Pathfinders: Into The Heart of Afghanistan

you're taking risks to get in there this isn't necessarily a nice place before you go new areas you get a bit of a twitch you push your luck but that's the sort of game that we're in this was actually worse than we thought small arms fire is absolutely accurate what's my strike you could feel the percussions as they were going past and then with that strike it's not plain sailing out there now drums come on it's gone been [ __ ] shot man down down these are the pathfinders they're the parachute regiments elite combat troops they've never been filmed before the platoon is a simple motto first in operating alone they go further and deeper into the heart of enemy territory than any other regular unity it's early morning it's freezing cold and it's kent they're training it's just days before their deployment into afghanistan led by major matt taylor there's just 45 men in this elite corps this would be very much the high end of the of the war fighting spectrum so this would be a last resort perform a vital part of the ongoing mission against the taliban we're there to uh to find them to disrupt them and to locate them and then pass the information back um for the rest of the gate all the guys within the pathfinders are volunteers so they all want to be here they want to be doing the job so in terms of their sort of professionalism and their abilities they're probably a higher level than a mainstream battalion it's a job that appeals to me you know it's actual you know it's almost down to you and your rifle it's sort of one man in his kit you know if you're squared and your equipment's squared and your personal skills are on top form um then everything else will fall into place the platoon's greatest asset is their ability to survive for long periods with little need of assistance they're professional soldiers hugely reliant on their own self-confidence their own daring spirit and a high degree of self-reliance their self-sufficiency depends a great deal on their equipment they're the first unit to take the brand new jackal armored reconnaissance truck into battle each one costs 640 000 pounds it's an all-terrain vehicle it's armored for protection against roadside bombs or ieds but it's never been used in anger before we're the first journalists allowed to film and live with the pathfinders as they find and engage with the taliban in southern afghanistan the most dangerous place on earth this is the pathfinder's new home they'll be here for the next six months their compound at the huge camp bastion base of the british military is the hub of their activities they've only been here a few days but matt taylor has already planned the soldier's first mission into the remotest part of afghanistan operation tallander is a six-week mission from bastian up the musa kala valley to the furthest point of helmand province the kajaki dam and the central badlands of afghanistan it's an enormous blind spot with the district of zamindevar at its heart as part of the deal to allow me to join them in battle the pathfinders insisted i learned how to use the commander's machine gun i did but on condition that as a journalist i'd not be expected to fire the men are practicing and familiarizing themselves with their new kid let's go and meet some of the characters shall we who do we have here our first contestants i'm trying out our own cameras we have one of the uh alia men of the platoon as you see this seasons were consistent plate carrier alley pistol contraband shoes we have a man known as foss women want to be with him men want to beat him got that t-shirt seems like you guys are looking to get up close and personal oh yeah that's the camel he's the driver makes camel noises it's his responsibility to keep us alive by not putting the vehicle on his roof this is our vehicle also known as the coater here we have your general purpose machine gun we've got two uh two javelins probably 150 000 pounds worth of missile my weapon of choice the 40 millimeter grenade machine gun we've got about uh about 200 litres of water on this bad boy 150 liters of fuel another good weapon the 50 cal machine gun today we're going out on a patrol where no other conventional forces have been for a while out from camp bastian and day one of the mission three men to a truck they'll eat sleep and fight from the vehicles for the next six weeks the task to disrupt the taliban and bring home intelligence from the most remote areas where the influence of the kabul government is scant and where western forces rarely make an appearance the pathfinder's mission has started but it's already stopped it's day two and a fuel line's broken on a jackal vehicle we've pulled into uh forward operating base edinburgh which is in the north of helmand province as you can see the line of trucks has been here overnight they're going to stay here for at least the rest of the day some of the guys as you can see just walking past they've been living on the outside of the truck uh here as soon as the part arrives and it's fixed then uh the pathfinders will move out to begin uh their proper mission and that's it people press ups in it how's it going mate the pathfinders prefer the desert they'll be there the next day the destination is amindavar three days of driving it lies in a crucial part of helmand province allocated to the british as part of the nato-led international security force or isaf helmand is afghanistan's largest province and the taliban are here in large numbers its people are hostile to all outsiders deeply religious and conservative the remote communities cling to the so-called green zone a narrow strip of vegetation where the river runs through the desert poppies make this the greatest source of the world's heroine it's lethal territory zamindevar is beyond