UK troops switch tactics in Desert of Death

Desert of Death (Afghanistan), Dec 2: Day breaks without a sound in the Desert of Death.

No bird chirps, no cock crows as the British Royal Marines clamber out of the holes they have dug to sleep in.

Soon, with a few tiny stoves, they are boiling up tea as the sun rises over a ridge where the Taliban still have their grip on towns and villages along the Helmand River.

More than half a year since British forces first entered Afghanistan's wildest province, the troops are modifying their tactics, placing less emphasis on holding the centres of district towns and more on mobility. Units now operate out of small armoured vehicles, bedding down in the desert under the stars.

The units are called MOGs, manoeuvre outreach groups, and the marines and soldiers say they are MOGging -- living for weeks on end in the desolate moonscape that Baluchi tribes named the Desert of Death.

''What these mobile assets bring to the operation is the ability to appear in one place and then disappear into the desert and appear again somewhere else,'' says Major Ben Warwick, commander of C Squadron, the Light Dragoons, whose light armoured reconnaissance vehicles were brought to Afghanistan in October.

OPIUM CENTRE

The desert is little more than pebbles and chalky white dust with the occasional tiny patch of scrub. But over the ridge to the east, the Helmand River is surrounded by ancient irrigation canals, providing a crescent so fertile that the province produces a third of the world's opium poppy crop.

British troops, part of a NATO force fighting to drive Taliban guerrillas out of the south, entered Helmand province this year with crack paratroops who travelled by helicopter but had little means of moving safely on the ground.

They were quickly dispatched to defend forward bases in the mountains to the north, called platoon houses, where they became a prime target for the Taliban.

Throughout June, July and August they fought battles their commander described as the most intense faced by British troops since the Korean War 50 years ago.

The Taliban attacks have since tapered off, and the Royal Marines and soldiers who replaced the paratroops have now moved into the south of the province as well.

Crucially, the Marines are now equipped with new ''Viking'' armoured vehicles -- small steel boxes on treads.

''Basically, it's a protected battlefield taxi with a machine gun on top,'' says Major Andy Plewes, commander of Zulu Company, 45 Commando, Royal Marines.

His men arrived to begin MOGging just last week, and have already made their presence felt, driving up and doing foot patrols in villages along the crescent.

KEEPING MOBILE

Instead of basing their forces inside the main district centre, the aim is to keep them mobile, out in the desert, with food dropped by helicopter, patrolling inside villages, and easily swooping off into the desert from which they came.

''We know that there is a lot of Taliban activity in the fertile strip on either side of the Helmand river,'' Plewes says. ''Because we're here without being in a fixed location, they (the Taliban) don't have the freedom of movement they had at the platoon houses.'' A small team of British troops is embedded with an Afghan army unit, maintaining an outpost inside the district centre, Garm Seer.

Fighting there has been intense. Hours before a Reuters reporting team arrived at nightfall by the desert camp, British Harrier jets and Apache attack helicopters had fired into the town in support of Afghan troops there.

Several times during the night the marines fired with mobile artillery, lighting the sky over the town with illumination rounds.

The troops know the stakes are high.

''This regiment has been here before,'' says Sergeant Glenn Littlewood of the Light Dragoons, a 15-year veteran. ''1880. The Second Afghan War. Entire brigade was wiped out. 2,300 British troops. Not far from here, actually.'' ''Let's hope we have a better time of it now.''

REUTERS