Not solely People risked life and limb to serve in Afghanistan

[ad_1] Frank Gardner BBC Safety Correspondent

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/623c/live/324e36c0-f889-11f0-b385-5f48925de19a.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/623c/live/324e36c0-f889-11f0-b385-5f48925de19a.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/623c/live/324e36c0-f889-11f0-b385-5f48925de19a.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/623c/live/324e36c0-f889-11f0-b385-5f48925de19a.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/623c/live/324e36c0-f889-11f0-b385-5f48925de19a.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/623c/live/324e36c0-f889-11f0-b385-5f48925de19a.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/623c/live/324e36c0-f889-11f0-b385-5f48925de19a.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/623c/live/324e36c0-f889-11f0-b385-5f48925de19a.jpg.webp" loading="eager" alt="PA Media Royal Marines of M Company of 42 Commando in military fatigues and wielding guns during an operation to clear compounds used by the Taliban in Helmand Province of Southern Afghanistan" class="sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA"/> PA Media Blast partitions, rocket assaults, Ahead Working Bases (FOBs), Improvised Explosive Units (IEDs)... and lengthy queues within the canteen. Anybody who deployed to Afghanistan, in no matter position, between 2001-2021 can have their very own vivid recollections of that point.

It began with the flight in – to Kandahar, Kabul or Camp Bastion. It may very well be an extended, sluggish descent with the lights out on an RAF jet, or a speedy, corkscrew down in a C-130 transport airplane. In each circumstances the intention was to keep away from being blown out of the air by a Taliban surface-to-air missile.

Over the course of 20 years hundreds of servicemen and ladies, in addition to civilians, from dozens of nations deployed to Afghanistan, answering the US name for help.

That decision got here within the type of invoking Nato's Article 5 of its constitution – the one time it has ever occurred in Nato's 77-year historical past – which states that an assault on one member shall be deemed an assault on all.

America was reeling from the devastating 9/11 assaults when al-Qaeda, which was being sheltered by the Taliban in Afghanistan, murdered practically 3,000 folks by flying packed airliners into New York's Twin Towers and the Pentagon in Washington.

The Taliban had been swiftly pushed from energy in a joint effort by the US navy, the CIA and Afghanistan's Northern Alliance.

Then it was all about making an attempt to search out the remnants of al-Qaeda as Britain's Royal Marines, along with UK Particular Forces, pursued them over the mountains however many escaped to security to regroup in Pakistan.

It was not till ten years later that the US Navy's Seal Group Six commandos tracked down the al-Qaeda chief, Osama Bin Laden, in a villa in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The primary two years of the US-led "Operation Enduring Freedom" because it was known as, had been comparatively quiet. By late 2003, as America's consideration switched to Iraq, US servicemen we met even began referring to Afghanistan as "Op Forgotten". Nevertheless it was nonetheless harmful.

From a rain-soaked Kandahar airbase we watched Romanian troops edge nervously out on patrol of their Soviet-era armoured autos, cautious of the following ambush.

Flying right into a distant US-manned firebase within the mountainous Paktika province in a Blackhawk helicopter, my BBC crew and I had been informed cheerfully: "You have come to the worst place on this planet".

Certain sufficient, the Taliban launched Chinese language-made rockets on the base after darkish, planted there, we had been informed, by farmers who had been both bribed or coerced into doing so.

Every thing modified after 2006, when the UK deployed in power to Helmand province, part of Afghanistan that had been comparatively peaceable till then.

The Taliban made their intentions clear. When you come, they mentioned, then we'll battle you.

And but the UK authorities on the time appeared shocked on the ferocity of the combating 3 Para now discovered themselves engaged in, with British paratroopers calling in mortar and artillery fireplace so near their positions it was termed "hazard shut", in an effort to cease their bases from being overrun.

Over the following eight years, till the tip of fight operations in 2014, it was not simply People who had been risking life and limb to serve in Afghanistan.

Brits, Canadians, Danes and Estonians had been amongst those that noticed the hardest combating in Kandahar and Helmand provinces. It might even be churlish to disregard the bravery and sacrifice of so many Afghans who fought and died over 20 years.

I say "combating" however most troopers' largest fears stemmed from the hidden IEDs, these expertly hid Improvised Explosive Units. The Taliban, who after all knew each inch of their terrain, had been usually capable of guess appropriately precisely the place troops would want to cross an irrigation ditch or canal and so place the bomb accordingly.

Within the area of a break up second, in a blinding flash and puff of black smoke, a match, wholesome, 20-something particular person would have their life both ended or catastrophically modified, dealing with amputation and a bunch of different problems.

So prevalent had been these IEDs that troopers had been going out of the gates of their FOBs - Ahead Working Bases - on patrol praying that in the event that they obtained hit it might end in a below-the-knee amputation, not one above the knee.

The braveness and resilience of the folks I've met since, who've managed, regardless of horrible loss and adversity, to show their shattered lives round, is each humbling and awe-inspiring.