Long hair and hiking boots = Taliban?

(c) Simon Klingert

Narang Valley- He was caught the day after the election, as he passed a checkpoint. The Afghan Army thought he looked suspicious. He had long hair, he'd come from five villages deep into the mountain valley. He wore hiking boots.

He said his name was Turgul, that he was 20 years old and that he didn't read or write.

"I live in the Badel Valley," Turgul said. His eyes were frightened and confused. Or maybe he was a good actor. His beard was scraggly and the v-wrinkle between his eyebrows could have come from squinting down the barrel of an AK. "I came into Qala Una and I didn't find the stuff I needed. On the way to the district center they caught me."

I asked why they might suspect him of being Taliban. "I don't know why they caught me. They took pictures of my eyes...I told them I'm disabled," he pulled up a pant leg to reveal a prosthetic leg.

"I used to be a sheppard of goats in the mountains. I fell and became unconscious. The U.S. forces took me to Bagram Air Field. They said my leg was destroyed and they cut it off and gave me this one."

The story seemed fishy. How does one get his leg amputated from a fall? It seemed more likely from a blast- a land mine or a rocket. But Turgul claimed he was happy U.S. forces helped him. "I can walk, I got married." As if to show his good guy credentials, he said he used to be an Afghan solider in Asadabad but because his salary wasn't paid, he went back to being a sheppard.

He said there were only five families in his village. I tried to imagine what it looked like. All were farmers with a local Mullah who leads them in prayer. He said the last time the coalition came to their village was almost two years ago.

Ask any Afghan, no Afghan will admit they know any Taliban. I asked him anyways. Turgul's response was no different, although Badel Valley is known to be a Taliban haven. "I've never heard of any or seen any," he said. "I hate that the Taliban is also in our country."

I asked him if he'd ever had trouble from the Taliban. He grew excited. "I'm born in the valley, I'm from the valley, nobody can tell me anything in the valley...if any Taliban tried to kill you, (referring to me and Simon) you'd be my guest, and I'd kill them."

Despite the typical "Pashtunwali" sentiment, a tribal code of conduct by which enemies can sit down with each other, and make truces as guests, it was hard to trust him. But it was hard not to trust him.

Long hair and hiking boots. Two signs he was Taliban, according to the Afghan Army captain. "We caught him at the checkpoint," said the ANA captain. "He looks like a bad guy. His boots, hair, his village. There are more bad guys up there than good guys."

(c) Simon Klingert (The suspect named Turgul was given food, water and a shower at the ANA compound. Then he was questioned by Afghan intelligence. Part of his prosthetic leg is visible above his boot.)

The National Directorate of Security (NDS- Afghan intelligence) man next to the captain, appeared confident.

"We have big lists on bad guys," the NDS man, who declined to have his picture taken, said. "We can match his name, age, picture to where he's from in our files."

The NDS said they can hold him for six hours of questioning. "That's in our constitution, to keep him if we have evidence." The NDS also have a reputation for torture.

"It's my job in the district center," the NDS man said. "All my guys are from the area. There's a saying- a guy from the mountains knows what kind of guy you are." Then he scurried off to either question Turgul or to go to another intelligence meeting.

I asked the captain if he really thought Turgul was Taliban. The captain shrugged. "Physically he looks Taliban, but I didn't investigate him. But his leg shows he probably isn't. If he's a Talib, and the NDS finds him to be a Tailb, he will be more helpful to them. Being a bad guy is not just a fighter," he added, meaning maybe he was a collaborator running supplies to the Taliban.

Turgul had reportedly taken a taxi to the checkpoint. That was suspicious. How could he afford one, and why would he hail a taxi after he'd walked almost an hour down from the mountains to his destination?

But wouldn't it be stupid to try to go through an Army checkpoint if he was Taliban, I asked. The captain shrugged again. "Sometimes the enemy does something stupid. We've caught them with bombs and weapons at checkpoints in front of the base... If you look at your face in the mirror every day, you believe you're good."

"It's not a big deal for them to accept money to shoot an AK at us. They fought with the Russians...," the captain said. "I've been up in those valleys. When we go in they're farmers, when come out in the afternoon, they're shooting at us."

The NDS man popped back in the captain's office and said they knew him. That Turgul was a farmer, and they'd let him go.

"In the last four months, this is the first we let go," the Captain said.

A U.S. intelligence guy later said, it wasn't true. That the NDS hadn't let him go.

Faces of controversy- Troubled election in Kunar

(c) Simon Klingert (This man humped up the dirt road to vote. He said he's about seventy years old and was undeterred by the fighting, "Life and death is in the hand of Allah...I will vote out of love for my country." He voted in the last election too. )

Ternaab Village, Kunar province-
As gunshots rang through the mountain tops of the Dewegal Valley, villagers voted under the shade of some trees next to the local mosque. Heads turned upward whenever a heavy shell or particularly loud burst echoed, but the men appeared in no hurry to leave.

