Tag Archives: Afghanistan
US humbled in bloody Sangin
The Sunday Times The platoon was only 200 yards from its base when Lieutenant Robert Kelly, the 29-year-old son of a US Marine Corps general, hauled himself out of an irrigation ditch and on to a Taliban mine buried in the mud bank. The force of the blast hurled him back into the ditch, slicing […]
Casualties soar as US steps up airstrikes
The Sunday Times The two Afghan farmers were gathering alfalfa in their fields when a convoy of heavily armoured American vehicles rolled through the outskirts of their hamlet. Suddenly Taliban gunmen unleashed a barrage of rocket-propelled grenades and mortars at the American soldiers. As the insurgents fled, attack helicopters and fighter jets roared overhead. Sensing […]
Love drives repentent Taliban chief to defect
The Sunday Times Abdul Haqim was a university student of 19 when he was shot in the shoulder by American soldiers who sprayed bullets outside his village and killed his cousin. Vowing to avenge the death, he joined the Taliban, rose to the rank of commander and acquired a reputation for ferocity with a series […]
Chasing Taliban ghosts
The Sunday Times Two Taliban fighters crept into the middle of a dirt road near Kandahar city. Unaware that an American spy plane had spotted them, they began to dig a hole as the sun beat down on their heads. American soldiers at Forward Operating Base Wilson little more than a mile away watched the […]
‘Hang in there, man – talk about your baby’
The Sunday Times The blast from the mine tore into the American soldier’s body, tossing him backwards through the air like a rag doll. He spun in mid-flight and thumped onto a dirt path 20ft away. Silence descended for a moment as a large brown cloud of dust settled over his comrades where they crouched […]
Miles Amoore 