Word: mortaring
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...truth is, each one is a little different. I got my first feel for explosions in Afghanistan in December of 2001, when I was reporting on the siege of Tora Bora. A volley of mortars fell on a front-line position I visited one day. The fear stands out most in my mind when conjuring the memory. I remember thinking: "Run, don't die here. Run, don't die here" over and over again. But physically? Well, when the closest mortar fell atop a large rock under which I was cowering, the sensation was like being punched hard...
...worst sensation comes, of course, when the blast is nearest. In December, I was in Ramadi. After a short foot patrol with Marines, I walked back into the tiny base nestled on a bad street in the city. Minutes after I entered, a huge mortar slammed into the doorway through which I just passed. The entire building shook as though some huge hand had shoved it. Inside, I felt like my bones for a second had turned to metal, and someone had rung me with a sledgehammer...
Another Tet-like strike might take aim at just the Green Zone, which has already lost its status as a relative safe haven in Baghdad. Mortars fall there almost daily, usually in swift barrages that sometimes kill people in ones and twos. But even 30 minutes of sustained, aimed mortar fire could kill dozens in one stroke as well as shatter official Iraqi buildings that represent the only meaningful display of governmental order in the country...
...explain it if mortar shells with Israeli markings are then used to shell towns inside Israel?" one officer asked...
...much of that is the army's rounds going in or Fatah al-Islam's rounds coming out. Some local eyewitnesses told me that Fatah al-Islam attacked an army position earlier in the morning, either trying to push the army back or making a break for it. Three mortar rounds apparently fired by Fatah al-Islam landed in the neighboring village of Hamra this morning. There is a lot of sniping going on from inside the camp. Any vantage point where you can get a good view of the camp runs the risk of being fired upon...