Standing firm in Afghanistan

The staccato chattering sound of machine-gun fire drifts over Canada’s forward operating base at Masum Ghar in Afghanistan’s Panjwaii district shortly after dusk. The prolonged bursts are answered by other angry shots until, after a couple of minutes, the echoes fade away and silence returns. “That’s probably Wilson killing somebody,” says a soldier relaxing on a makeshift bench outside the metal shipping containers where many of them sleep on stacked bunks. Wilson is an American patrol base a few kilometres north of Masum Ghar, across the Arghandab River in Zhari district.

At dawn, from the same direction, the muffled crunch of a distant explosion sends a mushrooming plume of dust skyward above the green cultivated fields and rough mud compounds that spread from Masum Ghar beyond the river. It might have been an improvised explosive device, discovered and intentionally triggered, or perhaps something deadlier. No gunfire follows the blast, only birdsong and the puttering hum of a man coaxing a motorbike along a rutted dirt path.

“It’s the Americans at Wilson,” says another soldier. “They get more contact than we do. It’s closer to the highway, and now, with the prison break, there are 400 more Taliban there.”

A Canadian major who had arrived at Masum Ghar the previous day interjects. “They can’t clear it?”

“It’s like clearing water,” the first soldier replies. “You can push them aside”—he sweeps an open palm sideways in front of him—“but they flow back in.”

He describes a near-impossible task, and yet this is what NATO forces in Afghanistan, including Canada’s final combat battle group to deploy in the country, believe they are finally beginning to accomplish. The main reason, according to senior military officials in both Canada and allied nations, is the increased number of troops now on the ground.

For eight years following the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent overthrow of the Taliban, American and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan were too few and spread too thin to hold territory, deny insurgents freedom of movement, and convince the local population that they were stronger than the Taliban. Training of Afghanistan’s own security forces was fragmented and haphazard. Afghan soldiers and police were unable to effectively step in where outside forces were absent. “As they look back over this, they’ll probably figure that there were some opportunities early on that we didn’t take advantage of,” says American Lieut.-Gen. David Rodriguez, commander of the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command.

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Source: Macleans