Posted on 11/12/2001 4:33:12 PM PST by blam
TUESDAY NOVEMBER 13 2001
I see Taleban lines melt near Kabul
FROM ANTHONY LOYD, 15 MILES FROM KABUL
“THE lines are breaking. They’re fleeing. Don’t let them escape,” yelled General Gul Haider into a handset as mortar bombs were launched from behind him and attack jets screamed in overhead.
From the breach at Mashine Aab a desperate, panting voice called back: “I need another 50 Mujahidin here now . . .”
The general, his wooden right leg stuck out stiffly before him, turned and waved on a group held in reserve behind him. In no time nearly 100 Mujahidin, screaming and yelling with jubilation, raced forward to the breach in the line. “See you at the gates of Kabul,” one turned back and shouted.
Such was the scene at Karabach as the Northern Alliance closed in on Kabul, having forced the routed Taleban forces back towards the capital.
Here the Taleban defences melted. Most ran; some surrendered and lived; others tried to surrender and died. Some fought on and died among the wilted vines of abandoned farms.
By 4pm, as the Mujahidin vanguard consolidated their breach, thousands more troops followed them through the gap. They moved by whatever means they could: hanging from tanks, trucks and Jeeps, or running forward in jubilant columns, stirring up clouds of dust that mingled with the smoke from bombs and fires.
They entered a wilderness matched by few battlefields in the past century; a wilderness that has been fought over continuously for six years and is still littered with debris from the Soviet occupation two decades ago. On top of this, for the past four weeks the Samali Plain has been battered by American airstrikes that have added lunar-sized craters to the shattered trees, gutted villages and barren, drought-bleached desolation.
As the tanks and men poured through, the roadside images were fittingly bleak: a one-legged Mujahidin hopping desperately to keep up with his comrades; a wounded soldier kneeling immobile in the dirt, where his friends had left him, a spreading scarlet stain seeping through the fingers clutching his belly; Taleban dead being mauled and looted; prisoners being slapped and abused; two soldiers praying.
It was not glorious, nor was it unusually ugly. It was no more, no less, than a spectre of men in war
Shot through the back of the Head, at Least Once.
American journalists should be very wary,especially the bunch in Washington,the Naysayers..
I have this funny feeling that those 72 virgins are putting in a lot of overtime. And they said these NA guys couldn't fight. They could, they just needed the US to be the equalizer.
Now if only Ahmad Shah Massoud had lived.
Pity that. Yet another reason to kill bin Laden; the bastard had the "Lion of the Panjshir" killed a couple of days before 9-11. Massoud was the greatest of the anti-Soviet mujahideen commanders. Freepers should mourn his loss to this day.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.