Hunting Taliban on Night Patrol, Soldiers' Senses Stay on High Alert

ZA KHEL, Afghanistan -- Just as Cobra patrol is about to push off, the bright half moon sails into chunks of dark cloud and the late-night sky dims. "Good,'' somebody mutters. Less light for Taliban snipers. The front gate groans open, a voice says "Good luck'' and Cobra swings onto a dirt road with a line of trees on one side and open fields on the other. The dark figures sliding along the road's edge are Cobra's Afghan police, carrying assault rifles. The lighter ones ghosting along are Cobra's American infantrymen (Charlie Company's 1^st Platoon, 1^st Battalion, 87^th Infantry Regiment, 10^th Mountain Division), with M-4 carbines.

This is a joint U.S. Army and Afghan National Police (ANP) combat patrol into Taliban country. Joint patrols with Afghan police are the meat and potatoes of what U.S. forces are doing in northern Afghanistan. This is not training. This is not Americans leading Afghans. The ANP here are experienced and hardened fighters -- and now combat partners with American infantrymen.

Commanding this patrol: Abdul Majid, the bearded commander of ANP District 1, of Kunduz City, and 1^st Lt. Steven Solaya, platoon leader, of Dallas.

Barnyard dogs mark the patrol's progress as we glide at a deliberate pace through a world of gray, from deep ebony shadows to the charcoal fields of beans to the pale silver of the high mud-brick walls that mark off village garden plots. Weapons are on safety, heads are on swivel. Water gurgles somewhere along an irrigation ditch, and a frog suddenly croaks. Boots crunch gravel. Eyes strain for a telltale wire that would trigger the bright flash of a homemade bomb. Gun muzzles scan the night, ahead and behind.

One purpose brings the patrol out this night: to keep the village secure from the Taliban, providing a friendly cop-on-the-beat presence. And, if the opportunity arises, to kill Taliban. The Taliban come in the night to work their intimidation, to hunt Americans and Afghan police, to demonstrate that they can't protect the villages.

We pass sleeping farm compounds, warrens of mud-brick walls and cramped rooms where perhaps children dream and men, hearing their dogs stir, blink into the darkness and wonder what trouble has come.

Occasionally a bluish-white spot glows in the distance, marking an American infantryman peering through his night vision device. The police use their naked eyes. Sweat drips from under helmets. Men shift their body armor to ease sore spots. We pause, standing motionless. Crickets chirp and a distant dog yowls. Ten minutes pass and we move on, past the place where the Taliban engaged a patrol in a firefight the other day, and then a hard left turn and across a ditch where the Taliban last week detonated an IED.

At a crossroads, we stop and crouch behind low bushes at the foot of a high cement wall. The Taliban often cross the river nearby and wait until long past midnight to make their way into the village. We are waiting for them. It is quite likely each group, we and the Taliban, is crouched in silence, sweating, breathing lightly, waiting for the other to move first. Sometimes the Taliban, sensing an armed enemy waiting, will simply melt away.

An hour passes. A shadow creeps along a wall across the lane: an ANP. A dog approaches, barks and retreats. The silence deepens. Time stretches. An infant cries suddenly, quite close. From the wall above us, light spills from a window, as do the sounds of a mother's soothing voice and the rustle of bedclothes. Then, silence. With our heavy boots and body armor and killing weapons, we are enfolded into the warm intimacy of a mother breastfeeding her child. We wait, scarcely breathing. The child coughs, cries once, and is again comforted.

"Hey! Movin,'' comes a sharp hiss from Sgt. 1^st Class Doug Covell, 35, platoon sergeant. Weapons clank, men grunt to their feet, stretch aching limbs. The patrol assembles into combat formation and moves off silently, warily scanning irrigation ditches, side lanes and other potential ambush sites. Behind us, the lit window falls dark.