Confidence Alpha was an operational sector of the United States military's Operation Confidence hearts-and-minds mission in eastern Afghanistan. The sector was named after the US Army headquarters at Alpha Base, located halfway between Lashkar Gah in the north and Awi in the south. Alpha Base served as the center of US operations in the region, but the vicinity was still prone to Taliban and Anti-Coalition Militia activity. The insurgents' activities were initially limited to IED attacks on the Lashkar Gah-Awi highway, but, on the sixth day of the operation, a cadre of militia appeared to the southwest of the village. The American Bravo Company emerged from the base and eliminated the militia cadre in the first hostile action of Operation Confidence; on the thirteenth day of the operation, the Americans launched an airstrike which eliminated another insurgent cadre. The Americans sporadically skirmished with the Taliban and allied militias, using airstrikes to target and eliminate insurgent cadres. On the fourteenth day, a Taliban attack wounded several American soldiers on the southwest side of the base, but the Taliban were repelled. On 2 May 2012, a US Army company from Alpha Base crossed the Khost Highway and destroyed an opium plantation. On 30 May 2012, another militia cadre was spotted to the southwest of the US headquarters, and the American howitzers at the headquarters obliterated the cadre. In June, American troops from Alpha Base destoryed an opium plantation on the Lashkargah-Awi Highway, and they also held off several spirited Taliban attacks on the base amid a Taliban offensive.
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