Alex Crawford is Asia correspondent for Sky News based in New Delhi. She has been embedded with the British, American, Sri Lankan and Pakistani militaries. Here she talks about combining embedded reporting from both sides of the Afghan conflict. While a general picture of the conflict may be possible based on time spent with either of the fighting forces, she says, much of the truth about how the war is going will be filled in by the civilians at the centre of it all
Parwan Province, Afghanistan, August 2009
They filed past me carrying a range of weapons: one held a land mine, another had an RPG on his shoulder, others had grenades strapped to their waists and AK-47s slung over their shoulders. There was a large home-made bomb which had been built into what looked like a milk urn. "They're easy to make. They take just a couple of hours," the young man tells me. "And we can kill hundreds."
Camp Alpha X-ray, Helmand Province, Afghanistan, June 2007
In the dark, they spotted the enemy. They were moving among the trees not even a hundred metres away. They looked to be taking up positions, planning an attack. Within twenty minutes, bombs had been unleashed on the targets. The bombs lit up the sky and the trees for several seconds as they exploded. A half a dozen men next to me opened fire with machine guns, rifles, mortar shells: everything they had. The movement in the trees had stopped. "They can't match us for firepower," the young man tells me earnestly. "We're killing them in their hundreds. We've got them on the run."
Sound familiar? Sound similar? The first men are the foot soldiers of the Hekmatyar group, one of the two most powerful militant fighting forces in Afghanistan; the second, soldiers from Her Majesty's Armed Forces. Which one is telling the truth? Which one is using me, the reporter, for propaganda purposes? And am I a willing participant by dint of being there and recording what they are doing? I have sat in on numerous un-attributable briefings while senior policy-makers tell me with no hint of embarrassment or a flicker of conscience just how well the "war" is going. They tell me how much the Afghan people welcome them and how much progress the Western forces are making. And this has gone on for the best part of eight years.
And I have sat cross-legged on a floor and broken bread with militants who tell me the West never hears about the many attacks they launch against US and British forces; that we Western reporters don't tell the truth; that the militants are having numerous battlefield successes, downing Western helicopters and killing many soldiers. They tell me as long as the foreign forces are in Afghanistan, they will never be accepted and there will continue to be fighting and deaths. And that's gone on for pretty much most of the eight years too.
Of course, those on both sides of a conflict want and in many cases need to get their message out and, of course, reporters and camera crews are the channels used to do just this. But this does not mean the journalist is any less questioning or that experience and knowledge fall by the wayside.
Importance of reporting from both sides
I am of the firm belief you cannot possibly get a rounded view of any conflict if you only ever get reports from one side. But the very nature of war means it is fantastically difficult, if not impossible, for a single journalist to cover both sides and certainly not possible at the same time. Sky News attempts to cover all the bases by sending multiple reporters to the war zone. Since the Afghan invasion in 2001, my colleague and Sky's chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay has been on multiple military embeds while I have spent considerably more time with the "other side" – the militants.
But the two of us have also done both sides and swapped roles. It is not just important for the viewer to see both sides of the war. It is essential the journalist too sees the conflict from both ends. There may be anecdotal evidence of past reporting of wars being compromised by the actual bias of the journalists involved (the Spanish civil war is a case in point) but in the modern, multi-media age where from our own experience even in the most remote areas we have good communications, it is impossible to imagine you could actually get away with it – or pervert the truth and ignore the facts – unless, of course, you were utterly determined to do so.
The mood, tempo, morale of any conflict is constantly changing – and it is important to get an accurate and informed view of how the conflict is going from both sides at roughly the same period of time to get any handle on how it is going for both sides. So when I entered Basra three weeks after the troops did during the invasion of Iraq in late March 2003, morale amongst the British there appeared high. They had every reason to be optimistic at this point. Their arrival in Iraq had gone fairly well, they had achieved it apparently with little resistance of any note and they were well on the way to achieving their objectives.
My cameraman Martin Smith and I were travelling as "independents" and after staying with the troops at the Presidential Palace and filing a number of reports about the situation in Basra, we then moved up to Baghdad. There, just a few weeks after the American troops had triumphantly swept through the capital declaring victory and drawing no defensive attacks at all it seemed, there was a very different picture.
The Americans may have moved into the city with ease but already the cracks were beginning to show. As we drove round the city there were several fires in buildings which had been started by looters. We spotted some teenage Iraqi boys being marched down an alleyway by three American soldiers. One of them looked no more than ten. The soldiers were handling them rather roughly and Martin bounded out of our vehicle, camera in hand to capture the scene. I was a few minutes behind him (not as quick or as agile as Smithie) and was still on the other side of the street when the soldiers began firing – at Martin.
