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My Profile Top News Reuters top ten news stories delivered to your inbox each day. Subscribe You are here: Home > News > International > Article Home Business & Finance News U.S. Politics International Technology Entertainment Sports Lifestyle Oddly Enough Health Science Special Coverage Video Pictures Your View The Great Debate Blogs Weather Reader Feedback Do More With Reuters RSS Widgets Mobile Podcasts Newsletters Your View Make Reuters My Homepage Partner Services CareerBuilder Affiliate Network Professional Products Support (Customer Zone) Reuters Media Financial Products About Thomson Reuters British battle for Afghan trust in restive south Fri Jul 24, 2009 10:57am EDT Email | Print | Share | Reprints | Single Page [-] Text [+] By Jonathon Burch BABAJI, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Bearded elders sitting on a concrete floor in Afghanistan's violent south listened politely as officials told them of plans to set up a polling station in their village for August's presidential vote. That was all well and good, but the elders who gathered in a British compound this week were more concerned about being compensated for damage to their crops and fields during heavy fighting this month as British soldiers battled the Taliban. The British are happy to oblige and are paying off genuine claims as a way of winning over a still wary population. "It's a good sign they are coming here asking us to help them to fix their irrigation ditch or pay for their damaged crops," said Major Paddy Gimm, commanding officer of A company, 2 Mercian Regiment that was part of the push into Babaji in Helmand. "It shows they are starting to trust us." Until a couple weeks ago Babaji, a patchwork of irrigated farms and mud-brick compounds in southern Helmand, Afghanistan's most violent province, was a Taliban stronghold that had seen relatively few foreign troops. Then British forces mounted their largest operation of the war, "Panther's Claw," in parallel with a big U.S. advance further south, to clear Babaji and its surrounds of insurgents. Hundreds of British soldiers pushed from north to south into Babaji, facing stiff resistance the further they advanced. Gimm's soldiers had to advance south through residents' compounds because the Taliban had set up their defenses in the tree lines alongside the villages. The soldiers found roadside bombs planted along the way and often came under small-arms fire. Gimm described the fighting as heavy. On the first two days of their operation, the soldiers weren't able to advance more than 300 meters a day. "One of the enemy's tactics was to distract us with small arms fire. Then an IED (improvised explosive device) team would lay mines which we would then have to walk into," said Gimm. In one day, seven soldiers were wounded by rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. On another day, the soldiers had to enter a compound which had been booby trapped with an IED. One of Gimm's soldiers stepped on the bomb and was killed instantly. EERIE SILENCE July has been the deadliest month for foreign forces in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001. Nineteen British soldiers have been killed already this month. Two weeks on and there is an eerie silence surrounding Babaji. Most of the people fled the area ahead of the fighting and have only now begun to return. Gimm said 45-50 percent of the population were in their homes, although some families further south had left, fearing more fighting. Continued... View article on single page Share: Del.icio.us Digg Mixx Yahoo! 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