Growing Taliban use of marksmen worries U.S. military

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Growing Taliban use of marksmen worries U.S. military

By Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers


KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Taliban fighters increasingly are deploying precision marksmen to fire on U.S. troops at greater distances throughout opium-producing southern Afghanistan, according to the top two commanders for the southern region.

The increased use of marksmen is the latest Taliban shift to asymmetrical warfare and away from confronting U.S. troops in conventional fights, the commanders told McClatchy.

Instead of gathering in company-sized units to take on foreign troops, Taliban forces also are resorting increasingly to explosives and bombings, attacks that require fewer people and pose less risk to themselves, the commanders said. Explosives attacks rose by 33 percent last year, as did deaths of coalition troops, according to the International Security Assistance Force, which leads the coalition forces stationed here.

"They are reverting to tactics that tell us they are suffering heavy losses," said U.S. Brig. Gen. John Nicholson, the deputy commander for the southern regional command. "They are trying to minimize their exposure."

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