Last June, three Navy SEALs were killed by Afghan rebels, and all 16 soldiers on a helicopter sent to rescue them were killed when it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.
The major offensive in eastern Kunar province, near the Pakistani border, came at the end of a deadly week for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, where seven Americans and dozens of Afghan rebels and civilians were killed.
Afghan rebels in the Korengal Valley are determined to disrupt the country’s legislative elections scheduled to be held next month, U.S. and Afghan commanders said.
"We want them running for their lives way up in the hills where they can't attack polling stations," said Capt. John Moshane of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, based in Hawaii. "We want to isolate them from the community."
Hundreds of Marines and Afghan Special Forces started Thursday to take up positions in the valley, 120 miles east of the Afghan capital. They dug mortar and machine-gun pits for a resupply base in a corn field near Kandagal, a village of about 100 farm families.
Afghan rebels fired rockets at a nearby U.S. post and a troop convoy but no casualties were reported.
According to Kirimat Tanhah, a commander in the U.S.-trained and financed Afghan Special Forces, the operation, expected to last for two weeks, is targeting a rebels network led by a local Taliban officer, Ahmed Shah, who claimed responsibility for the June 28 attacks.
"Ismail's men ambushed the SEAL team and shot down the helicopter," Tanhah told The Associated Press.
Marines use donkeys
Frustrated with the limitations of using modern Humvee four-wheel-drives in Afghan’s rugged mountains, U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan started using donkeys in their military operations there.
The U.S. military rented 30 donkeys from local farmers to use in transferring food and water to Afghan and U.S. forces in remote mountains in eastern Afghanistan's Kunar province.
"With all the smart bombs and the modern stuff in war nowadays, this is the best way for us to resupply our troops there," said Lt. Col. Jim Donnellan, commander of 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, which is based in Hawaii. "It's also much cheaper for the U.S. taxpayer for us to rent the donkeys than for everything to be air-dropped."
Also using aircraft has become very dangerous, after a special forces Chinook helicopter was shot down last June, killing all 16 troops on board.
Although some of the U.S. troops received training in handling donkeys at the Marines' Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, Nev., before they come to Afghanistan, the donkeys' stubbornness to cooperate frustrates the soldiers.
"Marines have used donkeys since the American revolution," said Capt. John Moshane, as each animal was being spray painted with a number for identification.
Donkeys have long been used by armies in Afghanistan, including by Mujahadeen Independence fighters who were battling the Soviet troops in the 1980s.