Serenaded only by the howl of jackals in the dark of predawn, nearly 200 Royal
Marines waited in uncertain silence for their attack on the Taleban to begin.
They clustered in cover beneath the rock-strewn slopes of a hill northeast of
Kajaki where, only 24 hours earlier, a similar attack mission had been
called off at the last moment because bad weather interfered with their air
cover.
But this time, as the final minutes closed to their 0615 H-hour and the waning
moon broke through the clouds, the voice of a Marine troop commander
crackled softly into their headsets.
“OK lads, just heard it from on high — this one’s a go.” Those
final minutes of countdown seemed unnaturally short, as the lead troop
stepped forward quietly to cross the start line and blow their way into the
first compound.
The commandos had pushed into their waiting positions in traditional style,
moving out from their base on foot under cover of night, laden with weapons
and munitions: the bombers, the gun-groups, the assault sections, the
forward air-controllers and the medics.
Their mission, one of the largest undertaken by 3 Commando Brigade since its
arrival in Afghanistan last autumn, was to attack and clear positions used
by the Taleban on the north bank of the Helmand river, from where the
insurgents threaten reconstruction work on the hydroelectric station at the
Kajaki Dam.
Backed by American money, Chinese engineers are due to start work on the dam’s
power station before spring, but will not do so until a security zone with a
radius of six kilometres (about 3½ miles) has been created around the area.
In one of Afghanistan’s many horse-and-cart scenarios, local civilians will be
employed on the site once the project is under way. This is intended to
undermine the insurgency by inflating the district’s economy. But for it to
happen, fighting must come first.
H-hour, and the thump of mortar bombs broke the night’s silence, exploding
just behind the first objective. Under cover of the detonations, a team of
commando engineers crept forward to lay a breach charge against the
compound’s thick earthen walls. Seconds later it blew, and Marines from 11
troop, M company, stormed through the breach to the thump of grenades and
crackle of gunfire.
There is much talk of a Taleban spring offensive in Afghanistan. But for the M
company Marines based in Kajaki, the past six weeks have already been filled
with fighting in which the initiative has been their own. Indeed, 11 troop’s
23-year-old commander, a second lieutenant who completed his training in
December, has already led his men into assaults in which they have fixed
bayonets on at least four occasions.
10 troop followed on into the assault immediately behind these Marines and, as
the first glimmers of dawn appeared, the sky clattered with rotor blades. A
huge air operation, involving a Nimrod, B1 bombers, F18 jets, Harriers,
Apache attack helicopters and UAV surveillance drones, was backing the
attack. From 35,000ft down to 500ft, the air was allocated.
As 10 troop moved in a fast, hunched shuffle across the open ground to their
target, a neighbouring compound, the complexities of the objective became
apparent quickly.
The compounds, part of Shomali Ghulbah, a large curving settlement set in an
undulating plain of sand and shingle, were protected by 10ft walls.
“They are ninja,” a Marine forward air-controller had told me two days
earlier. “Those walls have had hundred of years worth of baked mud and brick
built into them. You can fire what you like at them with little noticeable
effect.”
As the Marines scrambled inside, I saw a disorientating labyrinth of narrow
internal alleys connected by crawl holes, interspersed with well shafts and
tunnels.
If not the most sophisticated of enemies, the Taleban are nevertheless expert
in using their compounds from which to fight. The majority are locals from
the district, who know every twist, turn, trench and firing point in the
area. The Marines had to clear every corner of the winding maze of each
compound before they could move on.
If they judged it appropriate, the assault teams entered through doorways. If
not, they blew through the walls with explosives and moved through —
either without shooting, or using grenades and gunfire. Such is the network
of tunnels beneath Shomali Ghulbah that the grenade explosions wobbled the
ground beneath their feet.
At first, no combat was given. In classic insurgent style, the Taleban had
melted away from the attack.
But just over an hour into the assault, and with the M company Marines barely
a quarter of the way through clearing their objectives, the first Taleban
fire came in on the west flank of 10 troop, followed by a rocket-propelled
grenade.
From their positions among the wadi beds and compound roofs, some Marines
returned fire. Then an Apache helicopter circled, guided to its target by a
forward air-controller.
There is a love-hate relationship between the Apache and fighters on the
ground in Afghanistan. The Marines love it. The Taleban hate it.
“Have an Apache guarding your flank and you know you’ll be all right,” said
Captain William Mackenzie-Green, 10 troop’s commander, as the helicopter
wheeled overhead. “The Taleban can’t stand it, though. We know from their
intercepted communications that they call it ‘the mosquito’. They know
exactly how long its flight time is to reach us, and so know exactly how
long they have got to fight before hiding.”
