In Six Hours ... the world changed

Chapter 4 - The daughter of Babylon

It had been a difficult day for the team. The morning had started well. They passed Abdul Haq Square and the former Soviet-era communities of 1st, 2nd and 3rd Mikrorayon – relatively modern Russian-built ‘micro-communities’ of apartment buildings, with their own shops, schools and even parks. Their convoy began patrolling Deh Sabz, a residential area in the north east of the city, between Great Massoud Road, leading to Kabul Airport, and the Nangarhar Highway heading out of the city to the east. 

They stopped periodically and conversed with residents, shop-keepers and other citizens – following the ‘hearts and minds’ policy of the US government to build relationships with the Afghanis. They had crossed Massoud Road and travelled through the Wazir Akbar Khan residential area to Malik Azghar Square, where they headed south west, parallel to the Kabul River.

Everything had been quiet until about two hours into the patrol, when their vehicles began to come under intensive fire from surrounding rooftops on their left. Shaul directed them to swerve into a courtyard between some industrial buildings, parking the Humvees close to the buildings to make themselves less of a target. He also radioed that they were under intense fire and requested helicopter backup. 

Leaving Brandon Thomas, their driver, and some of their men manning the machine guns on the vehicles, Shaul led a team of US soldiers and ANA trainees up the stairway of the building on their left. They were forced to fight their way slowly to the top, leaving several dead Taliban on the stairway and one American, Marquez, wounded in the right shoulder and being tended to just below the rooftop.

Shaul, Devlin and Yousefzai led their team across the rooftop to the parapet, where they trained their weapons on the surrounding roofs, from which the onslaught was still continuing. Ali was carrying the grenade launcher and Shaul signalled him to set it up, directing his fire as Ali crouched behind the protection of a water tank. Dev and the ANA soldiers continued to fire their M4 assault rifles and Shaul his MP5 submachine gun towards the enemy forces. 

Suddenly one of the ANA soldiers cried out and slumped behind the parapet. Dev crawled across to him, but it was too late to do anything for the soldier, Yousef Rabani, who had been shot in the head and killed instantly. Typical of his ANA comrades he had refused to wear the US issue battle helmet, instead wearing a scarf wound on his head like a turban – colourful, but no protection against a bullet.

The first grenade exploded on the rooftop to their right with little effect, but the second, with further redirection from Shaul, took out several of the Taliban fighters. Incoming fire, however, was still coming from the roof immediately ahead of them. While Dev and his ANA comrades continued to return fire, Shaul signalled Ali to move around the sheltering tank to his right, again directing his grenade fire. 

Two more grenades and most of the opposing guns had fallen silent. Dev spotted one of the rebels changing position and fired, scoring a direct hit. Suddenly there was no more opposition. The remaining Taliban had cut their losses and fled. Dev directed his attention to another ANA soldier, who had also been lightly wounded in the skirmish. 

Now Shaul could hear the sound of a helicopter as his radio crackled to life. He directed the aircraft to their rooftop and Dev and some the others quickly loaded up the two wounded men, plus the body of Rabani, into the helicopter, which quickly departed for the base.

Shaul, meanwhile, took a long slow look around the surrounding roofs before directing his men to retrace their steps down the stairwell to the waiting Humvees. Thomas and the other drivers had meanwhile manoeuvred the vehicles ready for a quick departure. ‘All quiet here, Shaul’, he reported.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ Shaul growled impatiently – he hated losing a man, and they had also lost two wounded from the patrol.

‘Back on patrol – and keep your eyes peeled on those rooftops,’ he barked.