British Struggle To Hold Taliban

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The Sunday Times

Michael Smith

January 07, 2007

NEW film footage from Afghanistan has suggested the British Army controls little but isolated pockets in Helmand, the province in the south of the country where the troops are trying to establish stability.

The film, taken by the reporter Sean Langan for Channel 4, shows the extent of the difficulties British troops have faced, with severe shortages of helicopters preventing resupplies and men forced to live off corn cobs foraged from nearby fields.

With its pictures of Afghan troops wounded and dying, it is among the most graphic footage from Afghanistan since British paratroopers arrived last summer.

In Dispatches on Channel 4 tomorrow, British and Afghan troops are shown struggling to regain control of the key town of Garmsir. Langan spent a week with the soldiers in September last year.

When the battle for Garmsir, originally supposed to last 24 hours, stretches on for six days, the British are promised reinforcements. But shortages of troops and helicopters mean they never arrive.

An officer admits the whole area south of Garmsir, in central Helmand, more than 100 miles north of the Pakistan border, is controlled by the Taliban who have no problem resupplying and reinforcing their men.

“The Taliban pretty much control everything south of us all the way down to the Pakistani border,” says Captain Doug Beattie. “That’s their main supply route and they have pretty much free access of movement.”

In the second programme later this week, Langan spends time with Mullah Ibrahimi, a Taliban commander, who claims to have a “shadow administration” in Helmand: “We have our own judges, our own local politicians and our own administrators. Nothing gets done in these villages without our consent.”

The Ministry of Defence described the film as “out of date”, adding: “Since then British troops have moved into the area”.

Source:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2534996,00.html