Saturday, October 03, 2009 6:51:01 AM
Fruitless battle against invisible insurgents of Badam Kalay
View from inside an MRAP armoured vehicle as the battle rages in Badam Kalay
US soldiers of the 110th Mountain Division take cover as the opening shots in the battle are fired
Afghan National Army soldiers found photographs they say are of triumphant Taleban fighters, in a house in Badam Kalay
Martin Fletcher in Badam Kalay, Afghanistan
October 2, 2009
The ferocious battle for the village of Badam Kalay began early on Wednesday afternoon when, without warning, two rounds from an AK47 whistled past Lieutenant-Colonel Kimo Gallahue of the US 10th Mountain Division and narrowly missed Peter Nicholls, The Times photographer.
For the next two days a handful of Talebs defied the might of the US military. The invisible insurgents used their knowledge of the labyrinthine village and its rugged mountain backdrop to dodge a fearsome barrage of rockets, mortars and earth-shaking bombs while continuously shooting at the coalition forces.
It was a battle with sobering lessons for President Obama as he weighs whether to expand or scale back America’s presence in Afghanistan. It showed that to secure a single village, let alone win the allegiance of its people, requires a massive investment of manpower, time and resources. To abandon somewhere like Badam Kalay to the Taleban, however, is almost unthinkable. It is barely 35 miles from Kabul and overlooks the critical Kabul-Kandahar highway.
The village, in Wardak province, consists of about 120 homes — mud-walled compounds called qalats — surrounded by vivid green trees in a bowl of barren mountains on the western side of the parched Towp Valley.
Badam Kalay looks charming but the US military suspects that the Taleban have been using it to place roadside bombs on the highway. At least three 300-pounders have been planted there this year, with command wires leading back towards the village. One killed two US special forces officers.
At about 7.30am on Wednesday a coalition force of more than 100, drawn from Colonel Gallahue’s 2-87 Infantry Battalion, the Marines, special forces and the Afghan National Army and police, set up base near the village.
A route-clearance team checked the approach road for improvised explosive devices. Then the soldiers went in — some on foot, others in heavily armoured “mine resistant ambush protected” vehicles, or MRAPs. They started at the southern end, checking each house for signs of Taleban activity, with the Afghan security forces taking the lead to reassure the villagers.
For a few hours all was peaceful. Then the two bullets shaved Colonel Gallahue’s head as he arrived to inspect the operation from an incline overlooking the village. The Americans responded with grenades. More shots rang out. Soon Badam Kalay was engulfed in a battle that lasted for hours.
The Taleban appeared to be firing from qalats in the village and the rocky slopes above. The coalition responded with machinegun fire and mortars. Late in the afternoon, two Apache attack helicopters arrived to pound the lower reaches of the mountains, the rattle of their 30mm cannon followed seconds later by puffs of flame and smoke from pulverised rocks.
The Times was locked inside an MRAP as it manoeuvred around the village’s narrow dirt tracks, its aerials tangling in low-hanging electricity lines, spent shells from its machinegun cascading into the cabin. “They’re all over the place. They knew we were coming,” said the driver. There was not a villager to be seen.
As darkness fell, red tracer bullets streaked over Badam Kalay. It was 9pm before the coalition forces withdrew to rocky wasteland outside the village. They had checked every house. In one, they found Taleban flags; in another, photographs of triumphant Taleban fighters — but that was it. Nobody had set eyes on their adversaries. Nobody knew if any had been killed. Lieutenant Chris Wallgren, C Company’s platoon leader, guessed that the insurgents had fought until dark so that high-ranking Talebs could escape over the mountains by night. “I don’t know if they’ll be here tomorrow,” he said.
The soldiers slept in their vehicles, changing guards every hour. They were awake well before dawn. The Afghan soldiers balked at entering the village first in case the Taleban had laid IEDs overnight. “We’re scared as f***,” said their interpreter — but shortly after 5am the force went in.
For a while it seemed peaceful. A villager herded goats to his qalat. The soldiers headed for a suspected Taleban hideout high above the village. They had just found it when the insurgents opened fire from the ridges overhead. The Talebs — perhaps 30 in all — appeared to have scattered across the mountain during the night and were soon raking the coalition troops below.
