Drama of the desert dash as soldiers run 2kms to seize top bomb-maker

Soldiers from the Black Country ran two kilometres in a dramatic desert dash to capture one of the Taliban's top bomb-makers in Afghanistan.

Loaded down with 60kg packs, they covered the distance in seven minutes to help an unarmed comrade who had dragged the insurgent from a motorbike.

They then became involved in a tense face-to-face showdown with locals armed with AK47 machine guns who wanted to snatch the prisoner back.

Three men of the Mercian Regiment were left just feet away from the Afghans in open ground — all with their fingers on triggers.

"All we needed was some tacos and we would have been in a proper Mexican stand-off," joked Sergeant Jonathan Werrett from Walsall today.

The 31-year-old, along with Corporal Robert Hirst, aged 28, also from Walsall, and Lance Corporals Ashley Coxon, 25, and Matt Ryder, 23, both from Burton upon Trent, had raced to the aid of Private Lee Stephens, aged 30, from Solihull, who had leaped from his Warrior armoured vehicle to tackle a suspected suicide bomber.

The man turned out to be a long-wanted insurgent, a bomb making expert and the highest ranking Taliban captured by regular British forces.

Sgt Werrett said: "It was a case of kit on, good to go, skiing down gravel as we headed down hill towards the scene.

"It took us about seven minutes to do 2kms. It was pretty hard going, midday, 30-35 degrees, with up to 60kg each on our backs." When they got to the scene four Afghan men had arrived and one was claiming the detainee had personally killed his brother.

He said he would die before leaving without the prisoner.

Cpl Ryder cuffed the detainee and put him in the back of a Warrior, which then had to leave to support another team coming under fire. Sgt Werrett, Cpl Hirst and LCpl Coxon were left facing off against the Afghans.

The sergeant, whose wife was nine months' pregnant at the time, said: "They were moving around their vehicles. One seemed to be deciding on his weapon of choice. He picked up a PKM (machine gun) first, loaded that, then went back in and got an AK47 for the rest of his crew.

"He then sat in the vehicle with the weapon pointing in our direction.

"We were slightly undermanned. I gave the three of us some target identification if it all went south."

They each had a man to take down, with one left over.

They were only two or three metres from the Afghans, down on one knee to make themselves as small a target as possible.

Sgt Werrett said: "We stood there looking at each other.

"We had our weapons down, they had their weapons pointing at us.

"We just waited for the situation to calm down. And slowly, without saying a word, we began to move away from each other and that was it."

The suspect cannot be named for security reasons. Lieutenant Colonel Giles Woodhouse, Commanding Officer, 3 Mercian, said: "We know he was highly wanted and was active within the area. He was a known bomb maker and instructed others in the making of IEDs.

"He was the highest level of insurgent that has been detained by soldiers from Task Force Helmand to date and for that we are extremely proud."