This time though, the Taleban did not hide quickly enough. A Hellfire rocket
from an Apache hit the building from which they were firing. A watching
air-controller confirmed three dead.
Blown through the roof, one of the Taleban dead lay in a field. A figure
rushed forward to collect the body in a wheelbarrow. Another picked up a
severed arm.
Carrying no visible weapon, they could not be engaged. “Their casualty
evacuation procedure is as good as ours,” Captain Mackenzie-Green said.
“They sweep up their dead and wounded immediately. We seldom find the
bodies.”
There is a certain sneaking respect among the Marines for their enemy. Though
they do not regard the Taleban as especially competent, the Marines
acknowledge their courage in the hammering they have received from British
forces in recent weeks.
“To stand up and fight when I am dropping all that ordnance on them is pretty
good” admitted Captain Al Cairns, a Marine forward air-controller. “I have
to respect that.”
No single Taleban has surrendered to the British around Kajaki. Though
preferring to fight, then withdraw at the last moment, they are prepared to
die in position if surrounded.
A sharper gunfight began soon afterwards as seven or eight Taleban again fired
on 10 troop’s flank. The exchange lasted for several minutes as the Marines,
deployed along the walls and roof of a compound, engaged their foes across
an open field.
Captain Cairns again brought in the Apache, which strafed the Taleban with .30
cannon fire. They died.
Of civilians there was no sign. Most fled the area last summer.
Their absence is at once an asset and a hindrance to the Marines. In the short
term, the battles can at least be fought in a relatively “clean” environment.
However, without the manpower to consolidate the ground that they clear, the
Marines’ operations conclude with their returning to base. Knowing that the
area that the British have left will soon be an area of renewed fighting
between the Marines and returning Taleban, Afghan civilians do not go back
to their abandoned homes. Hence Kajaki’s widening “security zone” is in
danger of becoming a depopulated area.
“The situation is much less secure for us now than it was eight months ago,”
said a 50-year-old Afghan engineer, who chose not to be named, in the nearby
town of Kajaki Olya. Two of his sons were killed when cannon-fire from an
aircraft supporting a British operation weeks ago overshot its target and
killed them in a field.
Though civilian deaths have been rare, at least 14 have been killed by
aircraft around Kajaki since December. “Most of the people around here are
frightened that the aircraft may drop bombs on them,” the man said.
The British are powerful and go to a place. The Taleban run away. Then the
British leave and the Taleban come back. We are innocent people between two
sides.”
By midday M company had consolidated at their farthest objective in Shomali
Ghulbah as another company came up and advanced.
A few Taleban had been killed by Apaches on the flanks but the Marines’ main
advance had been unchallenged.
The men mused on their enemy’s absence. After so many weeks of fighting some
seemed faintly relieved.
Sergeant Gary Tomms, of 10 troop, recalled the visit made by Tony Blair to see
them in Afghanistan last year. “He seemed quite emotional when we told him
that we wanted to get out there and smash them,” Sgt Tomms said in an East
End accent. “Looked almost teary. I was like ‘steady on Tone’.”
As an F18 bombed Taleban trenches on a distant hill the clouds darkened and
the rain came down in heavy, lancing sheets.
Finally, having cleared their objectives, without the loss of a single Marine,
the two companies regrouped and returned slowly to base as the night fell
once more. It was a lengthy march back. The wadis had been filled with
knee-high running water; the flat fields turned to rinks of sliding mud.
Behind the Marines, the silent, abandoned compounds disappeared back into
the blackness.
And just over 12 hours later, early yesterday afternoon, 14 rockets slammed
into the area around the Marines’ Kajaki base, fired from the north bank of
the Helmand river.
The Taleban were back.
Civil power
Situated on the Helmand river, the Kajaki dam is 300ft high, 900ft long and
holds back 1.85 million cubic metres of water in a 32-mile long reservoir
The original Kajaki dam was built by the Soviet Union in 1955 as part of
Cold War attempts to extend political influence over the country In 1973 the
US rebuilt the dam, installing turbines and reopening it as a hydroelectric
power facility
One of the few development projects completed by the Taleban, the electrical
transmission lines connecting the dam to Kandahar are particularly
vulnerable to attack. They have been rebuilt several times since first being
damaged in a 2001 airstrike
If successful, the planned restoration of the dam and its transmission lines
will provide power to nearly two million people in southern Afghanistan
About one million people can be fed from fields irrigated by the dam. Its
regulation of the water supply makes possible year-round cultivation of
wheat
Beyond its practical value, the struggle to secure and repair the Kajaki dam
has become a symbol of the wider reconstruction effort in Afghanistan
Sources: Times archives; Reliefweb.int; US Energy Information Administration
