With a Taliban fighter looming in his sights half a mile away, the British sniper knew a clean shot would take down his enemy.
What he could not have known was that the single bullet he fired would account for five more insurgents.
But, incredibly, his rifle round triggered the explosive vest worn by his target, killing all those around him.
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Deadly: How the lance corporal from the Coldstream Guards took down six insurgents with a single shot
What he could not have known was that the single bullet he fired would account for five more insurgents.
But, incredibly, his rifle round triggered the explosive vest worn by his target, killing all those around him.
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Deadly: How the lance corporal from the Coldstream Guards took down six insurgents with a single shot
The record-breaking shot was fired by a Coldstream Guards marksman on one of the last missions to be carried out by British troops in Afghanistan.
UK forces are preparing to leave their last frontline base in Helmand as part of their withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The sniper, a lance corporal who cannot be named for security reasons, was on a mission to intercept a suspected suicide bomber.
Commanders feared the insurgent was planning to blow himself up at either a UK base, an Afghan security checkpoint or a civilian target such as a school or government building.
Some 335 soldiers from the Brigade Reconnaissance Force and 90 Afghan troops were deployed on the operation on December 14 last year. As they moved to tackle the suicide bomber, they ran into fire from a group of 20 Taliban.
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Taking aim: The sniper, not pictured, was on one of the last missions to be carried out by British troops in Afghanistan
UK forces are preparing to leave their last frontline base in Helmand as part of their withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The sniper, a lance corporal who cannot be named for security reasons, was on a mission to intercept a suspected suicide bomber.
Commanders feared the insurgent was planning to blow himself up at either a UK base, an Afghan security checkpoint or a civilian target such as a school or government building.
Some 335 soldiers from the Brigade Reconnaissance Force and 90 Afghan troops were deployed on the operation on December 14 last year. As they moved to tackle the suicide bomber, they ran into fire from a group of 20 Taliban.
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Taking aim: The sniper, not pictured, was on one of the last missions to be carried out by British troops in Afghanistan
Lieutenant Colonel Richard Slack, commanding officer of the 9th/12th Royal Lancers, who was overseeing the operation at Kakaran, said: ‘The guy wearing the vest was identified by the sniper moving down a tree line and coming over a ditch.
‘He had a winter shawl which rose up and the sniper saw he had a machine gun.
‘He was moving to a firing position when the sniper engaged him and the guy exploded. There was a pause on the radio and the sniper said: “I think I’ve just shot a suicide bomber.” The rest of them were killed in the blast.’
The sniper also killed a Taliban machine gunner from a staggering 4,400ft with the first shot of his tour of duty. It is believed he was using a British-built L115A3 Long Range Rifle, the Army’s most powerful sniper weapon.
Lt Col Slack said: ‘He has had a great tour of duty.’ Surveillance for the operation was carried out by troops based at Sterga 2, an isolated observation post built on high ground overlooking the Helmand River.
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Withdrawal: UK forces, a group pictured in Nahr-e Saraj, Helmand, are preparing to leave their last frontline
‘He had a winter shawl which rose up and the sniper saw he had a machine gun.
‘He was moving to a firing position when the sniper engaged him and the guy exploded. There was a pause on the radio and the sniper said: “I think I’ve just shot a suicide bomber.” The rest of them were killed in the blast.’
The sniper also killed a Taliban machine gunner from a staggering 4,400ft with the first shot of his tour of duty. It is believed he was using a British-built L115A3 Long Range Rifle, the Army’s most powerful sniper weapon.
Lt Col Slack said: ‘He has had a great tour of duty.’ Surveillance for the operation was carried out by troops based at Sterga 2, an isolated observation post built on high ground overlooking the Helmand River.
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Withdrawal: UK forces, a group pictured in Nahr-e Saraj, Helmand, are preparing to leave their last frontline
At the peak of the fighting, Britain had 137 outposts in the region but now only Sterga 2 remains outside the main headquarters at Camp Bastion.
The post allows UK forces to watch over a huge swathe of central Helmand and two key roads, Highway One and Route 601.
It is manned by a company of troops from the 9th/12th Royal Lancers, 4th Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland, the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers.
It uses powerful cameras and sophisticated radar to keep watch for signs of the Taliban trafficking in guns, bomb-making equipment and rockets.
