As Farmer explained in a post-operational report: ‘It was clear that the … density of the vegetation … was such that an assault into it would have been totally blind and would certainly have resulted in casualty and most likely death.’
The clash had lasted an hour. There were only about forty-five minutes of daylight left. Unless they were to stay the night there it was time to get out. The shooting died away to the odd, distant crackle, and the sun slipped down the sky, gilding the leaves and lighting up the mud walls with a buttery, innocent glow. Farmer and his men trudged warily eastwards to the prearranged helicopter landing site on the far side of the wadi.
2 Platoon had found it harder to extract themselves from their battle to the north. Tam McDermott’s section were strung out along the wall facing the Taliban positions inside the treeline at the far side of the open field. Extracting under fire would be a dangerous operation. Two of his men, Privates Paul ‘Flash’ Gordon and Anthony ‘Zippy’ Owen, had been tasked with protecting the platoon’s left flank and were lying out in the open. Despite being given the choice of retreating they chose to stick it out and cover the withdrawal. The artillery and air control team of Matt Armstrong and Shaun Fry, who were ahead of the Para positions, decided to stay put and call in an air strike on the Taliban lines, giving everyone the chance to break clean. The target area was less than 70 yards away. There was a huge risk that the strike could result in ‘fratricidal’ casualties. Scott MacLachlan watched the A-10 roar in to ‘chew up the entire main orchard area that the Taliban had been occupying’. As it did so Fry and Armstrong jumped up and sprinted to safety.
The Paras fell back slowly, covering each other as they negotiated the obstacle course of walls and ditches. On the way back they came across a man pushing a friend along in a wheelbarrow. His legs were covered in blood. The pair had come looking for medical help and Harvey Pynn was called over. After the two men had been searched, he examined the wounded man. He had been hit by shrapnel and one of his legs was badly broken. Pynn ‘patched him up, splinted his legs, gave him painkillers and antibiotics’. When they left they took him with them to Bastion for proper treatment. It was an ad hoc hearts-and-minds project, but not of the sort that had been originally envisaged.
The Chinooks lifted off into the gathering darkness at 6.15 p.m. It was hard to talk over the roar of the engines. Most men sat alone with their thoughts. For the first time, they each had the chance to look back over what had been a remarkable and important experience. Everyone was carrying away a feeling that the day had gone well. ‘Throughout the section, from the newest, freshest faces who had only been in the battalion a couple of months, right the way through to the more senior Toms, everybody pulled their weight and did what they were told,’ said Scott MacLachlan. ‘The sense of achievement was something else. Everyone felt on a bit of a high after that.’ Tam McDermott felt they had passed a test. ‘We had not needed a wake-up call. We were not arrogant. We knew the Taliban had been fighting for years and years. But they were no match for us.’
The Paras had proved the value of their intense training. Their drills had worked smoothly and command-and-control was coherent and effective. But it had been a strange encounter. In terms of achieving the original objective the mission had to be counted as a disappointment, given the meagre haul carried away from the target compound. Nor had they managed to capture the second ‘high-value’ Taliban target. Many were to describe the incident later as ‘poking a stick into a hornets’ nest’. The Paras had stung the Taliban into coming out to fight. That had certainly not been the original intention. They had gone there intending to carry out a simple ‘cordon and search’. They had expected some resistance, but nothing on the scale that developed. It was only when they returned to Bastion that they learned that the intelligence they had been given was incomplete. Information had come through that there were dozens of Taliban in the area. But it was not passed on to them before they set off.
The Paras had enough skill and resources to handle the unexpected. Tootal had decided in his pre-planning that deliberate operations such as Mutay should be undertaken only if there were enough men, guns and aircraft to ensure against unforeseen turns for the worse. They had not expected, however, to be shot at as soon as they arrived, nor to be under continuous attack once they had set up the cordon. The Taliban had shown impressive aggression and determination, as well as an ability to organise, fire and manoeuvre. The Paras had easily outfought the Taliban. But there was a feeling that they had also been touched by luck.
