‘Taliban bomb makers can put an explosive device together in a matter of minutes. Quality control is not an issue – they have adopted the mass-market strategy.’
I’m sitting in the dust adjacent to the HLS on the southern perimeter of FOB Shawqat, waiting for a flight back to Camp Bastion. The sun is shining brightly and the sky is a wonderful expanse of blue. The buzzard, the Army’s name for the soldier responsible for coordinating flights for personnel, has just told me that there is a 50 per cent chance my flight might be delayed. I accept the news with a smile and a shrug. I’m feeling relaxed for the first time since I arrived in Helmand three weeks ago.
I’d said goodbye to Woody and the members of Brimstone 42 earlier this morning, before they departed for a week-long route-clearance operation in the south of Nad-e’Ali. Although routine, it will be a task fraught with risk and danger, but part of me wishes I were going with them.
Another long, hot, bloody summer beckons and the men of 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards are happy to be leaving, and not just because they’ve come to the end of a sixth-month tour. A growing weight of intelligence seems to suggest that the Taliban will attempt some sort of offensive over the next few months to try to recapture the ground lost during Operation Moshtarak. As part of the insurgents’ information campaign they will need to demonstrate to the local population that they remain a force to be reckoned with.
The bomb-hunting teams of the CIED Task Force will be thrown into the thick of it. Ahead lie endless weeks of unimaginable danger. The stresses will be enormous and the soldiers will have to learn to live with the knowledge that they are now specific Taliban targets. It is an undisputable truth of this war that killing any soldier involved in bomb disposal guarantees more headlines than killing an infantry private, a fact not lost on the increasingly media-savvy Taliban. My admiration for the bomb hunters’ courage and humility knows no bounds.
Equally worrying is the expectation that the Taliban will refine the manufacture of IEDs and begin developing a new generation of bombs similar to those used by Shia militants with devastating effect against British and US soldiers in Iraq. The devices, which were developed with the help of Iran, were highly sophisticated and in some cases used infrared triggers to detonate the bombs. The insurgents developed the technology to make explosively formed projectiles capable of penetrating armour. Although the Taliban currently lack the technological capability to make bombs of a similar sophistication, they have already launched a pretty effective campaign, so why change? Their bomb makers are already experimenting and are attempting to build more lethal anti-armour devices. An anti-vehicle device, known as a swarm, which fires hundreds of ball bearings at a concentrated area, has been developed by the Taliban, and although so far it has proved ineffective other such weapons are likely to follow.
Taliban bomb makers can put an explosive device together in a matter of minutes. Quality control is not an issue – they have adopted the mass-market strategy. If only 10 per cent of Taliban bombs injured or killed British soldiers that would be regarded as a success. The Taliban know that they will never beat the British or NATO in a straightforward fight – but neither do they need to. Their strategy is designed to undermine public support for the war in the West, and it is working. Both Canada and the Netherlands plan to withdraw troops from southern Afghanistan very soon because of domestic political pressures. While there is huge support for troops in Britain, there is little appetite for continuing the war in Afghanistan. The British public have simply not bought the message that a stable, secure Afghanistan will make Britain a safer place to live, especially when a significant number of UK terrorist plots emanate from Pakistan.
NATO has now been in Afghanistan for almost ten years and the security situation seems to be worsening almost daily. Kabul is no longer safe, road routes into and out of the country are routinely subject to attack, and NATO’s casualty rates have never been higher.
But it is not all doom and gloom. Since 2008, when the use of IEDs by the Taliban began to escalate, millions have been spent on countering the bombers. The SAS and the Special Boat Service (SBS), as well as other elements of the special forces, such as the Defence Human Intelligence Unit, which runs agents in Afghanistan, and the Special Reconnaissance Unit have been targeting the bombers, and with some success. In what has effectively become a covert campaign within an overt war, increasing numbers of bomb makers have been killed or arrested in SF strike operations. CIED training and the use of ISTAR assets have helped to save the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of soldiers. Specialized armoured route-clearing teams have eased the burden on bomb hunters. British mentoring teams are training the Afghan security forces in counter-IED techniques and members of British special forces are helping to develop an Afghan equivalent of the SAS, which in time will begin to mount its own operations against Taliban bomb makers. In October 2010 General David Petraeus, the US commander of the NATO force in Afghanistan, said that American and British special forces had killed or captured 300 Taliban leaders in the past three months. Such losses cannot be sustained in the command structure of any organization, and it is significant that in the same month it was reported that a delegation of senior Taliban leaders had met for peace talks in Kabul.
