UK > History > 2011 > War > Afghanistan

Deadly Twin Blasts

Strike British Council in Kabul

August 19, 2011
The New York Times
By RAY RIVERA and ROD NORDLAND

KABUL, Afghanistan — Militants attacked the British Council in a residential neighborhood in the capital early Friday, British and Afghan officials said, leaving at least four people dead.

A spokesman for the British Embassy, speaking anonymously in line with official policy, initially confirmed the attack, which came on the day Afghans celebrate gaining independence from Britain in 1919. The British Council is a British government agency promoting education, culture and the arts in 110 countries.

The Taliban immediately claimed responsibility.

Col. Abdul Zahir, chief of the criminal investigative department for Kabul Province, said the dead included three Afghan police officers and one civilian. It was not immediately known whether any foreign nationals had been killed, he said.

The attack apparently began with a car bomb explosion at the entrance of the British Council compound, allowing insurgents to work their way in, officials said.

In a text message to reporters at 7:45 a.m., a Taliban spokesman said that multiple suicide bombers had attacked a foreign guesthouse, inflicting several casualties, and that the fight was continuing.

The first blast went off just after 5:30 a.m. in the Karte Parwan area of the city, near a number of potential targets, including the palatial residence of First Vice President Muhammad Qasim Fahim.

A second blast followed 10 minutes later. The explosions shattered glass in buildings blocks away and sent plumes of black smoke into the sky.

Hundreds of Afghan police officers swarmed into the area as sporadic gunfire continued. At around 7:45 a.m., what sounded like a grenade blast went off, followed by more bursts of gunfire.

Later Friday morning, the police cornered the remaining bomber, who was still wearing a suicide vest. The bomber had seized three hostages, two of them foreigners, Afghan officials said, leading to a standoff with the police. Most of the foreigners in the compound’s guesthouse had taken refuge in an underground panic room nearby and were safe, an official said.

In an Independence Day message sent by e-mail on Thursday, a Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, urged people to continue fighting to expel Americans and their allies from the country.

Shards of metal and debris, including the skeletal remains of a destroyed vehicle littered the road outside the smoking complex.

Elham Udin, an ambulance driver, said he and other emergency crew members picked up five wounded people, four of them police officers. “The foreigners inside did not allow us to pick up their wounded because they said they would take care of them,” Mr. Udin said.

Amir Shah Gul, an emergency doctor at the scene, said he carried six people to ambulances, all police officers, and one of them dead.

Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting.

    Deadly Twin Blasts Strike British Council in Kabul, NYT, 19.8.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/world/asia/20afghanistan.html

British servicewoman dies after Afghan bomb blast

Captain Lisa Head, 29, fatally injured clearing IEDs in Helmand,

becomes second British servicewoman killed

Nick Hopkins
The Guardian
Thursday 21 April 2011
This article appeared on p7 of the Main section section of the Guardian
on Thursday 21 April 2011.
It was published on guardian.co.uk at 00.35 BST on Thursday 21 April 2011.
It was last modified at 00.41 BST on Thursday 21 April 2011.
It was first published at 20.07 BST on Wednesday 20 April 2011.

A woman serving with the British army's bomb disposal team in Afghanistan has died of injuries sustained on duty in Helmand province, the Ministry of Defence has announced.

Captain Lisa Head, 29, from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, is the second British servicewoman to have been killed during the 10-year conflict in Afghanistan. She had been there less than a month when she was fatally injured, having volunteered to become a specialist in the clearance of IEDs (improvised explosive devices).

Defence officials said she had been severely wounded on Monday while attempting to defuse a complex set of hidden devices during a clearance operation in Helmand's Nahr-e Saraj district. She had already defused one IED, which had been found by soldiers from the Parachute Regiment in an alleyway used by Afghan and coalition troops. "After rendering safe the identified IED, Captain Head was fatally injured while dealing with a second IED," the MoD said.

She was airlifted by helicopter to a military hospital at Camp Bastion, the main British base in Helmand, then evacuated to the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, where she died of her injuries on Tuesday.

Her family issued a statement, saying they were extremely proud of what she had achieved: "Lisa always said that she had the best job in the world and she loved every second of it. Lisa had two families – us and the army. Lisa had a fantastic life and lived it to the full. No one was more loved."

