Hardworking, unselfconsciously bright and habitually courageous, he had been interpreting for the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) for two years by the time we met, which meant that he had a lot more experience of life at the sharp end of an insurgency than did I or many of the other soldiers.
Three attackers managed to reach the roof and Afghan officials then asked the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) for help, security sources told the BBC.
Afghan officials then asked Isaf for assistance, security sources told the BBC.
The fight lasted 12 hours, and eight American soldiers were killed, making the engagement one of the costliest for ISAF forces during the war.
The Nato-led international peacekeeping force (Isaf) handed security for the whole country over to Afghan forces last year, but some 57,000 soldiers remain, of whom some 38,000 are Americans, according to the latest Isaf figures.
In an unusually direct response to the leaking of a secret document, Colonel Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for ISAF (the NATO-led international coalition in Afghanistan), said: "This document aggregates the comments of Taliban detainees in a captive environment without considering the validity of or motivation behind their reflections.
"We discussed the urgency, in the wake of the attack on our embassy in Kabul and on the NATO ISAF headquarters, for us to confront the threat posed by the Haqqani network," she said, referring to the International Security Assistance Force.
'The majority of civilian casualties in Afghanistan have been caused by Taliban suicide bombs and roadside bombs.' US Air Force Major John Thomas said that, after a long skirmish and under constant fire from the Taliban, troops of Isaf (the International Security Assistance Force), called for close air force support during an operation in Helmand, where the Taliban have been resurgent this year.
They think I am providing information to the ISAF forces and the Afghan security forces for their operations.
The chancellor, Angela Merkel, has joined Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, and France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, in calling for an international conference on how to shift responsibility for security from ISAF to the Afghan government.
