AUSTRALIAN troops have been forced to use some of their heaviest firepower to fight Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan during a series of recent skirmishes, the Department of Defence says. The soldiers have been using 81mm mortars, which can hit targets kilometres away but which have not been widely used by Australia since the Vietnam war. No Australian soldiers were killed or injured in the fighting and it was not clear if any Taliban had been hit.The Taliban have launched multiple simultaneous attacks during the past fortnight. The raids have been aimed at a security post that soldiers from the Reconstruction Task Force (RTF) have been building about 15km from Tarin Kowt, in the Afghan province of Oruzgan. Chief of Defence Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston praised the work of the soldiers. "The immediate and aggressive response by RTF soldiers caused the enemy to break off their attack and abandon their weapons in hastily prepared caches. These (weapons) were recovered through aggressive follow-up patrolling, which was sustained for a number of days."
Defence edited video footage of the skirmishes shows a digger clawing his way through dirt to uncover a hessian bag filled with weapons and ammunition. The soldier counts eight rounds of ammunition in a waistbelt pulled from the bag. The video also shows diggers visiting nearby villages to ask locals if they have seen any Taliban soldiers.
Defence spokesman Andrew Nikolic said the Taliban had quickly stashed their weapons before fleeing. "They're riding motorbikes so they have quick transport," Brigadier Nikolic said.
Australia has about 1000 troops in Afghanistan, including Special Air Service soldiers, who are working at the front line of the war against the Taliban and criminal elements attempting to push western armies out of the central Asian nation. Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has called on NATO, which is leading the operation in Afghanistan, to send more of its soldiers to the front line to support US, Canadian and Australian troops already there.
US-based private intelligence company Stratfor says the Taliban are fighting an "effective and intensive" insurgency that would be difficult to beat.
"The United States, its allies and the Kabul government are fighting a holding action strategically," it said today. "They do not have the force to destroy the Taliban and in counterinsurgency, the longer the insurgents maintain their operational capability, the more likely they are to win."
