There were no heavy machine guns, either, nothing larger than a Kalashnikov, which meant that the new patrol base could be outgunned by any Taliban soldier with a grenade launcher.
Reuters news agency reports that columns of al-Shabab battle-wagons mounted with heavy machine guns have rushed to reinforce Afmadow, which is about 90km north of the port city of Kismayo, al-Shabab's main economic power base.
The United States now believes that about 200 insurgents -- mostly local fighters, with some Taliban organizers and leaders -- had been planning the attack for days, hiding mortars, rockets and heavy machine guns in the mountains.
Eight American troops and two Afghan security force members were killed Saturday when militants opened fire on an outpost with rockets, mortars and heavy-caliber machine guns, according to an initial U.S. military report on the battle.
CNN: Obama adviser: Afghanistan in no immediate danger of falling
Then Romesha and his soldiers came up with another plan: Go outside and lay down heavy fire from the machine guns as an airstrike targeted a village nearby that militants were using as a staging area, giving the three soldiers -- Larson, Mace and Sgt.
Officers armed with machine-guns and wearing balaclavas broke down a heavy wooden front gate and abseiled from a helicopter to gain entry to the property, media reports say.
There were just a handful of officers, armed only with machine guns, no sand-bagged positions, no heavy weapons, no armoured vehicles.
Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS), Sausan Ghosheh said U.N. observers reported heavy fighting in Rastan and Talbiseh, north of Homs, with artillery and mortar shelling and firing from helicopters, machine guns and smaller arms.
These men have only very light weapons - machine-guns and rocket propelled grenades - and they have no answer when government forces decide to use heavy weapons, as they appear to have done overnight.
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