http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article1777869.ece"When we arrived in Sangin, the locals began throwing rocks and anything they could at us; this was not a friendly place," the officer reports. "We pushed into the district centre, and during the last few hundred metres we began receiving mortar fire." By the time they reached the British position, the Canadian convoy had to stay overnight. "We were attacked with small arms RPGs and mortars three times that night. I still can't believe the Brits have spent over a month living there under these conditions."
According to Brigadier Ed Butler, whose 16 Air Assault Brigade spearheaded the 2003 invasion of Iraq, nothing his men experienced there came close to what they have undergone in the past few weeks in Helmand. The Ministry of Defence has been accused of seeking to keep the reality from the British public by excluding journalists and television cameras from the front line. But it has learned that in the 21st century it cannot shut down all flows of information, as a stream of mobile phone videos and emails have made clear.
Soldiers have painted graphic pictures of all-out fighting amid scorpions and sandflies, with ammunition running out, equipment malfunctioning and reinforcements and supplies failing to arrive. One email described a soldier soiling himself with fear; another said there had been attacks by Taliban militiamen on motorbikes who open fire while clutching children in front of themselves.
"You see the Taliban cutting around on dirt bikes, their weapons in one hand, their kids in the other," said an email reported by The Mail on Sunday. "They think we will not shoot them. There have been some terrible accidents. It is horrible to kill a kid, nothing could prepare you for it."