Last year Leo Docherty was a British soldier serving in Afghanistan. He took part in the tough fighting to winkle the Taliban out of the village of Sangin in Helmand province. The following is an excerpt from a piece Docherty wrote for The Guardian:
"...During our advance an 11-year-old boy was killed in the crossfire, shot in the head accidentally by our allies, the Afghan national army. Despite this we established our base in a local government building, the district centre, and patrolled the bazaar every day. We bought mangos and chatted to the locals - who seemed ambivalent about our presence.
"Just below the surface, however, tension simmered. The boy's death made us a threat to the local population. Despite promising development we had nothing to show for all our big talk. Crucially we had no real answers to questions about the future of the all-important poppy, the basis of Sangin's economy. To the locals, we were clumsy, interfering foreigners, whose arrival presaged conflict and the destruction of their livelihood. Days later Sangin exploded into violence, seeing some of the fiercest fighting by British troops since the Korean war, and which continues as I write.
"Sadly, many more civilians across Afghanistan have met the same end as the 11-year-old. Recently in Sangin an estimated 21 civilians were killed by bombs dropped from Nato planes after US and British soldiers were ambushed. In the eastern city of Jalalabad in March, US soldiers shot dead 19 civilians in the aftermath of a bomb attack. And yesterday seven policemen were killed by "friendly fire" in an air strike in the eastern province of Nangarhar.
"Often outnumbered and outgunned by militia men, the immediate response of Nato troops is to call on overwhelming firepower delivered by artillery, helicopter gunships and jets. The troops aren't wicked, they're just keen on staying alive. But these weapons are blunt-edged and indiscriminate. The price of overwhelming firepower is the death of nearby civilians.
"But accidental or not, civilian deaths catastrophically undermine the entire Nato effort, as relatives of the dead, bent on vengeance, flock to the Taliban cause. As Pashtuns, the inhabitants of Helmand hold Badal, the pursuit of revenge, as a central concept of their social code, which is devotedly adhered to. "A Pashtun waited a hundred years for revenge," a local saying goes, "and was pleased with such quick work." Indeed, the Taliban are ruthlessly exploiting this mindset by deliberately engaging Nato troops from villages.
"Afghans are sick of foreign armies killing their people. Their president, Hamid Karzai, has publicly criticised Nato's methods and warned that "bad consequences" will follow if civilian deaths continue unchecked. The Afghan parliament has called for a halt to Nato military offensives, and for negotiations with Afghan members of the Taliban. In Kabul last month, I met displaced civilians from Helmand province, some of the 80,000 to 115,000 people the UN estimates have lost their homes in the fighting in southern Afghanistan. "Why do British planes kill our people?" they said. I struggled to answer.
"The British command in Helmand should heed the president's warning. The Taliban now control 50% of Helmand province. Development is happening nowhere, and opium production has reached record levels. Unless we immediately de-escalate the level of violence and prevent further civilian deaths, all of Helmand will be lost.
"In Sangin today the district centre is a battle-scarred fortified position where more than a dozen British troops have been killed fighting from trenches. Soldiers no longer sit on the roof to enjoy the view. The town lies in ruins, with little trace left of the once thriving bazaar. A peaceful, developed Helmand cannot be won by the sword, and the longer we try, the greater the tragedy."
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