Some pictures that I took in Kabul. I tried posting this a week ago or so, hopefully it works this time . . . . .

This is a rather big lady, I half suspect John Simpson is under that Burka! 

The image on the computer screen isn’t too clear: Men watch belly dancers at a street internet cafe near the centre of Kabul.

To be clear right from the start, this is the first time that I’ve officially embedded with military forces. I say officially, because I’ve traipsed around in various places with a bunch of militia, guerrillas, terrorists, freedom fighters or paramilitary of one kind or another depending on your opinion and even found myself caught up in a gun fight and other similar situations. I have not, however, willingly put myself in a position where I’ve been so acutely aware that the aim of the game is not to scare, intimidate or put on a show of might but rather to kill or maim the enemy – and to the insurgents the US military is very much the enemy. With this in mind, and having heard from friends just how hairy it can get in some parts of the country, I wanted to proceed with caution. To this end my first embed experience was pitched at exactly the right level.

Command Outpost Garcia lies in a scarcely populated valley about 40 kms west of the Pakistan border. It’s manned by a company from the 101^st airborne division, many of whom had previously been stationed in the Pech Valley in Northern Kunar Province, into which the infamous Korengal Valley runs. The korengal had been the seat of fierce fighting until the US pulled out in April 2010, preferring to attempt to pin the insurgents into the valley than continue suffering heavy casualties. The Pech Valley, though, is still an area of high “kinetic activity”, the preferred military term for any bang bang.  In contrast, COP Garcia is ostensibly secure.

Several of the soldiers I spoke to even expressed surprise that a COP had been set up there at all, since the US military strategy is to try and control areas of high population density, from which they can run civilian programmes and get on with the business of winning hearts and minds. Garcia’s original purpose was to provide support for the Afghan Border Police (ABP), who are spread thinly like sitting ducks along the border in isolated observation posts (OPs). This only came to the attention of the current deployment when they came across old documents relating to Garcia’s set up – which isn’t to say that they hadn’t been carrying out work with the ABP, Afghan National Police (ANP) and Afghan National Army (ANA), it’s just that they were apparently almost as miffed as I was about why the COP was built quite where it was.

Garcia’s area of operation is from Kama District in the far North West of Nangahar Province to Lal Por District on the border with Pakistan, some 60 km as the crow flies from one boundary to the other and about 25 km deep. The COP itself sits pretty much squarely in the middle of this area. My first excursion “behind the wire” was on an overnight mission to Kama.

Kama is the kind of place where the kids really do stand in groves by the road side waving enthusiastically back at the US convoys, probably hoping that in due course they will get their very own pen or perhaps a lollipop. During the recent parliamentary elections it was the first district in Nangahar to return its counted ballots and it suffered no significant security threats. The last serious security incident in Kama was over a year ago when two IEDs were found but locals reported them to the police who in turn informed the US military. The infrastructure is reasonably good with tarmac roads handling a steady trickle of traffic and the occasional tractor in the fields. The area is densely populated with a string of villages some of which run into one another and people stroll carelessly down the roads beneath the shade of trees and stop to chat at small crafts or goods shops. Kama’s inhabitants even refer to it as “Little America” in joking conversations with US officers. Nonetheless, in spite of its relative prosperity and development in Afghan terms, when you strip away the vehicles, mobile phones and abundance of South-East-Asian-sweat-shop-t-shirts in the markets, as you drive through the mud wall villages with their extended family compounds that resemble fortresses you can’t help but feel like you’ve stepped several hundred years into the past.

The mission in Kama is essentially to build good relations with the locals and to train the ANP and ANA. As part of the task the Lieutenant in charge of the section meets with the Police Commander and local leaders as needs be in a series of Key Leadership Engagements (KLEs). There is some substance to these but a large part of the conversations involve requests from the Afghan’s for money, equipment or assistance. The Lieutenant then patiently explains (time after time seemingly) that he has to work with the local government and his superiors to approve most of the requests and that there’s a process which will take time; the aim, he will re-iterate, is not to hand things out willy-nilly but to get Afghan involvement. I’ll cover what I saw of the police training in a separate entry as I can have a fair old rant on that based on previous experience.

There had also been intelligence that a local man was recruiting for the Taliban, leading us to stop at his supposed village to ask around with the locals but nothing came of it. As the Lieutenant explained to me “we just can’t go around kicking doors down in an area like this”.

It’s difficult to say how much, if any, of the “success story” in Kama is attributable to the reconstruction effort which is carried out by the US military. In fact there is good evidence that nationwide many of these programmes are abandoned, leaving half built schools, police stations and the like dotted around the county. One officer willingly conceded that local politics and rivalries – the enemy of my ene
my kind of thing – combined with the natural agricultural prosperity of the place are just as likely reasons for the calm.

