Ross Kemp on Afghanistan Read online

  The officer rolled up his sleeve to show me one of his battle scars. It was a wicked-looking thing, stretching the length of his arm. He grinned at me. ‘Sangin!’ he explained. 'Nuff said.

  Company Sergeant Major John Crown agreed with Dave Middleton's analysis of the ANA. ‘You'll see them do things and you'll stand in awe of their bravery. I've stood sometimes watching them and thought, you're completely crazy or you've got no fear. It's like a hunt. They've seen the enemy in a compound and they'll go across open fields to destroy that enemy.’

  In my view, John was touching on a crucial aspect of the Afghan psyche, one of the biggest things that makes them such a formidable fighting force. Many of them – both Taliban and non-Taliban – believe that the day of their death is pre-ordained. As a result, they don't fear fighting or bullets or suicide bombers. If they're supposed to die, they will die; if they're not supposed to die, they'll survive. Simple as that. I understood that it could make being alongside them a pretty lively experience and I asked Dave if he found it difficult reining them in. He nodded a bit ruefully. ‘We call it riding the dragon,’ he said. ‘You never know quite where you're going to end up.’

  The next day I was due to go out on an operation with the Irish and the ANA. I'd be able to ride the dragon for myself and find out how two different cultures, with two very different styles of fighting, operate under fire.

  In order to stop the Taliban from taking back the town of Musa Qala, ISAF forces had built a ring of five fortified patrol bases around the town. To the south was a fortification known as US Patrol Base South. This had been in the hands of the Taliban, but just a week ago the Royal Irish and the ANA had retaken it. Things had been quiet there for the last three or four days, but before that it had been the scene of heavy fighting. At 06.50 on the morning after I had met the senior ANA officers, we prepared to head to the USPB, where we would unload our kit and then go out on patrol. We didn't really know what we'd find when we got there.

  USPB South is one of the most exposed patrol bases in the Musa Qala area. The road leading to it at the time was frequently IED'd. I wasn't thrilled to be making the journey in a Pinzgauer; you really don't want to be in one of these poorly armoured vehicles if it goes up. The base itself comes under regular attack; as a result the roof of the base is armed with two heavy machine guns – a fifty-cal and a Russian DShK, or Dushka – and these would be supporting us as we went out on our operation. A contingent of the ANA were on the roof as I arrived, vigilantly looking out over the green zone.

  I took the opportunity to speak to Bombardier Michael Hogan, who told me a bit more about what I could expect from the ANA when we went out in the field. ‘They don't look very good patrolling,’ he told me. ‘They'll sometimes have their rifles on their shoulders and all that kind of stuff. You'd think that they're slack. But they can tell when something's wrong and straightaway you'll see them become so alert. The minute something happens they're there right beside you, firing.’

  Only time would tell whether they would need to do that on this operation.

  When the British soldiers go out on patrol, they carry a huge amount of equipment: weapon systems, body armour, water and ammunition. The ANA, on the other hand, travel light. Many of them decline to wear body armour or even helmets, choosing instead to put their faith in their religion; but it couldn't be said that they were totally free of vanity. As they lined up, a number of them had ammunition belts hung round their necks and bandanas round their heads. Rambo chic was the order of the day.

  The ANA were tasked to lead this mission, checking the ground for mines and potential threats as we headed 2 klicks south. Everybody appeared pretty confident that we'd bump into the enemy at some point. The ground surrounding the USPB was bare, stony earth. No trees or fields of maize for cover. I felt vulnerable as we walked across it; I felt even more vulnerable when, as we left the base, the Royal Irish performed a test fire of their weapons. The guns were fully competent, but it also meant the enemy knew we were on our way.

