US forces have abandoned the outpost in northeastern Afghanistan where nine American soldiers were killed on Sunday in a heavy attack by insurgents, NATO officials said on Wednesday.

The withdrawal handed a propaganda victory to the Taliban, and insurgents were quick to move into the village of Wanat beside the abandoned outpost, Afghan officials said. Insurgents nearly overran the barely built outpost in a dawn raid on Sunday, the most deadly assault for US forces in Afghanistan since 2005.

Those forces have fought some of their most difficult battles in Kunar and Nuristan Provinces, with their thickly forested mountainsides and steep ravines. Guerrillas mount ambushes and rocket attacks from the mountains and then easily escape.

Locals have been angered by civilian casualties caused by American airstrikes aimed at militants, and some now may be cooperating with the militants, Afghan officials said.

Rahmatullah Rashidi, leader of the provincial council of Nuristan, said some insurgents occupied Wanat on Tuesday, immediately after American and Afghan troops had withdrawn. “They were up in the forest not far away,” he said. But on Wednesday, he added, a council of village elders persuaded the Taliban to leave, saying they feared that the Taliban’s presence would draw more fighting.

The local police, who pulled out on Tuesday with the American force, returned to Wanat on Wednesday with the support of the tribal elders, Rashidi said. Agencies quoted Omar Sami Taza, an official in the provincial governor’s office, confirming that the area had fallen to the Taliban.

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