Shootout with Taleban

Sniffing the Taleban Part 1

Sniffing the Taleban Part 2

Sniffing the Taleban Part 3

Sniffing the Taleban Part 4

Kiwi soldiers in Afghanistan were caught in a dusk attack by RPG-wielding insurgents in June. No-one was killed or injured, but it was an extremely close shave - and the first time regular NZ troops have been forced to shoot back at the enemy. Press reporter Alex van Wel went into the badlands of Bamiyan to find out what happened.

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In all its years in Afghanistan, the Kiwi provincial reconstruction team has only once had to fire its weapons in self- defence. The 'contact' with the enemy took place in the restive northeast town of Du Abe in June, when Taleban fighters attacked with rocket-propelled grenades. Press reporter ALEX van WEL went into the badlands of Bamiyan to find out what happened.

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4

Few Hollywood producers would be able to create a scene to rival the setting of Du Abe. The town sits unperturbed in a fertile valley, a swiftly flowing river separating the transient and filthy bazaar from the genteel homes on the opposite bank.

All around are the sheer, dry and uninviting mountains that define Afghanistan - once the playground of the Mujahideen, now the refuge of the Taleban.

While not a northern Kandahar, the town is a haven for the movement's militant supporters and where the Kiwis most fear to tread.

Above the settlement on one flank, an Afghan policeman keeps a constant watch from the remains of an ancient fortification. But the main police compound is tucked up against a steep slope on the other side of town. Its position is practical in terms of winter snow, but extremely vulnerable during the summer fighting season.

It's a fact two Kiwi soldiers now know only too well. They came close to losing their lives in June, when the Taleban unleashed a violent assault on the compound while their patrol was staying overnight.

Private Daniel Turua and Private Andrew Leckie were positioned on the back wall of the station when the fighting started.

They were in charge of one of the patrol's largest weapons, a heavy machine gun, which was mounted on a wide ledge between them, overlooking the town.

In the fading light of day, they were wrestling with their night-vision equipment, struggling to replace flat batteries before they were enveloped in darkness.

They knew that without enhanced vision the gun would be ineffective. They also knew the threat level in the region was real.

Du Abe had been hit by a spate of bombings in the days before, one of them targeting a school in the centre of town. Sporadic and inexplicable, they were clear evidence of an upsurge in activity as the country stumbled towards its key presidential poll.

Turua hesitated, then pulled out a small flashlight. The 22-year old from Rarotonga flashed it once, then again. He had seen enough to insert the fresh batteries.

But it may also have been enough for insurgents hidden high above them in the mountains, the tiny flicker confirming the Kiwi gun position. Within seconds a Taleban rocket had pierced the still air, flying directly between Turua and Leckie.

"I couldn't really see the screw-on to put the batteries on, the cover. So, I turned my light on, which f...... shined the whole gun" said Turua.

"It was only on for a few seconds," said Leckie, also aged 22 and from Waitati, north of Dunedin.

Turua was stoical.

"I just flicked it on and flicked it off. That's probably what gave my position away . . . for the f...... RPGs [rocket propelled grenades] to arc up," he said.

"The first round whizzed past me and Leckie, it went between us, and the sandbags go up . . . The dust goes psssst . . . from there it just unleashed hell."

The two soldiers reacted instantly. Without a thought, they leapt off the thick blast wall at the rear of the compound.

Seconds later another rocket landed exactly where they had been positioned.

"Just as we were jumping off, the second one exploded where we were standing, on the sangar [compound]," said Leckie quietly.

"So the sandbag was all over the gun, the dust was all over the place," said Turua. "And when I jumped off I left my rifle up top. I was screaming out, 'Leckie! Leckie! cover me'."

But Leckie had been temporarily deafened by the exploding rockets. He didn't reply.

"I waited till the firing had kind of calmed down," Turua remembered. "I just waited for the boys to keep firing back, all the boys naturally reacted . . . and suppressed fire. All the boys were just calling, 'f...... RPGs! RPGs! RPGs', and I just ran back up and grabbed my rifle, f...... under fire."

The next 15 minutes passed in a blur. The Taleban fighters, thought to have numbered about 10, had positioned themselves on the slopes in a number of pits dug by the Mujahideen in the 1980s.

From there they could see straight into the compound, pinning the Kiwis down behind its walls. For some of them, veterans of the war against the Soviets, it would have been a familiar routine.

But Kiwi patrol commander corporal Matthew Pearce screamed orders at his men, guiding them as they launched round after round in return, and their own rockets. At times, the soldiers were forced to step out into the open to shoot back, despite the RPGs coming at them.

Eventually, the Kiwi fire-power and courage under attack proved enough to scare off the insurgents. By the end of it, Pearce had shouted so much he had lost his voice.

But not before he had called for American air support.

"By the time the plane turned up, which was only maybe 20 minutes after it started, they'd long gone. They had either hidden in a cave up the top somewhere or they had bolted down," said Pearce, thinking back on the night.

"We didn't go up during the dark hours, just because I was unsure what we were up against. We waited till first light, and then we sent a patrol up and cleared the firing positions, found a ton of brass and bits and pieces . . . but didn't find anything else, no blood trails or anything."

The "contact" with the enemy came as a shock, but was no surprise. Kiwi patrols had been playing cat and mouse with local insurgents near Du Abe for years.

Some had already been hit by roadside bombs in the region, and Pearce and his men knew that with the deepening international focus on the upcoming elections the Taleban would be doing all it could to destabilise the country.

"It definitely had to be pre-planned," said Pearce. "It was well-orchestrated . . . if they had turned up and we weren't here, they still probably would have done it."

Despite the obvious fear during the actual incident, the Kiwi commitment appears undimmed. In fact, the opportunity to fire back at the enemy came as a welcome relief.

"It was pretty sweet, the guys were pretty stoked at the end of it," said Pearce. "A lot of guys were saying 'it was the first time, first time', so they were quite happy. They would have been the first section that actually got to return some rounds. Especially after all the IEDs [improvised explosive devices] and things that have been going on. It had all been one-sided till that night. The guys were chuffed, ay."

"No-one broke down or any of that sort of carry on, everyone was sort of quite happy," he said without irony.

For Turua and Leckie, too, two men who came within a whisker of dying, there's little sign they've been put off by the hard end of the soldier's life.

"It was awesome, I'd love to do it again," said Leckie, "because we all wished for getting into contact even before we came over here, and that our whole section would survive and get to shoot at people. Our wish came true, we were stoked." Tarua said: "It's a good thing that everyone survived. Me and Leckie were like: bro, I love you, bro."

But pushed to reflect more deeply they begin to admit the experience has changed their lives. Both now attend chapel more regularly when back at Kiwi-base down south.

"I don't know how they missed, really," said Leckie. "You don't get too many contacts like that in the New Zealand army.

"This is a once in a lifetime experience, that I've had," added Turua thoughtfully "I was thanking the man upstairs, ay, after that."