The Ripper
12-15-2010, 09:35 AM
The Finns' war in Northern Afghanistan is a competition over who has more time
By Ville Similä and Markus Jokela (photos) in Ali Zayi, west of Mazar-i-Sharif
It came in from the west, landed in the middle of the camp, and exploded.
It was a three-kilo lump of iron, a mortar shell, possibly an old piece of Russian ordnance.
The explosion occurred at five in the afternoon. A Finnish ISAF soldier was in the camp sauna at the time.
Shrapnel fragments flew everywhere, with around a dozen of them ending up in the soldier's back and legs.
They called in an American medivac chopper, and the shards of metal were extracted that same evening in the operating theatre at the military hospital in Camp Marmal in Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh Province.
There was one fatality in the attack, an Afghan dairy cow.
The first of three shells exploded in a field below the hilltop camp, and the third went past the camp.
The attack took place on a Sunday, just under a month ago.
This is the Finns' hilltop camp above the village of Ali Zayi.
The Soviets built a lookout base on the hill in the 1980s. It was abandoned and deserted for two decades.
In June of this year it was once more set up as a patrol base from which to keep an eye on the restless districts to the west of Mazar-i-Sharif.
There are a couple of dozen soldiers stationed here, Finns and Swedes.
Immediately below the base spreads out the village. A Pashtun or Pathan village.
In practice, all the Taliban insurgents belong to the Pashtun ethnic group. Here in the north of Afghanistan one reason why there is not an all-out state of war is that the Pashtuns are in the minority.
It is in these Pashtun pockets of the country that it usually happens: when an armoured personnel carrier drives over a roadside bomb or someone takes pot-shots at the Finns.
It takes place perhaps once a month.
It is hard to aim a mortar with any great accuracy. Instead of landing in the camp the shell could have come down more or less anywhere: in the midst of a crowd of children out playing, on a shepherd looking after his flock, in the backyard of one of the villagers.
The attackers didn't really care one way or another.
Friday 10th December, 15:00. When nothing is happening, then there is nothing going on at all.
There is nothing but time itself. Time to drink coffee, or play games. Time to read a book or two: a recent Finnish best-seller novel about the loneliness and lunacy of the long-distance runner, or The Satanic Verses, or Per Edvin "Sahara" Andersson's memoirs of his time in the French Foreign Legion and as a mercenary.
But the insurgents have even more time at their disposal.
They do not have to carry out anything more than sporadic attacks, and they only have to get lucky and succeed once.
One dead Finnish serviceman would lead to national mourning and calls for the withdrawal of our ISAF troops. If five were to die, there is a chance the calls would be heard.
There is fighting going on not far away.
Yesterday, Thursday, the insurgents attacked a police station with bazookas, a couple of kilometres west from the hilltop camp.
Right now the Afghan armed forces are searching for the attackers in the company of a Croatian Operational Mentor Liaison Team, or OMLT.
Officially the Finnish contingent in Afghanistan are here as peacekeepers.
This means that arms can be used in anger only in self-defence.
Or it means that if the Finns learn of an arms cache somewhere, they cannot carry out the raid on it themselves. They have to call in the ANA, the Afghan National Army.
The mentoring process - the Finns also have an OMLT detachment in Northern Afghanistan - works in such a way that the battle, if such occurs, is formally led by the ANA.
The mentor & liaison team goes along for the ride and takes part in the firefight if one ensues.
And if things get really hot on the ground, it may be that American or German fighter jets are called in to deliver air strikes.
Friday, 18:00. Darkness has fallen over the camp. Helmet headlamps flicker here and there.
Fires have been lit in the camp's stoves. The word is that it will go below zero tonight.
Information comes in to the camp: ANA forces have found three roadside bombs a couple of kilometres from here.
Two of the IEDs were small and apparently home-made efforts.
But the third was a horse of a different colour: it had two circular anti-tank blast mines placed on top of each other - roughly 20 kilos of cast TNT waiting to go up.
