War doesn’t rest for Islam holy month

[unhappycamper]

War doesn’t rest for Islam holy month
By Denis D. Gray - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Aug 19, 2010 16:17:24 EDT

FORWARD OPERATING BASE WILSON, Afghanistan — “May you have a blessed Ramadan,” reads a poster greeting U.S. troops outside a base mess tent. It refers to Islam’s holiest month, a time of good deeds, prayer and purification of the spirit through sunrise-to-sunset fasting.

But on the western approaches to the strategic city of Kandahar, neither side is taking a spiritual time-out from the war.

Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division are attempting to root out Taliban fighters still entrenched in about a fifth of the Arghandab Valley.

The division’s 502nd Infantry Regiment, preparing for a major assault in Taliban-controlled Zhari district, stages probes into villages and grape fields sown with booby traps and hidden bombs. Along Highway 1, a lifeline connecting Kandahar to the capital, Kabul, the insurgents are launching daily attacks against supply convoys.

“Ramadan? Every time you step outside the wire, the war is real. We’re surrounded,” says Lt. Douglas Meyer, commanding a platoon at Ghundy Gar, a desolate, sun-seared hilltop outpost ringed by Zhari’s deceptively bucolic landscape.