Book description
In April 2006 a small British peace-keeping force was sent to Helmand
province in southern Afghanistan. Within weeks they were cut off and
besieged by some of the world's toughest fighters: the infamous
Taliban, who were determined to send the foreigners home again.
Defence Secretary John Reid had hoped that Operation Herrick 4 could
be accomplished without a shot being fired; instead, the Army was
drawn into the fiercest fighting it had seen for fifty years. Millions
of bullets and thousands of lives have been expended since then in an
under-publicized but bitter conflict whose end is still not in sight.
Some people consider it the fourth Anglo-Afghan War since Victorian
times. How on earth did this happen? And what is it like for the
troops on the front line of the 'War on Terror'?
James Fergusson takes us to the dark heart of the battle zone. Here,
in their own words and for the first time, are the young veterans of
Herrick 4. Here, unmasked, are the civilian and military officials
responsible for planning and executing the operation. Here, too, are
the Taliban themselves, to whom Fergusson gained unique and
extraordinary access. Controversial, fascinating and occasionally
downright terrifying, A Million Bullets analyses the sorry
slide into war in Helmand and asks this most troubling question: could
Britain perhaps have avoided the violence altogether?
James Fergusson
is a freelance journalist and foreign correspondent who has written for
many publications including the
Independent, The Times,
the
Daily Telegraph,
the
Daily Mail
and
The Economist
. From 1997 he reported from Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan,
covering that city's fall to the Taliban. In 1998 he became the first
western journalist in more than two years to interview the fugitive
warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. He lives in Edinburgh and is married with
two children.
