Combat Outpost Keating

COP Keating was located at the bottom of a valley, conceding the high ground to attackers.

Combat Outpost Keating was a small American military outpost in Nurestan Province, in Afghanistan. It was originally constructed to be a Provincial Reconstruction Team, called PRT Kamdesh, but due to extremely high levels of fighting in the area it remained a fire base instead of a PRT. In December 2006, it was renamed Camp Keating after the death of ABLE Troop 3-71 Cavalry 10th Mountain Division's executive officer, Benjamin Keating, who died November 26, 2006, when his vehicle overturned in Kamdesh, Afghanistan.

Plans were drawn up in the summer of 2006 by the US Army's 10th Mountain Division as part of Operation Mountain Lion.

View of a pockmarked armored Humvee at COP Keating, severely damaged during the Battle of Kamdesh.
View of a pockmarked armored Humvee at COP Keating, severely damaged during the Battle of Kamdesh.

Combat Outpost Keating is best known as the site of the Battle of Kamdesh, which occurred on October 3, 2009; the base was nearly overrun, and eight Americans and four Afghan defenders were killed. Two Americans, Staff Sergeant Clinton Romesha and Specialist Ty Carter were awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions in defending the base.

The American soldiers killed in the battle were:

The base was abandoned and bombed by an American B-1 bomber on the night of October 6. A day after, on October 7, Taliban fighters were seen among the ruins of the outpost. According to army records, the Taliban commander of the attack on Keating, Abdul Rahman Mustaghni, was killed by the following drone strike, along with thirteen other insurgents.

Amy Davidson Sorkin, writing in The New Yorker, tried to answer the question why the base had not been moved when it was found to be unsuitable. She noted two claims the military put forward in its report: first, the resources to relocate the base had not been available because the brigade was concentrating on guarding a village that Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, considered strategically important. Second, the search for Bowe Bergdahl, in June 2009, had used up so many resources none were available to address the base's unsuitable location.

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