by Richard Kemp
After Operation Silicon, the patrol bases that had been constructed north-east of Gereshk came under frequent attack by the Taliban, whose aggression was focused against the Afghan National Army and NATO forces there rather than the civilian community in the town. The same happened at FOB Fox, which from 16 June was hit frequently by Taliban 107mm rockets.
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At the end of Operation Lastay Kulang, A Company’s 1 Platoon, under Lieutenant Nick Denning, moved into Sangin District Centre. They were joined four days later, on 11 June, by the remainder of the company group, which was based there for the rest of the battalion’s tour in Helmand. Their mission was to provide security for the town, build the fragile confidence of the local population and encourage and support reconstruction in the area.
The base at Sangin was about the size of one and a half football pitches, surrounded by the usual Hesco Bastion rubble- and sand-filled wire and fabric cases, arranged in 5-metre walls whose corners were guarded by permanently manned sangars.
Two main buildings overlooked the town from within the base, referred to by everyone as the ‘DC’, which was split in two by a fast-flowing canal leading off the Helmand River. About 5 metres wide, during the hot summer months the canal was used by off-duty troops for bathing. A rope was tied from bank to bank, to stop soldiers being carried downstream into the town of Sangin itself. A light alloy infantry assault bridge provided a link across the canal, joining up the two main buildings, the three-storey FSG tower and the ops room, whose roof had two heavily armed, sandbagged sangars reached by an ominous thirteen steps.
The troops lived jammed tight on camp beds in two stone buildings within the DC. Every wall in the base was pock-marked with bullet holes and splash marks left by RPGs slamming into the outside. Throughout its occupancy by the Parachute Regiment and then the Royal Marines, until April 2007 Sangin DC had been under almost permanent siege by the Taliban and the scene of some of the fiercest fighting to date in Helmand’s recent history.
One wall, close to the ANA accommodation, was covered in religious graffiti and childish cartoon character faces marking an Afghan soldier’s increasing unhappiness with his stay there. Day one’s face was smiling, and then progressively the faces grew longer and more miserable.
Although Lastay Kulang had succeeded in killing and driving out large numbers of Taliban, it was clear that they weren’t going to give up Sangin that easily. But with their stranglehold on the town and the surrounding areas loosened, many people who had left to avoid the constant battling and intimidation flocked back. During the latter stages of Lastay Kulang, soldiers had seen children swarming into areas as they were cleared of Taliban.
As soon as A Company moved into Sangin, Major Biddick started driving forward reconstruction tasks, with the same vigour as he fought the Taliban in battle. Although substantial progress was hard to achieve, and for the long term, Biddick’s determination to help the community back on to its feet was received with gratitude by the locals.
The Taliban didn’t like anything that might lead towards normality and began to strike back, conducting a series of bloody attacks. Realizing things were quickly beginning to slip backwards again, with significant Taliban reinfiltration, Carver knew that Lastay Kulang had not achieved the decisive effect he had hoped for. The attacks against FOB Fox continued, and the Taliban were gradually restoring their reign of terror in and around the town, including the kidnap and murder of the son of Sangin’s police chief. Battle group intelligence officer Captain Tom Coleman confirmed that his intelligence sources as well as events on the ground were telling him what Carver was thinking. Significant numbers of Taliban had come back down to the Sangin area from Musa Qalah.
In an update briefing to Carver, Coleman told him there was intelligence that Tor Jan, one of the main Taliban commanders in the area, was putting pressure on his people to increase the killings and to get concrete results against the government in Sangin. He said, ‘There are signs that he’s trying to get more experienced people in to bolster up the locals – possibly foreign fighters. It looks like the valley now has some very serious players in it, and they want to do some real damage in Sangin.’
