British troops in final push to clear out insurgents
MoD says troops in Afghanistan are now engaged in fierce and close combat with Taliban fighters
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Independent Minds
CPL DAN PH BARDSLEY RLC
British soldiers in Afghanistan have been engaged in 'tough fighting in sweltering conditions'
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Hundreds of British soldiers are involved in fierce fighting in the final phase of the latest push to drive the Taliban from Afghanistan's Helmand Province. The new offensive is now reaching a climax and has seen soldiers forced into close-quarters combat by Taliban ambushes and resorting to using hand grenades to flush out enemy fighters.
New details released by the Ministry of Defence today reveal how British soldiers have been fighting since Friday to clear the area north of Lashkar Gah of insurgents. They are having to contend with dozens of improvised explosive devices [IEDs] left by retreating Taliban fighters.
More than 700 soldiers from the Light Dragoons and 2nd Battalion, The Mercian Regiment, are involved in Operation Panther's Claw, which is seeing 3,000 British soldiers conducting operations to the north of Lashkar Gah while thousands of US soldiers are conducting similar operations south of the city in a joint effort against the Taliban. Afghan soldiers are also involved.
The offensive began two weeks ago, when hundreds of soldiers from the Black Watch captured three crossing points along the Nahr-e-Burgha canal, around 10 miles to the north of Lashkar Gah, after an airborne assault. Afghan soldiers and police helped to build a checkpoint there called "Hadrian's Wall" – in an attempt to allow local people to return to the previously deserted bazaar to resume normal life without fear of the Taliban. And just 11 days ago, soldiers from the Welsh Guards took control of 13 crossing points over the Shamalan canal in what defence officials described as "tough fighting ... in sweltering conditions".
Coalition forces aim to secure the area and restore confidence among local people there in advance of Afghanistan's presidential elections next month. Another goal is to enable reconstruction and aid projects to get underway in the region. Lt Colonel Nick Richardson, spokesman for Task Force Helmand, said: "We have already secured the crossings along two major waterways to the north of Lashkar Gah, recovered a large number of IEDs, fought back the enemy in several locations and cleared villages along the way."
The fighting has already cost the lives of two British soldiers, Lt Col Rupert Thorneloe, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, and Trooper Joshua Hammond, of 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, who died when their Viking vehicle was ripped apart by a roadside bomb last Wednesday.
Lt Col Thorneloe was the highest ranking army officer to be killed in action since the Falklands War.
But if the subsequent news coverage has been anything to go by, you could be forgiven for thinking that Lt Col Thorneloe was the only soldier to die. His death has been given a level of prominence – fuelled by personal plaudits from Prince Charles and politicians – rarely seen in the deaths of other soldiers. To date, there have been more than a thousand mentions of the senior officer in news reports on Google, in contrast to less than 600 for his junior colleague Trooper Joshua Hammond. Some postings on army internet forums hint at frustration at the way the death of the trooper has been overshadowed.
In the south, two US soldiers were killed when their base came under attack yesterday. The assault included an attempted suicide truck bombing of the base in the Zirok district of southeastern Paktika province. Multiple rocket and mortar rounds had been fired in the attack on the outpost, one of which contained white phosphorus. Afghanistan's Taliban has denied using the chemical, which bursts into flame on contact with the air and can cause horrific burns. A coalition spokesman said about 70 incidents of insurgents using or possessing white phosphorus had been documented since April. Most commonly used on battlefields as a smokescreen or for illumination, its use to deliberately target people is illegal. An eight-year-old girl was badly burned by white phosphorus in west Afghanistan in May, with the US military and the Taliban accusing each other of firing the round containing the chemical.
Over the border, Pakistani warplanes and helicopter gunships pounded Taliban positions in the country's volatile northwest on Saturday, killing at least 12 suspected insurgents, as the government kept up pressure on Islamist militants along the Afghan border. Elsewhere in the northwest, clashes between tribesmen and Taliban fighters left 16 people dead in the latest violence between pro-government tribal militias and insurgents.
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Comments
In life, they were equally worthless. Helping to murder Afghans was not a worthy cause or ambition but Thorneloe should have used his intellectual prowess to determine that he was just another loser in a failed enterprise. In fact, he was a lower life form than the trooper, who probably thought that his band of brothers were actually going to achieve great success over the poor, ill-equipped natives.
In death, it's Thorneloe who grabs the headlines but, in reality, he was the lesser man.
You deliberately post inflamatory comments like this, to cause harm to Muslims here in Britain, Why?
