CHAPTER 13

Pashmul, Zhari District, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan

Saturday 8 Jul 06 1700 hrs AFT

It had to be at least ten degrees warmer on the top deck of the LAV than it was down below on the ground, where it was still around a hundred and twenty. The light armored vehicle’s steel had been absorbing the day’s bright sunshine all day as it maneuvered through and around Pashmul’s fields, roads and compounds. Right now it was warming, almost burning, Tom Price’s butt as he sat on some spare ammunition containers stowed in the turret’s right side equipment basket.

The turret was canted to the vehicle’s ten o’clock position leaving his feet to rest on the upper, rear-end of the engine compartment. The LAV III’s massive Caterpillar 3126 diesel made a steady low rumble which gently vibrated the hull and sent out a plume of hot exhaust shimmer just a meter or so to his right. From time-to-time, as the exhaust wafted up to him, he could feel the additional heat. His left hand rested next to his M4 carbine on a flat spot on the hot turret armor just between the vehicle’s 25 mm Bushmaster cannon and one of its smoke grenade launchers. His right held a pair of binoculars to his eyes looking in the same direction that the gun was pointing.

“Reference Flag. Go right two thirty o’clock, one hundred and fifty mils. Green copse.”

The voice came from the vehicle’s crew commander occupying the hatch just to Price’s left. The crew commander also happened to be the officer commanding the Patricia’s ALPHA Company. Must be nice in that hatch with the air conditioning running, thought Price ignoring the fact that besides missing out on the cool air he was also much more exposed than the company commander was to whatever Taliban sniper might be out there.

“Seen,” said Price. Creating easily identifiable reference points in a uniformly tan and drab green environment of nearly identical fields, compounds, grape drying huts and trails was an art unto itself. For Canadians it seemed that any tree taller than its neighbors and leaning even slightly to the side was immediately christened as reference point Flag. On halting, the commander had immediately rattled off to his crew several reference points across their arc of view.

“From Copse go right three o’clock two hundred mils. Compound with two-storey building on right.”

Price again measured off the angle using the reticle pattern inside his binoculars and saw the structure with another just off to the right.

“Seen. Just to confirm, that building has two ladders visible on its left, and there’s another building about twenty mils further to its right.”

A few dozen meters to their left the whine of another LAV’s turret could be heard as it traversed further to its left. The company’s artillery forward observation officer, GOLF 11—Canadian artillery used a GOLF prefix when on infantry radio nets, GOLF denoting guns—was busy lasing bearings and distances to suspected target areas.

“Building identified. What I want is that your company is to move forward on a broad front to fill in the line between the Copse and the two-storey building setting up an overwatch from there. You’ll be facing east into Objective ALPHA PUMA. My 1 Platoon will stay on your left flank and will move forward with yours. Once you get moving I’ll send another dismounted platoon around to your right flank and keep my headquarters, my last platoon and all the ZULU LAVs up here as a fire base. Your guys still have IR glow sticks?”

Price glanced over to one of the LAV’s three antennas which had a used water bottle taped about half way up. Inside the water bottle were two expended IR glow sticks from the night before. Every vehicle had these so that they could be easily tracked by friendlies as they moved amongst the broken but mostly flat terrain of walled fields and little villages that crowded the area between Highway A1 and the Arghandab River.

“We have, Sir. We should be able to get in there all right. What’s the deal for last light?”

“No change from the plan. We’ll hold a perimeter here as a blocking position all night while BRAVO and CHARLIE maneuver in from the south and east. You guys good-to-go?”

“Yes, Sir. I’ll brief the boss and be back in a half hour.” Price picked up his carbine, grabbed hold of a pole strapped to the side of the LAV and climbed down. Price had seen some of the young pups just jump off the deck but at a bit over six feet off the ground it just didn’t seem too smart to risk a sprained ankle.

 

— § —

 

Price picked his way to the rear. They were pretty much in the middle of a giant marijuana field bounded by two vineyards. The growing marijuana plants, already over six feet tall, gave off a pungent aroma. Their trapped moisture, heated by the day’s sun would hinder the LAVs’ thermal sights tonight. Men’s heat signatures would be lost within these dense crops.

He stayed as much as possible off beaten paths and kept a wary eye for any signs of a mine or IED. He’d had little respect for Talib snipers—for the most part they couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn door, hence he’d felt no danger sitting up on the LAV—but any idiot could plant a mine and this district was full of both mines and idiots. Up ahead he could pick out the cluster of Ford Rangers and Ground Mobility Vehicles that made up the transport for the bulk of ODA 053 and the 2^nd Company of the 1^st Kandak.

He keyed his MBITR. “53 ALPHA this is 53 TANGO. Coming in from your front.”

A few seconds later the ear-bud attached to the little encrypted AN/PRC-148 radio stuffed into a pouch attached to his Outer Tactical Vest replied, “53 ALPHA Roger. Come on in.”

It had been a long two days.

 

— § —

 

Price had first heard the details of Operation ZAHAR forty-eight hours ago when Captain Goddard had moved the ODA into one of FOB GECKO’s isolation facilities. They’d been moved into GECKO two months earlier and Price’s only complaint was that it was far removed from the Afghan Kandak that they continued to support. Their new home was located about five kilometers northwest of Kandahar’s city center while the Kandak remained at Camp SHIR ZAI on the southeastern outskirts of Kandahar Air Field; all told about twenty-five kilometers away. The Kandak’s American ETT advisors lived in a small camp of their own adjacent to Camp SHIR ZAI.