Her commander in the Royal Logistics Corps, Lieutenant Colonel Adam McRae, said: "She took particular pride in achieving the coveted 'high threat' status which set her at the pinnacle of her trade. Lisa deployed to Afghanistan with the full knowledge of the threats she would face.

"These dangers did not faze her as she was a self-assured, highly effective operator and a well-liked leader. Her potential was considerable and she will be an enormous loss to us all."

Lieutenant Colonel Mark Budden, in charge of the counter-IED task force, said the team had been "rocked" by her death.

"My heartfelt condolences go out to Lisa's parents, her sister, family and friends."

Two other female soldiers, Lance Corporal Sarah Drury and Lance Corporal Alexis Wort, issued a statement saying: "We are both privileged to have met Lisa on deployment to Afghanistan on 26 March. Having never served together before, 'us girls' were accommodated together in the same tent. Lisa was our senior and mentor."

A graduate from Huddersfield University, Capt Head went to Sandhurst in 2005 and then on duty with the Royal Logistics Corps. She deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007 as an air transport liaison officer before being selected to train as a bomb disposal expert.

The pressure experienced by the IED specialists was underlined earlier this year at the inquest of Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid, who was posthumously awarded the George Cross after he was killed attempting to defuse a device on 31 October 31 2009.

He had defused 64 devices during his tour of duty, and was on his last patrol before heading back to the UK going on leave.

The army insists that since Schmid's death, the number of specialists has increased, and ministers approved an extra £67m for additional counter-IED equipment last year.

The first British servicewoman to die on duty in Afghanistan was Sarah Bryant, 26, a military intelligence soldier killed by a roadside bomb near Lashkar Gah together with three special forces reservists in 2008. They were on a joint British-Afghan counter-insurgency mission 10 miles north-east of Lashkar Gah, in Helmand province, when the blast hit their open-topped Land Rover.

There have been 364 British military deaths in operations in Afghanistan since 2001; 44 died from illness or accidents. There are 44 service personnel who have died from accidents, illness, or non-combat injuries.

    British servicewoman dies after Afghan bomb blast, 21.4.2011,
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/20/british-servicewoman-lisa-head-killed-afghanistan

The plight of the UK's war widows

Hundreds of women have been bereaved by the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Now they face a battle of their own

Tuesday 15 February 2011
The Guardian
Nick Hopkins
This article appeared on p6 of the G2 section of the Guardian on Tuesday 15 February 2011.
It was published on guardian.co.uk at 08.00 GMT on Tuesday 15 February 2011.

Toni O'Donnell had played the scene over in her mind many times, and talked to her husband about how she might react if it ever happened. Nothing, though, prepared her for the moment on a September evening, when she peered through her living room window and saw two smartly dressed people in suits walking up the path towards her house. O'Donnell was holding her nine-week old boy Ben in her arms when she opened the door to the strangers, and her eight-year-old son Aidan was by her side.

The visitors hadn't said a word, but she knew what was coming. "As the man got out his ID, the woman asked me if she could take my baby. I was not going to let go of him. I said to them, 'He's gone, isn't he?' Aidan then asked me if Daddy was dead, and I told him he was. Aidan cried, but I don't think I did, not then. I was probably in a state of shock. I knew in that moment that our world had crumbled and that everything for us had changed."

It has been two and a half years since O'Donnell's husband Gary was killed on a tour of duty in Afghanistan – his second – where he had one of the army's most perilous jobs. A bomb disposal expert who had served in Northern Ireland, Iraq, Sierra Leone, and the Falklands, Warrant Officer O'Donnell was trying to clear an improvised explosive device (IED) from the side of a road on the western side of Musa Qaleh. He had served in the army for 17 years and won two George Crosses for bravery, one posthumously. He was 40 years old.

O'Donnell had been on 10 days leave in the UK when his baby son was born but had returned to Helmand Province, from where he had spoken to his wife the night before he died.

"We had the regulation 20 minutes, and we talked about where we were going to go on holiday. Sometimes I still find it hard to believe that all this has happened. I wake up and it's still not real to me. I am so used to him being away and then coming back.

"We still talk about him every day. Aidan will say, do you remember this, do you remember that. Ben can recognise him in photos.