Sitting at a dusty, battered, collapsible wooden table outside the operations centre at Camp Bastion, Carver briefed his planning team. ‘I want to get a clear message to the Taliban that he’s not welcome in this area, and if he comes in he’s going to be killed. It’s also critical that the locals understand we’re here to stay and protect them. We’ve got to demonstrate to the Taliban that we are not a transient force. We are here for the long term. That means another battle group operation into the Green Zone between Sangin and Kajaki. A clearing operation. To give us breathing space to get reconstruction projects underway so we can demonstrate tangible benefits of our presence. B Company will patrol south from FOB Fox, driving the enemy into the teeth of a steady forward advance from A Company, who will patrol north towards them from Sangin.’
Carver knew that a conventional assault into this area would end in the Taliban escaping westward over the Helmand River, either as they saw the Royal Anglians moving in or after a fight – as they had done during Operation Lastay Kulang. The battle group would then be back to square one – facing the same reinfiltration problem.
The whole question of preventing a Taliban escape across the river, which they had not been able to properly deal with in Lastay Kulang, applied just as much to the proposed new operation. Carver wanted to position his forces on the western side as well as the east, to cut off escaping enemy. But that was easier said than done. There were just two bridges that they could cross – at Gereshk, and further north at Kajaki – and both were too far away. He considered helicopters, but there weren’t enough airframes available. The Royal Anglians had no boats, and the risk of using their amphibious Vikings was too great – just one toppling over in mid-stream could drown eleven soldiers and wreck the operation. The river was 200 metres across and at this time of year it divided into channels, with fast-flowing and dangerous undercurrents in the middle, making wading impossible.
Carver’s only option was to cut off the Taliban on the eastern side, before they could cross the river. His troops would have to infiltrate on foot over many kilometres, and at night, to achieve surprise. He and his staff agonized over whether such a challenging plan could work. Carver knew his men were at peak fitness and had trained long and hard – he had personally supervised the battalion’s physical training. But it would still be extremely tough. They would have to carry everything they needed, as they could not depend on a resupply by vehicle or from the air.
Casualty evacuation was another major concern. The RAF wouldn’t land in the Green Zone, even for CASEVAC: flying over the area was too high-risk. Intelligence reports suggested the Taliban had brought Stinger surface-to-air missiles into the very area they were going to attack. And Carver was mindful that the 82nd Airborne Chinook had been shot down as it came in to land, in just about the same area. One of his main worries was that even a relatively minor wound to one of the troops, even an accidental injury, could ruin the operation, with the wounded soldier having to be stretchered out. Without helicopters, a casualty would have to be carried back to base over many kilometres through enemy-infested country. It took at least six men to carry a stretcher and more would be needed for security.
Above all everyone was worried about the heat. Long periods of patrolling and fighting in 50 degrees and more, without any guaranteed water resupply, could prove deadly.
Some of Carver’s planning team believed the operation – codenamed Ghartse Ghar – would be too hazardous, and they said as much. Carver understood the huge risks involved, and he knew that if the operation went wrong a lot of soldiers could be killed or wounded. He also knew that, as ever, all responsibility would fall on his shoulders.
He balanced these concerns against the pressing need to protect the townspeople of Sangin, critical to the successful completion of the battalion’s mission in Afgh
anistan. To achieve this he knew that he had to show the Taliban they could not come back into the Green Zone with impunity. The price for them had to be higher than a long-range shoot-out then withdraw to fight another day. And to win the support of the local community, it was important to demonstrate to them the physical dominance of the battle group over the Taliban. This war was as much about psychology as it was about fighting.
It was a tough decision.
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Carver called battle group operations officer Captain Phil Moxey into the hardboard-walled box next to the Joint Operations Centre in Bastion that served as his office. Maps and air photos covered all available surfaces, and the fan did little to tackle the stifling heat. Carver said, ‘I’ve decided we’re going to do Ghartse Ghar. I want you to push out a warning order tonight. You know pretty much what I’ve got in mind. A Company will start at Sangin in the south and patrol north. B Company will start at FOB Fox in the north, enter the Green Zone on foot, cut off the escape routes across the river, and drive the Taliban south into the open jaws of A Company. We’ll need to fly B Company to FOB Fox as soon as possible.’
