Stephen Grey - Operation Snakebite

At the heart of the convoy were trucks belonging to the ANA’s 3/205 brigade, the force that was charged with the seizure of the centre of Musa Qala, and the one that would take the credit. Its commander, Brigadier Muhammad Mohaydin, was a charismatic former soldier in the Afghan Communist army. He was joined by mentors from the 2 Yorks, including B Company, and by US special forces.

As they were usually confined to static bases, deploying so many hundreds of Afghan soldiers to operate from the desert and live off rations was an achievement in itself. Some of them, as I discovered that day, had already been fighting around Musa Qala in the previous few weeks, working alongside US special forces in surprise raids against their defences. Mohaydin’s intelligence officer had even dressed up in civilian clothes and driven into the town to see for himself. Whatever could be said of the Afghan army, they had no shortage of bottle. And while the British came to Helmand for six-month tours, the Afghan soldiers were stuck in the war on a full-time basis. In the time that the 2 Yorks were their mentors, fifteen Afghan soldiers would die in combat.

As they passed through small settlements in the desert, Mohaydin jumped down from his vehicle and spoke to the villagers. ‘He held a baby – and even gave it a kiss. What a pro!’ wrote Simon Downey in his diary that night.

Just before sunset, as the convoy reached its destination for the night, 10 miles further east, the first part of Lieutenant Colonel Ed Smyth-Osbourne’s armoured battle group arrived at objective ‘Vulcan’ on the ridges and clifftops that overlooked the Musa Qala wadi. They were 5 miles south of the town. This was to be the second of two planned ‘blocks’ on the wadi after the first one put in two days earlier at the base of the wadi near Sangin by the Royal Marines. The light tanks of Major Paul Bedford’s C Squadron of the Household Cavalry took position on the eastern ridge, while the Mastiff armoured cars of the King’s Royal Hussars moved on to a spur that led down into the flat wadi bottom. The force had set off at 08.00 from their assembly area just south of Mullah Salaam’s village.

In the following hours, they would be joined on the opposite western side of the wadi by Chris Bell’s Warrior company, by the reconnaissance force of the Coldstream Guards, and by a force of ANA soldiers, who were to descend to the bottom of the wadi to hold the road and complete the block.

Digging themselves into trenches and shell-scrapes, the armoured force at Vulcan held all the high ground, and it ‘would have taken at least a conventional brigade to shift us off’, said Smyth-Osbourne, who reflected that perhaps ‘we committed the Soviet sin of committing too great a force’. Its effect, however, was powerful – preventing reinforcements reaching Musa Qala up the wadi from the series of hostile villages that lay between the two blocks: the ‘meat in the sandwich’ as he called them.

On the high ground above Southern Block, a fire support group of Royal Marines from Bravo Company were watching American helicopters in action. There had been little action for them these last two days. It was getting boring.

‘All we did for two days was watch the Americans annihilate stuff,’ recalled Lance-Corporal Gareth Patterson, who was mounted in a Viking armoured vehicle. One incident stayed in his head – watching an Apache chase a Taliban fighter on a motorbike. ‘We watched it just nudging the bike. It was right down low and actually using its tail to try to knock him off his bike, and then the bike turned round and floored it the other way and took off that way, and all the Apache did was turn on the spot, chasing him again. We were in stitches watching it. He did it for about five minutes, and then the bike bloke just gave up and stopped still, and it just seemed like the Apache had had enough and just flew off.’ The helicopter appeared to get some radio message and then launched a Hellfire missile into a compound.

After dark, Jonno sat down with his platoon, contemplating the days ahead. Kingsman Lee Bellingham, who was attached to them, remembered it as ‘like a silent night to get our thoughts together’. Private Fong said a prayer with them. Jonno started talking about his daughter Lilly, passing round her photo and saying that her birthday was soon. The atmosphere was almost cheerful. Then Jonno turned serious. He steeled his men: ‘I’ve been here before, guys, and you can trust me. Trust me, you know. Just work hard, obviously work hard, but you’ll be OK.’

The next day – Friday 7 December – was to be D-Day for the attack on Musa Qala. Leaflets had already been dropped into the town by Psyops (psychological operations) planes. They warned residents to stay indoors. Many were already fleeing into the desert.

Already, the impending attack was being reported in the press. An article posted on the Internet that night by the Kabul correspondent of the Daily Telegraph quoted Taliban commanders who vowed to stand and fight, while not ruling out a tactical withdrawal if their lines were breached. ‘I have 300 Mujahidin with me,’ said one commander, using a pseudonym. ‘We have brought our best artillery. We have anti-aircraft guns in place to attack the helicopters.’

The Taliban’s website declared:

They are dropping leaflets… calling on the people to leave their homes as the area will be bombed and their homes will be rebuilt in a modern style. It is a known fact that wherever they have gone with all their power, their strength has melted, their equipment has been destroyed, their skulls have remained [on the battlefield], and they have left the battlefield defeated and broken. The Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate are completely confident that the enemy will not be able to advance one step, and with every step their tanks will be set on fire.

For all the news that had been circulating, the role that American troops from Task Force 1 Fury were to play had been kept secret.

Before the US paratroopers would land by helicopter, the plan called for a diversionary attack on the town from the south and south-west. The goal was to deceive the enemy that the main force of Afghan army and coalition troops in the desert would attack from this direction.

The attack would be led by the 2nd kandak of the Afghan brigade and their British mentors together with US special forces. 1 Fury’s anti-tank platoon would provide cover from an overwatch position on a hill top. They would all be under the tactical command of Major Jake Little.

Stepping on to the roof, Qais picked up his mobile phone and dialled Mullah Sadiq’s latest number. The latter kept changing mobile phones. But he would always call after a while and leave a ‘missed call’, a signal that this was his new contact. They rarely lost touch for more than a few days. Often they talked in snatches – brief bursts of conversation. Talking at length could be dangerous. Sadiq knew that NATO could locate him through the signals.

Qais could see reports on the news wires that an attack on Musa Qala was imminent.

‘What’s happening?’

‘I’m there now. We have some special things prepared.’

Sadiq rang off. He called again a few hours later, reaching Qais on his Thuraya satellite phone. ‘I can’t talk tonight,’ he said, ‘but something big is happening up here in Musa Qala.’ He called again in the morning.

‘There are hundreds of Mujahidin here now. We won’t defeat them in the desert but we will fight them when they come into the villages around… We held a meeting and have decided to fight to the death to protect Musa Qala.’