  We were able to rely on the full resources available to us. Fast air – and their accompanying 500-pound laser-guided bombs – could be called in from Kandahar Air Base. Heavy artillery was situated to the north-west of Musa Qala at Forward Operating Base Edinburgh. This was 8 kilometres away, but the 105mm shells that the Royal Artillery were able to fire from their light field guns were accurate over a range of 15 klicks or more. At the ops room in Musa Qala DC, Major Andy Thompson coordinated the operation. His team kept in contact with the troops on the ground by radio and he was able to benefit from one of the battle group's more temperamental assets. Radio-controlled spy planes – or drones – could be flown over enemy positions. They send back footage that is often difficult to interpret, but equally often provides invaluable tactical information.

  All in all, then, some pretty formidable backup. But despite all the modern technology, battles are still won by troops on the ground. And it's easy to forget about spy planes when the only thing that separates you from the enemy is a bullet.

  We started approaching cultivated land – maize fields and lines of trees. There was a deep, unnatural silence – the sort of silence of which I'd learned to be suspicious. As I crouched in a shallow ditch between two open fields with Dave Middleton, he agreed. Up ahead we watched as a couple of ANA scouts approached a local whom they believed to be a dicker. Dave explained that the ANA, even though they're not from Helmand Province, were more in tune with what was going on and in a better position to judge who was informing on us and who was not. But having the ANA along served another, perhaps more crucial purpose. There were farmers in the fields around us and it was no secret that these people would be very reluctant to speak to ISAF forces when they knew the Taliban were in the area. Afghan forces, however, were more approachable.

  We started walking towards some nearby compounds. One of the ANA interpreters approached a local. He was poorly dressed – I was constantly reminded of how poor this country was – and crouched by an outlet of fresh running water. The local was happy to talk to the ANA man and he gave us good intelligence: that the enemy were concentrated in compounds to the south of where we were. Dave said it was a good sign that they were choosing to help us; and having been out on the ground without the ANA, I could already see what an advantage this was. But we hadn't come out to sit and chat with the locals. We headed south.

  Passing through several more farmed compounds, we found evidence of Helmand Province's main cash crop. The poppy stalks had already been leached of their precious resin and were now stacked up high against a compound wall, ready to be used as kindling in the winter – nothing goes to waste in Afghanistan. The sun grew hotter and more uncomfortable; so did the stares we received from the locals we passed. As we edged nearer to the compound where we believed the Taliban to be, there was clearly going to be no chance of collaboration, even with the ANA forces. In fact, for all we knew, the fighting-age men we were passing could actually be Taliban. On the high ground to the west we saw the telltale sign of a motorcyclist. Nobody seemed to be in any doubt that this was a dicker. The enemy knew where we were and were watching us. It was just a matter of time before they engaged.

  More open ground. We crossed it at full pelt. As soon as we hit the cover of some compounds, the firing started. A round whizzed over my head and I dived backwards on to John the cameraman, cracking the camera's microphone in the process.

  ‘You've broken the camera!’ he shouted at me.

  ‘Well,’ I yelled back, ‘that makes it 3–1.’ (John had quite understandably dropped the camera three times under fire. Still, why let a little thing like a shower of AK rounds and a couple of RPGs get in the way of us having a bit of a bitch?)

  The ANA broke into the compound and we managed to gaffer-tape the camera back together; meanwhile, some of the Irish went out in order to get an assessment of where the enemy were. Word came back that we had enemy to the south engaging across open ground. It meant we had to make another dash o
ut in the open while the soldiers provided covering fire. Rounds cracked in the air as we ran; it was an out-of-breath camera team that took refuge in a watery ditch running along a compound wall. From this position the soldiers could fire on the enemy, keep them pinned down and wait for fast air to be called in.

  The Irish and the ANA traded fire with the Taliban. They knew where we were and were giving as good as they got. The Irish stayed low, protected by the ditch as they fired on the enemy position. Not so the ANA: I watched in astonishment as one of them stood up on the edge of the ditch and fired towards the enemy as casually as if he was watering his garden. Despite this show of bravery – some people might call it something else – we were now taking fire from the south and the south-west. The fast air had not yet arrived and so Dave Middleton made the decision to call in an artillery strike on the compound to the south-west.