Three days later, on 23 June, FOB Fox was hit by a devastatingly accurate volley of 107mm rockets, which killed two members of the battle group’s Estonian armoured infantry company and seriously wounded a female nurse. The following day, the Estonians, reinforced by Captain Ollie Ormiston’s FSG Delta and the Royal Anglian’s Recce Platoon under Captain Andy Wilde, attacked the Taliban in the village of Lwar Malazi, believed to be the mounting base for the rocket attack.
The combined force killed seventeen Taliban fighters, with Wilde’s Scimitars and Ormiston’s Javelin team accounting for many of the enemy dead. During the fighting, a bullet hit the chest plate of Ormiston’s body armour, and Private Peter Howell, one of the FSG soldiers, was shot in the stomach. His body armour saved him, and he sustained only minor injuries.
On the same day B Company arrived at FOB Fox to prepare for Ghartse Ghar. They were flown in by Chinook from Nowzad, where they had been based since Operation Lastay Kulang.
FOB Fox was positioned on high ground next to the Green Zone, overlooking the village of Putay, 10 kilometres north-east of Sangin. It consisted of two run-down Afghan compounds, with security provided by Recce Platoon Scimitars and Viking vehicles. There was no space in the compounds for B Company, so they harboured up in the open outside the compound walls.
Corporal James Murphy, a section commander in Captain Dave Broomfield’s 6 Platoon, lay soaked to the skin under his makeshift shelter fashioned from camouflaged nylon ground sheets, stretched and attached with bungees to a pile of ammo boxes at one end and two large rocks at the other. He wasn’t sure whether the rain was a bonus or not. Whatever – there was no way of keeping dry anyway. He looked out of the shelter and saw several of the lads just standing out in the downpour, stripping off.
‘Come on, lads,’ Murphy said to Privates Jason Thompson and Jamie Muley, who were under the shelter with him, ‘I haven’t had a shower for ages. Lend us some soap. It’ll be a laugh – pass the time away.’
It was a bizarre scene; one of those moments between battles when a group of infantrymen will snatch any diversion from the boredom of just waiting. For about fifteen minutes they stood around naked in the open, showering in the downpour as if they were in the bathroom at home. Pointing to a female medic who had emerged from a shelter a few metres away, one of the lads shouted, ‘Look, it’s a bird.’
With uncharacteristic modesty, the group of naked soldiers scattered more rapidly than they ever had in the face of Taliban fire. They took cover behind the Vikings until the woman had gone, then raced back to their shelters for towels.
There was constant ribbing between these troops during the quieter times. Most of the lads were from London’s East End, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. Often it was about football. Murphy, from East Bergholt near Colchester, Essex, supported Arsenal; Muley was a Spurs fan; and Thompson followed Manchester United. The guarantee of a long series of heated discussions in the pouring rain under their shelter. Thompson, Murphy’s fearless point man, was a karate fanatic and looking forward to getting started on the sport at Army level after the tour.
Even stronger than sporting rivalry was the bickering about which was the best platoon. 6 Platoon called themselves ‘Mighty 6’, and 5 Platoon were the self-named ‘Fighting 5’. The two groups were close, but fiercely competitive. Most of them were tattooed with their platoon number. The soldiers of 7 Platoon – ‘Lucky 7’ – who remained at Nowzad for Operation Ghartse Ghar, had tattoos of a dice somewhere on their bodies.
That afternoon they continued as usual, bickering away, sniping at each other, arguing over football, movies and, on one occasion, who was the biggest ‘prat’ in Wind in the Willows. Some members of the platoon asserted that it was Ratty. Others went for the more obvious Toad, although vilifying the fast-driving and flashily dressed amphibian went slightly against the grain. Essex was home of the boy-racer, and Toad’s behaviour and sense of social worth appealed to many of these men who were dreaming of their post-Afghanistan ‘millionaire weekend’ – the British soldier’s way of blowing his hard-earned cash saved while on operations.
