An outpost obstinate & obsolete

  Command Outpost (COP) Spera is located 800 meters from the border with Pakistan in Afghanistan’s Khost province. The platoon section that occupies the COP can only come and go by helicopter and they have no vehicles based here. As the lieutenant in charge explains, “all we got here is our legs and as you can see everything is higher than us.” One of the peaks that occupies the high ground around the COP is code named “New York” and another, “the Taliban Hotel”, but the coalition’s enemy here is not actually the Taliban but rather the Haqqani network who, although allied with the Taliban, retain their own identity and considerable influence in the Khost border region and beyond, emanating from their power base at Miran Shah on the Pakistan side. Set up in 2003 and originally used as a Special Forces base, the COP was handed over to regular