Major Hurdles for U.S. in Rugged Border Province

If geography is destiny, then the difficult battle by Americans to rid eastern Afghanistan of Al Qaeda members was probably inevitable.

Mountains are made for guerrilla wars. And porous borders are made for guerrillas seeking sanctuary.

Paktia province has both: Two-thirds of the land is mountain range, and it shares a long border with Pakistan’s so-called tribal areas, where government control is limited and tribal leaders are generally willing to give refuge to the highest bidder.

It is probably not an accident that nine of the 10 Americans lost to hostile fire in Afghanistan have died in the terrain of Paktia, where Americans are fighting Taliban and Al Qaeda holdouts.

The American experience in Paktia--marked by missteps and misguidance--presents a kind of case study of the obstacles the United States faces in trying to eradicate Al Qaeda from Afghanistan. There is little question that the province offers distinct advantages to the United States’ enemies: It is easy to hide there, easy to move without being seen, and the weak central government exercises little control.

What Americans may not have fully understood when they first arrived secretly in Paktia in December was that they faced a war on many fronts.

There was the war with the Al Qaeda fighters holed up in mountain villages, some of whom crossed back and forth into Pakistan. But the U.S. also had to deal with a tribal war involving the province’s biggest commanders--all of whom had heavily armed forces and were vying for control. Some had links to Al Qaeda, all had personal agendas, and nothing was what it seemed.

“There’s no other province that has such severe difficulties as Paktia,” said Fazlullah, the governor of neighboring Lowgar province, who is known as a reasonable voice in this part of Afghanistan.

“The Americans did not have much precise information about the situation when they came,” he said. “And there are a lot of tribes there. Some are bad and others worse. The Americans did not consult much before they came.”

Most of America’s activities in Afghanistan have been conducted in secret, and the U.S. military in the region refuses to discuss its strategy with reporters. But conversations with tribal leaders and local commanders paint a portrait of a place that the American military knew was going to pose major problems from early on in the war, and where the U.S. was hampered by violent local politics and a serious lack of reliable intelligence.

In part as a result, the Americans initially made what appear to have been a series of misjudgments--probably based on flawed intelligence from local players with scores to settle--that may have cost them credibility in the province. It may also have rallied some of the population against the anti-Taliban war effort, delaying the Americans’ ability to move quickly.

In at least three instances--on Dec. 22, Dec. 29 and Feb. 4--Americans bombed villages and convoys, apparently killing civilians. In one case, it was a convoy that included scores of tribal elders and family leaders going to Kabul, the capital, to attend the induction of Hamid Karzai as prime minister of the interim Afghan government. About 60 people died in the bombing, according to witnesses.

Defense Department officials maintain that the bombs hit their mark, with the implication that either Taliban or Al Qaeda members were in the group, but local people and several diplomats believe otherwise.

“They were handicapped by a lack of field intelligence at the beginning of the operation,” said a senior diplomat who has spent more than a decade in Afghanistan. “It sounds like the situation is improving, but there’s a political contest for control of southern Afghanistan, and the Americans are caught in the middle of it.”

Paktia has long lived by its own rules. It is now best thought of as having two major spheres of influence--north and south, divided by a high mountain pass--each with its own set of players and allegiances.

‘No Al Qaeda Here’

The north is controlled by Haji Saifullah, 57, who heads the Gardez shura, or local council. Saifullah, a lean man with hollow cheeks and burning eyes under heavy eyebrows and a well-wound turban, is quick to declare his allegiance to Karzai and to claim that any Al Qaeda members merely passed through Gardez as they fled the country.

“There are no Al Qaeda here,” he said in a recent interview.

During the Taliban’s rule, however, according to the accounts of aid workers and local people, the Gardez leadership worked closely with the Islamic government and supported its needs, probably in part to preserve its hold on the lucrative smuggling routes that run to Pakistan.

Southern Paktia, whose major city is Khowst, is controlled by a warlord named Bacha Khan. The burly, heavily mustached fighter has real credentials as a Taliban opponent but is a bully and, says one Western diplomat, “of limited political competence.”

Soon after Khan linked up with the Americans late last year, he began boasting about his ability to call in B-52 bombers to eliminate his enemies. Whether he actually had that power has never been clear, but his enemies believe that he does.

It was into this contentious landscape that the Americans parachuted in December. Special Forces soldiers arrived by helicopter near the top of the Tira Pass, which leads to Gardez in the northern half of the province. They spoke little to the Afghan fighters at first, doing reconnaissance with little local input.

