Height 431

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The height 431 is a militarily important hill in northern Afghanistan and as such a constantly manned military outpost of the ISAF . Its name comes from the fact that its summit is 431 meters above sea level.

geography

At height 431 it is a free-standing, loamy hill in the Char Darah district , about 7 kilometers as the crow flies southwest of the center of the northern Afghan provincial capital Kunduz on the western bank of the river of the same name . The height 431 rises only about 30-40 meters above the surrounding plain of the river valley, but has steep flanks.

Military importance

Whoever controls the height 431, controls the river valley south of the city of Kunduz.

The height 431 is the first permanently manned military outpost of the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan outside of the three fortified Bundeswehr field camps Masar-e Sharif , Kunduz and Faizabad . It is located within the German-led ISAF Regional Command North Afghanistan ( RC North ) in the notorious restlessness district Char Dara , of an ethnic enclave of Pashtuns is in otherwise largely Uzbek and Tajik-dominated Northern Afghanistan and since about 2006 on a bastion of the Taliban in northern Afghanistan has developed.

Height 431 is internally referred to by ISAF as “FOB” (Forward Operating Base) - in classic military-tactical terminology it would most likely be called a fortified field post .

Attachment

The less than half a hectare hill plateau at height 431 was developed into a field fortification by local workers at the beginning of 2010 under German supervision as part of the CIMIC program Cash For Work (“work paid with cash”) . This had several fortified fighting stalls with cover and "blast walls", i. H. a network of splinter protection or walkways, as well as temporary sanitary facilities ( mobile toilet cubicles ). Built-in heavy infantry support weapons included MGs , HK GMWs , and MILAN -PzAbwLFK including thermal imaging cameras .

A Bundeswehr contingent of platoon strength was stationed as a permanent military crew at height 431, which was replaced about every three to six days in a rotation process. The police headquarters (PHQ) in the village of Char Darreh served 150 soldiers and two dozen Afghan police officers as an outpost in the middle of the enemy area.

After the end of Operation Halmazag , during which the Taliban were ousted from the south of Char Darreh by mid-November 2010, the position was evacuated. A new outpost was established in Quatliam .

history

Due to its dominant location, the height 431 was already heavily contested several times during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. It is already marked in the military geographic maps of the Red Army under the name "Height 431". Since the establishment of the Kunduz PRT in 2004, it has changed hands several times between troops of the ISAF or the Afghan National Army and the Taliban.

In the summer of 2009 there were battles between ISAF units and the Taliban at an altitude of 431 as part of the ISAF Operation Oqab with significant German participation. After the height 431 was occupied by ISAF forces in the course of this, the decision was made to keep the height 431 permanently occupied in order to prevent it from falling back into the hands of the enemy and then perhaps having to be recaptured.

Since the spring of 2010, the neighboring Höhe 432 was also permanently occupied by the Bundeswehr, after it had been used several times by the Taliban as an observation position and combat post.

During 2011 heights 431 and 432 were handed over to the Afghan security forces. This freed up additional forces for the Bundeswehr's operations in the troubled district of Chahar Darreh .

In contrast to various FOBs, especially in southern Afghanistan, which were sometimes exposed to violent Taliban attacks, the Taliban did not make any serious attempt until 2015 to drive the ISAF or international troops back from Height 431.

See also

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Height 431 is "dragged"; Bundeswehr ousts Taliban. In: n-tv.de. Retrieved November 16, 2010 .
  2. ↑ Marcel Bohnert : COIN at the base: To implement the concept in a combat company of the Kunduz Task Force . In: R. Schroeder & S. Hansen (eds.) (2015): Stabilization deployments as a national task. Nomos: Baden-Baden, p. 251.

Coordinates: 36 ° 40 ′ 53.7 "  N , 68 ° 48 ′ 50.8"  E