Going in small in Afghanistan.

Along the way, soldiers halt and search vehicles - from overladen Pakistani trucks gaudily painted and tasseled, to small white pickups filled with bearded men.

After several miles, the convoy stops at the biggest community around. It's a family village, or korani, consisting of a few mud huts, a camel tethered outside of a shop selling banana tea biscuits, and a gas station with no gas.

"Not too far from here, bad people attacked us. You all heard about that," a US soldier tells the gathered tribesmen. "They were staying there and no one told us," he says. The villagers nod.

The attack was a particularly heavy ambush five weeks earlier that killed two American contract employees of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and two Afghan militiamen. It unfolded about 20 miles to the east at Khan Pass, according to US soldiers and Afghans who were both there and in Gomal.

On the morning of Oct. 25, a group of about 30 Americans and Afghans in eight Toyota Hi-Lux pickups was headed south along the border on a patrol toward Khan Pass. The day before, the group had detained a number of arms smugglers in the vicinity, and was returning to the area.

Suddenly, around 7:00 a.m., an intense barrage of fire from heavy machine guns, AK-47s, and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) bombarded the convoy from several positions on the high ground on either side of the road.

"My Hi-Lux and the front Hi-Lux were under attack," recounts Hamid, a stately Afghan fighter and former mujahideen from Paktika who has worked with the Americans for 1-1/2 years. "The enemy had a wedge formation. They were all prepared and experienced fighters," says Hamid (not his real name).

The fighting was close, with more than 20 suspected Al Qaeda firing down from positions as near as 30 to 40 meters away. "It was hand-by-hand fighting," Hamid says. "He could see my hand, and I could see his hand."

An RPG landed a few feet from Hamid and knocked him to the ground. He took cover and shot 14 rounds from his AK-74 assault rifle, killing, he believes, an Arab fighter. But then Hamid took three bullets himself. "I heard helicopters" and passed out, he recalls.

Meanwhile, some of the Afghan militia had bounded to the high ground, flanking and killing several enemy fighters. In all, 18 suspected Al Qaeda were killed, including Arabs, Chechens, and Pakistanis.

After a lull, the fighting reignited from a ridge and system of wadis beneath it when 1-87's Alpha Company arrived to clear the ambush site following a frenzied, 3 1/2 hour drive south from Shkin.

"These were Al Qaeda," says Staff Sgt. Jeffrey Davis of Alpha Company, noting the fighters' black tunics and diehard stance. He moved two armored Humvees to a saddle in the terrain to fire grenades into the wadis. Then, after pulling his men back to a safe distance, he used the vehicles to guide in an A-10 Thunderbolt plane that silenced the enemy with a 30mm Gatling gun.

By that time, two CIA employees, William Carlson and Christopher Glenn Mueller, had been fatally shot, along with two Afghan militiamen.

Back in the Gomal village, with Khan Pass fresh in their minds, the US soldiers scan the tribesmen's faces. "We know a lot of important people travel this road," one says. "You need to tell us when the bad men are coming."

To elicit information, the Americans offer the villagers immediate benefits: On-the-spot medical treatment, an invitation to a border clinic at Shkin, and free blankets and radios. For useful intelligence, the reward is often cash. Cooperation, by fostering security, will enable international aid groups to move in, they stress.

"We can help this area even more" than Shkin, which has gained a new clinic, a well, and businesses, the soldier says.

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