GOZ-BEIDA, Chad - Harsh light and shifting shadows in the windblown desert of eastern Chad can conjure strange images, but this was no mirage. Lurking in the shade of a thorn tree was the dark outline of a pick-up truck carrying a dozen men brandishing weapons. Ruled by the gun, this lawless corner of Africa borders Sudan and has inherited the violent power struggles from neighbouring Darfur. The shapes under the tree spelled trouble. I quickly ordered the driver of our battered Suzuki Samurai to U-turn, but as we accelerated away, kicking up sand, the sharp “crack-crack-crack” of gunshots split the air

We stopped and seconds later hordes of sweaty gunmen swathed in turbans and “magical” leather amulets swarmed us, shouting and shoving their weapons in our faces, pulling us roughly from the car while banging their fists on the roof. Grabbing our driver’s mobile phone, documents and cigarettes, and a satellite phone belonging to my travelling partner, an American human rights researcher, the gunmen ordered us to follow them back into the desert.

We’d set out from town that morning to interview far-flung civilians displaced by years of conflict stemming from Darfur and now destabilising both Chad and Sudan. The two oil-producing rivals accuse each other of backing rebels trying to topple their respective governments. There are 250,000 Sudanese refugees in a dozen camps in eastern Chad and 180,000 displaced Chadians, the U.N. says.

Rampant banditry plus ethnic and tribal animosity fuelled by competition for scarce water and arable land mean few can return home.

Most depend on aid handouts, but some 80 aid vehicles have been stolen at gunpoint in the area. In May a French aid worker was shot and killed at the roadside by unknown assailants.

Many raids are blamed on “Janjaweed,” Arab militiamen who roam the borderlands on horseback, raping and pillaging.

These gunmen were too many and too heavily armed to be Janjaweed. They rode 100 or so “technicals”, mud-smeared Toyota pick-ups lacking windscreens, their roofs cut off and replaced by heavy machine guns, anti-aircraft weapons and artillery.

Each battle wagon carried up to a dozen rag-tag fighters armed with AK-47s or Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) launchers.

THIRSTY WORK

Fingers on triggers and itching for a fight, this was one of the feared rebel columns that for several days had roamed Chad’s eastern wilds, threatening to ride westward on the capital N’Djamena, 700 km (450 miles) away.

The rebels made such a lighting strike in February. They besieged Chadian President Idriss Deby’s palace during days of heavy street battles, but they failed to topple the government.

Now they were launching a series of destabilising raids before the rains swelled rivers and blocked their movements.

Fearing imprisonment or worse, I said I was a journalist, held up my cameras and gestured I wanted to take their picture.

Even a dust-covered rebel knows the value of good publicity. The hostility evaporated and rebels posed with their weapons.

Then the battle cry went out and the cheering rebels roared off to attack the nearby town where we were based.

Within minutes, we heard explosions and heavy gunfire and black smoke rose above Goz Beida, a sandy town ringed by hills and camps housing tens of thousands of refugees.

Terrified aid workers hid inside their compounds as rebels smashed down doors and stormed over walls.

At Concern, rebels burst in, hijacked several vehicles, looted personal belongings — and raided the fridge.

One wild-eyed rebel burst into a room where aid workers were cowering. He clutched a beer in one hand and a stolen electric iron in the other, his rifle slung over his shoulder.

He handed over the iron, saying it was no use in the desert, apologized for interrupting their game of Scrabble and politely asked for a can of Coke from the table, saying: “I’m thirsty”.

The rebels ransacked the town. Two people, a civilian and a government soldier, were killed and dozens were injured by stray bullets and shrapnel during two hours of fighting. At the Oxfam compound where we were staying an RPG blew a hole through an office wall.

Irish European Union troops deployed to protect a nearby refugee camp, but came under fire and shot back. Four unexploded RPGs landed inside the camp, including one in a school.

After the rebels left town with their loot, we began inching back there through the bush, until EU troops sent word that angry Chadian warplanes were looking for targets to bomb.

We abandoned the car and set off on foot, nervously scanning the sky. Taking shelter in a riverbed, we waited for EU troops to pick us up using GPS coordinates sent by satellite phone.

Fighting shifted for another week from one remote outpost to another before the rebels slipped back across the border.

On my last night in eastern Chad, shooting erupted outside the house and continued for 30 minutes. A stray bullet crashed
through the ceiling and landed a few feet away.

In the morning, a kitchen worker was asked if the shooting had scared her. She just laughed.

“C’est la musique Chadienne” — It’s Chadian music, the local soundtrack by which people too often live their lives.

HOWZ-E-MADAD, Afghanistan, October 23 2007  – Canadian and Afghan National Army troops abandoned a dawn ambush of Taliban fighters at a mud village in southern Afghanistan and were walking across a dusty field when the first Taliban shell struck.