  The request was called into the operations room at Musa Qala DC, along with the exact location of where the Taliban were located. At FOB Edinburgh 7 klicks away they started adjusting their sights and loading the 105mm shells into their field guns. I watched from the ditch, waiting for the artillery to splash. When it did, you could see the devastation it caused just by looking at the cloud of smoke that was kicked up on impact. Five shells hit in quick succession while the lads back in the ops room coordinated the air strike. We sent up a plume of green smoke to identify our position to the incoming aircraft and waited for a very big bang.

  The jet came from nowhere, filling the sky with its roar. The bomb hit the firing point to the south; the ground shook; another great cloud of smoke billowed up into the air. ‘Splash,’ Dave Middleton shouted. ‘Bang on with a five-hundred-pounder.’ If the remaining Taliban thought that was it, they were wrong: the artillery at FOB Edinburgh continued to rain 105mm shells into their compounds. They were taking a battering.

  But the job wasn't done yet: we were still getting incoming. Back at the operations room, a spy plane had revealed enemy holed up in another compound 150 metres to the south of where we were. The ANA secured the compound next to which we were dug in and the troops entered while Dave Middleton took stock of the situation. The enemy were retreating towards an area known to the ISAF forces as Taliban Crossroads. Dave Middleton called in another 500-pound bomb to cut them off. It splashed right on target. The 105s continued to rain as we pushed south along the ditch towards the enemy. Shrapnel from the artillery was flying over our heads and hitting the compound.

  The firing had stopped. In the compound the soldiers started to reload their weapons. Many of them had shaking hands – nothing to do with fear, but rather a mixture of extreme adrenaline, the shockwaves caused by the artillery and fast-air strikes and the strain of constantly firing their rifles. Looking back on the tapes of that day, I saw that I myself had the 1,000-yard stare. It had been a gruelling few hours. Now, though, the patrol was running low on ammo and Dave Middleton needed to decide whether to keep pushing south and see what state the enemy were in, or to return to the USPB. He made his decision snappily: we would return to base, and he called for covering fire to support us as we prepared to make the return journey over open ground.

  But as soon as Dave made his decision, he had to change his mind. ‘Cancel withdraw! Cancel withdraw!’ We had started taking yet more enemy fire. So far the Taliban had been hit with two 500-pound bombs, fifteen 105mm artillery shells and hundreds of rounds. But those of them left were still prepared to fight. No wonder the soldiers respected their enemy. Yet again the air was full of the crashing of weaponry. The enemy had returned to the compound that had been hit by the artillery. In order to engage them fully, the Irish and the ANA were going to have to leave their own compound and return to the ditch from which they had been firing previously.

  It was an Afghan soldier who managed to lob an RPG over the enemy compound wall. A direct hit; our Afghan Rambo looked distinctly pleased with himself.

  Back in the ops room, another artillery strike was being prepared. In the meantime, the Irish and the ANA had to keep the Taliban pinned down. With ammo running low, they couldn't just unleash a barrage of firepower. They slowed down their rate of fire, but it was still enough to stop the enemy moving.

  The artillery strike arrived, a massive explosion that we hoped would silence the enemy once and for all. We couldn't stay any longer – it was just a matter of time before we ran out of ammunition, and for the time being there was no air support, so we had to start the dangerous journey back to the USPB. The ANA continued to give covering fire as the order came down for us to leave the compound and start walking.

  The company performed a leapfrogging manoeuvre, one group covering the other as they performed our tactical withdrawal. To be honest I was pretty lost at this point and didn't really know what was going on. It was a quick, exhausting extraction – sweat poured from me as I ran in the midday heat. Eventually we came safely within eyeshot of the base and then we stopped. We could see our destination; we could see the manned weapons systems perched on the roof. But between us and safety was 500 metres of open ground.

