Word: kot
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...battle of Shah-i-Kot is over, but its lessons are that America's military commitment in Afghanistan may last longer, and be more extensive and dangerous than expected. U.S. and allied forces had by Wednesday secured control of the valley that had seen the biggest battle of the Afghan campaign, in which eight American soldiers and scores of enemy personnel died...
...battle began, the enemy forces in Shah-i-Kot were reinforced from the surrounding areas. Many may have been al-Qaeda fighters who'd gone to ground in the area, but local lore had it that this was primarily a Taliban force, reinforced by local sympathizers from Pashtun communities on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border. And the enemy had help: U.S. and allied forces were forced to guard their backs in the battle zone against harassment by locals sympathetic to those holed up in the mountain fortress...
...other thing about the Taliban and al-Qaeda warriors at Shah-i-Kot: they fought to the death. That may be because the Arabs, Chechens and Uzbeks among them have nowhere to go, save Guantanamo Bay. But their ferocity may have another cause. In the caves on the snow-covered ridges may hide some top al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, including, possibly, one of the big three, Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and Ayman al-Zawahiri. "There's no question that these people didn't just happen to all meet there," says Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "There's clearly leadership...
...same coin. The Americans have always known that Paktia province, where the fighting is taking place, is bandit country. (Ironically, the new governor of the province, and Karzai's voice there, is an American citizen: Taj Muhammad Wardak spent the past decade in Los Angeles.) Shah-i-Kot was a well-known base for the mujahedin fighting Soviet forces in the 1980s; indeed, the Soviets never took the valley. The soft shale on the ridges is ideal for the construction of caves. One cave, visited last week by a TIME reporter, was at least 36 m deep and high enough...
...while." In the war against terrorism, more American casualties are inevitable. One day, perhaps, Americans will tire of the slow drip of deaths?three here, five there?of the sort that old colonial powers like France and Britain once learned to endure. That hasn't happened yet; Shah-i-Kot marks the first time in many years that Americans have died in battle on a foreign field without a sense of outrage and shame at home. After 18 Army Rangers and special forces died at the battle of Mogadishu in 1993?the subject of the film Black Hawk Down?some...