The defending forces consisted of three battalions of the veteran 352nd Infantry Division.
Even in these postcolonial days, the British maintain three battalions of these Nepalese soldiers notorious for their headlong audacity.
Three battalions of part-time soldiers rushed to the impact area a week ago, and almost all the soldiers who showed up have not left.
Three companies of Public Security Guards, i.e. about six hundred men, are on their way out by air and three battalions of parachutists.
Formed in 1963, the Red Devils are a team of display parachutists made up of 12 serving soldiers from three battalions of the British Army's Parachute Regiment.
It has also been suggested that all three battalions of the Parachute Regiment now become part of a special forces command – again which some army experts, including some from the Paras, are not in favour.
A senior official at the Pentagon said the United States would "most likely" provide transportation for three battalions of peacekeepers from Bangladesh, India and Jordan, a contingent totaling 2,000 who are scheduled to arrive next month in Sierra Leone.
United Nations peacekeepers and the Haitian police also arrived, trying to clear a path for three battalions of military engineers from Brazil, Chile and Ecuador who came to help in the rescue.
Within a week, three battalions of the 82nd's infantrymen, about four thousand soldiers, had arrived in Saudi Arabia and begun to dig in around Dhahran, establishing a line of defense in case the Iraqi offensive continued across the Saudi border.
So for the best part of a year three battalions of the Rifles Regiment have been battling it out to bring some sense of stability and development, a future with a smidgen of hope even, to the beleaguered population.
President Hamid Karzai ordered three battalions of the fledgling Afghan National Army and units of the national police to the area, near the city of Herat, to intervene between the warring parties and to start policing the area, according to a statement from his office.
