Friday, Sep 24, 2004
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By Declan Walsh
URUZGAN (AFGHANISTAN), SEPT. 23. Night-vision goggles pressed against their eyes and a carpet of stars glittering overhead, the Alpha Company patrol creep silently through the valley. Dogs bark as the 20 soldiers pad past farmhouses and deserted almond orchards. Swinging right, they sweep infrared beams over the mountain line for signs of the enemy. Nothing. By dawn, only goats have strayed into their sights. The "bad guys" have eluded them again. "The Taliban are hard to find," says Sgt. Aranda, trudging back to base.
A maddening task
Rooting out the remnants of the Taliban has proved a maddening task for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Scattered and weakened, the militia remain a slippery foe, hidden in the crevices of the mountains. But with landmark elections just weeks away, the hunt has gained fresh urgency. The U.S. military is trying to quell the elusive insurgency with a mixture of friendship and force. One day its soldiers drill wells, build schools and perform lifesaving medical operations. The next they go hunting for Taliban. The American assumption that good works buy Afghan loyalty does not always hold true. And sometimes it can go disastrously wrong. During a medical patrol to help the sick in a remote village last Friday, the commanding officer, Captain Andrew Brosnan, heard gunshots and mortar fire in a nearby valley. Suspecting bandits were attacking a truck convoy, he led an investigating team. As they mounted the slope his soldiers spotted two running figures in the distance. After a verbal warning and a warning shot, Capt. Brosnan ordered his team to open fire. But when the approached the fallen `enemy', they discovered they had shot two children, Abdul Ali (12), who was hit in the leg, and his brother Abdul Wali (10), who had been shot in the head. By the time a Black Hawk helicopter landed to evacuate the wounded boys, Wali was dead.
Frustrated, infuriated
Although the attacks have caused no serious injuries, they have infuriated Capt. Brosnan. His troops, he says, have built schools, dug wells and erected latrines in the town. His medics treat the sick and call in helicopter evacuations for patients in mortal danger. Yet he is frustrated that he has run into a wall of silence about the attacks. Even though some were launched from the busy town bazaar, nobody, it seems, knows anything. Several factors mitigate against the U.S. mission. Many locals have vivid memories of the brutal decade-long Russian occupation. Many are also terrified of reprisals if they are seen as being associated with the U.S. troops. On Sunday morning, Abdul Nabi, the father of the boys who were shot sat nursing his surviving son at Kandahar military hospital. "How can this be a mistake?'' he asked, holding Ali's wounded leg in his hand. "A mistake is shooting one person. Not two ... If they are shooting our children how can we be their friends?" — © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
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