User:Palm dogg/Nawa-I-Barakzayi District

Nawa-I-Barakzayi District

History

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2010/12/11/ST2010121103059.html?sid=ST2010121103059

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/VVOS-89HPES?OpenDocument

Across Helmand, the district of Nawa-i Barakzai to the south of Lashkar Gah was the only place where there were no reports of attacks.

Local resident Abdullah Jan said the calm atmosphere was unexpected.

"It's surprising that not even one bullet was fired in Nawa district and that the election took place," he said. "The Americans took good security measures, and people cooperated with the government, so the Taleban weren't able to fire a single shot."

http://wireupdate.com/wires/10756/nawa-ye-barakzai-taliban-senior-leader-captured-in-afghanistan/

Nawa-ye Barakzai Taliban senior leader captured in Afghanistan Thursday, September 30th, 2010 at 4:00 pm | BNO News | Leave a Comment By BNO News KABUL, AGHANISTAN (BNO NEWS) -- The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on Thursday confirmed the capture of a Nawa-ye Barakzai Taliban senior leader with influence throughout the Nawa and Lashkar Gah districts of Afghanistan, along with several other insurgents.

This is the latest capture of several high-level Taliban operatives within the Nawah Taliban network as Afghan and coalition security forces have degraded the network significantly through recent operations.

"The security force, in partnership with Afghan National Security Forces, is concentrating their efforts on removing the upper-tier insurgent leaders from the battle space in order to establish the conditions to sustain peace and security for Afghanistan," said U.S. Army Col. Rafael Torres, ISAF Joint Command Combined Joint Operations Center director.

Intelligence reports led the security force to a remote compound in Nawa-ye Barakzai district to search for the targeted individual. Afghan forces used a loudspeaker to call for all occupants to exit the buildings and then the joint security force cleared and secured the area.

After initial questioning at the scene, the security force detained the targeted individual along with three of his associates. The security force also found improvised explosive device material and Taliban propaganda at the scene.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:D2BGdkqCn0UJ:foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/RuggieroTestimony100506a.pdf+%22marjah+district%22&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgm1sMSEWM_Taw38ajQTSiB2FwFuiXmKTPO8uvYnujAeInQwb2rMGOGdRBmCHehgPIog_fk9QuVHq80i5G3w_rjSO4B8hzOrnrKRzeD5cIq-Cssu6N1qt4Rsg-Z_oRwasPJuiU1&sig=AHIEtbTrOsFkA6ED2_P8uM6D8ETRK5Gg-w

Nawa Community Council assassinations

Abdul Samad Rohani On June 7, 2008 a Journalist Abdul Samad Rohani was abducted from the heart of Lashkar Gah, the main city of Helmand province where Afghan government’s control is strong. His dead body was then left in a nearby cemetery.

Few days before his killing Rohani had discovered a secret jail run by Helmand police in Nawa district; this became the reason for his elimination by the Police. The initial impression was that Rohani had been abducted by the Taliban and killed but the truth came out when Helmand Governor Gulab Mangal stated in June this year that the journalist was kidnapped and killed by Afghan Security Officials. Declaring ‘’I’m unable to arrest the killers’’.

Rohani 25, was the oldest son of a family of seven children. He was married and he left behind two widows and two children daughter Zahra and son, Amran.

Pre-Modern History

Main article: History of Afghanistan

The Helmand valley region, to include Sistan in Iran, is mentioned by name in the Avesta (Fargard 1:13) as Haetumant, one of the early centers of the Zoroastrian faith, in pre-Islamic Persian times. However, owing to the preponderance of non-Zoroastrians (Hindus and Buddhists), the Helmand and Kabul regions were also known as "White India" in those days. Some Vedic scholars (eg. Kochhar 1999) also believe the Helmand valley corresponds to the Sarasvati area mentioned in the Rig Veda as the homeland for the Indo-Aryan migrations into India, ca. 1500 BC.

Helmand was the center of a U.S. development program in the 1960s – it was even nicknamed "little America". The program laid out tree-lined streets in Lashkar Gah, built a network of irrigation canals and constructed a large hydroelectric dam. The program was abandoned when the communists seized power in 1978.

