But the Air Force says it is only responding to the intensity of fighting on the ground.
"Let's face it, the enemy is more emboldened," said Air Force Maj. Gen. Douglas L. Raaberg, deputy commander of air operations in the region. Raaberg is a B-1 bomber pilot who has flown strike missions over Afghanistan as recently as last week.
"The Taliban, when they have an opportunity to take a stand, they are doing that," he said in a telephone interview from the region.
Coalition aircraft have doubled the number of hours they spend each day on airborne "armed overwatch" of U.S. and allied convoys and other operations, he said. He acknowledged that strike missions also have doubled as ground commanders increasingly request air support.
To meet the demand, allied air crews are flying more sorties each day, and more U.S. aircraft are on station with the recent diversion of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln from Iraq operations to supporting operations in Afghanistan.
"We are shifting assets as needed to make sure we don't leave [ground forces] uncovered," Raaberg said.
But the Air Force has to scramble to meet unexpected demand.
A Taliban attack July 13, for example, nearly overran a remote U.S. and Afghan outpost near the Pakistani border. Insurgents held the upper hand in combat until an Air Force B-1 bomber flew in to drop 2,000-pound bombs, an unmanned Predator fired a Hellfire missile and other strike aircraft dropped bombs and strafed the enemy with cannon. The insurgents retreated, leaving nine American soldiers dead.
"The only reason they weren't completely overrun was air power, and that's the first time that has happened" in the Afghan war, said John McCreary, who retired in 2006 as a senior intelligence analyst for the Pentagon's Joint Staff.
"Coalition ground forces are not winning every battle, but they are winning every battle where they have air support," said McCreary, who follows Afghanistan closely and still assembles a daily open-source intelligence report.
On July 20, Raaberg was piloting a B-1 bomber over Afghanistan when he was redirected to attack Taliban forces gathering for an assault on a U.S. forward operating base in Kunar province, in eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan.
"They started attacking within half an hour of when I got there," Raaberg recalled. He said U.S. artillery fired at the enemy, followed by airstrikes, followed by more artillery and more airstrikes, "until we ran out of bombs."
