At 0335, one of the Warriors opens up with its cannon and
machine-gun. Eight “pax” (people) have been seen to break out of the woods. The
guns chatter for a few seconds, then cease. Another Warrior lets fly a little
later, but that’s all the action before dawn and the end of any hope of sleep
for me.
0422, we hear that the ‘Omelet’ team will go in first. This
is not to prepare breakfast, for OMLT is an acronym standing for Operational
Mentor and Liaison Team, which is a British unit that works to train the ANA to
be effective and professional and to eventually work on their own. Another
piece of intelligence is passed to us – three linked command-wire detonated
surface mines have been spotted in the woods.
The starry sky has now been replaced by a dull overcast. The
Kandaks have arrived, and their commanding officer, who wears a Lt Colonel’s
three stars, is briefed beside the command vehicles. The approaches to the wood
from different directions are discussed. The importance of the ANA giving
reports of their position is stressed – everything north of their line will be
considered unfriendly.
The trucks and Warriors load up with ANA and British troops
for the short distance to the woods themselves. In our “Pinz”, Emily catches a
few more winks of sleep.
A final brief at the edge of the woods – the ANA commander
wants to assault from the south east of the woods. He will use Sound Commander
– a man-portable loudspeaker system – to call for the enemy to surrender. Just
in case they don’t, a Warrior will be there as back up. An Apache attack
helicopter (AH) clatters slowly overhead. “We have AH on call.” Says the
briefing officer, somewhat unnecessarily. “Any questions...? Ok, we move in
two.” he finishes and the group breaks up.
We have joined a reserve squad of soldiers made up from 1st
Battalion, the Rifles (1 Rifles) and the ANA, including an interpreter in a
blue jacket. We form up in two lines and move out on either side of a forest
path. The helmeted Rifles soldiers in their green camouflage and copious kit
contrasting with the desert-camouflaged, baseball cap wearing ANA, who appear
to have nothing but their guns.
On the edge of a treeline we wait as the first Sound
Commander broadcast issues forth in harsh-sounding Pashtu. More walking and
then we enter an area of tall green grass and plants, including nettles that I
soon put a hand in and trap behind my knee as we crouch behind cover. I
conclude that war is hard on the knees in general, and hope we can move on
before they lock up and I fall over sideways.
The Apache clatters above, the Sound Commander repeats its
call. The reply comes from surprisingly close “Allahu Akbar!” Hmm… it’s not
looking good for the commander’s hope of avoiding bloodshed. The message is
repeated in English, beginning with a good old cliché: “Resistance is useless.
Come and join the government of Afghanistan”. The response, even as the message
goes on, is a series of jeers and catcalls. We seem to have surrounded a football
crowd. Four distant shots tap out like a woodpecker at work. The Sound
Commander presses on regardless: “Any civilians in the woods should make their
way to the left-hand side of the woods, in the direction of this noise. You
will see white smoke. No harm will come of you”.
Suddenly a Warrior opens up with long bursts and the battle is on. Unseen guns and grenades fire around us. Our squad leader, a small NCO with a huge amount of equipment on his back, including a radio with a long aerial, relays messages to the ANA via the unarmed interpreter, who has to travel up and down our line and around a corner.
“Warrior is engaging. AH is engaging…Ok, there’s going to be
quite a few casualties in this. They’re dug in and it’s not going to be easy to
weed them out. Stand by.”
He darts about here and there, despite his bulky kit. He
stops to speak in my ear “There’s the mother of IEDs in there and tripwires
everywhere. Stay in the tracks of the man in front and be careful”. I ask how
far away the shooting is and he says: “120 to 150 metres, but you would have to
be pretty unlucky to be hit by a bullet in here” he reassures me, though not
all that much.
At 0620 we are called in and run from our cover. I know the
time because a few seconds earlier the alarm on my mobile phone rings cheerily.
I am fumbling to switch it off when the patrol leader calls “Go! Go!” It was
good thing that the shooting had started a couple of minutes before. Not good
embed form to attract attention to the position of your hosts while creeping up
on the enemy. Another one for the ‘next time’ list.
Across open ground, Emily speeds up to a run without looking
around, following the troops in front. Despite my appalling level of fitness, I
keep up and am right there when the column stops. At the edge of another piece
of woodland, the troop spreads out, guns pointing into the trees to prevent
anyone escaping. After a couple of minutes, the squad leader calls “alright,
let’s move up!” and we follow him into the woods.
