Bomb Hunters: In Afghanistan With Britain's Elite Bomb Disposal Unit (9 page)

Lieutenant Colonel Rob Thomson, the commanding officer of the 2 Rifles battlegroup, described Oz, in the hours after his death, as ‘simply the bravest and most courageous man I have ever met. Superlatives do not do the man justice. Better than the best. Better than the best of the best.’

Two weeks after Oz’s death, Captain Dan Read, a fellow ATO, was wounded by shrapnel when a soldier standing close by detonated a victim-operated IED. Captain Read was a very popular officer who had joined the Army as a private but later passed the officer selection course and attended the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. Although his injuries were not serious, as most of the shrapnel hit his arms, he was sent back to the UK to recover.

Soon the casualties were coming in so thick and fast that the battle casualty replacements couldn’t keep pace with the rate at which soldiers were being wounded. A senior officer later told me, ‘We were unprepared for such large numbers of casualties. We didn’t have the resources in place and we couldn’t cope with the volume of casualties. We were in trouble.’

Morale within the CIED Task Force had taken a bashing. ‘It was a very bad period, a dreadful few weeks,’ said Badger. But for him it was not just the loss of mates that was worrying. ‘Oz was at the top of his game,’ he said ruefully. ‘They were doing the same job as me and part of you does think, if it can happen to them, then it can happen to me.

‘After Oz was killed I had to phone my wife and tell her that there had been an incident and one of the lads had died. I said to her, “Don’t worry, I’m OK.” I’ve told her plenty of times that if they hear bad news on the TV or radio, then it means I’m OK because she would be told first. But all the wives are worried, worried all the time. I think it’s harder for them. Every time there’s a knock on the door their heart stops.’

The period between August 2009 and March 2010 was one of the bloodiest in the British Army’s history of bomb disposal. It wasn’t just the British ATOs who had taken casualties either. Both US and Canadian ATOs have also been killed in southern Afghanistan. An SAS sergeant told me that he was in awe of the bomb-disposal units. He went on to describe an incident in which a US bomb-disposal officer was killed while taking part in a mission. ‘We were going into a compound and we had a US ATO with us. He got to the compound and he said, “I’ll go in first and clear it. You guys wait here.” He went in with his mine detector on his own, and about a minute later there was this huge bang. We followed up and he had been blown in half by the bomb. His bottom half had been completely separated. You’re like, “What the fuck?” Thankfully he had been killed instantly. We all owe our lives to him – if we had gone in the bomb would have taken out an entire SAS team.

‘These guys are incredible – people think our job is risky but it’s nothing compared to what these guys do. We always have plenty of intelligence, more often than not we know exactly what will be waiting for us. But these guys have to go in on their own. It’s incredible. The incident happened just before Christmas in December 2009. And his wife and two children buried him the day before Christmas Eve. Whatever way you cut it, that’s just shit.’

A few days after Oz Schmid was killed, Dave Markland and Badger, lying on their beds in the FOB, made a pact. They promised each other that if either of them was killed – blown to pieces by an IED – nothing would be left behind. For the one event which terrifies ATOs and everyone in the world of bomb disposal is the prospect of their body parts being left on the battlefield after an attack. The size of the bombs being used by the Taliban in Helmand can literally blow a human to pieces. Everyone involved in bomb hunting accepts such a fate as a fact of life, and many take comfort from the fact that, if their number is up, they will know very little of it.

While chatting about nothing in particular, Badger turned to Dave and said, ‘Oz, Dan Shepherd and Gaz O’Donnell were all at the top of their game, Dave, you know that. They were as good or better than me. So let’s make a pact. If I get blown up, I get blown out of the safe lane and we are under fire and taking casualties, promise me that you won’t leave me behind. You’ve got to promise me that.’ Badger was now sitting up and staring at Dave, who nodded and replied, ‘The same goes for me, Badger, mate. Now, enough morose talk. Let’s go and get a brew and check on the lads.’

