Title:OPERATION TELIC 1 (RAF MOBILE NEWS TEAM TAPE 39) [Allocated Title]
Film Number:BFR 249
Other titles:RAF STRIKE COMMAND MOBILE NEWS TEAM - MAY 2008 DELIVERY [Allocated Series Title]
Summary: Members of 51 Squadron RAF Regiment meet Iraqi villagers.
Description: I. Camera-vehicles passes US armour parked in the semi-arid landscape. Distant view of mountains. Drive through of village outskirts (taken from inside Land Rover; member of the Mobile News Team is visible). Convoy on road approaching buildings (abandoned Iraqi compound ?). US Army convoy of Humvees on road (camera position now on roadside). Panning shots of nearby hillside; soldiers watch what appears to be the door to a cave. Soldier in gun mount on WMIK Land Rover; other soldiers patrol nearby scrubland (some pixellation on tape at this point, which also affects the sound). Compound with walls made from reeds. Local family approaches; the father talks with soldiers. Further panning shot of landscape. Open air briefing. Puma helicopter patrols overhead (shaky camerawork).
II. Soldiers park in local village; buildings look unoccupied, although a local man drives past in a battered Toyota Hilux. Soldiers gather by camouflaged WMIK Land Rover; other such vehicles approach. Informal road block; Iraqi pickup trucks (one flying white flag) are stopped. Soldier has a shave by his vehicle.
III. Soldiers at roadside welcome and shake hands with local Iraqi men by reed wall outside village. Snipe in shell scrape keeps watch. Group of Iraqi men pose for photographs with British soldiers. More pickup trucks drive past. At the edge of the village the Mobile News Team meet an older Iraqi man with a small boy; the child is given a lollipop (British soldier declines the offer of an Iraqi cigarette and instead offers the older man a Marlboro). Iraqi pickup trucks park and the occupants talk to soldiers (in Arabic); one of the pickups has bullet holes in the door (British soldier apologises for these).
Alternative Title:RAF STRIKE COMMAND MOBILE NEWS TEAM - MAY 2008 DELIVERY [Allocated Series Title]
