Operation Red Dagger liberates part of Afghanistan

Sunday Times:

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Operation Sond Chara – Pashto for Red Dagger – was named after the Royal Marine commandos’ shoulder badge.

Its aim, apparently now achieved, was to stamp Afghan government control on a Taliban-infested region of Helmand province and allow locals to register and vote in presidential elections later this year.

The Red Dagger battles were mainly fought north and west of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital. In one, marines had to “yomp” through mud to attack the enemy dug in at a strategic town. In another, a village was taken by a frontal charge led by Danish dragoons’ tanks.

“Some of the places we stayed in were a nightmare,” said one soldier. “Sleeping in the mud was the worst. It was difficult to tell who the enemy was – it was pretty scary.”

Whatley, 20, from King’s Lynn, Norfolk, was killed in some of the fiercest fighting of the offensive.

Chah-e Anjir was the Taliban command post from which insurgents controlled increasingly audacious attacks, including one in October when 300 marched into Lashkar Gah, raising serious questions over who was in control.

The troops in the assault on Chah-e Anjir had presents from Britain in their packs ready to open once the fighting was over.

Despite his young age, Whatley had already served in Afghanistan and seen his best friend killed. He was one of what his commander described as “a tight and combat-hardened band of warriors”.

Whatley was killed at the head of his section, “fighting from the front for his friends”. They were among marines pouring into Chah-e Anjir, ferried by Chinook transport helicopters and backed up by Apache helicopter gunships.

Preparations for Red Dagger began in November with intelligence-gathering operations in which Marine Tony Evans, 20, from Sunderland, and Marine Georgie Sparks, 19, from Epping, Essex, were killed by a Taliban rocket-propelled grenade.

The offensive, which included British, Danish, Estonian and Afghan troops, began in earnest on December 7.

The first clashes included an attack on a village used as a safe haven by the Taliban when Danish Leopard tanks from the Jutland Dragoons led a combined assault with British and Afghan troops.

The speed of the Leopards caught the Taliban by surprise. After firing a final flurry of 107mm rockets, they fled.

... as darkness fell on December 11, hundreds of Royal Marines from 42 Commando attacked the town of Nad-e-Ali.

Some went in by helicopter; others advanced on the ground, backed up by armoured vehicles and Apaches.

“We air-assaulted in at night,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Charlie Stickland, commanding officer of 42 Commando. “Thankfully all the insertions went very swiftly and very well and we unhinged the insurgents.”

Meanwhile, another force of commandos and Afghans, backed up by the 2nd Battalion, The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, took the town of Shin Kalay, west of Lashkar Gah.

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The Taliban counter attack was defeated as the troops and engineers were putting field fortification in place to secure the area as a new base. It was some of the fieriest combat of the operation, but the Taliban were denied an area they thought was theirs.