Afghan villagers dispute US
claims By Shah Noori and Gareth
Porter
KABUL/WASHINGTON - The commander of
United States-North Atlantic Treaty Organization
forces in southern Afghanistan, Major General
James Terry, asserted last month that the homes
systematically destroyed by US forces across three
districts of Kandahar province as part of
"Operation Dragon Strike" in October and November
"were abandoned, empty and wired with ingenious
arrays of bombs".
But in interviews with
Inter Press Service (IPS) at the site of the
destroyed village of Tarok Kalache, now nothing
more than a dusty plain surrounded by orchards,
former residents disputed that account.
The residents said that they don't believe
most of their homes had
been booby-trapped by the
Taliban and that, even after they had evacuated
their homes, farmers from the village had
continued to tend their properties in and around
the village right up to the time the destruction
began.
Beginning on October 6, Tarok
Kalache was subjected to bombing by planes and
long-range rockets that spread cluster bombs
throughout the village, according to Paula
Broadwell. Her account of the destruction of the
village, based on US military sources, was
published in military writer Thomas Ricks' blog
and on her own Facebook page in January.
Broadwell, who is working on a biography
of General David Petraeus, wrote that the village
was also razed with Mine Clearing Line Charges,
which destroys everything in a 600-meter-long
stretch wide enough for a tank.
Residents
told IPS the village was then bulldozed, because
the bombing had created huge craters which had to
be filled in and leveled off. They said the
operation was carried out over an entire month.
Based on briefings from US military
sources, Broadwell claimed on her Facebook page in
mid-January that the villagers had not really been
displaced by the US offensive, because the Taliban
had "paid the village malik [village chief]
around June-July to move out of the village", and
the villagers had followed, having "made the
judgment call to 'sell' the village to the Taliban
... ".
But residents of Tarok Kalache told
IPS that they began leaving their homes when the
Taliban were gearing up for a battle with US
troops over the village, and that the Taliban had
allowed residents to return to check on their
houses, and to tend their gardens and orchards in
and around the village until the US attack began.
Haji-Dawoud Shah, a Tarok Kalache resident
whose house was destroyed by US troops along with
the rest of the 36 houses in the village, said in
an interview that he and others had begun to leave
only last August, when the Taliban began planting
IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and preparing
for battle. "We realized that one day our children
and women would be killed either by IEDs or
fighting," he said.
But he said residents
had returned frequently to the village from
Kandahar a few kilometers away to take care of
their houses and orchards, and had "left our
farmers in the village to take care of the
gardens".
Another resident of the village,
Nik Muhammad, 40, agreed that local people had
been able to move in and around the village even
after they had left their houses, because the
Taliban had opened certain routes for the locals
to use safely so they could maintain their gardens
and orchards.
Muhammad said the Taliban
let farmers and other people looking after their
properties use certain footpaths that were
normally seeded with IEDs during the hours of 9am
to 4pm.
He explained the Taliban ability
to turn IEDs on and off as involving removing and
replacing batteries in the IEDS buried in the
ground. After 4pm, he said, they put the batteries
back in the IEDS so they were ready for
detonation.
Haji-Abdul Qayoum, 52, from
the nearby village of Khisrow Ulla, confirmed that
Taliban arrangement with local farmers. When the
Taliban anticipated a patrol by US troops during
those hours, they told people to evacuate the
area, warning that the IEDs were going to be
turned on again, according to Qayoum. In some
cases people who didn't get the message were
injured by IEDs in the area, he said.
Specialists on IEDs at the Joint IED
Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) at the US Department
of Defense have never heard of battery-operated
IEDs being used in Afghanistan, according to
JIEDDO spokesperson Irene Smith. But in an e-mail
to IPS, Smith said the Taliban do use both
radio-controlled and command-wired IEDs, either of
which would have allowed them to activate and
deactivate IEDS buried in certain pathways.
One resident of Tarok Kalache, Dad Gul,
60, told IPS he was taken back to the pulverized
village by ANA and US soldiers 10 days after the
end of the US operation. The soldiers told him
there had been an IED in his house, and when they
got to site of his former home, the Americans
pointed to an object lying on the ground and said,
"This is the bomb."
"Actually it was my
pressure cooker," said Gul. "I grabbed it and told
them, 'This is mine! This is not a bomb!' "Gul
said some of the houses might have had IEDs in
them, "but not like Americans say."
One of
the ANA soldiers who had been listening to an
interview with three residents of the village
commented, "The Taliban planted IEDs inside
houses, so the Americans destroyed them, but
people said IEDs were not planted in all of the
houses that were bombed."
Although 250
laborers from the villages are now employed on
US-funded cash for work projects, no
reconstruction has begun on any of the 36 houses
that had stood the village, although work has
started on rebuilding the village mosque.
Hajji Abdul Hamid, a village elder from
Tarok Kalache, told IPS he has been offered money
to rebuild five of the 14 houses he owned in the
village, and that the land for the other nine is
to be used for a US Forward Operating Base in the
village, for which he will be paid rent.
Hamid said he is "happy with this deal, if
they keep their promise". But he added, "There is
no confidence or trust between us yet, and we
doubt whether America will deliver on their
promises."
Even if the Americans keep
their promises, the compensation will be less than
50% of losses in Tarok Kalache, Hamid said. But he
indicated that so far, only 1% of the villagers'
losses have been compensated. He expects
complaints by villagers to continue for a long
time.
"It will take time for people to
trust the Americans and to report the activities
of the insurgents in the area," the village elder
said.
Another elder from Tarok Kalache,
Hajji Shah Wali, said, "We can't get very close to
the Americans," because the Americans still
suspect that the villagers are Taliban
sympathizers.
The question on the minds of
these villagers is whether the Taliban will return
in the spring. "If they show up, we won't feel
secure, and people will be reluctant to help the
Americans," Wali said.
Nik Muhammad said
he is concerned that the US will help reconstruct
the houses in Tarok Kalache only if the villagers
agree to help them fight the Taliban.
"We
will help the Americans, but we can't take up guns
against the Taliban," he said. "If the Americans
and the Afghan government force local people to
take up guns against the Taliban, I don't think
people will accept this."
Shah
Noori reported from Kandahar. Gareth
Porter is an investigative historian and
journalist specializing in US national security
policy. The paperback edition of his latest
book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power
and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published
in 2006.
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