‘Flying back in the Chinooks everybody was quite clearly jubilant, buoyant,’ said Hugo Farmer.
But they were also thinking through their own thoughts as well. I can remember looking out of the window thinking, ‘Christ almighty, that was a bit different, that was good fun.’ I didn’t think it at the time, but the miracle of Mutay was that everyone was on the Chinook, no one even got injured. Coming back, hitting the ground at Bastion, people were coming up and saying, ‘What was it like, what was it like?’ For the first time you felt legitimised. You felt that actually you had done it for real now and it was good, it was good. As time went on, the lustre came off that a little bit.
7
Rapid Reaction
Stuart Tootal noticed a ‘definite buzz’ in Bastion after Operation Mutay. ‘A’ Company were proud of their performance. The rest of the battle group units were anxious for their turn. Tootal, though, was not looking for another fight. His hope was that he could use the encounter to win the trust of the local population. The success of Mutay, he believed, might help persuade them that the British were a good thing. The conventional doctrine was that the majority of the civilians were ‘floating voters’. Decades of chronic violence and instability had taught Afghans that it was best to watch and wait before committing to one side or the other. The Taliban had boasted that the British were no match for them. The action at Now Zad should have dealt a serious blow to their prestige.
What was needed now was a ‘non-kinetic’ operation that would demonstrate that the fighting had a point and that suppression of the insurgents would be followed by positive, peaceful action. Tootal’s desire for a quick confidence-building effort was to be frustrated. Once again, the battle group’s energies were diverted into other tasks.
The opportunity to show the positive side of the British presence was dwindling away. Tootal worried that his men were being used merely to react to events. He was also concerned that using them to reinforce the government’s authority outside the Triangle would mean British soldiers doing the job of the Afghan army and police for them. As a result, the Paras would find themselves stuck in fixed positions, unable to manoeuvre and dangling on the end of a long and slender supply chain.
Intelligence estimates put the Taliban losses at Now Zad as a result of Operation Mutay at between twenty-one and thirty-six. They had died in what they regarded as their own territory, a place of safety where they did not expect to be disturbed. The encounter had shown them that their new enemies were determined and professional. The Paras, in Will Pike’s words, ‘had sent a bit of a signal to the Taliban that we are happy to come into your backyard, do a task and extract, and there is not much you can do about it’. The insurgents also appreciated now the wide range of weapons ranged against them. The Taliban fought largely with rockets, rifles and machine guns. They were facing a force armed with the most efficient killing instruments Western technology could devise. In a conventional war it would have been clear who would win. But the Taliban were not conventional warriors. They were fighting for God, and death held fewer terrors for them than it did for their opponents. It was a contest of wills, and patience and resilience were among Taliban fighters’ outstanding characteristics. Within a week of Operation Mutay they were busy again, this time around FOB Robinson near Sangin.
Robinson was a bleak spot. It was an enclosed patch of featureless, gritty desert, filled with vehicles, tents and containers. The Americans who set it up called it the Poor Bastards’ C
lub. In the second week of June it was home to elements of 7 Parachute Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery. 7 RHA are airborne gunners. They played a vital part in the battle group. They provided a battery of seven 105mm light guns which were brought into play on many occasions to crush Taliban attacks on Sangin and, later, Musa Qaleh. They also coordinated and directed all artillery, mortar and aerial bombardments by helicopters and jets. Although they were gunners, the demands of Helmand meant they were often called on to fight as ‘infanteers’. At the same time they were involved in one of the mission’s vital tasks: they ran the OMLTs that trained units of the Afghan National Army. An ANA kandak (battalion) was currently deployed at the base under 7 RHA control.
On 11 June the men at Robinson were asked to retrieve a Desert Hawk UAV (Unmanned Air Vehicle) that had crashed in the desert. UAVs are a cheap and risk-free way of gathering intelligence from the air. They fly by remote control and are equipped with a camera which transmits images back to base for intelligence scrutiny. They are made out of light wood, have a 52-inch wingspan, weigh only 7 pounds and cost about £12,000. They look more like model aeroplanes than instruments of war. The UAV had gone down on the west bank of the Helmand river, not far from FOB Robinson. A mixed patrol made up of members of the OMLT, soldiers from 18 Battery, Royal Artillery, who were also in camp, some Gurkhas and an ANA contingent set out, late in the afternoon, to find it.