safety the soldiers are tense as they approach intelligence chatter indicates key taliban commanders live here well within range they sit and wait will the taliban attack orders are to provoke a response to test their firepower to stir things up that's an rpg i think it might have been an rpg5 from a motorcycle um we saw a bike going across very fast and we saw a plume of smoke in front of us a show of force from a harrier jet the pathfinders are looking for firing points for five minutes i don't want to that's the whistle of incoming rounds that's closer the fighting intensifies we're on their territory their weapons arranged on this spot for this is to find a 1-4 radio checkover the men can call on artillery and air support but radio communications are down the request for long-range artillery has to be rooted via a landline at headquarters i've brought a final one for uh continuing fire mission uh taliban water team you've got idea idf at the rear let's see a the taliban have the experience they've been defending this past since our russians first came another round behind us jim landed it yeah they maneuver to a new firing point but the taliban have moved closer as well very small very ugly now a long range artillery round goes in fired from over 50 miles away but there's an instant return of fire and they just keep firing back mortars land just yards away behind us the pathfinder's up the ante again sergeant scottie patterson calls for a multiple airstrike before when that's a good copy i'll give you a separation we've got the runs on the ground enormous bombs smash into the compounds where the firing's been coming from it's the largest drop of ordnance on a single target recorded in this part of the war in afghanistan but within minutes it was clear just how tough the taliban are they attack again incoming yeah we need to [ __ ] move with light fading the pathfinders have moved to a defensive camp for the night incredibly it's only 1500 meters back from the compounds at the foot of the pass into the next valley good contact today um four one sierra so matt what about today was that what do you learn well our task was to come in here and basically get uh information on enemy forces and local nationals i think we quite quickly found the enemy forces no the rpg was the first one yeah that went over the top about 40 k's all the way to here we've been watched in and channeled in by the enemy and then the second one landed slightly behind it they've obviously got a couple of well-trained uh multiplier controllers up here somewhere so we used um basically air air power to hit the targets that they were identified at because it can just move around on the mopeds fast and furious we can't get too close to them with the wagons it's it's a bit of a mickey mouse game really trying to get in there the impression we were getting from from the various feeds was that they were quite surprised we were here all right mark i'm good it may seem like we didn't achieve much but we actually found a quite large grouping of the enemy in a certain location which all adds value at the higher level and that gets passed that's the point of course that that was passed immediately and longer syrups will follow geneva again well done sir in this environment each man needs 11 liters of water a day but even then it barely quenches the thirst it's beautiful but hostile here dangerously so it's freezing in winter but now pushing 60 degrees it's why central authority barely exists beyond the main towns and cities but it's here the taliban thrive familiar with the conditions and rudimentary paths three days in and we've crossed the pass into the neighboring valley and there is a pass i mean that's probably one there somehow matt has sent out part of the platoon to find taliban roots and disrupt their movements they know we have to come out they're watching us they're waiting for us i just think if we if we if we set up properly then we can get me out of it while the pathfinders are identifying areas of extreme taliban influence they're also trying to engage with the local people it's called testing the atmospherics getting information for headquarters on how people view the taliban the kabul authorities and the coalition forces but just how far does the writ of the country's government run in these remote areas hardly any outsiders come to this valley it's been over a year since the isaf forces even passed through and they didn't actually stop but what struck me was how this side of the mountain seemed so much quieter almost a world apart from zamindevath do you ever see any sort of representative from the afghan government the afghanistan nothing at all clearly nervous but determined village elders approached the soldiers their body language is clear from the beginning they're furious at the intrusion into their daily lives we don't need power we don't need drinking water we don't need anything we just need the security say whenever there's a one single fire on you guys these guys are dropping the bombs and killing similar is it not just a case of anyone who turns up just causes trouble yeah that's just bad news whoever comes into town yeah it is and i think because this is sort of right at the far end of hellmann right now you know it's taken time for the for security to come here and it will take time and they'll build out from the centers as you know and hence it's probably quite confusing for the local elders that you see walking away you know they don't know what to believe they were furious they weren't they yeah yeah and then we turned up for five minutes in some so far off the beaten track it's difficult to imagine how they survive the elders were in no mood to even indicate that they wanted for anything when was the last time you saw isaf forces here yeah long a year they