Afghanistan: Traces of hope in Helmand

By Thomas Harding Published: 8:19AM GMT twenty-two February 2010

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Symbolic moment: Private Aziz Watandosd of the Afghan armed forces flies the Afghan dwindle in Showal Photo: Julian Simmonds

Four years, 263 British lives, �10 billion outlayed and the generals contend that we have eventually got to the "end of the beginning" in Afghanistan. Operation Moshtarak is in the second week and, similar to the early open that has arrived in Helmand, it feels gentle and gentle distinct the days of hailstorms, cold, rumble and lightning that preceded the launch.

The Taliban face being driven out of executive Helmand, denied the oppulance to plan killings from their strongholds and lift finance management from the drug trade. Of course, they have not left away. There will be some-more deaths of soldiers and civilians, in attacks that could turn ever some-more barbarous and desperate. But the insurgents are positively on the run.

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More importantly majority some-more importantly the American, British and Afghan forces that have poured in to the area are removing between the competition and preventing the insurgents from reaching the civilians. Although the American pull in Marjah is harder going, with the Taliban concentrating their forces to have a stand, the insurgents have seemed definitely unqualified of ascent poignant attacks in the British zone of Nad-e-Ali.

That the British right afar have sufficient helicopters has positively helped. With contributions from the Canadians and five additional RAF Merlins, the British have at last been means to beget a force means of violation annals for air attack and resupply. Landing at multiform locations concurrently 1,200 infantry deployed to sixteen opposite sites inside of dual hours, in finish dark caused estimable disorientation between the enemy, who were uncertain where to attack, or that side had been taken.

And notwithstanding the miss of set-piece battles, there have been a small rarely mystic moments, that will means as majority repairs to the Talibans picture as a Hellfire barb alighting between the leadership. At emergence on the third day of Operation Moshtarak, I watched to one side a small throng of soldiers as the Talibans dwindle was hurled down from a outworn derrick in Showal, the small locale that was the collateral of the shade government, and transposed with the inhabitant ensign. It had been there for roughly dual years.

For a couple of mins we chatted, took cinema and shook hands. A content summary was sent around heavenly body phone to an infantry military military officer at band of soldiers headquarters: "The dwindle of Afghanistan flies over Showal." Within hours, the headlines spread, and a bolt of generals and politicians ensued, that culminated in the attainment of Gen Stanley McChrystal, the American infantry commander, the Afghan administrator of Helmand and the counterclaim and interior ministers.

As I interviewed him for the eight mins it took us to transport up to the crane, Gen McChrystal was understandably chipper. Helmand had "turned a corner", he felt and whilst he was still not great with words about dogmatic victory, and warned of Taliban assault ahead, he was obviously a man who felt the beam had eventually been tipped. His plan was operative endorsing his bid for an additional 30,000 troops, that President Barack Obama acceded to at the finish of last year.

We usually detected dual days after that, inside of twenty yards of where the throng gathered, lay an unexploded 20kg IED, but for right afar it appears that fitness is with the Nato forces.

Their success gives them a window of eventuality to lorry in the materials indispensable to set up unit bases and checkpoints, that are the key to display the competition that they are here to stay. The people were led to hold that they were being liberated from the Talibans patience once before, usually to see the unsound British forces withdrawing, withdrawal them to humour the successive atonement opposite "collaborators".

In Marjah, south of the Nad-e-Ali area, the 6,000 US Marines have faced the toughest battle, opposite insurgents who appear dynamic to have a stand. While casualties competence be high, the outcome is certain, even if the American capability to practice "courageous restraint" in not putting municipal lives at risk will come underneath great pressure. At slightest twelve bystanders have already died from bloc fire.

This patience is the executive principle of Gen McChrystals rising counter-insurgency didactic discourse in Afghanistan. It is simple: if you kill civilians, repairs their homes and fall short their crops, you are not going to win their support. Better for the commander in chief in chief to hold glow and let an mutinous get afar than kill an innocent.