It exploded about five meters (yards) away from four Canadian soldiers mentoring and training their Afghan counterparts.

As a photographer embedded with the Canadians, I was hit by the blast and then enveloped by a cloud of dust and smoke as we scrambled for cover behind a mud wall shielding us from Taliban positions on the opposite side of a grape field.

Canadian and Afghan troops quickly returned fire and I focussed on taking pictures of an Afghan army soldier shooting a heavy mounted machine gun from a nearby ditch.

A second shell from an 82-millimeter recoilless rifle exploded immediately in front of him and he disappeared in the flash of light as sand blasted me and the shockwave knocked me over. I was sure he was dead, or at least wounded. A moment later, he bounded out of the ditch and ran towards me through the smoke, the heavy machine gun blazing from his hip, Rambo-style.

A third shell slammed into the solid mud wall where Canadian Sgt.-Maj. Paul Pilote was standing, punching a hole through it and sending the soldier sprawling backwards. Stunned, and with blood spilling from his nose and mouth, Pilote crawled away from the explosion on hands and knees. I kept shooting through the haze.

Under fire from Taliban insurgents, Canadian Master Corporal Frank Flibotte and Major Jean-Sebastien Fortin moved to assist Pilote.

IN THE LINE OF FIRE

I moved back from the wall taking shell hits and was reluctant to leave the cover of a ditch until I realised the Afghan troops had fled and the Canadians were busy with Pilote on the other side an open dirt road in the direct line of fire.

Not wanting to be left behind, I scrambled over the wall of a nearby compound and moved through a garden blooming with purple flowers. I was still cut off from the Canadians by the open road and needed to get pictures of them treating Pilote.

An armoured RG-31 vehicle raced to the scene and filled the open space in the firing line, so I ran behind it towards the wounded Pilote.

“Get back behind the RG!” shouted Maj. Fortin.

I wasn’t sure that was such a good idea since it was an obvious target for the next shell, compared to the relative safety of the ditch where Fortin and Flibotte were treating Pilote, but I ran back anyway, tripping and falling, like an old woman.

Pilote’s wounds were not serious and I photographed Flibotte and Fortin helping him to his feet and supporting him as they staggered towards the RG-31 while others provided covering fire. We retreated to a nearby base, where we heard the sound of heavy fighting as another company came under attack.

We had to go back out. It was the last thing I wanted to do. I just wanted to go to be somewhere safe. But the troops don’t have that option and neither did I. An Afghan soldier had been shot in the shoulder and had to be evacuated.

JUST ANOTHER “TICK”

The Canadians called in armoured support from its Quick Reaction Force, consisting of more than a dozen armoured vehicles, while tanks, U.S. Humvees and U.S. Rangers provided back-up. Artillery sent in smoke cover and U.S. Apache helicopters clattered overhead. Afghan army and police also reinforced.

Meanwhile, Fortin estimated there were between 10 to 15 Taliban fighters, most of them just wearing grubby robes and sandals. None were confirmed killed or wounded.

“It shows how all the military might in the world can’t stand up to ten ragtag fighters who believe God is on their side,” a fellow journalist said afterwards, summing up the challenge facing NATO forces as they try to crush a determined guerrilla movement.

The battle at Howz-e-Madad in the Zhari district of Kandahar province was typical of the conflict gripping Afghanistan’s southern region bordering Pakistan, where at least 23 such “contacts” occurred in the last month.

The photos were splashed across front pages in Canada the next day, but in the grand scheme of things, it was just another “tick,” as soldiers here call firefights.

People often ask whether it’s worth the risk taking combat pictures. It’s only worth it if you don’t get hurt or worse. The second something bad happens, the gamble is lost.

We were lucky. Pilote suffered only minor shrapnel wounds and some hearing loss and the Afghan wounded in the shoulder is recovering well.

Under fire, you just want to get the hell out and you swear you’ll never go out there again. But the soldiers have to do it. So it’s part of the job.

 Finbarr O’Reilly
 

 Hunting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan with Finbarr O’Reilly

SANGSAR, Afghanistan, July 17 (Reuters) - The grinding metallic noise of tanks and diesel engines fade into the desert night and the only sound is our breathing and the crunch of dozens of army boots on dry earth.

It feels like we are alone in the barren, moonlit landscape, but we’re not. Somewhere out there lurk the Taliban.

A cacophony of barking floats through the heavy air as dogs from nearby mud villages pick up our scent.

Foreign troops from the NATO-led coalition and the Afghan National Army (ANA) are on the hunt for Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province.

It is a strategic point in the fight against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban drug smuggling routes into neighbouring Pakistan.

As a photographer embedded with Canadian troops, I tag along for combat missions.

“When the shooting starts, your heart rate will go up to two or three times its normal rate,” says a medic, explaining the body’s and mind’s reactions to combat.