They talked endlessly about going on boozy trips to the clubs of Ibiza or, for the more ambitious, a few weeks in California. Several planned the America trip, dreaming of being feted by girls throughout the US because of their Army status and British accents. For a few privates their first flashy car beckoned, a proper ‘bird puller’. It wasn’t exactly the done thing to talk openly about putting a down payment on a house: anyone who did would be shouted down, and the rest would yawn loudly and walk off.
Eventually the arguing died down and the talk turned to who wanted to eat what at the end of the tour. It was a source of non-stop discussion. Someone wanted a bag of crisps. For most the meal of choice would be fish and chips.
For whatever reason one of the men’s mother had sent out plastic toy soldiers. They sat about in the mud, setting up opposing armies and discussing ambush and counter-attack strategies, until a couple of Royal Marines sauntered over, wondering what all the laughing and arguing was about.
‘What’re you lot doing?’
‘Fighting a war – it’s a laugh,’ came the reply.
‘What about an air-strike on those little fellas?’
‘What you got? A 1,000-pound laser-guided bomb? You a B1 bomber? Or an Apache? Let’s have a laser-guided and a couple of Hellfire missiles dropped on them, mate.’
Another soldier produced a plastic aeroplane from a parcel he had been sent.
The two marines, Viking drivers, laughed, knowing the lads were off on a serious operation soon. They picked up sticks and stones for Hell-fires and bombs, then launched their air-strike on the little plastic infantrymen on the ground.
And so it went on for the rest of the afternoon, mucking about in the dirt, killing time, having a laugh, still finding time to bicker about football teams and platoon rivalries.
Thoughts of the ensuing operation were never far away. As they sat around the troops were ‘bombing up’ magazines, checking their machine-gun link, painstakingly cleaning their rifles and packing as much as 5 litres of water into daysacks.
By now many of them had shed more than a stone in weight and were leaner than ever before, most of the fat gone on countless slogging foot patrols and the battles that invariably came as a result of them.
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B Company spent four days in the austere and wet FOB Fox. It was largely uneventful, although the odd 107mm rocket was fired at the base, and one day the men watched a US Air Force AC-130 Spectre gunship mowing down a Taliban fighter 800 metres away. The Spectre used its 20mm cannon, and the men were disappointed not to have witnessed the legendary ground-attack aircraft firing its 105mm howitzer.
The company commander, Major Mick Aston, held the final briefing for his commanders at 1400 hours on Thursday 28 June. Lieutenant Ben Howes was com
mander of 5 Platoon, and Captain Dave Broomfield led 6. Aston told the two platoon commanders that A Company would be the main effort for Operation Ghartse Ghar, and B Company would initially be doing a feint. There was a wry smile on his face as he looked at them and said, ‘Well, as you know, fellas – B Company doesn’t do feints. I would quite like us to be the main effort to be honest, and that’s the way it’s going to happen. We’re going to go in there looking for a fight.’
Broomfield thought, I would have expected nothing else. There’s no way he’s going to allow A Company to steal a fight from under him.
Aston looked straight into their eyes and concluded with his pre-deployment mantra, ‘Account for every one of our soldiers at all times – that is the number one priority. I do not want anyone going missing. So down to the section commanders and the private soldiers, tell everyone to keep an eye on each other and stay in as tight formation as you can. One of our lads going missing on this operation is not an option. They are your responsibility out there, and the Taliban would dearly love to kidnap a British soldier. That, gentlemen, is my worst nightmare and yours, and it is not going to happen. At every point you stop, and the platoon sergeants check everyone is accounted for.’
This exact, chilling message had come straight down from the commanding officer ever since pre-deployment training back in Pirbright, and it was banged into them before every major operation.
After their final briefing, the troops downed as much water as they could, ate from their ration packs and then set off at 1500 hours.
With FSG Delta under Captain Ollie Ormiston providing overwatch from his WMIKs on the high ground, the company walked out of FOB Fox in a long snake down into the Green Zone. Lieutenant Ben Howes looked around at his platoon as they patrolled deeper and deeper into the ditches and treelines. He knew this was going to be tough and relentless. They would be patrolling longer and further on foot than any British unit in Afghanistan to date.