51U.S.
CASUALTIES
AT GHAZNI
BELIE THE
PENTAGON
CLAIM THAT
COMBAT
MISSIONS
ENDED IN
2014
about the state of the war. The battle was a major
test of the Trump Administration’s long-term mil-
itary strategy, which hinges on defending popula-
tion centers while ceding much of the remote coun-
tryside to the Taliban. It proved that U.S. forces still
routinely rush to save Afghan forces struggling to
contain a resurgent Taliban. That hard truth suggests
the plan to train, advise and assist Afghans so they
may one day defend themselves masks the costs the
U.S. is still paying nearly two decades into the war,
and a year after President Trump announced a new
strategy to defeat the enemy. As Ghazni shows, the
“assist” part is often diicult to distinguish from a
traditional American combat mission.
Nine Americans were evacuated from the battle-
ield by helicopter because of injuries incurred by
the Taliban’s multiday barrage of roadside bombs,
mortar shells and rockets. At least two soldiers re-
ceived Purple Hearts after sufering serious wounds.
Seven out of 10 armored vehicles in ODA 1333’s con-
voy were lost to battle damage. The Special Forces
team considered themselves lucky: a shoulder-ired
rocket had a near miss with a medevac helicopter re-
trieving an injured soldier.
The carnage in this city of 150,000 shows how
devastating the war remains for Afghans. An average
of seven Afghan adults and two children were
killed every day in the irst six months of this year,
according to the latest United Nations data, with
another 19 civilians injured each day. The igures
show 2018 is on track to be the deadliest year of
the war. A generation of American military oicers
who arrived here after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as
fresh-faced lieutenants or majors have lived through
the ferocious ighting. Some are now multiple-
tour colonels or generals, with children who have
inherited the burden of waging America’s longest
war. Most of the soldiers—American and Afghan—
who battled to take back Ghazni were in grade school
on Sept. 11 and unable to foresee the countless ways
the attacks would shape their lives.
This account of the multiday siege of Ghazni, de-
scribed to TIME in on-the-ground interviews with
dozens of U.S. and Afghan soldiers, commanders
and citizens, ofers a rare glimpse into the ongoing
American military efort in Afghanistan. The extent
of the destruction has not been previously reported.
The Pentagon doesn’t make the information publicly
available, and TIME witnessed it only after gaining
approval for an embedded deployment in Afghani-
stan after months of trying, long before the August
ofensive began.THE BATTLE FOR GHAZNIdidn’t come out of no-
where. The Taliban sensed an opportunity in the
widening chaos created by years of war. For several
months, ive U.S. Special Forces teams, working with
some 150 Afghan commandos, had left the area to
ight a diferent threat: a growing Islamic State aili-
ate known as ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K. An ofshoot
of the Syria-based terrorist group, it formed in Af-
ghanistan in 2015 and has terrorized towns in eastern
Nangarhar province through public executions, as-
saults on government buildings and suicide attacks.
The efort to repel ISIS-K was one of the largest
joint operations ever conducted between U.S. and
Afghan special forces. By August 2018, ISIS-K had
lost nearly 200 ighters and most its territory. The
joint mission did not go unnoticed. Over the summer,
the U.S. military received intelligence that the Tali-
ban was aware the Americans and Afghan comman-
dos based around Ghazni were gone, Special Forces
sources tell TIME.
The Taliban couldn’t believe their good fortune.
Moving weapons and ighters into Ghazni isn’t a dif-
icult task. There are many ways to smuggle materiel
into the city, through ancient trading lines or unas-
suming vehicles that blend in with traic. Some local
oicials believe security personnel guarding Ghazni’s
perimeter granted the Taliban free entry.
Despite the intelligence tip, the Taliban’s initial
attacks on Aug. 10 caught Washington and Kabul
lat-footed. An estimated 1,000 Taliban ighters
stormed the city and surrounding districts. The