Though the modern nation state of Afghanistan was established in 1747, the land has an ancient history and various timelines of different civilizations. Excavation of prehistoric sites by Louis Dupree, the University of Pennsylvania, the Smithsonian Institution and others suggest that humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities of the area were among the earliest in the world.

Before the arrival of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism predominated as the religions in the area.

The early inhabitants of Afghanistan were Aryans, who were probably connected through culture and trade to neighboring civilizations like Jiroft and Tappeh Sialk and the Indus Valley Civilization. Urban civilization may have begun as early as 3000 BC, and the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar) may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization.

In the 1950s and 1960s the United States sponsored the Helmand Valley Authority, a desert reclamation project to help turn parts of the Helmand River Valley into fertile farmland. In Nawa, a branch of the Boghra canal, the Shamalan canal, was built by the Helmand Valley Authority replacing the old system, increasing the water supply, improving water distribution and bringing new lands under irrigation. Additional irrigation in the 1970s brought more water into the southern reaches of Nawa, more land under cultivation, and allowed new land settlement.

More OEF Stuff

http://www.sfexaminer.com/world/Search-for-Marine-lieutenant_s-killer-meets-Afghan-obstacles-1183204-104732194.html

Search for Marine lieutenant's killer meets Afghan obstacles

By: Sara A. Carter <http://www.sfexaminer.com/bios/sara-carter.html> National Security Correspondent October 11, 2010

HELMAND, AFGHANISTAN -- Jason Armas, a U.S. Marine Corps captain, scrolled through the photographs of four bearded Afghan men believed to be responsible for the assassination of Marine 1st Lt. Scott J. Fleming.

A few days earlier, on the eve of Afghanistan's parliamentary elections, Taliban insurgents shot the 24 year-old Marietta, Ga., man through the neck, killing him instantly. Fleming's comrades from the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment were intent on capturing the Taliban who had killed the young platoon leader.

"The goal is to pin the enemy up against the [Helmand] river and fix and finish them," said Armas, before heading out on a combined patrol with Marines and Afghan National Army soldiers to hunt the killers. "These guys are responsible for Lt. Fleming's death and we want them."

But Armas knew the mission was likely to end in frustration. And he knew that even if suspected Taliban killers were captured, it was all too probable that they would swiftly be released.

Troops here have nicknamed the local court system "Taliban catch and release." They say it has emboldened the Taliban. It certainly has angered NATO troops who make enormous sacrifices tracking enemy fighters only to watch them walk out of detainment.

American and Afghan military officials who spoke with The Washington Examiner say the Afghan judicial system puts an unrealistic burden of proof on U.S. troops tracking and capturing enemy in the region.

Further, the Afghan court lacks understanding of scientific technical evidence such as fingerprints, DNA and a host of evidence-gathering techniques used by troops. Instead, the Afghan system relies more on physical evidence found on the detainee and statements written in native language from Afghan eyewitnesses.

When evidence against insurgents is acquired through classified means, those procedures are not shared with the Afghan courts. That often leads to cases being dismissed.

"It's as if the Taliban have more rights than us or the people of Afghanistan," said Specialist Charles Brooks, 26, a U.S. Army medic with 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, in Zabul province.

"We have to let these guys go all the time no matter what they do, and then we find them trying to hit us again. But if they think I've screwed up once, then they'll [the military] have no problem throwing me to the wolves," Brooks said.

It is a sentiment shared by dozens of American troops interviewed during a monthlong tour of southern Afghanistan.

It isn't just U.S. troops who are frustrated. Afghan military officials also complain that their own system and NATO's judicial processes work against the goals they are trying to achieve. It has become apparent that villagers in the Helmand region are not delivering information about the enemy as they once did.

"In the past, the villagers were able to assist us with information about the Taliban, but that has changed," said Afghan Commander Gul Ahmed, who heads the Afghan National Army battalion at Combat Outpost Geronimo, in Nawa, a combined element with the Marine division in Helmand.

He said the Taliban "know they won't be held for long and use it to their advantage.

