The road to Ghazni was much smoother than before, perhaps because the coalition forces were focused on the south and the remnants of the guerrillas in those places where they had been before. It may also be a problem with Qasim's choice of route, anyway, during the two-day trip, although the road was bumpy and it felt like people were going to fall apart, there were no accidents, and we arrived near Ghazni smoothly.

We did not enter the city, but stopped at a makeshift assembly point northeast of Ghazni, closer to the border of Paktia province, and before we arrived, Qasim handed us some hats with masks and some exaggerated scarves, which he told all of us who had no beards to wear hats and pull them down or wrap them around with large scarves. Otherwise, you may be in trouble if you are seen by those fanatical believers.

By the time we arrived, there had been quite a few armed men of the TLB gathered here, and I probably counted about forty or fifty of them. These people are not bad in terms of mental outlook, at least they do not see the low morale and malaise that they show because of the continuous defeat and retreat. And judging by the weapons carried by these people, there is nothing special, that is, rifles, machine guns, RPGs, and you can also see some disassembled mortars carried on the backs of some donkeys.

"These people are going to go into the mountains together." Ahmed whispered to me.

I looked at Ahmed and also whispered, "Why don't they go to Kandahar?" Isn't that the center of their power? It's going to be besieged, and you're still here, aren't you going to defend it? They don't look like they've retreated here in desperation. “

Ahmed sneered and said, "They're not monolithic. There have always been internal contradictions and struggles. Now the form is extremely unfavorable, and the differences are of course even greater. “

Most of these men apparently knew Qasim and saluted him when he arrived. One of the leaders was a man with the same beard, who had a friendly chat with Qasim after hugging him like an old friend for many years, and introduced us to the men. According to Ahmed's translation, Qasim speaks of us as brothers from the ****** world, volunteers, who have come to fight with them against the anti-Talibist coalition and against the evil infidels of the United States and Britain.

After he said this, although these armed men still seemed very indifferent to us, their eyes were much less guarded and even hostile.

We didn't stay here for long, and after about half an hour, we refueled our car and continued on our way. This time it wasn't just us, but three other cars, about twenty people. Qasim told us that these people were going to go with us into the mountains, and that there were some people he knew in Gardez, who would also be with us and him into the mountains north of Gardez, and that the man who had been helping him find Akmal was waiting for us there.

A day later, we arrived at Gardez. It's a small city on the high ground, and it seems to me to be a small town, but it's a serious city here. At this moment, it seems that the city is not occupied, and the control is still in the hands of TLB.

Upon arrival, ten more people joined the group. And among these ten people is a man named Iqbal, who has been in charge of helping Qasim gather information here. After meeting Qasim, the man told him about the format and the target we were looking for, and because Qasim didn't shy away from us, he said while Ahmed translated for us.

We know from Iqbal's words that small coalition reconnaissance units have recently appeared in the vicinity and that they are becoming more and more active. They expected it to be attacked at any moment, so Iqbal advised Qasim to enter the mountain as soon as possible, as the forces here could not be effectively defended.

Qasim accepted Iqbal's suggestion, and after listening to Iqbal's words, he immediately decided to let everyone prepare to enter the mountain today. Instead, Iqbal asked him if he would wait any longer for the rest of the people who were also going into the mountain to go with him. However, this proposal was immediately rejected by Qasim, in fact, I think that Kasim is now like me, and wants to get out of here as soon as possible. He no longer cared about his enemies, and his own camp, and at the moment he only cared about what he had to do.

Qasim is their head, and since he has decided, no one has an opinion. We won't have it. So, after making supplies, we left the city and headed north into the mountains. And just as we reached the point where the car could no longer move forward and had to get out of the car and start walking, there was an explosion from the direction of Gardez. It was not a bomb explosion, but an artillery bombardment, which was carried out by the coalition forces against Gardez. Although the intensity is not great at the moment, it is estimated that it will not be long before the coalition forces will attack Gardez, as Iqbal said.

We abandoned the truck shortly after entering the mountains, so we hid it and started trekking again. According to Iqbal's intelligence, the Akmal we are looking for has recently appeared in a place called Whaleback Mountain, which is northwest of where we are, that is, in the direction of Kabul.

Now that we had directions and people who knew the directions, we didn't hesitate to go there immediately. But once we entered the mountains, various difficulties arose, starting with physical challenges, which were much higher than the mountains we had climbed from Turkmenistan into Afghanistan. Here, you have to move forward at a slower pace to cope with the adverse effects of thin oxygen. At the same time, the road here, except for the fact that it was relatively easy to walk at the beginning of the mountain, became more and more difficult to walk, and many places were steep, which made everyone move forward more slowly and exerted more physical strength. Satellite phone signals also come and go.

In addition to these, as the altitude increases, the temperature here is getting colder and colder, the air is unusually dry and cold, whenever the mountain wind blows, it makes people feel that they have entered the cold winter, especially when traveling against the wind, we can often only look down at the heels of the people in front of us, one by one to go forward, only in this way can we make our face, eyes, and the whole nasal cavity and even the respiratory tract feel better. What's even more terrifying is that at night, the temperature is lower, and the wind is stronger, sometimes so strong that you can't hear the speech. If you don't find a leeward place to rest, then I think a night can definitely make you freeze. Fortunately, we are fully mentally prepared and have a good guide. After two days in the mountains, we came to this neighborhood called Whaleback Mountain.

And once we got here, we quickly realized that we had made no mistake. Because we met another group of TLB forces, and they were a few people who had been operating here for some time.

(End of chapter)