  The sound of artillery shells in the distance was our signal to cross the open ground between us and the USPB. We had been told there was a risk that this ground had been IED'd, but I tried to put that thought from my mind. What else could I do? As we approached the base, a French fighter jet roared overhead. The noise of its engines was deafening as it looped upwards and then disappeared into the distance. This was a show of force, intended to intimidate any remaining Taliban. I couldn't say how well it worked, but it would certainly have had me running for cover…

  It felt good to be back within the safety of the USPB walls. It had been an eventful morning. Ten unconfirmed Taliban kills and a number injured. We'd been out for six hours and it was now swelteringly hot. My shirt was so wet with sweat it was dripping. I thanked the ANA and had a quick chat with the Bombardier. His debrief was short and to the point: ‘We took the fight to the enemy and we're all back in one piece.’

  I washed my shirt out, then went off to find myself a much needed cup of tea with the lads.

  17. ‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death’

  Human beings adjust quickly to their environment. The soldiers at Musa Qala DC were in the zone, and so too were we. Weight might have dropped off me, my clothes and body armour might have been brown and stained from sweat and dirt, but I felt I had slotted into the routine of accompanying the soldiers out on patrol, doing what we did not in a blasé way but with a weird sense of normality. More importantly, I felt we had been accepted by the men of Delta.

  My final patrol was approaching. We were to head north to the FLET. This was in the green zone and there was no ISAF patrol base in this area. Other patrol bases had open ground around them, but the trouble with setting one up in the green zone is that you're totally vulnerable to attack. Delta Company's task was to install themselves in the region of Compound 69 and engage the Taliban from this position, with a view to judging the response we got from the enemy and determining whether this was a suitable location to establish a new patrol base. A base in this part of the green zone would allow the ISAF troops to push the FLET further north and we were on a test run, to see just how badly the Taliban would react.

  Compound 69 was about 200 metres to the south-west of Compound 71, which was the compound that had been demolished by bombs from the F-16 during Operation Cap Fox, my first with 5 Scots. We headed north up the Musa Qala wadi by Mastiff and I sat for the 3-klick journey with OC Nick Calder. Around us, locals travelled up and down the wadi, riding motorcycles or pushing wheelbarrows. Many of these wheelbarrows were ancient and held together by pins, reminding me that the Afghans live in a world very different from our disposable one. Anything that can be reused or recycled is; they can't afford to live in a throwaway society. But were these people ordinary civilians or Taliban dickers? Nick told me he would be ‘very surprised if they hadn't seen us leaving the front of the camp. There's probably someone on a
motorbike somewhere, or somebody out on the ground with a communications system, telling commanders where we are and what we're doing.’

  We dismounted at the drop-off point on the edge of the green zone. It's never an easy moment, getting out of that protective metal shell and on to open ground. There's also a strange vibe between the soldiers going out on the ground and those driving the vehicles. 2 Scots were infantrymen too, and you could sense mixed emotions coming from them as they hoped we would be safe but also wished they were coming with us.

  As we crossed open ground to leave the wadi, we were dangerously exposed. To add to the tension, Taliban Icom chatter started to come through, confirming that we were in their sights. Was that true, or were the Taliban just messing with us? Impossible to tell, and somehow that just made it worse.

  We made it into the green zone without incident, but when we got there we encountered a problem with the radios. Some of Delta Company's radios had the wrong ‘fill’, which meant they could not communicate properly with the base. The controllers back at the DC wanted us to remain static in the green zone while they sent up new fills for the radios.

  Nick Calder, always cool under fire, became uncharacteristically edgy as he delivered his orders. ‘I'm pretty unhappy with that,’ he said. ‘It means we're static at this location. Tell them we'll push down south and give them an RV.’ He stared at his map, paused, and then looked up again. ‘In fact,’ he announced, ‘tell them to fuck off.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Bruce the JTAC murmured.

  ‘Tell them to fuck off and sort it out. Do they know how long it takes to refill fucking thirty radios?’

  Bruce gave a sheepish smile. ‘Shall I use those exact words, sir?’ he asked.

  Nick didn't have time to reply. At that moment the sound of an RPG explosion rang through the air. The OC was right: there was no way we could sit around here waiting for the radios to be fixed. We were vulnerable and needed cover. Once we were laid up within the safety of a compound, the guys could deal with the communications problem; but first we needed to make ourselves safe.