Brtish troops to quit Sangin - the Corleone of central Helmand

12 April 2012

The switch of American for British troops in the mid Helmand town of Sangin, due to take place in the autumn, is a logical piece of military consolidation.

Sangin is a mafia town, the Corleone of central Helmand. Here the Taliban carry out a crude traffic of brigandage in the surrounding district, they steal, pillage, wound and even kill those going in and out of the increasingly prosperous town centre.

When I was there in March, they cut the throat of a local dentist after accusing him of treating young Afghan Army soldiers.

With the arrival of the US Marines in Helmand over the past year the allies and their Afghan Army partners at last have the fire power to clear whole areas like Sangin and its river valley and the main roads north south and drug smuggling routes east and west.

Four years ago, A Company of 3 Battalion the Parachute Regiment went into Sangin with around 200 men. They found an impoverished and cowed community, prey to the bandit turf war of three tribes.

Since then the Paras, the Rifles and now – again – the Royal Marines have made progress, expanding the bazaar to nearly 1,000 stalls and shops, opening and clearing the main road, building and rebuilding the secondary school. It has been an astonishing holding of the line, at the price of 99 combat dead and many times more wounded.

Now with 20,000 British, American, Danish, Estonian and thousands of Afghan soldiers and police General David Petraeus has at last got his key ratio of one soldier to protect 25 of the local population. This gives the prospect of a stable platform for real political settlement, and a winding down of the American and British presence in southern Afghanistan well before the next UK general election and when most likely a new president will enter the White House.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in