On patrol with the Afghan army
Just as I thought things couldn't get much worse, they did.juicyingsale is fashon in our Coogi Clothing online shop.sellingshoes
are a series of Nike shoes. The decrepit Humvee, a hand-me-down from
the US Army, juddered to a halt and smoke billowed from the air vents
below the bulletproof windscreen.
I was now stranded in a
broken- down Afghan National Army (ANA) vehicle in the middle of a
deadly stretch of highway where only two days earlier there had been a
small firefight between the Taliban and the security forces. More to
the point, I also had a broken leg.
My right fibula had snapped
at the ankle at around 8am that morning after I fell into a flooded
irrigation canal near the town of Kandalay in the district of Zhari,
the neighbourhood of Mullah Omar (in the days when the one-eyed cleric
was gathering his forces for what would ultimately lead to the Taliban
conquest of almost the entire country).
I really needed to be
in hospital. Instead I was crammed into the front seat of a baking-hot
armoured vehicle watching a bunch of Afghan soldiers running back and
forth to a nearby puddle, scooping up water into their helmets to cool
the engine.
Despite the quantum leap the ANA has made in recent
years, they are still not the people to help you when you are in
serious difficulties. And it had arguably been more than a little
unwise to hitch a lift with the ANA to get back to the relative
civilisation of Kandahar City, from where I hoped to get a flight to
Dubai or Kabul. Or anywhere with a decent hospital prepared to treat a
wounded civilian.
A few days previously, sitting in the comfort
of the ANA's 205th "Hero" Corps headquarters on the outskirts of
Kandahar, I had been adamant that I wouldn't be driving anywhere in an
Afghan military vehicle. On all previous embeds with Nato forces in
Kandahar I had never driven anywhere as the roads were considered too
risky. Like the troops I flew everywhere by helicopter.
But the
"surge" of US troops has changed all that. The roads are safer but
there are far too many troops for everyone to move around by air.birdsslkut So I relented and the 30-minute ride out to the district of Zhari, west of Kandahar City,Heart failure can cheaptruereligion
occur or get worse in people who use TNF blockers. made me realise how
small Kandahar is and how absurd it was to fly such short distances by
helicopter.
But even if the roads are safe, your life is still
in the hands of the ANA, a force where 50% of casualties are due to
enemy action and about the same amount is caused by road accidents. Ten
minutes into that first ride, after we had just pulled out on to the
main road, the driver of the rickety Humvee decided, in classic Afghan
style, to overtake a couple of lorries and play chicken with the
oncoming traffic. Unfortunately the vehicle in front of us did not
flinch and at the last minute the Humvee swerved,lovingjeans
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colliding with the side of another lorry and wrenching the heavily
armoured door.
"It was not my fault! They should get out of the
way for us!" The driver shouted, as his companion in the front seat
tried to work out how to keep the wrecked door shut for the rest of the
journey. He eventually settled on using his seat belt, which he wasn't
wearing anyway, to tie it closed.