Last international forces airlifted from key base in Afghanistan

Last international forces airlifted from key base in Afghanistan
By Kay Johnson

KANDAHAR AIR FIELD Afghanistan Mon Oct 27, 2014 7:46am EDT








1 of 6. U.S. Marines prepare to board a plane at the end of operations for U.S. Marines and British combat troops in Helmand October 26, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Omar Sobhani

(Reuters) - A fleet of planes and helicopters airlifted the last U.S. and British forces from a key southern province in Afghanistan on Monday, a day after the international coalition closed a massive base and handed it over to the Afghan military.

The troops' withdrawal and base closure in the province of Helmand was one of the largest operations in the winding down of the international combat mission in Afghanistan, 13 years after the toppling of the radical, Islamist Taliban regime.

The NATO-led international force is shifting to a reduced role of support as Afghanistan's newly trained army and police take over the fight against a resurgent Taliban.

Casualties among both civilians and Afghan security forces are near all-time highs this year, with hundreds killed and wounded each month in the conflict.

The withdrawal of the remaining U.S. and British troops from the combined base of Camp Leatherneck and Camp Bastion was carried out over 24 hours of near-continuous flights back and forth between Helmand and Kandahar Air Field, the aviation hub for southern Afghanistan.

For the U.S. Marines and British forces leaving Helmand, the airlift was the first stop on the way home – all of them will be flown out of Afghanistan by the end of the year, and some within days.

"It’s been a long time away – I’m looking forward to getting back to normal life ... kiss the wife and kiss the kids," said Major Raymond Mitchell, a Marine from Rocky Mountain, North Carolina, who deployed to Afghanistan in January.

Mitchell walked off a C-130 military aircraft that flew him to Kandahar wearing full body armour with a rifle slung over his shoulders – and carrying a BeautyRest pillow in a zippered plastic casing.

"It’s a bit of home. It relieves the stress," he said with a grin. "I brought it out here, and now I’m going to take it back."

The Marine Expeditionary Force-Afghanistan is the last Marines unit in the country, while the British forces at Helmand were the Britain's final combat troops.

Helmand was a major focus of a 2010 troops surge to wrest control back from the Taliban. At its height, the coalition force had some 140,000 military personnel from nearly 50 nations.

Camp Bastion and Camp Leatherneck alone once had some 40,000 military personnel and civilian contractors as the regional headquarters for the U.S.-led international military coalition.

By Jan. 1, there will be only 12,500 foreign forces in the country – 9,800 of them Americans – to advise and train the Afghan security forces that have been built up almost from scratch in recent years.

(Editing by Maria Golovnina, Robert Birsel)

Taliban abduct police in Afghanistan's Badakhshan province


At least 10 police officers have been abducted by Taliban militants in Afghanistan's northern Badakhshan province, officials say.

Four officers died when militants attacked the government compound in Wardoj district, police say.

Some reports suggest as many as 16 police officers are being held.

The attack comes as Nato-led troops steadily withdraw from Afghanistan. On Sunday, Britain marked the end of combat operations there.

Provincial police spokesman Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai told the BBC that heavy casualties had been inflicted on the Taliban during fighting at the compound.

He added that police units had been despatched in an attempt to free the captured policemen.

The attack comes just one day after Nato-led troops reduced their forces as part of a staged withdrawal from Afghanistan.

On Sunday the last US Marines unit and UK combat troops officially ended their Afghan operations, handing over security responsibility to local forces.

they're an extremely tribal lot, don't think there is any sense of national pride/unity among the afghans

the moment the taliban get some momentum going and start taking areas most ANA will defect, the pashtuns will anyway followed by the tajiks and the rest going back to their warlords

yet another failed US intervention

gau8av said:

yet another failed US intervention

Click to expand...

ahem , so were you not board for the US intervention ? the US gave you prime hiding space , right under their balls , for all these years so you could throw stones at Pakistan , yet I suppose it didn't work out for you ?

The end of Bastion - and Britain's 13-year war in Afghanistan
By Jonathan Beale Defence correspondent, BBC News

The Union flag had been flying in Helmand since 2006

After 13 years, eight of them involving bloody fighting in Helmand, Britain's war in Afghanistan is finally over.

In a ceremony at the main British base at Camp Bastion, the union flag was lowered and the camp was handed over to the Afghans who will be left behind to look after their own security in what has been one of the hardest provinces to tame.

Bastion was once the largest British military base in the world - a sea of tents, shipping containers and barricades, plonked on the flat, empty, red Helmand desert like the first city on Mars.

At its busiest, Bastion housed up to 14,000 troops. Its 2.2-mile (3.5km) runway was like any busy airport - at the height of the fighting it witnessed up to 600 aircraft movements a day. Its perimeter wall was more than 20 miles long.

It had its own hospital and water bottling plant, as well as shops, canteens and gyms.


Bastion was as big as Reading in area

It was a military metropolis from which the British, and later the US Marine corps and Afghans too, directed the fight in Helmand - the hub from which UK forces re-supplied more than 100 smaller bases at the height of the war.

Those have now all gone, and the British presence in Bastion has been almost completely erased.

