Battlefield Afghanistan E-Book

Mike Ryan

• Herausgeber: Spellmount
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 196

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

From interviews with his numerous contacts among the coalition forces stationed in Afghanistan, Mike Ryan has done what journalists have so far been unable to do.Battlefield Afghanistan is the first thorough-going account of the war in the former Taliban state: not the politics behind the conflict, but the actual situation for the men on the ground. Far from simply 'keeping the peace,' coalition forces in Afghanistan are currently involved in full-scale warfare with both al-Qaeda militants and the forces of the resurgent Taliban. Battlefield Afghanistan tells the real, inside story of the men under fire, based upon first-hand evidence from members of 3 Para, 16 Air Assault Brigade, the Royal Marines and the Special Forces community, together with the views and experiences of the US and French troops. As their accounts indicate, the hostilities faced have proved to be far greater than was anticipated, and the situation in Afghanistan far more serious than the politicians would like the public to realise.

Leseprobe

Battlefield Afghanistan

AUTHOR’S APPEAL

As the global fight against terrorism continues, many brave countrymen of ours are being lost in the fight for our freedom and way of life.

In light of this, a percentage of the royalties from this book is being donated to the Special Forces Welfare Foundation, an organization that supports the families of those who have lost a loved one.

If you would like to help the foundation in its work, or make a donation, please write to:

Special Forces Welfare Foundation

Avpro Aerospace

PO Box 9128

Bollo Lane

Acton

London

W3 6GE

UK

Other charities I actively support include:

www.mag.org.uk

www.ssafa.org.uk

www.armybenfund.org

Your kindness and generosity is greatly appreciated by all concerned.

Sincerely,

Mike Ryan

BATTLEFIELD AFGHANISTAN

by

Mike Ryan

First published in the UK in 2007 by

Spellmount, an imprint of

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2016

All rights reserved

© Mike Ryan 2007

The right of Mike Ryan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 8059 3

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Author’s Note

Preface

Abbreviations

Introduction

I

Baiting the Bears

II

Avenging Angels

III

The Taliban

IV

The Devil’s Harvest

V

Hell from Above

VI

Chariots of the Damned

VII

Hurt Locker

Conclusion

The Fallen

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all the brave men and women of the armed forces who are fighting heroically for a brighter future for the long-suffering people of Afghanistan. Their selfless acts and professionalism are an inspiration to us all.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following individuals, organizations and companies for their kind help in supporting me with the production of this book:

Shaun Barrington of Spellmount Publishing for believing in the book, Peter Robinson MA, John Ryan, Mark Bennis, The Major, Jackhammer, Dr John, Swampy, Dangerous Dale, BCMH, UK MoD, US Department of Defense, Australian Department of Defence, 16 AAB, 131 CDO, 45 CDO, The Firm, Household Cavalry, USMC, 160th SOAR, USAF SOG, NARA, DVIC and Avpro Aerospace.

Thanks also to my wife, Fiona and children, Isabella, Angelina and Jamie for their patience during my time away interviewing and researching for this book.

Photo credits: UK Ministry of Defence, Australian Department of Defence, Canadian Department of Defence, US Department of Defense, New Zealand Ministry of Defence, Avpro Aerospace, RAWA, CIA, SOCOM, USAF, US Marines, US Army, 3 Para, Royal Marines, Royal Navy, RAF, NARA, the White House, DVIC and anyone else who has kindly donated imagery for this book. Front cover: FPFI, European Press Photo Agency. Every effort has been made to acknowledge copyright in the images. If any omission has been committed, the publishers apologise and undertake to correct on reprint.

Author’s Note

For operational security (OPSEC) reasons, certain technical, tactical, operational and procedural details have either been changed or omitted. This has been done deliberately for the protection and welfare of both our armed forces and those of our allies, as ongoing military operations are taking place in this region, and are likely to do so for years to come.

Preface

As I write this book, British Forces serving in Afghanistan are engaged in some of the fiercest and most vicious fighting experienced in any UK military operation since the Korean War in the 1950s. And yet, we are told by our politicians that they are on nothing more than a peace keeping mission that has come up against some unexpected resistance.

Nobody however, appears to have informed the opposition, the Taliban. They have turned to what the historian Michael Howard describes in his book Empires, Nations and Wars as ‘the strategy of despair: terrorism’. They see the battlefields of Afghanistan as a Jihad against those who do not practise or believe in their values and their extreme interpretation of the Islamic faith.

For them, Afghanistan is merely a setting for their war of terror. For the West, it looks like a simple choice. Fight them in their own backyard and defeat them, or risk another franchise of Terror Inc getting stronger and more capable than it already is, creating a deadly platform for, potentially, some kind of Armageddon.

