Emma Cowing's Afghanistan blog

Published on Monday 30 June 2008 21:42

READ Scotsman reporter Emma Cowing's experiences in Afghanistan

Day One

BY the time you read this I will be in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, scene of some of the bloodiest fighting the British Army has engaged in for forty years.

In the last three weeks eleven British soldiers have been killed in the region, including Cpl Sarah Byrant, the first woman to be killed in the country on active service, and Pte Charles Murray, a 19 year old Scottish Paratrooper. All except two were killed by roadside or suicide bombs.

The nature of the fighting in Helmand has changed in recent months, as the Taleban retreat from traditional firefighting methods to employ new and deadly tactics. Gordon Brown will tell you that this is because they are on the backfoot - no longer fighting as an army but as an Iraqi-style insurgency. For those on the ground, particularly the members of 2 Para, who lost six of their own in the space of 12 days in June, this must seem a mixed and tentative blessing.

During my time in Helmand I will be travelling within the region alongside some of the 1,350 Scottish troops currently posted there. I will meet with Scottish soldiers and Afghans and, from the view on the ground, try to make sense of what our Forces can achieve, and what they have already accomplished, in this dusty province far from home.

It is difficult to know what to expect. July is traditionally the height of the Taleban fighting season and the situation on the frontline changes daily. There is a lot of talk about winning 'hearts and minds', of convincing the province's population of one million or so Helmandis - most of whom have lived through two generations of relentless fighting - that their country has a future, and one that doesn't include the Taleban.

But with the situation in many parts fragile, the Taleban still controlling strategic areas and an economy that is heavily dependent on producing 90 per cent of the world's heroin supply, a resolution, never mind an exit strategy, seems far from achievable in the short term. Indeed, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the head of the UK armed forces, recently predicted that the task of creating security in Afghanistan could last decades.

Over the coming days I will be filing reports for The Scotsman as well as blogging about my experiences. What is happening in Helmand today is at the heart of perhaps the most complex and strategically important military situation in the modern world, and by telling the stories of the Scots involved, I hope to shine a light on our role there.

In the meantime it's off home to pack up my kit bag, try on my Kevlar body armour and power up the satellite phone. I've told the cat I'm off to Torremolinos for a fortnight, but I don't really think she was convinced.

Day Two

Our descent into Kandahar was eerily silent. Up until then, you could have almost convinced yourself that this was a normal, commercial flight. There was a constant stream of food, sweet potato curry for lunch and bangers and mash for dinner, all of it washed down with endless cups of tea and Ribena..

But when the cabin crew asked us to don our body armour and helmets and the cabin was plunged into total darkness, it suddenly felt like what it was: a troop plane flying into a theatre of war. The soldiers around me knew it too, staring quietly ahead as the Tristar lurched onto the runway at Kandahar Airfield, the gateway to the notorious Helmand Province.

At Kandahar we were greeted with the tragic news that a member of 5 Scots had been killed by a mine in Lashkar Gah. We are to meet up with 5 Scots later on in our trip and it made me wonder how it will affect the regiment. It is the Argylls' first fatality since they started their tour of Helmand in April, and only two weeks ago their Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel David Richmond, was shot in the leg near Musa Qala. Thought to be the most senior officer wounded in action in Afghanistan, he has since been flown back to the UK for medical treatment.

From Kandahar we were shepherded on to an RAF Hercules for our transfer to Camp Bastion, the mammoth structure in the middle of Helmand Province that is home to around 3,000 troops - mainly Brits, Americans and Danes.

The Hercules was, I confess, much less of a rollercoaster ride than I had anticipated (although I still held on to the netting behind my head for most of the journey, much to the bemusement of the soldiers opposite me) and after a 40 minute flight, this time all the way in full body armour and helmet and again in complete darkness, we landed at Camp Bastion and trooped out onto the tarmac, passing rows of soldiers filing back in to take our places on the Herc as we did so.

We were shown to our quarters and I climbed gratefully into my camp bed, and despite the sound of Chinooks flying in overhead, I slept like a baby.

Day Three

"You got the sun today!" A 4 Scots soldier greets me with a grin as we get back to our tents following an afternoon tour of Camp Bastion. This is not good news. It means I have been wandering around the base all day resembling an overcooked tomato. To be fair though, that's also a reasonably accurate description of how I'm feeling.

Everyone warns you about the heat out here. James Fergusson, author of A Million Bullets: The Real Story of the British Army in Afghanistan and a veteran of the country, sent a message to me via David Robinson, the literary editor of the Scotsman, just before I left Scotland telling me to try not to do too much in the first couple of days as my fair Scottish skin will not easily acclimatise. A war correspondent friend told me to buy the biggest camel back money could buy and constantly keep it filled with water. And the man in Tiso wondered if I had considered Tenerife instead.