Even Bastion's memorial wall, which bears the name of each of the 453 British military personnel killed in the conflict, has been removed. It will be rebuilt at the National Arboretum in Staffordshire - not just closer to home, but more secure. Helmand is still one of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan.

'Worth the hurt?'

So what might the British leave behind in Afghanistan after a presence of 13 years? What do they have to show for a war that has cost more than £20bn and hundreds of precious lives?

The British military believe they will be leaving Helmand in better shape than when they arrived.

Across the country, 6.7 million children now attend school, nearly half of them girls. That would have been unthinkable under the Taliban rule. Healthcare has improved; life expectancy is longer.


David Cameron visited Bastion earlier in October

But corruption is still rife and violence, though suppressed, still threatens to tear the country apart.

Measuring success is perhaps hardest for those who lost loved ones here.

Robert Foster died in Helmand in 2007. The 19-year-old private was killed when an American warplane mistakenly dropped a bomb on his position.

His father John says: "Seven years on, I still struggle with the fact that my son and his mates were killed in a conflict that should never have happened."

He describes himself as being proud of what Robbie did: "I try to hold in my heart that my son and his mates thought they were doing the right thing," he says.

He also accepts that the country is now more stable, but he wonders for how long. The Taliban have already moved back into some of the areas once occupied by the British. John asks: "Was it worth all the hurt caused to so many?"

'Muddled through'

As this long war draws to a close, it's the question that hangs in the air: "Was it worth it?"

Many in the military believe it is too soon to tell; they are more reluctant to rush to judgement, when they witnessed comrades die and suffer life-changing injuries.

It's harder still for those who ordered men into battle. Andrew Mackay was the commander of British forces in Helmand in 2007. After reaching the heights of major general, he resigned his commission - in part out of frustration over the way the war in Afghanistan was conducted.

Looking back, he now says: "We should have done so much better." There was confusion from the start about the mission. Was it nation building, counter-insurgency or counter-terrorism?

As for counter-narcotics, he says: "It's a nonsense to suggest we were there to stop heroin getting to the streets of London." Today poppy production in Afghanistan is at record levels.

The failure to explain must ultimately lie with the politicians in charge. But there were failings by the military too. In the early days there was a switch in tactics every six months as a new brigade commander arrived with a fresh batch of soldiers, often eager to prove themselves in battle.

In the early days commanders did complain about not having enough men and the right equipment, but that did not seem to affect their desire to "get the job done".

Mr Mackay says: "We muddled through for far too long".

'Manipulated'

Pacifying Helmand was always going to be tough. The largest province in the country, it was remote, rural and lawless. It had long been a Taliban stronghold and centre of the drugs trade. Added to that, the British empire had history in Helmand.

The locals still remembered their victory at nearby Maiwand in 1880 during the second Anglo-Afghan war. The returning British may have forgotten, but the Pashtuns of the south had not.

Nor did the British really know what they were getting themselves into when they re-entered Helmand in 2006.

Dr Mike Martin, an academic and former army reservist, describes how they were "manipulated" by local tribes to settle old scores with rivals. He was one of the handful of officers who served in Helmand who was able to speak fluent Pashto.


Camp Bastion

• Bastion was a sprawling, well-fortified British-run base the size of the town of Reading and home to 30,000 people
• It had its own water bottling plant, hospital, police force and even a Pizza Hut
• It was widely regarded as a safe haven for troops
• However, in 2012 a Taliban attack breached the perimeter and resulted in the death of two US Marines
• Its airfield was busier that either Luton or Stansted in terms of aircraft movements including helicopters

Source: BBC/MoD

Inside Camp Bastion


He argues the British took far too long to understand the people they were trying to win over and "were trying to turn the war into something it was not".

Many still hold out hope for Afghanistan's future. It has just witnessed relatively peaceful elections and a transition of power. But there are also those who conclude the war was a mistake.

'Dented confidence'

Richard Streatfeild served as a major in the Rifles in Sangin where the British suffered some of their heaviest losses. He arrived as a believer in the mission, but left with many doubts.

In his book Honourable Warriors, he concludes: "Any reading of the culture, the history or politics should have prevented us from taking on Helmand."

As the British now prepare to leave for good, he says: "It may be dressed up as victory, but it will be the paint on the grave."

Whatever legacy Britain leaves behind in Helmand, Afghanistan already appears to have had an impact on British foreign policy and any future military intervention.

Mr Mackay asks the question: "Has it dented our confidence so much that we can not longer put boots on the ground?" Looking at the responses to the crises in Syria and Iraq, his answer is "yes".

