American tactics intended to overwhelm an enemy and minimize casualties -- like hovering helicopter gunships and firing off mortar rounds as a warning -- frighten and alienate Afghans, they said.
The attack came at the exact time guardsmen were mustering for a ceremony, which is seen by experts as an indication that those firing off the mortars held inside information.
They were expected to cover the Gurkhas for only two days – but in the event did not come off their mortar position for 107 days, during which they fired 1,500 mortars 10,000 rifle and light machinegun rounds, and 89,000 general purpose machinegun rounds.
He picked one out and, with a degree of ceremony, chinked off the mortar before passing it to me carefully, the way one might hand over a sleeping baby or a rising loaf of bread.
A lone Japanese soldier was able to fire off three mortar rounds toward the main gate.
In the third stage, powder was spread off the mortar surfaces by means of aluminum spatula.
Bricks that have chunks of mortar stuck to them or that have missing corners that make them wobbly might not be suitable for the bookend, although by all means test their balance first and see if you can't knock off that mortar with a few well placed hammer knocks.
One crew, "doing nothing but cleaning old bricks," has so far scraped the mortar off 20,000 of them.
The rites are symbolically performed by workers fashioning her resting place, with a mason flicking mortar off his trowel, an act of benediction.
White plumes of smoke set off by exploding mortar rounds could be seen on Thursday from the Israeli side of the Golan.
