The First Battle of Gereshk was a battle of the Afghanistan War which was fought in 2011 between the US Army and the Taliban near the village of Gereshk in Helmand Province. The Taliban launched an assault on the American forward operating base at Charlie Base, the operations center for the Charlie sector of Operation Confidence, but they were repelled by a smaller American force utilizing superior firepower.
Battle[]
In 2011, the United States military launched Operation Confidence in eastern Afghanistan with the objective of winning the hearts and minds of the local Afghan villages and depriving the Taliban of a stronghold in the region. The Americans established Charlie Base as a forward operating base (FOB) in the vicinity of Gereshk, but the village of Gereshk quickly switched its allegiance to the Anti-Coalition Militia; as a result, the Americans were forced to engage in IED-clearing operations in the area. There were also a few clashes between the Americans and the insurgents in the Charlie sector, but it was not until the thirteenth day of Operation Confidence that the Taliban mounted their first major attack of the campaign.
In the late afternoon of the thirteenth day of Operation Confidence, three Taliban cadres appeared in the vicinity of Gereshk, planning to attack Charlie Base and acquire a stronghold in Gereshk. The base was held by an inferior number of American soldiers, while another company was stationed in Gereshk to provide security to the locals and remain vigilant against insurgent activity. Two Taliban cadres focused on attacking Charlie Base as a third targeted Gereshk itself; in the ensuing battle, however, the Americans fought off one cadre (which retreated into the mountains to the south) with small arms and attacked a second cadre with mortars, killing a third of the insurgents and forcing them to retreat to the east of the base. The Americans attacked out of their base and eliminated the rest of the cadre, and the Taliban cadre near the village ultimately decided against attacking Gereshk. The Americans suffered light casualties during the successful defense of Gereshk from the Taliban insurgency, and Gereshk's waterworks was the only infrastructural casualty of the battle.