Unarmed hero took Taliban bomber captive

AN UNARMED soldier has been hailed a hero after leaping from his vehicle to grab a suspected suicide bomber.

The man was said yesterday to be a long-wanted bomb-making expert and the one of the highest ranking Taliban captured by regular British forces in Afghanistan.

Private Lee Stephens pulled him from his motorcycle after a chase across the desert.

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Even after that, his colleagues had to face down four armed Afghans in a Wild West-style stand-off before the prisoner was taken away.

Soldiers from 4 Platoon, B Company, 3rd Battalion the Mercian Regiment, based at Durai Junction on Highway One outside Gereshk, had pushed into an insurgent hotspot two weeks ago and had been warned that suicide bombers might come at them.

A foot patrol was pinned down by enemy gunfire and a motorcyclist was heading towards them when two Warrior armoured vehicles saw the situation and headed into the middle of it.

One of the vehicles, commanded by Lieutenant Martyn Fulford, 24, from Churchdown in Gloucester, ended up pursuing the motorcyclist.

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Lt Fulford said: “It was a race towards Highway One. If he reached the tarmac he would have been able to outpace us and escape. We just pipped him. I had my rifle out of the turret, screaming at him. Pte Stephens ripped his headset off and leapt down.”

Gunner Pte Stephens, 30, from Solihull, did not have time to get his weapon from the back of the vehicle. He said: “My muckers were getting shot at and I thought I’m not having that. I jumped out off the wagon and I grabbed the geezer. It was mark one left, mark two right, fists. That was it. No weapons, just my hands.” He said he “goosenecked” the suspect, grabbing him around the neck and dragging him towards his vehicle.

Lance Corporal Jake Podmore, 22, from Stoke-on-Trent, who arrived at the scene in the second Warrior, said of Pte Stephens: “He was like a little hero running out.”

The Warriors took off again, with the prisoner, to support another team coming under fire. At this point, four men pulled up in two white Toyota Corollas and demanded the prisoner be handed over to them.

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They had a machine gun and three rifles pointed at the three soldiers left at the scene, who kept their weapons pointing down but at the ready during the face-off.

One of the British soldiers, Sergeant Jonathan Werrett, 31, said: “All we needed was some tacos and we would have been in a Mexican stand-off. 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 arrested suspect still cannot be named, for security reasons, Army sources said, but the commanding officer of 3 Mercian, Lieutenant Colonel Giles Woodhouse, said: “He was highly wanted and 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. Pte Stephens has possibly saved the lives not only of my own soldiers but also those of the Afghan National Security Forces. We are extremely proud.”

Pte Stephens said he had told his mother and girlfriend about the incident: “My mum was a bit gobsmacked. My girlfriend kept saying to me, ‘No wonder I’m going grey’.”