Really though, until you get here, you just don't appreciate the full toll that such stifling heat takes on your body. Temperatures in Helmand vary, but anywhere between 40 and 50 degrees is average during the day. Under normal conditions this would be pretty hard going. In a desert warzone, where you're often required to wear heavy body armour and a helmet as well as thick boots and long sleeves, all while leaping on and off (I use the word leaping loosely, stumbling might be more accurate when it comes to my inelegant maneouvres) Chinooks, trucks, armoured personnel carriers and so on, it can be close to unbearable.

Yesterday was a busy day - moving around the base, standing out in the sun for protracted periods, and then a long, tiresome fight with the satellite phone, which, although brilliant when it works, has the temperament of two year old who's had his Irn Bru chews taken away.

I finally finished at 11pm, by which time I had a splitting headache, swollen and puffy hands, and absolutely no appetite. My voice was so gravelly I sounded like Barry White with bronchitis, and the tomato face was still worryingly in evidence.

The key, of course, is hydration. Water is everywhere here: Bastion has its own bottling plant, the only such military facility in the world, and everywhere you go there are bottles lying around which you are highly encouraged to grab up and swig from. I've been told I should try to take in between four and six litres a day. I'm writing this just after midday and already I've drunk two. And of course I'm in awe of the soldiers around me, who trot effortlessly around in the lunchtime sun carrying enormous weights on their shoulders as if it were the easiest thing in the world. Take it from me, it's not.

Tomorrow we head out into the desert and away from the relative safety and comfort of Camp Bastion. We've been informed that out there, between 1pm and 2pm, the temperature can hit 55 degrees.

Expect me to return home one sun-ripened tomato.

Day four

Late last night, just as I was thinking about turning in, a young Afghan man came wandering into the media camp. With a shy smile he shook hands and asked if anyone was travelling to Kabul. No one was. Undeterred he ask if he could sit for a moment.

In halting yet word-perfect English he said he was 19 years old, and spending three months working on the support staff at Camp Bastion before returning home to Kabul. He wanted to become a journalist one day. "There are many stories to write about in Afghanistan!" he said with a laugh.

I asked him if he thought things were getting better here. "In Kabul, yes," he said. "In Helmand and in Kandahar it is different. There are still many problems. It is very complicated. But Kabul is much better than it was when the Taliban was in power."

I asked him if he remembered life under the Taliban. He nodded his head vigorously. "Yes," he said. "It was terrible. They were hanging women, kids, they were evil."

He told me about one day when he and a few of his friends had been playing a game on the street with a ball and some sticks. They were ten years old. One of his friends had finished playing and picked up a bag of grain he had to take home to his family. Just then, a big black vehicle swept up the street with four men carrying machine guns in the back of it. They leapt out and chased after the boy with the sack. "They hit my friend very hard with their guns," said the young man. "They hit him until he fell down and did not get back up. Then they took his sack and they drove away."

He went quiet for a moment. "But this was just a small thing. The Taliban did these things all the time."

His father had been imprisoned under the Taliban regime. When he was released, after the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, he was, he said, "like an old man. His beard was white. He died less than one year later."

From the age of 13 the young man had been the head of his family, caring for his mother and sisters as well as extended family. "It is difficult for women," he said. "They cannot work. My mother is not educated. She is illiterate."

Education was very important to the young man. He had learned English from an American teacher in Kabul, and had recently passed some exams. But he had to work to support his family, which was why he was here in Camp Bastion. Even though, he said, "I miss my Mum very much".

I asked if he would ever want to come to Britain to study. He shook his head. "I cannot leave my mother, my sisters. It is a very great shame to leave your family. And I love Afghanistan."

Was he proud to be Afghan? Again, his head nodded vigorously. "Yes, very proud. We have 5,000 years of history. That is very important."

I told him I thought he would make a good journalist. He shrugged, the shy smile spreading across his face once more. "I have written a few articles in my own language, Dari. I would like to write in English one day."

He got up to leave and shook my hand once more. I walked into our tent, but when I came out a few minutes later he was back.

"Can I have a picture with you?" he asked. We sat together and smiled into the lens of his small disposable camera. And as the shutter clicked, I wondered where that photograph would end up.

Day five

A visit to the ladies after sunset on a Forward Operating Base is a tricky business. For a start, there's no such thing as the ladies. There are six toilets at FOB Edinburgh. And with rarely more than two or three women there at any one time, in a base that accomodates 800 men, (there were around 500 last night, when I stayed), a separate loo for the sexes seems a little excessive.

The loos themselves are rudimentary, if clean affairs. I won't go into too much more detail except to say that the doors are, for me at least, a little on the small side, particularly given that the loos sit on the far side of the base, looking out over lots of tents and tanks. If you stand up straight, they're small enough that your head, your feet and your ankles are all visible. Conspicuous is not the word.

Last night, after flying in to the FOB by Chinook helicopter, I was shown to the female quarters. It was small and cosy, with two other female soldiers, including a dog handler and her dog, a golden Labrador called Diesel, who would also be sleeping in with us for the night. Diesel quickly earned his keep, spotting a scorpion in the corner of the tent and chasing it out with a growl and a snap. Then he climbed into his bed and fell fast asleep, snoring loudly.

