An Ambush In The Taliban Heartland

Read his account: Capt. Abdul Rakhman peered over a chest-high mud wall as gunfire and shouts rose. Beside him were two Afghan Army soldiers and a Dutch marine. A few yards away another Afghan soldier knelt in the dirt, reloading a rocket-propelled grenade.

The patrol was stuck, enveloped in a poppy field in a Taliban ambush. Automatic rifle fire came toward them from a tree line about 175 yards to the west and from a row of mud-walled Afghan houses to the east and north.

The captain and Sergeant Leendert, a Dutch marine and the squad's senior adviser, had dashed here when the shooting began six minutes before, leading an Afghan squad to cover.

Now neither side of the wall was safe. Bullets smacked the dried mud beside them; the rest of the squad was lying exposed in the field. Taliban fighters were on both flanks. More bullets whirred by, but many missed, as the Taliban demonstrated remarkably poor marksmanship against an enemy they had surprised.

The marine turned toward a building. "O.K.," he said. "Go! Go! Go!"