Troops at Sterga 2 also use Desert Hawk 3 drones.
Details of any suspicious behaviour can be relayed to the Afghan National Security Forces – trained by British troops.
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Support: The build-up of the Afghan army and police¿s capability is a key plank in the decision to end UK combat operations at the end of the year
The build-up of the Afghan army and police’s capability is a key plank in the decision to end UK combat operations at the end of the year. And since January 1, the ANSF have requested British help on just one occasion in this stretch of Helmand.
No UK operations have been carried out in the fertile ‘green zone’ since 7th Armoured Brigade, known as the Desert Rats, arrived last autumn.
It has raised hopes that Afghan elections on Saturday will be a success. Lt Col Slack said Helmand was ‘absolutely unrecognisable’ from when he deployed in 2007. He added: ‘There is a sense of history.’
The post allows UK forces to watch over a huge swathe of central Helmand and two key roads, Highway One and Route 601.
It is manned by a company of troops from the 9th/12th Royal Lancers, 4th Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland, the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers.
It uses powerful cameras and sophisticated radar to keep watch for signs of the Taliban trafficking in guns, bomb-making equipment and rockets.
Troops at Sterga 2 also use Desert Hawk 3 drones.
Details of any suspicious behaviour can be relayed to the Afghan National Security Forces – trained by British troops.
+4
Support: The build-up of the Afghan army and police¿s capability is a key plank in the decision to end UK combat operations at the end of the year
The build-up of the Afghan army and police’s capability is a key plank in the decision to end UK combat operations at the end of the year. And since January 1, the ANSF have requested British help on just one occasion in this stretch of Helmand.
No UK operations have been carried out in the fertile ‘green zone’ since 7th Armoured Brigade, known as the Desert Rats, arrived last autumn.
It has raised hopes that Afghan elections on Saturday will be a success. Lt Col Slack said Helmand was ‘absolutely unrecognisable’ from when he deployed in 2007. He added: ‘There is a sense of history.’
Attack at Wrong Door Turns Into Fatal Mistake for the Taliban, Reports Say
By ROD NORDLAND and JAWAD SUKHANYAR
Photo
Foreigners were evacuated by the police as Taliban assailants struck in Kabul on Friday. Credit Omar Sobhani/Reuters
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban assailants apparently thought they were attacking an unprotected Christian-run day care center. But they mistakenly burst into the compound next door, where an American government contractor’s employees were heavily armed and ready, according to accounts that the contractor and the Afghan police gave on Friday of a wild four-hour shootout here.
The contractor, Roots of Peace, which runs agricultural projects financed by the United States Agency for International Development, had taken the precaution of blocking its front gate with an armored Land Cruiser, which guards used to take cover behind and shoot at the attackers, said Gary Kuhn, the group’s president, interviewed by telephone from its headquarters in San Rafael, Calif.
That slowed the attackers enough for the guards and the five foreign residents to retreat into the house and upstairs. “There’s a circular staircase which is very hard to take cover on. One tried coming up it, and the guard shot him,” Mr. Kuhn said, citing accounts from his staff members in Kabul.
Credit Omar Sobhani/Reuters
Repelling a Taliban Attack
Taliban insurgents exchanged gunfire with police in Kabul near a guesthouse used by foreigners in an upscale residential area.
Two of the residents, Americans, hid in their bedroom closets. “One very big, tall man hid in a closet and piled clothes on top of himself, while the Taliban were shooting in his room, throwing flash grenades, and even opened the closet door but didn’t see him,” said Heidi Kuhn, the group’s chief executive and Mr. Kuhn’s wife, who also was interviewed by telephone in California. “It’s a miracle all of them escaped.”
Mr. Kuhn said the bedroom gunman might have been a police officer clearing the scene, since the Taliban assailants were unlikely to have used flash grenades, which are designed to stun and frighten, not kill.
While the gun battle was underway, next door, at what apparently had been the Taliban’s intended target, a Christian-run day care center that had no armed guards and normally left its front door open, police were able to rescue two dozen foreigners, according to Gen. Mohammad Ayub Salangi, the deputy interior minister, who went to the scene. Their nationalities were unclear but they appeared to be Americans or Europeans.
Journalists who saw them escorted out said at least five young Western children were among the group, highly unusual sights here.
