Ground Truth: 3 Para Return to Afghanistan. Patrick Bishop

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СКАЧАТЬ had reported his difficulties with Zaifullah to his superiors in Kandahar, who passed the information up the political chain. The district leader’s behaviour was annoying and frustrating. It started to become alarming when it became clear that, contrary to the assurances the Paras had given the farmers, he was determined to mount a poppy eradication programme in the area. On 3 April ANP vehicles that had been escorting a convoy of tractors on their way to destroy some crops came under fire from what were said to be Taliban gunmen in fields about eight kilometres north of Hutal. Jamie Loden received an urgent request from the district leader to help his men. Loden was determined not to embroil his troops in a shoot-out over opium and replied that he would assist in extracting casualties but there would be no question of sending reinforcements. By the end of the day no casualties had been reported. The incident, though, had opened a new and dangerous front in the Brits’ dealings with the local authorities.

      Zaifullah’s eagerness to wipe out the poppy crop aroused immediate suspicions. For one thing, he was under no compulsion to do anything about opium cultivation in his district. The government eradication programme was selective. It was only in force in areas where there was a viable alternative cash crop available to growers. That was not the case in Maywand, where, as Huw Williams put it, ‘they grow poppy and get money for it or they starve’. When Zaifullah was challenged he maintained that he was under specific orders from the governor of Kandahar province, Asadullah Khalid, to mount an eradication effort.

      Enquiries uncovered an alternative explanation for the district leader’s unusual zeal. Zaifullah, it turned out, had extensive poppy fields of his own. His intention, the Paras suspected, was to wipe out his rivals’ crops in order to increase the value of his own. Rumours were later picked up on the ground that farmers could exempt their produce from the attentions of the police by paying a hefty bribe.

      In the absence of any intervention from outside Afghan authorities, Williams had little choice but to appear to cooperate. On the evening of 8 April, Zaifullah visited him and told him that an eradication operation was taking place the following day. By now the distict leader had managed to obtain reinforcements from the provincial ANP to support the local police, who, it was increasingly clear, functioned when needed as his personal militia. Williams agreed to position vehicles from his Patrols Platoon near the fields scheduled for eradication but said they would intervene only if the ANP got into trouble. There would also be air support available if needed. As it was, 9 April passed without incident. The dangers of coalition forces being seen to support the nefarious activities of a notoriously corrupt official were obvious. But still nothing was done by the provincial or national authorities to restrain their man in Maywand.

      On 11 April the Paras were told that the police would be carrying out a week-long eradication mission in the area of Now-Khar-Khayl, which lay on a bend of the Arghandab river about sixteen kilometres south-east of Hutal. Williams agreed that Patrols Platoon would watch over Afghan policemen involved in the operation but go to their aid only if they were in serious difficulties. Intelligence gleaned from intercepts reported that the Taliban were aware of the operation and were prepared to attack the police once the work got under way.

      The operation began the following day. Around noon, Patrols Platoon heard gunfire coming from the fields. Williams ordered it to stay put and await instructions. The district leader, however, radioed his men to tell them to stand and fight, shoring their morale with the news that the British would shortly be coming to their rescue. When it became clear that no reinforcements were on the way he contacted Williams with ever more alarming reports from the battlefield. Just after 1 p.m. he claimed that fifteen to twenty of his men were dead and those remaining were running out of ammunition.

      Williams was sceptical. He requested an overflight by a Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) equipped with an on-board camera. The images it beamed back told a less dramatic story. There was no sign of any major clash and the Paras stayed put. The district leader’s appeals had also been relayed back to Kandahar via the ANP. The Americans responded by sending two attack helicopters. They hovered over the supposed battlefield but found nothing to report and returned without engaging. The true story of what happened in the fields of Now-Khar-Khayl never emerged. It seemed probable that any shooting directed at the ANP was as likely to have come from farmers defending their livelihood as from the Taliban. In this instance, the two groups could have been one and the same thing.

      Zaifullah’s failure to inveigle British forces into backing him rankled and he complained to the governor of Kandahar, Asadullah Khalid, to whom he was closely allied. The governor backed his protégé in Maywand, issuing a media statement claiming that a senior British officer in the district was encouraging local farmers to grow poppies. The row bubbled up the political chain until it reached Kabul and the British envoy Sherard Cowper-Coles. The ambassador dismissed the accusation and declared that the Paras were obeying the government’s own instructions, which stated that the eradication programme did not apply to Maywand. The row subsided, but in the Paras’ eyes the district leader had forfeited all respect.

      Zaifullah’s standing with the people he governed was made clear a few days after the eradication debacle. At mid-morning on 14 April, four men turned up at the base at Hutal asking to see the senior British officer. They were representing a group of forty elders from Band-e-Timor who had come with them to the town. Williams was away at a meeting in KAF and they were welcomed by Stuart McDonald, who had moved with his men to the town to change places with ‘A’ Company. The visitors were angry and agitated, complaining about a raid that had taken place in their area the previous night. Men had been arrested, compounds had been damaged and vehicles set on fire. McDonald replied truthfully that it had nothing to do with the British. Later it transpired that it was an American operation that the British had not been informed of, a regular occurrence in southern Afghanistan. McDonald was backed up by an Afghan army mullah, who was as vociferous as the elders. ‘[He] spent about five minutes angrily shouting them down, saying I’ve been with these people for a number of weeks and they’re genuinely here to help you.’ He also emphasised the common religious ground between them, claiming that the soldiers were ‘good Christians’. He assured them that ‘whereas we believe in different gods they do have our respect for religion [and] this isn’t part of some crusade’. The mullah was a valuable ally in the struggle to win trust. ‘His presence was probably the single greatest factor in creating a very amiable atmosphere right from the outset,’ said McDonald. ‘They seemed to be quite reassured by virtue of the fact that he was there.’

      As they talked it became clear that anger over the raid was just the catalyst for the visit. They wanted to talk of many things, and most of all about the behaviour of the district leader.

      McDonald invited them to return with the rest of the group later in the day when the CO would be back. The initial plan was to hold a shura in the schoolhouse, but an intelligence tip warned that there was a threat that the meeting would be attacked. They gathered instead, at five o’clock, out of the sun in a large room inside the Paras’ compound. Williams sat with McDonald, Steve Boardman and the ANA mullah at the front, facing the visitors. The first ranks were filled with the most venerable of the elders. Behind them came the younger men, who would move forward to whisper their contributions in the ears of their seniors.

      The spokesmen started off by spelling out to Williams the simple facts of their harsh life. ‘They said they were just farmers,’ he recalled. ‘They had families and they simply wanted security for them and their children. They didn’t want to fight us and they didn’t want to fight the Taliban. They just wanted to get on with farming.’ They were disarmingly frank about the source of their livelihood. ‘They told me they did grow poppy but they didn’t care what they grew. It made no difference to them whether it was poppy or wheat—but no one was buying wheat. People were buying poppy. So what choice did they have?’

      The men seemed to be between about thirty and eighty, though it was hard to tell precisely. The harshness of life and the scorching sun dried skin and ironed in wrinkles, ageing adults far beyond their actual years. Only a few dominant СКАЧАТЬ