● Christmas presence... Charlie Company’s Sgt Pete
Leahy from Woking sets out on patrol around Kajaki at
4.30am on December 25
Pictures: LA(Phot) ‘AJ’ Macleod, 40 Commando
Full metal
THEY came unseen.
And then, with the miles from the nearest
In darkness, they glided silently
strongpoints identified open water.
across the Kajaki reservoir, their
and intelligence gathered, “It would have been
assault boat gently nudging
the men slipped back from a shame to come
the sand on the opposite
whence they came. to a theatre such as
shore.
For the first time in Afghanistan and never
The men tumbled
Afghanistan, Royal Marine used those skills that we
out, creeping and
Commandos carried out an have trained long and hard
crawling their way
amphibious raid in a bid to for,” said Capt Iain Sutherland,
to within a few
dislodge insurgents from one Charlie Company’s Second-in-
yards of Taleban
of the country’s most important Command.
strongholds.
pieces of infrastructure. Armed with SA80s, sniper
The Kajaki dam and its environs rifl es and machine-guns, the Royals
were wrestled from Taleban control slipped behind the Taleban lines to
12 months ago, but insurgent activity outfl ank the insurgents.
persists. “Amphibious operations like
The 50-year-old dam is responsible this not only allow us to surprise
not merely for providing power to the enemy from a different fl ank but
Helmand and beyond, but also water also give us access to local nationals
for homes and farms via an intricate previously thought to be unreachable,
irrigation network. which is key to the success of this
With Taleban dug in around the ongoing operation,” Capt Sutherland
huge artifi cial lake behind the dam, explained.
the Royals of Charlie Company, 40 “Using unconventional and
Commando, decided upon a new unexpected methods of movement,
tactic to unnerve their foe. we can interact with more civilians
Making use of some Rigid as well as signifi cantly disrupting the
Infl atable Boats provided by Taleban in our area, denying them
the Gurkhas, the Royals freedom of movement.”
resorted to their core Elsewhere in Helmand, the green
expertise: amphibious berets have been doing what green
operations, 700 berets do best: growing ’taches.
An almost obligatory
accompaniment for any NCO (just
flick through images of the Falklands
conflict) the moustache has perhaps
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