This book is not a comprehensive history of the warfare that has raged in Afghanistan over the centuries, nor indeed is it an account of every single battle, skirmish, firefight or contact that has taken place even in recent times. It is merely a snapshot of a moment in time in Afghanistan’s turbulent history, which will fade for the many quickly, as they go about their daily lives, yet will live in the hearts and minds of the few that have fought there, forever.

Abbreviations

AAA

Anti-Aircraft Artillery

ANA

Afghan National Army

APC

Armoured Personnel Carrier

ATGM

Anti-Tank Guided Missile

ATGW

Anti-Tank Guided Weapon

CAS

Close Air Support

CIA

Central Intelligence Agency

C2

Command and Control

EXINT

Extraction/Insertion

FAC

Forward Air Controller

FOO

Forward Observation Officer

GPMG

General Purpose Machine-Gun

GRIT

Group Range Indication Target

HMG

Heavy Machine-Gun

IED

Improvised Explosive Device

IR

Infra-Red

JDAM

Joint Direct Attack Munition

JTAC

Joint Terminal Air Controller

LMG

Light Machine-Gun

LSW

Light Support Weapon

MANPADS

Man Portable Air Defence System

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

OEF

Operation Enduring Freedom

OPSEC

Operational Security

OPTAG

Operational Training Advisory Group

PVCP

Permanent Vehicle Check Point

SAM

Surface Air Missile

SAS

Special Air Service

SASR

Special Air Service Regiment (Australia)

SAW

Squad Assault Weapon

SBS

Special Boat Service

SEAL

Sea Air Land

SF

Special Forces

SOG

Special Operations Group

TAB

Tactical Advance to Battle

TAC

Air Tactical Air Support

UAV

Unmanned Air Vehicle

British SAS operative in Afghanistan.

Introduction

Afghanistan has been the graveyard for many, and provided salvation for few – yet they still keep coming. Why? Because this beautiful yet troubled landlocked country is of immense strategic importance – a fact not lost on its many invaders, including Alexander the Great, the British, the Russians, and more recently the Americans, following 9/11.

Although many have come, none as yet has conquered, nor indeed is it likely that any ever will, as Afghanistan’s complicated tribal make-up, as well as its difficult geography, make life extremely difficult for any outsider to dominate and rule. Afghanistan, in essence, has always been a varied collection of tribes and immigrants, over whom there has been little or no central governmental control, and those that have been deemed successful have achieved only moderate influence.

To understand the challenges our armed forces face today, both politically and militarily, it is important to know something of Afghanistan’s turbulent history, and indeed, its tribal make-up. There are three dominant languages spoken, with numerous minority languages also to contend with. The country is overwhelmingly Islamic, but its community is subdivided among Hanafi Sunnis, Inmami Shia, Ismailis Shia, and Sufis. The geography of the land varies immensely, from desert to high mountain, which makes for difficult and vulnerable communication systems. Those that do exist – primarily highway and trail based – link up at various points around the major towns and cities, creating a crude but workable method of getting about. Surprisingly, there is no railway network as yet, which seems odd, considering the fact that two of Afghanistan’s invaders, Britain and Russia, are both great fans of railway-based transportation systems. One can only assume that their construction and operation was deemed too difficult during their respective periods of occupation.

For those in the West, the Afghan tribal system is hard to comprehend logically; they seem to fight amongst themselves all the time. And yet, as soon as an invader arrives, you guessed it, they unite, fight them, and then revert back to their old ways. Most of these feuds stem from tribal, religious, or ethnic blood disagreements; but occasionally they are over money, as security and protection is big business in Afghanistan these days.

The current tactic employed by the West in Afghanistan is to pay tribal leaders for their support in the ongoing fight against the Taliban. But many have long memories of their suffering under former occupation, and are holding back until a clear winner emerges. On occasions a compromise is reached, where the tribal leaders agree to be impartial and to stay out of the fighting altogether, which at times is quite an achievement. Personally, I fundamentally disagree with the policy of paying tribal leaders for providing security in their own regions: at best, it encourages corruption, and at worst, it exacerbates the security problem, as some tribes have been known to attack their own people as a means of creating more instability, leading to ever greater demands for money for supposed further security enhancements. For good reason, the Americans call this policy ‘the self-licking ice-cream’. A better way would be to pay them for the level of peace preserved, as that would have a more calming effect on the region and would speed the reconstruction process. This is, in fact, critical, as a major cornerstone of the ‘hearts and minds’ policy that is needed to win over the Afghan people. You may think I am being cynical and pessimistic. I am not, I am merely an optimist with experience. As for the Afghans, they have every right to be wary of occupiers, and it is understandable that they view every move we currently make with scepticism. For we British have been the most frequent of visitors to Afghanistan – and the memory of our long and varied time spent in this country is very much alive.

