Photographers Blog

The rebel march to Tripoli

By Bob Strong

The Libyan rebel march to Tripoli – from the mountains to the coast

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In late July we pulled up to a Libyan rebel checkpoint outside the mountain town of Nalut and I got my first look at the fighting force. One rebel had his helmet on backwards, a few of them were armed with only knives, and random gunfire filled the air as men test fired their new weapons. It felt like the rebels couldn’t defeat a boy scout troop, much less Gaddafi’s well equipped army. As usual, I was dead wrong.

The rebels advance from the west began in the small towns at the base of the Nafusa Mountains in late July. The day we arrived, July 28, rebels had pushed Gaddafi forces out of a series of villages and set their sights on Tiji, a strategic garrison town on a main road leading to Tripoli.

With no electricity in the nearby towns, the Reuters team of reporter Michael Georgy, myself and a driver based ourselves in a hotel across the border in Tunisia. This meant getting up at 6am every day, crossing the Libyan border, and driving 3 hours to the front lines. We would usually get back to the hotel around 9 or 10 at night, eat and sleep.

Poppy politics

It’s not hard to find a field of poppies in the village of Jelawar, north of Kandahar. Some are hidden discreetly behind mud walls but others have been brazenly planted within sight of the main road. During a recent patrol, I accompanied Afghan National Army Captain Imran (he uses one name) and a group of U.S. civil affairs soldiers on a tour of Jelawar’s back roads as they tried to assess the extent of this year’s opium production.

The first field we came to was a couple of hundred meters across, filled with pink poppy flowers in full bloom. There were several men working the field and Imran asked them what they were doing. A farmer looked up from pulling weeds and said they were working on their onions. Indeed, in a poppy field the size of a football stadium there were a handful of green onion shoots pushing out of the soil. Not exactly the perfect cover, especially after the farmer admitted to planting the poppies in the first place.

As we walked from one poppy field to the next, Imran was not amused. Finally, he gathered a group of farmers together to give them some bad news. “President Karzai has said it is illegal to grow opium poppies and that they must be destroyed. I give you 48 hours to cut down your plants or I will return with Afghan police and Afghan soldiers and we will force you to destroy these fields.”

The farmers protested. What about the money we have already spent to prepare the fields and irrigate the land? Why not let us harvest this year’s crop and we will not plant next year? Imran was firm. “My hands are tied”, he said. “If I let one farmer harvest his crop then I must let everyone harvest their crops. Everyone must be treated in the same manner.”

Fighting Season 2011. The wait for opening day

It’s springtime in the Arghandab Valley, north of Kandahar. Birds are chirping, the grape vines are covered with fresh green leaves and the fields are filled with farmers tending to their new crops. There is an air of calm but everyone is quietly waiting for the real season to arrive. The fighting season.

Last summer this fertile valley was scene to some of the fiercest fighting of the war. During a two week embed at Combat Outpost Nolen, a three-man Reuters team of Rob Taylor, Christophe Vanderperre, and myself, witnessed a daily barrage of small arms fire, rocket propelled grenades and watched as soldiers injured by improvised mines were flown away in medevac helicopters.

The soldiers were with the U.S. Army’s 1-320 Field Artillery Regiment, and last July they had just arrived in Afghanistan to assume control of four small outposts in this lush, rural valley. In the first two weeks of their deployment they had suffered multiple amputations from ied explosions and one man had been killed by sniper fire.

Their commander, Lt Col David Flynn, called the area surrounding their base “a veritable minefield.”

Fast forward eight months. The 1-320 is preparing to leave Afghanistan and return home. But they are leaving a remarkably different place. I’ve just returned for another embed and am struck by the changes.

Life and death on a medevac helicopter

Taking pictures of people who are suffering and in pain is never an easy experience. From the jump seat in the back of a Blackhawk medevac helicopter, a constant stream of injured, dead and dying men and women passed in front of me during a recent week-long embed. The wounds were as varied as the patients; an Afghan soldier with kidney stones to a Marine whose legs had been nearly severed by an IED blast.

