FEATURE: Afghan villagers hedging bets in conflict

ABC Australia Network reporter Thom Cookes is in southern Afghanistan with US and Australian military advisers for three weeks, as they help to train and expand the Afghan National Army.

In this report he files from an aid delivery to a village in Zabul province.

Thom Cookes, Australia Network

Last Updated: Wed, 20 May 2009 11:07:00 +1000

The village of Qanadi Hazrat is a bone-jarring, three-hour drive through desert valleys from the forward operating base where we're camped.

I'm riding in a US Army Humvee, part of an Afghan National Army convoy making its way to the village to distribute humanitarian aid. It's part of the counter-insurgency strategy here, to try to win over the locals.

Tantalisingly, there's a road being built just to our right but we can't use it. US Army Captain Jim Jablonski explains why.
"There's at least three IEDs (improvised explosive devices) buried in the road, one of which has been marked off... we don't have the equipment to disable them, so we have to go the long way around to the south," he says.

So we go cross-country, sometimes barely at walking pace. The gun-turret on top of the Humvee is open, so pretty soon everyone's covered head to foot in thick, fine dust.

The column stops at a hill above the village to survey the scene. But before we've even got out of our vehicles, the ZSU, a massive Soviet-era anti-aircraft gun mounted on the back of an Afghan Army truck, opens up with a roar.

It's firing at a hill across the valley, supposedly a known Taliban observation post, and the ANA soldiers saw movement there.
"We're not sure if they've hit anyone, but it sure scared the crap out of them," Captain Jablonski says.

"Firing the ZSU is a show of force thing they like to do. It's a pretty big weapon and it scares people off."

But today's mission is mostly to patch up relations with the villagers. This is a very isolated and conservative area, where little has changed for hundreds of years.

When I ask the village elder via an interpreter how many people live here, there is a long discussion, and the interpreter turns back and says, "He's not sure ... numbers and letters are not very important here".

The road is being built nearby and someone's been shooting at the private security guards protecting the construction workers.
The security guards then came down into this village and beat up the locals, accusing them of being involved.

The villagers complained to the governor. Now the Afghan Army has shown up to distribute food, clothing and children's toys, and to mediate the dispute. It's an attempt to show the benign face of a government that has little presence here.

Our column isn't big enough to secure the whole village, so we meet the locals up on a nearby hill, where the soldiers can put up a surrounding perimeter.

They unload their seven-tonne truck full of aid and begin to make a huge pile: sacks of food and clothes, soccer balls and backpacks for the kids.

Very quickly a stream of villagers appear, some with wheelbarrows. They are friendly, but guarded.

I ask an elder why he thinks the Taliban wants to stop the road being built.

"We have no idea; we thought you might know," he replies.

The local villagers say they are between a rock and a hard place, a victim of both the security guards and the Taliban.

They claim that by the morning, all of this aid will be gone, taken off them by the insurgents.

When I ask what happens when they see insurgents laying IEDs in the road, the elders say they are powerless: "If we do anything or say anything, they will kill us or beat us. What can we do?"

Captain Jablonski is more circumspect.

"There are so many IEDs laid here, literally right outside their village. I think you have a mix here; some who are indifferent and some who are actively working with the Taliban."

The villagers here are following the age-old Afghan tradition of hedging their bets, waiting to see which is the strongest side in the current conflict.

But still, Captain Jablonski is upbeat. "We made some progress today; some good was done," he says.

Distributing aid is a long way forward from apologising for a misguided air strike.

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