By 7 a.m., Taliban insurgents flooded the radio waves, chanting insults against the Afghan Army followed by threats on the polling site and killing anyone who attempted to vote. D Company Platoon Leader, Capt. Richard Nicorvo met with the Afghan Army counterparts and a election field coordinator, who said he got his position because he passed a test.

"“We didn’t want it here,” Nicorvo said. “The enemy has known fighting positions along ridge lines.”

An hour later the shooting began. Small detachments of Afghan (ANA) soldiers responded with fire from their hilltop fighting positions. D Company fired a TOW missile and 50. Caliber rounds at a mountaintop where they spotted muzzle flashes, following a lengthy communications process to avoid firing on Afghan Army and hired security groups.

(c) Simon Klingert (Soldiers firing a TOW missile at a nearby mountain top.)

Sporadic fighting continued most of the afternoon, as Toyotas emblazoned with posters of national candidates and packed with Afghan men raced to and from the Ternaab polling site loaded with voters. No women were seen voting, although they supposedly had a separate site. Some men said they were too afraid from the fighting, but there was no way to confirm it.

By late afternoon the shooting had died down some, and we approached the polling site. The local IEC field coordinator told us cameras were not allowed; as his colleagues, wearing official vests began orally tallying the votes from a taped off area between several trees. We heard “Karzai, Karzai, Karzai,” as the ballots were put into stacks and then stuffed into secured plastic boxes.

(c) Simon Klingert (The Karzai representative holds up his inked finger.)

A man in a white beard said he was officially representing President Karzai in the province. He claimed his job was to make sure all Karzai’s votes were verified. When asked about children voting, he said they only looked young and were actually eighteen. When questioned why other candidates did not have “official verifiers,” he responded they must have been around, but because they lost so badly, they had probably left. He said he had tallied over 1,600 votes for Karzai, with 200 votes for the northern presidential candidate Dr. Abdullah Abdullah.

In contrast to the voting irregularities, the U.S. and the Afghan military kept up their end of the security bargain. The polls stayed open here, and in other villages. Although the Taliban promised and delivered a steady payload of fire. Not a single citizen was killed in the area.

D Company’s platoon patrolled the election sites for weeks and spent the night in their armored vehicles to provide around-the-clock presence leading to the election. Elements of the Afghan National Army's 2nd Battalion waited a few days before the election to decide where they would set up their security outposts and depended on D Company for water and ammunition re-supply. Additionally, D Company outfitted a hired security force of some 300 men who were paid approximately ten dollars each to man strategic mountain outposts.

These hired men answer to no one other than the physically imposing, legendary, Haji Jaan Daad. Jaan Daad is a former Mujahadeen whose body is riddled with the scars of some 20 years of combat and commanding mountain fighters against the Russians and other tribes, including elements of the Taliban.

(c) Simon Klingert (Haji Jaan Daad discussing his men's election contract at the U.S. base. In the background are several of the hired security men, some reportedly identified as Taliban.)

Haji Jaan Daad’s 300 or so men had just finished a security contract protecting coalition-funded roads, and the prospect of having hired guns without jobs seemed to be both a problem and a potential solution.

D Company sat down with Jaan Daad and they agreed on long-term goals of getting the volatile area of Badel, where D Company’s outpost gets attacked on an almost daily basis, under control. In other words, using Jaan Daad’s men to help provide security for the election, and if no unnecessary violence occurred, hiring them to help secure future Provincial Reconstruction contracts.

One of the last faces we saw speeding by after the votes were counted in Ternaab, was none other than Haji Jaan Daad. Perhaps he epitomizes one of the roadblocks to calling this a legitimate national election. Jaan Daad was pardoned by Pres. Karzai after being arrested by U.S. forces. Almost all the villagers in Ternaab voted for Karzai. But he’s just one of many actors, in an election too insecure, too fraught with inconsistencies.

If there are victors in these elections, they are the U.S. and Afghan Army security forces who risked their lives, and the Afghani citizens who voted with good intentions, such as the seventy-year old villager who hobbled up the hill towards Ternaab to cast his ballot. They may have been robbed by a corrupt system out to maintain the status quo.

Election fraud observed in Kunar, Afghanistan

Dewagal Valley- Election day here was marred by sustained Taliban attacks and underage teens voting; while round-the-clock efforts on part of Afghan and U.S. forces prevented any casualties.

Fire fight in Narang Valley

Combat Outpost Badel- Charlie Company 2nd Platoon engages in a brief fire fight with Taliban on an opposing mountain top. Soldiers report they've been involved in about 47 such fire fights at this outpost. The Narang valley is common both to smugglers and Taliban and leads into more remote mountains controlled almost entirely by the enemy.

Fire fights punctuate bouts of boredom at Kunar outpost

Combat Outpost Badel, Kunar- Up on the hill overlooking the verdant farmland and distant mountains, is a burnt cooking pot. In the pot is a bubbling goulash of Meals Ready to Eat (MRE’s)- veggie burger, Chicken Alfredo, meatloaf and gravy, Chicken Cavatelli, pork chop, raisins, Slim Jim’s, local potatoes and peppers. The soldiers served their feast up in emptied Cheerios bowls.

