Bomb Hunters: In Afghanistan With Britain's Elite Bomb Disposal Unit (31 page)

‘The lads did well. It was quite slow at the beginning, which is what you would expect and want really, because the last thing you would want is for the team to rush the job, but on the whole I’m pleased. I think we’ll make a good team,’ says Woody as we walk back to our Warrior. By the time we arrive back at FOB Shawqat, most of the soldiers are too tired to talk. Weapons are unloaded in the firing bay and the search and IEDD teams silently disperse in the hope of a good night’s sleep in preparation for another mission tomorrow.

It’s 8 a.m. the following morning. Woody had been hoping for a slack day to sort out some personal administration and catch up on some report-writing, but it’s not to be. Over the past few weeks members of the ANP have been arriving at the gates of the compound belonging to the Nad-e’Ali district governor, Habiullah Khan, with a wide variety of unstable and highly dangerous unexploded munitions, such as RPGs, mortar bombs and artillery shells. These explosives which have failed to function are called ‘blinds’ by the British troops. Some of the munitions have been used recently against the British by the Taliban, while others are believed to be remnants of the Soviet invasion. Woody has been tasked to ‘dispose’ of them. It is a routine job both he and Boonie could do without.

Woody, Boonie, the Intelligence Officer of the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, which will be relieving the Grenadier Guards in the next few weeks, and a member of the Weapons Intelligence Section rendezvous at the ANP headquarters with Wali Mohammed, the regional head of the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan equivalent of MI5. Wali Mohammed is a shrewd character with sharp eyes and a ready smile. It is said that he has connections with everyone who matters, including the Taliban, and little happens in Helmand without his knowledge. For this former Mujahideen commander, the AK-47 and the RPG used to be the weapons of choice, but these days his battles are fought using a pair of mobile phones. I have met him many times and he’s is always polite and warm. But what you see with Wali is certainly not what you get. Governor Habiullah Khan might be the official head of the Nad-e’Ali district, but I have always been left with the feeling that Wali is the real power behind the throne.

Wali tells Woody that all of the bombs and main charges were found by the ANP in the area of Shin Kalay, a small hamlet with a strong Taliban presence a few kilometres from FOB Shawqat. We are led outside to a haul of artillery shells, rockets, mortar rounds and IED main charges. All of the munitions have been fired and are in a relatively unstable state. One of the ANP officers moves over to the pile, picks up an RPG warhead, studies it, then drops it casually on the ground, much to everyone’s alarm. Back in the UK, unexploded ordnance would never be treated with such disdain. Out of the corner of my eye I can see the intelligence officer backing away with a look of sheer terror on his face. Woody immediately tells the interpreter to warn the ANP officer to treat the blinds with a little more respect.

I ask Boonie whether the blinds are safe. ‘They should be, but you shouldn’t be chucking them around like that,’ he tells me. Woody smiles at me and adds, ‘Unnerving, isn’t it?’ The hairs on the back of my neck begin to rise.

Speaking through the interpreter, Woody patiently tells Wali Mohammed about the danger of soldiers bringing in blinds and the need to treat them safely. ‘These are very dangerous items and could explode if not treated correctly. Your men should be told that these need to be handled with care. They don’t always have to bring them in. They could leave them where they are and we would go and destroy them. That is the safest way.’ Wali smiles and explains that he understands but his men have grown up in a country littered with mines and rockets and they hold no fear for them.

The blinds will be taken back to the British base and kept there securely before being taken into the desert and destroyed with a load of other unexploded ordnance, while the palm-oil containers, the main charges of the IEDs recovered by the ANP, will be destroyed in an adjacent field.

We walk to a corner of a field where there is a 10-ft-deep irrigation ditch running the length of the field, about 600 metres from the camp perimeter. The two large palm-oil containers each hold around 10 kg of HME. Woody prepares the plastic explosive which will be used to detonate the HME and begins moulding it into a ball. Rather than using an electric detonator, he is using a strip of fuse wire.

