Apache. Ed Macy
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Название: Apache
Автор: Ed Macy
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Биографии и Мемуары
isbn: 9780007307470
isbn:
Tier Two were the foreign jihadis: central Asians, Arabs, and especially Pakistanis – young idealists, from their early teens to their mid-twenties, products of the madrasas, the strict religious schools of northern and western Pakistan. Many of these madrasas were set up during the 1980s and funded by wealthy Saudis, anxious to be seen to be doing their bit in the war against the godless Soviets. Since then they had taken on a life of their own. Their students came not just from militant hotspots such as Waziristan and Swat, but also from the Punjab, a rich agricultural province, as well as the big cities: Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.
Others came from as far afield as Bosnia, Brooklyn and Bradford (though no British Taliban were actually caught in my time). For these radically indoctrinated young men, war was a religious obligation. It was an honour to fight and die for Allah. The chosen few, or the most brainwashed, were hand-picked for martyrdom and became suicide bombers. The madrasas exported their brand of fanaticism not just over the Afghan border, but to the Middle East, Europe and London.
Tier Two fighters seldom ran. ‘This is our moment,’ they announced over their radios before they went to their deaths. ‘This is the moment Allah has chosen for us. Allahu Akbar.’ ‘God is the greatest.’
Tier Three were at the other end of the food chain, and often had no belief in the cause at all. They were the local Afghan guns for hire, the ‘Ten Dollar Taliban’. They were not emotionally committed to fighting the Great Satan, unless a brother or their father was killed by the Coalition and they wanted to finish a blood feud. Ten dollars was good money in a land where few jobs existed. In the poppy growing season from November to May, they were labourers – busy planting, watering and then harvesting the poppy fields. When summer arrived, they fought for cash. It didn’t matter who they fought for, as long as they got paid. Life was cheap, but alternatives were in short supply.
Most of them adopted the Taliban’s trademark black clothing and turban, which made them tough for us to spot in shadow on our black and white Day TV cameras.
Only a few had access to anything heavier than RPGs and AK47s, but we still came up against everything from the mortars we’d seen that morning to Soviet-made DShK heavy machine guns and even surface-to-air missile launchers – so they were not an enemy to be underestimated.
They were physically fit, they knew the landscape, and they knew how to exploit it. Some of their more senior guys had been fighting in Helmand and Kandahar provinces all their lives. Soviet soldiers in the 1980s used to call them the dhuki – the ghosts. They’d arrive without warning, strike hard, and disappear into thin air.
Their tactics were as militarily adept as they were audacious. They were always up for a close-quarter battle; they were a world away from the ‘shoot and scoot’ insurgents of Iraq. Encirclement was their favourite tactic, even when they were outnumbered; they’d trap their enemy in a killing zone and then do their best to wipe them out. They wouldn’t withdraw unless it was absolutely obvious they were beaten – and sometimes not even then.
If you shot a Taliban warrior, one 5.56-mm bullet wouldn’t do. You’d have to put two or three in him. A lot of them were so smacked out they didn’t even feel the rounds. Their commanders kept them well supplied. And they didn’t do helicopter evacuations or trauma theatres on twenty-four-hour standby; they barely did first aid. If their men got shot, they died – so they just kept on coming.
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