MEMBERS OF British and Afghan special forces were seriously injured during last week’s Kabul siege after Afghanistan’s interior minister barged onto the scene at 3am and ordered the “cowards” to rush the final assault, Afghan and international officials say.
Even as fighting raged on the upper floors of a 12-storey condemned building site that insurgents had used to fire missiles at the US embassy, cabinet minister Bismillah Khan Muhammadi (50) marched into the ground floor at around 3am and ordered a new team to be thrown into the fight.
Well-informed sources have painted an extraordinary picture of a senior official who not only remained in the building while fighting continued, but also accused commanders of being cowards and threatened to sack them unless they hurried up. A shocked official from Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said that by bypassing the established chain of command Mr Muhammadi sent the mission into disarray, spoiling what had until that point been a painstaking and careful effort by Afghan forces.
“The troops that he sent in were not properly briefed or prepared, which may well have led to them taking casualties. By taking complete command of the entire operation he undermined all levels of command below him, rendering them ineffective,” the official said.
Five Afghan commandos from the reserve unit Mr Muhammadi had ordered into the building were injured as they raced up the building. Another had been wounded earlier in the operation, which took 20 hours to complete.
In addition five British special forces soldiers, most likely from the Special Air Service, who were mentoring the Afghans, were wounded by grenades thrown in the abandoned building site.
Another Isaf official said the British casualties were taken to a Nato medical facility where at least one man was operated on. – ( Guardianservice)