The medevac helicopter crews were part of the 101st Airborne Division based at Camp Dwyer, a dusty Marine base in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province.  During my one week embed with Charlie Company, I would generally work from 6am until it got dark around 7:30pm. The busiest times of day seemed to be in the morning and then again in the afternoon, but calls were received 24 hours a day. About 50% of our patients were Afghan nationals, both military and civilians; with injuries ranging from amputated limbs blown off by IED’s to stab wounds from domestic disputes. The military medical facilities offer the same level of care to locals and soldiers alike, in no small part to gain a bit of good will in this hostile and volatile province.

One morning I was in my tent when the call went out over the radios, “Medevac Medevac Medevac” I joined the crew as we sprinted to the helicopter and within minutes we were airborne. The noise inside was deafening, and earplugs brought the level down to a dull roar. After about 15 minutes, the pilot increased our speed to around 175 mph (280 km/h) and we dropped to tree-top level for our final approach. The helicopter rotors kicked up a cloud of dust as we touched down and the flight medic jumped out to help board the wounded.

A group of Marines were already running towards the door carrying a litter with an injured comrade. The soldier was conscious as they placed him onto the floor and one Marine reached out to shake his hand before leaving. A moment later, a second litter arrived with a more serious casualty. The Marine had no vital signs and the flight medic immediately began CPR while the crew chief pumped air into his lungs.  They worked on the wounded man for the entire flight back to the hospital, about 20 minutes, and as soon as they arrived, a nurse jumped onto the gurney and continued to pump his chest.

Life in a minefield

The last day of our Reuters multimedia embed at COP Nolen.

0600 July 30th, 2010.

I woke up and watched as two squads of U.S. Army soldiers exited Combat Outpost Nolen, a small base in the heart of the volatile Arghandab Valley. One squad would try to demolish a wall that insurgents used as cover to fire AK-47’s and RPG’s at the base almost daily. The other squad carried concertina wire to surround a couple of nearby abandoned houses in an attempt to deny insurgents locations to plant Improvised Explosive Devices (IED’s).

Moments later, the base was rocked by a huge explosion. A column of smoke and dust rose just 20 meters outside the walls and we heard the cries of a soldier in agony. Troops rushed into the base and called for a Medivac helicopter. I threw on my flak jacket and helmet and ran outside the gates to the scene of the blast.

I rounded the corner into a courtyard and saw one soldier sitting on the ground being treated, his face pockmarked with shrapnel wounds. A sergeant yelled at soldiers to secure the landing zone for the Medivac helicopter.

A stretcher was brought to an area behind a nearby wall, and moments later a group of soldiers emerged into the courtyard, carrying a seriously wounded GI. As the litter passed I look into the eyes of the wounded soldier. His face was pale gray, covered in dust, and his eyes were wide open, watching as he was carried to the helicopter landing zone.

An elusive war – December and January in Afghanistan

In the history of embeds, this one has been pretty unremarkable so far. I kicked things off in Dubai with an impulse purchase of a Canon 5D Mark II. Stills and video ! ASA 6400 ! 20 MB files ! It seemed like a great idea until I dropped it in the mud on a patrol. So much for the resale value.

After getting to Bagram Air Base, it took a while until I was able to test out the new gear. We had a four-day wait due to rain, which delayed or cancelled flights and gave me plenty of time to indulge in the ice cream bar at the dining hall.  On day five I got a late-night flight to Jalalabad, where I received a briefing about my embed area and made plans to get further north.  Finally, a week after my embed had officially begun, I took a 20 minute ride on a Chinook helicopter and arrived to Foward Operating Base Bostick, located in Kunar Province about 10 miles from the Pakistan border.

The view from the base is stunning. Snow capped mountains to the east mark the border with Pakistan, the Kunar River runs through the valley, and at night the stars in the Milky Way seem close enough to touch.  This being Christmas, there was a candle-lit church service in the chapel on the 24th, followed on Christmas Day by caroling and hot chocolate. The war seemed pretty far away.