said that just the russians come home first from the russians have they seen anyone from the government of afghanistan the pathfinders have reached the furthest point on their first operation ready for delta i rode your first grid four one sierra papa romeo the mission is taking its toll on the men and their equipment just keeping going is tough out here they're only seven days into a mission scheduled to last 42. you're right chris yeah all right yourself good used to yes mate the wear and tear on the trucks is becoming a real problem the management computer on a vehicle has died stuck in the desert the pathfinder's mechanic mick turner plans to hotwire the truck it'll drive but it's an unreliable running repair impossible to know when it will break down it's bdr basically it'll start but it's a temporary measure and after that gets back to one of the fob the four-wheel drive system on one of the others has cracked it can't be fixed matt taylor has decided it would be best to return to fob edinburgh and that's possible for anything up to 4x4 into the evening the pathfinders work to get the trucks into some type of running order leave the two with the vehicles that are down we'll leave them in edinburgh and then we're going to be sit back into the ops box with just 11 vehicles the only way back is the way they came through the zamindevar choke point and the taliban some of the soldiers are unhappy that with one truck broken and a second unreliable they're losing firepower i am after all occupying a birth that could be manned by a shooter by now everyone accepts there will be a violent confrontation at some point in the coming hours while the jackals are capable of climbing incredibly steep shale covered slopes pulling the dead weight of a second truck is nigh on impossible it's not plain sailing out there people are gonna have you're gonna have enough dramas as i start to pull the strain then you start driving then so minimize your wheel slip we try to double toe and as you know you've got the weight pulling back the weight going forward i was right at the front um i heard a shout i looked around it's gone which wagon get back with the second one that's when i thought this is all me basically not only are we towing a vehicle we've now got another road there right let's get this unhooked let's get this one pulled up quite an awkward situation to be in because especially you know the heat the fact that we're in the middle of a marked df position for the taliban we've got to get her back up here mate i knew there's a lot of taliban forces literally just over the mountain and when that that toppled over um we knew obviously it was going to be a big delay we were quite vulnerable the key is to get the convoy on its way and over into the zamindevar valley so one of the uh trucks has something of a body job to keep it going one has completely stopped working one has turned over our truck is now towing uh the one that's completely broken and on the other side of us this is the valley where uh the taliban have been uh firing at us when we first arrived it's quite a difficult day already what with the accidents that happened and we've got to go down there the soldiers are calling it the valley of death the only way out back through the mind of our choke point we've been out for seven days now we're expecting an ambush and we're towing a disabled vehicle we knew it was coming um we had intelligence fees to say it was coming before you go into areas you get a bit of a twitch looking around thinking where is it going to come from when's it going to happen um because you're expecting it they're running in and when it does kick off it's almost like a relief the main quality at that stage is to get that vehicle especially the one you know the tow vehicle and get them out of the area quickly and then let the fighting vehicles deal with the contact itself yeah but i've got to get a swagging out of here i've got a towing wagon it's so hard to um target a fleeting enemy just for one round and off off he goes good camera you know they they had pre-planned points where they knew they could get into and we'd hardly ever see them we'd just see the fire and then it'd be gone again you know the odd rocket and then it'll be they'll move on okay i'm gonna get you in a firing position we reach a protective hill but as we leave we're lined up for attack by an rpg standby it misses by a few feet standby give me calm back calm down coming back trying to direct comes from across the line and then i get vehicle down and that's all i heard is that the towed vehicle down is that the vehicle towing down is that another vehicle we've lost good good guys just come back this was actually worse than we thought we'd skirted around the town but as we came in from one of the more extreme angles as soon as we arrived we were engaged with rpgs and uh small arms fire almost instantaneously and we've basically been trying to drive these two trucks through getting support from the pathfinders on either side of us but there's been crossover fire has been uh it's been pretty horrendous to be honest and it's still going on you've got one point of contact on it no let's go do you want to go now let's wait till they sort this out yeah and then we'll [ __ ] do it okay all right just stand by for other quarters coming in that's one five up there and then one two three mark to shout to me because the net's busy yeah make the other guns [ __ ] mate ahead the soldiers want to guide us through trying to protect the damaged vehicle there's incoming from left and right the situation actually gets worse the weapons on the tow vehicle have jammed there's only one working and it's in front of me under fire toby meacham struggles to take it away stop firing this one off now hold it they've got it covered all right mate