[Its close ties to Pakistan’s intelligence service, and Pakistan’s unwillingness to act against the Haqqani headquarters in Miram Shah, a city not far from the Afghan border, have drawn condemnation from Washington and escalated tensions between two nations that officially have been counterterrorism partners.]
By C. J. Chivers
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Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Helicopters dropped off soldiers in the Charbaran Valley of
Afghanistan, near Pakistan's border. More Photos »
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CHARBARAN,
Afghanistan — The first helicopter landed in the bluish gray gloom before dawn.
More than 20 members of an American reconnaissance platoon and Afghan troops
accompanying them jogged out through the swirling dust, moving into a forest
smelling of sage and pine.
Three
more helicopters followed, and soon roughly 100 troops were on the floor of
this high-elevation valley in Paktika Province, near the border with Pakistan.
They were beginning their portion of a brigade-size operation to disrupt the
Haqqani network, the insurgent group that collaborates with the Taliban and Al
Qaeda and that has become a primary focus of American counterterrorism efforts
since Osama bin Laden was killed.
The
group, based in Pakistan’s northwestern frontier, flows fighters into Afghanistan
and has orchestrated a long campaign of guerrilla and terrorist attacks against
the Afghan government and its American sponsors.
Its
close ties to Pakistan’s intelligence service, and Pakistan’s unwillingness to
act against the Haqqani headquarters in Miram Shah, a city not far from the
Afghan border, have drawn condemnation from Washington and escalated tensions
between two nations that officially have been counterterrorism partners.
Against
this backdrop, the helicopter assault into Charbaran this past week highlighted
both the false starts and the latest set of urgent goals guiding the American
military involvement in Afghanistan.
The
Pentagon plans to have withdrawn most of its forces from the country by 2014.
Talk among many officers has shifted sharply from discussions of establishing
Afghan democracy or a robust government to a more pragmatic and realistic
military ambition: doing what can be done in the little time left.
In the
tactical sense, this translates to straightforward tasks for units in the
security buffer along the border. While they still have their peak troop
presence, American commanders are trying to bloody the strongest of the armed
antigovernment groups and to put thousands more Afghan police officers and
soldiers into contested areas.
The
long-term ambition is that Afghan forces will have the skills and resolve to
stand up to the insurgency as the Americans pull back.
And
yet, even while looking beyond 2014, American units must fight a day-to-day
war.
One
element lies in trying to prevent more of the carefully planned attacks that
have shaken Kabul, the Afghan capital, several times this year. The attacks —
striking prominent targets, like the capital’s premier hotel and the American
Embassy — have often been organized by the Haqqanis, and have highlighted the
Afghan government’s vulnerability and the insurgents’ resiliency.
Lt.
Col. John V. Meyer, who commands the Second Battalion of the 28th Infantry
Regiment, which used two companies to cordon off the Charbaran Valley and
another to sweep the villages, called the operation “a spoiling attack to
prevent a spectacular attack in the Kabul area.” It was also intended, he said,
to gather intelligence.
The
Charbaran Valley has become one of the main routes for Haqqani fighters to
enter Afghanistan. They generally come in on foot, American officers say, and
then, after staying overnight in safe houses and tent camps, they work their
way toward Kabul or other areas where they have been sent to fight.
Mid-level
Haqqani leaders also meet in the valley’s villages, American officers said,
including near an abandoned school and the ruins of a government center that
the United States built earlier in the war but that local fighters had
destroyed by 2008.
It was
2010 when the last conventional unit entered the valley. An infantry company,
it landed by helicopter and was caught in a two-hour gunfight as it left.
When
the American and Afghan troops fanned out this time, their mission faced a
familiar law of guerrilla war: when conventional forces arrive in force,
guerrillas often disperse, setting aside weapons to watch the soldiers pass by.
The
operation was also probably no surprise to the Haqqani fighters in the valley,
American officers said, because during the days of preparation some of the
Afghan troops probably leaked that the assault was coming.
As the
soldiers climbed the hills — laden with body armor and backpacks heavy with
water and ammunition — they almost immediately found signs of the fighters’
presence.
In the
first house they entered, not far from the landing zone, only two women and
several children were home. The men had all left.
Inside,
the Afghan troops uncovered a case of ammunition fired by both PK machine guns
and Dragunov sniper rifles. They also found two bandoleers of .303-caliber
ammunition for the dated Lee-Enfield rifles that remain a common insurgent arm.
Capt.
Nicholas C. Sinclair, the company commander, ordered the Afghan troops to
confiscate the ammunition. The younger woman protested loudly.
“There
have been many American soldiers here, and they always left it,” she said.
This,
the Americans said, was most likely a lie. An Afghan police officer packed away
the ammunition. The company walked off.
Later,
at the now-abandoned school, which the Haqqani and Taliban fighters had forced
to close, the soldiers were greeted by a taunting note written in white chalk
above the main entrance.
“Taliban
is good,” it read, in English.
The
school, the soldiers said, was evidence of an earlier setback. According to those
who advanced the counterinsurgency doctrine that swept through the American
military several years ago, building schools was supposed to help turn valleys
like this one around.
Instead,
it was shut down by the same fighters who overran the government center and
chased the police away. It stands empty — a marker of good intentions gone
awry, and of time and resources lost before this latest battalion inherited
duties in the province.
More
signs of the fighters soon emerged. At the edge of the Charbaran bazaar, where
the Haqqani and Taliban fighters were said to gather, Second Lt. Mark P. Adams,
a fire support officer, glanced into a woodpile he was using for cover and saw
a makeshift bomb.
The
weapon — fashioned from 120-millimeter and 82-millimeter mortar rounds attached
to roughly 10 pounds of homemade explosives — was powerful but not armed. It
apparently had been hidden there but was meant to have been moved to a road
frequented by the Afghan and American troops.
Staff
Sgt. Robert Blanco, an explosive-ordnance disposal specialist, put a small
explosive charge against it and detonated the bomb in place.
Soon
the soldiers climbed a mountain, joining the rest of the battalion, to sleep in
the relative safety of a higher ridge.
The
next morning, as the sweep resumed, one elder, Ghul Mohammad, sat with First
Lt. Tony E. Nicosia, an American platoon leader, as Afghan and American
soldiers searched the shops a second time.
There
was a ritual familiarity to their exchange, a product of a war entering its
second decade.
“When
you come here, that’s a big problem for us,” the elder said. “Because after you
leave the Taliban comes and asks us about you, and they take our food and are
not paying for it.”
Whether
this was true could not be determined from this conversation alone; many
villagers, the Afghan and American soldiers said, support Taliban and Haqqani
fighters.
The
soldiers also said that at least some of the men gathered around them were
probably fighters, at least part time, who had set down their weapons for the
brief period that the Americans had a large presence in the valley.
“We
understand your concerns and, hopefully, we can push some security in here,”
Lieutenant Nicosia said politely.
Ghul
Mohammad nodded. “I cannot do anything about it,” he said. “I want my God to
bring security here.”
The
Americans shouldered their equipment and began the walk to the next buildings,
on the opposite side of the valley.
Throughout
the operation, hidden fighters were occasionally heard over the two-way radios
that Afghan interpreters were monitoring for intelligence. The guerrillas had
threatened to ambush the reconnaissance company.
After
the American and Afghan soldiers reached the opposite slope, the guerrillas
managed their only attack: they fired four mortar rounds from outside the
cordon.
The
rounds exploded well behind the soldiers, near the abandoned school, causing no
harm but making clear that Charbaran, which had fallen almost silent as the
company moved through, remained out of government hands.
