Afghanistan: Moshtarak a success...now we'll rebuild

By Bob Roberts Daily Mirror
Pictures by Maj Paul Smyth

Aid was ordered into the old Taliban badlands yesterday as our forces declared success in Operation Moshtarak.

After weeks of fighting, Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth and International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander went to the front line to see the results of the huge military operation.

Walking through the village of Khowshhal Kalay

And in the Helmand village of Khowshhal Kalay, where just three months ago the Taliban ruled, the Mirror joined the two men on foot patrol. Around 600 insurgents died here in heavy fighting as well as two British soldiers.

It is a dusty, dirty place with irrigation ditches filled with green water.

Ramshackle mud buildings line the rough tracks, some still showing the damage of fighting.

An Afghan National Policeman in the village of Khowshhal Kalay

Fresh opium poppies are being grown in small fields. But a road impassable a few months ago now has open shops with people willing to shake hands with British ministers without fear of bloody reprisals.

Ragged children play in the streets. A mosque with a tower used by Taliban snipers is being rebuilt. There are heavily fortified police checkpoints.

The foundations of a new school are also being built. Within a month it will provide education for 600 boys and girls.

Before Moshtarak, Forward Patrol Base Sangaan, where British troops were stationed here, was under siege. Soldiers could not leave without heavy fighting. A Grenadier Guard grins as he says: "We haven't been shot at for three weeks.'' Brigadier James Cowan, in charge of UK military operations in Helmand, is a cautious man. Asked whether Operation Moshtarak was a victory, he says: "I don't like the word victory.

"It suggests one army defeating another. We are here to win over the people.'' But pushed he makes clear the operation is a success. "There is more to be done but we have made very good progress.'' Standing in Forward patrol Base Samsor after his walkabout, Mr Ainsworth said: "The foundations have been laid. We have seen it today... smiling Afghans, happy to walk up and engage with us.'' He admitted there was likely to be a counteroffensive to retake the ground. But now the work to rebuild the village in the district of Nad e Ali and other areas begins.

Mr Alexander announced yesterday there would be an extra £28million invested here over the next three years. He said: "As soon as the fighting stops the stabilisation begins.

"The money will contribute to the roads, to the irrigation, to the seeds this population needs in the future."

Khowshhal is a small, scruffy village in a far-flung part of Afghanistan.

An RAF Chinook flies in the visitors to Khowshhal Kalay

But the soldiers who fought here and the politicians who visit believe it provides a big answer to whether the war in Afghanistan is winnable. It is.

UK troops get ready for biggest battle with Taliban since 2001

By Daniel Martin, Daily Mail

Preparation: British and Afghan soldiers practice their operation drills at Military Operating Base Shorabak in Helmand today

Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth warned the public to be braced for casualties last night as troops prepared to launch the biggest offensive in the eight-year Afghanistan war.

A strike force of 15,000 British, U.S. and Afghan troops will mount airborne raids in the most dangerous areas of central Helmand province.

'There will be a lot of IEDs (improvised explosive devices), a lot of snipers and a lot of hit and run. We will probably have to brace ourselves for a large number of casualties.'

The scale of the offensive, whose start date is being kept secret, will dwarf Operation Panther's Claw, in which ten British soldiers died last summer.

British commanders are worried that troops being flown to the battlefield by helicopter could come under heavy fire from Taliban fighters.

One senior officer said: 'Our real concern is that we could lose one or more Chinooks filled with soldiers - that would come close to being catastrophic.

Mr Ainsworth said: 'We shouldn't deny or pretend to people that casualties are not a very real risk on these kind of operations and people have to be prepared for that.

'This is not a safe environment and it doesn't matter how much kit and equipment we provide for them, we cannot entirely make these operations risk-free.'

The Defence Secretary also revealed that British forces were engaged in direct talks with some Taliban fighters.

He said: 'There's no need for us to wait until some end point before we start talking to those elements of the Taliban who don't share all of the ideological aims of some of their leaders. Those talks have already been going on for some time.'

His casualty warning was echoed by General Sir David Richards, chief of the general staff, who said: 'There are inevitably risks but the gains are considerable.