What would happen if an armoured personnel carrier hit one of these?
"I haven't experimented, but it would not be pleasant", says Lieutenant Juho.
He is now king of the hill, the officer in charge of the Finnish detachment at the patrol base.
Who are the enemy? Who is attacking the Finns with mortar fire?
The insurgents?
Mujahideen bandit chieftains?
The Taliban?
It is impossible to say with any certainty.
The attackers may go around by car, and will dismantle their mortar and vanish into into any one of the hundreds of dwellings in some local village or other.
Previously mortar attacks like this have not been particularly common in the north.
It could be that the team have come in from the south on a one-off gig.
Or alternatively Taliban commanders have been sent in from across the Pakistan border and have recruited some locals into their forces.
Friday, 20:20. Situation Report. Afghan National Army forces have driven into a roadside bomb a couple of kilometres from here.
One soldier has been killed and two others wounded.
The hunt for the perpetrators will continue tomorrow.
Now the camp is preparing to go to sleep.
At around 2 a.m. a man on the camp-bed next door sits up bolt upright out of his sleep, stares fixedly at the doorway for an instant, and then wriggles back inside his sleeping bag.
Only those on watch duty are awake.
Saturday 11th December, 06:14. Breakfast: noodles and instant coffee.
The soldiers dress in their regulation equipment: Kevlar vest, helmet, protective gloves, protective goggles.
Earplugs are inserted. If you should chance to drive into a roadside bomb, the blast can burst your eardrums.
Today's mission: to make it in one piece to and from a liaison meeting with representatives of the ANA.
The armoured vehicle convoy sets off at 7 a.m. Slowly, very slowly.
After only a couple of hundred metres the vehicle comes to a halt. The soldiers step out and begin looking for roadside bombs.
None are found
Back in the APC, another one hundred metres. Another stop. The men dismount again.
The rate of progress is approximately two kilometres an hour.
This is precisely the stretch of road on which a 20-kilo anti-tank mine was discovered yesterday.
The soldiers have pimped up the interior of their transport.
If it were to be blown up under us right now, the last image would be of a Finnish flag and the heaving breasts of erotic dancer Johanna Tukiainen.
The vehicle's stereo blasts out the theme tune from the '80s American TV-series Knight Rider.
And then Stayin' Alive by the BeeGees, from Saturday Night Fever.
Saturday, 08:30. We have arrived. The Afghani troops have camped out overnight in a field close to the Pashtun village.
The local soldiers are combing the road with a mine dectector.
Lt. Juho talks with the Afghanis and their Croat mentors.
The further west one goes, apparently, the more bombs are being found.
Something has to be out here. A big drug stash, perhaps? A bomb factory? An arms cache?
Maybe the insurgents live here.
Juho winds up the discussion. Time to get moving again.
Saturday 09:34. We stop at a police checkpoint.
Only a few of the Afghani police officers are in their grey uniforms.
The others are men armed to the teeth and dressed in ordinary clothes, with scarves wrapped around their faces.
How do the insurgents get wind of the movements of the ISAF and Afghan troops?
"By day they are friends, by night they are enemies", the local police chief says to Juho.
Any one of the villagers, walking about as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouth, could be an insurgent.
By the wall of the police station, one of the policemen sparks up a joint.
Drug use is not the worst of the behavioural characteristics of the Afghan police.
A more thorny problem than smoking hash is that some are police officers one day and rebels the next.
The return trip to the hilltop camp only takes half an hour.
Saturday, 16:30. The sunset today is beautiful. That is the most dangerous kind.
If an attack comes, it generally comes as dusk is falling.
At night the insurgents see poorly, but the soldiers see well.
Darkness falls at around five p.m.
The writing on the makeshift sign pointing to the PISSGROT/KUSIPAIKKA (the latrines in Swedish and Finnish) can no longer be made out.
When someone goes out of the camp for a dump, the headlamp is religiously switched off.
