Toby Harnden: Journalist and Author

Monday, January 23, 2006

In Afghanistan

Am currently in Kabul. Can be contacted on the usual emails but cannot pick up any mobile phone voice messages here.

#posted by Toby @ 8:01 AM

Monday, January 16, 2006

Sniper hit rate

Not that kind of hit rate.

According to Marcus Warren, my friend and former Daily Telegraph colleague, my sniper story of Jan 1st has received 52,095 hits so far this year, making it the eighth most read Telegraph story of 2006 (OK, I realise we're barely two weeks into it). Today, it was re-published in the Washington Times while my bomb disposal story of a few weeks back, also from Ramadi, was re-published in "The Week", a summary of the best of the British press. Can't wait until I start getting a share of some of these syndication fees...

#posted by Toby @ 7:39 PM

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Oh, what a week...

(written Mon Jan 9th)

Got up just before 5am on Wednesday to head for Kiev, capital of the Ukraine, with Julian Simmonds to cover the crisis sparked by Russia turning off the natural gas pipeline that passes through the country. First time I had ever been there and the region is certainly not a specialist subject of mine ("Er, maybe we can interview that guy with the bad skin or the woman with the plaits?" just about summed up my ideas).

Matters weren't helped by the terrible sore throat I picked up on the plane, exacerbated by my going out in the freezing cold without a hat (Kiev in January -yes, I think one might reasonably have expected me to anticipate it would be cold). And even before we'd landed, a deal had been struck between the Russians and Ukrainians. The story was fast disappearing.

But before I'd had to grapple with how to write for Sunday about an issue that seemed to have been resolved - for the time being at least - on Wednesday, in a city where the whole political class seemed to be on holiday (Saturday was Christmas there), the news popped up that Ariel Sharon, the Israeli premier, had suffered a massive stroke. "Proceed to Israel, do not pass go," was the (correct, and somewhat welcome) order from the office. Poor Julian had to go back to London, the only thing he'd gained from the trip being a now-cherished orange towel emblazoned with the words in Russian, loosely translated (according to our fixer Alexander) as: "I feel like a badger's arse in the morning."

Arriving late on Thursday, even in a place I am reasonably familiar with, is always a bit of a nightmare. There is no time to develop anything or get under the skin of what's going on - it's simply a rush to get something that will pass muster. So I headed to Kiryat Arba, a hard-line Jewish settlement on the edge of Hebron to meet some of the Rabbi Meir Kahane followers who believed Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for his betrayal over the Gaza withdrawal.

Not the most original or subtle idea, I suppose - heading straight for the outer echelons of the lunatic fringe. But needs must and they did not disappoint. Shmuel Ben-Isai, a 47-year-old father of nine, said he was praying for Sharon to live but suffer horribly. I suppose this was not too surprising from someone who had named one of his children after Yigal Amir, who murdered Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, and had a picture on the wall of Baruch Goldstein, responsible for the massacre of 30 Palestinians in a Hebron mosque the previous year.

He was resolutely against any form of negotiation. "People think we can settle this by agreement," he told me. "I say absolutely the opposite. This idea is why the Jews are losing. No Arabs should live here - they should go, or die. If they leave now, they can save themselves. If not, we'll have to kill them all because this land is for the Jews." He illustrated his point about brute force being more effective than discussion by throwing a punch at me that just (deliberately) just missed my face but was close enough for me to feel the whoosh of air a few millimetres from his knuckles. Apart from that, he was charm personified and, judging by their mugs and the children's toys, the family seemed to have a fondness for Eeyore and Winnie the Pooh.

On Saturday, I also wrote a joint political piece with Harry de Quetteville, the Telegraph stringer in Jerusalem. Normally (and the average reader probably doesn't know this) joint pieces are written without the two journalists even talking to each other, let alone discussing and truly collaborating. The standard routine is for the desk to send one reporter's copy to another - who promptly uses only a tiny bit of it and includes most of his or her own stuff, leaving the first reporter a bit miffed.

But Harry and I did it properly - we sat in his flat in Rehavia with me typing and him passing me his stuff on a thumb drive. We discussed virtually every sentence and he checked the final version before emailing it over. Often, of course, you haven't got the luxury of doing it like that because the reporters are in different places but when possible it works extremely well. It was also quick and the desk was able to do a tiny tweak or two, most notably hardening up the intro - proof that news desks can sometimes improve the copy (bet there are a few people who thought they'd never hear me concede that).

Sharon, of course, did not pass away so I returned to London - exhausted and with my Kiev cold in full bloom - rather than remain on indefinite death watch.

