On patrol in the Taleban's heartland

A United States soldier returns fire as others run for cover in the Badula Qulp region. Photo / AP

"Medic!"

Bullets cracked through the dry grass.

"Who's hit?" someone yelled. The American soldiers were pinned down in a ditch, bodies prone in the mud.

"I don't know!" another voice shouted in the din of gunfire.

A United States soldier was down, shot in the chest near the besieged Taleban stronghold of Marjah.

A Canadian soldier in the patrol took a bullet in the front of his helmet, right where the centre of his forehead was. He was stunned, but unhurt.

Where were the insurgents shooting from? Which of the mud-walled compounds up ahead?

The firefight in the Badula Qulp region of Helmand province lasted about 45 minutes and tapered off after a Cobra helicopter shot a Hellfire missile into the building where the Taleban were believed to be hiding. Soldiers found the body of one suspected insurgent and heard another might have been buried quickly.

It was a small skirmish in the grand scheme of the Afghan war. The focus of the fighting was to the southwest in Marjah, where US Marines launched an offensive a day earlier.

But the intense gunfight showed the difficulty of fighting an enemy who knows the terrain, watches, waits and strikes when he chooses - frequently appearing to capitalise on Western rules designed to prevent civilian casualties.

The patrol began in the early afternoon, heading off a canal road and into farmland to the west. Fifty men: an American platoon, up to 30 Afghan soldiers and 10 Canadian troops who advise the Afghans.

They moved slowly, in two columns. Two Afghan soldiers with mine detectors led the way.

The sky was clear and it was very quiet. About 700m off the road, the soldiers saw four or five unarmed men, watching. The men moved away. Within minutes, gunfire erupted. Caught in the open, the patrol hit the earth and returned fire.

But it was an exposed position and hard to locate the source of fire. One group of soldiers picked themselves up and sprinted, slowly, it seemed, with their cumbersome gear, for a shallow irrigation canal. It was cover, but not for long.

"I saw five guys, moving right to left," said Specialist Nathan Perry, crouched in the ditch. He had felt bullets "around my feet, popping off".

A Canadian berated an Afghan whose shots were too close to soldiers scattered elsewhere in the field.

"You've got friendlies there!" he screamed.

"Hey sir, where's it coming from?" an American shouted to his platoon leader, First Lieutenant Gavin McMahon.

"Somewhere over there," McMahon said. He gestured west.

The men in the ditch pushed forward, trying to reach a low earthen berm for better cover. The Taleban had a line of sight straight down the canal. Rounds snapped a couple of metres away. It seemed counterintuitive: running forward, towards the danger. Not back.

Then the US soldier was hit. The bullet struck the shoulder piece of his protective vest, and bounced down into his chest.

Specialist Benjamin McQuiston was just ahead of the man.

"When the shots went off, I heard him yelling. I thought he was scared. I was yelling too," McQuiston said. "Then I heard him coughing. It sounded weird. I looked back and he was coughing up blood."

With shooting all around, soldiers cut away the injured man's shirt, and put a chest seal on the wound to prevent air entering.

"I'm going to be good," the man said. He was able to walk and had the energy to shout a curse at the Taleban.

McMahon was on the radio, calling for help. The mission had immediately shifted from fighting the Taleban to getting a wounded man to safety. The patrol pulled back, different groups laying down fire while others ran to cover, bunching up against mud walls.

But it wasn't over.

Two or three men sprinted around a corner, straight into another ambush. The bullets flew past just a few metres away. It was hard to tell what was cover and what wasn't. The only thing was to lie, crouch, curl up and hope.

There were glimpses of another world. A calf wandered in the midst of it all, moving its head this way and that, uncertain where to go. Up close, a big ant crawled over chunks of earth, oblivious to the adrenaline-fuelled men trying to kill one another.

Specialist Andrew Szala tried to keep the injured man talking, conscious. He chatted about the plot of the comedy series The Office as the battle raged.

In the new ambush, a man was firing from above a green door. Specialist Richard French was in the hatch of a Stryker armoured vehicle that pulled up on the canal road. He opened fire with his M4 rifle.

"My first three rounds were tracers. I watched them go right into him. I watched him fall," French said later. "First time I ever killed anybody. That was interesting."

Close to the road and relative safety, soldiers saw a man in black walking. He was unarmed. They watched him in their scopes but did not shoot.

Western forces in Afghanistan are operating under rules of engagement, or ROE, that restrict them from acting against people unless they commit a hostile act or show hostile intent. US troops say the Taleban can fire on them, then set aside their weapons and walk freely out of a compound, possibly towards a weapons cache in another location.

"The inability to stop people who don't have weapons is the main hindrance right now," McMahon said. "They know how to use our ROE against us."

The patrol arrived back at camp late in the afternoon. Sergeant First Class Norm Neumeyer walked over and told them their day wasn't over. They had to find the shooters. After a brief pause, they put their gear on and headed back down the road.

- AP