On Friday 14 September 2012 fifteen Taliban suicide attackers dressed in US army uniforms breached Camp Bastion's airfield defences. Before dawn the next day all but one of the attackers were dead but they took two US Marines with them, decimated a squadron of Harrier jump jets, caused $400 million of physical damage and inflicted untold reputational damage on NATO. I was in Camp Bastion that summer, a vehicle mechanicdeployed with 4-Battalion REME Light Vehicles Platoon from April to October and completed over a dozen airfield guard duties. I know the corner of the airfield where the attack took place intimatley, so well that I predicted such an attack exactly one week before; I was twice refused permission to illuminate the valley with a flare when I saw our defences being probed at 9:30pm on September 07, told repeatedly "Don't worry so much" by the guard commanders whose arrogant incomputence scared me more than Taliban RPGs.
Camp Bastion (aka Camp Leatherneck to US forces) was built on the site of an old Soviet airfield and had been chosen for the security benefits of not having immediate neighbours. And then British commanders allowedan opium producing village to be built in the previously barren desert just 150-meters from our fence. The poppy fields were irrigated by a water source inside the NATO main operating base, our treated effluent. The photos below are referenced to the satellite image of Camp Bastion reveal facts not reported before, intended for readers to orientate themselves to the location and circumstances of the attack.The British senior commander's fatal incomputence and the subsequent cover up (lies and omissions in both the Britishand U.S.A.'s Inquiries) to be added.