I know why. You hope to cause the British to attack Muslims and drive them into your arms. This will not work. Real Muslims do not condone the acts you relish in, and real Muslims would not say the things done in their name are in the teachings of Islam.
Many times i have seen your hateful boil posted on the forums.
The British will not believe you represent Muslims as a whole.
The British know that Muslims fought besides their comrades in India, Africa, Italy, the Far East, and died as they did, to rid the world of tyranny during the Second World War.
Not just Muslims, but our Sikh, Hindu, Burmese brothers, all as one, in conflict against a common enemy.
Cute little rants from an armchair militant. It's hard not to admire the courage in your heart.
A lack of intelligence is no excuse for unreasoned hatred adroog. Please, grow up.
you are really are sick. seriously. mentally sick. seek help.
i think we, and you, know who here is really worthless: you & your sick, demented band of brothers.
you don't speak for afghans, you don't speak for the 'poor, ill-equipped natives' (you arrogant sob!), you know NOTHING about them or what situation they are in; they are sickened by you; even more so because of your lack of humanity, your lack of respect, your lack of honour; your cowardice; your devaluation of the loss of life. All while you sit in your arm chair, with your feet up. Have you ever done anything in your life that you are proud of? I doubt it.
Those fighting the demented, twisted, sick taliban (or whatever you want to call it) are doing something to help improve the lives of the ordinary afghan. what are YOU doing?? fool.
The West abandoned the Afghans after the Russians withdraw, and we saw the country fall further into the abyss as the extremists filled the void. I don't believe we can take the 'easy' option - and leave now.
Yes, soldiers are in the business of killing, and dying, so some might not sympathise with them - but, at the end of the day, a life is a life even if their choice of career is immoral.
I don't think the media are squarely to blame; politicians head my list of blame, for the 'our brave boys' vs 'evil terrorists' tags; it's our governments which create the spin.
As to your sympathy with Afghan civilians, this might be noble, but in reality is one side and blind. You forget the sufferings inflicted on the Afghan people by other Afghans, which amount to far more dead than the west has ever inflicted or ever will. You also forget that the tribal forces of Afghanistan have deliberately inflicted atrocities on civilians without concern. The Taliban hangs and flogs young women for not behaving as slaves should they kill homosexuals bu pushing walls onto them to crush them to death. Comparing our less than perfect behaviour with this primitive barbarism shows a complete lack of judgement on your part.
Professional soldiers are men of violence. I would counter your argument and say, "professional soldiers are trained to respond to violence, within the rules of engagement, and do not join to kill. By the rules of engagement, they are not above the law".
Terrorists are men of violence with no hinderance or law of their actions.
By their choice of job they believe in violence. So a Police Officer joins to carry out violence, not to uphold the law? A Prison Officer restraining a violent inmate joined so he can use force? A doorman on a club breaking up drunks wants to hurt people?
Suicide bombers in a market place full of children, women and men buying their shopping, are not victims of violence by choice of the individual who is the bomber? The professional protestor who does not think twice about hurling the house brick, the petrol bomb, or just the plain old pub dart.
A choice of career as a soldier is immoral.
So in your eyes the Doctor who carries out abortions is immoral. What about the Doctor who has to switch off the life support of a person who has no chance of recovery? The clinician who agrees to instruct a terminally ill patient, who is in excruciating pain because of their illness, how to end their life?
The media portrays the death of a soldiers as "our brave boys".
On YouTube etc, and Arabic Stations, suicide bombers, who have infiltrated civilian areas and ignited their explosives, are described as martyrs.
If a soldier dies, he dies alone. If a so called martyr dies, he takes many lives, mainly innocents.
Your sympathy is with the tens of thousands of Afghans who have been killed, but how about the living? Are you really so ignorant, most deaths have been caused by suicide bombers, car\van bombs, terror acts on the civilian populace by the Taliban, who are mainly non Afghanis.
Do not be a shill for their cause, this betrays the good Afghani people.
My wish is you never have to experience the horrors these brave people are going through.
Inshallah peace will return to the land.
So, you think soldiers are not men of violence but merely trained to respond to it??!! I'm baffled, I don't know where to start. Ok, the Nazi soldiers who invaded Poland, France, Russia, etc, the Argentine soldiers who invaded the Falklands, The Iraqi soldiers who invaded Kuwait, the Japanese Soldiers who invaded China, Korea, Malaya, etc, the US soldiers who invaded Grenada, Panama, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, etc, The Russians who invaded Afghanistan and Chechnya, the Israeli soldiers who attacked Gaza, Lebanon, etc, etc, the French, the Spanish,.......NEED I GO ON? You live a fantasy apparently created by reading the Sun. Soldiers are brave are they? Does that include the ones who rape, the ones who torture, who humiliate innocent civilians, the ones who 'accidentally' kill everyone at a wedding in Afghanistan, how about the ones who kidnap civilians and send them to Guantanamo for torture sessions, how about the generals who lie about the progress of wars in order to not lose face, get promoted and take a cushy job in the disgracful global weapons industry. Us soldiers massacring villagers in Vietnam were brave were they? The British crushing Malays who dared to want their country back, thry were brave were they?
