US, NATO on defensive in eastern Afghanistan

AFP

Insurgent attacks have put US and NATO forces on the defensive in eastern Afghanistan, an area recently touted as a counter-insurgency success but now a focus of spreading insecurity, analysts say.
In the latest attack, at least nine US soldiers were killed Sunday when insurgents stormed a remote combat outpost in Kunar province near Pakistan.
It was the deadliest attack against US forces since 2005, but it followed a trend of bolder and more capable insurgent operations as Pakistan's new government has taken a hands-off approach to militant sanctuaries in its tribal areas.
"It's very serious because NATO is already under a lot of pressure," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer now at the Brookings Institution.
"There used to be one deteriorating front, the front in the south. Now that we see the situation in the east is heating up too, it really stretches NATO and American resources very far," he said.
Increasingly concerned about the rising violence, the Pentagon has begun shifting the weight of its combat operations to Afghanistan but within constraints on available forces imposed by the war in Iraq.
It has repositioned an aircraft carrier from the Gulf to the Arabian Sea to support military operations in Afghanistan, extended the deployment of 2,200 Marines in the south and is weighing deeper troop cuts in Iraq to free up more soldiers.