"If the [people] report something on someone, giving evidence of Taliban, for example, with IED equipment, once they are released the Taliban will find out who reported them and have them killed," the Afghan commander added.

Although many Afghanis are anti-Taliban, he said, "they don't want to risk their lives or their families if no one is going to back them in the end."

Armas' men know that to be the case. The 50-man detachment -- half Marines, half Afghan soldiers -- patrolled corn and marijuana fields through one long day without seeing a sign of Fleming's killers.

The patrol spent the night at the abandoned mud compound of Mohammed Khan, one of the suspected killers. Armas stopped an elderly man his hunters encountered along a dirt road to interrogate him about Khan and the other suspects.

"You come here during the day sometimes. The Taliban come every night. You tell me this, how long will you stay? Why should I trust you?" he said to Armas.

"I can't blame the old man for feeling the way he does," Armas admitted.

The two-day patrol produced little of substance to bring the Marines closer to the men they are certain killed Fleming. Their efforts will continue despite the obstacles and frustrations, Armas vowed. "It's difficult for all of us," he said. "The only thing that's certain is that Lt. Fleming's killers are still out there."

Sara A. Carter is The Washington Examiner's national security correspondent. She can be reached at scarter@washingtonexaminer.com.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2010/09/marine-operation-new-dawn-090710w/

‘New Dawn’ name used in 2 war zones

By Dan Lamothe - Staff writer Posted : Wednesday Sep 8, 2010 9:27:45 EDT

Operation Iraqi Freedom became Operation New Dawn on Sept. 1, as U.S. officials sought to highlight the end of combat operations in Iraq.

There’s a quirk to the new name, however: A Marine-led operation by the same name has been ongoing in Afghanistan since June 15, as infantry battalions and Marines with 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, out of Camp Pendleton, Calif., attempt to secure insurgent-controlled areas surrounding the former Taliban stronghold of Marjah in Helmand province.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced in February that OIF would be renamed New Dawn as of September, but military officials gave the operation near Marjah the same name anyway. The name was selected by Army Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, commander of the International Security Assistance Force’s joint command in Afghanistan, said Air Force Master Sgt. Matthew Robbins, an ISAF Joint Command spokesman.

Rodriguez “wanted a name for the operation to reflect a new beginning for the area in and around Marjah,” Robbins said. “A group came up with the name ‘Nawi Sahaar,’ which in Pashto translates into new dawn or new morning. We use Pashto names for our operations and the translation into English is really only internal communications.”

The military has used the English translation of “New Dawn” in numerous external publications, however.

In fact, in several Marine Corps news releases, the operation is referred to only by its English name. Operation New Dawn is a “joint operation between Marine Corps units and the Afghanistan National Army to disrupt enemy forces which have been using the sparsely populated region between Marjah and Nawa as a safe haven,” according to a July 2 Marine Corps news release. A Sept. 3 Internet search for the phrase “Nawi Sahaar” showed no results.

There are no plans to rename the operation in Afghanistan, Robbins said.

Operation New Dawn in Afghanistan is ongoing and involves 1st Recon and 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, out of Marine Corps Base Hawaii, said 1st Lt. Justine Roberts, a Marine spokeswoman in Afghanistan. It also involved Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, out of Twentynine Palms, Calif. Most of that battalion has since been relocated to northern Helmand province, particularly in the former Taliban stronghold of Sangin.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/21/AR2009102104144.html?nav=emailpage

In Helmand, a model for success? Influx of Marines and focus on security bring peace to a southern Afghan town -- at least for now

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, October 22, 2009

NAWA, Afghanistan -- Before a battalion of U.S. Marines swooped into this dusty farming community along the Helmand River in early July, almost every stall in the bazaar had been padlocked, as had the school and the health clinic. Thousands of residents had fled. Government officials and municipal services were nonexistent. Taliban fighters swaggered about with impunity, setting up checkpoints and seeding the roads with bombs.

In the three months since the Marines arrived, the school has reopened, the district governor is on the job and the market is bustling. The insurgents have demonstrated far less resistance than U.S. commanders expected. Many of the residents who left are returning home, their possessions piled onto rickety trailers, and the Marines deem the central part of the town so secure that they routinely walk around without body armor and helmets.

