The S-92 Sikorsky helicopter takes off in the hot morning sun and sways over an expanse of the Hindu Kush mountains, the brown barren ridges of which contrast with the soft green patchwork of wheat and corn fields below.
It is just after 9am and we have left Forward Operating Base Fenty, the US military site 5km outside Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan's largest city in Nangarhar province. "Amazing, isn't it?" says Colonel Randy George, his eyes scanning the landscape. George's powerful figure is hunched in the small seat. He slips on headphones to talk to his right-hand man, Dante Paradiso, an American diplomat, who is sitting behind him.
These men are part of a new vision in US military strategy in Afghanistan. For years, the military action in the country was viewed as a counter-terrorism war. Soldiers were focused on hunting down militants in their hideouts and winning hearts and minds through clumsy gestures such as handing out footballs and pencils to compensate for dead bodies. Now, it is learning from its lessons in Iraq and focusing on winning the hearts and minds of the people who can actually change things: the tribal elders and local government officials.
The helicopter follows the brown band of the river northwards to Kunar province, which is under constant attack. The two men are visiting a small US base and having lunch with the governor of Kunar. We skirt past a sharp peak, which George points out is the Durand line, the disputed border beyond which lies Pakistan. George, the commander of the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, is responsible for the Kunar, Nuristan, Nangarhar and Laghman provinces in Afghanistan's north-east, one of the most volatile regions in the country. The vast majority of the territory is off limits to aid organisations, whose staff refuse to work here because of the violence.
"It is all tribal, split valley to valley, and we are trying to figure out who influences the local people," says George, shouting over the din of the helicopter. "It's the tribes who are the key to Afghanistan." The remote valleys and high mountains are carved up between timber barons who illegally smuggle deodar cedar to Pakistan, ideological fanatics fighting with various militant groups, criminal gangs, or those who are simply lawless.
"The insurgency wants to put forward a narrative that the Afghans have a foreign government," says Paradiso, speaking into a headset. "That's happening in a lot of communities. We're trying to reach out." Afghanistan is in the midst of the surge. Thousands of US soldiers are arriving every week as part of the US president Barack Obama's pledge last December to send an extra 30,000 troops to bolster the 87,000 already in the country, and turn around its failing, nine-year war.
They join the 992 US diplomats and experts from various government departments, such as agriculture, justice and the state department, who are embedded with the military to give advice, and implement programmes. The military and civilian surge is perhaps the most critical shift in the United States' Afghan policy since 2001 and part of its counter-insurgency strategy, the prism through which the war is now being viewed.
The population is the prize, goes the mantra, and the civilian-military strategy is focused on protecting ordinary Afghans and providing them with good governance in the hope that they will turn against insurgents. They don't have much time. The US military has between now and next year to break the back of the insurgency before America begins withdrawing its troops as promised by Obama. But the difficulty of winning is illustrated in this region where the rough terrain works in favour of insurgents and is home to a brutalised population that has been isolated from the world for so long that the arrival of US forces and the Afghan government is met with suspicion or outright hostility.
George and Paradiso, a career diplomat, travel several times a week holding shuras, or gatherings, with tribal leaders and work through legitimate moderate local leadership to isolate the insurgents and strengthen the hand of the government. They are backed by the commander's emergency response programme, a fund of roughly $700 million available annually to US commanders all over Afghanistan to pay for small projects that further the counter-insurgency agenda.
"A lot of the time people are fighting their government because they are not responsive to their communities," George says. This is the hard, slow slog of counter-insurgency, a 21st century update of the Great Game, in which the Americans are trying to unravel the complex tribal dynamics and the bewildering power struggles town by town, valley by valley. As the helicopter lands at Forward Operating Joyce 25 minutes later the propellers slice through the air, spewing hot dust and sand everywhere.
Joyce is a satellite base, home to several hundred soldiers located just outside Kunar's capital Asadabad. It has been hit by rocket and mortar fire 36 times since last August. George is given a tour of some of the new buildings, which have fortified ceilings. Paradiso meets the three civilians embedded on the base. "In the last few days we haven't been out because of the security situation," admits Scott Whitrow, 36, an employee of the United States Agency for International Development.
In Kabul, Nato has just announced that its forces will mount a major offensive this summer to seize Kandahar from the Taliban. Insurgents all over the south and east have been stepping up their attacks. Whitrow, tall, trim and dressed in khaki cargo trousers requisite of civilians working on military bases, travels to violent districts to determine the cause of the instability. Many of the attacks have been coming from the Ganjgal valley nearby, where four American Marines died in an ambush last September. "That population is unfortunately held by the enemy," says Whitrow. "The road to get into Ganjgal is very difficult, so anyone coming in and out takes a lot of time, which means the enemy can see them. It has a defensive position. The valley was never taken by the Soviets when they were here."