Policing the peace was not on the agenda
There was a fair amount of shouting and more firing but what seemed to be the gist of it was this: the soldiers had taken great exception to Martin filming them bundling three young men, hands bound behind, them into the back of a truck. The soldiers looked extremely hot, dressed in full combat gear in mid-April and they were tired: by this stage they believed or hoped the war was all but over. Policing the peace had not been on the agenda and it was apparent they did not much care for it.
We went on to report about a young Iraqi boy who had been kidnapped by a criminal gang which was demanding a ransom from his parents. They spoke over and over again about how rare this was in Iraq, how crime itself had always been so low under Saddam Hussein, how kidnapping was such an unknown phenomenon they had no idea what to do or how to handle it. They were already beginning to articulate the unwelcome changes in their country with the fall of a dictator. Sky News balanced its coverage of the successful military invasion with these reports. Any euphoria the politicians might have felt about how well the military campaign was going must have surely begun to dissipate. Or it should have.
Whenever I meet any militants, the conversation always turns to whether I am a spy either for Britain or more often America. They want to know what I am going to do with my footage, am I garnering their secrets about bomb-making, about weapons stores, about camps, simply to pass on to the intelligence agencies in my own country. I spend a large part of any approach to them reassuring them this is not the case, that much the same way the British and American military do not expect you to give away locations or show footage which would give the people they are fighting an unfair advantage, that I will adhere to certain rules of conduct with the militants too. So, describing or identifying locations are a no-no. Generalised filming which gives a loose impression of how they put together a roadside bomb is acceptable but a detailed examination of materials and construction is not. Apart from giving away "secrets", the broadcaster has a responsibility not to unwittingly educate a whole host of others in the art of bomb-building.
Gaining access to the Hekmatyar group
In late August 2009, I was given extraordinary access to the Gulbaddin Hekmatyar group. I travelled to a number of different fighting cells in four different provinces of Afghanistan – Parwan, Logar, Kabul and Wardak. Not only did this give me an insight into how confident they were about moving around the country, I was also able to assess how well trained or armed they were, how well developed their battle plans were/are, how informed their leaders were, how sophisticated their outfit is. During this period I was able to also talk to and interview the main presidential contender, Abdullah Abdullah, British government officials and the Afghan President Hamid Karzai (albeit at a news conference) – and during every encounter with officialdom they poo-pooed the strength of the Hekmatyar group.
There was the diplomatic equivalent of scoffing at whether this former Afghan Prime Minister-turned-renegade had the numbers, the weaponry, the funding or the back-up. Their attitude seemed at odds with the situation I was finding on the ground. Compared to the Taliban groups I had encountered, this outfit was exceedingly well funded. Their weapons appeared new, well looked after and varied and they had plenty of them. The weaponry was a mixture of Russian and Chinese-made as well as equipment and weapons they had snatched from the Afghan army and police during attacks. At one meeting I had, each of the militants had a satellite phone plus walkie-talkies to communicate with each other as well as mobile phones. The arrangements for meeting them were complex and multi-layered involving a number of messengers and different levels of "support staff" – some who clearly knew more than others.
In Wardak province, I found they were extremely comfortable about meeting me outside in the open countryside – and were so confident they would not be discovered that they even fired a couple of shots while showing me their guns. An American aircraft flew over us as we all sat in a gully of a mountain and they barely registered it – glancing upwards but seeing it as no danger or threat. My point is without actively spending time with the "other side", there can be no Big Picture – but the "other side" is pretty much an embed too – just less official but all the usual, standard checks apply.
I had gone to meet the militant group in a vehicle, dressed in a burqa with a trusted driver and an Afghan friend who was acting as my interpreter. We were just given an area to head towards which we did. Once we arrived we were told to ring our "contact". He was clearly watching us via binoculars although we could not see where he was. He directed us by phone off the main road and down a rough track leading through a small community of farmhouses. Here we were met by an older man who was wearing traditional shalwar kameez and was on a motorbike. He beckoned through the car window for us to hand over all our telephones and communication equipment.
We then followed him on his bike until the vehicle could go no further. We continued on foot and made our way up a mountain path until we turned a corner and saw our first Hekmatyar "soldier". He was wearing a green shalwar kameez and had a belt with grenade pockets and a chain of bullets on him and held an AK47. He nodded to the farmer who had taken us this far and he returned down the hill. We were searched and then allowed to continue, following our new chaperone deeper into the mountain countryside. After about half an hour of walking, he motioned to us to stop and wait.
"You are a brave woman. What do you want from us?"
