U.S. and British Troops End Operations in Key Afghan Province

By AZAM AHMED OCT. 26, 2014



The handover signifies the end of British operations in Helmand Province, as the Afghan Army assumed full control.
CreditWakil Kohsar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

KABUL, Afghanistan — Combat operations in Helmand Province officially ended on Sunday for the United States Marines and British troops stationed there, bringing an end to a decade-long struggle to keep a major Talibanstronghold and the region’s vast opium production in check.

Officials commemorated the handover during simultaneous ceremonies at Camp Leatherneck for the Marines and Camp Bastion for the British forces, conjoined bases that made up the region’s coalition headquarters.

The Afghan Army’s 215th Corps will assume full control of the camps, a 6,500-acre parcel of desert scrubland in Southwest Afghanistan — and with it responsibility for securing one of the most violent provinces in the country.

While some American combat troops will remain in Afghanistan through the end of the year, the closing of Camp Bastion signified the end of all British operations, though some soldiers remain in Kabul. During the nation’s long tenure in Helmand, which began in 2006, British forces lost 453 servicemen in the conflict.



Ceremonies held by British soldiers and American Marines at Camp Leatherneck and Camp Bastion in Helmand Province in Afghanistan on Sunday. CreditWakil Kohsar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The handover came amid the deadliest period on record for Afghan forces. In the six months since March, more soldiers and police officers have died than any period since the start of the war, evidence of the grinding battle that lies ahead. Played out this summer, areas once deemed relatively secure grew problematic, while trouble spots became engulfed in violence.

Nowhere has that fight been more apparent — or deadly — than in Helmand.

Helmand was the first site of the United States’ 2010 troop surge, when thousands of military personnel were dispatched into Afghanistan to beat back a resurgent Taliban. Hundreds of coalition troops lost their lives to ambushes and roadside bombs in the bleak deserts and verdant valleys of Helmand.

Districts like Sangin and Marja, home to some of the most violent fighting of the last 13 years, became household names as the United States wound down its war in Iraq and accelerated its involvement in Afghanistan.

For the British forces, Helmand was the centerpiece of a multiyear counternarcotics effort that largely failed to stem poppy cultivation. The province, which is home to more than 80 percent of the nation’s opium production, remains the heart of the illicit drug trade.

According to a United Nations report, 2013 saw more land used to cultivate the crop than any year since the international community began recording the figure.

Still, officials on Sunday expressed cautious optimism that the Afghans would be ready to handle the fight on their own. While the Taliban tested districts throughout northern Helmand, claiming checkpoints, causing hundreds of casualties and sowing fear into the local population, they failed to claim any district centers from the government.

“Because of the competence, resolve and combined skills of the A.N.S.F., insurgent networks have become ineffective in Helmand Province,” said a statement from the International Security Assistance Force, referring to the Afghan National Security Forces.

In reality, locals say, the Taliban have never been stronger in the province. In the face of Western assertions, they added, the Taliban have claimed stretches of area surrounding the government centers and have dominated rural areas, as well as the flourishing drug trade.

Perhaps more worrisome are the trends that developed in northern Helmand over the last five months. Unlike years past, the Taliban massed in large groups to contest government forces, a previously unthinkable dynamic.

“Their departure will have an impact on people’s lives and security in Helmand,” said Muhammud Fahim Musazai, the governor of Helmand’s Greskh district. “We will face some problems, like other areas of Afghanistan where the foreigners have left and the Taliban entered afterward.”

Sangin district, in particular, became a weather vane of the changing war. Reports of hundreds of Taliban attacking police checkpoints surfaced early in the district. Whispers of cease-fire deals between local army commanders and Taliban militants also emerged in Sangin, causing a stir in Kabul, where officials denied the accounts and doubled efforts to quell the insurgency.

“The bases that are closing down in Helmand Province will definitely pave the ground for the Taliban to hold the power in the area,” said Haji Ibrahim, a tribal elder from Sangin.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/wo...-province.html