 Instead, they prepared for the decisive engagement, deciding to take advantage of the defensively advantageous ground of the district, and laid traps for the coming NATO troops.The NATO troops' objective was, basically, to capture a grouping of villages known as Pashmul, which had been the site of repeated battles throughout the summer of 2006 and where several Canadian soldiers were killed on August 3.An odd decision made at RC(S) changed the tone of the battle.