‘When we light this,’ Woody tells the interpreter, pointing at the fuse wire, ‘we have two minutes to get away.’ The terp repeats the message and there is nervous laughter among the ANP. Seconds later Woody lights the fuse and we all start walking across the field at a brisk pace, occasionally looking back over our shoulder. Woody stops walking and begins to give a countdown – thirty seconds, twenty seconds, ten seconds – and, right on queue, detonation, the ground in the distance rising up like a scene from the First World War.

‘That would ruin your day if it went off underneath you,’ he says. Non-survivable on foot, it would blow a Jackal in two and would do serious damage to a Mastiff, so it’s pretty nasty stuff.

‘It was like
Zulu
. The Taliban just kept coming and coming. It was suicidal. The more they sent, the more we killed.’

Dean Bailey, 5 Platoon Sergeant, No. 2 Company, Grenadier Guards battlegroup

The IED had been the Taliban’s weapon of choice since the middle of 2008, but among NATO troops in Afghanistan, especially the British in Helmand, casualties caused by blast only really began to soar in early 2009. The volume of bombs being laid by the Taliban was completely unpredicted, and initially this turned the conflict into a stalemate.

By the time I was embedded with the Grenadier Guards in March 2010 almost every soldier serving in the dozens of different FOBs and PBs which peppered the Helmand landscape had encountered an IED in one capacity or another. The IED was a weapon all soldiers rightly feared but, in the best traditions of the British Army, commanders believed that the best way to defeat the significant psychological effect the IED presented was offensive action.

This approach was typified by what became known as the Battle of Crossing Point One, which took place in November 2009, just hours after the brutal murders of five members of the Grenadier Guards battlegroup at Blue 25.

It was in that same month, during a previous embed with the Grenadier Guards, that I first learned about the events at Crossing Point One. I had intended to visit the soldiers at the time but so ferocious was the battle that it was too dangerous to fly in by helicopter. Reluctantly, I had to wait another four months, until March 2010, to discover what befell a small, isolated group of British soldiers who, with guile and cunning, out-thought the Taliban and used the insurgents’ favoured weapons – the IED – against them. One afternoon I sat down with members of No. 2 Company, who told me how they fought and survived one of the most extraordinary battles of the conflict to date. This is their story.

Morale was low, probably the lowest it had been. The men of the Grenadier Guards battlegroup knew that they would take casualties during their time in Afghanistan. Soldiers learn to live with the knowledge that in the Army death is part of their way of life. But no one had expected that British soldiers would be killed by those they were trying to help.

The deaths at Blue 25 were a hammer blow for the battlegroup. The gunman, Gulbuddin, had killed without mercy and the Taliban were gloating, claiming that he was one of theirs, a spy who joined the police with the sole aim of killing British troops.

But up in Luy Mandah, in the north of Nad-e’Ali, British soldiers were about to strike back. Major Richard Green, the officer commanding No. 2 Company, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, had been planning an ambush which would exploit the Taliban’s fondness for attacking the casualty evacuation chain. It is important at this juncture to make clear that the ambush, which would have dramatic consequences, was not an act of retribution. The ambush was supposed to have been launched some weeks earlier but it was aborted for logistical reasons. Major Green was also determined that when it was launched the risk to the local population would be zero. Countering the insurgency, as he constantly told his men, would not be achieved by killing or injuring local people.

Attacking the casevacs was a popular Taliban sport, especially when the injured soldier was the victim of an IED. The Taliban knew that British soldiers would at times act recklessly in order to save the life of a severely wounded colleague. The Taliban had watched and learned well. They had studied British tactics and had been able to predict their actions. Now it was time to turn the insurgents’ tactics against them. So, on the evening of Tuesday, 3 November, just hours after the murder at Blue 25, a plan which had been in the pipeline for some time came into action.

In the short while that the Grenadier Guards had been in Helmand they had learned to live with the fear of knowing that they risked life and limb every time they left the safety of a base. The maxim ‘Knowledge dispels fear’ is often cited by instructors in the armed forces when training soldiers for dangerous tasks such as parachuting and bomb disposal, but in Helmand fear often plays a vital role. In many cases fear is an essential element in staying alive. Fear prevents complacency and promotes respect for the enemy’s capabilities. Practically every soldier fighting on the front line has either witnessed or knows of men who have been blown to pieces or suffered horrendous, life-changing injuries through being blown up.