The soldiers took cover and returned fire as the US mortars opened up. Lieutenant Wallgren called for Apaches but the only ones not in use elsewhere were undergoing maintenance. Instead, two US F15s arrived with deafening roars. They could not drop their bombs without clearly identified targets so they repeatedly strafed the mountainside, giving the coalition troops cover to retreat pell-mell down to the village, sprinting from boulder to boulder. The enemy’s fire was very accurate, said Lieutenant Wallgren. “I found myself running as fast as I could with all my gear on. I took a couple of spills. The whole time the ground was popping up around me. I could hear [bullets] over my head.”
Finally, two Apaches arrived. For 70 minutes the deadly aircraft circled, pounding the ridges with rockets and cannon, turning the tables on the militants. The Apaches worked up the mountainside, suggesting that the Talebs were trying to escape over the top. From a distance it was like watching the finale of a spectacular fireworks show — with one final flourish. Without warning, a 500lb bomb landed on a ridge, dropped by a B1 bomber too high to spot. The explosion shook the valley and then, at last, there was silence.
It seemed inconceivable that any Taleb had survived. The coalition forces withdrew. Then two rockets streaked defiantly from the mountainside, narrowly missing the coalition base on the far side of the village. The resistance continued.
Miraculously, no coalition forces were killed, but as they rested and took stock — and as Afghan policemen collected spent brass bullet casings to sell in the bazaar — they expressed grudging respect for the Talebs. “They had the balls to fire at the birds [Apaches],” said Specialist Eric Petty.
“They’re ghosts. We look and look and look, but they’re gone,” said Staff Sergeant Merlin Quiles. “Any time you have a huge [force] like this you expect them just to take off and go hide somewhere,” said Specialist John Wells, a medic. By contrast, Lieutenant Wallgren sounded lukewarm when asked about the performance of the Afghan soldiers. “They’ve a way to go,” he said.
He and other officers acknowledged their frustration at the continued resistance but claimed some success, arguing that they had flushed out the Talebs, disrupted their plans, forced them to move and gained intelligence.
The operation was hardly a resounding victory, however. Nobody knew how many insurgents had been killed or wounded. None were detained. The villagers had offered little, if any, information, and by Thursday the coalition had been planning to start the next crucial phase of the operation: winning them over with blankets, winter clothes and the promise of better governance. “We’re not worried about hearts and minds right now,” said Lieutenant Wallgren, his face grimy with dirt and sweat. “After two days of this, humanitarian assistance will wait.”
The battle of Badam Kalay highlights the dilemma facing Mr Obama amid growing domestic opposition to the US military's request for 40,000 more troops.
For two days, a few resourceful Talebs held off more than 100 coalition troops backed by terrifying firepower and all manner of surveillance and communications wizardry. Moreover, the multimillion-dollar operation was just one small part of a much bigger operation to clear the neighbouring Nerkh Valley, itself part of the vast, enduring campaign to drive the Taleban from Afghanistan and win over a sceptical population.
Counter-insurgency “is a long, drawn-out process,” said Captain Jeffrey Dupree, 2-87’s fire support officer. “It requires a lot of time, people and plenty of patience.” But abandoning villages like Badam Kalay to the Taleban is no option either. Not only would that sever the Kabul-Kandahar highway, but it would give the Taleban a base to attack the capital from a part of Wardak province dubbed Kabul’s “soft underbelly”.
“Badam Kalay is not huge in the overall scheme. It’s not important economically or anything,” said Captain Dupree. “But left to insurgent control it’s a perfect staging area . . . We can’t leave it alone.”
