Word: talibans
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...While the dust was still in the air over Manhattan after the attacks of September 11, 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush was assembling a coalition to invade Afghanistan and crush the Taliban, who had provided sanctuary to the terrorists of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda. A key element of Australia's contribution to that coalition - a role known as Operation Slipper - was the legendary Special Air Service Regiment. Based in Perth, the regiment is the Australian Army's most highly trained and best equipped unit. It's said to cost more than $A1 million to train...
...first SAS contingent, One Squadron, arrived in southern Afghanistan in late 2001. Under the direction of the American generals overseeing the war, its job was to scour the rugged terrain on foot, locate al-Qaeda and Taliban forces, and help eliminate them. The squadron won high praise from U.S. commanders, particularly for its role in locating and orchestrating an attack on a senior al-Qaeda leader. When Three Squadron replaced One Squadron in April 2002, its members felt they had much to live up to. Redback Kilo Three's first mission, in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, kept...
...first mission was daunting: to scale a range of steep mountains and set up an observation point overlooking a road the Australians had dubbed Route Titanium, which large numbers of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters were using as a way to the Pakistan border. After an eight-hour journey by truck, the men had just three hours to climb the mountain under cover of darkness. For the next three weeks, they lived off the land. The survival skills needed for such operations take years to acquire - and are the source of one SAS nickname, "the chicken stranglers." According...
...silently slipped from a moving four-wheel-drive vehicle on a deserted rocky track south of Taraka Gorge, a steep-sided valley about 130 km southeast of Kabul. Their task was to set up an observation point overlooking a village suspected of harboring Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. Intelligence reports suggested there were gun emplacements and bunkers on the mountainsides and that the enemy were using part of the area as an escape route to Pakistan. The patrol was to observe for one or two days and then remain in place while the rest of the squadron patrolled openly through...
...Panama in which every member of his unit was wounded, was not even labeled combat. None of his men got Purple Hearts. He was in a hotel in Kazakhstan when word came of the 9/11 attacks. Within weeks his team of 12 special-forces soldiers was dropped behind Taliban lines with little more than weapons, cash and a mission to start a Pashtun insurgency. In one fire fight, Amerine and eight of his soldiers, with the intermittent help of Afghan irregulars, stopped an advance of 1,000 Taliban soldiers. Just as they were descending triumphant on Kandahar, an errant...