Abdullah Yusuf Ali

He did so, catching a glimpse through the window of the truck-mounted rocket launchers on the roadway outside. They had been destroyed, utterly destroyed, as if a giant had smashed his fist down on top of them. The wreckage was aflame, and occasionally small explosions tossed twisted metal refuse into the air as ammunition or fuel cooked off. Of the janissaries, or the foolish drunken pirates as he thought of them, there was little to be seen beyond a few chunks of burning meat and random limbs scattered here and there. It meant nothing to Yusuf. The carnage of battle was familiar to him, even if the terrible intensity of the American attack was something new. Feeling dizzy, with his legs wobbling and his ears ringing, he hurried to catch up with Ali and the other fedayeen. The rolling thunder of rocket and bomb blasts had abated somewhat in the last few minutes, giving way to an increasingly furious crescendo of gunfire and the clattering roar of helicopters. The three men ran toward an internal staircase, passing a couple of pirate mercenaries on their way ...»