THE GREAT GAME

Our first incursion took place in 1839, and was brought about after Moscow showed interest in Afghanistan, seeing it as part of its future Central Asian empire. Russian expansionism in Central Asia had first begun as early as 1734, and its clear desire to have Afghanistan under its wing had became obvious to the British by the late 1830s. Thus a power struggle took place between the British and the Russians, often described as the Great Game. This was played out along the unsettled northern frontier of British India, and what land lay between Russia and India itself. That contested region happened to be in Afghanistan. A showdown between the empire of the Russian Bear and that of the British Bulldog looked inevitable. The Russians described their motives for operations in the region as to establish law and order along their southern border, as well as to abolish slave trading, prevalent in the area at the time. The British, however, felt that the Russians were trying to weaken their power base so as to gain access to a warm water port. Officially, the party line was that they were defending the frontiers of British India. Eventually, British forces invaded and began what was the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839–1842). The British claimed that they had invaded as a counter to Russian influence, and after several years of hard fighting they withdrew. With the British out of Afghanistan, the Russians continued with their empire expansion plans, and by 1869 they had reached the Amu Daryu (Oxus) river on the northern Afghan border.

This caused the British serious concern, but they stayed out of the country until as late as 1878, when they invaded again, the Second Anglo-Afghan War. The spark this time was the arrival of a Russian diplomatic mission to Kabul. After the British withdrew, relations between the two empires slowly improved, leading to the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1907. The Russians agreed that Afghanistan lay outside its sphere of influence and that in future it would confer with Britain vis-à-vis its interests within the country. In return, Britain agreed not to interfere with the internal affairs of the country, specifically promising not to annex or occupy it in any way. Although the British and the Russians honoured the terms of the Treaty, the Amir of Afghanistan refused to recognize it, and following an incident perpetrated by his soldiers in British India in 1919, the third Anglo-Afghan War started. This time the impetus came from an Afghan border incursion, in which troops loyal to the Amir had seized a village and attempted a local revolt. The response from the British was swift: invasion and further conflict.

A NEW RED DAWN

During this short war, the Afghan government asked for Russian military aid, but it ended before any could be provided. The request, however, started a new relationship with the Russian Bolshevik government, so something good apparently came of something bad.

Eventually a political settlement was reached with Britain, in which Afghanistan gained full independence from its occupiers. This was a blessing at the time for all concerned, especially so for Afghanistan, as it was to enjoy a rare period of relative peace. That was until Russia decided to begin the Afghan game afresh. At first it was just a case of sponsoring maverick groups within the region – such as the Congress of the East in Baku – who called for a holy war against British imperialism. Then it was economic and military aid; always a good card to play when you want to get a foothold in a country, as you then have a marker that you can call in at any given time. This tends to create a puppet government – a favourite status quo with Russian political players. In 1929, one of the puppets, Amin Amanullah, was overthrown, leaving Russia’s strategic position exposed. To rectify the situation, Russia sent in a force of 1,000 military personnel, who, disguised as Afghans, tried to restore him to power. Unfortunately for them, international condemnation forced them to withdraw, leaving their investment vulnerable once again. Although Britain and Russia were not at war during this period, they still vied for advantage and influence over the region, creating a political power vacuum in Afghanistan once the British had withdrawn from India and Pakistan in 1947.

The rusting remains of Soviet trucks in Afghanistan.

After the death of Stalin, Russia stepped up its interest in Afghanistan, mainly through the supply of armaments and economic aid. They also helped bring Afghanistan into the modern age, through aid projects, building hospitals, airfields, hydro-electric dams, and the spectacular Salang Pass tunnel. By 1963, Soviet military advisers were deployed throughout Afghanistan in large numbers, with Afghan Officers undergoing their training in the USSR. In 1978, a small group of Soviet-trained Afghan officers seized control of the government and declared the foundation of a state with the laughably inappropriate new name of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan; which was in essence a puppet state of the Soviet Union. As a result, civil war broke out throughout Afghanistan.

… with the present quality of our troops [in Afghanistan] I feel no confidence in their succeeding in such difficult country against an elusive enemy. Hence I think we should try any expedient which can obviate military operations. Untrammelled action from the air seems to offer the best hope.

