Archive for the ‘Helmand’ Category:
Written on November 24th, 2009 by Stephenno shouts
From The Sunday Times
November 15, 2009
Stephen Grey in Musa Qala
TWO years ago Corporal Alex Temple fought like a lion to capture the Afghan town of Musa Qala from the Taliban. Last week he was back, once again in a fierce battle just two miles from its centre.
Afghan soldier opens fire in Musa Qala (Photo: NIck Cornish)
“It has changed though,” he said. “It’s more dangerous. The fighting is harder.”
Amid the thunder of battle, I saw Temple lead men forward with the same raw courage I had witnessed before. The British soldiers with him seemed more composed, unperturbed by the bullets flying past their heads. The Afghan army on their flanks was better armed and vastly more competent.
Yet the enemy had learnt too. “The Taliban can shoot more accurately,” said Temple. “And they don’t give up so easily.”
In December 2007, with the photographer Nick Cornish, I was embedded with the men of B Company, 2nd Battalion, the Yorkshire Regiment, as they joined hundreds of other British, American and Afghan troops in Operation Snakebite to take what was then a Taliban stronghold.
The capture of Musa Qala was declared a model for how this war might be won. The Taliban were bribed to switch sides, the Afghan army was portrayed as the victor and a reconstruction plan prepared. “The eyes of the world will be on Musa Qala,” said Bill Wood, the former US ambassador to Afghanistan.
Now, we were back with B Company to hold a front line that, after two years of heavy fighting, has moved barely two miles north and south of the “liberated” town centre. We watched as the Taliban were pounded with bullets, grenades, shells, missiles and airstrikes — and still they came back for more.
Two years ago our journey to Musa Qala had been tinged with tragedy. We were standing close by when a B Company platoon sergeant, Lee “Jonno” Johnson, was killed in a mine blast, one of three Nato soldiers who died in the battle. A further 17 British soldiers have died here. This time we joined a B Company team led by Lieutenant Colin Lunn, who in 2007 had “Jonno” as his platoon sergeant. They cut their teeth in combat together, over at the Kajaki dam.
(more…)
Written on August 16th, 2009 by stephengrey1no shouts
published in the New Statesman, 13 August 2009.
Stephen Grey
IN 2001, British troops marched into Afghanistan on a mission to combat al-Qaeda and topple the Taliban. Eight years and thousands of ruined lives later, they remain mired in conflict, with no sign of a way out. What are our soldiers fighting and dying for? How long will they stay?
Out into the attack with the Royal Marines last year, we drove in dust-choked Viking armoured vehicles through the sand desert and to the crest of a ridge that overlooked the lush, irrigated valley along the Helmand River known to the soldiers as the Green Zone, their battlefield. Then, in the landscape below, people began to run. Men on motorbikes went from house to house to announce the battle. In all directions spread a panorama of terror, as women, children, boys, anyone not fighting, ran for safety. The Americans call this the “blue stream” – the indicator, almost every time, of an impending engagement. (more…)
Written on June 15th, 2009 by stephengrey1no shouts
The deaths of British soldiers in Afghanistan are not being given prominence in the press because the MoD is restricting access to conflict zones, making truth a casualty of war, says frontline correspondent Stephen Grey
* Stephen Grey
* The Guardian, Monday 15 June 2009
New York Times photographer Tomas Munita at work in Paktia Province, Afghanistan, on a mission with US troops. Photograph: Scott Peterson/Getty Images
Thirteen British soldiers died last month in Helmand province, Afghanistan. Their deaths were reported, for the most part, in small paragraphs on the inside pages of newspapers. Why? Because journalists find it almost impossible to reach and report from the frontline of the conflict. When the Royal Marines launched a fierce hand-to-hand battle last Christmas in the muddy poppy fields of central Helmand, four soldiers died – but the only news that escaped was a press release from the Ministry of Defence.
