Expedition turns into firefight

[unhappycamper]

Expedition turns into firefight
By Drew Brown, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Friday, October 3, 2008

PASHMUL, Afghanistan — It’s a quiet spooky place of crumbling, mud brick compounds set among fields of grapes and squash watered by a maze of irrigation ditches that are as deep as a man is tall.

The decaying structures stand like forlorn sentinels among the fields of green. Many appear to be abandoned, but whether that happened yesterday or a hundred years ago, it’s impossible to tell.

The mission is basically a fishing expedition. Canadian soldiers with Operational Mentor Liaison Team 73 Alpha are accompanying a patrol of Afghans to see if the Taliban are still active in the area. The previous group of Canadians posted in Zhari district had engaged in gunbattles nearly every time they stepped foot here.

Monday morning would be no different.

Around 9:45 a.m., distant gunfire marks the beginnings of a firefight somewhere south along the Arghandab River. The brisk rattle of machine-gun fire is punctuated by the deep swoosh of heavy explosions.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=57864