Congratulations to our Australian allies and Corporal Daniel Keighran!

As the Australian and Afghan soldiers crept into the Oruzgan village of Derapet in the dawn half-light and saw locals quietly slipping away, they knew a fight was coming.

It was no surprise. Another patrol had been fired upon several days previously, and the men had gone there expecting to counter resistance. Intelligence, however, suggested they would meet a force of only 15 to 25.

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Instead, 20 Australian soldiers and a similar number of Afghan counterparts found themselves in the longest, and largest, engagement involving Australian regular forces – as opposed to Commandos or the Special Air Service Regiment – since the Vietnam War, against a force of up to 100 Taliban fighters.

Read the rest at The Sydney Morning Herald.