British soldiers are taking the fight to the Taliban daily to secure the western outskirts of Babaji. This is an area of Helmand province hard won by International Stabilisation Assistance Force (ISAF) troops during Operation Panther's Claw.

Number One Company group from the 1st Battalion The Coldstream Guards engage in daily skirmishes with insurgents on the west of Babaji, but their dominance of the area is ensuring troops on the east side of the town have greater freedom of movement in which to begin the reconstruction and development effort, starting with a new school and road build.

Operation Lion's Leap inserted troops by Chinook helicopter behind a key insurgent stronghold, so that they could engage with local nationals in the area.

The villages patrolled have rarely been reached by ISAF troops in the past. British soldiers are keen to find out what the local Afghan's need here, what their issues are, and how, as part of ISAF they can help.

"Certainly this area is fairly immature in terms of Helmand for how long ISAF troops have been down here, only really since Panther's Claw in July has anyone been down here in any density to have an effect," says Major Toby Till, 36, Officer Commanding Number One Company Group. "So one of the most important things is us to understand the local population, find out who the individual compound owners are of each compound."

'A lot of determination'

The troops find themselves under fire on occasion, and a team medic treats a young girl at an informal village Shura.

Guardsman Robert Smithson, 19, from Sunderland, says, “It’s been very intense today, nerve-racking but it's all good stuff. It's quite challenging, all the weight you carry on your back, it takes a lot of determination.”

The guards are working hard in a variety of ways to win round the local villagers, and learn what they can from them about how to improve the area.

Maj Till continued, "When we held the Eid celebrations, an important part of the Muslim calendar, we had over a hundred families in here who were receiving gifts from us and that's had positive effects in terms of the information they’ve given us."

'Medieval times'

The patrol spent one night out in an abandoned compound. "Well it is like being sent back to medieval times, really you don't have any electricity, there are no televisions to watch and you're cooking over an open fire in a mess tin. You are going to the toilet in bags and sleeping in a sleeping bag, so it's really back to basics. Salt of the earth stuff," says Lance Corporal Tom Huchinson.

Sitting in the abandoned compound describing their ambitions for the following twenty four hours, he added, "We'll do some soft knock operations where we just knock on a few doors, find out the people who are living here what we can do for them, if there’s anything we can do to support them.

"Find out what they think of ISAF, what they think of the security we're providing them for, what we can do in the way of the building or construction. We're just trying to get the people on side, do the old hearts and minds campaign and generally just see if we can improve the lives of the people out here in any way we can."

Reflecting later he says, "We've made a difference, we’ve reached out to different areas the people before us weren’t able to reach. So we are influencing this area in a positive way."

Increase the ISAF footprint of security

“The end state of the operation actually on the ground was that we held a Shura ,which is a big meeting with all the local heads, all the local elders, all the people that kind of run the areas up there. A lot of positive answers came out of it, again security was brought up a lot of the time,” says Lance Sergeant Mathew Wallis, from Cornwall, who led the patrol.

Number 1 Company step out of Patrol Base Four every day to keep the Taliban on their toes and increase the ISAF footprint of security. They are conducting enemy disruption operations and they accept that they will be in conflict from insurgents on a regular basis but know that their work, talking regularly to the local population is vital for the long term security and development of this region.