But the Taliban will continue to make bombs while they have access to nitrate-based fertilizers, the main component of the explosive. The Afghan government banning of nitrate-based fertilizers in January 2010 came too late to have any real impact. Current estimates suggest that there is still enough nitrogen-based fertilizer in circulation in Afghanistan to manufacture 100,000 bombs. And then there is the problem of the many tons brought in every week through the numerous border crossings which encircle the country, some of which are manned for just a few hours a day. The reality is that, despite recent successes, British troops will continue to be killed and maimed by IEDs for as long as they are based in Afghanistan. Rather than removing the Taliban’s ability to kill and maim using IEDs, the best for which NATO can hope is to limit the insurgents’ ability to increase the volume and sophistication of bombs being developed.
Between March and October 2010 the number of IED incidents remained broadly the same as in the previous seven months and there was some intelligence to suggest that the Taliban were returning to more traditional means of attacking British troops. In some quarters within the British Army, although it would never be couched in such terms in public, such a development amounts to a success. In presentational terms, government-speak for propaganda, it ‘plays’ better if a soldier is killed by a Taliban bullet rather than a bomb.
My helicopter, an ancient Royal Navy Sea King, eventually arrives and I’m whisked away in a plume of white-grey dust for the twenty-minute flight back to Camp Bastion. Like most of the soldiers who make it to the end of their tour in Helmand, my focus now is to get home as quickly as possible. I’ve only been away from home for three weeks but it seems much longer. From what I have witnessed it seems to me that the war is never far away for the troops who live beyond the wire. Sleep is often disturbed by gunfire or the comings and goings of helicopters, and there is always the next patrol for which to prepare. There are no weekends, no days off, just a never-ending round of patrols and operations.
As we fly over the flat desert landscape back to the safe confines of Bastion, I wonder once again how soldiers cope with a six-month tour, especially the bomb hunters. A front-line tour is tough for every soldier, especially the very young, the 18-year-olds whose first experience of leaving the UK was to go and fight and, in some cases, die in Helmand. For those, and there are many of them, who have young children, being separated for so long must be almost physically painful. The infantry have it tough but in many cases the bomb hunters have it tougher, being bounced around Helmand from location to location without ever really being able to establish a routine. The monotony of routine is a vital ingredient for surviving Helmand. Soldiers like to establish a working pattern. Get up, go on patrol, sleep, eat, go on patrol, sleep, eat. Days soon begin to merge into one another and time begins to pass unusually quickly. But the bomb hunters are denied such ‘luxuries’. The most they can hope for is to spend six weeks in a single location before they are sent to another part of the province where they are put to work for hours on end. It is little wonder that the bonds between these men are so close and the fallen are so deeply mourned.
Over the past few days a further five soldiers have been killed in action in Helmand. One, Lance Corporal of Horse Jonathan Woodgate of the Household Cavalry regiment, was killed when a grenade was lobbed over a wall during a patrol in Helmand. It later emerged that a young boy had been using a mirror to signal to the Taliban when British troops arrived in the area. It was not the first time insurgents had recruited young children to attack British soldiers. The other four soldiers were all killed by IEDs – confirmation, if any were needed, that this particular threat is as strong as ever.
During my embed with the bomb hunters and the Grenadier Guards, I have seldom heard soldiers complain about their lot or about the burden they carry. During wars for national survival like the First and Second World War, the burden was shared by the nation. Sadly that is no longer the case. General Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff between 2006 and 2009, attempted to restore the balance, but much work needs to be done. We now live in a society where a Premier League footballer can earn over £100,000 a week and still complain that he is not being paid enough, while soldiers, sometimes earning less than a traffic warden, are daily risking their lives in the service of the nation. For me, irrespective of one’s views on the war, such an imbalance is a grotesque distortion of the values of any civilized nation. Successive governments have continuously praised our armed forces as the best in the world but in terms and conditions of employment they have been constantly failed. Even today the care and treatment of injured veterans still relies on charities like Help for Heroes, the British Limbless Ex-Service Men’s Association, the Royal British Legion, and the various service benevolent funds, as well as a host of other charities. But why? If our armed forces are held in such high regard, why is the treatment of those injured in the line of duty partly dependent on handouts from the public?
The helicopter lands on a grey tarmac circle close to the flight line of Camp Bastion. I jump to the ground and am buffeted by the downdraught from the chopper’s blades. But I feel safe for the first time in almost three weeks. It is as though a weight has been lifted from my shoulders and I can feel myself smiling. I look at my watch. It’s midday, and if I’m lucky and my flights aren’t cancelled or delayed, I could be back home picking up my children from school at 3.45 p.m. tomorrow.
