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U.S. says Taliban not resurgent, despite copter crash

08 August 2011 19:23 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The Pentagon sought to dispel concerns about a Taliban resurgence on Monday after Afghan militants shot down a helicopter over the weekend killing 30 U.S. troops, most of them elite Navy SEALs, APA reports quoting Reuters.
Saturday’s crash was the deadliest incident for U.S. forces since the war in Afghanistan began nearly a decade ago and followed a series of high-profile assassinations and attacks by the insurgents over the past several months.
U.S. military officials have repeatedly played down those incidents as a Taliban attempt to project the appearance of strength after a series of battlefield defeats that saw their former strongholds taken over by NATO forces.
"This one single incident does not represent any kind of watershed or trend," Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan said.
"We still have the Taliban on the run, we’ve reversed the momentum that they had. But they are still going to inflict casualties, that’s what they do."
But the killing of so many Americans has resonated in a way domestically that other battlefield incidents have not, with relatives, pastors and friends of fallen U.S. forces appearing in U.S. media, praising troops fighting an unpopular war that usually takes a backseat to concerns like the economy.
Many of the victims were from SEAL Team Six, the celebrated elite unit which carried out the covert raid in May that killed Osama bin Laden. U.S. officials have said none of the dead participated in the bin Laden raid.
"(My husband) felt, and so did the other members of his team, that the very existence of our republic is at stake," said Kimberly Vaughn, the widow of Aaron Vaughn, a SEAL Team Six member, speaking on NBC television.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said the CH-47 Chinook helicopter appeared to have been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Lapan told reporters the insurgents were presumed to be Taliban.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the killings were a "reminder to the American people that we remain a nation at war." He vowed to press ahead with the campaign to go after militants that could pose a threat to the United States.
"As heavy a loss as this was, it would even be more tragic if we allowed it to derail this country from our efforts to defeat al Qaeda and deny them a safe haven in Afghanistan," Panetta said, speaking a ceremony to install a new commander at Special Operations Command in Florida.
President Barack Obama was to address the situation in Afghanistan on Monday afternoon.
Critics of Obama’s plan to withdraw 33,000 U.S. forces from Afghanistan by the end of next summer alternatively attack the president for pulling out too slowly or too quickly from the war.
"We’re going to have to address the problem that the President has created," said Senator John McCain, who lost to Obama in the 2008 election and wanted a slower pullout.
"There’s the perception in Afghanistan and other parts of that part the world that America is withdrawing. That can’t be good," he said on NBC’s "Meet the Press" on Sunday.