Even though the base at Bostick hasn’t been attacked recently, the area isn’t exactly safe. The only road leading up the Kunar Valley is a dirt track, hardly big enough for a humvee in places, and during my stay two local trucks were stopped and burned, one driver was killed and another kidnapped.  Whether this was insurgent related or the work of criminal gangs wasn’t immediately known, but it did send a strong message to other drivers who were bringing goods into the valley.

The area of my embed extends from Bostick up to a couple of small combat outposts in Nuristan Province, and January 5th, after two weeks at FOB Bostick, I finally got the helicopter up to Combat Outpost Lowell. Lowell has the dubious honor of being one of the most heavily attacked US military bases in Afghanistan. It is located in a strategic position at the intersection of two valleys, and as such, is an important checkpoint for deterring insurgent movement north to south and east to west. It unfortunately also sits in a natural bowl, surrounded on all sides by tree covered hills, which make excellent cover for the local fighers to fire down from with their AK-47′s, RPG’s, mortars and so on.

Like a speed bump with guns – Back in Baghdad II

The embed process is not a perfect beast. You can end up stuck for days waiting for a patrol, get placed with an unfriendly unit or spend a month without seeing much in the way of war. On the other hand  sometimes it’s a photographers dream; lots of action, compelling images and a mountain of praise from your peers. It’s a crap shoot and the only thing you can count on is that you can’t count on anything.

My embed up to now has pretty much been a train wreck. 

It started out on Dec 2 with a two-day wait for a helicopter ride up to Baquba, 50 kms north of Baghdad. I went out on one patrol, then joined AP photographer Marko Drobnjakovic and moved east to another base near Muqdadiya. As soon as we arrived we went up to the roof to check our sat phones. His worked great, mine didn’t. I’d tested the phone twice before, so this was a very unwelcome surprise and if there is one piece of equipment you really need in Iraq, it’s a good sat phone. The army had internet, but they politely declined to let me use it and the base internet cafe would not let you send attachments. So there we are, 100 kms northeast of Baghdad on a little military post, ready to get to work, but with no means to transmit. Aside from no phone, it wasn’t long before I had other problems. A big operation was planned for the day after we arrived and the press officer gave me to one unit and Marko to another.  Marko’s unit kicked in doors and took prisoners, mine sat in their armored vehicle for 8 hours in what is known as a ‘blocking’ position. Like a speed bump with guns. To top it off, the lead vehicle in our convoy got hit by a roadside bomb (no casualties) and I could not get out to shoot a photo. It happened 500 meters away but it might as well have been 500 miles.

So after 8 days on embed I had been out on two patrols and one useless operation, transmitted 18 photos and was developing an ulcer.

On Dec 10 I decided to return to the larger base in Baquba and try to sort out the phone problems. 

Back in Baghdad; a first look

My last visit to Iraq was six months ago and as I returned to Baghdad on Saturday for a month-long embed, I wondered if anything had really changed. Sometimes it’s the little things you notice first.  Like the new luggage trolleys in the airport arrivals area, or the long queue of taxis outside waiting for customers, where before there had only been a dusty bus to the main checkpoint. Or the way the security contractors getting off my flight, instead of flashing their DOD badges and strolling past immigration officials like before, now step into a special line next to the visa office and produce sheafs of documents for a thorough pre-entry governmental screening.

Route Irish, the infamously dangerous highway leading from the airport to central Baghdad, was at one time marked by almost daily suicide car bombings.  Today the ride is quiet, the highway almost deserted. Instead of the circuitous route once required by road closures and checkpoint bottlenecks, we now take a more direct path and arrive quickly to Abu Nawas, a broad avenue on the banks of the Tigris River which has been recently been reopened by the government.

The riverfront was once famous for its restaurants serving grilled fish,  which disappeared after the war and the area had become an inhospitable dustbowl, deserted save for few mongrel dogs and the occasional army patrol. But as we drive down the boulevard today I see a few restaurants have returned and children are playing in a freshly scrubbed park.

We arrive at the office and I’m greeted by colleagues and old friends. Through good times and bad times, their wonderful Iraqi hospitality has never wavered. As I talk to the staff, I ask if maybe things are getting better, that maybe the worse is over.  To a person the answer is the same, “Inshallah” – God willing.