Ground Truth: 3 Para Return to Afghanistan. Patrick Bishop

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       5 Hunting the Hobbit

      A successful influence operation brought its own satisfaction, but so too did a good fight. It was a prospect that the soldiers looked forward to. No one joined the Parachute Regiment who did not relish the chance of combat. The news that they were to be sent on a risky daylight mission to grab a Taliban commander who had so far eluded the grasp of special forces snatch squads was very welcome.

      The operation required exhaustive planning and crisp timing and coordination if it was going to come off. The target was Haji Sultan Agha, code name ‘the Hobbit’. The ID mugshot issued to the troops revealed that, unlike his Tolkien namesake, he had a glossy black moustache and grey beard, thick eyebrows and warm brown eyes. His guru-like appearance belied his reputation as the number-one bomb-maker in the Zari district, a bucolic stretch of vineyards and poppy fields that lay along the Arghandab river near Highway One. His activities had placed him on Regional Command South’s wanted list.

      The task was given to ‘A’ Company, who had finished their tour of duty in Hutal and were in a holding pattern following the decision to suspend search operations in Band-e-Timor. The RCS planners were hoping that their luck would change with Operation ‘Sur Kor’ (‘Red House’). Specialist teams had launched several missions to collar the Hobbit and his men, who were believed to build the IEDs that were found constantly along Route Fosters, a track that led south off Highway One into the Green Zone.

      The raiders had been dropped at a distance from their targets and tabbed in on foot, hoping to surprise them. Instead, when they reached the target compounds their quarry had disappeared. Once they found a group of males of fighting age still in their beds. But there was nothing to link them to any insurgency activities and the conclusion was the men had received a tip-off in time to clean up any evidence.

      The Paras’ plan was based on boldness rather than stealth. According to Jamie Loden, ‘the idea was that we were going to go in in daylight and instead of putting down some way off to give them loads of warning time, we were going to land right on top of them and give them no chance of getting away’.

      The hope was that they would be able to catch the Hobbit in the act of making his bombs. Intelligence reports said his IED factory was in a compound, one of a cluster that lay by a fast-flowing irrigation canal in the middle of some vineyards not far from Route Fosters. The location was named ‘Gold’. Three hundred and fifty metres to the west lay compound ‘Silver’, which was also believed to be connected to the Hobbit’s operation. Beyond that was ‘Bronze’, home to the band’s wives and children.

      The site presented many practical difficulties. Landing on top of the target sounded like a good, if potentially dangerous, idea. The Taliban had so far managed to shoot down only one helicopter in southern Afghanistan, but it seemed only a matter of time before their luck improved. The immediate difficulty, though, was the terrain, which made landing a Chinook very difficult. The land to the south of the compound was more promising, but it was bounded by a canal. It was 6 feet deep and 5 wide and there was no question of even the most athletic soldier being able to jump across it burdened with body armour, weapon and the usual mountain of kit.

      The only way across was via three footbridges which it was prudent to assume were mined. Clearing the route would take time, giving the Hobbit and his men the chance to escape. The pathways leading away from the compound were sheltered by trees which gave good cover. The problem facing Loden and his men was ‘how were we going to isolate these three compounds simultaneously to prevent anyone getting away and also land relatively close, given the limitations we had on landing zones?’

      Finding a solution was complicated by the restrictions that the different elements taking part in the action placed on their men. Like almost every major operation in Afghanistan, Sur Kor was a multinational effort. The political benefits of having many nations engaged in the coalition to stabilise Afghanistan were often cancelled out by the military disadvantages as each contributing country imposed its own caveats on what its troops would and would not do.

      In this case it was the British who were causing difficulties. The policy of the joint force command that controlled the RAF, army and navy helicopters was different to that of the pilots, who Loden had always found to be ‘fantastically willing and wanted to do everything we wanted’. British helicopters, though, were providing only part of the lift. Another two Chinooks were being supplied by the Dutch. Their commanders were willing to let their pilots land as close as physically possible to the compound walls.

      The British imposed another condition on daylight assault operations. They insisted on especially thorough surveillance. These preparations took time, delaying the start. In the leaky atmosphere of KAF this was plenty of time for news of the operation to trickle out.

      The operation was eventually slated for the morning of 16 April. Loden had 150 men in his group. As well as his own company platoons he could call on the heavy machine guns of the Fire Support Group (FSG) and a mortar team carrying three barrels. They were supported by explosives experts from the Royal Engineers, a Royal Military Police team, and an Afghan anti-drugs team. The force also included Corporal Sainaina Wailutu, a twenty-nine-year-old Fijian company clerk who had joined the British Army seven years before, to search any women they detained. Loden planned to fly one of his platoons in Sea King helicopters to the west of the compounds to cut off anyone fleeing in that direction. The others would put down in the Dutch helicopters next to objective ‘Gold’, where, it was hoped, they would find the Hobbit at work. Loden, his headquarters team and the mortar men would land in the British Chinooks in an open field several hundred metres to the north-east of the target, to mop up any fugitives and give indirect fire if needed. A reserve platoon of Canadians would be waiting to the south of the canal, providing a blocking force. The Canadians had a special interest in the operation. Route Fosters was one of their main access roads to the fighting area and they had suffered several casualties as a result of the Hobbit and his IEDs.

      They took off from KAF at 7.30 a.m. Half an hour later the Chinook carrying the headquarters group settled on what looked like a firm, dry poppy field. The Paras scrambled down the ramp, high on adrenaline and excitement, and immediately sank up to their knees in mud. Next off was a quad bike, used to carry ammunition around the battlefield and extract casualties, which stuck fast in the glutinous soil.

      At the same time, the Dutch helicopters were touching down inside Gold compound only 33 metres from the main building. 8 Platoon, the company point men, bundled out of the back door, crouching and levelling their rifles as soon as they hit the ground, bracing for the first gust of AK47 rounds. But if anyone was inside the house they were holding their fire. As the Chinooks lifted off, they advanced cautiously towards the silent, mud-walled building. The platoon commander, Lieutenant Lev Wood, approached the door with an Afghan anti-drugs officer and peered into the dark and stuffy interior. ‘The place was completely bare,’ said Wood later. ‘It was as if it had been stripped of everything.’ They moved on to the outhouses. Several of them were piled to the roof with bundles of dried marijuana, which in an area awash with opium was considered hardly worth mentioning.

      The Paras pushed on rapidly to Silver compound, leaving the engineers and military police team to go through the house. At the second location they found about twenty women and children but no fighting-age males. It was the same at Bronze. The adrenaline fizz subsided. The soldiers resigned themselves to a day of combing through the grape storage sheds and numerous mud-wall enclosures that dotted the fields and vineyards, searching for weapons and stores. It was a delicate task. The Canadians, who had been operating in the area since 2006, warned them of the risk of booby traps in the grape houses. They were also on the alert for IEDs laid along the pathways, covered by innocuous-looking cooking pots. The insurgents had developed СКАЧАТЬ