you're good to go okay mate okay standby we break cover again with the other jackals putting down covering fire we make for the safety of the open desert followed by machine guns and mortars okay i'll go slow we've got strike on the right it was a close shave but the pathfinders are related their luck held once again the phrase that the blokes have termed i don't know if you've heard it since we've been out here it's called the pf bubble and it was something we coined when we were back here last we were here last time and uh it never seems to regardless how bad it gets or how much how much fire was you know coming down you know the blokes who were there never seemed to get a scratch at this stage we left the pathfinders within days the bubble burst at the masakala wadi sergeant scotty patterson's truck is hit by an ied he's medivac by helicopter to campastion for emergency surgery leaving the soldiers in the field september and we rejoin the pathfinders as their tour draws to a close we're your new recruiter a group of british politicians have come on a fact-finding mission the brigade commander brings them to meet the pathfinders and to try out their weapons it's very much a relaxed 45 minutes they're the first western civilians the soldiers have seen since may and this is all what we have for you as well um that's it safe to catch yeah is that on safe now that's unsafe now so we've got a single shot and flick again to automatically single shot they're accommodating but it all seems a bit surreal after months of fighting in the desert they're not absolutely sure what to do with them oh there's more of the bastards easy to lock off first the stock at the back is a you can make it as long or as short as you want it as well yeah i need a bit longer got your helmet on the wrong way around sir you're right there's my manly physique you see this one yeah thank you very much were you filming that in glorious episode thank you very very much the pathfinders true to their name have hit the headlines they found a safe route up to the kajaki dam for an enormous electricity turbine governor mangle has come to camp bastian to say thanks we were getting the the atmospherics in the area and we were in the vicinity of the gorak pass on the high ground but next to a road and the patrol commander was identified that that there was a lot of traffic on it so he stopped the traffic and one local national spoken to said yeah this is um this is a significant route between kajaki and kandahar and it's pretty quiet and it sort of hang on a minute you know clearly i passed it up and it developed from there it's the biggest land maneuver by the british military since world war ii and quite a coup the turbine could provide electricity for the whole region winning the hearts and minds of the people in its purest form it's a great help to hellmann's top politician he has the support of the british government as he's seen as honest downing street has promised to give him military muscle they call this a rolling stand two it goes back hundreds of years soldiers ready for action before the sun comes up no more remote routes for the pathfinders it's mid-september this operation is near marjah just seven miles from british headquarters in lashkar this time the platoon is in support of regular army units there's only two weeks left on their tour that's all right i hate your driving that's [ __ ] nice and steady though the soldiers are not particularly pleased with their new conventional role there's a change in tactics now the men will be operating almost exclusively in the farmlands of the green zone probing into villages and communities known to support the taliban and the poppy growing drug gangs i see it as though majority of the people that they work in these sort of villages are taliban but they're only taliban the moment they pick up the weapon system when they don't do that they're just back to being simple that's how i sit you know they're everywhere people will tell you what you want to hear and then the motorback's turned that's him they're fighting you again the threat of an ied attack is high every pathfinder move now takes hours sweeping for mines or bombering it's an absolute necessity a sign of the times they've been joined by afghan task force soldiers the atf to show the face of the afghan government and to interact with the local people we know we're going to be attacked it's just a matter of when and where the man on the ridgeline is a threat he could be spotting he could have a detonator they're light on the feet you know they can move around um they're just fantastic i think what we're doing is we're fighting almost a conventional war against gorilla warfare so and they're just finding the gaps that we're giving them the floor's rock art there's probably a bit of metal underneath there probably being there i mean it's being compacted but you still have a look on it because you never know this highly irrigated area was actually built by the united states in the 1960s to increase the wheat yield it worked the yield levels soared they still are the problem is the crops changed it's now the opium in a country that provides 90 percent of the world's heroin hellmann provides 90 percent of afghanistan's opium they're in the midst of the latest harvested crop elders and pathfinders discuss the way ahead ask them how the system works for you know growing and selling it properly they said that uh when we grow poppy so when we collect that so we get this all to merger and we sell there in margin they're not being made to grow the local population may be convinced to grow wheat if it's bought at the guaranteed inflated price but the taliban and their partners in drugs have no intention of giving up here it guarantees conflict the pathfinders approach a compound near marjah