Covering Africa for six years, I’ve experienced conflicts, armed clashes and civil unrest before, but I’ve never marched directly into battle with a unit intent on engaging the enemy.

I follow in silence for two hours as the patrol moves from the open desert into grape fields lined with mud walls providing welcome cover, but also perfect hiding ground for Taliban.

Using night vision goggles, the troops take positions around targets, mud compounds where dozens of insurgents are camped.

Then we wait. This is the worst part, the tension of waiting for contact, but not knowing where it will come from.
“They usually hit us at first light,” says the Warrant Officer in charge of my unit.

The Muslim call to prayer drifts from mosques just before dawn. I can’t help thinking that some people in these dusty fields are hearing it for the last time.

A coppery taste fills my mouth and my bowels shift uncomfortably.

UNDER FIRE

The first shots ring out as darkness fades. Then shooting erupts from seemingly every direction. I stay down until there’s a brief lull, then move closer to the action.

“Remember you’re not bullet-proof,” says one soldier, as if I need reminding. My flak jacket, ballistic goggles and helmet only make the rest of my body feel more exposed.

Crawling along mud walls and ditches, I reach a unit coming under heavy fire from Taliban positions 20 meters (yards) away.

I see a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) whiz past the treetops above our heads. A mortar explodes 10 meters (yards) behind us. Bullets hum through the air and rustle nearby bushes.

“How’s your heart rate now?” asks the medic lying next to me in a dry riverbed.

Like I’m on crack cocaine, probably. But fear has been replaced by adrenaline and I concentrate on keeping low and getting pictures of the Canadian soldiers.

The Afghan and Canadian troops move up and I run too, shamelessly using troops as a shield before stepping briefly in front to snap some pictures of them rushing forward.

After about an hour, air support strafes the Taliban with hundreds of high-calibre rounds.

Canadian and ANA troops move in to pick up the pieces. RPGs are found next to one of the two recovered bodies and two wounded Taliban are treated and evacuated by helicopter.

Several Taliban have been killed, including a local leader. The only Canadian casualty is a soldier who shot his own left index finger off in the heat of battle.

The thin, barefoot Taliban in pyjama-like outfits look frail and weak next to the meaty and tattooed Canadians loaded with heavy equipment and supported by aircraft and armoured vehicles.

But while NATO-led forces train to stay alive, the Taliban are ready and willing to die, making them a formidable foe.

The operation is not over until everyone is safely on base. One Canadian soldier has been killed in combat during the past six months in Afghanistan, but roadside bombs have killed 19.

Less than 24 hours after our operation, six Canadian troops and an interpreter are killed by one such bomb while returning from a similar mission.

Roadside bombs have become the favourite weapon of the Taliban, who are overpowered on the battlefield, but know how to erode political will for a long and bloody foreign presence in their country.

On this day, the battle is won by NATO and ANA forces. But Afghanistan’s long history of resisting outside influence suggests that winning the war against the insurgents will be a much longer, more difficult task.

Kandahar Air Field (KAF) is a sprawling NATO military base in southern Afghanistan, ringed by desert and mountains and home to some 10,000 foreign troops and support staff, all living inside the wire, meaning within a secure perimeter set up by foreign forces. It is built on a swamp and smells like it too. “Emerald Lake” is the festering cesspool emitting sulphur fumes that permeate the grounds. Pity the Romanians whose tents line its bubbling shores.

On my first day in Afghanistan, camp is a sweltering mess of muddy roads due to unheard of summer rains hitting the desert. Kandahar town is flooded and houses are collapsing due to a week of precipitation. Farmers crops are at risk of rotting, which could makea lean winter season even leaner. I’m here for a three week embed with Canadian troops and my tent, shared with several other Canadian hacks, is three inches deep in water. My folding army bunk hovers above the slop.

The base is impressive, with all the various nationalities of the NATO force living in their own tented areas, protected by reinforced concrete barriers. Most people gravitate towards the American facilities. They have a full-sized basketball court and Olympic-sized gym and weight room. There is a mini strip mall called the Boardwalk, complete with Tim Hortons, Burger King, Pizza Hut and Green Beans, which is just like Starbucks and provides all the usual options ranging from blueberry muffins and cheesecake to mocha frappe lattes, world music CDs and “Oral Fixation” breath mints. All the clients carry guns slung over their shoulders or on hip holsters. There was a sushi restaurant, but it closed down after a salmonella outbreak. The Amerian PX store is awesome, selling everything from Sports Illustrated (swimsuit issue) and Esquire magazines, recent DVDs, camping clothes and gear, hunting knives, gun cleaning equipment, junk food, pet food, foldable deck chairs, shelving units, stereos, computers and other electronics. I can buy none of these things where I live in Africa and since it’s all subsidised by George W., prices are fantastically low. I do some shopping.

