Dawn raids by US troops stoke fires of resentment in Afghanistan
Rory McCarthy in Aab Khiel

It was night when the American military helicopters landed in the dry
cornfields around the village of Aab Khiel. Within minutes dozens
of soldiers surrounded the small cluster of mud and brick homes, and
the house-to-house search began.

"When they came to my house they didn't knock on the door, they
just forced their way in," said Qarimullah, 28, a young farmer in the
village, recalling last week's raid. "They broke the locks on the
doors and our safe boxes. They took my camera and they threw all our
clothes on the floor. They said they were looking for al-Qaida, but
why did they come into our houses like this? This is not right."

When the US began Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan a year
ago it was largely welcomed. At last the West was promising to bring
peace and reconstruction to a country run by warlords and ravaged by
drought and 20 years of conflict. But slowly Afghans have grown
resentful of the thousands of US troops. The bitterness is especially
deep in the southern Pashtun tribal lands, where the Stars and Stripes
flies above heavily fortified bases in areas that were once the
Taliban's heartland. Many Afghans, including powerful commanders, want
them out. Complaints of US army patrols becoming heavy-handed in the
past month have come from several villages in the southeast,
particularly around the towns of Khost and Gardez. They say the
soldiers have confiscated satellite telephones, passports, house and
car documents and even family photographs.

No one was arrested in Aab Khiel last week and no trace of al-Qaida
was found. The operation succeeded only in turning the village solidly
against the US military presence. "They took my satellite telephone
to their base at Bagram," said Mir Ullah, a trader living in the
village. "They told us they would give it back but they gave us no
receipt and they never returned it."

Further east, close to the Pakistani border, Wali Badshah described
how Afghan soldiers backing up the US patrols stole 45,000 Pakistani
rupees (about $750) from his house in the village of Kagow. These new
voices of criticism have reached the grey-brick compound in Khost
where the provincial government is based and Mohammad Khan Gulbaz is a
senior official representing President Hamid Karzai's
national government, which is publicly still effusive in its support
of the US military presence. Mr Gulbaz, however, is distinctly
frustrated. "The Americans are not doing well. If this carries on they
will begin to seem like the Russians," he said.

Khost was one of the strongest areas of mojahedin resistance during
the Soviet occupation of the 1980s. "I have tried to explain to the
Americans in more than 10 meetings that they should not carry on like
this. But they are not listening," Mr Gulbaz said. He believes the
problems began when paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division were
sent to Khost and Gardez to take part in patrols and raids which,
until then, had been the preserve of highly experienced US
special forces troops. Several special forces soldiers have privately
criticised the 82nd Airborne's raids as clumsy and careless.

Publicly the army denies that there is a problem. The southeast is
a legitimate target for military operations: it was one of the
Taliban's strongest support bases and housed several al-Qaida
training camps. Major Steve Clutter, a spokesman at the US military
headquarters at Bagram, admitted that there had been an internal
investigation into the conduct of the 82nd Airborne's raids but said
no evidence of wrongdoing had been found. "We want our soldiers to
show respect for the Afghan people and we certainly hope that they
are," he said. "If there are any complaints we will look into this."

It does not take costly assessment missions by aid agencies to
understand the resentment of villagers in areas such as Khost.
Southeast from Kabul the paved road runs as far as Gardez. The next
150km are a backbreaking five-hour drive on a pitted, unmade track.
There is not one school, hospital or clinic on the way. Khost's once-
famous timber industry is on its knees. Yet not one cent of the
promised $4.5bn reconstruction money has been spent on the area,
despite the West having to work harder there than perhaps anywhere
else to win over the religiously conservative and fiercely independent
Pashtuns.

"The Americans came to Afghanistan to get rid of al-Qaida. Now they
cannot help us any more and they should leave," said Bacha Khan Zadran,
a renegade warlord and former mojahedin commander based in Khost
province. He and other Pashtuns are deeply resentful of the Western-
backed government in Kabul, which they regard as biased against
them. There is no doubt that the Loya Jirga, the grand council in June
that decided the shape of the new government, failed to correct the
dominance of the Northern Alliance, the largely ethnic Tajik
commanders from the north who took the capital after the Taliban fled
last November. Pashtuns complain that they have little influence in
the current administration.

"The government is only working for one group of people," Mr Zadran
said in an interview in a mountain hideout near the Pakistani border,
conducted by satellite telephone. "There will be a lot more fighting
in Khost because the government is making a big problem here," he
said. In Aab Khiel the villagers are again beginning to talk fondly of
the days of Taliban rule. Few believe the West is still the saviour of
Afghanistan.

The Guardian Weekly