Town bathed in British blood once more at Taliban’s mercy Dispatch

For a town that more than 20 British soldiers died to protect, Musa Qala has not much to offer. A shabby, sun-baked hamlet in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, its inhabitants still live as they did generations ago: growing poppies, and quietly trading in opium.

Yet less than a year after the withdrawal of British soldiers from Helmand, the one aspect of life in Musa Qala that they fought to banish looks like returning: the Taliban – lured by opium riches – are back.

In a night-time assault last month, heavily armed militants swept in from the surrounding hills, killing 17 Afghan officers and ransacking the town centre. Not only are they back; with the war showing no sign of abating, the Taliban looks set to be rewarded with peace talks and a share in government.

On Wednesday, Mullah Omar, their one-eyed leader, backed the imminent negotiations. “Concurrently with armed jihad, political endeavours and peaceful pathways for achieving these sacred goals are a legitimate Islamic principle,” he said in a statement.

All over Afghanistan, the Taliban are assaulting strongholds once made secure at the expense of the lives and limbs of thousands of soldiers from Britain, and other Western allies.

Musa Qala was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting during the nineyear British mission in Helmand from 2005-2014. When the town was wrested from Taliban control in December 2007, after a major operation involving 4,000 British, American and Afghan soldiers, the then prime minister Gordon Brown hailed it as a major breakthrough.

It heralded an end to the days when locals who defied their Taliban rulers were strung up on makeshift gibbets. “If we can succeed there, then we can move forward in Afghanistan in favour of a more peaceful future for this country,” he told troops during a visit to Camp Bastion, Britain’s main Helmand base. Seven years on, in a mirror image, the assault on Musa Qala speaks volumes about a resurgent Taliban. In Helmand, gunmen have seized the northern Baghran district, and are menacing Kajaki and Sangin, twow other areas that British troops fought tooth and nail to defend.

They have also gained ground outside of their traditional southern strongholds, seizing two districts in Kunduz in the north-east.

“Musa Qala looks like it will fall to the Taliban soon,” warned Haji Mira Jan, 60, a Musa Qala tribal leader. “Everybody lives in fear here now, and government officials keep their fingers on their triggers, even if they walk in the central town of the district.

“There aren’t more than 50 Taliban fighters in Musa Qala – the problem is that Afghan forces do not really try to secure the district.”

Not only does the Afghan army lack air power – an option that gave their Western counterparts the upper hand – it still suffers from corruption, logistical problems and low morale. Its troops are as steeped in their country’s warrior culture as any other Afghans, but they are underfed, underarmed and underpaid.

British soldiers and diplomats who served in Afghanistan see comparisons with Iraq, where the Western-trained army melted away before last year’s onslaught by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. “The parallel is always the moment the foreign troops leave,” said William Patey, who served as Britain’s ambassador to both Baghdad and Kabul. “When we go, the dynamic changes because we are no longer the biggest tribe in town.”

Dan Jarvis, an ex-Parachute Regiment officer who is now a Labour MP, visited as a soldier in 2005 to help plan Britain’s deployment, and again in 2006 and 2007. “Musa Qala had strategic importance because it represented the crux of our battle with the Taliban,” he said.

“There are very real concerns about the ability of the Afghan security forces to check the advances of the Taliban and that’s something we should really be worried about, although I don’t think all is lost yet.”

Nicholas Heysom, the UN’s envoy to Afghanistan, recently insisted Afghan forces were “demonstrating resilience”, yet other studies presented to the UN tell a different story. In February,the UN said 2014 was the deadliest year for civilians since 2009, with nearly 3,700 people killed.

Either way, Musa Qala will remain a weathervane for the country’s future, while for the families of soldiers who died defending it, there will be little cheer that the “biggest tribe in town” might once again be the Taliban.

‘When we go, the dynamic changes, because we are no longer the biggest tribe in town’