “this will not be the last such operation in Afghanistan.”

Asked whether the United States would send in additional military reinforcements to aid the assault, Rumsfeld said: “Whatever it takes.” He would not provide details.

Since the assault began Friday, the United States has dropped more than 350 bombs in total, Myers said.

The U.S. ground troops and pilots are operating in a mountainous area at elevations between 8,000 and 11,000 feet, Rumsfeld said. Myers said it was cold, icy and snowy “like the Rocky Mountains in the middle of the winter.”

“The higher you go, it gets thinner for flight operations,” Myers said. Some helicopters are operating at the edge of their capabilities, he said.

The al-Qaida and Taliban fighters near Gardez are equipped with small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and probably some shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles like the Russian SA-7 and American Stinger, said another defense official, also on condition of anonymity.

Some of the fighters have experience using missiles to shoot down helicopters from the mujahedeen days of fighting the Soviet occupation force in the 1980s, the official said. Many used U.S.-supplied Stinger missiles, some of which remain in Afghanistan.

Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke called the fighting and the loss “the largest military operation we have been engaged in thus far and, in combat, the most loss of life.”

More than 1,000 U.S. troops are involved in the operation against opposing forces, believed to be mostly al-Qaida, she said.

Before the two helicopter shootings, the casualty toll of the operation begun Friday had stood at one American and three Afghans killed and an undisclosed number injured.

The American killed was Army Chief Warrant Officer Stanley L. Harriman, 34, of Wade, N.C., the Pentagon said. He had been assigned to the 3rd Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, N.C., and was killed in action Saturday as the result of enemy fire, it said.

In addition to allied Afghan fighters and U.S. Special Forces, troops from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany and Norway were participating.

Pro-U.S. Afghan troops approached the hide-outs from three directions to isolate the fighters and prevent them from escaping.

Safi Ullah, a member of the Gardez town council, or shura, said the first stage of the offensive was designed to cut the road from Shah-e-Kot to trap al-Qaida and Taliban forces in the mountains. He said the plan also involved setting up checkpoints to prevent them from getting out.

Pakistan has closed its border with eastern Afghanistan and deployed extra army units and members of the Khasadar tribal militia to catch any who try to cross the frontier and filter into its Northwest Frontier Province.

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