"I don't feel sorry for myself any more, but I do feel sorry for the children. It would have been nice for them to have known him. They are just like him — blond hair and blue eyes."

O'Donnell, 40, is just one of hundreds of women who have been bereaved by the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. More than 350 soldiers have been killed so far in the former, and 179 were killed in the latter. Almost all the victims were young, and many left families with small children.

The armed forces are caring for a new generation of widows who are having to put their lives back together in the months and years after a death, supporting them out of the gaze of a public that has grown increasingly suspicious of the reasons for war, and impatient for the troops to be withdrawn.

O'Donnell's recovery has been a long hard road but one small consolation has been that she has not had to worry about money – the pensions and allowances have given her some security. For some women, however, that could now be under threat.

A row over pension payments is at the heart of the current concern and the likelihood that, year on year, widows, as well as those who have been injured in conflict, will receive less than they would have done, with the reforms proposed by the coalition government.

This is fostering a growing feeling throughout the military that the special status afforded to war widows is being eroded, and that this in turn is having a damaging affect on troop morale.

It isn't just about money. It ties into concern about the military covenant – Britain's duty of care to its armed forces. Straight after the election, David Cameron said he would codify this into law; ministers are now saying they won't.

Promises over reforms of inquests, which the military strongly supported on behalf of bereaved families, have been ditched too.

The arguments are pushing into the open a difficult and broader debate about the special position of the armed forces, and whether they can, and should be, taken for granted any more.

O'Donnell had to cope with many things when her husband of 10 years died, but this was not among them.

First there were the practicalities to sort out and then the enduring emotional damage to herself and her sons. "When they come to tell you your husband has died, the army don't send people you know because you end up associating them with the death.

"That evening, we all sat in my living room. I rang my mum who lives nearby and she came round and made us cups of tea. "I kept asking if they were sure that it was Gary who had died. My brain wasn't really working. That night I didn't sleep. I think I only started crying when I got in the shower the next morning."

Later that day, a captain in Gary's regiment turned up with a padre. "They told me how quickly they could get him home and asked me about the funeral arrangements. They explained everything to me and did everything for me. It was exactly what I needed. Gary died on a Wednesday and the following Monday he was home."

O'Donnell had a visiting officer whom she saw every day in the run-up to the funeral. For many widows, the inquest can be a traumatic experience, with many complaining that they have heard harrowing details of what happened for the first time – hence the calls for reform.

O'Donnell was lucky. She saw the coroner before the hearing started and told him of her fears. "I wanted it to be over as quickly as possible. I didn't want to see photos of him or hear exactly what happened. There was no need for it, and thankfully it was all over in 45 minutes."

She has, however, discovered that Gary wasn't always being honest with her about his job, or the danger he was in – another common experience for women in her position.

"I thought he was speaking to me openly but he was obviously keeping some things back. He spared me the full extent of what was going on, things he had seen, how busy he was, how demanding the job had become and how clever the Taliban were. I guess he did not want me to know, and he was trying to protect me. I don't feel angry because he obviously didn't want me to worry. But I am not sure I really knew what he was going through."

In life, Gary O'Donnell had prepared well for his death; he had taken out insurance and there is an army pension for his wife, which will stop if she ever remarries, regardless of her partner's circumstances. Her boys receive a token income too; that will stop when they leave school.

There are a number of charities that provide pastoral help and advice for widows, chief among them the Royal British Legion, which last year raised £16m from its Poppy Appeal alone, and the War Widows Association (WWA), which has 4,000 members — the oldest being 106. There are other groups, such as the Forces Children's Trust (FCT), that fundraise to provide bereavement counselling and occasional holidays for children who have lost a parent. O'Donnell and her two boys were taken for a week's holiday in Portugal, care of the FCT.

"I could not have coped without these people," she says. "Aidan thrived when we went to Portugal. He was among children who had all lost someone, who understood what he had been through."

Perhaps it is the generosity of such groups, and the network they provide, that will work against the widows in the dispute with ministers over pensions. The government wants all public sector pensions to be increased in future by the consumer price index, not by the (generally higher) retail price index.The Forces Pension Society (FPS) estimates this could cost a young widow up to £750,000 over the course of a lifetime.