which is six miles from the british headquarters the taliban are in a series of buildings near a wooded area were fired on from at least two positions some from the left in this heat and dust the machine guns can jam the incoming intensifies all right we got incoming in it since we've come further left further left i'm guessing see left that complex there look left gap in there have a look at that all battle indicators were women and children fleeing before the fighting started seeing scene not anymore looks like women and kids they're still in there women and children the pathfinder's reposition before they attack once again across helmand british troops are involved in these fire fights daily the talk is of reconstruction that was an rpg but this is the reality there simply aren't enough british or american forces to snuff it out clear message from commanders they need more men i think there's a recognition that that more soldiers would stabilize areas here that remain dangerous more quickly currently we've got deployed in the region of 4 000 troops supporting 4 000 afghan soldiers i think we could probably easily consume in helmand another brigade and a brigade would be at a full strength brigade it would be in the region of three to four thousand soldiers with that strike what do we say about that compound got a bit of flies it's the pathfinder's final mission we gave corporal tim rice a camera of his own mounted on his 40 caliber grenade machine gun provides a unique view of the last battle as it plays out it's now close quarter fighting in the taliban compounds near the town of nadal not seen not seen not seen standby as we approached the town we kept pushing forward to um to sort of you know really find out where they were and keep them involved as much as we could we came under fire from we are to keep them engaged so we could you know effectively reduce their capability to keep attacking us oh what's my striker you know the rpgs were getting closer and closer with each one and uh the cracks of the rounds were getting pretty nice as well yeah incoming that hit that [ __ ] wall somebody can you see from there oh [ __ ] good shot tim has problems with the american ammunition grounds are they british behind you get them in as the incoming intensifies he gets increasingly frustrated unable to fire back there he is see the smoke out of the way get out of the way that's moving in the tree in those crucial moments his defenses are down the bursts were getting you know getting pretty close yeah and you could hear that the cracks were getting louder and you could feel the percussions as they were going past again and then the butt you know burst came in got nine boxes but these jackpots are [ __ ] they're not you know foreign shot in the leg was just like having your leg sledgehammered from underneath you really just the violence in which the bullet hit you know hit bone and hit leg no [ __ ] move come on i was quite conscious of getting shot again come on keep moving i had fallen up against the gap in the door where the bullet had come through in this few seconds after thinking [ __ ] i don't want another one to come through here so while he's shouting the vehicle moving let's get out of here lower left leg below the knee colchester home to the 16th air assault brigade the pathfinder's mission to afghanistan is over they return to a chile autumnal essex six months in the desert and there's a real sense of is that it amongst the men jim rice is undergoing rehabilitation shot through the leg his injury wasn't as serious as it might have been he was lucky rehab 2 for sergeant scotty patterson blown out of his jackal by an ied in july he survived his legs were smashed to pieces this is a big day for scott you're going to keep most of the weight going through your arms he's trading in his zimmer frame for crutches it's taken months of hard work but he's making an incredible recovery i pretty much remember everything i remember coming out the wade and then bang just remember this ringing in my ears i remember subconsciously just thinking go with it and then next thing i knew it was a was coming two on the ground shaking around thinking the [ __ ] was that like a bit dazed and dipped like a heavy parachute landing or something and then i got on my elbows and i was looking up i could just see this dust cloud everywhere and then i tried to stand up and i realized my legs were just dragging behind me and i thought legs are broken i think um and then the lads go over benny banged them off in me i said oh give me another one bender just to make sure like they bind another one and that was ended i was high as a kate and then i woke up in the morning four or five in the morning there was a there was a danish woman massaging my toes i was coming to to make sure the blood was flowing i was like [ __ ] hell where am i the pathfinders are experienced soldiers they're used to the toughest aspects of touring afghanistan but more importantly it's what they actually want to do there's much debate about the treatment and demands placed on all military personnel deployed to this most dangerous place of operations but this platoon even in the toughest of times never once questioned what they were doing or why it's just what they do a post tour drink is a tradition as binding as any of the army codes of conduct it's the final act of the deployment and it'll get pretty messy the soldiers will part after this some to other jobs the 60 years of pathfinder history is embodied in these young men they're just carrying that on finding their own paths along the way

Channel: M

Views: 1,647,407

Keywords: Pathfinder, Platoon, afghanistan, British Army, Parachute Regiment, Military

Id: wQ9aBYPMa64

Length: 45min 6sec (2706 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 30 2013