Locals aid Afghan and British troops in seizure of insurgent arms caches

British sol­diers and their Afghan Army part­ners have dis­cov­ered bomb-mak­ing equip­ment and ammu­ni­tion after a local Afghan direct­ed them to insur­gent arms caches.

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Troops from C Com­pa­ny, 2nd Bat­tal­ion The Rifles, cross a wadi dur­ing the oper­a­tion [Pic­ture: Crown Copyright/MOD 2012]
Source: Min­istry of Defence, UK
Click to enlarge
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Some of the impro­vised explo­sive device com­po­nents seized in the oper­a­tion [Pic­ture: Crown Copyright/MOD 2012]
Source: Min­istry of Defence, UK
Click to enlarge

Troops from C Com­pa­ny, 2nd Bat­tal­ion The Rifles (2 RIFLES), were on a rou­tine patrol with Afghan Nation­al Army (ANA) war­riors when they were approached by a local Afghan who invit­ed the patrol over for a shu­ra — an impromp­tu meet­ing that involves chat­ting and drink­ing ‘chai’ (tea).

The man dis­closed that he and his fam­i­ly had been suf­fer­ing from intim­i­da­tion by insur­gents, and so, after receiv­ing reas­sur­ance of pro­tec­tion by the ANA and ISAF forces, he told the patrol the where­abouts of two Tal­iban ‘hides’ or weapons caches. 

The man showed the joint patrol to an unin­hab­it­ed com­pound with two sep­a­rate caches inside. 

The first cache con­tained impro­vised explo­sive device com­po­nents, includ­ing pres­sure pads, bat­tery packs and det­o­na­tors, which were all picked up by the patrol’s trained search dog. The sec­ond cache con­tained ammu­ni­tion and a radio trans­mit­ter com­mon­ly used by the Tal­iban. All were heav­i­ly waterproofed. 

An ammu­ni­tion spe­cial­ist, along with a spe­cial­ly-trained team designed to remove impro­vised explo­sive devices from the ground, were on call to remove the IED com­po­nents and they are now on their way back to the UK for exploitation. 

Major Gareth Davies, Offi­cer Com­mand­ing C Com­pa­ny, 2 RIFLES, said: 

“The finds, a result of local nation­al report­ing, show the increased con­fi­dence of the locals in the secu­ri­ty pro­vid­ed by Afghan Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Forces [ANSF] and the Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force. 

“This has result­ed in the Tal­iban being mar­gin­alised and the ANSF/ISAF being able to oper­ate freely in the area. 

“This suc­cess­ful day shows the true val­ue of pop­u­la­tion-focused rela­tion­ships, and how the devel­op­ment of trust can save the lives of our sol­diers, our Afghan part­ners and the local people.” 

Press release
Min­istry of Defence, UK 

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