“We started doing it at Outpost 2 when the guy who brought donkeys up and down the hill for re-supply kept getting threatened by the Taliban. So all we had left was MRE’s. We had been trying to avoid eating them,” said Sgt. Matt MacFarlane of 2nd platoon of Charlie Company 1-32 Infantry, describing how the platoons culinary ambitions began. “But it turned out pretty good.”

(Spc. Bailey takes a bite of their homemade MRE stew sprinkled with an occasional insect.)

Second Platoon set up the Badel outpost in March with a few strings of razor wire and some corralled MRAPs. The Narang valley was rife with wood smugglers using illicit profits to fund weapons. The Taliban used the riverbeds as passageways, the spines of nearby mountains were routes to safe houses, said SSgt. Jonathan Demler.

Now the Platoon along with D Company occupy the hilltop 24-hours a day. They have enough 50 Cal. machine guns, grenade launchers and shoulder fired missiles on the hilltop to fend off a small insurgent army. And the weapons don’t collect dust.

“The elders nearby always say the same thing,” SSgt. Demler said, “we’re glad you’re here, we feel safer, but we can’t tell you where they (Taliban) are, we’re afraid.”

The outpost has disrupted some of their distribution networks. One indication is the price of a black market AK-47 has jumped drastically. Security has improved, but at the same time they’ve attracted attention, Demler said. The Taliban has put up posters to warn the locals of talking to the Americans. The outpost gets intelligence they’ll get attacked just about every night. Not that they need it.
(c) Simon Klingert (Afghan soldiers reload their Dshka rounds similar to those of a U.S. 50 Cal.)

The interpreters pick up Taliban radio chatter in the surrounding mountains, a garbled mix of coded language in Pashtu saying bring the “doctor” and how is the “cow”.

Clearly they were setting up a machine gun attack somewhere in the mountains. Whether they were planning to attack COP Badel, it was hard to say.

The soldiers fought boredom by "kitting up" in their helmets and body armor and timing sprints up the hill. By the time they devised a torture test of running up the rocks and scaling a Hesco barrier, it was dusk. The most dangerous time of the day. Minutes into the second race, an RPG explosion sounded nearby and shots rang out.
(c) Simon Klingert (Afghan Army soldiers set off mortars; red tracers can be seen in the air.)

The soldiers ran to their positions, set for interlocking zones of fire, and began pouring lead towards the adjacent mountain top. Red tracers flew into the darkening sky. The Afghan Army, attached to the outpost, assisted on either side by firing mortars and their own guns.

“Harassing fire,” the soldiers called the enemy attack. The Taliban don't stay and fight against overwhelming odds. They might have fired two RPG rockets and a drum of PKM machine gun rounds. They'd probably disappeared a quarter of a way through the return barrage.

As night fell the air was still charged with adrenaline, but there weren’t too many war stories. The soldiers are used to "the spray and pray" attacks by now, and consider it only nice break from the overall boredom.

The bad thing was the firefight scared the surrounding villagers from attending an election-planning Shura at the outpost that night, which was probably the intent of the attack. The district cease-fire coordinated with mountain elders the day before had lasted all of one day. And the local power broker who had orchestrated it, was supposedly attacked by a rival to discredit him.

As the glowing red gun barrels cooled, it’s clear the big problem is still security. Slow improvements are coming to Kunar- among them, the new roads, small construction projects, business grants and the joint presence of Afghan and U.S. Military bringing a new level of trust. Soldiers respond to problems that are called in. For example, they will spend the night in a village where a local video business was burnt to the ground by Taliban.

“When we first meet with people, they think you’re only there for security,” said Platoon Leader Lt. Ryan Feeney. “They say everythings ok. But when they realize you can hand out projects, they say we need a well, a clinic, a school etc. The education level is such that they think you’re a vending machine.”

Half the battle is educating leaders on how to use the allocated money and ensuring it's spent properly. The 1-32nd infantry is starting to mentor the more secure districts on monthly budget plans and offering small business grants, Lt. Feeney said.

In Kunar tribal ties are trickiest

(c) Simon Klingert (D Company on patrol in a nearby village.)

Kunar, Afghanistan- Dog Company lives within the walls of this old Russian base appropriately named FOB Fortress. To the east is the Kunar River and the rugged passes of the Black Mountain, regularly traversed by Taliban who call themselves Black Mountain Fighters. The Pakistan border is about six miles away.

Here the bunkers are not for show. Outside every plywood hut there's a cement square fortified with a double layer of sand bags. Fortress is regularly hit by insurgent mortars launched from the overlooking mountain tops. Last month they were mortared on consecutive days before the Company installed an outpost on the nearest mountain top and the attacks slowed somewhat.

Amidst the chaos, Dog Company of 1st-32 infantry of 3-10 Mountain, has been tasked with the mission to interrupt insurgent activity along the river and border with Pakistan, known as the Dorand line. Politicians in Kabul and Islamabad may have drawn the boundaries, but to the tribes they are fluid.

