| Ander Nieuws week 4 / Midden-Oosten 2011 |
The New York Times
January 17, 2011
Michael Kamber
If the battlegrounds of Afghanistan are the "tip of the spear," as Marines like to say, then the remote district of Sangin in Helmand Province may be its very point: the deadliest spot in the hardest-fought province for Marines leading the American offensive in Taliban territory.
Marines took over full responsibility for the area in September from badly bloodied British troops who had often kept to defensive positions. The Americans have been more aggressive in their four months in Sangin, but this has resulted in heavy casualties: of at least 120 confirmed Marine deaths across the huge surrounding province since a new troop rotation in mid-April, 27 have been in this tiny corner.
That is in part because the Taliban fighters here are well trained and battle-hardened, and many American units face daily firefights. But the insurgents' bombs have been even worse than their bullets, and every move the Marines make now must come slowly, deliberately. Clustered tightly on trails, each one taking care to step in the footprints of the man before him, the Marines squint at every bump in the dirt in case it hides an improvised explosive device.
The way they have been forced to adapt highlights the intense challenges that Americans face as they try to root out an enemy that knows the terrain, can find support and shelter in many villages, and is patient enough to let booby traps do most of the fighting.
"One of our sergeants turned around, he planted his foot just outside the trail and lost both legs," said First Lt. Daric Kleppe, an officer with the Third Battalion, Fifth Marines. Standard procedure now is for the men to shuffle their feet in a small circle when they must turn - a profound and dangerous frustration for a Marine force whose fighting philosophy is based on quick maneuvering.
"All the conventional Marine Corps tactics of enveloping and closing with the enemy are impossible in this environment. Your only choice is to fight from current location due to threat of I.E.D.'s," said Petty Officer Third Class Royce Burgess.
The Marines' unit, Company I, has encountered as many as 15 improvised explosive devices in a day. Four months into their seven-month tour here, one of the company's platoons has had nearly a quarter of its men either wounded or killed. The loss of limbs is so common that the men refer to "amps," "double amps" and "triple amps" to describe their comrades' conditions.
"This is probably the most dangerous place on earth," said First Lt. Stephen Cooney, as he looked out over the landscape. "Or at least in Afghanistan."
On patrol one day last week, members of the company's First Platoon carefully made their way down the dirt paths of a village they knew only as "The Fish Tank," a collection of mud-walled compounds just outside the perimeter of their rudimentary base in Sangin District.
They did not have to go far to find the bomb the Taliban had planted for them.
Thirty pounds of homemade explosive, enough to blow a man to pieces, lay buried along a footpath about 100 yards outside their base's outer wire. The enemy had crept up under cover of darkness, hidden behind the low mud walls that line the landscape. Only the diligence of Lance Cpl. Luis Garcia, who spotted a small irregularity in the dirt, saved lives.
Lance Cpl. Miguel Lizarraga, using a metal detector, found a second, partly assembled I.E.D. nearby.
An explosives disposal team was called in and quickly triggered the explosives. An enormous blast shook the ground and dirt showered down on the Marines and seven Afghan soldiers accompanying them as they took cover behind a nearby wall.
The explosive was designed to be triggered by a pressure plate made of wood and plastic foam, a very common design that makes the bomb nearly invisible to metal detectors.
"The batteries are the only thing you can find, and they bury them up to 10 feet off the trail, connecting them with low-metallic speaker wire," Sgt. Aaron Beckett said.
"The metal detectors are often useless: we call them confidence boosters," one officer said, with a grim laugh.
Still, though it has been hard going from the very start, the Marines are making progress.
Hemmed in at nearby Forward Operating Base Jackson at the beginning of their tour, the Marines of Company I fought fierce, almost daily battles through the months of October and November.
On Dec. 6, they fought their way up Route 611, blowing up scores of I.E.D.'s along the way and taking over an abandoned and booby-trapped British Army base, Patrol Base Bariolai, on a barren hilltop here.
They sleep in the frigid cold and go weeks without showers, but they are keeping the nearby Taliban on the defensive.
The Marines can now patrol throughout the surrounding village every day, Sergeant Beckett said. And he has been encouraged by the increasing trust that local villagers are showing, sometimes offering the Marines information that has tipped them off to I.E.D.'s or potential ambushes.
As the Marines passed into a populated area on their recent patrol, some of the villagers waved and smiled. Young children gathered around as the Marines, relaxing a bit, passed out candy. The children's presence was a sure sign that no I.E.D.'s were nearby.
But just 50 yards up the path, three men in black head wrappings sat against a wall in the distance, watching the Marines with hateful eyes.
"Those guys are definitely shady," Lieutenant Cooney said. "You can tell after a while which ones want us here."
Minutes later, the Marines detected warning signs along their path: uneven earth and scatterings of hay. Proceeding would very likely result in the wounding or death of a Marine. They attached an explosive charge to the wall of a compound and blasted a hole through, then took the shortcut back to their base.
As the men removed their sweat-stained gear and took long swallows of water, a few drops of rain began to fall.
"I hate it when it rains," Cpl. David Hernandez said. "The dirt runs together. We can't see where they've dug in the I.E.D.'s."
© 2011 The New York Times Company
Original link
| Ander Nieuws week 4 / Midden-Oosten 2011 |