Bomb Hunters: In Afghanistan with Britain’s Elite Bomb Disposal Unit. Sean Rayment
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Lose a leg in what is known as a traumatic amputation and you have just four and a half minutes for a medic to staunch the wound before you fatally ‘bleed out’. The time decreases with each additional limb lost, and that is why no quadruple amputee has yet survived.
IEDs are now being manufactured on an industrial scale – it is no longer a cottage industry. Bomb factories in some parts of Helmand can produce an IED every fifteen minutes. Made from pieces of wood, old batteries and home-made explosive, they are basic and deadly. The Taliban have already produced IEDs with ‘low metal’ or ‘no metal’ content, which are difficult to detect. So, as well as using equipment to detect bombs, troops also need to rely on what they call the ‘Mk 1 eyeball’, hoping to spot ground sign.
In Helmand the IED is now the Taliban’s weapon of choice and the main killer of British troops. The field hospital in Camp Bastion now expects to treat at least one IED trauma victim every day. Between September 2009 and April 2010 there were almost 2,000 IED incidents.
The human cost of this war has never been higher. Since 2006 more than 350 soldiers have been killed and more than 4,000 injured. Of these, more than 150 have lost one or more limbs. And those are the statistics for just the British forces. Every country with troops in Helmand – the United States, Estonia and Denmark – has suffered similar losses.
In one week alone in February 2010 there were 200 IED incidents – that is, bombs being detonated or discovered. Do the maths – that’s over 9,000 a year. Or more than one IED for every British soldier serving in Helmand.
The job of battling against this threat falls to the Joint Force Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group, part of the Counter IED, or CIED, Task Force. At the tip of the spear are the Ammunition Technical Officers, or ATOs, the soldiers who defuse the Taliban IEDs – the bomb hunters. Also called IED operators, the ATOs work hand in glove with the RESTs. It is a fantastically dangerous task, not because the devices are sophisticated but because of the volume of bombs. The number of IED attacks started to go through the roof in 2008, a development which was entirely unpredicted. Back then there were just two bomb-disposal teams in Helmand because someone, somewhere in the Ministry of Defence did not regard Helmand as a ‘high-threat’ environment. That was the official version of events but in reality Iraq was still the priority and there were simply not enough bomb hunters to serve in both theatres. The following year IEDs were killing more soldiers than Taliban bullets. By the middle of 2010 the CIED Task Force began suffering casualties on a scale which had not been seen for thirty years.
I’ve come back to Helmand to try to understand why anyone would want to become a bomb hunter. I want to get inside their heads, learn about their fears and concerns, the unimaginable stresses they face every day and what drives them on knowing that one mistake, one single slip, can mean death. For three weeks I will be an embedded journalist working alongside both the bomb-hunting teams of the CIED Task Force and the Grenadier Guards battlegroup.
It is virtually impossible to report from Helmand without being embedded. The risks are so great that independent travel is a non-starter. Travelling independently through Helmand could only really be achieved by striking some sort of deal with the Taliban in order to pass safely through areas under their control. Even if that were achievable there would still be every chance of hitting an IED or finding yourself in the crossfire of a battle between the insurgents and British troops.
Being an embedded reporter has its advantages, the most important being safety. To a certain extent journalists are exposed to the same risks as soldiers, but because you are not playing an active part in a battle you are not fighting through Taliban positions, so you have to be fairly unlucky to be killed or injured. But there are disadvantages. All of my copy will be scrutinized by censors who will check it for anything which could be construed as a breach of operational security. Before any journalist can embed with the British Army, he or she must sign the ‘Green Book’, a contractual obligation stating that the Ministry of Defence will scrutinize all copy, pictures and video before publication.
Most journalists don’t have a problem with this, even if it does run counter to the idea of a free press, and I for one would not want to write anything which might put a soldier’s life at risk.
The C-130 slams into Camp Bastion’s darkened runway, and the relief on board is tangible. The engines once again begin to scream as we slow to a halt. Beneath the green gloom of the safety lights, the troops begin to ready themselves for disembarkation. The Herc’s rear ramp opens, like a giant mouth, revealing a kaleidoscope of orange, yellow and white lights blinking through the desert dust. This is not a military camp, it’s a small city, dominated by the monotonous drone of departing aircraft, some carrying troops, others bearing the coffins of the fallen.
One by one we silently disembark, keeping our personal thoughts private, each wondering what the future will bring. Beneath a star-lit sky we are led in single file from the airstrip to waiting buses, before being driven to one of the ‘processing centres’ where fresh troops undergo their final preparations for war. The week-long Reception, Staging and Onward Movement Integration (RSOI) programme is effectively designed to fine-tune the soldier so that he can hit the ground running. In effect it’s the last chance to get things right before coming face to face with the enemy.
A two-tier war is being fought by the British Army in Helmand. The ‘teeth arm’ troops, those involved in the day-to-day fighting and killing, live in small patrol bases, where the conditions range from sparse to austere. Toilets are often holes in the ground, soldiers keep clean with a solar shower – a bag of water which has been left to bake in the sun – and meals are a mixture of fresh food and Army rations. Six months on the front line is a dangerous existence with few comforts.
But those troops who remain in bases like Camp Bastion or Kandahar Air Base live, by comparison, in air-conditioned luxury, with hot showers and fresh food, and where off-duty hours can be spent in one of the many gyms or watching premiership football on satellite television. ‘Life in the rear,’ as the American troops in Vietnam observed, ‘has no fear.’ The majority of those soldiers based at Camp Bastion will never set foot beyond its gates, but while they might not take the same risks as the front-line soldiers their job is just as vital. They keep the war machine moving by ensuring that the right food, water and ammunition arrive at the right place at the right time. It’s a job which lacks the ‘glamour’ of battle but is just as important.
The coach snakes its way through the camp, passing row upon row of huge tents which were once white but have now taken on the hue of the desert. I’ve been coming to Camp Bastion since 2006, and every time I return the place has grown. Someone once said that the best decision the British Army ever made in Helmand was to build the base in the middle of nowhere. Had it been near a town or an area of habitation, the chances are that it would have been mortared or rocketed every night.
Our belongings are dumped in the desert dust by an Army lorry and chaos ensues as 100 individuals search for the bags in the pitch blackness. The soldiers are told to collect their kit and move into one of the briefing rooms – I say goodbye to the young Army officer, shake his hand and wish him luck, silently hoping that he makes it home safely in six months’ time. The weary soldiers file into a tent to begin a series of briefings through which many will sleep. I’m left with the lasting impression that Camp Bastion is one giant processing centre. Every night hundreds of tired, nervous and confused troops arrive to feed the war machine, and every day, or almost every day, the dead, the wounded and the lucky fly out.
Twenty hours ago I left my home in Kent and kissed my wife and sleeping children goodbye and said a silent prayer as the first cuckoo of spring sang the dawn chorus. Now I am in another world, where the threat of death and violence is always present. Not for the first time I ask myself, what am I doing in Afghanistan? It’s 5 a.m. Helmand time, and finally I get some sleep.
Rupert