“They would come at night and go into the mountains,” said Hamidullah, a local soldier who sometimes staffs a checkpoint at the pass. “We saw them many times. They never told us what they were doing.”

The surrounding area was thought to be honeycombed with Al Qaeda hideaways in small villages, cave complexes and among the local population. After several weeks of these explorations, the Americans appear to have confirmed that Paktia was a problem and they needed an infrastructure in the province--loyal local commanders and local intelligence--to fight Al Qaeda.

Around the first of January, a contingent of 15 Americans rode down from Lowgar province in Datsun pickups, the vehicle of choice for commanders of all stripes in Afghanistan, to make their first overtures to the Gardez shura. Their goal was to set up one of two clandestine bases in the province that would ultimately be used for Operation Anaconda and any number of other smaller missions.

“They asked us to recommend a quiet place where they could set up security,” said Saifullah, the warlord and leader of the Gardez shura.

Saifullah recommended a large compound about a mile south of Gardez that is known locally as “the castle.” The Americans rented it for 5,000 Pakistani rupees a month, less than $100. Paktia’s population has such close relations with Pakistan that merchants refuse to accept Afghan currency.

Then the Americans began spreading money around. They hired 200 to 300 men for $200 a month apiece and used about 100 for security and trained the rest to fight as soldiers. “They provided everything for the men: boots, uniforms, arms, whatever people needed,” said Mohammed Isak, a deputy to Saifullah.

Did the Americans get good information from their local allies, and are they getting it now? It is hard to say, but there is plenty of disingenuousness, and plenty of strange characters, in the Gardez region, according to central government officials and local leaders.

The official leadership in Gardez, for instance, disclaims any knowledge of Al Qaeda in the area, but people with more ties to the central government tell a different story.

Mohammed Amin, an engineer, works closely with the Afghan army based in Gardez, which is loyal to the central government. “Before the Americans came, the Al Qaeda and Taliban were right here and now they are still in the south in Zormat, southwest of Gardez,” he said. Three weeks later, Zormat is at the center of the battle in Paktia.

Double Agent in Midst

Another possible source of flawed intelligence may have come from the very people the Americans hoped would give them tips on the location of Taliban and Al Qaeda.

For instance, one of the people who received a satellite phone for relaying information was Maulani Monib, a bespectacled former Taliban deputy minister for telecommunications, who had a coy manner and constantly changing story.

First, he said he got his phone from the United Nations, but when queried about who at the United Nations had given it to him, he said it had come from a former general in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. He was using it, he said, “for community work to help form a [governing] loya jirga.”

People in Gardez said he got it from the Americans, and it certainly seems unlikely that anybody else was handing out satellite phones, an expensive and treasured commodity in this part of the world.

But the Americans misjudged if they trusted his tips, said a high-ranking official in the Interior Ministry. Monib was a double agent, working both for the Americans and for either former members of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Agency connected to Al Qaeda or directly for Al Qaeda, the official said.

“Monib says he is a more moderate person, but we know from our intelligence that he is very dangerous and supplied money to the people at Zormat,” the official said.

Monib, whom this reporter interviewed in mid-January, had disappeared by mid-February, apparently when it became known that he had more than one employer.

The picture is little better in southern Paktia around Khowst, where about 120 Special Forces soldiers are camped in a former prison. The soldier in charge of the base is known locally as General John; his deputy speaks fluent Dari, but even so the going seems rough.

Rather than denying the existence of Al Qaeda, the family that controls the region, including Bacha Khan and his brothers Kamal and Wazir, and the powerful chief of security, Surgul, brand every enemy “Al Qaeda.”

After some of the nomadic people known as Kuchis attacked the Khan brothers’ fighters, killing two, the brothers went to the U.S. base in Khowst and demanded retribution. “We told them, ‘Definitely we’re completely sure there are Al Qaeda with the Kuchis. Accept our demand and bomb them,’ ” Surgul said.

Asked what the evidence was, Surgul said, “We think there are Al Qaeda there because when we went there they shot at us.”

But in a region where everybody shoots at one another--especially when, as in this case, they are competitors for control of the border--that seems a slender reed on which to hang a bombing.

“I don’t think there is any truth here. . . . None of them are good guys,” said a frustrated-sounding Special Forces soldier, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because some of his comrades met with local commanders in Khowst.

“One-third of the people want us here, one-third could care less, and one-third hate our guts,” he said.

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Beginning in stories published in 2006, the Afghan warlord Bacha Khan is identified as Pacha Khan Zadran. (Second reference is “Pacha Khan.”)

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