ABLE MAIN BASE, Afghanistan - In a bold and risky push into the Hindu Kush, the
US military's 173rd Airborne Combat Team has set up dozens of small operating
bases across some of the most remote terrain on Earth.
The feat is being made possible by the US military's airlift capability and a
new can-do spirit that pervades the middle ranks of the US-led mission north of
Jalalabad, capital of Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan, in both ethnic
Pashtun and Nuristani areas.
Platoon-sized elements in the US military are fanning out from small bases to
make contact with remote villages. They are
supported with helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft in an effort to entice
Afghans to throw out al-Qaeda-backed insurgents and take advantage of new
development projects.
The new push stands in stark contrast to the first several years of the US
efforts in Afghanistan, which were characterized by large bases, heavy bombing
of suspected targets and little interaction between infantrymen and Afghan
civilians.
In some valleys, US forces face stiff resistance and platoon leaders say they
are bracing for a major spring offensive ordered by al-Qaeda and Taliban
leaders in nearby Pakistan. Kunar and neighboring Nuristan provinces remain a
sieve for jihadis anxious to undercut the US efforts.
In other far-flung areas, however, the American counter-insurgency efforts are
making striking inroads where other harder-edged US fighting thrusts have
failed. American soldiers, sometimes scoffed at as wimps for their heavy body
armor, are now admired for their willingness to walk among hills with shepherds
and fight toe-to-toe with the Taliban and other insurgent groups.
This base, marked by a billboard displaying a Trojan helmet and the words "Able
Company Warlords", sits beneath the Avisgar ridgeline where some of the
heaviest fighting in Afghanistan has gone on in the past two years.
Despite the ironic nom de guerre for the fighters, most based in Vincenza,
Italy, soldiers spend the lion's share of their days consumed with talk of
water systems, retaining walls, new schools and health clinics.
Nevertheless, even as US military officers briefed this reporter in a
far-reaching strategy to stabilize vast swathes of the Hindu Kush and offer
humanitarian aid, a typical battle broke out this week in the adjacent Watapor
Valley.
A pair of A-10 "Warthogs" and
at least two F-16s screeched through the blue
skies, dropping their payloads. A US officer said
his men had "vectored" enemy hideouts through
radio intercepts,
adding that bombs had eliminated a 15-man
insurgent unit.
Squatting on a boulder beneath the air war, base commander Captain Louis
Frketic described the new push into remote areas: "Our goal as tactical leaders
is to focus on the population," he said. "We have to figure out new ways to
embed with the locals and engage them - charismatically."
Frketic said part of his own motivation came from a story he had read about how
French foot soldiers in Napoleon's army quartered with local citizenry across
Europe over two centuries ago and, in doing so, helped to slowly disseminate
ideas of democracy and human rights.
The blue-eyed Floridian said he had asked his own foot soldiers to fan out into
nearby villages and spend the night with local elders. "They just relate
aspects of their lives, the normal things in life, and the Afghans are able to
pick up - how should I say - our belief system and the way we look at the
world," he said. "Hopefully that will be a two-way street."
Still, an American soldier in all his high-tech weaponry and battle plates can
look imposing to a gaggle of turbaned elders. Even getting past the offered
green tea can be troublesome if Apache helicopters are bisecting the skies
overhead. Tribal elders will often spend hours on end negotiating for higher
dollar compensation for Afghan civilian casualties caused by errant US bullets
and bombs.
Frketic is sincere, however, and his optimism has worn off on several of his
young lieutenants. In his second tour of duty in Afghanistan, the 29-year-old
officer and son of a Vietnam veteran has taken it on himself to learn to speak
a passable Pashtu.
"Some Afghans hear that Americans don't respect their religion and don't
respect their culture," he said. "Learning their language demonstrates, I
think, a will to understand and a will to respect - something I think they are
looking for."
But Frketic, a college-educated veteran of an earlier deployment to
Afghanistan, is the exception to the rule. Most of the young American fighters
who trek through the mountains and streams of Afghanistan's remotest corners
are between 19 and 23 years of age. They did not join the military to be aid
workers and as infantrymen they have been trained to focus on "closing with and
killing" the enemy.
"Half the time, I don't think they care what we do for them," says a young
fighter, who has seen two of his colleagues killed this year. "We stopped
taking in assistance two months ago when they attacked us with a roadside bomb.
Sometimes, the Afghans play along with us, just long enough to get a little
more HA [humanitarian assistance] and then attack again."
The same fighter lamented the bad intelligence leads his platoon sometimes get
from Afghans. "The other day, we had an old guy who asked us to meet him on a
certain path at a certain time and he was going to give us some information
about the insurgents," he added. "When we showed up, shooting broke out on both
sides of us."
The young infantrymen do not, however, work in a vacuum. Tens of millions of
dollars in development assistance is also backing up foot patrols as an element
of the broader "stabilization" efforts for Afghanistan.
On a new road that connects northern Kunar to southern Kunar near Asmar, a
large vocational center is under construction. It will train hundreds of
Afghans as mechanics, welders and builders.
"A lot of us are convinced that the root of the insurgency here is an economic
problem," said Captain Steve Fritz, who pointed to the shiny new center as
Afghan men laid bricks for a school several meters further down a valley. "We
are working with combat units to try and identify students for the school. We
will provide them with a new skill set, bolster the local economy and,
hopefully, help minimize the insurgency."
Although the jury on the success or failure of the US efforts here is still
out, the tactics appear to be, if nothing else, helping to alter the way that
Afghans see Americans and Americans see Afghans.
Fighters here are less likely than counterparts in Iraq to employ the generic
slurs of haji and "Mohammad" to describe civilians. Indeed, there are
signs that small children in some regions enjoy the company of the young
American gladiators, whom they have managed to soften up with sweet talk of
their own.
Captains and sergeants guiding the platoons that do the hardest work say the
most effective "weapons" in their arsenal are new schools and health clinics,
rather than grenades and machineguns.
Still, one gunner, who zoomed his sights in on a mountain pass, lamented that
his senior officers would only let him shoot his TOW missile launcher at groups
of six or more insurgents because the cost of one shot was "equal to a new
school".
Despite the idealism found in the middle ranks here, US foot soldiers sometimes
still complain that they are being used as mere cannon fodder in a forgotten
war.
Philip Smucker is a commentator and journalist based in South Asia and
the Middle East. He is the author of Al-Qaeda's Great Escape: The
Military and the Media on Terror's Trail (2004).
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adding that bombs had eliminated a 15-man
insurgent unit.