The light would make a handy target.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 12.12.2010
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/The+slow-burning+war+of+Ali+Zayi+/1135262338474
One question: Tuksu? Really? :D
By Ville Similä and Markus Jokela (photos) in Ali Zayi, west of Mazar-i-Sharif
It came in from the west, landed in the middle of the camp, and exploded.
It was a three-kilo lump of iron, a mortar shell, possibly an old piece of Russian ordnance.
The explosion occurred at five in the afternoon. A Finnish ISAF soldier was in the camp sauna at the time.
Shrapnel fragments flew everywhere, with around a dozen of them ending up in the soldier's back and legs.
They called in an American medivac chopper, and the shards of metal were extracted that same evening in the operating theatre at the military hospital in Camp Marmal in Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh Province.
There was one fatality in the attack, an Afghan dairy cow.
The first of three shells exploded in a field below the hilltop camp, and the third went past the camp.
The attack took place on a Sunday, just under a month ago.
This is the Finns' hilltop camp above the village of Ali Zayi.
The Soviets built a lookout base on the hill in the 1980s. It was abandoned and deserted for two decades.
In June of this year it was once more set up as a patrol base from which to keep an eye on the restless districts to the west of Mazar-i-Sharif.
There are a couple of dozen soldiers stationed here, Finns and Swedes.
Immediately below the base spreads out the village. A Pashtun or Pathan village.
In practice, all the Taliban insurgents belong to the Pashtun ethnic group. Here in the north of Afghanistan one reason why there is not an all-out state of war is that the Pashtuns are in the minority.
It is in these Pashtun pockets of the country that it usually happens: when an armoured personnel carrier drives over a roadside bomb or someone takes pot-shots at the Finns.
It takes place perhaps once a month.
It is hard to aim a mortar with any great accuracy. Instead of landing in the camp the shell could have come down more or less anywhere: in the midst of a crowd of children out playing, on a shepherd looking after his flock, in the backyard of one of the villagers.
The attackers didn't really care one way or another.
Friday 10th December, 15:00. When nothing is happening, then there is nothing going on at all.
There is nothing but time itself. Time to drink coffee, or play games. Time to read a book or two: a recent Finnish best-seller novel about the loneliness and lunacy of the long-distance runner, or The Satanic Verses, or Per Edvin "Sahara" Andersson's memoirs of his time in the French Foreign Legion and as a mercenary.
But the insurgents have even more time at their disposal.
They do not have to carry out anything more than sporadic attacks, and they only have to get lucky and succeed once.
One dead Finnish serviceman would lead to national mourning and calls for the withdrawal of our ISAF troops. If five were to die, there is a chance the calls would be heard.
There is fighting going on not far away.
Yesterday, Thursday, the insurgents attacked a police station with bazookas, a couple of kilometres west from the hilltop camp.
Right now the Afghan armed forces are searching for the attackers in the company of a Croatian Operational Mentor Liaison Team, or OMLT.
Officially the Finnish contingent in Afghanistan are here as peacekeepers.
This means that arms can be used in anger only in self-defence.
Or it means that if the Finns learn of an arms cache somewhere, they cannot carry out the raid on it themselves. They have to call in the ANA, the Afghan National Army.
The mentoring process - the Finns also have an OMLT detachment in Northern Afghanistan - works in such a way that the battle, if such occurs, is formally led by the ANA.
The mentor & liaison team goes along for the ride and takes part in the firefight if one ensues.
And if things get really hot on the ground, it may be that American or German fighter jets are called in to deliver air strikes.
Friday, 18:00. Darkness has fallen over the camp. Helmet headlamps flicker here and there.
Fires have been lit in the camp's stoves. The word is that it will go below zero tonight.
Information comes in to the camp: ANA forces have found three roadside bombs a couple of kilometres from here.
Two of the IEDs were small and apparently home-made efforts.
But the third was a horse of a different colour: it had two circular anti-tank blast mines placed on top of each other - roughly 20 kilos of cast TNT waiting to go up.
What would happen if an armoured personnel carrier hit one of these?
