Over 100 Taliban militants with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars launched a ferocious attack on a remote outpost established last week, ending the lives of nine American soldiers in what was the single biggest and deadliest attack on American forces in Afghanistan since 2005.

The Taliban forces launched the assault at about 4:30 a.m. Sunday in the village of Wanat, in the mountainous northeastern province of Kunar, near the Pakistan border. The attack came from different sides, with insurgents shooting from homes and a mosque.

Captain Mike Finney, an official with NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, said it was a very well prepared and orchestrated attempt to overwhelm the small station that was built only about three days ago. According to Finney, between 100 and 150 Afghan and international soldiers had been stationed into the outpost, less than a week before the attack. He would not disclose the nationalities of the ISAF troops that lost their lives in the conflict, but it was confirmed by an anonymous Western official that they were U.S. nationals. Finney added that the bodies were being repatriated Monday.

When referring to the rebel force, the NATO official described it as being in the "low three figures," meaning low hundreds.

It seems that the reason the fighters were able to cause such high casualties is that an unknown number of militants got inside the outpost.

After the breach, U.S. troops pushed back against the invading militants, and attack helicopters backed them up. More than 40 insurgents were killed in the battle. Fifteen U.S. soldiers also were wounded.

Militant attacks in Afghanistan are developing into more complex ones, intense and better coordinated than a year ago. Monthly death numbers of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan outran U.S. military deaths registered in Iraq in May and June. Last Monday, a suicide bomber attacked the Indian Embassy in Kabul, killing 58 people in the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital since 2001.