How Aussie shot ANA traitor

thanks to Mickk from ApacheClips

"Out of all the people that were here, I was the only one who wasn't shot. They all went down,'' Cpl Searle said.

About 40 Australians live on the base built to block the flow of insurgents from Kandahar province into Oruzgan where most of the Australian contingent is stationed.

Cpl Searle said the Afghan soldiers had been dismissed by their commanding officer and as the Australians turned to walk back to their compound the gunfire began.

"That's when the rounds started cracking out,'' Cpl Searle said.

I had my back turned, so the rounds were coming from behind me. I hit the ground straight away, looked to my left and saw splashes everywhere, ripping straight past me, probably missed me by a metre. So I crawled to my right about three or four metres, turned back around to the direction the rounds were coming from, identified him, cocked my weapon, shot him.''

It was later discovered that the Afghan soldier, a four-year veteran of the Afghan National Army, had 156 rounds left in his machinegun's 200-round magazine and another 80 in his pockets when Corporal Searle and a wounded Australian sergeant shot him.

''As I was crawling I knew blokes had been shot, and I could actually feel the percussion coming out the muzzle of his weapon, as this bloke was only 10 metres away,'' Corporal Searle said. ''At that stage, I thought I'd been shot too, because I knew he'd let a couple of big bursts go, and I thought there's no way I can't not have been shot. So after I shot him, I was patting myself down, because I knew everyone else had been shot, looking for where the wound would be. When there was nothing I just started treating guys.''

Captain Duffy and Corporal Birt were killed instantly, as was the interpreter, but Lance-Corporal Gavin was still alive. (later died of wounds).

Other Australian soldiers sprinted the 100 metres from their compound and joined Corporal Searle in frantically treating the wounded, rushing them on stretchers to the nearby medical hut. Corporal Searle says the combat medics ''stole the show'' in the minutes after the attack with their work on the seven wounded soldiers, who were flown first to a US military hospital in Germany, and later to Australia.

Posted in: Afghanistan