416_Part I Ch1-2.indd

Every few days during the summer of 2010, the same sentence kept appearing in the British newspapers: ‘A soldier has died as the result of an explosion. His next of kin have been informed.’ Taliban ‘shadow governors’ operated in all but one of Afghanistan’s thirty-four provinces. The Taliban still conducted hit and run attacks but their most effective weapon, by far, was the IED.

In September 2010, the British forces quietly handed Sangin, the most dangerous district of Afghanistan’s most violent province, over to the US Marines. The ceremony was described as a ‘relatively private affair’ by a British military spokesman. It was not a retreat or a withdrawal, we were told, it was a ‘tactical realignment and rebalancing’. Several other problem districts were also taken over by the US Marines. The Brits moved to less volatile (but still far from secure) districts of central Helmand. US Marines now outnumbered British forces by almost three to one.

In late 2010, the Wikileaks site published previously secret communications that revealed that the American commander who had led NATO forces in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2008, and even President Karzai himself, didn’t think the British were ‘up to’ securing Helmand. The official response from the UK Ministry of Defence was to say that UK forces had done ‘a terrific job [in] an area which has always been and continues to be, uniquely challenging’. The bazaar in Sangin had been ‘transformed ... more than eight hundred and fifty shops are trading, twice as many as the year before’. It was an impossible number either to calculate or confirm; it was the best they could do.

By summer 2010, the thirty-three thousand American ‘surge’ troops had arrived. General McChrystal had been sacked, after making inappropriate comments to Rolling Stone magazine. His replacement, ‘King David’ Petraeus, loosened the rules of engagement, giving the troops more freedom to fire what they wanted when they wanted, and to defend themselves more aggressively. Between July and November 2010, there were approximately 3,500 air strikes, the highest number since the war had begun and the number of night raids by Special Forces tripled. There were also 711 NATO casualties over the whole year, almost two hundred more than any other year so far. It was apt that the US forces taking over in Sangin, 3/5 Marines, were nicknamed ‘the Butchers of Fallujah’, because of the way they had fought there.

In Sangin, I was repeatedly told not to ask about the ‘Wikileaks bullshit’ regarding the Americans ‘disrespecting’ the British. ‘Whatever we do here, we’re building on what the British did’, was a line I often heard. I also heard stories from the few Brits who remained in Sangin, who were absolutely sure they were being disrespected. Since my first visit, the British had established a team of ‘stabilisation advisors’ who had developed a rare and comprehensive knowledge of Sangin’s tribal politics and built relationships with local elders, even with Taliban commanders, with whom they were negotiating peace deals. But their opinions weren’t sought and their existence was barely acknowledged. A district-wide peace deal was possible, I was told by an aide to the district governor, who worked with the stabilisation team. However, the arrival of the US Marines had led to more civilian deaths and an increase in support for the local Taliban, who wanted to keep fighting. There had been a recruitment surge, as young men joined the Taliban to get their revenge. The increase in Special Forces’ kill-or-capture raids exacerbated the problem: if the moderate and reasonable local leaders were killed, they would be replaced by ‘crazies from madrassahs in Pakistan’. The Marines thought a peace deal was only possible if the Taliban were beaten into submission.

Before arriving in Sangin, I’d spent some time in Kandahar with the 101st Airborne Division, US Army. In three weeks, I didn’t see a single shot being fired but the list of dead and wounded from IED explosions was horrendous. Casualties, simply described as double, triple and even quadruple amps (amputations), had become common. My own colleague, Joao Silva, a much-loved and respected photographer, had stepped on an IED and lost both his legs, just days after we’d spent a few days stuck together at an airbase.

I’d also caught a glimpse of how the Afghan National Army was likely to operate after NATO forces left. A small ANA unit had charged ahead of the American soldiers and found all the IEDs in a small village in less than an hour. ‘How did you do it?’ asked the American captain, astounded. ‘Did you offer the locals $50 for each IED they revealed, like we trained you?’ ‘No’, said the ANA captain, excitedly, ‘we told them “show us the IEDs or start digging your own grave”.’

When I’d returned home, a colleague asked, with concern, why I kept going back to Afghanistan. I told him that Helmand no longer revealed anything new and it was time to cover something else. But within days, I was given the chance to return to Sangin to film with the US Marines and I couldn’t say no. A hundred and six British soldiers had been killed there, almost a third of all British deaths and I wanted to see how the Marines, especially a battalion with such a fearsome reputation, would cope.

The BBC manager who’d stopped me going to Marjah also tried to stop me going to Sangin because I hadn’t completed the ‘hostile environments refresher course’ within the last three years. The course was an idiot’s guide to coping in a war zone. One section involved watching clips from my own films. On a previous course, I’d been made to run in zigzags while someone fired blanks at me. Eventually I was told I could go back to Sangin, as long as I completed the course when I returned.