Salah had arranged a briefing with the rebel commander the night we arrived back in Nalut. He took part in the briefing and asked pointed yet polite questions as though he was part of our team. Of course by then he was, and we learned the particulars of the rebels’ strategy and tactics. Salah, a proud Naluti with two brothers among the city’s rebel fighting force, knew the lay of the land – the dozen or so ridgeline “fronts” where the artillery barrage would commence before rebel ground units would move into the two towns.
He knew the risks, as we did – that the rebels’ artillery attack would trigger heavy retaliatory fire from below. We’d seen it weeks earlier, when one of those heavy return rounds exploded a few hundred yards from our position. But though the risk is minimal that a Grad rocket, an old Russian missile, will actually hit a target as small as an artillery team a dozen miles away, Salah was especially cautious this morning and made sure we were, too.
