Complex Ambush
A war photo a day #24
Eight years. Seven wars. More death and destruction than I care to recount. I’ve been covering armed conflict since 2005. Every battlefield has its stories … and its unforgettable images. Follow me through my career at war, one jarring, haunting or sublime photo a day until I run out.
In the fall of 2009 I returned to eastern Afghanistan, where eight years into the war the U.S. was finally adding the tens of thousands of additional troops required to patrol far-flung villages. In Logar province, the Taliban pushed back one night in October, blowing up a truck belonging to the Army’s 3rd Battalion, 71st Cavalry Regiment, stranding its crew and trapping the rest of the convoy behind it.
It was what the Americans called a “complex ambush.” Insurgent gunfire peppered the U.S. troops.
I photographed the crew of my truck as they popped in and out of the back of the vehicle, firing back at the Taliban with guns and grenades. Apache gunship helicopters and artillery from a nearby base ended the skirmish, scattering bits of Taliban all over the battlefield.
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