COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- A company of Soldiers from Fort Carson's 4th Brigade Combat Team faced as many as 200 insurgents during a daylong attack on a pair of outposts in the remote mountains of eastern Afghanistan that left eight GIs dead, a spokesman from the unit said Monday.

The insurgents attacked at dawn Saturday after telling villagers in a nearby settlement to flee, Maj. T.G. Taylor said by telephone from the brigade's headquarters in Jalalabad. The fighters poured out of a mosque as mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades slammed American position at the outposts in Nuristan province.

What followed was the deadliest fighting seen by Fort Carson Soldiers since Vietnam and the largest loss of life for the post in single battle in Iraq or Afghanistan. The Soldiers who died haven't been identified by the Pentagon, which is barred by law from releasing names until 24 hours after the last family is notified.

Taylor said the insurgents struck first at a compound housing Afghan Army troops, touching off a firefight.

"The enemy was able to reach the perimeter of the compound," Taylor said. "Our forces moved to consolidate their position."

The Americans and Afghan troops set up a string of new positions and hunkered down as they called in air support. Taylor said fighters arrived 21 minutes into the battle.

"The close air support was effective," he said.

The air power slowed the insurgents, but it was up to the brigade's Soldiers using rifles, machine guns and mortars to stop their advance and to reclaim ground.

A key part of the battle was over ownership of the outpost's helicopter land zone, a lifeline for supplies and reinforcement.

It took six hours for that land to be reclaimed by the Americans so reinforcements could be flown in.

The fighting continued for hours more as the reinforcements and the Soldiers from the company at the outpost drove the enemy, which Taylor described as local tribesmen, from the battlefield. A company typically has up to 150 Soldiers.

The battle broke the back of the enemy, which has all but disappeared from the area.

"In the last 48 hours there has been negative enemy contact," Taylor said.

Back at the 3,500-Soldier brigade's headquarters, Soldiers are filled with a mix of pride and sadness.

"I can tell you there are a lot of pensive Soldiers here," Taylor said. "They're thinking about our comrades and knowing their families are hurting back home. At the same time those Soldiers fought incredibly bravely."

The battle also showed that the training Fort Carson gave Soldiers for overwhelming enemy attacks worked.

"They showed their professionalism," Taylor said of the Soldiers in the battle. "They showed Colorado is the best place in the country to train for Afghanistan."

The brigade spent months in training before it deployed in May. The goal of training was to introduce Soldiers, many of whom were Iraq war veterans, to the distinct tactics used by Afghan fighters.

The 4th Brigade is the first major combat unit from the post to serve in Afghanistan. Before this year, all but a few Soldiers from the post did their fighting in Iraq, where Fort Carson has had 255 Soldiers killed.

This year, as deployments to Afghanistan have ramped up, so has violence there. All 23 of the Fort Carson Soldiers who have died in Afghanistan lost their lives in 2009.

In one piece of irony that remains after Saturday's battle, the ground held so fiercely by the Americans is in a place the brigade is leaving as part of a plan to bring more security to urban areas.

Taylor said the Americans planned to leave the outpost soon as U.S. forces under Task Force Warrior, a group that includes the brigade and about 2,500 troops attached to it from other posts, implements the new plan.

The bloodshed doesn't change that course.

American commanders are committed to using a tactic that was effective in Iraq to clear insurgents out of cities and refire the Afghanistan economy. The belief is that if Afghans feel secure in their daily lives and can find employment to support their families, they'll shun the insurgency there.

"Those plans have not changed," Taylor said.