---
Related
Barack Obama holds runway summit with General Stanley McChrystal
October 3, 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6858796.ece
A month in Helmand: the soldiers' stories
The Times war correspondent revisits his old regiment and reports on the daily ordeal of life on Afghanistan's bloodiest battlefront
October 3, 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6852533.ece
---
Copyright 2009 Times Newspapers Ltd.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6858842.ece [no comments yet]
View from inside an MRAP armoured vehicle as the battle rages in Badam Kalay
US soldiers of the 110th Mountain Division take cover as the opening shots in the battle are fired
Afghan National Army soldiers found photographs they say are of triumphant Taleban fighters, in a house in Badam Kalay
Martin Fletcher in Badam Kalay, Afghanistan
October 2, 2009
The ferocious battle for the village of Badam Kalay began early on Wednesday afternoon when, without warning, two rounds from an AK47 whistled past Lieutenant-Colonel Kimo Gallahue of the US 10th Mountain Division and narrowly missed Peter Nicholls, The Times photographer.
For the next two days a handful of Talebs defied the might of the US military. The invisible insurgents used their knowledge of the labyrinthine village and its rugged mountain backdrop to dodge a fearsome barrage of rockets, mortars and earth-shaking bombs while continuously shooting at the coalition forces.
It was a battle with sobering lessons for President Obama as he weighs whether to expand or scale back America’s presence in Afghanistan. It showed that to secure a single village, let alone win the allegiance of its people, requires a massive investment of manpower, time and resources. To abandon somewhere like Badam Kalay to the Taleban, however, is almost unthinkable. It is barely 35 miles from Kabul and overlooks the critical Kabul-Kandahar highway.
The village, in Wardak province, consists of about 120 homes — mud-walled compounds called qalats — surrounded by vivid green trees in a bowl of barren mountains on the western side of the parched Towp Valley.
Badam Kalay looks charming but the US military suspects that the Taleban have been using it to place roadside bombs on the highway. At least three 300-pounders have been planted there this year, with command wires leading back towards the village. One killed two US special forces officers.
At about 7.30am on Wednesday a coalition force of more than 100, drawn from Colonel Gallahue’s 2-87 Infantry Battalion, the Marines, special forces and the Afghan National Army and police, set up base near the village.
A route-clearance team checked the approach road for improvised explosive devices. Then the soldiers went in — some on foot, others in heavily armoured “mine resistant ambush protected” vehicles, or MRAPs. They started at the southern end, checking each house for signs of Taleban activity, with the Afghan security forces taking the lead to reassure the villagers.
For a few hours all was peaceful. Then the two bullets shaved Colonel Gallahue’s head as he arrived to inspect the operation from an incline overlooking the village. The Americans responded with grenades. More shots rang out. Soon Badam Kalay was engulfed in a battle that lasted for hours.
The Taleban appeared to be firing from qalats in the village and the rocky slopes above. The coalition responded with machinegun fire and mortars. Late in the afternoon, two Apache attack helicopters arrived to pound the lower reaches of the mountains, the rattle of their 30mm cannon followed seconds later by puffs of flame and smoke from pulverised rocks.
The Times was locked inside an MRAP as it manoeuvred around the village’s narrow dirt tracks, its aerials tangling in low-hanging electricity lines, spent shells from its machinegun cascading into the cabin. “They’re all over the place. They knew we were coming,” said the driver. There was not a villager to be seen.
As darkness fell, red tracer bullets streaked over Badam Kalay. It was 9pm before the coalition forces withdrew to rocky wasteland outside the village. They had checked every house. In one, they found Taleban flags; in another, photographs of triumphant Taleban fighters — but that was it. Nobody had set eyes on their adversaries. Nobody knew if any had been killed. Lieutenant Chris Wallgren, C Company’s platoon leader, guessed that the insurgents had fought until dark so that high-ranking Talebs could escape over the mountains by night. “I don’t know if they’ll be here tomorrow,” he said.
The soldiers slept in their vehicles, changing guards every hour. They were awake well before dawn. The Afghan soldiers balked at entering the village first in case the Taleban had laid IEDs overnight. “We’re scared as f***,” said their interpreter — but shortly after 5am the force went in.
For a while it seemed peaceful. A villager herded goats to his qalat. The soldiers headed for a suspected Taleban hideout high above the village. They had just found it when the insurgents opened fire from the ridges overhead. The Talebs — perhaps 30 in all — appeared to have scattered across the mountain during the night and were soon raking the coalition troops below.
