The cause of being in Afghanistan used to be by no means theoretical for Lieutenant Colonel Patrick J. Mahaney Jr. at the door of his tactical operations heart at Kandahar Airfield, he had hung a photograph of a brand new York firefighter on the international exchange middle. his father, a forty-oneyear veteran of the city’s hearth division, were on the towers on 9-11. Mahaney misplaced six acquaintances and a cousin that day. “We weren't out for revenge,” he wrote in an electronic mail later. “It was once approximately civilization as opposed to barbarity. ” Over 4 excursions, he had constructed ties to Afghans and have become deeply dedicated to seeing the rustic prevail. three Mahaney introduced Operation nish on April four, 2007. the aim used to be Hitting objectives three to wrest keep watch over of town of Sangin, in helmand, from the taliban’s grip. It used to be the bottom from which the taliban used to be launching assaults into neighboring provinces. Dadullah had quick access to it, touring freely around the flat land of the helmand-Pakistan border. Mahaney threw out typical army doctrine, which known as for forces to commute in small devices to prevent air and artillery assault. the taliban had neither plane nor artillery past short-range mortars. he assembled all of the on hand forces—Canadian troops, an Afghan military battalion from the north, Afghan police, and logistical support—in one lengthy convoy that stretched for almost 5 kilometers. the ISAF command in Kabul suggestion he used to be loopy, calling his convoy the “fireworm” as its headlights lit up the predawn sky. because it traveled in the course of the streets of Kandahar urban to get to road One west, the convoy used to be attacked by way of a handful of taliban. the troops again fireplace, killing 3 attackers, and proceeded west down street One into helmand. there Mahaney did one other unforeseen factor: rather than turning north onto road 611, he grew to become the “fireworm” off the line, due east into the desolate tract. he knew the taliban could have noticeable their strategy and seriously mined the line north to Sangin. his employees had studied the terrain and will flow off-road fast with little possibility of ambush or coincidence. while the convoy used to be parallel to Sangin, it made a pointy encircling flip, and it flooded into town precisely at midday, simply as Mahaney had deliberate. his forces handily took town and not using a unmarried casualty. Infiltrating piecemeal up the road might have absolutely expense them lifeless or wounded. the enemy used to be stuck off safeguard through the flanking maneuver. the coalition seized keep watch over of Sangin, however the taliban persisted to mass and assault in other places, together with in helmand, Kandahar, and uruzgan. So Mahaney went at the offensive back. he didn't have the numbers to weigh down those concentrations of taliban combatants, yet he did have stable human intelligence from an Afghan community that have been built over the last 5 years. “this used to be yr six of the war,” Mahaney mirrored. “By 12 months six, global warfare II was once over. ” Successive designated forces battalion commanders, hoping on an analogous interpreters, had gotten to understand Afghans everywhere in the state. “We 4 100 victories may possibly discover what was once happening 100 miles away by means of having a person name his cousin,” Mahaney acknowledged.