Theres also a camp massage parlour, but without “the happy ending.” I try it anyway. The masseuse is a stocky Kyrgystani woman actually named Olga. She smells likes onions and beetroot and gives a massage that still hurts two days later.

Walking back to my tent, I’m offered a lift in a pick-up truck by a drawling grunt from Arkansas who introduces himself as “Bulldawg” and tells me a lewd joke about the difference between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Keeping to the speed limit, Bulldog takes me on a 16km/hr tour of the base, near the old dumping ground for all the rusting Soviet hardware from previous failed efforts to win a war here, and along the air strip where Chinook helicopters clatter in and out of camp.

This is a nice place to run come evenin time, good view of the mountains, nice sunset n all. But dont do it alone. A mortar round come in an tag you and you be stuck here, aint no-one to get help. Theres Taliban over there watchin us right now, you can be sure.

Bulldog laughs when I asked whether the Americans also have a rule like the Canadians about non-fraternization (i.e., no sexual relations allowed on base).

Awww, thats bullshit man. We can die any day and they want us to stop livin? Hell no.

The Americans do have the same rule about fraternization and the same ban on all alcohol, but the Dutch dont. They are allowed to drink and shag as much as they like. I wouldnt be surprised if they had another kind of coffee shop on their tented grounds.

I must stop writing now. I’ve eaten too many Oreo cookies and feel kinda sick. Plus, there’s a Chicken Royal with cheese dinner awaiting me at Burger King. Life is rough in war time. Soon I’ll find out how different life is “Outside the Wire.”

Finbarr O’Reilly is a Reuters photographer based in West Africa. Originally from Canada, he is on assignment in Afghanistan covering Canadian military operations against Taliban forces.

 Finbarr O’Reilly is a Reuters photographer based in Dakar, Senegal covering West and Central Africa. He won World Press Photo of the Year in 2006.

Our desire as journalists to reach the scene of a plane crash that killed 114 people in Cameroon last week was tempered by the fear of what we would find once we got there.

Any accident site is bound to be grisly.

But this one was worse than most after misguided search efforts took two days to locate the wreckage of the Kenya Airways Boeing 737-800 which went missing shortly after taking off from Douala airport late on May 4.

Tropical heat at the crash site, a fetid mangrove swamp surrounded by dense forest, meant bodies rotted quickly.

Reporters and photographers were granted access only after being made to wait six hours in the sweltering sun by Cameroonian soldiers who seemed more bent on asserting their authority than assisting the recovery mission.

International interest ran high because passengers from more than 20 countries were on board the stricken aircraft.

Among them was an Associated Press journalist Anthony Mitchell, a Nairobi-based correspondent returning home to Kenya after an assignment.

I did not know Mitchell, a Briton, but many friends and colleagues did and whenever the journalistic community loses one of its own there is a profound sense of loss and disbelief that goes beyond normal sadness at the human tragedy.

Journalists working in Africa often face risks.

Bouncing along on the back of a rickety truck with rebels crossing a remote desert war zone, or sitting on a box of grenades in a dilapidated military plane bumping through the air high above a jungle is part of our job.

We frequently cover stories that involve death and sometimes use grisly humour to cope.

But there were no jokes on this day.

NEED TO SEE

Wading through knee-deep mud, clinging to dripping vines or using hacked off tree branches as walking sticks, local and foreign journalists struggled to the crash site.

The smell hit us first. The overpowering odour of spilled jet fuel and decomposition made several journalists sick. Others fainted.

More than once, I wondered why such a ghoulish mission was necessary. The argument given to obstructive soldiers was that it is important for people to see what happened.

But I asked myself whether this was true. What could be gained from seeing this?

The answer came in the quiet presence of Kamal Shah, a 32-year-old Kenyan whose wife, Meera, 30, was on the plane on her way home from a short business trip.

With family members banned from the crash site, Shah posed as a journalist to gain access.

As we busied ourselves with our work, Shah slowly and silently picked his way through the stinking mud, twisted metal, tree roots, scattered clothing, a dead snake and other debris.

After several hours, he came up to me, covered in mud and sweating.

Somehow, he’d recovered his wife’s wallet from the mess.

“It means a lot just to find this, to see her smile on her photo ID,” he said, his lips and hands trembling.

People do want to see, in order to understand. Still, some things are best not photographed.

Among the debris were private items — smiling family pictures, birthday cards, intimate letters, and identity documents — all too heartbreakingly personal to show.

Working as a photographer allows a certain remove from the subject matter, as we try to capture images that tell the story.

But at one point, while reporting in details to our Dakar office for a print story, I looked down to find my foot submerged in muck and standing on part of a corpse.

I was revolted, but even more, I felt guilty.

Who was it? A mother, a crew member, someone travelling to visit their lover? There’s no way ever to know.

Mud washes off at the end of the day.

But thoughts of our own mortality do not.
Finbarr O’Reilly