The soldiers took cover and returned fire as the US mortars opened up. Lieutenant Wallgren called for Apaches but the only ones not in use elsewhere were undergoing maintenance. Instead, two US F15s arrived with deafening roars. They could not drop their bombs without clearly identified targets so they repeatedly strafed the mountainside, giving the coalition troops cover to retreat pell-mell down to the village, sprinting from boulder to boulder. The enemy’s fire was very accurate, said Lieutenant Wallgren. “I found myself running as fast as I could with all my gear on. I took a couple of spills. The whole time the ground was popping up around me. I could hear [bullets] over my head.”
Finally, two Apaches arrived. For 70 minutes the deadly aircraft circled, pounding the ridges with rockets and cannon, turning the tables on the militants. The Apaches worked up the mountainside, suggesting that the Talebs were trying to escape over the top. From a distance it was like watching the finale of a spectacular fireworks show — with one final flourish. Without warning, a 500lb bomb landed on a ridge, dropped by a B1 bomber too high to spot. The explosion shook the valley and then, at last, there was silence.
It seemed inconceivable that any Taleb had survived. The coalition forces withdrew. Then two rockets streaked defiantly from the mountainside, narrowly missing the coalition base on the far side of the village. The resistance continued.
Miraculously, no coalition forces were killed, but as they rested and took stock — and as Afghan policemen collected spent brass bullet casings to sell in the bazaar — they expressed grudging respect for the Talebs. “They had the balls to fire at the birds [Apaches],” said Specialist Eric Petty.
“They’re ghosts. We look and look and look, but they’re gone,” said Staff Sergeant Merlin Quiles. “Any time you have a huge [force] like this you expect them just to take off and go hide somewhere,” said Specialist John Wells, a medic. By contrast, Lieutenant Wallgren sounded lukewarm when asked about the performance of the Afghan soldiers. “They’ve a way to go,” he said.
He and other officers acknowledged their frustration at the continued resistance but claimed some success, arguing that they had flushed out the Talebs, disrupted their plans, forced them to move and gained intelligence.
The operation was hardly a resounding victory, however. Nobody knew how many insurgents had been killed or wounded. None were detained. The villagers had offered little, if any, information, and by Thursday the coalition had been planning to start the next crucial phase of the operation: winning them over with blankets, winter clothes and the promise of better governance. “We’re not worried about hearts and minds right now,” said Lieutenant Wallgren, his face grimy with dirt and sweat. “After two days of this, humanitarian assistance will wait.”
The battle of Badam Kalay highlights the dilemma facing Mr Obama amid growing domestic opposition to the US military's request for 40,000 more troops.
For two days, a few resourceful Talebs held off more than 100 coalition troops backed by terrifying firepower and all manner of surveillance and communications wizardry. Moreover, the multimillion-dollar operation was just one small part of a much bigger operation to clear the neighbouring Nerkh Valley, itself part of the vast, enduring campaign to drive the Taleban from Afghanistan and win over a sceptical population.
Counter-insurgency “is a long, drawn-out process,” said Captain Jeffrey Dupree, 2-87’s fire support officer. “It requires a lot of time, people and plenty of patience.” But abandoning villages like Badam Kalay to the Taleban is no option either. Not only would that sever the Kabul-Kandahar highway, but it would give the Taleban a base to attack the capital from a part of Wardak province dubbed Kabul’s “soft underbelly”.
“Badam Kalay is not huge in the overall scheme. It’s not important economically or anything,” said Captain Dupree. “But left to insurgent control it’s a perfect staging area . . . We can’t leave it alone.”
---
Related
Barack Obama holds runway summit with General Stanley McChrystal
October 3, 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6858796.ece
A month in Helmand: the soldiers' stories
The Times war correspondent revisits his old regiment and reports on the daily ordeal of life on Afghanistan's bloodiest battlefront
October 3, 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6852533.ece
---
Copyright 2009 Times Newspapers Ltd.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6858842.ece [no comments yet]
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upon the Right of Election, 1790
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