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| Special Forces in Remote
Areas Garnering Support for Karzai
Knight Ridder/Tribune
February 02, 2002
BAMIYAN, Afghanistan - The role that elite U.S. Army Special Forces
are playing in the hunt for Osama bin Laden has been showcased in a
spate of recent news reports from eastern Afghanistan. But here in the
remote reaches of central Afghanistan, the publicity shy American soldiers
are quietly pursuing a different mission, cultivating friends for the
United States and shoring up support for the interim Afghan government
of Hamid Karzai.
It is a mission with
potentially significant strategic implications.
Speaking in their
first interview with a U.S. news organization, seven U.S. Special Forces
soldiers in war-ravaged Bamiyan province described to The Dallas Morning
News their behind-the-scenes work in channeling humanitarian aid to hungry
and homeless Afghans.
What the U.S. soldiers said they couldn't
discuss is the military component of their mission in Bamiyan. Foreign aid
workers in the area, however, said that component of the U.S. mission
includes training the armed forces of Gov. Muhammed Khalili and mopping up
remaining pockets of Taliban and al-Qaida forces.
In two
conversations this week, the U.S. soldiers greeted a reporter and
photographer outside the entrance to their heavily guarded compounded.
They apologized for not being able to share more information about their
work.
Despite the restrictions, their remarks offered a first look
at the U.S. military efforts in this strategic province. Among the
highlights of their work, the soldiers said, was a November operation they
described as the largest-ever humanitarian airdrop - 110 tons.
The
aid that continues to be dropped into Bamiyan by C-130 transport planes
includes food, water, blankets, boots and emergency shelter materials, the
soldiers said.
The American troops wouldn't disclose when they
arrived in Afghanistan or how they reached Bamiyan. But they described
their role in starting a medical clinic in the looted shell of the local
hospital immediately after the Taliban withdrew from Bamiyan, which would
place their arrival here in mid-November.
During their operations
at the local hospital in the town of Bamiyan - capital of the province of
the same name - U.S. medics even performed a couple of minor operations, a
soldier said.
"One of the big problems is getting aid out of
Bamiyan (the town) and into the center of the province," said one soldier.
"People will walk for days if they hear something about assistance. When
we had our aid station, we had people walk for nine hours."
On
some days, the U.S. medics couldn't attend to all the people who showed up
for treatment, the soldier said.
The Taliban retreat from Bamiyan
- a province where they practiced what local residents describe as a
savage scorched-earth policy - turned out to be the early stages of the
movement's collapse in the face of a massive U.S.-led bombing campaign
that began Oct. 7.
Against the backdrop of the bombing campaign,
the Pentagon's humanitarian airdrops were previously criticized by
international aid groups as poorly targeted and ineffective. The U.S.
efforts in Bamiyan are coming in for similar sniping.
Norma McRae,
an official of the International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC, in
Bamiyan, dismissed the humanitarian impact of the U.S. military effort and
said the supplies were going to Khalili's army. Her claim couldn't be
verified.
The U.S. soldiers said they couldn't discuss other
elements of their work - such as whether they were engaged in combat
operations. But one did confirm the statement of one of Khalili's men that
the Americans had rigged up a radio antenna for local soldiers on a
hilltop overlooking the town.
Foreign aid workers in Bamiyan say
they have heard from their Afghan contacts that the U.S. Special Forces
assisted Khalili's troops recently in an operation to arrest foreign
al-Qaida fighters still holding out in the area.
The Americans say
their only links with the outside world are radio transmissions and daily
resupply flights by a pair of U.S. Army Chinook helicopters.
There
was a moment of drama during Tuesday's resupply mission when the second
helicopter aborted its landing after it was engulfed by a thick cloud of
dust whipped up by its rotors and the rotors of the first helicopter that
had landed moments earlier. The second helicopter was nearly on the ground
when the pilot suddenly began gaining altitude, circled around the
airfield and landed without incident on his second attempt.
The
presence of U.S. forces in Bamiyan is especially notable because of the
strategic importance of the province: It is the homeland of Afghanistan's
Shia Muslim minority, the Hazara, who have traditionally looked to their
fellow Shias in neighboring Iran for support and guidance.
As a
result, Bamiyan looms as an important battleground in U.S. and United
Nations efforts to prevent Afghanistan's neighbors, especially Iran and
Pakistan, from exerting the same sort of destabilizing influence that
steered the country into civil war during the early 1990s. Preventing such
influence is also seen by U.S. diplomats and Afghanistan experts as
crucial to the Bush administration aim of building a stable Afghan
government that is friendly toward the United States.
The U.S.
soldiers are based on the outskirts of this tiny provincial capital in a
mud-brick house surrounded by coils of razor wire. They said they were
members of the 5th Special Forces Unit of Ft. Campbell, Ky. Citing
security concerns, they said they couldn't reveal their family names,
hometowns or other personal information. They also asked not to be
photographed.
Nevertheless, the soldiers did offer some snapshots
of their solitary life inside the compound. Their leisure activities, for
instance, include card games and Monopoly, the soldiers said.
Staying warm is a never-ending challenge in Bamiyan during the
winter. And like more affluent locals, the soldiers said they are heating
their mud-brick house with locally made wood stoves. With electricity
non-existent in this part of Afghanistan, they power their laptop
computers and other electric appliances by a diesel generator.
The
men, all wearing beards of varying lengths, said they were starved for
news from the outside world.
"How are the Stars doing?" one
eagerly asked.
On Tuesday, as a soldier named Mike walked out to
greet the reporter and photographer, his radio crackled to life.
"Gray Squirrel to Woodchuck. Gray Squirrel to Woodchuck," one of
his buddies radioed, followed by an inaudible crack about the Washington
Redskins.
Woodchuck playfully retorted into the radio: "Yeah, and
the Dallas Cowboys need a new quarterback."
---
(c) 2002, The Dallas Morning News.
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