The Helmand province campaign was a series of military operations conducted by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) forces against Taliban insurgents and other local groups in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan. Their objective was to control a province that was known to be a Taliban stronghold, and a center of opium production. None of the ISAF's intended strategic and political objectives were achieved in the long term.
The deployment of international, mostly British, forces was part of the stage three expansion of the ISAF mandate, to cover the southern regions of Afghanistan. Until then Helmand province had seen only a limited coalition presence. The largest ISAF contributors other than the British to Task Force Helmand were Danish and Estonian troops.
In the spring of 2008, a battalion of U.S. Marines arrived to reinforce the British presence. In the spring of 2009, 11,000 additional Marines poured into the province, the first wave of President Obama's 21,000 troop surge into Afghanistan.
On June 19, 2009, the British Army (with ISAF and ANA forces) launched Operation Panther's Claw and on July 2, 2009, US Marines launched Operation Khanjar, both major offensives into the province in hopes of securing the region before the Afghanistan presidential elections and turning the tide of the insurgency there.
Prelude
In 2006, a revitalised Taliban conducted a number of large-scale military offensives against coalition troops in Helmand, Kandahar, and other provinces on the border with Pakistan.
In Helmand, the Afghan government only had a tenuous hold outside the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah. This was largely a consequence of President Hamid Karzai's policy of dismantling the local tribal militias, which had previously enforced the will of the tribal power brokers. Consequently, maintaining order fell primarily to local police forces, who lacked the necessary resources to enforce government authority effectively.
Out of the 1,900 police forces in Helmand, many were stationed in the district centres of larger cities, unable to confront the Taliban in rural areas. Additionally, these police forces were poorly equipped, with inadequate training and equipped with light weaponry. It was reported that only about 15% of the police had functional Kalashnikov assault rifles. The police chief of Lashkar Gah acknowledged that the police force was ill-prepared for the high-risk nature of their duties. Western journalists often observed young policemen smoking opium, and international trainers noted that morale was low.
The NATO presence in the province was also sparse, limited to 130 American soldiers undertaking punctual anti-terrorist missions, as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. Through the month of April, a new British unit, the Helmand Task Force, was deployed in order to counter the Taliban. The core of the fighting force was drawn from the 16th Air Assault Brigade, and in particular from the 3rd battalion, of the Parachute Regiment. Based at Camp Bastion, then under construction, the task force numbered 3,300 men, though only a third of these were combat troops.
During the first four months of its presence in Afghanistan, the Helmand Task Force was expected to take part in Operation Enduring Freedom, and help track down Taliban and Al Qaeda extremists. It was thus placed under the command of U.S. Major General Benjamin Freakley, commander of the Combined Joint Task Force 76. But being part of ISAF, it was also answerable to the ISAF Regional Command South, then led by a Canadian, Brigadier General David Fraser. This tangled chain of command was accompanied by a certain difficulty in defining the priority between two different and sometimes contradictory missions: either to win the support of the local population, or to fight and eliminate the Taliban.
Outposts under siege
The initial mission of the Helmand Task Force was to carry out reconstruction and hearts and minds projects in the relatively safe area known as "the triangle", centered around Lashkar Gah and Gereshk. However, the intensification of Taliban attacks led to a dramatic change in this strategy. On February 3, 2006, Taliban fighters under the leadership of Mullah Dadullah launched simultaneous attacks against the district centres of Musa Qala, Sangin, and Now Zad. While the local police forces and Afghan army battalions managed to repel these attacks with the support of US advisors, they suffered 34 casualties, significantly higher than even the 18 Taliban deaths that the Afghan government claimed to have inflicted in the exchange. In early spring Baghran District fell temporarily under insurgent control, on April 30 an ANA convoy was hit by an IED on the outskirts of Greshk, killing four Afghan soldiers, and on May 18, a Taliban raid in Musa Qala killed some twenty Afghan policemen. As Taliban attacks persisted throughout Helmand, the morale of the Afghan government forces began to collapse, and the auxiliary police units deserted in several districts. Observing the apparent weakness of the central government, many local tribesmen began to defect and join the Taliban.
The possibility of a Taliban offensive sweeping over the entire province was taken seriously by the provincial governor, Mohammad Daoud, a personal ally and appointee of President Hamid Karzai. Daoud insisted that ISAF troops be deployed in the districts that were under immediate threat of Taliban attack: Sangin, Now Zada, and Musa Qala.
In mid-May, Dadullah launched another series of coordinated attacks on district centres in northern Helmand. Around the same time, approximately 3,150 British troops from the 16th Air Assault Brigade, led by Brigadier Ed Butler, began arriving in the province. Despite being referred to as a "brigade," it consisted of only one battalion, the 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment, also known as "3 Para."
British soldiers flew into the district centres of Now Zad, Musa Qala, and Kajaki, the latter being important because it overlooked the strategic Kajaki Dam. Brigadier Butler could only allocate one platoon (30 men) to each location. These platoons set up fortified posts, which became known as "platoon houses." This was the beginning of the controversial platoon house strategy, that saw ISAF troops, mostly British, tied down in remote outstations across northern Helmand. All posts attracted sustained and intensive Taliban attacks, and remained under siege for long periods. The besieged district centres had to be supplied by air, as ground resupply missions were perilous. To make matters more challenging, the British forces had only seven Chinook transport helicopters available and had to be careful not to lose any, despite frequently encountering heavy enemy fire during landings. The Task Force's limited assets became dangerously stretched, leading to difficult situations in several cases.
