US hunts bin Laden; locals seek security

"I spoke to the Americans about my problems, but they said, 'Our job is to catch Al Qaeda; your job is security,' " Mr. Ghaus adds. He laughs grimly. Later that night, Ghaus patrolled Urgun on foot, prodding his sleepy soldiers awake, armed with just a Kalashnikov.

Local residents here say their government was the initial cause of Paktika's security problems. Former Gov. Muhammad Ali Jalali, a former Taliban commander who was appointed by President Hamid Karzai, was criticized for promoting his own tribe's interests over that of the province, and maintaining contacts with the Taliban just in case the Karzai government fell. Mr. Jalali was replaced just a week ago, however, and Paktika residents are giving good marks to his replacement, Gov. Gulab Mangal.

But the region's reputation for insecurity has prompted most aid groups, from the United Nations to smaller private charities, to pull out of Paktika and neighboring southeastern provinces. This leaves the bulk of the development work here in the hands of the US military itself, including digging deep wells to provide clean drinking water, delivering medicines to medical clinics and hospitals, and in some instances helping Afghans build new schools.

In the village of Shikha, just outside of Urgun, brick masons are busy building a schoolhouse, paid for by the US military. In 50 days, the project will provide a total of eight school rooms, four for boys, four for girls, to replace a two-room schoolhouse that once served 200 students.

Third grader Rahmatullah (like many Afghans, he uses only one name) says he is grateful to the American soldiers who will be providing him with a larger school to learn in. "In the Taliban times, we lived in Pakistan, near Wana, but we moved here last year," says the son of a doctor. Asked what he wants to be when he grows up, he looks at his headmaster, Zarbadshah, and says, "I want to be a teacher."

Haji Khair Mohammad, a landowner outside Urgun, says his friends and neighbors are "tired of the fighting, tired of the Taliban. If a mullah gets into a taxi, people tell the driver to turn on music. Even if they don't want to listen to music themselves, they ask to play music just to annoy the mullah."

Meanwhile, at the Darul Uloom Haji Kalanderia, an Islamic seminary near Urgun, Qari Mohammad Ibrahim is busy making sure that Afghanistan does not run out of mullahs. His class for memorization of the Holy Koran is packed, with students as young as 3 and as old as 20 chanting verses 10 times in a row to memorize them.

"We are Taliban here, because we study the Koran," he says, noting that the word "talib" means student in Persian. "But we are not THE Taliban." In fact, like most people interviewed for this article, Mr. Ibrahim says he is glad that the US forces are here, and he wishes they would be able to provide for his madrassah's many needs, including a well for drinking water, notebooks and pencils for the students, and textbooks for the most popular course: English language.

"Pakistan destroyed Afghanistan, so if something happened to America forces here, it would be because of Pakistan," he says, noting that he himself attended Pakistani seminaries.

But while he appreciates the American presence here, Ibrahim worries that upcoming summer elections will become a threat to conservative Pashtun traditions. He is especially opposed to the registration of women, who he says should remain in their homes. It's the same conservative Pashtun tradition that the Taliban enforced on Pashtun and non-Pashtun alike for five brutal years.

"No one would let their women go out to vote," he says. "I never let my wife go out to the market, so I certainly won't let her go outside to vote. This is not Islamic tradition and this is not Afghan tradition. If today, my wife goes out to bazaar, tomorrow she will go to the cinema."

But the mullah is a flexible man. "If you want women to vote, then the election officials should come to our homes," he says. Looking around the room, he adds, "This is my personal opinion, it is not the opinion of all the mullahs. Maybe they have other ideas."

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