FOB Robinson was on the east bank of the Helmand and the patrol crossed over by commercial ferry to the search area. They drove around fruitlessly for a while before learning from some local people that the Taliban had already picked up the Desert Hawk. They set off back to camp. It was dark by the time they recrossed the river. When they reached the eastern bank, a sizeable Taliban force was waiting for them. In the fight that followed Bombardier Thomas Mason was hit by a bullet that passed through his arm, below his body armour, through his chest and out the other side. The patrollers managed to fight their way out of the ambush zone and called in a casevac helicopter to get the casualty out. They then stayed put to await the arrival of a quick reaction force from Robinson. It was led by Captain Jim Philippson, a twenty-nine-year-old who, at the end of his tour with 29 Commando Royal Artillery, had volunteered for service with 7 RHA in Afghanistan. The men in the reaction force parked their vehicles by a police station near the ambush site and moved forward on foot. Before they had got far they were hit by another ambush. Philippson was killed in the firefight. The speed of the attack led everyone to suspect that the Taliban had been tipped off by someone at the police station.
When the news reached Robinson another quick reaction force raced out from Robinson. They linked up with the original rescue team and managed to retrieve Philippson’s body. They returned the few miles to the base then set out again to try to link up with the original patrol. On the way, the Taliban intercepted them once more. In the exchange of fire Troop Sergeant Major Andy Stockton from 32 Regiment, Royal Artillery – the unit responsible for UAVs – had his arm blown off by an RPG.
After the injured man had been casevacced back to Bastion, the men pressed on, eventually met up with the original patrol and settled down to wait for morning. There were now nearly thirty vehicles in the group. They made a large and visible target. Yet the Taliban held off, apparently waiting for first light. With dawn came reinforcements: 3 Para’s ‘B’ Company, under Giles Timms, arrived by helicopter. ‘We literally walked them back alongside, with their vehicles trundling along at walking pace the seven kilometres or so to FOB Robinson,’ he said.
The incident caused some bad feeling among British soldiers. Why were men’s lives being put at risk for the sake of a £12,000 toy plane? Why was the patrol sent out just as it was getting dark? Why had Philippson’s group set off on foot from the police station? Jim Philippson, who came from St Albans in Hertfordshire, had been with 7 RHA only a few months but was already a popular figure. He possessed a ‘unique combination of fierce professionalism, relaxed style of command and sense of fun’, according to one of his colleagues. He was a key member of the mentoring team, where his patience, responsiveness and touch of charisma had made his Afghan charges warm to him.
These incidents again demonstrated the Taliban’s energy and aggression and underlined the risks of using predictable routes. The lesson was learnt anew, only two days later, when an American convoy was attacked along the main road between Sangin and Musa Qaleh. One man was killed and three vehicles were shot up. The Paras were summoned to the rescue. Tootal sent off an ‘A’ Company force under Will Pike. No one had had any idea the Americans were in the area. By this stage it was obvious that any foreigner travelling along the route could expect to be attacked. ‘It was an example,’ said Pike, ‘of people doing stupid things and other people having to come and dig them out of it.’
‘A’ Company flew off late in the afternoon. It was some time before they found the convoy. The Paras put down and scrambled out of the rear door. The Americans were about four hundred yards away. One group set off to secure a patch of high ground overlooking the highway. Another went to round up the Americans and help them out of the ambush site. The attack had taken place close to one of the settlements that straggle along the highway that runs by the Helmand river. To British eyes, it seemed an ideal place to launch an attack. It appeared the Americans thought they had missed a turning and had driven back and forth looking for it, giving the Taliban time to get into place.
As the Paras closed up on the Americans, the Taliban issued a reminder that they were still there, firing an RPG from the built-up area at one of the three Apaches that had escorted the Paras in.