"We try to stop guys from pushing men, weapons and equipment from Bajuar, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Waziristan," said Lt. Frederick Waage, the Company's Executive Officer. "We try to use the river as our front stop and focus on the larger valleys."

D Company's area of operations cover the three districts of Noor Gul, Chawkay and Narang, a series of mountainous farming villages sloping down to the river. The smaller valleys leading higher into the mountains, called "Tangys" are too dangerous for U.S. forces to enter. The Taliban controls the high ground here. They know the passages through the mountains, and have permanent safe houses within them.

The completion of MSR California, Kunar province's first functional paved road which runs from Jalabad to Asadabad, has been a boon for the local population, so much so that it hasn't been hit by a single IED, said Lt. Waage. Yet in the mountains, the Saffi and the Mamoud tribe, split between Kunar and Pakistan, rule themselves by tribal law.

The Afghan federal government has virtually no presence among the mountain people. According an interpreter "Oz" who has worked in this are for two years, they follow the law of the Five Elders. Basically, the village elders make decrees and it is passed down to the villagers as law. But in practice, who the people follow depends on who holds the most guns. During the day, it's U.S. forces. At night it's the Taliban.

"If given a choice, they would choose the Taliban," Lt. Waage said as a matter of fact, "the Taliban control the night, they are more tied to the population than we are."

Yesterday in Kalauna, a mountain village of rock huts, the groundbreaking on a coalition-funded well began. Village men took turns eagerly attacking the rough earth with pickaxes. The Company had also donated loudspeakers to the village mosque.

"We're trying to heal wounds," said Lt. Waage, "this valley is a transient point for Taliban." Last month one villager was accidentally killed and five wounded by a coalition air strike, called in after one of the platoons began taking enemy fire.

Yesterday morning, although village elders surrounded them, the platoon was told to leave the village early for their own safety. Children had spotted Taliban moving into positions on the surrounding mountain ranges.

The Afghan Army soldiers who were supposed to be in the village were nowhere to be seen. The Afghan Police (ANP) have a worse reputation. "It could be anyone working in the station that is (actually) the enemy," Oz said. "If you see a guy wearing a tribal beard and a uniform, it's showing the contradiction. If there's a large movement of enemy, the ANP won't go there."

"That's pretty much the same attitude among the people," Lt. Waage said. "Apathy. They want to be left alone to farm their land."

The coalition is banking on the villagers standing up to the men with guns. But it takes leaders stepping out. "No one is willing to commit until their friends and neighbors commit," Lt. Waage said, "If only one or two commit, they will die."

But D Company is starting to see success at organizing powerful elders through the facilitation of warlords who carry serious weight here. Trying to get them to lay down there arms has been tried before, but now they're using a "patriot", a former mujahadeen fighter famous for killing Russians to bring the tribes to the negotiating table. "We've been focusing on the tribal elders," Lt. Waage said. "The election is on the line."

"That's really what scares me," Oz said. "Last election was regional and there were attacks. This election is national. They're (insurgents) really going to push," he said. "It's going to get hot."

Or not, the "patriot" is working out a truce with the tribal elders who's sons may or may not be Taliban. It will take finagling, and hiring some men to basically ensure election security, but if the ceasefire is successful for the Aug. 20th election, it could prove to be a path on how to organize the tribes for future security.

Afghan police- the problem and the answer

(A local police official plans security for the upcoming national elections with the help of a Military Police Lieutenant.)

Nangarhar Province- It's hard to distinguish between what the Afghan police want and what they need. Yesterday they got bug spray and toilet paper, but the district chief outside Jalabad said he'd asked for soap and shampoo. And they always lack fuel and water. When the 4th-4 BSTB HHC Military Police who patrol three districts that encompass Jalabad south towards the Tora Bora mountains, ask any of the police to do a joint patrol the Afghans say they need fuel first, and they don't bring any water with them despite hundred plus temperatures. Their trucks are Ford Rangers, their boots are also U.S. issue, their pistols, their uniforms. "They're kind of takers," one Sergeant said.

"You know that saying, you teach a man to fish, well right now they're taking the fish."

Afghan Police do not have a good reputation. Part of it is the force did not actually exist before NATO forces began training them after 2001, and initially they did not receive anywhere near the support the Afghan Army gets because they weren't considered essential to capturing Al Qaida suspects. But with the resurgence of the Taliban in remote areas, community policing and investigations have started to make more and more sense as a way to secure the local population. The problem is they're still spread so thin the Taliban can have more authority in the rural areas that lack American presence. Whereas police stations in Jalabad seem to get a lot of support, training and even new facilities, police outposts in the more remote, insurgent-infested districts don't even have enough fuel to keep the lights on at night.