Sangin
The town of Sangin (population 30,000), is an important trading center of southern Afghanistan, and is believed to be the biggest opium market in the region. Thus it naturally became an important objective both for the Taliban and the coalition.
Unlike Musa Qala, where the attacking Taliban mainly came from neighbouring districts, in Sangin, most of the insurgents were locals. This was due to internal tribal rivalries that the Taliban exploited to stoke resistance against the government. Sangin was primarily inhabited by two main tribes: the Alikozai and the Ishakzai. The Alikozai tribesmen occupied influential positions in the district since 2001. They held the district governorship, and enjoyed top jobs in the district administration. The Ishakzai tribesmen, on the other hand, had suffered mistreatment, particularly from Dad Mohammed, an Alikozai tribal leader who also served as the head of the Afghan secret police in Sangin. Under his leadership, the Alikozai had "used the cover of their government positions to tax, harass and steal from the Ishakzai." When Dadullah launched his attack, the Ishakzai naturally aligned themselves with the Taliban. By mid-June 2006, Sangin was believed to be largely under insurgent control.
On June 18, 2006, Jama Gul, a former district chief, was ambushed and killed in Sangin, along with four bodyguards. When a group of his relatives went to retrieve the bodies, 25 of them were killed. It was this incident, sometimes described as "face-off between two drug lords", that led to the deployment of ISAF troops in Sangin. On June 21, a company of British paratroopers moved into the town, ostensibly to rescue the son of the current district chief, who had been wounded in the fight. However, after a personal intervention by Hamid Karzai, they were ordered to remain in Sangin, in order to assert the faltering authority of the central government.
At first, the situation inside the town remained calm, but this changed after June 27, after a failed special forces raid in the Sangin area, during which two British soldiers were killed while attempting to capture four Taliban militants. The On June 30, the insurgents launched their first frontal attacks on the district centre, garrisoned by British troops. The attackers were driven off, after having lost at least twelve killed. Despite this, the Taliban did not relent, and renewed their attacks every night, using small arms, RPGs, and 107 mm rockets. The British answered with machine guns, mortars and Javelin missiles, and by calling in artillery and airstrikes. Resupply was sometimes interrupted for as long as five days, as Taliban fire would have put the helicopters at risk.
On July 15, as part of Operation Mountain Thrust coalition forces conducted an offensive into Sangin district, supported by armour, in the shape of light tanks of the Household Cavalry Regiment and Canadian LAV IIIs. In the face of overwhelming force, most of the Taliban retreated, and a supply convoy was escorted into the town. The garrison were able to strengthen their defenses after the arrival of an engineer unit.
After September 14, the fighting died down in Sangin. On September 21, the paratroopers occupying the government compound were replaced by a unit from 42 Commando, Royal Marines. In March 2007, the Marines were in turn replaced by a company from the 2nd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. By this time, the Taliban had resumed their operations in the sector, and the fusiliers were attacked 79 times during their first twenty days in Sangin.
On April 5, 2007, coalition forces launched Operation Silver, as part of the wider Operation Achilles, with some 1,000 troops. After giving advance warning of their offensive, they advanced into Sangin, which had been mostly abandoned by the insurgents. The new governor of Helmand Assadullah Wafa, was able to install a new district governor, and ISAF claimed to have pacified the town.
Musa Qala
After May 18, 2006, coalition troops were deployed in Musa Qala, to defend the district centre. Serving also as a prison and police station, the district centre was situated in the middle of the town, a situation that greatly hampered the defenders. The garrison consisted of some 80 Afghan policemen, who were more of a militia than a police force, and were very unpopular among the local population.
The American unit present in Musa Qala was replaced on June 14 by a composite group of British troops, mostly pathfinders. The first heavy Taliban attack was launched on July 16, and though it was repelled with heavy loss, the insurgents maintained a constant pressure on the district centre. On July 26, the Danish 1 Light Reconnaissance Squadron, known as "the griffins", arrived at Musa Qala to relieve the British troops. However, these could not be extracted until August 8, when a full battle group operation, codenamed Operation Snakebite, was required to reach the town centre. The griffins were equipped with 16 Eagle armoured vehicles, one lost during the fight to get in the town, most armed with a .50 calibre machine-gun. Their commander built a series of ramps enabling the vehicles to fire over the compound walls. With the support of a mortar team from the Royal Irish Regiment and abundant air support, the Musa Qala garrison was able to drive back all attacks, but the presence of large numbers of Taliban prevented them from venturing out of the base. On the 24 August, the Danish unit were extracted and assigned to the Canadian-led Op Medusa, the Danes were replaced by a mixed British detachment of paratroopers and Royal Irish rangers, whose weapons array was considerably less powerful, having only two .50 cal and eight GPMG machine-guns. Knowing the garrison was weaker, the Taliban launched two attacks with a group of 150 men on August 26/27. Both were driven off, after which the insurgents concentrated on indirect attacks with mortars and 107 mm rockets.