"I haven't experimented, but it would not be pleasant", says Lieutenant Juho.
He is now king of the hill, the officer in charge of the Finnish detachment at the patrol base.
Who are the enemy? Who is attacking the Finns with mortar fire?
The insurgents?
Mujahideen bandit chieftains?
The Taliban?
It is impossible to say with any certainty.
The attackers may go around by car, and will dismantle their mortar and vanish into into any one of the hundreds of dwellings in some local village or other.
Previously mortar attacks like this have not been particularly common in the north.
It could be that the team have come in from the south on a one-off gig.
Or alternatively Taliban commanders have been sent in from across the Pakistan border and have recruited some locals into their forces.
Friday, 20:20. Situation Report. Afghan National Army forces have driven into a roadside bomb a couple of kilometres from here.
One soldier has been killed and two others wounded.
The hunt for the perpetrators will continue tomorrow.
Now the camp is preparing to go to sleep.
At around 2 a.m. a man on the camp-bed next door sits up bolt upright out of his sleep, stares fixedly at the doorway for an instant, and then wriggles back inside his sleeping bag.
Only those on watch duty are awake.
Saturday 11th December, 06:14. Breakfast: noodles and instant coffee.
The soldiers dress in their regulation equipment: Kevlar vest, helmet, protective gloves, protective goggles.
Earplugs are inserted. If you should chance to drive into a roadside bomb, the blast can burst your eardrums.
Today's mission: to make it in one piece to and from a liaison meeting with representatives of the ANA.
The armoured vehicle convoy sets off at 7 a.m. Slowly, very slowly.
After only a couple of hundred metres the vehicle comes to a halt. The soldiers step out and begin looking for roadside bombs.
None are found
Back in the APC, another one hundred metres. Another stop. The men dismount again.
The rate of progress is approximately two kilometres an hour.
This is precisely the stretch of road on which a 20-kilo anti-tank mine was discovered yesterday.
The soldiers have pimped up the interior of their transport.
If it were to be blown up under us right now, the last image would be of a Finnish flag and the heaving breasts of erotic dancer Johanna Tukiainen.
The vehicle's stereo blasts out the theme tune from the '80s American TV-series Knight Rider.
And then Stayin' Alive by the BeeGees, from Saturday Night Fever.
Saturday, 08:30. We have arrived. The Afghani troops have camped out overnight in a field close to the Pashtun village.
The local soldiers are combing the road with a mine dectector.
Lt. Juho talks with the Afghanis and their Croat mentors.
The further west one goes, apparently, the more bombs are being found.
Something has to be out here. A big drug stash, perhaps? A bomb factory? An arms cache?
Maybe the insurgents live here.
Juho winds up the discussion. Time to get moving again.
Saturday 09:34. We stop at a police checkpoint.
Only a few of the Afghani police officers are in their grey uniforms.
The others are men armed to the teeth and dressed in ordinary clothes, with scarves wrapped around their faces.
How do the insurgents get wind of the movements of the ISAF and Afghan troops?
"By day they are friends, by night they are enemies", the local police chief says to Juho.
Any one of the villagers, walking about as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouth, could be an insurgent.
By the wall of the police station, one of the policemen sparks up a joint.
Drug use is not the worst of the behavioural characteristics of the Afghan police.
A more thorny problem than smoking hash is that some are police officers one day and rebels the next.
The return trip to the hilltop camp only takes half an hour.
Saturday, 16:30. The sunset today is beautiful. That is the most dangerous kind.
If an attack comes, it generally comes as dusk is falling.
At night the insurgents see poorly, but the soldiers see well.
Darkness falls at around five p.m.
The writing on the makeshift sign pointing to the PISSGROT/KUSIPAIKKA (the latrines in Swedish and Finnish) can no longer be made out.
When someone goes out of the camp for a dump, the headlamp is religiously switched off.
The light would make a handy target.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 12.12.2010
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/The+slow-burning+war+of+Ali+Zayi+/1135262338474
One question: Tuksu? Really? :D