Badger and Dave had hoped to work together for the rest of their six-month tour. The two soldiers had developed a very special working relationship during the ten weeks they had spent together. But that plan was interrupted by their R&R after Christmas. Badger took his leave first and when he returned Dave departed. The planning for Operation Moshtarak, a military drive intended to clear the Taliban from central Helmand, was already underway and bomb hunters were urgently required for the so-called ‘shaping operations’ which took place a few weeks before the main event – the large-scale thrust into the heart of Taliban territory. Both men were due to take part in a shaping operation together but Dave’s return from R&R was delayed and Badger deployed with another search team.

Dave arrived a few days later, but with little to do he quickly became bored and frustrated and was soon asking to be sent out on an operation. Major Gould recalled how Dave was ‘bouncing off the walls’. ‘He kept coming up to me saying, “Boss, you’ve got to put me out on the ground – I’m doing my nut here.” Eventually a task came up and I told Dave he was going out – he was delighted. I remember him coming up to me and shaking my hand before he went out. I looked him in the eye and wished him good luck – these things are important in our world.’

The two bomb hunters were deployed to Battlegroup Centre South, in the Nad-e’Ali area of central Helmand, Badger to the north and Dave to the south. Both search teams were involved in a series of straightforward routine search and clearance operations. On 8 February Dave’s search team was dispatched to clear a route where a suspected device had been uncovered. It was a routine operation, the ICP was cleared by the searchers and the mission was going according to plan. But a mistake had been made. A pressure-plate IED which had been missed was detonated by Dave as he moved across to one side of the ICP. The blast was huge and devastating, killing Dave instantly. Badger was a few kilometres away, conducting a similar route-clearance operation, when he learned the dreadful news.

Badger recalled, ‘I kind of found out by accident that Dave had been killed; no one officially told us. We heard a “nine-liner” saying that someone had been injured from a Brimstone team. We enquired and the Royal Anglian’s operations room told us that there had been an incident with a Brimstone callsign. At that point your heart starts racing and you are just praying that whoever has been injured is going to make it. We looked on the J Chat and I knew straight away that it was Dave.’ Seeing Dave’s Zap number, they realized straight away whose it was.

‘Dave was working with six Gurkhas,’ Badger continued, ‘so I immediately knew that he was the casualty. The J Chat said he was KIA. My heart sunk and I felt sick. I immediately got in touch with the ops room to try and find out what had happened and I was hoping against hope that a mistake had been made. It shouldn’t happen but it’s not unheard of for people to get Zap numbers wrong. But they confirmed that Dave was dead.

‘I never got the full details, just that he had been taken out by an IED and that it was quick – that’s all you can hope for really. It’s a small comfort and you just have to crack on. I was on my own when it was actually confirmed for definite that he was dead. I gave myself five minutes, had a little cry, and then you just have to man-up and go and tell the boys. I called the team together – we had all worked with Dave too and we were all very close. Everyone was gutted but we all had to remember that there was a job to do and we would be back out on the ground in the morning. As hard as it sounds, we couldn’t let ourselves be distracted by Dave’s death because we all knew that we could be the next to be killed.

‘Obviously you think about it when you are on your own or lying in bed at night but you have to trust your drills and assure yourself that providing you do your drills correctly you should be OK. But Dave did nothing wrong.’

With tragic irony Dave’s name was added to the memorial which he designed and built and which still stands in the quiet corner of the compound where the JFEOD Group is based. When the mission is over and the troops come home, the memorial will come with them.

After a few weeks’ leave Badger will return to his unit where he will be given a pager and will command one of the many teams which provide IED coverage over the whole of the UK. Even back in the UK Badger will be called out two or three times a week to deal with devices ranging from a Second World War grenade found in a granny’s cabbage patch to a suspicious package left on a train.

‘It has been a gruelling six months,’ he says. ‘I’ve spent a lot of time sleeping on floors and I’m not getting any younger. You are working most days and it’s the sheer number of tasks you are asked to do which slowly grinds you down, and at the back of your mind you know you can’t make a mistake. It’s going to take time to settle into home life again – for the last six months I’ve been making life-and-death decisions, now it’s a case of shopping in Tesco’s and deciding which cereal I want – funny how life changes.’

