"Dozens" of Taliban killed by the British (although it could be as high as 100) and just one British soldier injured in Afghanistan battle...
British marines wipe out Taliban training camp
DAVID LEASK in Lashkar Gah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan
January 08 2007
Royal Marines in Afghanistam
British troops have wiped out a vital Taliban training camp in Afghanistan, killing dozens of fighters and an important leader.
In a significant new year push, codenamed Operation Clay, Royal Marine Commandos secured a safe passage to the mountain dam, once the biggest single source of electricity in the whole of Afghanistan.
The four-day "surge", launched on January 1, could deal a major blow to the country's drug trade.
Only one marine was injured. He was shot in the hand.
It is understood they fought their way into a Taliban training camp in the area. In dramatic scenes caught by their own film crew, Marines, some wading through a river, engaged Afghan fighters 200 yards away
The victory has paved the way for power to be restored to the homes and businesses of 1.8 million people, a huge boost for the battle to win Afghan hearts and minds and to encourage alternative crops and industries to the opium trade.
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, who is championing the scheme to fix the Kajaki Dam, has sent a personal message of thanks to Operation Clay's commanders.
Taliban fighters had prevented engineers reaching the crippled dam at Kajaki in the war-torn and mountainous north of Helmand province.
Their way is now clear. Commandos, backed by two Apache helicopter gunships and a special forces reconnaissance team, swept through Kajaki and the nearby neighbourhood of Kajaki Olya, sifting out fighters, house by house.
Officers said 150 troops, most from 42 Commando, killed "dozens" of Taliban fighters but declined to be more specific. An agency close to the insurgents, Arab Islamic Press, said the figure was close to 100.
A British marine was shot in the hand.
Two British Apache helicopter gunships were involved in the battle
Major Oliver Lee, the officer responsible for implementing British military operations in Helmand, said: "We had a good feeling in advance for who they were who chose to fight us and we fought them extremely effectively. In the process of that we understand the commander was killed.
"He was a man with considerable influence in the Kajaki area, so it's a good outcome. We were running firefights for three to four days against fairly coherent sustained attacks of small arms rockets. It was a very meaningful fight."
One soldier narrowly escaped serious injury. He was hit in the head by shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade.
Military videos and photographs show Marines sweeping through empty mud-brick homes and smashing down doors in Kajaki Olya, down river of the dam.
Major Lee said the Taliban had suffered far more. Only one civilian, an elderly man, was caught up in the fighting. He surrendered to troops, telling them his son had been killed by the Taliban.
"We certainly killed a reasonably significant number, exclusively enemy forces," Major Lee said. "I would suggest that wehave significantly seized the initiative from the 'irreconcilables' in the area."
The project won't just bring power to much of southern Afghanistan, including Helmand, the most unstable province, and neighbouring Kandahar, birthplace of the Taliban. It will also improve the irrigation of the region.
The Helmand River runs from the dam. Its flow is currently too weak to allow irrigation for food crops.
Instead, farmers have resorted to growing poppies, producing opium used to make heroin for sale on Britain's streets. Helmand alone accounts for 40% of the world's output of opiates, including heroin.
British and American authorities – the US is funding the reconstruction of the dam – believe they can let more water into the river, trebling the area able to be irrigated.
The Kajaki dam was the biggest single American investment in Afghanistan in the years up to the Soviet invasion of 1979. US engineers opened the power station in 1975.
Afghan workers kept it running for 28 years but in 2003 its two turbines seized up. Patchwork repairs meant some power could be generated, but not enough to get southern Afghanistan back on its feet.
Workers will now be able to make their way past new fortified roadblocks constructed by Royal Engineers this new year.
Sappers, often under fire, built one key post in just 24 hours.
However, while Army sources deemed Operation Clay a major breakthrough, former secretary general of Nato Lord Carrington yesterday warned that the current mission in Afghanistan could sound the "death knell" for the organisation.
Lord Carrington said that if the mission in the country did not succeed, questions would be asked about the usefulness of the organisation.
He said: "I think it may be the death knell for Nato.
