Specialist Edward Gonzales knew something was wrong when the man in the car speeding towards his patrol on Baghdad's airport road ignored warning shouts to stop and instead steered deliberately closer. "I pulled out my weapon and, as I shot him, he blew up," said the 28-year-old. The suicide car bomber blasted the US soldier back inside his truck, while a piece of shrapnel pierced the window of a Humvee behind, killing one of his colleagues in an all-too-familiar scene of chaos along the notorious highway.
The airport road, known as Route Irish, is the main gateway in and out of Iraq and has become a favourite hunting ground for rebels due to a stream of foreign civilians and soldiers in armoured convoys that use it.
Round-the-clock patrols along the 12-15 kilometre (7.5-10 mile) stretch have sharply reduced the insurgents' ability to plant roadside bombs and carry out drive-by shootings, which happened almost daily earlier this year, but the number of suicide attacks has risen sharply, military officers said.
"The suicide bomber is really the only way to get to a convoy now," said Lieutenant Colonel Todd Morrow, who is in charge of Alpha Battery 4-5 Air Defence Artillery, which took over responsibility for the area on September 1.
There have been 14 suicide car bombs on the road in that time, while four of Morrow's soldiers have died and 43 have been wounded, mainly from such attacks.
"They develop new ways to attack us and we develop new ways to stop them. It is a game of cat and mouse," said Captain Curran Chidester, who heads a patrol that typically comprises three Humvees and, on occasion, a tank.
Soldiers make sweeping circles of the highway, which is framed by dirty grass littered with burnt-out vehicles and twisted scraps of exploded cars.
The road itself also bears a harsh reminder of its deadly traffic, with several large holes gouged out of the cracked tarmac.
"That was yesterday's mess," said Chidester, 28, as his driver manoeuvred around a deep crater, where a suicide bomber had ambushed a British defence ministry convoy, injuring three staff and an Iraqi passer-by.
The patrol rushed to the scene of the attack last week to secure the area and treat the casualties, while also hunting for possible suspects.
"Unfortunately for us, it has become pretty routine," said Chidester.
His soldiers are on a high state of alert as they hunt for signs of trouble during their nerve-wracking eight-hour shift, such as a broken down vehicle that may be disguising people planting bombs or a new bit of rubbish.
"Stop!" Chidester barked at his patrol as he spotted a suspicious-looking piece of tumbleweed in the middle of the fast lane.
"We have to keep our eyes open for anything out of the ordinary. Usually it turns out to be nothing but you have to make sure," he said, as one of his men exited a Humvee to prod the offending weed off the road with his rifle.
Attacks come in bursts, with a couple of days of calm followed by mayhem.
"They mainly hit us early in the morning or in the evening right before the sun goes down," said Staff Sergeant John Stanford, 42, from Oklahoma who was driving one of the Humvees with Chidester.
"Everyone feels nervous, everyone feels scared when they come out here," he said, clutching his rifle and scanning a thin trickle of traffic as he took a break by his vehicle near the main check point to the airport.
One of the hardest tasks is going back into the firing line after the death of a colleague, the soldiers said.
Three car bombs in as many days were unleashed two weeks ago, starting with the attack on Gonzales' patrol by a clean shaven man, dressed in a white robe.
"I am still trying to get over it. I don't think there was anything else that I could have done," the soldier said, recalling that he had ordered the driver to stop and then shot at him when he failed to comply.
"That is the worse thing that has happened to me. I don't think that it can get much worse than that."
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