The bangs and shouts continue from somewhere deeper in the
woods. Following the translator and Emily, I take a position alongside a path.
About a dozen captured ‘AOF’ are herded out. Men of different shapes and sizes
and a variety of headwear file out with hands raised. One in a blue robe is
very fat and carries a bottle of water. A British soldier tries to take charge
of them, but his officer shouts “Let the ANA deal with it! We can’t wipe their
arses all day”. Warriors draw up
to take them away, their engines grinding and tracks squealing.
Just when it seems the fighting is over, gunfire erupts
again. I find myself fallen on my bum at the mouth of the forest path as
soldiers run by, back into the fighting. I scramble back to Emily. The next
thing to emerge from the trees is a pair of wounded civilians. Both are dragged
backwards by two soldiers. One has a brown kameez and green trousers, soaked
with blood. His left leg is missing below the knee. Medics work on the two men
and stretcher them into the back hatches of the Warriors. The shooting has
stopped and the final act in the parade that passes before me is a group of
four unwounded civilians, two men and two women. Last in line is a large woman
in a maroon burkha and white tennis shoes. Actually, it might be John Simpson
for all I can tell, but whoever they are they are led to another Warrior.
After that it is all quiet, if you can call the chugging
engines of the Warriors that pull up beside us quiet, and you can’t. The Apache
makes a pass low overhead as a show of force. The rotors of a Chinook bringing
medical help for the wounded beat the air. Despite the relative lack of
exertion and mild temperatures, sweat is running down from my helmet and
stinging my eyes. No-one else seems to be perspiring at all. Emily looks like
she just put on make up and hasn’t spent the last two weeks in a rather Spartan
army camp at all.
It’s now I tell her that I can’t find my phone. When I say
where I last saw it she’s pretty sure it’s an ex-phone, somewhere in the tread
marks of a Warrior. This particular phone has survived worse than being dropped
on a battlefield, however, notably spending four days in a rubbish bin in Yuma,
Arizona, and I am less surprised than Emily is when the first ANA soldier I ask
produces it from a pocket.
Most of the troops, including us are sent away from the wood
while the EOD team defuses the giant linked IED they found. We sit in a
clearing off a forest path with a small group officers and men of 1 Rifles. I
dig out my civvie map of the area and we try and locate where we are and where
we were last night. Their estimate of the latter is miles away from where we
must have been, given we were in sight of the woods. Well, at least we raided
the right one. I guess.
A daddy-long-legs spider marches purposefully over us,
looking like a tiny potato on stilts. Someone remarks they are the most
venomous creatures to be found in these parts, but their teeth are too small to
pierce the skin. I move this one with my notebook onto a nearby plant already
occupied by some of its chums. A soldier produces a thermos of coffee brewed on
a portable cooker. It is way too hot and easily the most dangerous thing I have
encountered so far this morning. My deadline is approaching, but the operation
is expected to last another “figures one-twenty” or two more hours. I can’t
really wait that long if I want to get any material in before the deadline.
Then there is a radio call that the colonel wants the arms cache photographed
with the ANA. I am not too sure my role as a journalist is to produce
propaganda for the coalition, but I am the only one with a working camera, and
doing it might get me out of here quicker.
I take group shots of the ANA with their haul – a half-dozen
rifles and machine-guns, a military radio, a laptop computer and a mortar shell
case, all wrapped in clear plastic bags for evidence purposes. It seems a
fairly small “cache” – the Met Police would probably find more if they randomly
raided a row of lock-ups in south London, and according to the ANA commander,
15 enemy died for it. With my recovered phone, I relay these statistics to the
radio studio, plus our lack of casualties and a quote from the colonel.
We get a chance to take the last seats in a Chinook going
back to Musa Q’Aleh. With little warning, the big twin-rotor chopper zooms over
a ridgeline and plops down next to a green smoke grenade. Fifty soldiers and
one tired journalist are aboard in a minute and up and away en route to base.
We unload even faster and the Chinook disappears off into the distance leaving
nothing but a diminishing trail of dull thuds behind it. The last event of this
adventure is a short hike to the camp behind the four-man Gurkha recce team,
who spent the last 10 days in a hide, silently and secretly watching the enemy
come and go from the woods. They are loaded down with backpacks almost as big
as they are, carrying piles of equipment including tents, shovels, a
machine-gun and ammunition. “And if I know them, probably a bag of shit as well”
adds Emily.
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