BRITISH forces yesterday launched their biggest offensive yet in southern Afghanistan to relieve soldiers under siege in the Taliban stronghold of Sangin.

Three hundred members of 3rd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, took part in the dawn raid, which started with Apache helicopter gunships securing a landing area so that five Chinooks could fly in troops.

Early reports suggested that they had taken the town with only minor casualties including one man shot in the shoulder, though fighting was continuing.

The operation was launched as British soldiers holed up in a mud-walled compound in Sangin for the past three weeks were in danger of being over-run. Last week they spent five days without food because it had become too dangerous for helicopters to fly in.

Paratroopers under siege in the small compound made desperate satellite telephone calls last week to wives and parents, saying they were coming under Taliban attack twice a day and had run so low of supplies that they were “looking for scraps”.

“My son has been in Iraq and Kosovo and I have never heard him so disturbed,” said the father of an officer in C Company. “He said that every time the air support goes away, the Taliban attack again. He told me, ‘We keep killing them but they just keep coming. They have heavy guns and cannon. It’s like the Alamo’.”

The wife of another soldier said the conditions sounded horrific. “They can’t use the roads and the helicopters are not coming with food because of the danger or not working because of the heat and dust.”

One re-supply attempt by a British helicopter backfired when the food and water was dropped into Taliban hands.

The small dusty town of Sangin is one of the most dangerous parts of Helmand. It is both a hotbed of Taliban and a centre of the opium trade. Five of the six British soldiers killed in Helmand over the last month died in Sangin. The last, Private Damien Jackson, was killed while trying to secure an airfield for a Chinook to land.

Paras flew in three weeks ago to secure the headquarters of the district administrator after a Taliban massacre of 32 people. They set up base in the small white two-storey building with a dusty courtyard where mortar tubes have been planted among a few sunflowers.

On a foot patrol there last month, it was clear that the population was largely hostile and the compound looked extremely vulnerable. Within days it was coming under increasing attack from heavy guns.

British commanders yesterday defended their decision to call in US air strikes in a separate incident in which 500lb bombs were dropped on the town of Nawzad, another Taliban stronghold where British troops defending a district headquarters were on the verge of being overrun.

The bombs on Wednesday destroyed a school and part of the bazaar, but Colonel Charlie Knaggs, commander of the Helmand taskforce, insisted no civilians had been killed.

“The Taliban were firing mortars on our people from the school,” he said. “Our forces were under a great deal of threat.”

Locals claimed that as many as 200 people had been killed. “There were heavy losses, many people martyred,” said one, though there was no sign of bodies.

Engineer Mohammad Daud, the governor of Helmand, confirmed that there had been no civilian casualties. “According to our reports from security services and locals, the only casualties were to Taliban fighters, 19 of whom were killed,” he told The Sunday Times. “The fighting had been going on for hours when the air strikes came and residents of the area had all left.”

There has been growing criticism of sending troops into places such as Sangin and Nawzad. They are expected to be pulled back once Lieutenant-General David Richards takes command of the operation at the end of this month.

“If we don’t go into these areas we won’t get intelligence of what’s there,” countered a senior officer, pointing out that British forces led a raid in Sangin last month in which two Taliban commanders were captured.

Mullah Hamidullah, the local Taliban commander, claimed last week that the British were hated more than the Americans. “We don’t trust the British,” he said in an interview with an Afghan journalist. “We have fought once with the Americans but this is our fourth war with the British. If someone stabs you once, you might forgive them — it could be a mistake. But by the fourth time, how can you forgive and trust them?”

Hamidullah, who is deputy to Mullah Dadullah, the one-eyed leader of the Taliban military wing for the south, claims to have more than 3,000 fighters in Helmand. He gave the interview in the small village of Heyderabad on the Helmand river near Sangin. It was quite clear that Taliban controlled the area.

“We have the sympathy of the people and they trust us now,” said Hamidullah, holding court under a mulberry tree and eating potatoes and soured yoghurt, surrounded by 50 heavily armed men. “They are giving us shelter and when the fighting starts the labourers in the fields throw away their tools and take up guns.”

He added: “We cannot lose. If we kill the infidels, we are heroes. If they kill us, we become a martyr.” Although the claims of numbers may be exaggerated, British officers admit they have been surprised by the strength of the Taliban.

The Taliban’s strength has forced the deployment of 900 extra troops. But only 200 of these are infantry which most senior officers involved believe is insufficient for what many call “mission impossible”.

Additional reporting: Tim Albone Tangye

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