The Americans are trying to pave a road leading into the hamlet that would allow US and Afghan forces to move in and out easily and connect the population with the capital. It is only a 4km stretch of road but it is proven difficult. Afghans co-operating with the project are being targeted by insurgents who hold the valley. "Only recently, two members of the village, the elders, were targeted for their co-operation on the road. One of them died as a result of an improvised explosive attack and the second is in the hospital right now," says Whitrow.
He predicts a spike in violence over the next few months as the Americans and Afghan security forces increasingly try to establish footholds in parts of the province that have not been under government control since the 1979 Russian invasion. He walks outside for a breath of air. A grey balloon equipped with video surveillance keeps watch over the mountain range. "Whenever we ask the population, 'What's your biggest concern?' They say, 'You are. You come, leave and the enemy comes and asks why are you talking to the Americans?' We need to protect the population."
Last year, there were more than 21,000 recorded insurgent attacks, an increase of about 75 per cent from 2008, according to the US department of defence. US and Nato forces are quick to point out that of the 2,412 people who were killed last year, two-thirds were victims of insurgent violence. Afghanistan's insurgency is not a popular, national movement. In some areas the Afghans support the Taliban because Nato forces have killed their relatives, in some places they are being paid to fight, intimidated into remaining silent, or district leaders have struck deals with insurgents to be left alone.
In the north-east, there are hardcore ideological fighters aligned to Gulbuddin Hekmatyer, the anti-Soviet hero turned radical militant who runs a rival group to the Taliban and the father-and-son duo of the Haqqani network who recruit fighters from Pakistan. Paradiso says many people were waiting to see who would win - the Americans or the insurgents - before deciding who they should back. "The bottom line is the Afghan people are still working to put together their state and there are a number of people making calculations every day on which direction the war in their area is going to turn."
A Pentagon report in April found that Afghans support their government in an astonishingly low 24 out of 121 key areas around the country. It blamed government corruption and lack of stability as major reasons for people's distrust of the authorities. Poppy is the scourge of much of Afghanistan, but here cedar may be driving the violence. The upper ranges of Kunar's mountains, up to 3,400 metres, are home to tracts of 180-year-old deodar cedar forests which are being felled and sold for US$643 (Dh2,361) per cubic metre in Pakistan's cities. The sweetly scented wood is in high demand in the Gulf states, including the UAE and Qatar, because they are used as carved friezes indoors. A few timber barons control the trade and there is anecdotal evidence linking the funding of the insurgency to the timber trade which George's team is trying to unravel.
The governor of Kunar is waiting. "He has a good cook," whispers the Afghan interpreter as Paradiso and George make their way to the compound after another short flight. He uses the pseudonym DeNiro because Afghans who work with foreign forces are targets of assassination. The governor of Kunar, Sayed Fazullah Wahidi, 55, greets the Americans in his spacious office dominated by a photograph of the president, Hamid Karzai.
Wahidi, who was born in Nangarhar province, spent years working with refugees in Pakistan. He has a grey, full beard and is dressed in a suit and tie. As the visitors sit down he says there is some excitement in Naray district because the residents finally have a mobile phone mast. It is a small victory. Wahidi's remit otherwise trails off a few hundred metres from Asadabad's main road. "I travel to the districts once a week," he says. "The people are happy if a high-level official visits. Once in Noorgar, an elder said the last government visitor they had was president Daoud Khan." That was in the 1970s.
Lunch is served, an assistant announces. A spread of kebabs, rice, stew, salad and apples are arranged on a long table. The minced beef kebabs, spiced with crushed coriander seeds, are a Kunar speciality and a particular favourite of the American guests. "They've got meatballs today. Did you get one?" Paradiso asks George, spearing a kebab with his fork. Wahidi says education is his priority and says 40,000 girls are attending school.
"We have wasted a lot of money and nothing has been fixed. The officials for the government must work for the people." The Americans are funding the building of schools in villages where residents have asked for them. But they are having trouble attracting enough female teachers because literacy rates are so low. The schools are supported by the commander's emergency response programme. The projects the Afghans request are always pathetically basic: the cleaning of an irrigation canal, digging a ditch, building a one-room schoolhouse.
The trouble is the governors, district governors and sub-governors are all appointed in Kabul. Many prey on the population through bribery or extortion. The contracting system adds to the problem. A tribal elder presents the Americans with a list of projects for his village. The contract is given to a crony behind closed doors and the project either doesn't happen or the work is shoddy. The population sees no improvement in their lives and becomes angrier. This is how much of the aid money sent by taxpayers in the West has been wasted.