Vast areas of Taliban-controlled Helmand had effectively become minefields where soldiers literally feared to tread and in some bases units were sustaining 20 per cent casualties. Towards the end of 2009 the volume of IEDs being laid by the Taliban had fixed the British troops within specific boundaries from where the insurgents would attack and ambush at will. By the end of the Grenadiers’ tour, in March 2010, the battlegroup alone would have experienced some 1,000 IED incidents. Movement beyond these boundaries was at best highly dangerous and at worst suicidal. Small incursions into enemy territory risked unnecessary casualties among the British forces and threatened to damage or undermine the morale of the troops.

But under General McChrystal’s strategy of protecting the civilian population centres, it was imperative that ISAF did not remain inside fortified compounds, safe and secure but isolated from the people they were supposedly trying to protect. The butcher’s bill for such a strategy was high and the highest price being paid in the autumn of 2009 was that paid by the British. The casualty rate of the British force in late 2009 and early 2010 outstripped that of every other NATO country in Afghanistan, including the United States.

In September 2009, No. 2 Company were deployed to the northern tip of Nad-e’Ali, in an area known as Luy Mandah, where they relieved the soldiers of 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, who had fought in Operation Panchai Palang. The battalion suffered many casualties and the Welsh Guards were also the first regiment to lose their commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe, in the Afghan War.

Number Two Company’s headquarters was FOB Waheed, which was essentially a large fortified compound sitting on the junction between the Luy Mandah Wadi and the Nahr-e-Burgha and Shamalan canals. The area had once been the centre of a thriving community with a bazaar but it had long been deserted by the time the Grenadiers arrived. It was now Taliban territory, with a small, transient civilian population who worked on their farms during the days and returned at night to their families in more secure parts of the district.

The company were based in three locations in the Luy Mandah area. As well being the company headquarters, FOB Waheed was the base for 6 Platoon, along with interpreters, mainly from Kabul, a Fire Support Group (FSG), an additional Fire Support Team (FST) from 1st Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, a section of Grenadier Mortars, an Electronic Warfare Detachment and two sections of engineers.

The soldiers of 5 Platoon and elements of the FSG were located in a compound known as Crossing Point One, while 4 Platoon, with elements of the company headquarters, were housed at another nearby location, known as Crossing Point Luy Mandah.

When the Grenadiers arrived in Luy Mandah they entered a hostile environment. The company headquarters and its two satellite bases were surrounded on three sides by various insurgent groups, who were well armed and composed of experienced fighters, while to the north was the desert. The vast majority of locals had fled, and some of those who had remained were probably sympathetic to the Taliban. The area was also one of the few in Helmand where ISAF troops did not partner either the Afghan Army or the Afghan Police.

Nevertheless, life ticked along for No. 2 Company, and they enjoyed being detached from the battalion headquarters and out of sight of senior officers and the thunderous voice of Regimental Sergeant Major Darren Chant. The painful heat of the late summer was behind them and the soldiers quickly established a routine. Boredom had yet to raise its head as it was still early in the tour, and quiet periods were inevitably ended by a shoot-and-scoot attack by the Taliban. But everything changed in early October.

Although only 20, Guardsman James Janes was, in the eyes of many of the more inexperienced soldiers in 6 Platoon, an old hand. He had previously served in Helmand in 2007 and was widely trusted by everyone within the unit, especially his commander, Lieutenant Alex Rawlings, and platoon sergeant, Chris Dougerty.

Jamie fulfilled a long-held ambition when at the age of 16 he was selected for training at Harrogate Foundation College before moving on to complete his infantry recruit training at nearby Catterick. Although one of the youngest on the course he passed out with little difficulty and was posted to the Grenadier Guards. While the rest of the battalion deployed to Helmand in 2007, Jamie, still only 17, was forced to wait until his eighteenth birthday before he could join his mates in the province. Two years later Jamie volunteered to become one of the platoon searchers. Jamie’s job was to be point man, searching ahead for IEDs with a Vallon mine detector, putting himself at risk not only from hidden bombs but also from insurgent snipers. Despite the dangers, Jamie relished the challenge.