They’d managed to set up schedules where a part of the ODA would stay with the ETT for a few days to a week to oversee training in order to reduce traveling time but all-in-all, being at GECKO was very useful. Not only were the facilities a great improvement over where they’d been, but they were now at the heart of the special operations planning process and collocated with numerous American and Coalition Tier 1 and Tier 2 special operators. It was from here that all black and white special ops missions in the South were planned and implemented.

Gecko itself was a large base. The story was that the sprawling compound was originally built in the late Nineties by bin Laden for Mullah Omar as both a presidential compound and a training facility for the Taliban. It had been severely bombed out in 2001 but had since then been rebuilt and greatly improved. Signs of ongoing construction abounded.

Operation ZAHAR was planned as a full scale assault into Pashmul by an augmented Canadian infantry battalion.

The bulk of the 1^st Battalion of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry had been operating north of the city Kandahar and beyond as part of Operation MOUNTAIN THRUST. While doing so they had by necessity curtailed operations to the west in the volatile Zhari and Panjwaii districts where they had fought extensively in the months before. Only one company, B Company, had been left behind to guard this sector.

The Canadians had become adamant that in their absence, Taliban forces had been rebuilding their forces in that district with the intent of threatening the city of Kandahar itself. General Freakley, the commander of CJTF-76 had finally relented to move the Canadians back into Panjwaii district for a major operation which was now looking to be a prelude to a subsequent move into Helmand.

The forces assigned to Operation ZAHAR were fairly substantial; all of the 1st Battalion was committed as were British tracked light armored reconnaissance vehicles from the Household Cavalry—quaint names the Brits and Canadians used for their units—a Canadian 155mm artillery battery, Canadian Coyote reconnaissance vehicles, drones and electronic surveillance assets, engineers, and almost three hundred Afghan National Police and Army troops. American mentors, both ODA and ETT, accompanied the latter.

The plan for the 1st Patricias, known as Task Force ORION—the overall Canadian brigade level headquarters contingent being designated TF AEGIS—was fairly simple. One company, ALPHA Company, augmented by recce troops and ODA 053’s ANA would move via Highway A1 to the objective area’s north and west and form blocking position, while two companies—BRAVO and CHARLIE and more ANA and the ANP—would approach from the Southeast through Bazar-e-Panjwaii, pushing north and west to clear out the objective areas with compound-to-compound fighting. The Canadians had jokingly changed the name of this tactical maneuver from advance-to-contact to advance-to-ambush.

The trick was achieving sufficient surprise and containment in order to ensure that the enemy wouldn’t simply melt away on contact. To establish this, an intricate plan was made to move into the area during the hours of deep darkness, just after midnight, moving entirely without lights. Since the ANA were entirely incapable of this, their vehicles were originally held back until the Canadians had penetrated the area and made contact. Then they came on with full headlights.

Not all the ANA had been held back though.

The Canadians had been keen to integrate the ANA into all fights and to achieve that aim, 2nd Company was split up somewhat. One section of ANA and one ODA member were assigned to each of ALPHA Company’s three rifle platoons where they were further split up amongst the various LAVs. Price himself had traveled in the ALPHA Company commander’s LAV. He had never considered himself a mech soldier and the time spent in the cramped confines of the crew compartment with nothing to look at except other sweating soldiers and the green glow of the Situational Awareness System’s tiny monitor was claustrophobic in the extreme. Captain Goddard and the rest of the ODA, on the other hand, had stayed with the bulk of the ANA’s 2^nd Company and their GMVs and Ford Rangers; if not more spacious they at least provided a better view of the terrain.

The rest of the night had been spent with the Canadians engaging in firefight after firefight as the Talibs started to wake up and scratch together a hasty defence. Civilians streamed away from the area.

At times it seemed that the whole company was engaging the Taliban. The Canadian kids had been keen; this was their chance to hand the Timmies their ass—again—it wasn’t the first time they’d kicked them out of this region—it definitely wouldn’t be their last. Like weeds they kept coming back for more.

It quickly became quite clear that the Taliban were indeed here in large numbers and weren’t prepared to leave voluntarily.

The ANA company with Goddard deployed as well that night but in a tight perimeter to guard the rear and flanks. Their night fighting skills and equipment were still extremely primitive. The dawn, however, came quickly with usable light in place well before 0500 hours. From that point on Goddard’s ANA company had deployed time and again under the overall guidance and direction of the Canadian company commander.

The firefights had worn on throughout the heat of the day; three enemy here, ten there. One TIC after another they moved forward from field to field, wall to wall, compound to compound. Price had quickly learned that Canadians yelled “grenade” rather than “frag out” when throwing hand grenades and that the fire support provided by the LAVs’ 25mm Chaingun was a very welcome addition. All-in-all though, their infantry tactics were not unlike those that he had learned at Benning.

Throughout the day the noose was growing ever tighter and one could track the advance of the two southern companies by the booming sounds of their LAVs’ cannons and the chatter of their C6 and C9 machine guns with the occasional crump of their artillery, a Predator’s or attack helicopter’s Hellfire missile blast, or the eruption of the blast of a five hundred pound bomb from an A-10 Thunderbolt. The occasional slapping sound from incoming AK47 rounds kept people on their toes.

If they could establish a solid perimeter by nightfall, they should be able to disrupt this district for quite a while. It would be nice if they could put an ANA battalion into this area permanently but there just weren’t enough of them on hand and those they had weren’t well enough trained yet.

Up ahead he could see Goddard’s lanky frame leaning up against his GMV. Next to him stood the new ETT commander and Farzan, the young Afghan captain commanding 2^nd Company, his faded greenish woodland pattern uniform, chest pouches, AK47, and green beret contrasting with Goddard’s ACUs, M4 and body armor. His boys had done well today. It was good to see that ODA 053 hadn’t been wasting their time with them.