#posted by Toby @ 3:36 PM

Sunday, January 01, 2006

US Army sniper's 1,250-metre shot in Iraq

(Story published Jan 1st, 2006. Graphic by Sunday Telegraph using Julian SImmonds photographs. Other photographs by Toby Harnden)

Sniper shot that took out an insurgent killer from three quarters of a mile

By Toby Harnden in Ramadi

Gazing through the telescopic sight of his M24 rifle, Staff Sgt Jim Gilliland, leader of Shadow sniper team, fixed his eye on the Iraqi insurgent who had just killed an American soldier.

His quarry stood nonchalantly in the fourth-floor bay window of a hospital in battle-torn Ramadi, still clasping a long-barrelled Kalashnikov. Instinctively allowing for wind speed and bullet drop, Shadow's commander aimed 12 feet high.

A single shot hit the Iraqi in the chest and killed him instantly. It had been fired from a range of 1,250 metres, well beyond the capacity of the powerful Leupold sight, accurate to 1,000 metres.

"I believe it is the longest confirmed kill in Iraq with a 7.62mm rifle," said Staff Sgt Gilliland, 28, who hunted squirrels in Double Springs, Alabama from the age of five before progressing to deer - and then people.

"He was visible only from the waist up. It was a one in a million shot. I could probably shoot a whole box of ammunition and never hit him again."

Later that day, Staff Sgt Gilliland found out that the dead soldier was Staff Sgt Jason Benford, 30, a good friend.

The insurgent was one of between 55 and 65 he estimates that he has shot dead in less than five months, putting him within striking distance of sniper legends such as Carlos Hathcock, who recorded 93 confirmed kills in Vietnam. One of his men, Specialist Aaron Arnold, 22, of Medway, Ohio, has chalked up a similar tally.

"It was elating, but only afterwards," said Staff Sgt Gilliland, recalling the September 27 shot. "At the time, there was no high-fiving. You've got troops under fire, taking casualties and you're not thinking about anything other than finding a target and putting it down. Every shot is for the betterment of our cause."

All told, the 10-strong Shadow sniper team, attached to Task Force 2/69, has killed just under 200 in the same period and emerged as the US Army's secret weapon in Ramadi against the threat of the hidden Improvised Explosive Device (IED) or roadside bomb - the insurgency's deadliest tactic.

Above the spot from which Staff Sgt Gilliland took his record shot, in a room at the top of a bombed-out observation post which is code-named Hotel and known jokingly to soldiers as the Ramadi Inn, are daubed "Kill Them All" and "Kill Like you Mean it".

On another wall are scrawled the words of Senator John McCain: "America is great not because of what she has done for herself but because of what she has done for others."

The juxtaposition of macho slogans and noble political rhetoric encapsulates the dirty, dangerous and often callous job the sniper has to carry out as an integral part of a campaign ultimately being waged to help the Iraqi people.

With masterful understatement, Lt Col Robert Roggeman, the Task Force 2/69 commander, conceded: "The romantic in me is disappointed with the reception we've received in Ramadi," a town of 400,000 on the banks of the Euphrates where graffiti boasts, with more than a degree of accuracy: "This is the graveyard of the Americans".

"We're the outsiders, the infidels," he said. "Every time somebody goes out that main gate he might not come back. It's still a running gun battle."

Highly effective though they are, he worries about the burden his snipers have to bear. "It's a very God-like role. They have the power of life and death that, if not held in check, can run out of control. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

"Every shot has to be measured against the Rules of Engagement [ROE], positive identification and proportionality."

Staff Sgt Gilliland explains that his Shadow team operates at the "borderlines" of the ROE, making snap judgements about whether a figure in the crosshairs is an insurgent or not.

"Hunters give their animals respect," he said, spitting out a mouthful of chewing tobacco. "If you have no respect for what you do you're not going to be very good or you're going to make a mistake. We try to give the benefit of the doubt.

"You've got to live with it. It's on your conscience. It's something you've got to carry away with you. And if you shoot somebody just walking down the street, then that's probably going to haunt you."

Although killing with a single shot carries an enormous cachet within the sniper world, their most successful engagements have involved the shooting a up to 10 members of a single IED team.

"The one-shot-one-kill thing is one of beauty but killing all the bad dudes is even more attractive," said Staff Sgt Gilliland, whose motto is "Move fast, shoot straight and leave the rest to the counsellors in 10 years" and signs off his e-mails with "silent souls make.308 holes".

Whether Shadow team's work will ultimately make a difference in Iraq is open to question. No matter how many insurgents they shoot, there seems no shortage of recruits to plant bombs.

Col John Gronski, the overall United States commander in Ramadi, said there could not be a military solution. "You could spend years putting snipers out and killing IED emplacers and at the political level it would make no difference."

As they prepare to leave Iraq, however, Staff Sgt Gilliland and his men hope that they have bought a little more time for the country's politicians to fix peace and stability in their sights.

#posted by Toby @ 11:33 PM

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