I say goodbye to Badger and wish him a good leave and a safe journey home. His tour is over but mine is just beginning. In a few days’ time I will once again be on the front line. I’ve only been in Camp Bastion for less than a week but already I feel it’s too long. I want to get out into bandit country again but this time will be different. This time I will be with the bomb hunters searching for IEDs. The promises I made to my wife and myself after Rupert’s death are already beginning to evaporate. Rather than finding reasons not to go into the danger zones, I’m doing the opposite.

‘A year ago, the idea that an ATO might dispose of 100 bombs on a tour in Helmand was unthinkable, but soon it will be the average. The pressures on these guys are huge, the room for error zero.’

Major Tim Gould, Officer Commanding Joint Force EOD Group

I’m sitting on a makeshift wooden bench within the quiet enclave of Camp Bastion which is home to the Joint Force EOD Group. The sun is shining brightly in a cloudless sky and the temperature is a comfortable, almost perfect 26°. I’m drinking tea with Major Tim Gould, who leads the JFEOD Group. He is a highly qualified and deeply respected ATO who won the Queen’s Gallantry Medal in Iraq after recovering the body of a fellow bomb-disposal officer killed while transporting Iraqi bombs. He is lean and tanned but not as dark as the foot soldiers who spend their days defusing bombs across Helmand. Tim’s days of bomb disposal are effectively behind him. These days he is the ‘controller’, the man charged with sending troops into what the soldiers somewhat dramatically call the ‘heart of darkness’ – those areas of Helmand that are now essentially IED minefields.

Major Gould is tired, both physically and mentally. He doesn’t tell me this but I can see it in his eyes and the way he talks, in the lengthy pauses during our conversation and the way he stares into the distance. It’s not the back-to-back eighteen-hour days for the past six months which have left him exhausted, but the deaths of six of his men and the horrific, often life-changing injuries suffered by many of those under his command. He is tired of Helmand and, like many commanders, tired of writing letters home to the families of the dead, trying, often without success, to explain why the sacrifice of a son, husband or brother was not in vain.

As the bomb hunters’ commander, Gould is directly responsible for the men and women who search for and dispose of IEDs. Right now his is one of the toughest jobs in Helmand, an area the size of Wales where around 8,000 British troops are deployed. For reasons of operational security I have been asked not to disclose how many Royal Engineer High Risk search teams and CIED teams are based in Helmand – but as far as Gould is concerned it is not enough.

I’ve met officers like Tim before – men who carry the burden of sending young soldiers to their death in the cause of duty. It is a burden they will carry for ever, always wondering whether they could have done more to save the life of a comrade or prevent another from being injured. It is another tragic, hidden cost of war.

The wounds left by the deaths of those under his command are still raw. Major Gould served during one of the bloodiest periods in EOD history. Before the war in Afghanistan, twenty-four British ATOs had been killed in action, twenty-three in Northern Ireland and one in Iraq. Since 2008 five ATOs have been killed in Helmand, and many more have been injured. The attrition rates in Helmand now mirror those of the early years of the Troubles.

Tim Gould’s ATOs speak of him in glowing terms. They say that he worked harder than any member of the Task Force, including those on operations, but that he also took the deaths of his soldiers badly. ‘Major Gould is a great boss,’ says one of the ATOs in the JFEOD Group. ‘At first he does seem slightly reserved but underneath he is a genuinely warm and nice bloke. When you came in off an operation he would sit and chat for ages about what you had been up to, not because it was his job but so that an operator could unload his troubles. I always knew that I could be as robust as possible with commanders on the ground because he would always give me his full backing. We all knew he was tired because of the hours he worked. It was every day from 0730 to 2200 – more than the operators on the ground. We all knew that he took the deaths of the lads very badly. He was an ATO, so he knew the dangers, he knew that when he sent a bloke out on a job he might not come back.’

