AP Photo

On the morning of Jan. 10, 2012, five Taliban insurgents wearing stolen army and police uniforms stormed a government complex in Sharana, the capital of restive Paktika province in eastern Afghanistan. Their goal: to strike a meeting of the province’s top civilian, police, military and intelligence officials – essentially decapitating the provincial government of one of Afghanistan’s most important regions. They failed — barely. Defeating just five insurgents barricaded in a stairwell required a chaotic seven-hour gun battle up and down three stories of a telecommunications building. Two civilian hostages and three policemen died in the tumult of the assault’s first few hours, as impatient Afghan leaders — whom the U.S.-led coalition deliberately...