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Reporter Ben Gilbert reports on how one military unit in Afghanistan is trying to implement the new US strategy in the country. Gilbert is embedded with the Fourth Infantry Division’s First Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment.
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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman, this is The World. President Obama is planning to send an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan, their mission will be to try to reverse the gains the Taliban have made in the country. Thousands of those troops will be deployed in and around Kandahar. That city has been called the center of gravity in the fight in southern Afghanistan. One American battalion, the 4th Infantry Division’s 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment has been part of the effort since May. Ben Gilbert was embedded with the regiment when he prepared this report.
BEN GILBERT: The 1-12 Battalion has seven hundred soldiers to patrol an area dubbed the “Wild, Wild West” just outside Kandahar. And Captain Duke Reim and the 100 or so soldiers in his Alpha Company arguably have the hardest job there. A road that runs south from the battalion’s base marks his men’s area of control.
DUKE REIM: Yeah that’s our interdiction line right there. The further west you go is what we call The Heart of Darkness. And over here in Sangsar is where the Taliban actually originated.
BEN: And the Taliban are still there and largely in control. The price has been heavy when Alpha Company has crossed that line before. The company has lost four men to antipersonnel bombs. Reim and his men drive down the dangerous interdiction line at least twice a day. The Captain says his company has been attacked seven times on the road in the past month by snipers with recoilless rifles.
DUKE: They’ve also used the RPG nines over there, the heat rounds that actually have penetrated the hull. So a lot of guys are usually worried, coming down through there that it might be their time.
BEN: We drive down the road in armored personnel carriers to an area that Alpha Company has never visited. It’s only a mile from the main base, just on the other side of that interdiction line. But it takes 20 minutes to drive there because the road has been repeatedly blown up by roadside bombs. We arrive at a village where we’re supposed to meet the locals, but it’s abandoned. The troops get out of the trucks and look around. What they see is not encouraging. Bullets have left pockmarks in the mud brick walls of farms and houses. Some buildings have collapsed from air strikes or artillery. These are scars from battles Canadian troops fought here with the Taliban in 2007 and 2008. The Canadians took heavy casualties. No coalition troops have come here since then until today. About a half-mile away the troops do find Afghans in a small set of mud brick buildings and compounds. A vicious looking dog greets the soldiers. The troops are going house to house in order to expand what their captain calls his sphere of influence. Alpha Company’s 3rd Platoon leader, Lt. Nathan Wagnon finds an Afghan man named Sultan. Sultan is standing at the door to his home with his children. Lt. Wagnon talks to him through an interpreter.
LT. NATHAN WAGNON: Tell him basically we’re trying to provide security for his village. Ask him if anybody else lives in this village.
TRANSLATOR: [AFGHAN]
BEN: Sultan says about 50 people live in this village. Lt. Wagnon asks if the Taliban have told people not to leave their houses at night. Sultan responds.
SULTAN: [AFGHAN]
TRANSLATOR: Yeah sir he said yeah. They are enforcing curfew on us and they tell us to don’t come out from the house. He said that it is on the morning that I come from the house.
BEN: Lt. Wagnon asks if his troops can provide anything: food, blankets or medicine. Sultan’s father, a bearded old man named Faisal Mohammad smiles and laughs before responding.
FAISAL MOHAMMAD: [AFGHAN]
TRANSLATOR: Yes sir he said that we need like blanket we need everything. He said that we are poor people and he said the Taliban don’t let us to take anything from the Coalition forces. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
NATHAN: Basically if we give them humanitarian aid the Taliban comes in and takes it from them?
TRANSLATOR: Yeah, yes sir. He said that unfortunately that we cannot take and they been harassing us, bothering us.
NATHAN: Well tell him we are going to provide consistent security in this area. I mean we are going to help you guys you know live a secure life and have the things that you need so any information that you can give us about the Taliban will help us keep them away from you.
BEN: The men thank the Americans. They ask them for blankets but to bring them discretely. The Afghans continue to giggle nervously through the conversation. This are has never been secure. The Americans are here today but this will continue to be Taliban territory until the Americans set up a base or some kind of permanent presence here. A man at another house puts it this way. He and his family are stuck between the Coalition troops and the Taliban. The Americans head back to their vehicles. But there’s a problem. Two of the armored trucks are stuck in the mud, then there’s a bigger problem. Someone takes a few pot shots at the troops. They scatter for cover and return fire.
NATHAN: See any movement? Hey what’s the duration? Distance?
BEN: The soldiers look for the shooter, but no one’s there. Lt. Wagnon says it’s not an attack, it’s a message.
NATHAN: Yeah it’s just harassing fire. They’re just basically letting us know like, hey we know you’re here and we don’t like it.
BEN: It’s only a few hundred feet from where the troops talked to the Afghans. It could be the same people they just talked to. No one knows. Back at the unit’s headquarters, Captain Reim says it’s hard to know who is friend or foe here.
DUKE: That’s the hardest part is who you’re actually dealing with. I mean farmer by day, Taliban by night.
BEN: Captain Reim says he’ll continue to push deeper into this area. He hopes to set up an outpost so he and his unit can better monitor the region and provide closer security for the locals. But it’s hard with such a big area and so few troops. Alpha Company is at the edge of the current counterinsurgency effort to secure bigger population centers farther to the east. The Afghans here may be stuck between the Taliban and the US troops for some time to come. For The World I’m Ben Gilbert.
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