"With their heads bowed, the 12-man Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) team gathered around the ...

"With their heads bowed, the 12-man Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) team gathered around the visiting army chaplain. It was July 2018 and at 7AM, as the sun flooded the Mohmand Valley in eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province, sweltering. “... May the work of our hands be established today as we impose costs on the enemy, strike fear into their hearts, and deal blows of death from which they will not recover”. The team, from 2nd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group, chuckled with approval at the violence evoked by a holy man, then mounted their vehicles and departed. It was one of the final missions of their six-month deployment to rid the valley, less than 10 miles from the border with Pakistan, of fighters from the Islamic State’s Afghanistan branch. Among them was an Australian commando. Pictured here at centre, he was attached to the team as part of an exchange program between the two countries. It was a surprise even to me to hear an Australian accent on the frontlines in Afghanistan. The Australian contribution to the war in Uruzgan pre-2014 is well-known but, according to this commando, whose identity, like those of all the operators, I agreed not to disclose in order to get access to the ODA, estimated that three other Australians were still fighting—actually fighting—in Afghanistan." See also AWM2020.764.11