As in so many wars, truth seems to be the first casualty of this conflict. There has been a devastating breakdown of relations between many defence correspondents and officialdom, journalists say. “Dealing with the Ministry of Defence is genuinely more stressful than coming under fire,” says the Telegraph’s defence correspondent, Thomas Harding. “We have been lied to and we have been censored.” (more…)
Written on April 9th, 2009 by stephengrey13 shouts
AN EXTRACT FROM OPERATION SNAKEBITE
More than 150 British service personnel have died in Afghanistan. Like many of them, Sergeant Lee Johnson was just a name until Stephen Grey – who witnessed his death – uncovered his profoundly moving story
B Company of 2nd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment (Green Howards) was formed up and ready for action. The officer commanding approached and reviewed his men. “Permission to have a go, sir?” asked Corporal Carl Peterson.
“I don’t think so, lads,” said the OC. “Not tonight.”
They were, after all, in Blackpool.
Major Jason Alexis Little, 36, had a twinkle in his eyes. He had known some of these men for nearly 16 years. He had grown up with them. They all addressed him formally as “sir”, but for the seniors among them he was simply Jake and he was one of them.
He probably knew Sergeant Lee “Jonno” Johnson the best. Jonno was the reason they were all standing outside the Walkabout club in Queen Street, Blackpool, in early September 2007. The bouncers had just evicted him for being drunk, not to mention for wearing flip-flops. Jake had gone out to remonstrate. If Jonno was a little drunk, as most were that night, then he was a happy drunk and no cause for worry.
The rest of the company had followed Jake out and that was why they were lined up for action. Jonno was something of a legend in the regiment and not always for the best of reasons. As a boxer and army judo champion, his nicknames varied from “Judo Johnson” to “Mad Dog Johnson”. Every man with something to prove wanted to take on Jonno and it invariably ended up in big trouble.
When Jake had joined B Company as a green young subaltern, Jonno had seen himself as his protector. If they were in a club and someone started to pick a fight with Jake, he would come steaming to the rescue. Although they were poles apart in many ways, everyone remembered them as very close.
While Jake had been steadily promoted, Jonno had moved up the ranks and been busted down again more times than anyone could remember. It had taken him until he was 33 to realise he was a good soldier, a born leader. Everyone in the regiment was proud of what he had become. But even as he achieved self-belief he became convinced that he was about to die. (more…)
Written on March 27th, 2009 by stephengrey1one shout
From The Sunday Times
March 22, 2009
by Tony Allen-Mills
SENIOR British Army commanders have denounced the government’s strategy in Afghanistan as a “constant muddling through” that has resulted in a “failing” approach to defeating the Taliban after three years of bloody confrontation.
In a series of outspoken interviews, several high-ranking officers who commanded British troops in Helmand province express anger and frustration at what one brigadier described as “making it up as we go along”.
Brigadier Andrew Mackay, who commanded Helmand’s Nato forces for six months last winter, claimed a British failure to deliver economic development or reconstruction for ordinary Afghans meant that “one of the central tenets of counter-insurgency doctrine is failing”.
Major Nick Haston, who was Mackay’s deputy chief of staff, revealed he had resigned from the army in protest at bureaucratic incompetence. He said troops had been so short of vital equipment that his staff bought spares on the internet. “I would say that some of the people that procure (equipment) in our Ministry of Defence haven’t a clue,” said Haston. (more…)
Written on April 25th, 2008 by stephengrey1no shouts
Stephen Grey
First published 24 April 2008 in the New Statesman
Rethinking the war in Helmand has made the British army revise some of its basic assumptions. Working with “reconciled” Taliban commanders is part of that new strategy
There is a popular slogan seen stencilled on American gun trucks: “We do bad things to bad people.” Prince Harry had those words on the back of his cap. In the Afghanistan War, the difficulty is working out who those bad people are. An even tougher question is: which of them to kill, and which to put in positions of power and authority?
Winning the war here is not for the squeamish, and a long way from the “ethical foreign policy” of early new Labour. It all boils down to dealing with those bad men. Some of them are already our allies. Others, including men who are currently trying to kill our soldiers, will have a place as our future allies. As one intelligence officer said to me: “In this country, you get to power because, at one stage or another, you’ve done something really awful. You can’t waste time looking for the good guys.”
He was probably exaggerating. But you can still see the problem in Musa Qala, the former Taliban stronghold and opium bazaar, wrested back into coalition and government hands last December. I was present during that combat operation and watched as the Afghan flag was raised in the town centre. I have just returned from a trip back. (more…)