Mr. Kuhn, who with his wife visits Kabul frequently, said the day care center was not a church, as the Taliban had asserted, but acknowledged that “they do have religious services there on certain days.”
Expatriates in Kabul dropped children off there for the day routinely, he said. Nevertheless, very few organizations employing expatriates in Afghanistan allow them to bring families and children because of the risk.
Afghan officials said all five Taliban attackers were killed, including one who committed suicide. The death toll also included two Afghan civilians, one of them a young girl. Two Roots of Peace guards were wounded.
The shootout was the latest in a series of deadly attacks on foreign journalists, aid workers and visitors since January, in the midst of heavy security for the Afghan presidential election campaign.
The attack came less than a week after suicidal gunmen invaded the luxury Serena Hotel, killing nine people, including a prominent journalist and most of his family.
Photo
Commandoes with Afghanistan’s intelligence agency arrived after the shooting began. Credit Anja Niedringhaus/Associated Press Earlier this month, a Swedish journalist was assassinated on a street in the diplomatic quarter by insurgents who accused him of spying. In January, an attack on a restaurant killed 13 foreigners, many of them relief workers and employees of international organizations.
Friday’s attack took place in Kabul’s well-to-do Karte Seh area where many foreign aid groups have offices and homes. Afghanistan has more than 2,000 registered nongovernmental organizations, most with offices in the capital. Most live in unguarded or lightly guarded guesthouses or individual homes, but those with government contracts, like Roots of Peace, often employ guards.
The residents in the group’s house included the two Americans and an Australian, a Malaysian and a South African, who was the group’s security adviser. The group runs agricultural and demining programs in Afghanistan, as well as in Israel, Croatia and Vietnam.
A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, reached by telephone while the attack was still underway, asserted the target had been “a church used to convert Muslims to Christianity.”
Mr. Mujahid said the Taliban had intelligence that the alleged underground church was celebrating its first anniversary in Kabul, and the insurgents timed their attack to what they thought was that celebration.
There are no known churches in Afghanistan, where the practice of Christianity is outlawed and conversion of Muslims is a crime. Aid groups supported by Christian groups abroad have in the past been accused of being missionaries, and two were expelled by Afghanistan in 2010.
The attack began with a large explosion of what authorities and the Taliban said was a suicide car bomb that blew open the gates of the day care center and was heard throughout the city.
Then, Mr. Kuhn said, came a smaller explosion that blew open the gates of the Roots of Peace house, which was used as residential quarters for its expatriate staff. But apparently acting on wrong information, the attackers, armed with assault rifles and wearing suicide bomb vests, chose to enter the contractor’s house.
Ms. Kuhn described the facility next door as “a faith-based day care center,” but said her group had little contact with the people there. It was unclear who operates it, and the police forbade journalists to approach the evacuees or their center. Mr. Kuhn said it normally had no guards and the residents often left the doors open.
Ms. Kuhn said some Roots of Peace staff members in Kabul were in their offices at the time of the attack. Until the Serena Hotel assault, some also had stayed there, where rooms typically cost $300 a night.
“There’s a message here, a really strong message,” Ms. Kuhn said. She said her husband and son had been due to go to Kabul in three days. “By the grace of God, it’s really a miracle, that’s all I can say.”
By ROD NORDLAND and JAWAD SUKHANYAR
Photo
Foreigners were evacuated by the police as Taliban assailants struck in Kabul on Friday. Credit Omar Sobhani/Reuters
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban assailants apparently thought they were attacking an unprotected Christian-run day care center. But they mistakenly burst into the compound next door, where an American government contractor’s employees were heavily armed and ready, according to accounts that the contractor and the Afghan police gave on Friday of a wild four-hour shootout here.
The contractor, Roots of Peace, which runs agricultural projects financed by the United States Agency for International Development, had taken the precaution of blocking its front gate with an armored Land Cruiser, which guards used to take cover behind and shoot at the attackers, said Gary Kuhn, the group’s president, interviewed by telephone from its headquarters in San Rafael, Calif.
That slowed the attackers enough for the guards and the five foreign residents to retreat into the house and upstairs. “There’s a circular staircase which is very hard to take cover on. One tried coming up it, and the guard shot him,” Mr. Kuhn said, citing accounts from his staff members in Kabul.
Credit Omar Sobhani/Reuters
Repelling a Taliban Attack
Taliban insurgents exchanged gunfire with police in Kabul near a guesthouse used by foreigners in an upscale residential area.