On 5 October 2009, by which time the company had pretty much established their presence in Luy Mandah, Jamie’s section was attached to an Irish Guards multiple of around sixteen men. A platoon of ‘The Micks’, as the Irish Guards are fondly known, was attached to the battlegroup as much-needed reinforcements. The mission that day was to conduct a patrol in the area of Checkpoint Luy Mandah. The plan was to move along and clear a track, which had not been used for many months, up to a canal bridge, and obtain any intelligence from local farmers, if there was any, before returning back to their base. The route took the troops directly into what was effectively Taliban-controlled territory. On one side of the track, which was around 5 ft wide, was a canal and on the other was a small wall forming the boundary of a pomegranate orchard. In any other circumstances it would have been an idyllic setting, but that day the track became a route into hell.

The platoon moved along the track in three distinct groups, each led by a Vallon operator at the head of an eight-man section. The guardsmen forming the lead element of 4 Platoon quickly began to identify suspected IEDs on the track. It was immediately clear that the route had been heavily mined. Jamie’s section, which was bringing up the rear, moved along the track carefully, giving the marked IEDs a wide berth. By the time the platoon had reached the canal bridge, at least six IEDs had been identified.

The patrol moved down into the canal, where the cold water was waist-deep, and continued with the patrol for around 50 metres before turning back. Jamie was one of the first out of the water. The bank was slippery with wet mud and each soldier needed help climbing out. As each soldier was hauled out Jamie pointed out the location of a marked IED. What happened next remains unclear but there was a massive explosion, caused either by Jamie stepping backwards on to another unmarked device or by vibrations through the ground from the presence of several soldiers in a confined area which triggered an IED. The blast was massive, resulting in the traumatic amputation of Jamie’s arms and legs. Also injured in the explosion were Lance Corporal Gareth Harper and Guardsmen David Clark and Jordan Pearson.

Despite his horrific injuries, Jamie was still alive. But he was very close to death and, unbeknown to the soldiers at that time, he had just minutes left to live. The loss of blood from a quadruple amputation would have been rapid and massive. Jamie’s chances of survival were poor, but his fellow soldiers fought hard to keep him alive. He received immediate medical attention and his huge blood loss was controlled by the application of four tourniquets to what was left of his shattered limbs. It was now urgent to get the wounded guardsman to a secure HLS in order that he could be evacuated back to the field hospital at Camp Bastion. But within minutes of 6 Platoon’s withdrawal they came under a fierce Taliban rocket and machine-gun attack. Bullets raked the ground beneath the soldiers’ feet and zipped through the air above them. Rocket-propelled grenades crashed and exploded among the troops, some detonating in the air about their heads, showering them with razor-sharp slivers of white-hot shrapnel.

It was a bitter fight made all the more desperate by the knowledge that Jamie’s young life was ebbing away. The twenty or so soldiers who made up the patrol were almost completely surrounded and pinned down. Back at the company headquarters Major Richard Green ordered the FSG and their three Mastiff armoured personnel carriers, which were at the time conducting a routine administration run between Waheed and Crossing Point One, to make their way to the contact point and assist with the casualty evacuation. The urgency of the situation was not lost on the FSG. They had heard over the radio that the injured soldier was a quadruple amputee. As soon as the vehicles arrived at the contact point they began to attract Taliban fire.

Guardsman Robert Ashley, who fought in the attack, described it as ‘the most fierce battle I’ve ever been in. We were almost completely surrounded.’ After four years of fighting, insurgent commanders had acquired a detailed understanding of British tactics. The Taliban knew, for example, that after an IED strike British troops would normally call in a helicopter evacuation if the casualty was seriously wounded, as was normally the case with an IED. The Taliban also knew that the British would do everything in their power to save a wounded comrade no matter how severe his injuries. It was an act the insurgents could exploit.