"Two years ago we only had two trucks, not much training," a Jalabad district chief said. "Now we have four trucks, more weapons and better food." Still the chief only has 24 men to cover a population area of some a hundred thousand people. Which makes coverage pretty much impossible.
(c) Simon Klingert

At Outpost Spur on the border of the volatile southern Khogyani district, their generators haven't worked for six days, they didn't have any water and their septic system had overflown. The men met in darkness with Lt. John Holland who's squad often spends the night outdoors with the Afghans to show their support.
(c) Simon Klingert (Lt. Holland and his MPs meet with police at Outpost Spur.)

He's formed a relationship and trusts these men when they say they've patrolled an area. "I see motivation. They'll volunteer five guys when I ask for four. I know in some areas when they say they go out, in more dangerous areas, I'm not quite sure. I've seen their trucks get blown up. But if I say I'm going to a place they'll always go," Lt. Holland said.

(Lt. Holland's patrol come across some Afghan farmers in the fields. Local police have told farmers to carry lights to signify that they aren't Taliban.)

The ANP are getting significantly better training than a few years ago, with the help of embedded contractors for advisers and a specialized two-month training program, and they are eager to impress their American counterparts on joint patrols, but it's difficult to tell how well the standard police force would do when left to their own devices.

(c) Simon Klingert (Afghan police sit in on an MP-run checkpoint training at their district station.)

They offer up all sorts of information, from locals who've found IEDs to the latest intel. on rocket attacks and vehicle-borne bombings, but most of it is information the MP's already know. Still reporting on IED's is increasing. Lt. Holland said the rate of the local population reporting IEDs to IED's going off is now 50/50. There's now a hotline number for people to call in to the police on suspicious activity.

The MPs from the 4-4th BSTB Headquarters have the latest in armor and equipment, but they too struggle with coverage. "75 percent of our area, I've never been to before," Lt. Holland said, "It's huge. Coverage and terrain are the biggest issues. The road system here is just being built."

(c) Simon Klingert (The Afghan Police living quarters at the Beshud station outside Jalabad.)

"We're focused on learning the area first, now the elections. Then we'll really get into what's secure and what's not secure," Lt. Holland said.

"I think we need to concentrate on the kids," said First Seargent Goolie. "It's an easy way to gauge if U.S. forces have been in the area. If the kids run up to you, they're used to us." In the remote areas of Khogyani and Chapahar, children often shy away.
(c) Simon Klingert (SSgt. Briggs of the 4-4th BSTB MP's directs his men on a support mission to assist the Afghan Police in tracking down reports of armed men blocking a road.)

The day of the checkpoint training a call came in to the police station about some armed men setting up an illegal checkpoint. The Afghans jumped into their Ford Rangers and were there in minutes. "That's often what you don't see from the ANP," said embedded reporter, Simon Klingert, who's spent significant time patrolling with Afghans, "either they won't get the call from the locals, or they won't be motivated."

The MP's also responded with back up. The call came from a wealthy village that police said had made previous threats against their police chief. It may have proved a good pretext for them to go investigate, an inordinate amount of police showed up to question what looked like construction workers, but at the least they were there.

"It's never when you expect it"

(C) simon klingert the outlines of soldiers saluting as the body is carried towards the chopper.)

Nuristan- The U.S. soldiers formed a line in the moon light as the helicopter descended. The Afghans carried the body of their comrade swathed in white cloth on a homemade stretcher. The line saluted as the stretcher passed. Then the body of Spc. Mohamed Hashim, 29, of Kunar Province lifted into the night.

He'd been shot through his armpit less than an hour before. The bullet had passed through and out the other side of his body. He'd been on a 12-hour patrol the Afghan Artillery team was conducting with 2nd-77 Field Artillery Regiment (4-4th ID). Hashim was shot while manning a gun in the back of a Ford Ranger the Afghan Army (ANA) typically uses on patrols.

They had been rolling slow enough for whoever was waiting in fields to pick out a target and let off a burst of fire. The Afghans counter-fired, but the killers disappeared.

"We saw them tonight. I saw them, the anti-Islamic bastards!" Major J.D. Southall, a provincial reconstruction team officer, said to an interpreter he'd been riding with just behind Hashim's truck. "We knew they were taking rounds in front of us. I saw shadows in the field, but I didn't have a positive ID."

"I really think that was them," Maj. Southall repeated, "hopefully tomorrow we can track them by footprints. I wasn't sure it was humans and lo and behold, a dog appeared and they shushed it off. We saw them on infrared light, and the dog came, lord have mercy, I couldn't ID them for sure," the Major said rapid-fire, wracked with a combination of guilt and desire to go on the hunt.

But his guilt was nothing compared to what Marine Lieutenant Steven Murello, 25, was feeling. As an embedded trainer(of the E.T.T. 4/4 regional corps advisory command 201st), Lt. Murello had mentored and trained Hashim and 135 other Afghan artillery soldiers for the past nine months. He'd agreed to help them make a mosque out of one of their living huts. He'd spent long nights going over old Russian field artillery manuals with the fire teams and had battled with the commander over his habit of hashish smoking after lunch, and now one of his men was dead about a week before the lieutenant was set to go home. "It's never when you expect it," he said shaking his head.

