Posted on 06/17/2008 10:09:12 AM PDT by Mercia
Taliban fighters have claimed the lives of five British servicemen in the past 10 days in Helmand province. Now Sky News chief news correspondent Stuart Ramsay has had first hand evidence of the risks members of the Parachute Regiment are facing while on patrol with the Pathfinder unit.
A "Jackal" fighting vehicle crunches its way through dried out poppy fields in Northern Helmand.
The harvest is finished and the money from opium crops is being distributed - traditionally in June it heralds the start of intense fighting with the Taliban and this year is proving to be no different.
The Parachute Regiment's elite Pathfinder reconnaissance unit is on a mission to the most remote areas of the region to hunt down Taliban strongholds.
Sky News is the first media organisation to accompany them on an active mission as their brand new all terrain vehicles are tested to the limits.
For two weeks we lived with the soldiers as they fought long battles with what is thought to be the highest concentration of Taliban forces in the whole of Southern Afghanistan.
The Pathfinders are so far from help they have to survive alone - broken down trucks must be fixed or towed, even mini-disasters like a truck rolling over the side of a mountain pass must be pulled back up. Advertisement
The problem is that the pathfinders had to pass a major Taliban stronghold while towing a truck - the only way out a three mile stretch with compounds on one side and mountains on the other.
A perfect place for an ambush.
As we approached a complex of houses and mud walled compounds the first salve of rocket-propelled grenades and mortars thumped into the sand around us.
This was to be a sophisticated attack. The Pathfinder Jackal call signs ahead of the main body were not initially fired upon leaving them blind to their attack.
Initially the Taliban focused on the rear vehicles which stopped to engage. My vehicle and the tow vehicle pulled to a halt - AK 47 rounds crackled over my head as I tried to film.
The column moved off but the Taliban had clearly identified the weakness of two trucks together.
The firing intensified and Sky cameraman Jim Foster, an experienced SAS soldier as well, gunned our vehicle and headed for the "Dead ground"
By now the trucks in front were taking fire - they rallied around our trucks as another RPG exploded into a bank 50ft behind me.
Capt Simon Chalmers raced from the disabled truck. He had a problem with his weapons and he was concerned about the tow rope.
As we left the protection of the hill I could see movement near a wall about 200m to our left.
I heard a bang and the sickening fizzle of an RPG fly above my head. The Taliban fighter had the shot but blew it. I looked at Jim and he smiled.
Our gunner had seen the firing position and began firing but the Taliban had gone. But radio chatter told us that we were now the target - all RPG's to fire at us.
As we moved off three things happened that will stay with me forever.
The tow rope broke, the guns on the second vehicle stopped working and we were now taking incoming rounds from our left and right - I was speechless with fear.
Jim jumped from the driver's seat and helped replace the tow rope while one of the Pathfinders pushed me to the floor of the vehicle and removed the gun - all the time AK rounds pinged off the rocks and sand around us.
Ready to go we pulled away - a dash to the open desert - Pathfinders urging us between them as they returned fire from final compounds of the village.
As the sun began to set I finally realised the three mile contact was over. The soldiers had called it the Valley of Death but we had survived.
Jim grinned and gripped my knee. "That was a bit close," he said laughing. I couldn't actually reply.
Sky News are doing a week long in depth reporting on Afghanistan. Told from primarily a British point of view, its still good insight into the conflict as a whole. Good video of the patrol too.
This a daily, often hourly, scenario of our Sky Soldiers in the north eastern Kunar Province - isolated in "Taliban Central" the "Valley of Death" is a term borrowed from the Kunar...
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/01/afghanistan200801
They have had and do have embeds with them for months, not days or a week or so - and their embeds don't write from a "me" point of view...but from the troops perspective and experience.
There have been documentaries and articles of our embattled Paratroopers up there - and there will be more -- watch for it.
That was good video, tfp. The Jackals seem to be well-designed for the patrol role: plenty of visibility and speed.
thanks for the link.
no worries. bit hairy when one of them rolled over heh?!!
I’ve heard both the Ia Drang and the A-Shau valleys referred to as the valley of death
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