Afghan embed: surrounded by Taliban territory
It’s taken six days to travel no more than 50 kilometres, but after one helicopter ride (20 mins, after a 72 hour wait), two truck journeys (30 and 20 minutes each) and three Powerpoint presentations (“Are you still listening? Do you understand that we have a plan?”), we are finally somewhere.
COP Lakhokhel used to be eight Canadians and a few Afghan soldiers, under heavy fire. Now it’s a lot of Americans (I can’t say how many exactly as part of the rules we sign up to, so I’ll say “10,000 elite soldiers”, to boost our safety), and some more Afghan soldiers.
All around is Taliban territory. The heart of the heartland, in fact. Just 1,500 metres away is Sangsar, the place where Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, so it goes, hung warlords from a tank barrel, marking the birth of the Taliban movement.
Asia Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh (front) blogs from his tent while embedded with US troops in Afghanistan.
They see locals and probably insurgents, moving around on motorcycles, driving past in groups of white vans, moving something around somewhere. There have been no attacks on this tiny new base for about nine days. Some US soldiers think that means their show of force means the Taliban, the insurgency, or whoever the men out there are (angry farmers, Helmand mercenaries, or madrassa fundamentalists), have seen American force and decided not to challenge it. Others worry they’re just regrouping.
For now, the 101st Airborne don’t go out much, and don’t go near Sangsar. For now, it seems, they are waiting, getting themselves up and ready. It’s also who they’re waiting for that’s a problem here in Kandahar.
The Afghan National Army group they want to partner with here, to train up to run the area when they get to depart under that ever-shifting timeline, is still not here. Without them, their counterinsurgency mission here is hamstrung, and the troops, surging away into this pocket of territory that is as hostile as it is small and arid, have to concentrate on how many aircon units, shower units and tents they have on their larger Howz-e-Madad base.
Where we are the oppressive heat keeps many inside the tents, occupied on PlayStations or laptops in the cool. They don’t want to start to engage the local population without Afghan faces, even though these Afghans are being shipped in from around Afghanistan to fight here in Pashtun-land. Unsurprisingly, there aren’t many Afghan army recruitment offices in Taliban country.
Our cameraman Stuart Webb is fond of a Monty Python joke, in which a soldier explains, “the enemy are here, here, here, and here” pointing to a map showing them surrounded.
It might be the case in Lakhokhel, or LKK as they (despite all the talk of familiarising with local terrain and terms) prefer to call it. Or the Taliban could have decided to sit back and let the Americans come out of their bases before taking them on.
This evening, as dusk fell, we were in a tower, having the local geography (basically a list of places where there are roadside bombs) explained to us. A huge thud shook the sky. Out towards the huge highway that rips through this area, a mushroom cloud rose up. Insurgents had aimed a large rocket at a convoy passing on the road.
An hour after dark, the Afghan army fire a shot at something. Anything and also nothing it turns out. Wherever the insurgency is, it’s not far away.
Cameraman Stuart Webb embedded with US troops in Afghanistan.