HOWZAT

So it was that they devised Operation Tsuka (Eagle’s Summit) — their biggest military venture since US-led forces invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 to topple the Taleban Government as punishment for shielding Osama bin Laden.

By the time the operation was over, it had involved 5,000 troops, hundreds more special forces, at least 100 vehicles, 30 helicopters, 20 fighter jets, two reconnaissance planes and a sniffer dog: a springer spaniel called Pip.

Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, the 44-year-old commander of British forces in Helmand, hailed it as one of the British Army’s biggest logistics operations since the Second World War.

“I think in terms of the logistical and engineering challenges it’s probably been the most significant British military undertaking certainly for a generation, maybe several generations, since the Western desert, the crossing the Rhine etc,” he said.

“Whilst at the same time one wouldn’t want to overexaggerate the scale of the operation, it was one that employed approximately 4,500 troops. It was across incredibly complex terrain and very significant strategic distance and those are physical challenges that the British Army has not had to confront for a very long time.”

It was also the first time that the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the Parachute Regiment had fought together since the Battle of Arnhem, he said.

More importantly, it represented a turning point in Afghanistan’s biggest reconstruction project, the restoration of the Kajaki Dam, amid mounting public frustration at the lack of development here since 2001.

The 330ft dam was built in 1953 to provide electricity and irrigation for two million people in Helmand and Kandahar provinces. The power station was designed for three turbines, but only two were installed and they fell into disrepair after the Soviet Union withdrew its troops in 1989.

The United States began to restore the plant in 2004, promising to repair its two existing turbines and install a third one to generate a combined total of 53 megawatts of power for the provinces of Kandahar and Helmand — now at the centre of the insurgency and the opium trade. Millions of people live without power for basic facilities such as domestic water pumps. One turbine was fixed in 2005, but the $100 million project ground to a halt after British troops began defending Kajaki in 2006 and found themselves surrounded by the Taleban.

As the insurgency intensified and spread, Kajaki became the most potent symbol of the international community’s failure to meet its pledges to rebuild the country. “It is essential for us to . . . get the turbine in,” said Gulab Mangal, the governor of Helmand shortly before the operation. Mr Mangal lobbied President Karzai and the British and America ambassadors for help.

The biggest problem facing Nato commanders was security as the approach to Kajaki, Highway 611, was largely controlled by the Taleban and riddled with improvised explosive devices and Soviet-era mines.

So they sent a “pathfinder” reconnaissance team to find a new route through the desert, codenamed Harriet, while appearing to make preparations along Highway 611. They then deployed hundreds of British and US special forces to clear a corridor on each side of Harriet, and disguised the turbine equipment as shipping containers, plastering each with a poster covered in quotes from the Koran.

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