Troops often left to decide whether suspicious activity warrants detention

HAYBATI, Afghanistan- Two D-cell battery packs wrapped in yellow tape with wires sticking from one end lay on the the melting snow amid the goat droppings. They'd been found along with a can of mortar charges, inside a rough shelter adjoining a family home. An Afghan stooped against the clay wall of his qalat, waiting for the American and Afghan soldiers to decide what to do with him.

It was hardly a cache worth writing home about, considering the soldiers of Whiskey Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne had been trudging from compound to compound, clearing houses since first light. The residents of Haybati had been known to harbor Taliban and had never been visited by the current district subgovernor.

But the question of what to do with an Afghan male suspected of handling bomb-making materials cuts to the issue of how a U.S. commanding officer on the ground decides whtehre there's enough evidence to take a man away from his family.

Read article at Stars and Stripes.