'Offensive operations like Moshtarak are a key part of any counter-insurgency campaign.'

Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded forces in Afghanistan in 2006, warned: 'There will be heavy fighting.

'The Taliban know the area very well and will have prepared escape routes through tunnels, alleyways or buildings. They will fire on our troops and then run.
'There will be a lot of IEDs (improvised explosive devices), a lot of snipers and a lot of hit and run. We will probably have to brace ourselves for a large number of casualties.'

One of the soldiers preparing for the attacks, Lance Corporal Nick Richards, 22, from Llanelli, said: 'People are saying that this is the biggest assault of this kind since Vietnam, so everyone wants to be a part of it.

'We are proud to be part of the big picture of change in Afghanistan. It's definitely going to have a big impact on Helmand in getting rid of the Taliban and bringing stability to the area. The locals are under a lot of stress and we will try and help them out to relieve that pressure.'

There'll be more losses..

By Rupert Hamer Sunday Mirror

GRIM WARNING BY DEFENCE SECRETARY

Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth has warned that Britain needs to brace itself for more combat deaths in Afghanistan as troops prepare for the new "surge" offensive.

His stark prediction came as he toured two frontline positions in troubled Helmand Province to hear at first hand details of troops' struggle against the Taliban.

Later Mr Ainsworth said: "We've been through a difficult time. We have lost a lot of people. I can't promise that has come to an end. The enemy are trying to kill our people. That is what they are about. There will be losses."

Referring to the recent grim milestone of 100 deaths so far this year he added: "What we are finding is that huge chunks of the British population now know people personally who have lost their lives or been injured."

But he added: "The consequences of walking away when this is still something we need and can do - well then you betray the sacrifice that is being made."

Mr Ainsworth was flown in by RAF Chinook first to the isolated British outpost of Basharan in the Nad-e-Ali area near Helmand's provincial capital of Lashkar Gah. It was here - just over a year ago - that British troops moved in, smashing the Taliban in a series of airborne and ground assaults.

Now the area is showing the first tentative signs of a developing peace.

But a 20-minute flight to nearby Babaji - captured during costly fighting just five months ago in the bloody operation Panther's Claw - told a different story.

Here Mr Ainsworth was briefed to the sound of machine gun fire just a few kilometres away.

As the cackle of bullets subsided Mr Ainsworth sat with soldiers around a fire as 20-year-old Coldstream Guardsman Luke Fitzpatrick showed him his old helmet - ripped into by a bullet which was just inches away from killing him.

Ainsworth: we failed troops in Afghanistan and Iraq - The Times

Michael Evans, Defence Editor

The Government did not do enough to support British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq at the start of the conflicts, the Defence Secretary has admitted.

Bob Ainsworth said that Service men and women were justified in complaining about a lack of interest in their work from ministers and the wider population.

His comments came as the head of the Army warned that Britain had failed to get on a proper war footing to deal with the military campaign in Afghanistan.

“People were pretty cheesed off with the attitude not only of the Government, but of the British public,” Mr Ainsworth said. “They were out there in Iraq, they were out there in Afghanistan, they were doing hard yards and putting their lives on the line — and nobody back here was nearly as interested as they ought to have been,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

Improvements in how the Armed Forces were supported over the past two years had been “absolutely essential”, he said.

Defence issues had not had sufficient prominence, he said. “We have tended in politics in this country to concentrate on the domestic, on the here and now — the ‘what’s in it for me’.”

In his last public speech as Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt said: “We should be under no illusion, we are at war and if we want to succeed, which we must, we must get on to a war-like footing.” He added: “Not everyone in our nation realises that.”General Dannatt, who retires next month, said: “If that means an uplift of significant capabilities for Afghanistan, then so be it.”

The general, who has fought the Government for more resources in Afghanistan, pressed his case for the campaign to be adequately funded. Speaking at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, he said: “Success in Afghanistan is not discretionary. It will top the agenda for the future and we must do whatever we must do to succeed.

“This can be demonstrated by a strengthened and enduring national, political, industrial, cross-Whitehall and departmental commitment to delivering success in Afghanistan. It is very much in our national interest to do this.”