Lt. Murello had trained Hashim and knew him as a man. "He was a soldier," he said. "He wasn't literate. He was the guy on the gun line who took the charge and brought it to the gun. He was a good soldier, never a troublemaker. He was always one to do the work."

The lieutenant's eyes drifted. "My point of view is, did I do enough? Did I train them enough?" Murello asked himself. "Whoever was shooting was targeting their vehicle because they were going slow for route clearance. Probably a handful (of enemy) opened up. As soon as we shot back, we saw them taking off over the ridge line."

"Two hours earlier we were all sitting, eating and joking," he said, shaking his head. "My fear is they'll blame me. But the first sergeant reminded me that in Islam they believe when your time comes, your time comes."

"The Afghans asked me to call for a helicopter and when I asked the Army (2-77 FAR) command, they got the helos to come in a half hour. I know the (Afghans) appreciated that. The big thing is to get the body back to his village within 24 hours," Murello said.

The names of Afghans killed in action are not reported or released by coalition forces, but on this small base the honor detail and the waiting chopper, seemed to show more than the usual lip service of respect and working together. One could simply tell the Americans felt the loss of the Afghan soldier. The next day the base flag was at half mast.

District plans elections while Governor eats grapes

photo: (c) Simon Klingert

Nugram, district center- Afghan officials and American soldiers were all in place, they'd been preparing for this Shura (meeting) to discuss how to implement the upcoming national elections, for weeks, everyone had a part, everyone except for the governor. While sub-governors and village elders met with the lieutenant colonel of the nearby base, he lounged on the bottom floor eating grapes.

“I’m sick," said Gov. Jamaludin Badar, holding his stomach. “I send my sub-governor. I go to a lot of shuras.”

The district center is a dilapidated three floor shell of a building, but it is surrounded by police and now a Afghan Army regiment, so it’s quite popular among local officials. The 2nd-77th Field Artillery Regiment of the 4th Brigade 4th ID, has been singularly focused on this pre-election meeting- namely getting the sub-governors, the village elders and the election District Field Coordinators together in one room.

“If we can get the village elders to accept the district field coordinators, and the elders to provide reliable people to facilitate, we’ll get a peaceful election,” said Commander Lt. Col. Forsythe, who's also been worried about an ongoing tribal feud that started over some goats, led to a murder, and the burning of half a village. Meanwhile, he’s focused his whole regiment's patrols around the election. A major operation to hunt down mortar-launching insurgents was changed in order to prevent any possible election spoilers around the province's population centers.
And today the district's players seemed to agree they needed to agree- no small feat among the disparate tribes in a region with six distinct dialects. A hundred or so Afghan men from the surrounding villages, squatted on carpets and listened carefully to the sub-governor Mohammad Ali Awab’s call for coordinated security of the polling sites.

District Field Coordinators, who were selected by the U.N. sponsored- Afghan Independent Election Commission for their literacy levels, stood solemnly and introduced themselves one by one. “We ask the tribal leaders to ensure our security,” said a local Field Coordinator. “We’ll hire people (to man) the polling stations to support the election process in our villages.”

A half-blind elder from Kala Gush, Oglam Sahib, once a member of the Afghan Parliament stood on his cane and made a heart-felt call to the men assembled, “Everyone has a right to choose a leader! Your vote is priceless! We need to choose someone who is honest for our country!

“We have nothing- no electricity, schools, no clean water. What do you want? The government can provide us these things. We have a proud country, these people are here to help us,” Sahib said, gesturing to the Coordinators and also to Lt. Col. Forsythe, who did not to speak during the shura.

(c) Simon Klingert

Meanwhile the highest government official, appointed by President Karzai, chatted with several of his bearded entourage also lounging on pillows. “I’m the youngest governor in the history of Afghanistan,” Badar, who’s 34 and has been governor for nine months, said. “The President can get rid of me at any time, but I have a good exam… because Nuristan was dangerous, right now the situation is getting better if we compare now and last year. We’re working hard, until midnight I stay in the office, I’m working with people in the villages. Other governors can’t do that. I’m from Nuristan, I like these people.”

He was from Nuristan, but he was kind of hard to believe. Nevertheless he was the governor and he wore gold-rimmed glasses and a gold and black leather watch. He said he’d attended university in Saudi Arabia and had worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kabul. “The diplomatic life is a good life," he said and also that he wanted to go to the U.S. on a cultural visit, to see good governance in practice. “Afghan life is jail,” he said, gesturing to the walls of the district center, “If I stay here I’m in jail.”

There are 34 governors in Afghanistan, all appointed directly by the president. Nuristan province has seven sub-governors appointed by the governor. A June 2009, International Crisis Group report said, "The presidential elections in particular expose a highly centralized political patronage system in which the head of state wields enormous powers, bringing personalities rather than policies to the fore."

We had lunch with him, a combination of Afghan flat bread and the base’s trucked in fried chicken, washed down with traditional yogurt drink and canned Sprite. Gov. Badar said he would sit down for an interview if we could find a good translator, he said, "not all of them are educated."

