Strategic Importance
Camp Rhino was the US-led coalition's first strategic foothold in Afghanistan and made the ground war in Afghanistan possible. While Rhino was being established, fierce battles between Taliban and Northern Alliance troops were still underway near Kandahar. But then the Taliban, realizing that US forces were now very close and were willing to operate at night, capitulated and retreated north to the mountains of Tora Bora. Supported by the USMC 26th MEU, the coalition forces based at Rhino then moved up to capture the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar International Airport in mid-December 2001, following a three week period of consolidation at Rhino. Kandahar International Airport then became the main coalition base in southern Afghanistan, while Bagram Air Base was established further to the north near Kabul. The majority of forces who had initially based out of Rhino had re-located to Kandahar by Christmas Day.
Read more about this topic: Camp Rhino
Famous quotes containing the words strategic and/or importance:
“The strategic adversary is fascism ... the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.”
—Michel Foucault (1926–1984)
“I ascribe a basic importance to the phenomenon of language.... To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization.”
—Frantz Fanon (1925–1961)