Warrior Brothers by Keith Fennell

Author:Keith Fennell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Australia
Published: 2008-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

A US Delta Force operator was killed the following day when his team went to investigate reports that a Yemeni al-Qaeda member was in a compound just outside Khost. These reports are common. More often than not, a village dispute led to the incident being reported to coalition forces – with the extra spark of a hollow accusation of terrorism. Regardless, each report had to be taken seriously.

The Delta operators, with regular US army personnel in support, cordoned off the compound while the Afghani interpreter attempted to coax those inside to allow entry into the compound. The interpreter was instructed to correspond with those inside by verbal communication only and not to attempt to scale the wall. The two Delta operators who were with him moved back to their vehicle, and as they turned around they saw that the interpreter had failed to follow their instructions and had foolishly climbed the wall. Before they could yell at him to get down, he was met with a burst of 7.62-millimetre gunfire that ripped into his upper torso, flinging him back to the ground. The Delta operators didn’t hesitate – they withdrew their pistols and ran to the man’s aid, dragging him away from the door while they unloaded full clips from their pistols into the metal gate.

We found out later that the interpreter was dead. His body had ceased living before he hit the dusty earth.

The cordon then retreated and targetted the compound with an air-strike. Two 500-pound bombs were dropped, while two Apache gunships raked the compound with 40-millimetre cannon fire. The latter had very little effect but the bombs would have sent percussion waves so severe that anyone inside would surely have had their insides turned to jelly.

The Delta operators prepared themselves to assault the compound. Prior to entering, one man removed his helmet, since it was unlikely that anyone inside would be left alive. The team had just breached the compound via an area of wall that had been destroyed when a ‘pineapple’ grenade landed behind them. A chunk of metal fragged the operator in the rear of the head, and he fell as his mates detained the man responsible. The Yemeni al-Qaeda man had been killed, and so too had several other combatants, but the young man who’d managed to throw the grenade had a fist-sized hole in his chest. He was detained but, although severely injured, he remained defiant and refused to talk. I don’t know if he survived. Sadly, the Delta operator did not.

During that same period, another US soldier was killed when the vehicle he was travelling in was ambushed. The men were riding in a convoy of six unarmoured four-wheel drives, when an Afghani male on the side of the road waved to them with a broad and seemingly genuine smile. The soldiers waved back and exchanged friendly expressions. The temperature was close to 50 degrees Celsius so the team had draped their body armour over the doors of the vehicles and the car’s windows remained open.

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