Some crazy story I read on another forum
I think I've mentioned the time we tried to kill the Taliban commander for the Pashmul region of Zhari district, Kaka Abdul Khaliq. He was an old mujahedin fighter ("Kaka" means uncle) who came out of retirement and joined the Taliban to resist the foreign invader (us). He initially led the Taliban defense of Pashmul in 2006 against Operation Medusa, and threw our first assault back with heavy casualties - 5 dead and some 40 wounded. Khaliq was also wounded in the fighting (he was shot in the head and lost an eye) and medevaced to Pakistan while his son took over and was eventually killed when Canadian troops eventually overran the defenses.
So in 2008 Khaliq returned to Pashmul to seek revenge. He planted his flag on the hill where his son died in 2006, rallied about a hundred loyal troops, and rebuilt the defenses. He then started attacking our patrols and mauled one of the PRT's CIMIC teams. We attacked him in late May, but we only brought a single infantry company which turned out to be insufficient. Khaliq's fighters fought a skilled defense, relocating from one prepared position to another, and were able to draw out the fight until our ammunition and water and air support (thanks RC(S)) ran out. So we decided we'd mass up the entire battlegroup and really give it to him in the second round. We figured he'd know it was coming, but there wasn't anything he could do to avoid it except run away, and that would break his battlefield mystique of being "undefeated."
Turns out there was a lot he could do. The night before our big offensive, Taliban fighters attacked Sarpoza prison at the west end of Kandahar City in a brilliantly planned and executed operation and busted out 800 prisoners. At the same time insurgents in Shah Wali Kot to the north launched an invasion of Afghandab district and marched to the gates of Kandahar City. With ISAF screaming at us to redeploy back to guard Kandaher City, we had time for only one serious push on Pashmul. We'd sent one company in against Khaliq from the east to fix his forces, and then we had a reinforced combat team of infantry and armour coming down on him from the north to roll up his lines from the flank. Khaliq realized what we were doing, committed his reserves, and in a brief battle that should not have gone the way it did, caused the armoured combat team to retreat.
At this point, all the Taliban who'd been sitting out the fight deeper in Zhari waiting for us to crush the suicidal old uncle were like, "holy shyt, Khaliq actually did it! He's winning!" and started rushing to join the fight. With fighting in Arghandab, and escaped Taliban POWs scattering across Panjwayi, we called the whole operation off as a failure and buried it, never to be mentioned again in the annals of Canadian military history. Khaliq, who had been taking some pretty insane risks up to this point was recalled from the front lines to give his superiors a run down about what had happened, and also to get him out of danger. The Taliban realized they had a hero on their hands, and didn't want to lose him now. We on the other hand, really really wanted to kill him to assuage our bruised egos.
Which is how we ended up with a Reaper armed with four Hellfires over Khaliq's Toyota SUV as he raced through the backroads of Pashmul with a couple of motorcycle outrider escorts. We fired two Hellfires at the SUV, which skidded to a halt in a massive cloud of dust and smoke. All I can say is Toyota builds VERY robust vehicles. Both missiles went right into the engine block which absorbed the explosions and all the passengers bailed out. Which was fine - we still had two missiles left. We saw one of the passengers on his phone and directing the others with arm gestures and figured "that's probably Khaliq," so we fired another Hellfire at him. Missile went straight down and landed right at his feet. . . aaaand plonk. Dud.
At that point villagers began pouring out of the nearby houses and surrounded Khaliq in a protective ring. One of the things we'd noticed when we were fighting Khaliq was that he'd always evacuate the locals before his troops attacked us. It gave us good warning and allowed us freer use of our own firepower, but he did it anyway and it won him all the hearts and minds. Anyway, we were cursing, thinking we'd lost our chance to kill him, but then Khaliq ordered the villagers to go back inside and ran off down the road! I guess he thought we were actually evil enough to missile him even in the middle of a crowd of civilians. We weren't, but we we were totally going to take the shot now that he'd exposed himself. So we fired the last Hellfire. . .
. . .And just as it was about to impact a car pulled up beside Khaliq to pick him up, and the Hellfire hit that instead! Massive explosion, and Khaliq was apparently wounded, but he survived and his people medevaced him to Pakistan again. At this point I started to seriously question whose side God was on in this war. Apparently the side of the guy who freed hundreds of freedom fighters in a daring prison break, and then won a battle against tanks and bombers and gunships while outnumbered 10 to 1, and then evaded assassination by the evil invader's merciless killbots. I started calling him "Taliban Zero," after the anti-hero protagonist of the anime Code Geass.
That battle cost us control of most of Zhari, and thus control of a vast stretch of the Ring Road from Kandahar to Helmand. Within days there were burning fuel tankers all down that stretch of highway, and it was a lot of ISAF and ANSF dead before we regained it.
As for Khaliq he lived to fight another day and became a minor Taliban legend. The commander who defeated ISAF on the battlefield every time he faced them. The Taliban tried to keep him off the front lines for a while because he was better for them as a live hero than a dead martyr, but last I checked in 2012 he was still running around Kandahar causing trouble for the Americans. Don't know what happened to him after that. There's scattered reports of his death, but we thought we killed him half a dozen times ourselves, so who knows.
