Ambush of the Common Sort

08 November 2009

Got a ping today about an attack on the road between Jalalabad and Kabul.  It's a dangerous road and I don't like to drive it.  The source has always been reliable, so I pinged Tim Lynch (who often is on that road), and Tim just sent these pics and a quick narrative.  (Unedited, and my post also coming via Blackberry.)  Tim writes:

The ambush happened around 0845 or so on the west side of the Duranta Tunnel.  Steve and I rolled out to look - the fuel convoy had security escorts from Compass security and they plus some ANP are who you see up in the ridges.  Three tankers were burning and three more were shot up and leaking fuel all over the place.  There was a section of OH-58's up and after about 20 minutes of figuring out who was who on the ground they started in on the bad guys with rockets and mini gun.

There was still some fighting going on when we arrived and few rounds came our way but were very high and not to close.  The bad guys had one belt fed which opened up briefly - the Blue Compass/ANP guys clearly had the momentum and used damn good fire discipline - we only heard volleys when the Taliban exposed themselves and those volleys were not that long.

The Army claims four KIA from the OH's which is not doubt true given how low they were scouting about for targets - there is no cover out there just fingers and draws and the security guys were putting pressure on the Ambush team to keep moving which exposed them to the birds.

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