Chechen ambush
n.— «The insurgents had hoped to spring what is called a Chechen ambush. The strategy, Marines determined later, was to wound Marines attempting to enter the building. When other Marines came to help, an insurgent sniper down an alleyway was to pick off corpsmen, radio operators and officers. And when enough Marines or vehicles were gathered, the insurgents planned to fire rocket-propelled grenades.» —“In heat of battle, a hero emerges” by Tony Perry in Albuquerque, New Mexico SouthCoastToday.com (Massachusetts) Oct. 3, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Meg in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, gets why the state highway department encourages drivers to use their blinkers when changing lanes, but placing a digital sign at the Sagamore Bridge that reads Use Ya Blinkah is, well, a lexical bridge too far. Meg’s...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...