On the Friday before the Taliban’s attack I was in an airfield guard tower watching someone reconnoitre / probe our defences at about 9:30 p.m. They were crouched in a roadside ditch about 600-metres away but still clearly visible through the thermal imaging scope we had. I reported it to the guard commander by radio twice, asking to fire an illumination flare, but I was denied permission and told not to worry so much.

Seven days later, on Friday 14th at about 10:00 p.m. fifteen Taliban attackers breached our defences before destroying $400-million of kit and killing two US Marines on the airfield. These re[ports are part of my efforts to ensure all lessons have been learnt and all is being done to prevent such easily avoidable losses occurring again. I’ve produced two reports on the Battle of Camp Bastion:

Battle of Camp Bastion .pdf file — Ten page report, published December 2021

The Battle of Camp Bastion .pdf file — Forty-one page report, published January 2017

Both reports contain secondary testimony from Iain Reid. He is a former Scots Guards soldier, counter terrorism assigned police officer and in 2011 was a senior private military contractor in Camp Bastion. Reid attended the weekly Camp Bastion security briefings and his testimony details the disfunctional shambles that were our defences. I have his express permission to credit him with the quotes in my reports.