US hunts bin Laden; locals seek security

First came the hammer, and now US military officials say it's time for the anvil.

After nearly a month of Pakistani forces on their own side of the border pressing pro-Taliban tribes, the US military announced this weekend the beginning of Operation Mountain Storm in Afghanistan. The new name marks the unprecedented coordination between Pakistani and US coalition forces to close the net around Taliban and Al Qaeda border hideouts.

"This operation is aimed like the rest at ... reconstruction and providing enduring security in Afghanistan so it is certainly about more than one person," said Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, US military spokesman in Kabul. The statement is a nod to concerns that US troops have been too focused on nabbing big targets like Osama bin Laden at the expense of wider policing.

Afghans living here in the border province of Paktika are among those who appreciate the US presence, but are upset with the lack of security throughout the region, not just the border.

Of course, sealing the border from insurgents crossing in from Pakistan is an important part of Afghanistan's overall security. And the increased patrols here have already netted one success. On March 5, US forces and soldiers from the fledgling Afghan National Army beat back an attack by anticoalition fighters in the Paktika village of Sesandeh, near the border. Nine anticoalition fighters were killed, and seven were captured.

"We were in our base when it was attacked," says Javed Ahmad, an ANA soldier from Khost, who took part in the battle. "There were foreigners and Afghans both, and the foreigners were Pakistanis. They had Kalashnikovs, heavy machine guns, rocket propelled grenades, and mortars. We were surprised they were able to bring such heavy weapons to attack our base. We thought they must have had local support, so we searched the area."

But for every success like this one, there are several other cases of antigovernment attacks that go unchallenged.

Local officials here say that a rocket landed near the Paktika governor's house in Shahran on March 7, injuring one Afghan soldier, who was airlifted to Bagram Air Base near Kabul. Fourteen other rockets were discovered at the launch site, their timing devices apparently having malfunctioned.

Two days later, a local judge named Naeem was kidnapped near the village of Waza Khwa, near the Pakistani border. He was released a few days later after the intervention of local tribal elders.

Here in Urgun, a dusty market town just 40 miles west of the Pakistani border, local Afghans say they welcome US military forces. But like most people caught in a war zone, the men and women of Paktika find themselves between two bitter enemies, and trusted by neither side.

"People in Pakistan call us Americans because we keep Americans here; and in Kabul, our own government calls us Al Qaeda," says Baseer Ahmad, a senior student at an Islamic seminary near Urgun. "We are like a volleyball being tossed from one side of the net to the other side."

With a population of just a half million, scattered over some of the least developed and most forbidding terrain in Afghanistan, Paktika is certainly not an easy place to love.

Out of 22 districts, 14 are no longer reliably under government control, according to a recent UN internal report. One of these, Barmal district fell to Taliban forces nearly a year ago. While US forces have moved into the district, it remains unsafe for pro-Karzai officials or for aid groups. In the 13 remaining districts, local government provides few benefits and little effective control.

To walk the streets of Urgun, or the capital Shahran, it's difficult to see how Paktika Province received such a bad reputation. Local residents crowd around visitors like long-lost relatives, and give their wish-lists of what the province needs. First: security. But they are quick to add that the problem is highway robbers and local thugs, rather than Taliban or Al Qaeda.

In Urgun, the local district police chief says he barely has the manpower and equipment to protect the town of Urgun itself, let alone the roads.

"I cannot operate checkpoints, because I don't have enough soldiers," says Mohammad Ghaus. "We need cars so that we can patrol, but even I don't have one. We need radios to communicate. We don't have guns, except our personal weapons. If I sent soldiers out to a checkpoint they would be killed by thieves, and that would have been my decision to send them to their deaths."

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