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  • The UK at War

    How Royal Anglians killed 1,000 Taliban
    By Thomas Harding
    Last Updated: 6:26am GMT 16/11/2007


    Members of the Royal Anglian Regiment receive medals at
    Elizabeth Barracks after returning from their tour of Afghanistan

    The intensity of combat in Afghanistan has been laid bare as one Army regiment revealed that it had fired one million rounds, killed 1,028 Taliban and lost nine men in a six-month tour of duty.
    Members of the Royal Anglian Regiment receive medals at Elizabeth Barracks after returning from their tour of Afghanistan
    At times, fighting saw 1Bn of the Royal Anglians having to "winkle out the Taliban at the point of a bayonet", said Lt Col Stuart Carver, the commanding officer, at the battalion's medal ceremony.
    At times the fighting was on a par with that experienced in the Second World War and the casualty rate was similar, with nine men killed and a further 135 wounded.
    In a moving speech given by a former commander of the Anglians, Major Gen John Sutherell said they had completed the "most demanding tour" ever asked of the regiment.

    "In spite of the heat and privations you have taken on a hard and fanatical enemy on their own grounds and driven them back. The fighting has been remorseless in its intensity and often at very close quarters.
    "You have shown courage, endurance and professional skill and comradeship of a very high order.
    "But you have also shown the intelligent restraint and humanity to discern between those who have been trying to kill you and the people we are in Afghanistan to help."
    The conflict had not come "without costs" but the battalion should be "incredibly proud" of itself.
    The general, who also served in the SAS, said: "You are truly comrades in arms, a band of brothers and you have our deepest gratitude, respect and admiration."
    After he finished a woman from the crowd of almost 2,000 family and friends shouted "three cheers for our boys". She was met with a rapturous response.

    Lt Col Carver said his men had fought conventional trench warfare, engaging a well-trained enemy from, at times, 15 feet away.
    "There was some pretty fierce fighting in conditions you would sometimes see in World War Two, clearing buildings and trenches."
    The enemy was highly trained and well equipped, although others were poorly trained fanatics.
    "The good ones are extremely good, religiously motivated and will stay and fight until the last," Lt Col Carver said. "Sometimes they had to be winkled out of buildings at the point of a bayonet."
    He said the Taliban mounted more than 350 attacks on his troops.

    "By the end of the Anglian tour, three quarters of shop fronts had been restored to Sangin, which had previously been a ghost town. A school for 500 boys and girls had opened and the population had electricity. The security threat had also dropped to 'Northern Ireland levels'."
    Despite the heroism of the tour, one third of the battalion received no recognition for the fighting they experienced.
    Although General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the Army, had indicated that a "Southern Afghanistan" clasp would be added to the Afghanistan campaign medal, it appears the MoD is dragging its feet over the issue.
    The entire back row of three on parade at Pirbright Barracks, Surrey, did not get a medal as they had already received one during the "benign" Anglian tour of 2002.
    Yesterday, the soldiers called for a recognition of the fighting they had experienced.
    "It is chronically unfair that this has not been the case," said one soldier.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...nglians116.xml
    To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

  • #2
    Can someone change this to UK at war?


    Royal Marines Launch Amphibious Assault In Afghanistan

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    By Sky News SkyNews - Monday, January 7 08:04 am

    Royal Marines Commandos have launched the first ever amphibious assault by British troops in Afghanistan.

    Elite commandos used fibreglass assault boats to sneak behind enemy lines in Helmand during a daring night raid to recce Taliban positions last week.

    Armed with assault rifles, machine guns and sniper rifles, the marines from 40 Commando crawled within metres of the Taliban's rearguard sentries, after outflanking their defences on flat-bottom boats.

    The covert operation was ordered deep in the mountains of southern Afghanistan, where the fighting men from Charlie Company are guarding a hydroelectric power station.

    Apart from a few hundred metres of no-man's land immediately outside their camp, the marines were completely surrounded by Taliban fighters.

    Now, commanders hope the boats will help crush the insurgents' spirits.

    Captain Iain Sutherland, the mission second-in-command, said: "The fact that they can't determine where we are coming from and the fact they can't affect our movement is going to have a massive effect on their morale.

    "We can conduct our own amphibious operations, which enables us to open up more flanks and more areas which we can come at the enemy with - to surprise them."

    Fearless Ghurkhas attached to the commandos steered the landing craft across the icy reservoir in darkness, so marines could secure a desolate beachhead well behind the Taliban lines.

    Marine snipers then crept within metres of the insurgent's compounds to collect intelligence on their fire positions and defences.

    The Arctic-trained troops braved sub-zero temperatures in the mountains through the January night before extracting unseen by dawn.

    Capt Sutherland added: "Amphibious operations like this not only allow us to surprise the enemy from a different flank but also give us access to local nationals previously thought to be unreachable, which is key to the success of this ongoing operation.

    "Using unconventional and unexpected methods of movement, we can interact with more civilians as well as significantly disrupting the Taliban in our area, denying them freedom of movement."

    The Royal Marines specialise in storming beaches, but it was the first time they had used their amphibious role inside the landlocked country which is more than 700 miles from the nearest ocean.

    Capt Sutherland said: "Royal Marines Commandos are highly-trained amphibious troops, and it would be a shame to come to a theatre such as Afghanistan and never use those skills that we have trained long and hard for."

    The Mark 6 Assault boats are on loan from a detachment of Queens Ghurkha Engineers, based at Kajaki, who are also trying to refurbish an abandoned UN speedboat.

    They plan to mount a machine gun on the front sundeck of the Mercury Sugar Sands Calais, which comes complete with white leather seats and water-skiing cables. It was abandoned by aid workers when fighting engulfed the area.

    Major Steve Hart, Operations Officer of 40 Commando, paid tribute to the men of Charlie Company.

    He said: "Reconnaissance patrols both by land and water were carried out to ensure that we could get men ashore and into position, but the key to the success of the operation was, as ever, the courage and skill of the Royal Marines who took part."

    The man-made dam was built by the Russians in the 1950s to help irrigate the Helmand valley, where most of Afghanistan's opium is grown.

    The US built a power station at the foot of the dam in the 1970s to supply southern Afghanistan with electricity but it was seriously damaged during the fighting and reconstruction has stalled.

    The marines are guarding the dam which is waiting for a new turbine to supply southern Afghanistan with electricity.


    http://uk.news.yahoo.com/skynews/200...a-3fd0ae9.html
    To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

    Comment


    • #3
      ...
      Attached Files
      To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

      Comment


      • #4
        ...
        Attached Files
        To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

        Comment


        • #5
          God damn labor party issuing them muskets....
          Attached Files
          Last edited by troung; 11 Jan 08,, 01:57.
          To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

          Comment

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