(4 of 4)
After the fighting, back inside the Shkin fort, the men collapse from fatigue inside their windowless hooches. Wille, the brawny, red-haired, soft-spoken major, visits his wounded men. Then he and Worthan review the battle. "The enemy did a good job anticipating what we'd do," Wille says. "They wanted us to take casualties and bring in a helicopter so they could shoot it down."
The big mystery is why the Pakistani militiamen fired on the Americans. And why the Pakistanis didn't do anything about the al-Qaeda gunners in plain view just a few hundred yards below the border post. After all, President Pervez Musharraf is an avowed ally in the Bush Administration's war on terrorism, and Pakistan has helped fill Guantanamo's jails with hundreds of al-Qaeda suspects. On the ground, however, the loyalty of Pakistani soldiers and intelligence officers is questionable. Afghan officials in Kabul claim that some military officers from Pakistan, which backed the Taliban prior to 9/11, are providing funds, arms and sanctuary to help the Taliban regroup. The goal: to keep Afghanistan neatly tethered to Pakistan.
Washington later complained to Islamabad about the firing at Shkin. Days later, an elite troop of Pakistani forces attacked several al-Qaeda safe houses across the border from the U.S. firebase. Eight al-Qaeda fighters were killed--including some Chechens and Arabs--and 18 were captured, according to Pakistani officials.
Despite Pakistan's counterattack, the U.S. soldiers brace themselves for further assaults. They complain that Afghanistan has become a forgotten war. "Back home, nobody knows what's going on over here, how bad it is," says one. On a patrol through a hilly danger zone known as Saturn, where two soldiers were killed in an ambush early this year, the Americans are vigilant. A humvee driver scans the track for hidden explosive devices, while his top gunner trains his eye on a forested slope. One hand rests on a machine gun, the other on a pistol. "You know," says Sergeant Story, "my boy asked me on the phone, 'How many bad guys are over there, Daddy? You've been gone a long, long time.'" The fact is, this war isn't ending anytime soon.