UPDATE of Gardez Situation from Scott Kesterson

This morning I posted an urgent update about this story with links to PJ Tobiaâ€™s blog. Here is another update from Scott to me along with several pictures.


Eight suicide bombers attacked Gardez today. Two detonated themselves, four were killed by Afghan forces before being able to detonate their suicide vests, and two escaped. The Afghan forces performed brilliantly. They received intel early in the day and were able to minimize the damage from the attacks. Unfortunately, four Afghan soldiers were killed in the process, but civilian casualties were minimal to none. Following the attacks, patrols were dispatched to attempt to find the two bombers that escaped.

The attack, by tactical considerations, was a failure for the Taliban. Their inability to effectively fight the Afghan and Coalition Forces has left them with tactics that try to instill fear in the populous. Three to four hours following the attacks, I drove through the markets with the 203rd Corp Afghan Army SGT. Major, and the markets were full and busy. This was a good day for the Afghan forces.



1_US forces in Gardez

US Army forces patrolling downtown Gardez


2_Govenor's mansion

Dead attacker outside of Paktia Province Governorâ€™s Mansion (notice BLUE BURKA laying next to him)


3_Traffic circle near ANP HQ_2

Gardez Traffic Circle near Afghan National Police HQ


4_ANP headquarters

Dead Insurgent outside of Afghan National Police HQ


5_NDS guard shack

National Directorate of Security (Afghan FBI) building Guard Shack



Dead insurgent outside of National Directorate of Security compound

7 thoughts on “UPDATE of Gardez Situation from Scott Kesterson”

  1. Excellent work! This gives me confidence in the abilities of the Afghan military. Hopefully we can train them up and strengthen them to the point where we can bring our men home!

  2. Seeing something like this gives me hope that there may be some peace in the not too distant future, “The Afghan forces performed brilliantly. They received intel early in the day and were able to minimize the damage from the attacks.” It would be wonderful to bring all this to a peaceful conclusion and all of us could live in saftey.

  3. Maybe you guys should check into what really happened in Gardez that day. The Tennessee ADT helped the Afghan police take out some of those insurgents but that will never be reported because that takes away from the world thinking the Afghans can handle the Taliban themselves. None of the reports tell about any of the American soldiers who put their lives on the line that day in Gardez because ultimately its always about perception not the truth. But at least everyone gets a good nights sleep except for those who have to take the lives of others for someone else’s freedom. Sleep well tonight because we haven’t in the last 3 years.

  4. I forgot to mention. If the Afghan forces had Intel that the attacks were going to happen the they are just as guilty as the Taliban because we were boots on ground for close to an hour before the governors compound was attacked and no one ever shared that Intel with us. It was just another normal day till we heard the first explosion.

  5. Silent Soldier, I am not goint to argue with you how we put our lives on the line and the perception and how everyone should know the truth. I do have one question though.. Where the hell were you? I was part of the Military Police squad that had a front row view of the entire thing. I was less than 200 meters away when the shooting started. I am not trying to pick a fight with you because i agree with just about everything you said. But my fellow soldiers and I were the only US patrol in the area when all of that went down.

  6. oh.. and those ASV’s that you see in the photo… those were ours.. and again.. we were the only patrol there until QRF arrived. Careful Silent Soldier, you putting false information on here makes you no better.

Leave a Reply to silent soldier Cancel reply

