8 US soldiers killed in war

The battle was the deadliest assault on Americans in Afghanistan in a year.

KABUL (AP) — Hundreds of insurgents armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades stormed a pair of remote outposts near the Pakistan border, killing eight U.S. soldiers and capturing more than 20 Afghan security troops in the deadliest assault against U.S. forces in more than a year, military officials said Sunday.

The fierce gunbattle, which erupted at dawn Saturday in the Kamdesh district of mountainous Nuristan province and raged throughout the day, is likely to fuel the debate in Washington over the direction of the troubled eight-year war.

It was the heaviest U.S. loss of life in a single battle since July 2008, when nine American soldiers were killed in a raid on an outpost in Wanat in the same province.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, plans to shift U.S. troops away from remote outposts that are difficult to defend and move them into more heavily populated areas as part of his new strategy to focus on protecting Afghan civilians.

U.S. troops used artillery, helicopter gunships and airstrikes Saturday to repel the attackers, inflicting “heavy enemy casualties,” according to a NATO statement. Fighting persisted in the area Sunday, U.S. and Afghan officials said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay said the assailants included a mix of “tribal militias,” Taliban and fighters loyal to Sirajudin Haqqani, an al-Qaida-linked militant based in sanctuaries in the tribal areas of Pakistan near the Afghan border.

Afghan authorities said the hostile force included fighters who had been driven out of the Swat Valley of neighboring Pakistan after a Pakistani military offensive there last spring.

“This was a complex attack in a difficult area,” U.S. Col. Randy George, the area commander, said in a statement. “Both the U.S. and Afghan soldiers fought bravely together.”

Details of the attack remained unclear Sunday, and there were conflicting reports of Afghan losses due to poor communications in the area, located just 20 miles from the Pakistani border and about 150 miles from Kabul.

A NATO statement said the attacks were launched from a mosque and a nearby village on opposite sides of a hill, which included the two outposts.

782 DEAD: As of Saturday, at least 774 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The department last updated its figures 10 a.m. Friday. (It does not include eight Americans killed Sunday, which would bring the toll to 782). Of those, the military reports 595 were killed by hostile action.

ENDURING FREEDOM DEATHS: Outside the Afghan region, the Defense Department reports 72 more members of the U.S. military died in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Of those, three were the result of hostile action. The military lists these other locations as Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba; Djibouti; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Jordan; Kenya; Kyrgyzstan; Philippines; Seychelles; Sudan; Tajikistan; Turkey; and Yemen.

OTHER DEATHS: There were also four CIA officer deaths and one military civilian death.

DEATHS IN IRAQ: As of Friday, at least 4,348 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The latest deaths reported by the military:

Two soldiers died Friday when “an individual wearing an ANP (Afghan National Police) uniform” opened fire on the Americans in Wardak province.

A soldier died Friday of wounds from a bomb attack in Wardak province.

The latest identifications reported by the military:

- Army Sgt. Ryan C. Adams, 26, Rhinelander, Wis., died Friday in Logar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle using rocket-propelled grenade fire.

- Army Spc. Russell S. Hercules Jr., 22, Murfreesboro, Tenn., died Thursday during combat in Wardak province, Afghanistan; was assigned to the 4th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment, 159th Combat Aviation Brigade.