thedrifter
10-30-06, 07:22 PM
Troops turn away from 'ink spots' for control
From Anthony Loyd in Lashkar Gah
AMONG the dust and rubbish beside a street junction in the centre of Lashkar Gah lies a barely distinguishable black scorch mark. It plays on the minds of British soldiers patrolling the city.
It was here, just under two weeks ago, that a suicide bomber finished his conversation with children working a nearby stall, stepped into the road and blew himself up in front of a British Land Rover, killing Marine Gary Wright. Intelligence reports suggest that more suicide attackers are waiting to kill more British troops. And there are a limited amount of ways to avoid such attacks.
The Royal Marines, though, do not seem unduly disturbed. “Yee ha! We’re going to war!” one cried out as he got off a helicopter in Lashgar Gah. His commanding officer was more expansive but equally relaxed.
“If you listen to all the rumours then you would never go out or do anything,” said Colonel Ian Huntley, the Royal Marine commander in the capital of the restive Helmand province of Afghanistan. “It was always expected that there would be a period of asymmetric war, suicide bombings, et cetera. Generally, though, the place is relatively benign. I’m sure there are many worse places in the world to work.”
The colonel’s phlegmatic approach typifies the attitude of 3 Commando Brigade, which arrived in Helmand a month ago. Its mission — to support the Afghan Government with the necessary security measures to allow civil development — had been slanted more to war fighting than reconstruction after the outgoing 16 Air Assault Brigade spent the summer engaged in heated battles with insurgents.
Development was all but non-existent in Helmand by the time the Marines arrived, its concept still pinned on the failed idea of “ink spots”, whereby isolated northern towns, including Musa Qala and Sangin, were supposed to be the seeds of an expanding stability rather than the scenes of fierce fighting and rancour.
In the absence of officials from the Department for International Development, who rarely venture out of Kabul, the development of Helmand — the key to making progress in southern Afghanistan — has fallen largely on the military’s shoulders. The “ink spot” idea has been killed off, replaced by the concept of the “ADZ”, the Afghan Development Zone, a lozenge-shaped area, approximately 40 km (25 miles) long by 20 km wide, stretching along the Helmand river valley from the town of Gereshk to the city of Lashkar Gah.
Despite the threat of the suicide attacks, British patrols are deploying daily from their base in Lashkar Gah, home to about 350 soldiers and Marines, and assessing the potential of redevelopment sites within the ADZ.
The speed of progress might be slow, but the mission is up and running. And unlike in Iraq, where British officers and men have expressed doubts openly about the advantage of their continued presence in the country, in Helmand hope in the mission still remains high.
“I’m broadly optimistic,” Colonel Huntley concluded. “A short, quick plan is accepted as false. We’re trying to get this country from the medieval to the 21st century. We have to be patient and look not for big results but for trends.”
Fifty-five insurgents and a Nato soldier were killed in a six-hour battle in the Daychopan district of Zabul province in southern Afghanistan yesterday, according to Nato.
Ellie
From Anthony Loyd in Lashkar Gah
AMONG the dust and rubbish beside a street junction in the centre of Lashkar Gah lies a barely distinguishable black scorch mark. It plays on the minds of British soldiers patrolling the city.
It was here, just under two weeks ago, that a suicide bomber finished his conversation with children working a nearby stall, stepped into the road and blew himself up in front of a British Land Rover, killing Marine Gary Wright. Intelligence reports suggest that more suicide attackers are waiting to kill more British troops. And there are a limited amount of ways to avoid such attacks.
The Royal Marines, though, do not seem unduly disturbed. “Yee ha! We’re going to war!” one cried out as he got off a helicopter in Lashgar Gah. His commanding officer was more expansive but equally relaxed.
“If you listen to all the rumours then you would never go out or do anything,” said Colonel Ian Huntley, the Royal Marine commander in the capital of the restive Helmand province of Afghanistan. “It was always expected that there would be a period of asymmetric war, suicide bombings, et cetera. Generally, though, the place is relatively benign. I’m sure there are many worse places in the world to work.”
The colonel’s phlegmatic approach typifies the attitude of 3 Commando Brigade, which arrived in Helmand a month ago. Its mission — to support the Afghan Government with the necessary security measures to allow civil development — had been slanted more to war fighting than reconstruction after the outgoing 16 Air Assault Brigade spent the summer engaged in heated battles with insurgents.
Development was all but non-existent in Helmand by the time the Marines arrived, its concept still pinned on the failed idea of “ink spots”, whereby isolated northern towns, including Musa Qala and Sangin, were supposed to be the seeds of an expanding stability rather than the scenes of fierce fighting and rancour.
In the absence of officials from the Department for International Development, who rarely venture out of Kabul, the development of Helmand — the key to making progress in southern Afghanistan — has fallen largely on the military’s shoulders. The “ink spot” idea has been killed off, replaced by the concept of the “ADZ”, the Afghan Development Zone, a lozenge-shaped area, approximately 40 km (25 miles) long by 20 km wide, stretching along the Helmand river valley from the town of Gereshk to the city of Lashkar Gah.
Despite the threat of the suicide attacks, British patrols are deploying daily from their base in Lashkar Gah, home to about 350 soldiers and Marines, and assessing the potential of redevelopment sites within the ADZ.
The speed of progress might be slow, but the mission is up and running. And unlike in Iraq, where British officers and men have expressed doubts openly about the advantage of their continued presence in the country, in Helmand hope in the mission still remains high.
“I’m broadly optimistic,” Colonel Huntley concluded. “A short, quick plan is accepted as false. We’re trying to get this country from the medieval to the 21st century. We have to be patient and look not for big results but for trends.”
Fifty-five insurgents and a Nato soldier were killed in a six-hour battle in the Daychopan district of Zabul province in southern Afghanistan yesterday, according to Nato.
Ellie