More than 1,500 U.S.-led troops from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, and the government of Afghanistan have surrounded the area and slowly moved in to cut off all supplies and escape routes of fighters hiding in the mountains.

After eight U.S. soldiers were killed in combat, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrogantly stated that Taliban and al Qaeda forces sustained "much larger numbers of killed and wounded, and there will be many more."

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that al Qaeda forces face certain doom. "It seems they have chosen to stay and fight to the last, and we hope to accommodate them," he said.  
 
Cannot win war from 35,000 feet high
For the first time since Washington's post-September 11 bombing assault began, U.S. troops are in the forefront of ground combat, albeit after a brutal bombing assault and under the cover of air power. In addition to the eight troops killed in combat, dozens have been injured in what has been the fiercest ground combat U.S. forces have seen since their assault on Somalia in 1993.

At each step in the war and imperialist takeover of Afghanistan, ruling-class spokespeople have stated that the U.S. forces are far from finished in their effort to eliminate all organized resistance to Washington in order to set up an imperialist protectorate.

Lieut. Gen. Bernard Trainor, a retired Marine commander, told the Washington Post that while the tactical goal is to eradicate the al Qaeda forces, the even more significant strategic goal may be to show the world the depth of U.S. resolve.

"It gives lie to the belief that Americans can only fight from 35,000 feet," he said.

After reports of the first U.S. casualties, Rumsfeld said, "This will not be the last such operation in Afghanistan. I think we have to expect that there are other sizable pockets, that there will be other battles of this type."

Meanwhile, a reporter for London's Financial Times wrote that in the villages he has visited near the battle he found virtually no support among peasants and workers for the imperialist assault. Eyeing the bombing nearby, one peasant told the reporter, "For God's sake, please tell your Americans to spare our children!"

Local Afghans adamantly told the reporter that the people in the mountains were former Taliban supporters who were trying to simply hide out from the Americans. "Everyone was a Taliban," one said. "If they bomb Saifurahman," the leader in the area who headed up the group under U.S. fire, "why don't they bomb the ministries? All the bureaucrats in Kabul were Taliban too."

People in the area said that Saifurahman had sent an emissary to the local governor, inviting him to inspect Shah-i-kot, and was awaiting an answer when the imperialists and their allies launched their attack.
 
 
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