Thursday, February 21, 2002

All right, maybe we don't understand them either
Apparently it was all just a game to those fun-loving Afghans.

Many Afghan Taliban and Northern Alliance soldiers were friends who had found themselves drafted into opposing armies. They would communicate over rudimentary radios, sometimes taunting each other in the heat of battle.

"Your bomb missed us," one would say, recalled members of Team 555.

"Where did it land?" a Northern Alliance officer would respond with some coaching from the Americans.

Five hundred meters to the north, would come the answer. Or 1,000 meters to the south. The combat controller would immediately recalculate the coordinates and pass them to the nearest aircraft, which could restrike the target within minutes. Team 555 members said that in a week, they killed many Taliban commanders this way and destroyed much of their communications network.

The full article is in the Washington Post: I saw the reference in the National Review's Corner.

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