Every military town in the world is notorious for the alarming levels of violence, drunkeness and prostitution. Military and ex-military men have levels of violent crime, spousal abuse, etc far above the norm. Rascism, sexism and homophobia are rampant in most militaries. A tiny proportion of crimes commited by military personal are ever brought to justice, because far from being brave, they are able to hide behind their government's protection and evade prosecution. In Iraq, the US/UK occupying force re-wrote the laws of Iraq exempting all their military personel from ANY legal action for any crimes they may commit. Wake up and see the truth - the world is riven with war because some men actually like violence. Some just do it as a hobby at football matches, but soldiers actually willfully join up in order to get into the real hard-core stuff. If you think this outlandish, read the history of 20th century wars and see how 100,000,000 people were killed because of what? Yes, soldiers starting wars. You could argue that politicians start wars but without a large contingent of men ready to kill, shoot, bomb etc - no war.
No one should be in Afghanistan as the Russian found out. The Nambucco pipeline is why western powers are in Afghanistan, certainly not worth the death of the English working class.
Where is that vicious old thug anyhow? Isn't it time for him to have a fatal heart-attack yet?
The taliban are an arm of the cia and as long as we need the profits they will be working to keep us there, perpetually if needed.
As for all this fuss about a high ranking soldier killed, to me each one of the hundreds of kids killed by massive profit making missiles, causes more grief. If you are in an invading army then you must have some idea of the risks you are taking, being killed would be one of those risks.
The invasion of afganistan was not right, good or honourable, I therefore have very little sympathy for any deaths incurred by the invaders
talebosh you have been caught in your own lies.
The money, the profits (very good profits).
Your taxes financing these wars are all helping the obsene profits of the following companies and these are just a few of them. GE Aviation, General Dynamics, ITT, Lockheed Martin, The Boeing Company, L-3 Communications, Northrup Grumman, Oracle, Raytheon, Sikorsky, Stonebridge International, BGR Holdings, The Cohen Group, Tri Polis, EP Team, The Fremont Group, and DRS Technologies. 100% profit minimum just for a bullet.
By the time you have got a soldier his equipment and all the logistics to get him and keep him in Afganistan to shoot the bullet into a baby, hundreds of private companies have made a massive profit, all paid for by your taxes.
The Drugs money is all run by the cia, always has been, just ask our buddies in colombia
The muhajadeeen wre set up by the cia to get rid of the russians. The connections are still there.
Divide & conquer, is classic tactic, Create massive disorder which weakens the controlling government. Works all the time. The are using it in Pakistan and to some effect in Iran, Looks like they are trying to split China with their cajoling of the ethnic states within china.
The usa - uk controlling financiers have for the last 100 yrs controlled the mid east, africa, south/central america, far east asia and india and nothing has changed, except the usa has become the largest supporter of non elected governments and puppet 'electeted' governments globally. The usa has continuously interferred in governments around the world and has actually on lots of occasions removed elected governments to be replaced with their own chosen dictators that they have supported until death or if they were naughty eg saddam. Saddam was put into power to weaken Iran. How long was the iran-iraq war? 7yrs or something and the above companies all made alot of money.
Money and profits!!
I like it.
Inshallah the sun will rise on a brighter day.
However i will not agreee with comments about British soldiers being 'worthless' or those saying they deserved to die. The majority of soldiers are not there to kill civilians and the majority of civilian deaths are due to politicians and very senior officers deciding to make big offensives or to rely on few ground forces but lots of airstrikes. Whatever the NATO governments' motives for going to war in Afghanistan (which may well include an oil pipeline from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan as much or more than the Taliban's link to Al Qaeda) many Taliban are brutal and ruthless and many soldiers fighting there believe they are there to stop the Taliban getting back into power.
There have been war crimes committed by NATO forces in Afghanistan and i don't defend those, nor torture of Afghans and Iraqis (for which there is no excuse), but most soldiers are not involved in either and reliant for information on what their superiors tell them.
As a military person myself, I have nothing but utmost respect to them and their families.