If only I could have done the same. The problem with taking in so much water during the day (I am averaging around nine litres a day at the moment in order to combat the intense heat and dehydration) is that come night, when your body finally cools down, your waterworks get the better for you. Finally, I could stand it no more. Knowing the loos were a long walk away from the accommodation, I none the less pulled on my boots, strapped on my head torch, and braved the desert night.

It was pitch black outside, just a pale glow from the stars and an odd, eerie red light from the head torch that soldiers wear moving in the distance. The only sound was the odd snore. I walked past a row of Warrior tanks, like sleeping giants in the starlight, and through the fine sand. And then: well, suddenly I had no idea where I was, or what direction I was going in. Scared of shining my head torch around the place and waking up several hundred soldiers - many of them sleeping outside beside their vehicles - I slowly retraced my steps. Defeated, I climbed back into my sleeping bag.

Even though I had to get up at 3.45am, it was, I'm sorry to say, a long night.

Day six

We left Forward Operating Base Edinburgh in a 10-strong armoured vehicle convoy at 3.45am on Thursday morning, and reached Musa Qala District Centre around an hour later.

Musa Qala DC is a smaller outpost than the FOB, home to a few hundred soldiers. The troops are based in an old hotel just on the edge of the town, which in itself is a fascinating building. There are old light switches with strange patterns on them that look like they were put in by the Russians, and one wall is covered in Taliban graffitti showing drawings of rockets and men with guns - the attack plan of an insurgency that is predominantly illiterate.

The hotel is less of a building than a concrete shell these days, which suits me fine because in this heat, without air conditioning you don't really want to be inside for too long.

Life at MQDC is the real deal - everyone's vision of soldier life in a desert outpost. You sleep outside on a camp bed covered with a mosquito net. Drinking water comes from gerry cans, tastes of chlorine and is as hot as a cup of tea. If you want your clothes washed you haul water out a well, fill a bucket and scrub them yourselves.

Yesterday I received my first ration pack, or 'ratpacks' as the men call them, which promised such delights as "sausage and beans", which you decant into your own mess tin and eat with your own fork, the inevitable "Biscuits - Brown", and a Yorkie bar that had completely melted to liquid and bore the legend NOT FOR CIVVIES!

The strangest time though, is at night. On Thursday night a patrol that had gone out 24 hours before engaged in an extensive firefight with the Taliban about 7 kilometres away. Sitting outside and writing on my laptop, the satellite phone perched on top of the sandbagged perimeter wall and my head torch strapped on, we could hear the gunfire, and saw the night sky light up as mortar attacks were launched. Every so often a deep, rumbling explosion could be heard.

When those died down, there were other noises to hear. The howling of wild dogs in the nearby wadi; the jingly, high pitched music beloved of the Afghan National Army soldiers next door; and snatches of Amy Winehouse and Foo Fighters from soldiers' iPods.

It is the strangest background noise I have ever fallen asleep to, but fall asleep I did, only to wake with the sun at 5.30am and head for the showers, clutching my FEMALES USING THE SHOWER sign. Then it was back to my camp bed, and a look through the ratpack to choose my morning 'scoff'.

I think I may be adjusting to army life.

Day seven

It is almost impossible to keep clean here. Because we travelled to Musa Qala from Camp Bastion first by Chinook and then by Mastiff (the army's latest armoured personnel vehicle) we were told to pack light for this leg of the trip, and pack light I did. One pair of trousers, two shirts, one t-shirt, and a pair of pyjamas. These are now on a constant rotation of either being worn, or being washed in well water and hung out to dry on one of the makeshift clotheslines suspended above the outside camp beds.

Not that it makes much difference. Five minutes after putting on clean clothes they are almost immediately filthy again. The heat is so intense that you sweat constantly here, while the dust storms mean that all clothes, indeed all posessions, take on a grainy, dusty pallor.

The soldiers of course, all look immaculate. As I bemoaned the state of my precious two shirts, one officer charitably offered that their army uniforms are specifically designed to hide a lot of the desert sweat and grime. But just watching them going about their morning routine it's clear that keeping clean is essential not just to presentation, but to sanity. Out here, a clean shirt can make a huge amount of difference to your state of mind.

Yesterday was the hottest it's been since I arrived in Afghanistan, an intolerable 52 degrees centigrade. It was so hot that even a walk to the mess tent on the other side of camp was exhausting. For long periods of time I found myself unable to do anything except sit, motionless, staring into space.. Even talking became too much. One civilian here became so dehydrated he was taken to the medic tent and put on an IV drip.

The other morning I watched the men of 5 Scots Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders D Company come in from a patrol in the green zone outside Musa Qala just after 8am. They had been out for 48 hours straight, and had engaged in three separate contacts with the Taliban. All of them were wearing at least 50lbs of body armour and kit. They staggered through the gates of the District Centre utterly exhausted, the stress and physical effort of the previous two days etched all rover their faces. Yet after five minutes sitting on the ground, catching their breath and taking sips from their camel backs, they were back on their feet, off to a full debrief and kit check, before finally hitting the showers and then bed.

I have absolutely no idea how they do it.