Page 76 - Commandos News Today

They have clearly lost the element of surprise so now its a straight-up fight. wherever you can find it. they finally made it. this was their target. no idea what could be waiting inside. they look through the mosques windows but the taliban are gone. they escaped? >> escaped. taliban escape. yes. >> the taliban havent gone far. the commandos kill three of them in hiding and an afghan air strike kills three more. >> very good and successful for us. >> reporter: is it enough? the taliban are maki...

Broken, so it is now the tip of the spear, these commandos that are doing the heavy lifting here, and the question is, can these forces, which are only in the tens of thousands, maintain enough security, even though they do still have intelligence support, some support from the u.s. military but they dont have that shoulder to shoulder support. so they have a tremendous responsibility, i must say from what i saw, they were operating at a very high level, they were operating very professionally, ...

If we die, we dont care about it. >> reporter: the commandos set out in old american humvees, the vehicles slow down to a crawl when they think they spot an ied. the ied may have been a false alarm and they push on. the last leg is on foot, quietly. the commandos hope they can surprise the taliban. the building is a mosque. they think there are 15 taliban fighters inside. but before they reach their target, the man on point spots the taliban. fire is incoming too. they launch rocket propelled gr...

End up spreading themselves so thin that they are no longer commandos? theres talk in this country of doubling the size of the afghan commandos. now, if you double the size of an elite force very quickly, it no longer becomes an elite force. so if they are the tip of the spear and youre suddenly trying to use them to do another mission, you could end up breaking them and that is something to watch. i would also draw a parallel to iraq, because we saw the big army collapse in iraq. youre seeing t...

Ability to really carry this fight against the taliban. were just going to have to see what kind of status quo emerges. is there a line beyond which the taliban can move, can they only project power so far out of their in the pashtune ethnic group, only a plurality in afghanistan. the other ethnic groups can form a majority against them. i think we have some open questions. that said, i dont expect kabul to fall any time soon. >> richard, how long can these afghan commandos shoulder this burden?...

The afghan air force providing top cover, kills three more. its a small setback for the taliban, who have captured more than 150 afghan military posts as u.s. troops leave. the commandos consider tonights mission a success. >> this mission is a very good and very successful for ours. >> reporter: this time the taliban got away but the commandos showed their presence, disrupted a checkpoint and proved to the taliban there are afghans willing to fight for their country. without american troops on ...

Olivant. now leading the fight against the taliban are afghan commandos trained by u.s. special forces. you actually joined them exclusively on a raid outside of kabul. tell us what happened, what you experienced. >> reporter: so right now the afghan commandos are shouldering most of the burden here, not what they were designed to do. er this designed line american special operations forces to be units that go on a specific mission, on a specific raid and then go back, rest, refit and go on the ...

Need in most places but not the case in every place. they need to cut through some of the confusion or limit it. >> this is crazy. we need people who have the experience. theyre there and we cant figure out a way to do it. important reporting. thank you so much, aaron. we really appreciate that. aaron gilchrest. that wraps up this hour. im chris jansing. yasmin vossoughian has reporting from richard engel who got exclusive access to afghan commandos on a mission to hunt down the taliban.

Can stay in tajikistan. since the afghan army which was also trained by the u.s. military is falling to pieces, is crumbling, is handing over its weapons to the taliban, and this is only a cycle that reinforces itself, because the more afghan posts that collapse, the more weapons the taliban seize, the more the taliban are able to use those incidents for propaganda, then the more posts collapse and it snowballs. so stepping into this breach are the afghan commandos and they are carrying out abou...

Afghan government could fall within six months. again you have the taliban advancing every hour of every day. very quickly, can you stop them? >> well, i think as richard pointed out, good to see richard again, it depends how good the afghan commandos are. im not a fan of iraq and afghanistan comparisons but in this particular we seem to be seeing history repeat itself, in the iraq anti isis fact it was a rooks counterterrorism service which by its very name is not designed to do mainstream figh...