The area was more treacherous, and less safe, than when the push into the canyons had begun. The reports compose a portrait in futility: the enemy was strong, the post's ranks were small and counterinsurgency efforts had no traction. Local residents were caught between sides. The outposts in outer Nuristan Province had become defensive positions kept alive by helicopters that would typically fly only at night. After the released men fled, villagers reported hearing a gunshot. "The fighters secured Fazal Ahad and told the others they could leave now and live, or follow them and die," said the military's report of the incident. The insurgents sent a brutal but measured message to the villagers. The next day, six insurgents stopped a car owned by Fazal Ahad, the leader of a local council, or shura, that cooperated with the Americans on security issues, as he drove with other council members down a canyon road. "These people are hated by God," the letter said, according to a translation in the intelligence summary. It listed the names of Afghans who worked as the outpost's security guards. The handwritten letters complained about American infidels and the "sold-out mullahs," contractors, police officers, soldiers and officials who worked with them. The insurgents sliced off the others' ears.Īpril 29, 2007: Men who identified themselves as "We the Mujahedeen" posted so-called night letters on a mosque. The Afghan forces held little promise: the Americans training them noted that local police chiefs complained that their officers were not being paid and that most of them "will not work, they will walk off the job." The reports describe how the insurgents gradually moved to cut off the outpost, physically and socially.Feb 17, 2007: Armed men in Afghan Army uniforms ambushed three Afghan trucks as they left a nearby base after delivering supplies. Attack helicopters, which might provide fire support if the outpost was attacked, were based at Jalalabad - more than a 30-minute flight away.īefore long the optimistic reports about handouts of milk and soccer balls and the good will of the local residents gave way to a realization that insurgents controlled almost everything up to the outpost's gates. Most of the movement of supplies and troops was done by helicopters, which were exposed to ground fire. The road to the base was overlooked by high ground all traffic was vulnerable to ambushes. The security situation was, in a word, bad. Later, after a larger handout of clothing, first-aid kits and school supplies to villagers, the report summarized the pitch to local residents: "Our friendship grows every day." It also noted that the "positive nonlethal effects" of the donations "stimulated a frank discussion on security issues." "It was clear our meeting had produced tangible results," the outpost reported in December 2006, after the Americans distributed pencils, notebooks, erasers and pencil sharpeners in a nearby village, along with prayer rugs and winter gloves for children. Although it was obvious from the outset that there were so few troops that the outpost, like others of its kind, could barely defend its bunkers and patrol at the same time, much less disrupt a growing insurgency, the dispatches carried notes of cheerful confidence when they described the campaign for local hearts and minds. Some early reports from the area were upbeat. The area, near the border with Pakistan, was suspected of being an insurgent corridor. The outpost was small, isolated and exposed to high ground, one compound in a network of tiny firebases the American and Afghan governments built far from Afghanistan's cities.
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