Taking the Fight to the Taliban
By ELIZABETH RUBIN
New York Times
One morning this summer, I headed out with a U.S. Army convoy of Humvees, a truck called a wrecker and a packed supply truck into the Afghan mountains. I was among some two dozen American and Afghan soldiers from Task Force Warrior, an infantry battalion based in Zabul Province, just north of Kandahar. We trundled up a path fit for goats because the nearby riverbed was perfect for concealing improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s. Soon enough, the truck keeled over into the riverbed anyway. To hoist it up, the wrecker had to crash through wheat fields, and within minutes a gray-bearded farmer appeared brandishing his stick. “Are you Afghan?” he shouted at Farooq, my interpreter. “I have 30 members in my family. Why did you destroy my wheat?” The old farmer then clasped my wrist with his ancient garden tool of a hand. “You Americans are all friends of Bush the persecutor. You see this area” — he swept his other arm in every direction — “these are all Taliban. But they don’t have power. As soon as we find power, I will kill all of you.”
Farooq tried to calm him, but the farmer was fixated on his crushed wheat stalks until he spotted First Sgt. Ruel Robbins, a red-cheeked, chest-first sort. Robbins looked the farmer over, then said, “Tell him I’m real sorry to drive over his wheat, but I had to ’cause my vehicle turned over.” The farmer eyed the sacks in the supply truck; Robbins gave him one of rice and two of flour.
The farmer watched us take off in a swirl of dust, and Specialist Melissa Elliot, who was driving our Humvee, said to Farooq: “We’re not trying to hurt them. We’re trying to protect their security. Why’d he get so upset with us? Is their wheat part of their religion or something?”
“It’s the food for his family, ma’am,” Farooq said patiently.
And so began our mission into the mountains of Zabul Province, 6,500 square miles of desert, farmland and 9,000-foot peaks with almost no paved roads to link one patch to the next. It’s a place where, just decades ago, families lived as nomads, until King Mohammad Zahir Shah gave them government land to settle on, and where national politics is superseded by Pashtunwali — the Pashtun codes for tribal coexistence, based on retaliation, mediation and hospitality. In 1994, when the Taliban movement of young religious students swept into Zabul offering an end to illegal road taxes and warlord rule, Zabul’s leaders simply joined hands with their Pashtun brothers. After the Taliban’s fall, President Hamid Karzai’s nephew was dispatched to head the Zabul Police; in July 2002, I found him besieged by locals, who put feces in his food and threatened to kill him. For five years now American forces have been chasing the Taliban in Zabul and attempting reconstruction. The police buildings have improved. A new hospital (financed by the United Arab Emirates) was finished. Roads were being laid in terrain so remote that when the Americans turned up, the villagers thought they must be Russians. The Americans opened a trade school in Qalat, the capital. But the pace of progress has been painfully slow. These remain the Taliban’s mountains.
There are 42,000 U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan today, trying to secure a country that is a third again the size of Iraq, where there are almost 150,000 U.S.-led troops. In the past two years, more than 300 American and NATO soldiers have died trying to stave off a resurgent Taliban. Already this year, some 1,500 Afghans have been killed. And while there were just two suicide bombings in 2002, there is now one about every five days.
(The rest is here.)
New York Times
One morning this summer, I headed out with a U.S. Army convoy of Humvees, a truck called a wrecker and a packed supply truck into the Afghan mountains. I was among some two dozen American and Afghan soldiers from Task Force Warrior, an infantry battalion based in Zabul Province, just north of Kandahar. We trundled up a path fit for goats because the nearby riverbed was perfect for concealing improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s. Soon enough, the truck keeled over into the riverbed anyway. To hoist it up, the wrecker had to crash through wheat fields, and within minutes a gray-bearded farmer appeared brandishing his stick. “Are you Afghan?” he shouted at Farooq, my interpreter. “I have 30 members in my family. Why did you destroy my wheat?” The old farmer then clasped my wrist with his ancient garden tool of a hand. “You Americans are all friends of Bush the persecutor. You see this area” — he swept his other arm in every direction — “these are all Taliban. But they don’t have power. As soon as we find power, I will kill all of you.”
Farooq tried to calm him, but the farmer was fixated on his crushed wheat stalks until he spotted First Sgt. Ruel Robbins, a red-cheeked, chest-first sort. Robbins looked the farmer over, then said, “Tell him I’m real sorry to drive over his wheat, but I had to ’cause my vehicle turned over.” The farmer eyed the sacks in the supply truck; Robbins gave him one of rice and two of flour.
The farmer watched us take off in a swirl of dust, and Specialist Melissa Elliot, who was driving our Humvee, said to Farooq: “We’re not trying to hurt them. We’re trying to protect their security. Why’d he get so upset with us? Is their wheat part of their religion or something?”
“It’s the food for his family, ma’am,” Farooq said patiently.
And so began our mission into the mountains of Zabul Province, 6,500 square miles of desert, farmland and 9,000-foot peaks with almost no paved roads to link one patch to the next. It’s a place where, just decades ago, families lived as nomads, until King Mohammad Zahir Shah gave them government land to settle on, and where national politics is superseded by Pashtunwali — the Pashtun codes for tribal coexistence, based on retaliation, mediation and hospitality. In 1994, when the Taliban movement of young religious students swept into Zabul offering an end to illegal road taxes and warlord rule, Zabul’s leaders simply joined hands with their Pashtun brothers. After the Taliban’s fall, President Hamid Karzai’s nephew was dispatched to head the Zabul Police; in July 2002, I found him besieged by locals, who put feces in his food and threatened to kill him. For five years now American forces have been chasing the Taliban in Zabul and attempting reconstruction. The police buildings have improved. A new hospital (financed by the United Arab Emirates) was finished. Roads were being laid in terrain so remote that when the Americans turned up, the villagers thought they must be Russians. The Americans opened a trade school in Qalat, the capital. But the pace of progress has been painfully slow. These remain the Taliban’s mountains.
There are 42,000 U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan today, trying to secure a country that is a third again the size of Iraq, where there are almost 150,000 U.S.-led troops. In the past two years, more than 300 American and NATO soldiers have died trying to stave off a resurgent Taliban. Already this year, some 1,500 Afghans have been killed. And while there were just two suicide bombings in 2002, there is now one about every five days.
(The rest is here.)
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