Friday's Attack

08:03 AM Friday. A mortar missile sailed through the sky and detonated just about 100 meters from my position, and then another one. What the fuck? Luckily both landed in the ditch. At the same moment, machine guns started firing from several different positions in the mountains. We are under attack. Some other explosions were close, probably RPGs.

My guard commander had asked me just a half hour ago, “Sir! Is it gonna be a half day today?” “No, don’t think so, expect the Taliban is gonna ambush us,” I answered.

We went through exactly the same evacuation procedure as the previous attack, except this time the vehicles turned up for us without any request. I quickly took the clients to the vehicles and sent them to the police station, the nearest safe haven.

It was a serious firefight, more than an hour long. It was a miracle nobody was injured. Some vehicles were zipped by bullets.

The US military confirmed that we can’t get air support, for some reason I suppose, because they’re busy in Kandahar, or worse, they don’t give a shit about us. Also, no support from the Afghan National Army because it s Friday and they are all having a bloody day off, so we have to leave the area even after all the enemy are gone, because there is no evidence from the air to know if they are really gone or just waiting for another opportunity. So we had to withdraw all the clients and all the machinery for today.

While my 2IC took care of the clients I remained in the field to take care of the expensive construction machines left behind. The fucked up thing was that the Indian operators took the keys from the machinery so when the local drivers came to recover them it was a huge fuck up; they can’t start them.

By the time we realized that particular hiccup, all clients had gone back to the base because of the ongoing firefight.
I contacted my Gurkha on base and requested that he bring the keys. But all the operators had already disappeared into their hutches, so it was really difficult to find them. Several hours later my Gurkha 2IC finally got the keys to me.
In the end, my guards drove the machinery back from the work site, including my guard commander himself, who rode a roller back to the overnight parking.

On the way back I also found several dump trucks and a bitumen lorry. Most of the Indian operators quit and left their vehicles on the spot but out of my area of responsibility. As the very last team out I had to recover them but I didn’t have enough drivers, because they were busy driving the dump trucks and steamrollers, so I had to drive my own team leader vehicle back to base. But one of my bosses got to drive the bitumen lorry.

Machine gun duty

Since the last attack against the base, the base commander ordered that everyone should go on duty at least once or twice a month in order to man several Soviet PKT Anti-Aircraft heavy machine guns, which are positioned in front of that mountain range from where attacks are most likely to come. The whole idea is that if they start to shoot us we immediately respond with heavy machine guns to surprise the front line of enemy troops, to buy some time for our men to get to their firing positions. Got night vision, Infra-red Imaging system, illumination rockets and binoculars. So it was my turn, and actually, I really enjoyed it. Was no enemy activity. Well, we also have mandatory night duty around the base in the towers but staffed mainly by local nationals. So no comment on that.

Ambush

Yesterday at 11 am there was another attack on the other side of the project, approximately 30 km away from my site.
Six of my coworkers are wounded: 3 team leaders, a Gurkha, and 2 local nationals. Of the three team leaders, two are my friends.
Their vehicles have been ambushed by Taliban with two anti-personnel RPGs and machine guns.
Day by day closer...

Exchanging fire, and a bullet scam...

A couple of days ago at 10 am we exchanged fire. There were several incoming machine gun bursts from a distance. Our guys fired back, then took the clients to safety. My site was approximately 2 Km away from the contact, down in the walleye. Although my position was above that, on the top of the mountain, I couldn’t really see what was going on. When I heard the gunfire burst, and shortly after on the radio some of my fellow team leaders reported, “We are under fire!” So I grabbed the main client by his body armour and covered him behind the construction equipment. Then I ordered the vehicles to roll up. The client climbed out, so I took him back behind the cover again. I ordered my Gurkha second-in-command (2IC) to take all the clients to the next police post about one km away from our site. Part of my team and I remained, to take care of the million dollar heavy machinery. I ordered them to get into firing position around the machines. “Safety catch off!” I shouted. “Don’t cock your weapon!” Everything went pretty well. All the other teams drove past us loaded with scared clients. Down on the walleye a couple kilometers away our Quick Response Force (QRF) handled the attackers. Finally they were gone.
It was short but intense contact. Luckily no casualties; no one injured, and a few bullet marks on a couple of vehicles. After an hour and a half everything went back to the normal daily routine.
My teams didn’t fire a single shot, but some of the teams claimed they had fired thousands of rounds in a few minutes. This is a bullshit scam, because now the company will have to replace the “fired” rounds. But then, the company eventually has to buy new rounds. So these teams will sell their pilfered ammunition back to us. When we looked for cartridges that day, we hardly found a hundred on our side.
One of my fellow team leaders said, ”They’re a bunch of criminals.“