Invade - FuqItUp - Leave - Re invade

Hugh Reilly: No winners in Helmand as fight ends

Heading for home, British troops turn their backs on the Afghan conflict. Picture: PA

• by HUGH REILLY

Published on the 27 October
http://www.scotsman.com/news/hugh-reilly-no-winners-in-helmand-as-fight-ends-1-3585617#comments-area
DAVID CAMERON can talk up the Afghanistan conflict all he likes, the truth is there’s next to nothing to celebrate, writes Hugh Reilly

The venue for my first schoolboy scrap was in Glasgow’s east end Cranhill Park. Boxing gloves were considered somewhat superfluous, hence the pre-teen pugilists prepared for a manly bareknuckle fight. I admit that as I stared at my monstrous opponent, Sid Napier, I struggled to stop my bladder opening the floodgates of fear. Watching my nemesis practice his outrageous haymakers, jaw-breaking uppercuts and concussion-inducing jabs withered my confidence, my low mood not helped by noticing that my cornermen were desperately running around trying to find a towel to throw in before the first blow had been struck.


My uncontrollable leg wobbling, revealed by the wearing of short trousers, gave out body language that suggested being runner-up was the best I could hope for. Within seconds, fists were flying, well, his fists to be precise. To end his pulverising of my flesh, I could do one of two things: a) run away or b) cry. I decided on an enthusiastic combination both. Of course, days later, when recounting the event to friends who hadn’t witnessed the pasting, I laconically related that the spat had resulted in a split decision, that is, I’d earned a respectable draw.

That stubborn failure to deny taking a beating came to mind when I listened to Prime Minister David Cameron declaring that Britain will “never forget those who made the ultimate sacrifice” as UK troops brought their campaign in Helmand province to a close. More than 400 soldiers perished in that far-off land and the lives of thousands of others were destroyed as a result of horrific injuries. And for what?

In a surreal interview, a British Army officer boasted that a village had been cleared of Taleban and now had 20 shops, albeit rickety stalls selling street food and Paddy’s Market-type tat. As he spoke, women in burkas hurriedly passed by. I recall being informed by Blair and his lickspittle ilk that the Taleban had been responsible for the spike in sales of pret-a-porter burkas. Why is it then that, today, more than a decade since the election of a pro-western Afghan president, females continue to uniformly wear the drab burka garb? I had hoped that our invasion would have heralded Afghan women rejoicing in the freedom to put on the dresses and, yes, mini-skirts they’d worn in the Seventies while strutting the boulevards of downtown Kabul. Back then, the capital was referred to as “the Paris of Central Asia”.

We were told that Afghanistan would be transformed into a democracy. In the 2009 presidential election, more than one million fraudulent votes were recorded for Karzai, the winner; in some polling stations, he won 100 per cent of the votes. Despite this, ahem, tweaking of the electoral process, Karzai received fulsome congratulations from prime minister Gordon Brown, an honourable man.

We were told that the bad Taleban men – helpfully wearing black turbans, it must be said – were complicit in the West being awash with opiates. It turned out that the Taleban discouraged poppy production and that the demise of their tenure in government was a catalyst for a supply explosion of the ultimate cash-crop.

In March 2010, Russia, amid concerns of a growing heroin addiction problem in its cities, proposed spraying Afghan poppy fields, a move rejected by the good men of Nato on the grounds of the negative impact on the income of local farmers. This year, Southern Helmand is enjoying a bumper poppy harvest, as is the rest of the country; according to the UN drug agency, more than 6,000 tons of opium will be produced. Happily, lest anyone accuses the UK of standing idly by and doing nothing to decrease the supply side of the heroin price equation, there is objective evidence of active intervention.

Like some latter-day Eliot Ness, Britain and that other untouchable, the USA, forced pro-western warlords running the drugs industry into breaking bad news of a profits warning after 27 of the 806 square miles of poppy field were eradicated by allied troops. If the Afghan government can build on the outstanding success achieved by coalition forces, the country could be drug-free by 2050.

Back in the heady days of 2001, the great British public swallowed the lie that overthrowing the Taleban would mean an end to al-Qaeda training camps. Bombing iron-age Afghanistan back to the stone-age was a small step for USA/UK mankind but the terrorist organisation simply relocated to friendlier shores in Yemen and Somalia. If the decimation of terrorist training bases was the rationale behind the carpet bombing of Afghanistan, why are we not dropping powerful ordnance in the Horn of Africa? I think we owe it to the civilian dead of Kabul, Kandahar and Jalalabad to be at least consistent when choosing which countries to dish out wanton collateral damage.

We are departing our Afghanistan misadventure with a stiff upper lip and a flaccid tail between our legs, the jingoism that encouraged politicians to embark on this foolhardy mission nothing but a memory for those who watched it on the idiot-box. Sincerely, I weep for the men and women who have to live daily with the overwhelming grief that comes with the loss of a loved one. I can’t bear to watch macabre television war-fests that portray amputatee and paraplegic ex-privates as somehow plucky as they struggle with prosthetics, painkillers and post-traumatic stress. The biggest help for these heroes would be for the British electorate to wake up and demand we desist becoming involved in US military conquests initiated by its money-making military-industrial complex.

We exit the stage knowing that a political deal leading to the Taleban participating in a power-sharing government is the only viable solution to the country’s woes. A fig-leaf of British army specialists will remain to give advice and train an Afghan army that has no stomach for the fight and has been infiltrated by the Taleban.

By failing to deliver a knock-out blow, coalition troops have allowed the Taleban to rise from the canvas. It’s a rocky road ahead for Afghanistan.

Afghanistan. Grave of empires.