"Inshallah," (If God wills it) I said. The governor smiled. This interview was not going to happen.

(c) Simon Klingert

“We’re succeeding,” said Lt. Fredrick Miles, who’s helped set up the district center with SFC Ronald Smith. “The most effective tool against the Taliban is the people. It’s just very slow moving."

“All the people want is roads,” SFC Smith said. “We built them a school and they chopped up the benches for firewood.”

Gov. Badar confirmed this, he rattled off a handful of what he called smaller projects, roads built by USAID, the PRT, the Army Corps of Engineers, to the tune of $1 to 5 million each.

“We have problems with neighbor countries. We cannot be compared to the western world. We have 30 years of war in this area.”

Certainly he was right, in one sense, but it was hard not to think the governor’s posture today represented some of the problems holding the country back.

The same June 2009 International Crisis Group report said, “Rather than once again running the polls merely as distinct events, the enormous resources and attention focused on the elections should be channeled into strengthening political and electoral institutions, as a key part of the state-building efforts required to produce a stable country…This time they will be conducted under the sole steward-ship of the Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC) with the UN acting only in support…"

An Afghan officer's perspective- Pakistan is the problem

Capt. Faisal of an Afghan artillery battery in Nuristan says the Afghan Army is preparing itself to be free of international support, but they still struggle against outside influences. He points the finger at Pakistan, where he says the problems start. The Capt. says their best operations have been to offer fire support to repel an attack on a city center that was called in by fellow Afghan officers. He says insurgents will try to disrupt the Aug. 20th elections.

Villagers rely on coalition, but traditions die hard

Zieraf Village- Up windy roads and farmed terraces, high above Forward Operating Base Kala Gush, I saw a red haired man staring in fascination at the provincial reconstruction team (PRT) loaded with guns, body armor, wearing high tech sun glasses, and traipsing around his village to a inspect coalition-funded road.

I saw him a few hours later down in the base cafeteria mopping the floor, as if he'd teleported from that other world. He might just as well have been looking for faces he recognized. These villagers lead a more complex life caught between U.S. forces and their own traditions, that often run contrary to the coalition's efforts, than at first seems apparent.

In this community of 150 families, the main source of subsistence farming, was poppies, the blooming flower from which heroin is extracted. But the poppies were eradicated in Feb ’08 after the local PRT reported them to the Afghan Army. The villagers then complained to the PRT that they had nothing to live on, so the PRT started to ramp up infrastructure projects in the valley, such as improving reservoirs. It was an opportunity, a representative said.

This year the terraces are mostly green with maize and legumes, a few marijuana plants. Katheryn, a USAID representative who’s spent 26 months in the area working with the PRT, said farming is still at an absolute subsistence level, with a two and a half month growing season.

While goats ran up and down the terraces, and children peaked from stone huts constructed seemingly without mortar, it all appeared to be a land without time, but the villagers knew exactly what portions of the coalition-funded road needed more retaining walls to prevent flooding and exactly what answers to give as to why they needed more money. It's a matter of survival for a population sitting on the fence in a region where tribal law almost always trumps U.S. or Afghan rule of law efforts. Yet most males work on the FOB or on coalition road projects.

“Why have you started to grow poppies again,” Katheryn asked. The malik (village chieftain) denied they were being grown. “When I see the beautiful flower bulbing and you can cut it and a thick liquid comes out, I know that’s poppy,” she countered.





He shook his head. “There’s some men in the other village that maybe still use it to relax."

But there are other problems, endemic to Afghanistan as a whole here. The literacy rate in Nuristan province is reported to be 25% with a female literacy rate as low as 9%.

Katheryn reported one way to confirm the low literacy rate among females is that when she goes to meet with them, they require a village male to interpret because they don’t speak the national languages of Dari or Pashto, but a local dialect of Pashali.

“The women said they like to listen to radio, funded by the coalition and run by local producers, but the programs need to be in Pashali so we can understand," she said. "They don’t need to tell me any more. It’s clear that at worst, the males manipulate the message, and don’t tell the women the whole story...(for example) there are women’s rights programs being broadcast regularly.”

A while ago, the local women complained to Katheryn that they wanted jobs besides collecting fire wood and farming, so she worked to find them a program to get weaving training in Jalabad. At the last minute, a man from the village called to say the woman couldn’t come, that they had to stay at home with the children.

“Twelve women went from Wagala (another village), I want to tell you,” Katheryn reminded the malik today.

There have been some improvements, she said. Zieraf village has a small literacy class for women, which has been allowed because it’s taught by a local daughter in their own homes. It avoids them having to go to another village, which the men say is the primary root of conflicts.

“The disputes in the village are all about women," the malik said. "We want to improve the water pumps so the women don’t have to walk near the other village where the men put bad eyes on our women."

On the subject of the upcoming national elections, Katheryn asked the group of women huddled on carpets in one of the homes if they were going to vote. Some replied that they didn't receive voter registration cards.

“And what do you think about a woman one day becoming president of Afghanistan?”

