Taliban use Village as Shield while Attacking Coalition Forces
Written by Bagram Media Center
Thursday, 20 September 2007
Margah Village, Paktika Province: Taliban insurgents
attacked a Coalition Combat Outpost last night from within nearby
Margah village, in eastern Afghanistan. The attack began with the
firing of several rocket propelled grenades followed by AK 47 and
medium machine gun fire. Coalition Forces fired mortar illumination
rounds over the village to allow better observation and identification
of the insurgent positions. A vehicle sped toward the outpost and was
destroyed after a passenger fired an RPG toward the Coalition Forces.
Two Mirage 2000’s and two Apache Attack helicopters were on station but
were not used due to the Taliban’s location inside the village. After a
thirty minute battle, the insurgents fled, blending back into the
population whose lives and homes they had just threatened, again using
them as shields, this time to escape identification by Coalition
forces. There were no Coalition or non-combatant casualties.
Such attacks are an increasingly common tactic for the Taliban, using
the non-combatant populace to negate the technological advantage of the
Coalition.