Sir Hamilton Grant to Lord Chelmsford, on operations in the Tochi Valley, 1919

I

Baiting the Bears

To understand and fully appreciate the current position of our forces in Afghanistan, it is instructive to know something of the Russian experience during their occupation of this extraordinary country in the 1980s. In fact, from a military perspective, it is imperative: lessons learned from the shedding of their blood yesterday will save that of our soldiers today. Why? Because the armed forces of the then Soviet Union were immense and powerful, and yet they lost. They had armour, attack aircraft, bombers, helicopters, special forces and a massive conventional army. On paper at least, it should have been a cake-walk. For the Russians, Afghanistan was their Vietnam. The political and military fall-out of their bitter experience in the 1980s lives on to this day. For them, it all started to go wrong in 1979 – when they made the fatal decision to invade.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan stemmed from a desire to control – following the disastrous reaction of the Afghan people to the new Democratic Republic of Afghanistan government – the destiny of a new socialist state, governed by a communist party. The Soviets felt that they had no choice but to come to the aid of the new government and felt compelled to act immediately. The need for quick, robust action was urgent because the state only controlled some of the cities, and even there, the position was parlous. Outside the cities, it was the tribal elders and clan chiefs who ran the countryside; and sensing that their new government was totally ineffective, they quickly exploited the situation to their own advantage. The primary reason for this government’s failure was simple. They were split down the middle, and were so engrossed with infighting that they took their eye off the ball, stalling the very purpose of their mission: the spreading of the gospel of socialism. Worse still, their message of creating a new egalitarian society by means of equal land distribution, the emancipation of women and the sweeping away of traditional Afghan values found little support amongst the Islamic tribes. Ironically, the only good thing to come from this government was the fact that they were so hated by the Afghan people that they actually succeeded in galvanizing all the factions and power bases at the same time, bringing them together, a feat that nobody else had managed in centuries. The final straw came when the President of Afghanistan was murdered by his prime minister, an illustration, if any were needed, of how bad the faction fighting had become. (Now that’s political infighting.) The prime minister quickly became the new president, but was worse than the previous one, which is saying something. The army mutinied, law and order broke down, and villages and cities revolted, culminating in civil war.

Russian BTRs form up in convoy prior to an operation in Afghanistan.

THE SOVIET INVASION

It was 1979, and the Soviet General Secretary Leonard Brezhnev had seen enough. He decided to act before his client state of Afghanistan disintegrated before his very eyes. He gathered his General Staff together, and they recommended using the intervention model that was used in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, but with some variations. Their plans however, were seriously flawed; as they were to discover later in the mission phase. The key truth that had been overlooked was that Afghanistan was embroiled in an all-out civil war: so a coup de main would only take control of the central government, and not that of the mainly rural population. Thus the intervention was doomed from the very start.

To the Soviet Union’s credit militarily, the initial invasion of Afghanistan went extremely well, especially so as many of the participating units were only briefed days before the Christmas Eve commencement of the operation. The military invasion itself was masterfully planned, and well executed and the seizure of the government and termination of the president’s authority were quickly accomplished. Within days, the Russians had their own president in place and quickly set about the business of restoring order. Their plan was threefold: to restore order nationally by means of the Democratic Republic Army; to strengthen and restructure it for long-term stability; and then withdraw their own support forces after three years. However, there was one insuperable problem: the Democratic Republic Army was broken and totally dispirited, and in no position to suppress an all-out revolt.

For the Russians, losing face is everything and the thought of a total defeat was just too much to contemplate. But this was the most likely scenario, once they withdrew their own forces. To put this situation into context, one must remember the Russian psyche for warfare, which during the 1980s was geared up and trained for fighting large-scale, high tempo operations, and not guerrilla warfare. It is indeed most odd that it never occurred to them that they may one day face the same nightmare that the Americans had faced in Vietnam – and possibly even the same fate! Like a lumbering giant, they were slow to react to the unpredictability of unconventional warfare, and paid a heavy price for that failure. This is in contrast to the British Army in Afghanistan today, which trains and fights at section level – and gives a lot of tactical and command autonomy to its junior ranking soldiers – making them far better equipped to fight small groups or individuals. The Russians were at the time just the opposite, constrained by the need to refer every significant decision up the chain of command for approval.

Further complicating the situation for them was the long and convoluted process of making a decision, even when the situation had been sent up the chain, as there was no one person who could take a view on anything. Instead, everything had to be agreed by a committee of the collective leadership that had been put in charge, following General Secretary Brezhnev’s severe decline in health in 1980. This sorry state of affairs went on until his death in 1982 – only to be repeated when he was succeeded by Yuri Andropov, who barely lasted two years in the post.

At this time, the Russian military leadership was recommending withdrawal, as they could see the writing was on the wall, but alas, their political masters could not. A situation not too dissimilar to ours today, vis-à-vis our involvement in Iraq. By 1984, the situation in Afghanistan was desperate, yet the politicians refused to budge. (During this period, the Soviet Union’s General Secretary was Konstantin Chernenko, but like his predecessors he didn’t last long in the job, as he died in 1985.) The final closure for Russia in Afghanistan eventually came about after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power. Prior to his arrival, the attitude was basically plod on and let’s see what happens. But Gorbachev wanted a conclusion – one way or the other. Instinctively, his first thought was to increase the tempo of operation and thus Russia had the bloodiest year of the war so far: a situation not a million miles away from what is happening in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2007.

Russian Spetsnaz prepare for a mission.