It was already getting dark. The Chinooks had gone. They would not be back until dawn at the earliest. The Paras decided to spend the night on a slope that overlooked the ambush site. It was far from ideal but it seemed to offer the best cover in what was bare, exposed terrain. With night falling, the dangers of blundering on in the darkness seemed greater than the risks of staying where they were.
Pike had with him his HQ staff, two rifle platoons, the machine-gun platoon commanded by Captain Rob Mussetti and some mortars. They spread themselves out, setting up defensive arcs that would cover the approaches from the road, scratching shallow shell scrapes in the stony ground with entrenching tools, and then settled down for the night. The plan was to sit it out until dawn, then move off westwards into the open desert, where they would be picked up by helicopter.
Private Peter McKinley and his mates obtained what cover they could from a foot-high ridge running across the slope. They went through their drills, switching on their night vision optics and standing to in readiness for any attack. The Americans and their vehicles were behind them, in a fold in the ground that offered a little protection from the first buildings, which lay about fifty yards away. One of their Humvees was parked on the ridgeline, its .50-cal machine gun pointing down the slope. McKinley was not impressed by their behaviour. ‘We were all stood to and the Americans were behind us, smoking and having a chat, fucking about,’ he said. ‘If you are in the middle of a dark field and you light up a fag, everyone is going to see it.’
McKinley was twenty-one years old and was one of 3 Para’s prominent personalities. He was lean, funny and aggressive, even by Para standards. One NCO described him as ‘a social hand grenade’. He was born in Cornwall, where his father was in the navy. The family later moved to South Ayrshire. It was the Braveheart era, and he was the only boy in class with an English accent. He ‘fucked up school – wasn’t that good at it and I was always getting into trouble, fighting and whatever’. He left without taking his exams and got a job as a greenkeeper at the Royal Troon golf club.
Looking for something more fulfilling, he went to the local careers office. ‘They brought up all the jobs on the screen, the jobs I could do,’ he said. ‘I had never heard of the Paras before and so I said, “What’s a paratrooper?” The guy turned round and said, “You don’t want to join them, they are full of thugs, ex-cons, people like
that.” I just laughed and said, “Can I at least find out about them?”’ McKinley joined soon afterwards and served in Northern Ireland and Iraq. The Paras were now his home. He was, in a way, the personification of the cartoon Para. ‘He is the sort of character who might be a pain in the arse in barracks but actually does the job when it comes to it and does it very well,’ said one officer. McKinley was resoundingly to prove his worth that night.
At about 8.40 p.m. the 1 Platoon commander, Hugo Farmer, was ‘sitting with my radio op, Private Briggs, chatting about the day, when he asked what the likelihood of being taken on by the Taliban that night was. Just as I said, “Briggs, they would have to be fucking mad,” all hell broke loose. Tracer fire from AK-47s came snapping over our heads along with RPG rounds.’ Rocket-propelled grenades are set to detonate after nine seconds if they have not hit something solid. These were bursting in the air, pumping molten shrapnel on to the earth below. Green tracer from a heavy machine gun a few hundred yards away flashed through the position.
Farmer and Briggs dived for a shallow scrape they had gouged in the stony soil as the platoon’s front sections opened fire. McKinley had been sharing a similar conversation with his section commander, Chris Wright, a moment before. ‘I said, “Chris, do you think anything will happen tonight?” He said, “Generally speaking, from the books I have read, the Taliban don’t attack at night.”’ With that McKinley made himself as comfortable as he could in the unforgiving dirt and stones, using his helmet as a pillow.
Now he was up and blazing away, pumping rounds and 40mm grenades from his underslung launcher into the blackness ahead of him wherever he saw a muzzle flash.
He was interrupted by a shout of ‘Medic!’ An RPG had struck one of the Humvees parked on the ridge. Everyone in 3 Para has basic first-aid training. McKinley had taken some further courses and had some added expertise. He answered the call, running up the hill across open ground over which grenades were exploding.
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