But the trip didn’t pass entirely without incident. During the night, the US sentry guards stationed on towers at the corners of the police station where we were staying found themselves following laser beams across their chests and then took several rounds from a BB gun. They brushed it off as kids playing pranks on them but were still visibly aggravated. Now, if I was a kid in that village I would seriously think twice about pointing a laser at a US infantry soldier with an M240 heavy machine gun, who may or may not have seen action before and may or may not be nervous as hell or mentally re-living some much worse episode or attack – let alone firing at him, with anything, even a BB gun.

Well yes, I admit I may have used the cheapest of soap opera tactics to entice you to this second entry, and although it was hardly a cliff hanger, if you were expecting bullets ricocheting from walls as I ran for cover with a cacophony of explosions ringing in my ears . . . then relax. Nonetheless, it was a minor close call which elicited the concern of anyone who saw it and left more than a few brows with a bead of sweat or two. The incident took place not more than an hour after my arrival at Kabul International Airport (KAIA).

Usually – when I was working at EUPOL – I would have been met at KAIA by a close protection team, comprising two ex-military guys who would drive me off in the safety of an armoured vehicle. They were familiar faces and most were Brits with whom I was on first name terms. There was a certain routine to it all, the greetings, donning my body armour, a quick check as to whether I was still happy with the safety brief or a mandatory run through it if there was someone new. The chat that followed was nearly always the same, a catch up on anything that might have happened while I was away, any attacks or IEDs in Kabul, the current security situation and any lock downs or travel bans that were in place. Then, inevitably, we’d move onto compound gossip. To the Close Protection (CP) guys – who had all served at least two combat tours in either Iraq or Afghanistan as well as more demanding private security jobs elsewhere – the Kabul detail was something of a holiday and they frequently mocked that it was glorified taxi driving. However, the truth is they were friendly and professional and they instilled a sense of confidence that was much appreciated when you emerged from the airport a little dozy and jet lagged.

On this occasion, however, there was no CP waiting, instead I simply had to catch a taxi from the civilian to the military side of Kabul airport, which is not much more than a five minute ride. I quickly hooked up with another journalist who was also trying to make his way over to the military side and we took a “government taxi” from next to the police checkpoint at the gate into the airport proper. As it was Eid al Adha, the Muslim celebration at the end of the Hajj to Mecca, it was quiet and there wasn’t exactly a wide range of drivers to choose from but ours seemed friendly, if a little elderly. He clearly knew where we wanted to go and after some compulsory bartering we set off on the short journey.

As you approach the gate to the military side there is a slalom set up with concrete blocks that leads to a control light where vehicles are expected to stop and wait for the light to turn predictably from red to green. Beyond the slalom is the main check point, which is currently manned by Belgium soldiers who have a heavy machine gun trailed on the slalom to defend against Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devises (VBIEDs) – essentially a suicide bomber in a car rigged with explosives.

On entering the slalom our driver slowed down, perhaps overdoing what caution might have required. As we dawdled towards the red light all seemed well and a few metres ahead of it I turned to the driver expecting him to pull up but as he continued to creep forward it become apparent that he might not understand the system or that he was so blind he couldn’t see the light. Both myself and the other journalist started telling him to stop – as best as we could that is with gestures and somewhat alarmed expressions – but he just slowed down a notch and continued crawling forward. The closer we got, the more adamant our requests to halt became until we heard a shot ahead of us and I turned to see a puff of smoke rising from a barrel pointing towards us but overhead . . . .

Now that the driver still hadn’t stopped and the red light was drawing in line with the back passenger seat I could only assume he must be deaf as well as blind and by this time I was close to begging him from the front passenger seat, hands outstretched waving desperately up and down with splayed fingers. He turned to me with peaked eye brows and the corners of his lips pursed in a plaintive pleading expression, which said some combination of the following: “What have I done wrong?” – “I’m trying to help” – “I don’t know what to do” and “I’m not sure what’s going on”.

To our great relief at this point he stopped, I think mostly out of shear confusion. We explained that he should reverse out and we navigated to a safe distance clear of the slalom. To some extent though, this was only the beginning of it.

The other journalist approached the checkpoint by foot and negotiated a second run for us which pulled off smoothly except that we had to give statements to the MPs to account for the fired flare. Now I won’t go into details from this point onwards but in the confusion that ensued we were admitted into the base in an unescorted taxi and drove right the way up to the central HQ building, managing to inadvertently breach security. The officer who we met was dumfounded that we had made it inside with a taxi and regarding our close call, he remark “you’re damn lucky they didn’t open up on you” and then as if to reassure us “but don’t worry they would have fired at the bonnet” which didn’t strike me as a wide margin of safety. Another guy who saw it, an Afghan who worked in one of the Kitchens and was waiting at the gate as the shot was fired, came over to us exclaiming how lucky we had been and then to top it off, one of the junior officers in the Public Affairs Office commented that he reckoned we’d “already used our luck up”.