Four men on the neighbouring hill came over the brow and fanned out, taking up positions behind rocks. I saw one of them kneel down and peer through binoculars looking down at the route we had just taken. He was checking to see whether we had been followed. These men were not taking any chances. Once they were satisfied I had not drawn unwanted attention nor, indeed, led anyone to them, we were allowed to carry on trekking up the mountain. When I finally reached the meeting place (which was a gully with a small stream and surrounding rockfaces on three sides) they were there, waiting for me. A group of fighting men, all carrying weapons and wearing a mixture of black balaclavas or scarves wrapped round their faces. High up on the surrounding rocks several men were taking up positions as look-outs. One of them was filming me as I filmed them. The commander's first words to me were: "You are a brave woman. What do you want from us?"
When I had completed my filming and all my interviews, the commander insisted on sending me back down the mountainside with an escort of four of his men "for my safety". Once back in our vehicle, where I found my confiscated telephones, he rang to check I had made it OK.
Whether you've arrived at a British military base in Helmand after filling out countless MoD application forms or whether you find yourself on a mountainside in Wardak province with militants, you are "embedding" with a fighting force with a particular point of view – and this should be and is reflected in our coverage/reporting. Each side will naturally attempt to put the best spin on their endeavours and are unlikely to enjoy spelling out their mistakes or short-comings. But they will not be able to disguise those shortcomings entirely. By being with them, living alongside them, talking to them, the reporter will be able to get an insight into how they're doing, how well equipped they are, how they feel the conflict is going. Is a reporter more likely to morph into a British soldier if embedded with them than transform into an Afghan militant if time is spent with the rebels? Embeds have always been in existence in various forms although perhaps not officially acknowledged. And since time began, reporters have had to sift the wheat from the chaff, the truth from the lies.
The key difference between the two types of embeds is that the military embed is driven by politics and policy from 10 Downing Street – and the fighters of militant groups are there through ideology and fanaticism. They don't need diktats from Whitehall to know what they are fighting for or the direction they are going – and they are much more likely to go off message as a result.
A general picture may be possible based on time spent with either of the fighting forces, but much of the truth and an accurate perception of how the war is going will be filled in by the civilians at the centre of it all.
Reporters in the business of piecing together the patchwork
I have met poppy farmers and filmed drug traffickers operating in the Tora Bora mountains. My crew and I have trekked into northern Afghanistan and reached remote villages and communities in Badakshan where the maternal mortality rate is the second highest in the world. I have interviewed families who have sold their children to raise money to eat and sat weeping while a young girl told me how she had been sold at 10 and had set herself alight to escape her cruel "husband". Reporting is a patchwork and we as journalists are in the business of piecing together the patchwork and coming up with a quilt of sorts.
I have seen the gradual change in public opinion in Afghanistan since the toppling of the Taliban in 2001 to the present day. Hindsight is a fantastic weapon but more than two years ago my crew and I detected a strong distrust growing of the British and American troops in Afghanistan. We were embedded in Helmand and travelled from Camp Bastion then on to Lashkar Gar before travelling to FOB Sandford and then to Camp Alpha X-ray which took us to within fewer than a hundred metres of the Taliban attackers.
The idea was to show us not only how much progress the British military was making but also how they were involved in construction, re-building and making strides in reaching out to the Afghan population.
We had only just begun the day's filming at a small community near Camp Alpha X-ray in Helmand when an elderly farmer, clearly unhappy, beckoned the British soldiers and us to come around the back of his house. We followed both the farmer and the British soldier and as we turned the corner we saw the back of his house had been flattened. It was rubble. You didn't need to speak Pashto to work out the farmer was furious and distraught to boot. "He says it was your bomb which did this," the interpreter told the hapless soldier who was acutely aware his mission to show the Sky crew just how welcome his men were in this community, was now falling apart – quite spectacularly.
Now if we had based our whole report on this one incident that may well have given the impression the British troops were not making any progress at all, whereas the situation to us appeared to be mixed – and that is how I wrote my report. No-one stopped me, nor was there any attempt to curtail my reporting. But those are the rules, they actually can't. Like wars, the embeds change too. When the public mood is changing, and that change is negative, then the military hierarchy get edgy, jumpy and defensive.
The militants get edgy, too, when things go wrong. Sound familiar? My reports aim to reflect the ground reality and not just the "message" either side wants to portray. It is a basic journalists' rule. Why should it be any different if you are embedded?
Extracts from the book will be published by Journalism.co.uk over the course of this week and there will be a launch event at the Frontline Club on 15 September: Who is Winning the Media War in Afghanistan?
Afghanistan, War and the Media: Deadlines and Frontlines (ISBN 9781845494445) is published by Abramis on 13 September.
Art editor