IED days

The Taliban are active. In recent days our vehicles have set off several IEDs, but no casualties.

Attack

I survived an attack against my base in Southern Afghanistan last night at 19:40. No problem. I was busy with the administration when the shit hit the fan. We received 4 incoming mortar rounds and RPG missiles, and on top of that, constant machine gun fire from the mountains. I grabbed my weapons, my body armour, the spare magazines, and my kit, and ran to my position. My lungs are fucked now, as I had to run a half mile to get to my post. This is normally not a problem for me, but under the circumstances, it was. I had to carry 50 pounds of equipment at an altitude of 10,000 feet, under heavy enemy fire. Then I had to climb a 30-foot tower, and I had been breathing tons of dust during the past few days.

But after all that, I took command in my tower and gave my guys (2 Gurkha and 4 local Afghani guards) firing orders to waste that RPG operator about 400 meters in front of us. I didn't see the result, as it was dark, but I hope the bastard got zipped. I fired some shots as well with my assault rifle, and from then on there was no more activity. Today a patrol is going out to have a look in those mountains.

No one killed or injured from our side. I've found a bullet hole in the wall of my well-protected accommodation. Intelligence says during the summer period attacks and ambushes are more likely.

So I have decided to write a blog.

Happy days....

Landmine story

About a week ago an Italian landmine has been found in my area of responsibility.
It was brought by a truck, which dumped it when unloading some soil.
I suspect that the soil came directly from a minefield and the driver and the laborers were lucky enough...It hasn't gone off.

Nice present. Cheers for that, we all were pretty grateful.

Finally the US Army turned up and took care of it. They instantly initiated that landmine on the spot using a special robot and some heavy explosives. Before setting it off, the Army blocked the road with heavily armed vehicles on both sides in approximately a one-kilometer radius for about 15 minutes.

The local drivers started to complain about it, as usual, but the Americans didn't give a shit, also as usual. One of the local taxi drivers came to me and asked me to let them pass because there was an emergency case that needed to go to the hospital. I was busy talking with one of the Staff sergeants. He took us to a vehicle and showed me something in the boot covered with a blue burkha, possibly a woman...
But I couldn’t see any emergency, well, actually I hadn't seen anything, because the emergency was wrapped in that burkha. Finally, I told my interpreter, "That's fine, but if they are going through and that explosive goes off I’m pretty sure nobody in that vehicle is gonna get to the hospital, but instead to the Paradise."

The Staff sergeant just smiled. From that moment on, no one was in a hurry.

Children’s toys, and a stoning

For several days, I was working near a very poor village just behind my work area where there was a bunch of kids, maybe 30 to 40 children hanging around with nothing to do apart from watching us, all day, every day. So I decided I was gonna buy some sports equipment. I bought five footballs, a cricket bat and balls, and other things like that. I handed it over to the leader of the village and then he gave it to the kids…they were really happy. Immediately afterwards, due to an early morning traffic incident, the leader of the village went to stone someone to death, because that person shot a man from a neighboring village in a traffic accident. Two cars had crashed on the dust-road about 2 km away from my workplace. Both drivers got out and started arguing, then one drew a pistol and shot the other. By the way, the village leader attended the victim’s funeral too. Then the villagers handed over the stoned-dead body to the police. They really know how to make a point.