Word: kandahar
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...crux of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq is summed up in a quote in Tim McGirk's article "War in the Shadows" [Oct. 10]. He wrote that after an ambush outside Kandahar, an American officer directed his men not to shoot wildly at the shadows flitting through the chaos because "Dammit! It's civilians mixed with enemy." The U.S. is trying to fight a gentleman's war. There are civilian casualties in any war. We have to quit trying to pick and choose when we fire. Either get out now or fight...
Dusk has set in on the road out of Kandahar, and Captain Jeremy Turner of the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division is explaining why he prefers Afghanistan to Iraq. "The Iraqis will plant explosives and run away," he says. "But the Afghans will go toe-to-toe with you." Just as Turner, 29, starts to expand on the point, a huge explosion interrupts him. One of the humvees in his 16-vehicle convoy has been hit by a roadside bomb and explodes in a flaming whoosh. Turner and his men have driven straight into a Taliban ambush...
...ambush on Delta Company was just the start of a mission that illustrates the challenges and frustrations facing U.S. forces today. On the night the troops come under attack, they are headed into the craggy ridges outside Kandahar to join an operation by coalition forces to corner Maulvi Hannan, a Taliban commander with known links to al-Qaeda. But the ambush and the injuries to the five soldiers force Turner to make some split-second decisions. While an Afghan interpreter tries to clear away local onlookers, the captain is busy on the radio. The medevac helicopter for the wounded soldiers...
...recent days, a U.S.-led offensive has flushed Hannan and his fighters from their hideout in the mountains of north Kandahar. According to reports of the battle, which involved coalition special-ops troops, as many as 30 Taliban fighters have been killed out of an estimated force of 165. Turner and his company are assigned to wait for the Taliban when they spill out of the ravines. It's a tall order: there are a dozen draws leading out of the mountain labyrinth, and Turner has no way of knowing which escape route Hannan and his men might choose...
...afternoon, an Apache returns to blast away with missiles at the canyon again, but the surviving Taliban have disappeared. Eventually a Chinook arrives, first picking up the coalition special-forces unit and then the soldiers from Delta Company. Back at Kandahar air base, the operations commander, Colonel Bertrand Jes, is satisfied with the mission. It isn't clear yet whether Hannan, the prime target, was killed in the bombardment. But as Jes says, "The Taliban had safe havens up in the mountains. They were cocky at first. Not anymore. We've destroyed their support structure." Yet many U.S. officers...