KANDAHAR: "That is the village with the suspect," crackles the platoon leader over the radio as the four Humvees race over the southern Afghanistan desert on their mission.

With their antennas whipping in the wind, the Humvees look like giant beetles using their feelers to find their positions around the settlement. The US soldiers, their faces crusted with sweat and sand, settle behind their heavy machine guns. They have orders to shoot, should someone try to flee.

The Green Platoon is searching for Mullah Abdul Karim, who, according to an Afghan militia chief co-operating with the Americans, is mining roads in the area. The alleged Taliban rebel, it is said, has been seen armed with rocket-propelled grenades and riding a red Honda motorcycle.

For the 14 US soldiers the pursuit is personal: Karim is a suspect in placing an anti-tank mine on the road they passed a few days earlier. Residents of a nearby village warned the American soldiers of the danger.

A risky move for the locals in an area that was once the stronghold of the Taliban and still suffers under rebel activity, but a move that might have prevented a blood bath.

"If the mine would have exploded directly under one of our Humvees, nobody inside would have survived," says Sergeant Steven Stankovich. The explosive device was more than a metre wide and created a deep crater once exploded in a controlled detonation by specialists.

"The mine served as a wake-up call," says Stankovich. Despite a nearly sleepless night, the soldiers all get a second wind when the local militia chief says an informant has revealed Karim's hiding place.

"Let's go play catch the bad guys," says Specialist Daniel Rivera as he starts up one of the Humvees. For all their cool sayings and verbosity, the soldiers do let their tough acts down, when they write letters home in the evenings or proudly show off photos of their girlfriends, wives or children.

One member of the Green Platoon writes poems. They all miss America. Rivera, 25, relates how he grew up in poverty in Brooklyn as he gives candies to begging children. "Compared with those here, I am really well off today."

The daily life of Rivera and the other soldiers of the platoon is hardly envious: for one week they are on combat patrol in the desert, then they are given a few days to rest with "light duty" at the US base in Kandahar before they go out on patrol again.

The soldiers will be away from their usual base in Hawaii for one year. "It is not so much a question of whether something will happen," says a sergeant. "It is more a question of when." Despite house searches in the villages of Kandahar province, the soldiers don't find any trace of their Taliban suspect. -dpa