George says he is trying to change that. In districts where the residents have publicly supported the Afghan government, allowing Afghan military bases or police stations to be opened, George and his commanders hold public shuras and collectively award the tribal leaders $200,000 and give them responsibility for the money. "We tell the community in front of everyone 'You have this budget, spend it wisely'," he says. "We do this openly and they decide how to be responsive to their community. It works because the shura councils are democratic and decisions are made by consensus."
Paradiso adds: "We found that it exposed the corruption because many more people are involved in the system and it is open." Recently, Wahidi fired two local officials accused of corruption by the residents in the district they were responsible for. "You were brave in standing up and doing the right thing," George tells Wahidi. It is a hint that the US forces will back the governor if he comes under pressure.
The discussion turns to the Korengal valley. In April, the US military abandoned its base in Kunar's notorious six-mile valley after five years of fighting with its inhabitants the Pashai, who speak a language not spoken anywhere else in Afghanistan. It was a controversial decision. Korengal was a corridor for al Qa'eda fighters smuggling arms and fighters from Pakistan. Some saw the withdrawal as a sign of defeat. But the outpost may have been doomed from the start. One of the insurgent leaders was a lumber mill owner, Haji Matin. By building the base on the lumberyard the Americans took away the valley's only source of income and turned a neutral population into an enemy.
By spring the war was at a stalemate. The Americans were doing nothing but defending their base. "We were not wanted there," says George. "That was the best solution for the Korengal and it was done with the tribal elders and there wasn't a shot fired when we came out of there." Wahidi agrees. "The impact has been good," he says. "One of the entrances to the valley is blocked by our own people and elders are not allowing outsiders to come down there. They have organised a shura and we will also hold meetings with them."
By that logic should the Americans leave the entire province? George shakes his head. "Every valley here requires a different and unique solution." On the way out, young Afghan boys gawk at the Americans. When does it end, how do you know when you have won? George refuses to be drawn on an answer. "That's the big question that General Petraeus got asked in Iraq, so I won't answer that one," he says. General David Petraeus famously remarked: 'Tell me how this ends?' when he arrived in Iraq to end the insurgency.
"I think that you know you are being successful when people are coming out and looking to the government to solve problems," says George. "When they have trust in the police." Petraeus, now head of US Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan, wrote the counter-insurgency field manual to save Iraq in 2006. Its 25 axioms are now being applied to Afghanistan as veterans of Iraq have been deployed here.
George completed three tours in Iraq between 2003 and 2007 and sees some parallels between the two wars. "You have to understand the problem before you get here," he says back at his office in Forward Operating Base Fenty. "One thing we learned in Iraq was that there was a lot of competing interests. Why somebody is fighting the government here is different from why those people are fighting the government. You got to figure out ways to strengthen government structures, give power to people and not necessarily just a select few individuals."
He tried to do that with the Shinwari pact. The Shinwaris, a large and powerful Pashtun tribe in Nangarhar, signed a pact among themselves in January to fight the Taliban after a tribal elder's son was killed by the militants in a land dispute. George seized the opportunity and the Americans attended a gathering of 130 elders where, as reward for turning against the Taliban, they gave the leadership $200,000 to help their poverty-stricken community with projects such as digging ditches.
The unprecedented plan drew criticism from the governor of Nangarhar, who feared that it would undermine his power and from the US Embassy in Kabul, which is focused on strengthening the central government. The clans have also fought over the money and no similar pact has been approved since then. "If you do something and somebody says it is a setback or it failed then you won't do anything," says George. "It was the right thing to do and I would do it again."
Late one evening, I meet Clint Douglas, a rangy and handsome former soldier and advisor, at the Green Beans coffee shop on the base, a popular hangout where soldiers play chess and strum their guitars late into the night. A few hundred metres away Blackhawks take off late into the early hours of the morning and drones, unmanned aircraft equipped with video cameras and weapons, fly to the remote, northern mountains of Nuristan and Kunar.
Douglas says that it is difficult to know where to use limited US resources because in some parts of the region the devastation of war is total. Nuristan, for example, has been cut adrift from the world since 1979. The impact of warfare has been so horrific that many Nuristanis have lost a basic understanding of human biology. For example, in one valley, an all-female Afghan-American team found that many of the women were dying of septicemia. It turned out they were using mud to block menstrual flow because they did not understand that it was a natural biological process.
"That's a non-adaptive response from an evolutionary point of view," says Douglas, taking a deep drag on a Camel cigarette. "I mean, it's pre-caveman." Appointing responsible local leaders, building bridges, schools and canals is one thing. Putting together a society broken down by the pressures of unending warfare may be another.
