The Warlord and The Election

(Haji Jan Dad showing the bullet embedded in his hand, Simon Klingert (c)

Haji Jan Dad is riddled with the scars of some 20 years of combat as a mountain fighter. Shrapnel is embedded in the back of his head, his arm has been ripped open by bullets. He has a PKM machine gun round lodged between his thumb and index finger that he's never bothered to remove.

On a sunny day at the end of August, dozens of Afghan elders in traditional dress and long beards were facing a few American soldiers on the terrace outside Haji Jan Dad's compound. They were assembled under the auspices of a truce.

One of the questions underlying Barack Obama's Afghan strategy review is the extent to which the U.S. can win the support of Afghanistan's fiercely independent tribes, particularly in rural Pashtun areas along the Pakistani border. The area remains one of the most dangerous in Afghanistan: Earlier this month, Taliban fighters overran an American outpost in Nuristan province, killing 8 American soldiers. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has acknowledged that the U.S. cannot field enough soldiers to secure the sparsely-populated region; he has begun withdrawing troops to population centers.

Read the first of a three part series on the Army's troubled effort to "rent" a local warlord to provide security during the August election, at The Majlis