Jerome Starkey: Afghanistan: Leaving dam danger zone – for a death trap

Published on Friday 25 June 2010 22:37

ANOTHER sliver of Helmand was handed over to United States marines yesterday, as the British garrison guarding a dam prepared to reinforce their battle-weary comrades in the death-trap town of Sangin.

About 150 soldiers at Forward Operating Base Zeebrugge, near the banks of the Kajaki Dam, were in the final stages of withdrawing last night, a spokesman said. American forces have already taken over.

The dam was built in the 1950s as part of a massive US aid programme to irrigate the Helmand river valley. A hydroelectric power station was added in 1975, but efforts to repair it after years of decay have stalled amid spiralling violence nearby.

Most of the towns within about five miles of the base have been completely abandoned because of the fighting. "British forces are redeploying from Kajaki with their heads held high, with the knowledge that they have changed the area for the better," said Major-General Gordon Messenger.

The soldiers at Kajaki lived in the old accommodation blocks built to house the dam's engineers and in the summer they swam in the reservoir.

In 2007, thousands of soldiers were involved in a massive operation to deliver a third turbine to the dam's powerhouse, but efforts to install it were postponed last year because contractors couldn't get enough concrete to the site. It remains surrounded by insurgents.

What little power is emitted from the existing turbines is usually taxed by the Taleban in the outlying villages.

"Around 150 UK personnel, mainly part of the 40 Commando battlegroup, will now redeploy to thicken and deepen the British presence in Sangin," the MoD said.

Sangin has claimed more British lives than anywhere else in Helmand. When the soldiers first deployed there in 2006, they were supposed to stay for only 72 hours.

The town, at the confluence of two rivers, has been home to criminal gangs and laboratories used to process the region's lucrative opium harvests into heroin.

Many analysts believe that the British were inadvertently sucked into a war between two drugs cartels, fighting for control of the smuggling routes.

One soldier was killed there in an explosion on Monday, and a second was killed in a firefight on Tuesday.

The Taleban also shot down an American helicopter in Sangin on June 9, killing four people. The Pave Hawk was part of a mission to evacuate wounded British troops.

Commanders insisted the UK redeployment was part of "an ongoing rebalancing of troops".

US marines have flooded into Helmand this year, as part President Barack Obama's 30,000 soldier surge.

The number of soldiers in the region has tripled from 10,000 to 30,000, the MoD said in a statement.