"Nawa has returned from the dead," said the district administrator, Mohammed Khan.

Nawa provides one ground-level perspective into the debate over U.S. force levels in Afghanistan among members of President Obama's national security team. In this district, the war is being waged in the manner sought by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan: The number of troops went from about 100 to 1,100, and they have been countering the insurgency by focusing on improving security for local people instead of hunting down the Taliban.

The result has been a profound transformation, suggesting that after eight years of war the United States still may be able to regain momentum in some areas that had long been written off to the Taliban. Insurgent attacks on civilians and NATO forces, once a near-daily fact of life here, have almost ceased in Nawa and are far less common than they were in surrounding areas, a turnabout reminiscent of what happened in Iraq last year after a sharp increase in American forces there.

But even if Nawa remains peaceful, replicating what has occurred here may not be possible. Achieving the same troop-to-population ratio in other insurgent strongholds across southern and eastern Afghanistan would require at least 100,000 more U.S. or NATO troops -- more than double the 40,000 being sought by McChrystal -- as well as many thousands of additional Afghan security forces.

Nawa also is blessed with stable social dynamics -- the three principal tribes in the area largely get along -- and it has a district governor whom the Marines regard as unusually competent. The Helmand River valley contains some of Afghanistan's most fertile land, enabling reconstruction workers to improve livelihoods through agricultural assistance programs.

"We have to be very careful when we say we want to use Nawa as a model," said Ian Purves, a British development specialist who advises the battalion. "First off, will Nawa work as we want? And even if it does, there's no guarantee what we're doing here will work anywhere else."

The turnaround here remains fragile. Marine commanders in Nawa acknowledge that their gains could melt away if the Afghan government and security forces do not move quickly to deliver essential public services, or if U.S. troop levels are reduced here before stability is cemented. Many of the insurgents who left Nawa in July have taken refuge 10 miles to the northwest.

"The bone has not healed," said Lt. Col. William McCollough, the battalion commander. "If you take the cast off, it's going right back to a catastrophic situation."

McChrystal has not proclaimed Nawa a success or even cited it in discussions with White House officials as a justification for more troops, mindful that similar assertions have been made in other parts of the country only to have those areas slip back into insurgent control. But no Marine from the battalion in Nawa has been killed in combat since late August, even as U.S. troop fatalities have spiked in other parts of Afghanistan. McChrystal and other senior military officials in Afghanistan hope that what is happening amid the canals and cornfields in this patch of southern Afghanistan is different and can be applied elsewhere. Nawa, one of his aides said, is "his number one petri dish."

Skeptics of McChrystal's strategy worry that the Afghan government will not move with haste to take advantage of security improvements created by the United States. Despite repeated requests, the government in Kabul has not sent officials to Nawa to help on issues that matter most to local people: education, health, agriculture and rural development.

Marine commanders and reconstruction experts remain optimistic that the government will start providing services here, but some residents are not waiting for Kabul to act. Last month, McCollough was alarmed by a report of a group of men digging holes along the road from the main irrigation canal to the bazaar. He feared that they were planting roadside bombs, but it turned out they were digging holes for electricity poles. Dozens of merchants had banded together to fund a homegrown hydropower project -- a 12-foot-high water wheel fashioned from metal shipping containers connected to a generator.

To McCollough, the project is a sign that something unique is taking root. If residents were willing to invest, he reasoned, they must feel confident that conditions are going to improve. "This says, 'I believe in my future,' " he said.

Concentration of forces

For the first five years of the Afghanistan war, there were no NATO forces permanently stationed in Nawa. The British military, which became responsible for the area in 2005, did not have enough soldiers on the ground to perform more than occasional operations aimed at flushing out insurgents. When the British left, the Taliban returned.

In 2006, the British sent a team of about 100 soldiers to Nawa, largely to mentor local police and a small contingent of Afghan army personnel. They were quickly outmatched by the Taliban and forced to hunker down in a half-built government office that they said began to feel like the Alamo.

Taliban coffers swelled with protection payments from poppy growers and taxes on their fields, and the insurgents used their wealth to recruit legions of unemployed young men. Some residents openly welcomed the Taliban because a corrupt government and police provided no good alternative.

