Action!

12th May, COP Herrera.

Last night was a complete buzz as we apparently had good intel that the Talibans were going to hit the District Compound (DC) again. There was a pandemonium of men prepping their personal weapons and loading the humvees with ammo and heavy weapons. Then we waited and waited and were told to stand down but be ready. So the intel wasn’t too solid after all! Darn!

You see, last Friday night there was contact with a fairly large force of Taliban fighters that attacked the DC. They were actually trying to overrun the compound, which also houses the Afghan National Police and firefight ensued.

Now, Charlie Platoon had earlier set off in the direction of the next village and was hoping to pick up a guy who was suspected to have ties with the enemy. Just as they had set up an OP when they heard RPG and rifle fires. The firefight had just begun!

The Talibans were expecting to overrun the compound without too much resistance. Heck! They even got inside at one point! They had about 30 fighters surrounding the compound when mortars started to rain down on them from the Americans’ position. For the next three hours, all hell broke loose! An airstrike was called in and a couple of A-10 showed up dropping two 500lbs bombs and strafing the attackers.

First light came and the surviving Afghan Police and the Americans started looking for the enemies in the surrounding hillsides. They recovered nine bodies and captured a heavily wounded. There were three police officers wounded and no US casualty.

So that was Friday night/Saturday morning. Today we heard that more bodies were found and the now the tally stands at 21 Taliban insurgents killed. By now, we had truly pissed off the local Taliban cadre and hence the single rocket attack on our base two nights ago and the rumors on an impending attack last night. Now I heard through the grapevine that this rather large force of insurgents are really mad at us and intend to hit us sometime within this week. Welcome to COP Herrera!

BTW, a Taliban spokeman (whoever the heck he is) claimed responsibility for the attack and stated officially that there were only 2 - TWO - insurgents killed in that attack! :D