Two of the residents, Americans, hid in their bedroom closets. “One very big, tall man hid in a closet and piled clothes on top of himself, while the Taliban were shooting in his room, throwing flash grenades, and even opened the closet door but didn’t see him,” said Heidi Kuhn, the group’s chief executive and Mr. Kuhn’s wife, who also was interviewed by telephone in California. “It’s a miracle all of them escaped.”
Mr. Kuhn said the bedroom gunman might have been a police officer clearing the scene, since the Taliban assailants were unlikely to have used flash grenades, which are designed to stun and frighten, not kill.
While the gun battle was underway, next door, at what apparently had been the Taliban’s intended target, a Christian-run day care center that had no armed guards and normally left its front door open, police were able to rescue two dozen foreigners, according to Gen. Mohammad Ayub Salangi, the deputy interior minister, who went to the scene. Their nationalities were unclear but they appeared to be Americans or Europeans.
Journalists who saw them escorted out said at least five young Western children were among the group, highly unusual sights here.
Mr. Kuhn, who with his wife visits Kabul frequently, said the day care center was not a church, as the Taliban had asserted, but acknowledged that “they do have religious services there on certain days.”
Expatriates in Kabul dropped children off there for the day routinely, he said. Nevertheless, very few organizations employing expatriates in Afghanistan allow them to bring families and children because of the risk.
Afghan officials said all five Taliban attackers were killed, including one who committed suicide. The death toll also included two Afghan civilians, one of them a young girl. Two Roots of Peace guards were wounded.
The shootout was the latest in a series of deadly attacks on foreign journalists, aid workers and visitors since January, in the midst of heavy security for the Afghan presidential election campaign.
The attack came less than a week after suicidal gunmen invaded the luxury Serena Hotel, killing nine people, including a prominent journalist and most of his family.
Photo
Commandoes with Afghanistan’s intelligence agency arrived after the shooting began. Credit Anja Niedringhaus/Associated Press Earlier this month, a Swedish journalist was assassinated on a street in the diplomatic quarter by insurgents who accused him of spying. In January, an attack on a restaurant killed 13 foreigners, many of them relief workers and employees of international organizations.
Friday’s attack took place in Kabul’s well-to-do Karte Seh area where many foreign aid groups have offices and homes. Afghanistan has more than 2,000 registered nongovernmental organizations, most with offices in the capital. Most live in unguarded or lightly guarded guesthouses or individual homes, but those with government contracts, like Roots of Peace, often employ guards.
The residents in the group’s house included the two Americans and an Australian, a Malaysian and a South African, who was the group’s security adviser. The group runs agricultural and demining programs in Afghanistan, as well as in Israel, Croatia and Vietnam.
A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, reached by telephone while the attack was still underway, asserted the target had been “a church used to convert Muslims to Christianity.”
Mr. Mujahid said the Taliban had intelligence that the alleged underground church was celebrating its first anniversary in Kabul, and the insurgents timed their attack to what they thought was that celebration.
There are no known churches in Afghanistan, where the practice of Christianity is outlawed and conversion of Muslims is a crime. Aid groups supported by Christian groups abroad have in the past been accused of being missionaries, and two were expelled by Afghanistan in 2010.
The attack began with a large explosion of what authorities and the Taliban said was a suicide car bomb that blew open the gates of the day care center and was heard throughout the city.
Then, Mr. Kuhn said, came a smaller explosion that blew open the gates of the Roots of Peace house, which was used as residential quarters for its expatriate staff. But apparently acting on wrong information, the attackers, armed with assault rifles and wearing suicide bomb vests, chose to enter the contractor’s house.
Ms. Kuhn described the facility next door as “a faith-based day care center,” but said her group had little contact with the people there. It was unclear who operates it, and the police forbade journalists to approach the evacuees or their center. Mr. Kuhn said it normally had no guards and the residents often left the doors open.
Ms. Kuhn said some Roots of Peace staff members in Kabul were in their offices at the time of the attack. Until the Serena Hotel assault, some also had stayed there, where rooms typically cost $300 a night.
“There’s a message here, a really strong message,” Ms. Kuhn said. She said her husband and son had been due to go to Kabul in three days. “By the grace of God, it’s really a miracle, that’s all I can say.”
