Firefight shows strong Al Qaeda persistence

A Saturday raid on the village of Ab Khail, 10 miles east of this city, started as a routine disarming operation. American special forces and local Afghan fighters were searching house by house for heavy weapons.

But then heavy machine gun fire spilled over the high mud walls of a large family compound. By the time the four-and-half hour gunbattle was over, three Arabs and two Afghans were killed. Five Americans and seven Afghans were injured, two of the Americans seriously injured and evacuated to Germany yesterday, according to US military spokesmen at Bagram Air Base in Kabul.

This is the first major US engagement with suspected Al Qaeda forces since Operation Anaconda last spring, indicating that there are still pockets of resistance along Afghanistan's eastern flank, on the Pakistan border.

"It suggests that we're facing a committed enemy," says Col. Roger King, military spokesman at Bagram. "It suggests what we've tried to say all along, that this is not a quick fix, it's not going to be over tomorrow."

That Americans encountered fierce resistance in Ab Khail is perhaps not surprising. The village was renowned for its large madrassah, or religious seminary, for its conservative culture, and for its close ties with the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

"It was an ambush, and the Arabs planned this," says Raz Mohammad Dalili, governor of Paktia province, and governor for the neighboring provinces of Paktika and Khost.

But disarming the entire Afghan population – and particularly Pashtuns, for whom weapons are a sign of power and a form of self-protection – could be one of the most dangerous tasks faced by American forces and the transitional government of President Hamid Karzai. Because of the incredibly fluid nature of alliances in Afghanistan, former friends may soon become future rivals and one wrong move can push the entire region to the brink of civil war.

At the center of this region's intrigues is warlord Badshah Khan Zadran, a former truckdriver, Pashtun tribal leader, and militia fighter against the Soviet occupation of 1979-89. Selected by President Karzai last spring to be governor of Paktia because of his role in expelling the Taliban and Al Qaeda from eastern Afghanistan, Badshah Khan was quickly removed from his post after protests from merchants in Gardez and Khost. The central government says it is currently investigating cases of kidnapping, murder, and rape against the warlord, who has denied the charges.

"[Badshah Khan] has been accused of killing and robbing, so if we don't arrest him we are committing a sin," says Interior Minister Taj Mohammad Wardak.

Meanwhile, Badshah Khan's 2,000 men continue to control all major checkposts on the main roads, from the outskirts of Gardez to Khost and on toward the Pakistan border. Six hundred of these men are also part of the Afghan forces used by Americans in anti-Al Qaeda operations in Khost.

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