Gill Grigg, who has been representing the WWA, is very aware of the special status that forces widows have had, and believes it is right that this should be respected. But she wants the government to acknowledge it so that groups such as the WWA, which marks its 40th anniversary this year, don't have to come out and openly lobby.

"It's a very difficult position we find ourselves in. We are very aware of the [economic] climate. It's a very difficult time for everyone. War widows are conscious of other people's feelings – when we look across the rest of the public sector, and the private sector, we are well thought of and looked after. We don't want to appear greedy."

Grigg also acknowledges that families in the fire service and the police also suffer bereavements. They should all, she argues, be exempted from changes to pensions that could have profound effects on their finances.

"It would be really helpful if the government could look at this and say that across the public sector, if you have been injured or bereaved while on duty, the changes would not apply. I really think that would be appropriate. We are conscious that if we were to get an uplift, then it should apply to other widows too."

Major General John Moore-Bick, who has been speaking for the FPS, is more forthright: "There is a unique nature to what armed forces families go through. This is not special pleading. In the armed forces you are asked to do things nobody else in the public sector would be asked to do. It is only right that they should have a special status."

The word filtering up from the three services is that morale is being affected by defence cuts, concerns over pensions and allowances, and by the feeling that the government is reneging over the military covenant.

"You can take army vehicles out of service, you can scrap Nimrods and withdraw Harriers," says Moore-Bick. "But personnel and morale is another thing. If you get this wrong, it goes wrong for a long time. The government says we are all in this together. Well that's right, up to a point. If you are a war widow, should you be in it? I would argue there are some people that should not be."

There is another consideration that is not always understood outside the forces – the camaraderie that service wives rely on for support.

Ros Dillon-Lee, aged 64, lost her husband Mike in 1990. A major in the 32nd Heavy Regiment Royal Artillery based in Dortmund, he was shot by the IRA.

"When you lose your husband, you lose your way of life," she says. "These days widows can stay in service accommodations for up to two years. But they tend to find that the time comes when they don't fit in any more. Most then move back towards their families, especially if they have little ones. Moving on is a very personal thing. You have to pick up the pieces and become independent again."

Amanda Binnie, 23, is going through that process now. She lost her husband Sean in May 2009, six months after they married. Corporal Binnie, who served in the Black Watch regiment, died during a firefight with insurgents.

Sean's inquest was particularly painful – she heard evidence from three soldiers who had been with him on the day he died. Amanda had not been told there would be eyewitness accounts, and she found them particularly upsetting.

"I should have been told that was coming up, but I wasn't. The whole six months after it happened was a blur."

The army, she says, was brilliant to her in the months after the death, but she has lost touch with her welfare officer, which is something she regrets.

Binnie says she had gone through phases in the past few months when she was "angry, shocked and hated the world." The support of her family in Belfast, and the friends she made through Sean in the military, have helped her through.

"It takes a long time to come to terms with it. I don't think I am ready yet to think about what I will do for the rest of my life. I have thrown myself into charity work, which keeps me busy."

Money is not something she is thinking about right now. It's enough to deal with day-to-day life.

So far, the Treasury has been unmoved by the lobbying, but the campaign is gathering momentum. With the army, navy and air force all committed to operations in Afghanistan for the next four years at least, the issue could be a running sore for Cameron, who promised to support the military as best he could.

While the battle continues in Westminster, O'Donnell will continue to take the small steps to rebuild her family's life in Warwickshire. She is opposed to the changes to widows' pensions, while acknowledging that it would affect some women harder than her. It's a worry that she and other widows could do without during a difficult time.

So what next? She has not really had a social life since Gary's death, and gave up an attempt to go back to work. It was too much, too soon. Her priority has been the children. Aidan has, she says, been understandably affected by the loss of his father. Every Friday, her mother Wendy takes Ben, now two and a half, away for the evening, so that O'Donnell can have some proper time with her oldest son.

"Emotionally it doesn't get any easier. I manage things day by day. I have friends who have gone out and found new partners. I cannot imagine that yet. That has not even entered my head."

Slowly, though, she is finding her feet. "I know that I need to move on. Not to leave Gary behind, because he was the love of my life. But I need to make a new life without him. It's about time, I think."

    The plight of the UK's war widows, G, 15.2.2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/feb/15/plight-of-uk-war-widows