Major Gould’s modesty prevents him from telling me how he won his Queen’s Gallantry Medal but one of his colleagues says that he won it during the opening days of the Iraq War, while trying to save Staff Sergeant Chris Muir, who had been mortally wounded while attempting to dispose of a cluster bomb composed of more than eighty lethal bomblets. While they were taking the device to a safe area, one of the small bombs had exploded, leaving the staff sergeant with devastating injuries. Gould cleared a safe route to his injured colleague, only to discover more bomblets hidden beneath his body. Despite the dangers, and the fact that the Staff Sergeant was beyond help, Gould methodically defused one bomblet after another until his comrade could be rescued. Staff Sergeant Muir later died of his injuries.

‘IEDs are basic but deadly,’ Major Gould states matter-of-factly. ‘Take for example the pressure-plate IED. What is this thing which has killed hundreds of British troops? Let’s break it down.’ He speaks quickly and fluently. I can tell it’s a conversation he has had many time before, probably with generals and politicians wondering why the Taliban are able to make IEDs in such vast numbers and with apparent ease.

‘A bomb is a switch with a power source connected to a detonator which is placed inside a main charge of explosive,’ the major continues. ‘An IED consists of anything which will keep two metal contacts apart – we have seen strips of wood and clothes pegs – which are used to form a switch. The contacts can then be moved together by applying pressure or releasing pressure. So the most simple devices we have found consist of two pieces of wood, maybe 1 in. wide and about 1 ft long, with an axle blade nailed to each piece. The pieces of wood are kept apart by a piece of sponge or another piece of wood, anything which will allow the two axle blades to come together when pressure is applied – the same theory works if the device is pressure-release. Wires are then connected to the two blades and to the detonator, which can often be the most complicated part to make. It’s not commercial, something improvised. The detonator is then placed inside some home-made explosive, often a mixture of ammonium nitrate – which is a common fertilizer widely available in Helmand – aluminium filings and sugar, and this is known as ANAL and this is the main charge. The explosive needs to be put in a container, something which will keep it dry, and commonly in Helmand the Taliban are using palm-oil containers. At this stage the explosive is very stable. You could throw it against a wall and nothing would happen. You could burn it and it would burn furiously but it wouldn’t explode – for that you need a detonator. The detonator is then inserted into the container, usually by cutting a hole in the side, and then resealed. The device now needs to have a power source – so what’s available? Batteries. Eight 1.5-volt batteries are often enough.’

Major Gould speaks with a hint of anger or at least irritation in his voice as he continues, ‘So you now have a simple circuit, which an 11-year-old boy could easily knock together, consisting of a power source connected to a switch – the pressure plate – which is connected to a detonator. And that is your bomb. Flick the switch by bringing the two metal contacts together, which allows an electric current from the batteries to flow to the detonator, causing a small explosion inside the main charge, which explodes with enormous force. The power can be increased by adding more ANAL, conventional explosives or conventional munitions such as artillery shells, mortar bombs, hand grenades or rocket warheads.’

The major has described the construction of an IED with a ‘high metal’ content. These were the first generation of devices and are relatively easy to find with a Vallon. But the Taliban are an adaptable and inventive foe. War and fighting are part of their culture and heritage. Their fathers and grandfathers fought the Soviets and then each other in a civil war, and now they are fighting NATO. Just like the IRA, who, let’s face it, were also insurgents, the Taliban will always try to build on success rather than failure. So it was only a matter of time before they began to build IEDs with ‘low metal’ content. Instead of using saw blades or other strips of metal as the switch, the Taliban have begun to use the carbon rods from inside batteries. And they work really well.

In addition to victim-detonated devices, such as pressure-plate and pressure-release IEDs, there are also those which can be triggered by remote control. Some devices can also be turned on and off remotely. In some parts of Helmand, for example in Musa Qala, pressure-plate bombs are armed remotely just before a British patrol arrives in the locality. If the patrol takes another route, the device can be switched off and the track is then free for local people to use. By adopting this tactic the Taliban can reduce their collateral damage, for they need to keep the local population on their side in the areas they control. The threat from these devices, which is potentially considerable, is lessened by the use of electronic counter-measures, or ECM. These were developed during the 1980s and 1990s, during the bloody days of the Troubles, and their use still remains an extremely sensitive subject.