The younger girls laughed, but the oldest replied, “If God gives me the energy, why not?”

Afghan National Army trains to hit their target

Nuristan, Afghanistan- Mountains ring the small Forward Operating Base Kala Gush as a Marine embedded training team trains an Afghan National Army (ANA) artillery company how to zero in on their targets using forward observers and computerized coordinates. It is the first time they're coordinating a fire team with officers to improve accuracy and timing.



Lt. Murello of the Marines 3rd Division calls down to the Afghan fire team.

Coordinates are manually calibrated on an old Russian 122 caliber artillery gun. A soldier runs with the explosive charge that launches the shell at a distant mountain side. The impact of the blast is heard about 10 seconds later, and a puff of smoke in the distance. It's hard to tell the damage or crater size one of these shells leaves, but the shrapnel is devastating.

(c) Simon Klingert










(c) Simon Klingert

(c) Simon Klingert

















The ANA relies on these big guns to target cross-border insurgents, but because of a lack of technical training and equipment, they often rely on cell phones to adjust their firing. According to the Marines, one of the problems has been the ANA officers have lagged on the training, and sometimes will arbitrarily transfer men who were trained as a team.

One of the practice shots called for an adjust left, and for some reason, down the fire chain, the gun was adjusted right. In a live fire this could be a catastrophic mistake. A lot of work still needs to be done, but the embedded training teams work because they know the strengths and weaknesses of their Afghan counterparts on a daily basis.

Re-embedding or "Out to get your war on"

Baghram Air Base- Every time I re-embed I am re-reminded how slow it starts, how much mundane waiting is involved in covering the U.S. military.

Again, I am dropped off at the mega-base, this time by an Afghan taxi driver and a local fixer who drove me an hour and a half north from Kabul. The drive was at times a methodical, yet crazed avoidance of potholes, and a picturesque tour of the northern highway's mountains and roadside shops, crammed with Afghan cars and minibuses headed to the mountains for Friday picnics.

Then the malaise hits. Baghram Air Base, the U.S. Forces' largest Eastern supply hub, is to speak frankly, the pits. The typical cluster of Army, Air Force apparatchiks, KBR contractors and foreign troops working and socializing in a weirdly alternative world that neither resembles Afghanistan, nor the smaller military outposts which dot the rest of the country. I meet my friend Simon, who's been an embedded photographer here for the last three months, and we, no different than the other 20,000 individuals on base, make our mandatory PX and coffee runs.

Embedding as a reporter is like peeling an onion or cracking one of those Russian dolls to get to a smaller, more valuable doll inside. You have to get through the big, loud, soul-less bases, to get to another smaller, yet equally soul-less division-level base, one we flew to this morning, near Jalabad, where it's at least 15 degrees hotter than Kabul, yet still not touching the inferno that is Baghdad.

From here we will be pushed out to a battalion level base, and will appeal to the commander or public affairs liaison to visit an even smaller, company-level base where we both know there's the opportunity to really learn how soldiers live, interact, fight, rebuild, patrol the community around them. It's a process, and the process takes patience unless you're the New York Times or represent another outlet with pull. Mostly it's worth it, if only to meet a few unique individuals, go on some truly memorable patrols and slowly a story forms somewhere in the back of your head. Sometimes it's not worth it. Sometimes it's too crowded. This August, everyone seems out to get their war on.

There seem to be dozens and dozens of journalists in Afghanistan this month. Violence has been increasing for the last three months in a row and elections are to be held nationwide on the 20th. I've been told there are 41 candidates running against Karzai, but only one, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the former foreign minister from the northern region, stands a serious chance of shaking Karzai's hold on power. Our public affairs contact tries to sell us on some "less desirable" areas which she claims are "very kinetic". We don't have much choice, her area of operations is crammed with journalists, especially those who were "transferred" from Patika after the U.S. solider was kidnapped.

Thinking again, there's not much to complain about. The camaraderie is always cool. At Baghram, in the press hut, dubbed Hotel California, Simon and I shared some chats with true characters- the mandatory Fox reporter who idolized Rush, the cool, hyper-smart Wired reporter in the process of writing a comprehensive book on U.S. reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in our little bunk room, a Ukrainian-bred, Brookynite named Demo who takes awe-inspiring photos of Chernobyl and Detroit, but has never traveled to an active war zone before.

Demo impressed Simon when he pulled out a brand new armored vest, dubbed "the turtle" by its manufacturer because it offers protection from groin up to the chin. Demo put it on for the first time in our cramped room and he did look like a turtle. There's no question he will remove the bullet-proof sleeves and add-ons one by one, as he realizes he will never get the shots the AP expects of him on his ten-day contract unless he has enough freedom of movement to lift his camera high enough to see through the viewfinder.

"Any of your guys need defogging cream?" Demo asked us. Simon smiled, "De-fogging cream?"

We have no idea what it is, but we both help ourselves to the greenish cream, meticulously rubbing it over the lenses of our protective eye glasses. Most likely it will coat them with a fine dust by tomorrow.