I have time for a shower, shave and change of clothes before reporting for the flight to Kandahar, along with over 100 soldiers, the majority of whom have just completed a six-month tour. Most will have lost a friend or seen colleagues injured on the battlefield. They all look drawn and tired and some are clearly exhausted. As we wait in a tent too small to cope with the numbers, a senior non-commissioned officer from the movements staff, the person responsible for making sure large packets of troops get from A to B, begins to brief the soldiers. He ends by saying, ‘Form an orderly queue with officers and NCOs at the front and the rest of the rabble behind.’ The word ‘rabble’ hangs uncomfortably in the air. An unnerving silence descends as all eyes turn towards the now clearly concerned NCO. He is a sorry sight. His camouflage shirt is stretched across a distended stomach and he is sweating profusely. He must be at least two stone overweight and is probably too fat to complete a standard infantry test. I wonder how long he would survive beyond the wire of Camp Bastion, a place where, in all likelihood, he will never venture.
Out of the corner of my eye I notice a corporal menacingly walk over to the NCO, upon whom it has just registered that he has insulted 100 or so soldiers who have spent the past six months fighting the Taliban. The NCO backs away from the approaching corporal. I fully expect punches to be thrown and I wonder whether anyone will intervene. It is a moment of extreme tension. The corporal leans forward and whispers something to the NCO, who lifts up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. It is a pathetic spectacle. The corporal, point made, returns to his friends muttering under his breath, ‘Fucking REMF.’ The NCO backs away without anyone giving him a second glance and the hum of conversation returns to the tent.
The flight back to Kandahar is unremarkable except for the fact that it is on time and by 3 a.m. I am on board an RAF TriStar, about to fly back to the UK. The flight is delayed while injured soldiers on stretchers are loaded on board and placed in an area which, when the aircraft was part of a civilian airline, would have been the preserve of first-class passengers. One of the injured is unconscious and looks painfully white. He is fitted with an oxygen mask and appears to have wounds to his legs. I wonder what the future holds for him. Soldiers are now surviving injuries which just two years ago would have killed them. Even some soldiers with ultimately terminal injuries can be kept alive long enough to be flown home to the UK to allow their family an opportunity to say goodbye. While I watch the injured being taken on board, I begin to think about Rupert Hamer. I had hoped that my embed would have helped me come to terms with his death but I now know that the only cure is time.
Somewhere over the Gulf, an announcement on the intercom informs us that as part of the RAF’s ‘beers for the boys’ programme we are all entitled to a can of lager or bitter. A few of the more boisterous soldiers cheer. It’s 6 a.m. The beer tastes good and I sleep soundly.
The TriStar enters UK airspace and down below I can see the green English countryside – and the contrast with Helmand is striking. It’s almost like flying into another world, and suddenly I’m hit with a wave of euphoria. The aircraft lands at Birmingham Airport to offload the injured. The detour adds another hour to our journey but no one complains. The soldiers stare, some with watery eyes, as their colleagues are taken to the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital at Selly Oak, to begin another journey.
Finally, the Tristar lands at RAF Brize Norton and everyone is eager to depart and join loved ones. As we walk across the tarmac to the arrival lounge we are lashed by rain and wind, but it feels good.
There is no ceremony, no fanfare, as soldiers hug wives and children. The women look happier than the men, many of whom have left behind friends who will never return. ‘Why them and not me?’ some are no doubt wondering.
On the long taxi ride to my home in Kent I reflect on the war in Afghanistan and how it has developed. The mistakes, the setbacks and the successes, of which there are painfully few. After years of fighting in Helmand, we are told that NATO has a strategy capable of delivering progress. It is instructive that few, if any, generals or politicians will use ‘victory’ or even ‘success’ to define NATO’s desired end state. Today the key phrase is progress. Progress, I suppose, allows a greater degree of flexibility than success or victory and, given that Afghanistan was the epitome of the failed state up until 2001, progress is easier to achieve.
David Cameron has decided that British forces will not play a part in combat operations after 2015. By then, in theory, the Afghan security forces should be able to cope on their own. Britain and other NATO countries will still have a mentoring role; they will still help to train and shape the Afghan Army. But what happens if the Taliban become more capable and the Afghan Army are unable to deliver success? Are British troops simply going to cut and run or refuse to leave their bases as the Taliban kill and butcher their way to Kabul? Where is the ‘Plan B’? The reality is that NATO and the West are now drinking in the last chance saloon. This is the last role of the dice – there is no ‘Plan B’.
As I walk through the front door of my house my two sons, Luca and Rafe, and Daisy, the family dog, attack me. I kneel on one knee and my wife joins the happy scrum. Tears well in my eyes as I think of all those who have died and what their families will miss.