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This Kunar Province, based on what I read is a heavily forested mountain area. Being a border province in the upper NE, it has long been a good area for insurgent types to gather as it has plenty of area of cover. It was used for this purpose by the Afghans during the Russian invasion. And being on the border with Pakistan a good area to ingress from the remote Paki side and egress when things get hot.

As the Pakistan army keeps pressures up on their NW border provinces such as the Tribal Area of N/S Wazirstain and the Peshwar region, the Taliban and al Qaeda groups just have less areas to operate out of. And much beyond Peshwar on the Paki side, it becomes really difficult ot operate. For one enters into really high mountain ranges unfit for any type operations. Foot paths along treacherous plus 50° slopes makes for real tough travel. And surely only those that live in these high altitude places are tough enough to handle such journeys. So surely the more southern provinces are where most of the action takes place.

You have it exactly right -

Most simply can't appreciate the difficulties at trying to run sustained Ops in this region of the world. The logistics alone are a complete nightmare - Though we've put the needed time and blood in over the last 4 years...and we are now in position to start running this sustained Ops at an almost a continous rate if we so desire (during 6-8 months out of the year).

I write for general read of course,understanding you stay on top of this stuff. As you indicated in your response, the US forces have over four plus years built up required bases. So at this point with so many well trained units to work with plus the ANA uptrained to work with our guys and some NATO forces, we can sustain long campaigns during the warmer months. I can only imagine the logistic involved. G2 and G4 have a tough job to best direct and equipe G3 in their daily raids.
And surely our air recon is far more efficient then even two years back. Having nothing to shoot down our high flying aircraft the enemy is on screen and target designated when they pop their rag heads above ground.
Perhaps in a couple of years the Afghans will be in the position to control their country by themselves. Meanwhile we continue to pick off high value targets as good HUMIT comes in.