I found no improved e.g. of this than a infantryman from the Royal Welsh who, utilizing night-sights from his watchman position, speckled dual Afghan men digging in to the highway late at night. The thermal imagery showed a "hot spot", suggesting that a explosve was about to be planted.

The immature infantryman was inside of the manners of rendezvous to make use of fatal force but instead he called in his crew commander, who sent out a small unit along with an interpreter. The Afghans incited out to be repair the road, the disproportion in feverishness being the prohibited H2O churned with sand to fill a pothole.

The internal men, new to a bloc presence, realised how propitious they had been; the subsequent day, their family groups visited the crew to show their gratitude.

"It is that sort of impulse that could be the wilful eventuality in this campaign," an infantry military military officer said. He after added: "We goal to get afar from fighting the quarrel to fighting the terrorist, roughly relocating to the diluted inlet of South Armagh, with watchtowers, contemplating the competition and personification cat and rodent with the terrorist."

Once these bases and watchtowers are up and it will be a competition to get them built prior to the Taliban find the care and co‑ordination to resume a roadside bombing debate work can proceed on rebuilding schools, health clinics and roads. This is not an bankrupt area: as a outcome of estimable irrigation work in the Fifties, majority of it paid for by America, it is abounding in farmland. All the people wish is security.

On this topic, Nato seems to have learnt the lessons. Officers confess they were as well spooky by the area of the domain they tranquil on a map; right afar the about concentrating on a not as big area, but one where majority of the competition lives. "Who cares what happens north or south of that?" one infantry military military officer asked me. "It is irrelevant. Whoever controls the competition wins the fight."

So far, and the still really early, the opinion is good. Already men are shred their beards in the locale of Naqilebad, gallant of Taliban brutality. Some family groups have returned from exile. "If the competition stands together with us, the Taliban will find it really formidable to get behind in," says Lt Col Nick Lock, the commander in chief in chief of the Royal Welsh conflict group.

"Clearly the rebellion is not over and they are still around," pronounced Major Shon Hackney, one of his association commanders. "We need to safeguard that we strengthen the competition here and concede them to get on with their lives.

"One of the Talibans options would be to snipe at us from the flanks, or usually repel and move the rebellion elsewhere. They could additionally regroup and confirm to competition the belligerent we are holding, but I think theyll go for the initial option."

A key piece of the subsequent theatre in the quarrel opposite the insurgents will be played by the Afghan inhabitant army. While it is a small area from reaching the turn of Western forces, the participation in numbers gives the competition certainty that they are not being assigned by foreigners. Culturally, it cuts out most misunderstandings.

British officers confess that, in the past, there has been the veneer of an "Afghan face" on operations, but with Moshtarak they have worked exhaustively to one side their counterparts.

It will be at slightest dual years prior to the Afghan armed forces raises the stream element of 100,000 to the preferred 134,000, and probably far longer prior to it achieves the nearby liberty that the Iraqi armed forces managed in 2008. And there is regularly the risk of crime and indiscipline whilst infantry sojourn immobile and far some-more so between the Afghan military force, whose repute has a small area to travel.

From the point of perspective of the British military, however, this incident is flawlessly preferable to that that prevailed 4 years ago. Officers confess they had small thought of what the plan was prior to McChrystal arrived: it seemed to be simply a mission to lift out "smash ops", seizing domain from the rivalry usually to concede it again, withdrawal the competition painful and disillusioned. It was additionally an horrible risk promulgation so couple of infantry to Helmand in 2006 3,350, compared with 10 times that series today, if you embody the surge of 21,000 Americans.

It has taken an inspirational American ubiquitous and his countrys strong resources to collect the beginning in Helmand. But the British Army believes it at last has the right balance, and flattering majority the right equipment, to be means to mount the force of 10,000 shoulder to shoulder with Americas. As one of those officers joked hopefully to me as we pronounced the goodbyes up in Showal: "It competence be time for you to find an additional war."