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U.S. forces are looking for targets and threats to the Afghan airstrip they have seized.
©Washington Post
December 5, 2001
SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN -- Elite Marine reconnaissance patrols armed with antitank weaponry are moving farther afield in the desert looking for potential targets, Marine officers said Tuesday.
Deep reconnaissance platoons, composed of seasoned Marines given special training, have begun expanding the radius in which they patrol from the desert airstrip. The platoons typically go on patrol for days at a time, traveling in packs in Mercedes-built off-road vehicles and carrying M-4 carbine rifles equipped with silencers.
Nine days after the Marines seized this desert airstrip, they have started to settle in and secure the perimeter. Ten C-130 cargo jets are arriving daily on a 1.3-mile airstrip of compacted sand and dirt that has been smoothed by graders and sprayed with water.
The largest concentration of U.S. ground troops in Afghanistan was bolstered by the arrival of more Australian troops Tuesday. Under military ground rules, the number of forces massing here cannot be reported, and requests for interviews with the Australians were denied.
As the battle for Kandahar intensifies, U.S. ground forces continue to focus on scouring the desert for hostile elements that might prove a threat to the base.
The reconnaissance patrols are operating in a vast, featureless desert in which nothing grows, and the only distinguishing characteristics are sand dunes, varying shades of sand and differing degrees of fineness to the grains of sand. They are equipped with night vision goggles with infrared sights similar to those used by the U.S. Border Patrol along the Mexican border.
The equipment picks up heat emissions from anything that lives, whether it be a human or a camel. Even rocks that continue to radiate heat after the sun sets glow green when seen through the infrared lens.