For the rest of the day I worried about our poor taxi driver and pictured him driving alone on his way out at two miles an hour into a line of bright red lights and guns, completely oblivious to what he was doing. Fortunately there were no other incidents that day and if he was stopped on the way out, the officers that we spoke to were aware that he was on his way and that it wasn’t his fault, so I can only assume he made it out safely, probably sometime just before sunset as he rumbled along at a snail’s pace.

All joking aside, there were some serious lessons to be learnt, mastering a few words of Dari, for instance “stop”, might come in handy even for the most trivial of journeys/tasks. I have the British Army Dari/Pashtu Phrase Booklet somewhere, which definitely includes “stop” and if I recall correctly also has the useful phrases “don’t shoot” and “where is the toilet?”

This took place over a week ago, since when I’ve been at Command Out Post (COP) Garcia in Eastern Nangahar Province and have been out on my first embed proper in what is one of the safer areas of Afghanistan. There will be more to follow on this soon but I’m juggling entries with spending time “behind the wire” and trying to find adequate computer access. I hope to start providing a little more substance, not just personal anecdotes, although I’m sure there will be more of those too.

Meanwhile, in Kabul, official election results have been announced for the Parliamentary Elections to the Wolesi Jirga. As with the Presidential elections of last year, the process has been mired by irregularities with votes from an entire province – Ghazni – having been withheld. Again, I’ll have more to say about this later.

The picture below was taken in a Huey helicopter as the light was breaking from the clouds not far from the Khyber Pass, which was one of the stops on the regular chopper shuttle services between the military bases here.

Over the next month(s) I’ll be writing stories and shooting pictures on a freelance basis, starting with commentary and articles for Executive Magazine, based in Beirut. If all goes well after the first month, I’ll stay on, particularly with a view to do as much photography as possible. However, I have another motivation beyond my work as a freelance journalist . . .

Starting in late 2008 I spent 18 months working for the European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan (EUPOL) as an Analyst and Reporting Officer. I lived on a compound in Kabul which was not much larger than a football pitch, into which the offices, much of the living accommodation and the leisure facilities – including two bars, which seemed quite unnecessary for such a small space with under 300 residents – were squeezed. The work could be challenging and from a personal perspective I learnt a lot – whether about Afghanistan itself, police reform in specific or the broader mechanisms of reconstruction efforts in a conflict environment and their endless complications and contradictions.

However, while the job certainly had its rewards, it also had its downfalls. Anyone who has had an opportunity to travel even modest portions of Afghanistan’s rugged terrain will tell you two things; firstly that the scenery is spectacular and, secondly, if they’ve had any opportunity to meet them, that the people are among the most proud and hospitable that you could meet anywhere on earth.

Now imagine yourself full of curiosity about this beautiful and intriguing country, sitting at a desk in the middle of its capital working on issues related to its development and yet rarely able to leave the compound on which you live (at least that is to more than a handful of security cleared locations) and therefore scarcely seeing anything of the place. In a word, it was frustrating.

In fairness, there are good reasons why much of the international community in Kabul lives under such conditions and I’m not criticising the difficult decisions that security officers and protection teams make that necessitate such measures; it’s just that personally I don’t feel I can really say that I’ve even been to Afghanistan until I’ve walked a little of its land and met some of its people, other than the few Afghans who worked at EUPOL and became my friends.

My saying this is probably compounded by the fact that prior to working with EUPOL I was a freelance journalist and photographer who took his liberty pretty seriously and wasn’t entirely devoid of an adventurous streak . . . so the obvious solution was to return to Afghanistan but this time in my usual guise as a freelancer. So here I am, which to be more precise right now is on an embed with the US military currently at Forward Operating Base Fenty, near Jalalabad in Eastern Afghanistan.

Some of you may be thinking to yourselves “embedding with US forces is hardly experiencing Afghanistan” and I’ll give you that as granted, but it is a way, and in large parts of the country where there is still a very active insurgency, which may be gathering steam, it is the only way.

In the coming month(s) I’ll be embedding with Task Force Bastogne in Nangahar Province, starting tomorrow for ten days, followed by two weeks with Task Force Rakkasan in Paktika Province. All going well, I’ll continue to Helmand to join the US 3rd Battalion 5th Marines, who recently took over control from the Royal Marines in Sangin. Between embeds I’ll spend time in Kabul following the civilian side of the equation.

I’ll also try and upload pictures as I go along. The first one I’ve added is simply because it was the first picture that I’ve taken in Afghanistan. It’s taken on a Hercules C-130 military flight from Bagram Air Field (BAF) on route to Jalalabad Air Field (JAF). For those of you who have spent time in Afghanistan and feel entirely cheated by the lack of acronyms that you’ve encountered in this entry, this one is entitled “BAF to JAF by AJP in AFG”.

But what about the shooting? Was I joking? Certainly not! But it looks like you’ll have to wait until the next instalment for that.