The next group of devices are the command IEDs, which function ‘on command’ rather than being victim-operated like a pressure-plate device. Again the main charge is often, though not exclusively, home-made explosive. Command IEDs break down into two categories. The first is the ‘command pull’, where the device is triggered by an insurgent pulling on, for example, a piece of string or wire. This can be as simple as dislodging any non-conductive material that is keeping two electric terminals apart. When the terminals touch, the bomb functions. The other category is the ‘command wire’ device, which is detonated by an insurgent connecting the bomb to a power supply, such as a car battery, when a potential target is in range. In Helmand, command wires up to 200 metres long have been found. With the power source, which often contains a high proportion of metal, so far away from the explosive, these are very difficult to discover with a metal detector.

IEDs can also be detonated by a trip wire. One example of this kind of device is the Russian-made POMZ, which is effectively an anti-personnel fragmentation grenade mounted on a wooden stick. When a soldier approaches the device, an insurgent gives the wire a gentle tug to pull the pin out of the grenade, causing it to detonate in less than a second. These devices can also be detonated by the victim walking into a trip wire.

‘IED production has gone beyond being a cottage industry,’ Major Gould continued. ‘They are now being knocked out on an industrial scale at the rate of one every fifteen to twenty minutes. This is something which is very difficult to target because, when you see the nature of the devices, they are so simple but very effective. I wouldn’t say the bombs are bodged – but they’re not far from it. But that doesn’t matter. They are still very effective and they do the job. They don’t have to be state-of-the-art – quality control is minimal – but the beauty of these things is that they work. You can leave a pressure-plate IED buried in the ground for a month, maybe more, and it can still kill.

‘During the Northern Ireland period the IRA were incredibly sophisticated – the IRA wouldn’t put a device on the street unless they were 100 per cent sure that it would function. In Helmand there is absolutely no quality control. The bombs are knocked together with any old rubbish, which can make the device very unstable. You could sneeze and it would function, you could be working on it and the ground around you could collapse and it could function, or it could function just because you are moving the earth close to it. The IRA built devices with “ready-to-arm” switches but we haven’t seen anything like that here. The bombs might not be much to look at but they are very effective and they are killing and injuring lots of troops and civilians.’

Intelligence has emerged suggesting that Iran has been training Taliban snipers and bomb makers, a worrying development with similarities to the situation facing the allies in Iraq. Iranian intervention in Iraq was responsible for killing and injuring hundreds of British troops.

During 2006 and 2007, IEDD teams deployed to Afghanistan for four months. Back then there were only two British bomb-disposal teams in Helmand. Iraq was still the main focus for IED disposal. But that changed in 2008, when Helmand was redefined as a high-threat environment and the tour of duty was extended to six months. In the space of two years the number of Taliban attacks had surged by more than 300 per cent. Soldiers were being killed and injured almost daily and the IEDs were also being used to target ATOs. When news that the tour was to be longer was announced, none of the ATOs being sent to Helmand complained; they simply did as they were told.

By January 2010 serious concerns were beginning to be voiced over the pressure facing ATOs and other members of the bomb-hunting teams. Everyone working in EOD was aware that all three of the ATOs who had so far died in Helmand had been almost two-thirds of the way through their tours. It was the same story for an ATO who was seriously injured. The exception was Captain Dan Read, who deployed to Helmand on Operation Herrick 11 and was injured in October 2009 and was sent back to the UK as part of his recovery. He returned to Helmand in early January 2010 and was subsequently killed in action in Musa Qala on 11 January. The counter-IED world had not seen so many deaths in such a short space of time since the early years of the Troubles, in the 1970s. The question being asked was, ‘Were they exhausted or had they become ambivalent to risk?’

‘In the days when Northern Ireland was a big problem, an ATO would be lucky if the number of devices he defused on a tour reached double figures,’ Major Gould explained. ‘Now guys are doing fifty to 100 devices. Badger, who you’ve met, disposed of 139 in six months. A year ago, the idea that an ATO might dispose of 100 bombs on a tour in Helmand was unthinkable, but soon it will be the average. The pressures on these guys are huge, the room for error zero.