Royal Anglians killed 1,000 Taliban
The intensity of combat in Afghanistan has been laid bare as one Army regiment revealed that it had fired one million rounds, killed 1,028 Taliban and lost nine men in a six-month tour of duty.
At times, fighting saw 1Bn of the Royal Anglians having to “winkle out the Taliban at the point of a bayonet”, said Lt Col Stuart Carver, the commanding officer, at the battalion’s medal ceremony.
At times the fighting was on a par with that experienced in the Second World War and the casualty rate was similar, with nine men killed and a further 135 wounded.
In a moving speech given by a former commander of the Anglians, Major Gen John Sutherell said they had completed the “most demanding tour” ever asked of the regiment.
Lt Col Carver said his men had fought conventional trench warfare, engaging a well-trained enemy from, at times, 15 feet away.
“There was some pretty fierce fighting in conditions you would sometimes see in World War Two, clearing buildings and trenches.”
The enemy was highly trained and well equipped, although others were poorly trained fanatics.
“The good ones are extremely good, religiously motivated and will stay and fight until the last,” Lt Col Carver said. “Sometimes they had to be winkled out of buildings at the point of a bayonet.”
He said the Taliban mounted more than 350 attacks on his troops.
“By the end of the Anglian tour, three quarters of shop fronts had been restored to Sangin, which had previously been a ghost town. A school for 500 boys and girls had opened and the population had electricity. The security threat had also dropped to ‘Northern Ireland levels’.”
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