The International Security Assistance Force denied a recent Taliban claim that US troops vacated a base in the eastern Afghan province of Laghman.
“We haven’t turned over [to Afghan forces] or vacated any ISAF bases in Laghman,” Master Sergeant Nicholas Conner, the Senior Public Affairs Advisor for Regional Command-East, told The Long War Journal in an email.
On Dec. 18, the Taliban released a statement on their propaganda website, Voice of Jihad, claiming that US troops were “forced to abandon major base in Laghman” and that their fighters occupied the base and raised the Taliban banner.
“The US invaders today vacated one of their major base which is of strategic importance located in Alingar district of Laghman province,” the Taliban statement said. “The base has been a frequent target by Mujahideen since it was installed, the report indicates adding Mujahideen have raised their flag in the base, while the locals have welcomed the move warmly vowing to extend any help.”
Conner denied that the Taliban massed at a base in Alingar and said ISAF forces would have hit the Taliban fighters had they done so.
“Wish it were true that they were massing there; we love hunting around a salt lick,” Conner said.
One day later, the Taliban falsely claimed that “[a]t least five NATO invading troops were killed and wounded in bomb attack targeting their armored tank in Alingar district” on the same day the base was supposedly vacated. No US soldiers were killed in Laghman on Dec. 18.
The Taliban have occupied abandoned US combat outposts in the east in the past, and have staged major propaganda coups while doing so.
In April, US forces turned over Combat Outpost Tangi in the Sayyid Abad district of Wardak province to Afghan forces, who promptly abandoned the base. In September, the Taliban released video footage of hundreds of fighters and several commanders massing at the outpost and touring the base’s structures, which remained intact. [See LWJ report, Taliban tour ‘liberated’ base in eastern Afghanistan, for video footage.]
The Taliban have released similar propaganda tapes in previous years. Taliban fighters were seen touring abandoned combat outposts in the northeastern provinces of Kunar and Nuristan in 2009 and 2010.
1 Comment
Like anyone believes anything the Taliban has to say. They claim all kinds of outlandish BS. This is just more of it.