Attack!

It was time for me to go home. I had been in country now for 5 months and the holidays where fast approaching. The problem was that everyone was in the same boat, and day by day there were fewer of us Security Coordinators left in country. Therefore the few of us staying until the last possible day had to cover for the guys that had already left.

I got sent to the Kajiki Dam site for two reasons: I started that project back in August and because I had a good working relationship with the permanent coordinator, Bill. After a day’s turnover Bill was gone and I was in charge of the project. The first thing that happened was that my boss in Kabul emailed me and told me that they just got information of a threat of attack to the Dam site. Great I thought, I haven’t been here two days and now I am going to get attacked. Not what I wanted to happen a week before going home.

First order of business was to inform all the managers so they can take charge and be accountable for their people. Things were not right though, I could feel something was in the air. After being in country for almost a year, you can read peoples’ behavior, and amongst all the locals working with us there was certainly something wrong. They would not look at me in the face and where otherwise very evasive. Not good I thought. After making my initial notification to all the managers, the next thing I did was to head to my room to check my equipment.

I closed the door and laid out all my kit on the bed. I made sure I had at least 4 fragmentation and 2 smoke grenades and that their safety pins where all in place; I then checked all my AK-47 magazines to make sure they were full; and finally took my rifle and handgun and checked them and gave them a thorough cleaning. There was no way in hell that I was going to lose it in this country due to a faulty weapon, I knew better than that. Having done all that and being satisfied that everything was in order, it was time for the next thing: check all my posts.

I called my assistant Noor Agha and informed him what was happening. I told him that we would be checking all the posts and not to tell anyone. I didn’t want to let anyone know that we knew…they just might hit us harder. We started from my place and I immediately noticed things were not right, the first check point we came to was empty!

This was the check point closest to my house and where all the ex-pats live. After sorting this one we moved to the next one, the one separating us from the village. The funny thing was that all the soldiers from the first check point were at the second one. What was going on? They all knew, that’s what. And once could sense it in the air that they were nervous.

About 100 meters from this check point is Tangin, a known pro-Taliban village. It was  separated from us by a 100 meter long bridge. So what I have in my hands is a threat of an attack by the Taliban, possibly coming from the village that is only 100 meters away, and I am guarded by 150 very nervous and trigger happy soldiers that for all I know could all be Taliban or ex-Taliban (as if that mattered).

It was around 5pm when we returned to our house, after checking all the posts. It was going to be a cold, dark and windy night, not good for us but very good indeed for them. And the darker it got, the more nervous I got. The problem is that since I was responsible for the safety of 10 foreigners, I could not show weakness, I could not show how nervous I was. I needed these guys to trust me. If the shit hit the fan I needed these guys to obey every order I gave, for their safety.

Around 8pm I gave everyone an update on the situation and told them what I had done to ensure their safety. One of the things I did was to move my assistant to the room next to mine so he could help me defend if needed. I also moved the QRF (Quick Reaction Force-8 heavily armed soldiers) next to our building and placed them on standby all night long. Noor Agha and I moved all of our kit to the roof around 10 pm and started taking 2 hour shifts.

It was dark, very, very dark. I only had one set of night vision goggles and not very good at that, they were old, but at least it was something.  I cannot remember being this nervous in a long time. I could feel it in the air, something was very wrong. We spent the rest of the night awake, the hell with the 2 hour shifts, I wanted to be awake and be able to respond immediately.

Every sound, every little something we looked, straining our eyesight, straining our hearing against the noise of the passing river 50 meters in front of us. Every shadow a possible bad guy, every branch an enemy Kalishnikov pointed at us. It was nerve wrecking to say the least. Because of the time of year, darkness was long, very long. The first rays of welcomed light came around 6:30am, and not too soon.  And with the light came relaxation, we didn’t get hit in the dark so that was a blessing, we could relax at the thought that a night attack didn’t come.

Matter of fact, no attack ever came while I was there. The Taliban often likes to play the game of threatening an attack to see what you will do, and we know it. The problem is that we don’t know when the real thing is coming so we have to react every time for the safety of the people we protect.