"I think we ought to ask ourselves if this doesn't work, what on earth Nato is for?"
www.theherald.co.uk . . .
British marines wipe out Taliban training camp
DAVID LEASK in Lashkar Gah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan
January 08 2007
Royal Marines in Afghanistam
British troops have wiped out a vital Taliban training camp in Afghanistan, killing dozens of fighters and an important leader.
In a significant new year push, codenamed Operation Clay, Royal Marine Commandos secured a safe passage to the mountain dam, once the biggest single source of electricity in the whole of Afghanistan.
The four-day "surge", launched on January 1, could deal a major blow to the country's drug trade.
Only one marine was injured. He was shot in the hand.
It is understood they fought their way into a Taliban training camp in the area. In dramatic scenes caught by their own film crew, Marines, some wading through a river, engaged Afghan fighters 200 yards away
The victory has paved the way for power to be restored to the homes and businesses of 1.8 million people, a huge boost for the battle to win Afghan hearts and minds and to encourage alternative crops and industries to the opium trade.
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, who is championing the scheme to fix the Kajaki Dam, has sent a personal message of thanks to Operation Clay's commanders.
Taliban fighters had prevented engineers reaching the crippled dam at Kajaki in the war-torn and mountainous north of Helmand province.
Their way is now clear. Commandos, backed by two Apache helicopter gunships and a special forces reconnaissance team, swept through Kajaki and the nearby neighbourhood of Kajaki Olya, sifting out fighters, house by house.
Officers said 150 troops, most from 42 Commando, killed "dozens" of Taliban fighters but declined to be more specific. An agency close to the insurgents, Arab Islamic Press, said the figure was close to 100.
A British marine was shot in the hand.
Two British Apache helicopter gunships were involved in the battle
Major Oliver Lee, the officer responsible for implementing British military operations in Helmand, said: "We had a good feeling in advance for who they were who chose to fight us and we fought them extremely effectively. In the process of that we understand the commander was killed.
"He was a man with considerable influence in the Kajaki area, so it's a good outcome. We were running firefights for three to four days against fairly coherent sustained attacks of small arms rockets. It was a very meaningful fight."
One soldier narrowly escaped serious injury. He was hit in the head by shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade.
Military videos and photographs show Marines sweeping through empty mud-brick homes and smashing down doors in Kajaki Olya, down river of the dam.
Major Lee said the Taliban had suffered far more. Only one civilian, an elderly man, was caught up in the fighting. He surrendered to troops, telling them his son had been killed by the Taliban.
"We certainly killed a reasonably significant number, exclusively enemy forces," Major Lee said. "I would suggest that wehave significantly seized the initiative from the 'irreconcilables' in the area."
The project won't just bring power to much of southern Afghanistan, including Helmand, the most unstable province, and neighbouring Kandahar, birthplace of the Taliban. It will also improve the irrigation of the region.
The Helmand River runs from the dam. Its flow is currently too weak to allow irrigation for food crops.
Instead, farmers have resorted to growing poppies, producing opium used to make heroin for sale on Britain's streets. Helmand alone accounts for 40% of the world's output of opiates, including heroin.
British and American authorities – the US is funding the reconstruction of the dam – believe they can let more water into the river, trebling the area able to be irrigated.
The Kajaki dam was the biggest single American investment in Afghanistan in the years up to the Soviet invasion of 1979. US engineers opened the power station in 1975.
Afghan workers kept it running for 28 years but in 2003 its two turbines seized up. Patchwork repairs meant some power could be generated, but not enough to get southern Afghanistan back on its feet.
Workers will now be able to make their way past new fortified roadblocks constructed by Royal Engineers this new year.
Sappers, often under fire, built one key post in just 24 hours.
However, while Army sources deemed Operation Clay a major breakthrough, former secretary general of Nato Lord Carrington yesterday warned that the current mission in Afghanistan could sound the "death knell" for the organisation.
Lord Carrington said that if the mission in the country did not succeed, questions would be asked about the usefulness of the organisation.
He said: "I think it may be the death knell for Nato.
"I think we ought to ask ourselves if this doesn't work, what on earth Nato is for?"
www.theherald.co.uk . . .