Then, three months ago, the 1st Battalion of the 5th Marine Regiment arrived. To U.S. commanders, the change in Nawa is the result of overwhelming force and overhauled battlefield strategy. The combined strength of U.S. and Afghan security forces in the district is now about 1,500 for a population of about 75,000 -- exactly the 1-to-50 ratio prescribed by U.S. military counterinsurgency doctrine.

McCollough said the concentration of forces, which prompted insurgents to retreat, allows him to practice the sort of counterinsurgency tactics McChrystal wants. Each of the battalion's 36 squads conducts two foot patrols a day to meet residents and reassure them -- often over cups of hot green tea -- that they are safe. "We have enough Marines to shake everyone's hand," McCollough said.

But translating handshakes into public confidence remains a challenge. On a recent afternoon, a team of Marine civil-affairs specialists drove to the village of Pakiran to investigate accusations that Afghan security forces had bombed several pieces of farm equipment. When the Marines approached one farmer to inquire about damage to his water pump, he quickly ushered them into his walled-off compound. "Please don't tell anyone that you have come here," said the farmer, Mohammed Gul, a stout man clad in a black turban and a white shawl.

Gul accepted $300 to repair his shot-up pump, then invited the Marines to stay for tea. Capt. Frank "Gus" Biggio, a Marine reservist on leave from his job as a lawyer in the Washington office of Patton Boggs, peppered Gul with questions to help update a database maintained by the U.S. military command in Kabul.

"What's the biggest problem in this village?" Biggio asked, sitting on a straw mat with Gul. In the first weeks after the Marines arrived, the answer always related to security. But lately, the responses were becoming more varied, which the Marines regard as a sign of progress.

"Water," Gul said. "There's not enough water in the canals to irrigate my fields."

Working on his fourth cup of tea, Biggio suggested that Gul raise his concerns with the district governor, who would be visiting with the Marines soon.

"Don't bring government officials with you," Gul said. "They're not good to us."

Rebuilding local services

The insurgents who left Nawa in July now operate from in and around the town of Marja, 10 miles away, amid a series of north-south canals carved into the sandy desert by the U.S. government in the 1950s and '60s as a way to counter Soviet influence in Afghanistan.

The canals helped turn the Helmand River valley into Afghanistan's breadbasket. But wheat fields have been replaced by the highest concentration of opium-producing poppies in Helmand, and the canals now serve as defensive moats that U.S. combat vehicles cannot cross, protecting the drug smugglers and insurgents who have taken shelter there.

"Nawa is only going to get so far as long as their next-door neighbor is Marja," said Brig. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson, the top Marine commander in Helmand.

But clearing out Marja would require more troops than the Marines currently have in Afghanistan. Hopeful that they will receive additional resources, Marine strategists are planning a significant operation in Marja in the coming months.

For now, the Marines are focused on another big risk to progress here -- the lack of basic services. They are working with diplomats and U.N. officials in Kabul to prod key ministries to set up offices in Nawa. The Marines also are setting up their own police training facility in Helmand, working with tribal leaders and local officials to identify solid new recruits and quickly increase the size of the force. Commanders here liken their efforts to the Sons of Iraq program Marines started in Anbar province, but here they are recruiting uniformed police instead of creating tribal militias.

Nonmilitary reconstruction efforts have also begun to gather momentum. The battalion's two civilian advisers are working with a team of U.S.-funded contractors to provide agricultural assistance to farmers, the Obama administration's top priority for Afghan reconstruction. The contractors plan to hand out shovels, gloves and even tractors over the next few months. They hope the goods will increase prosperity and jobs and reduce the number of disaffected young men who want to fight for the Taliban.

"Everyone makes promises to us -- the Americans, our government, even the Taliban," said Mohammed Ekhlas, a snowy-bearded elder of the Noorzai tribe. "If the Marines and the people in our government are true to their words, then there will be peace in Nawa. If not, there will be fighting again."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/23/AR2010072305590.html?nav=emailpage

In Afghanistan, why does counterinsurgency work in some places but not others?

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Sunday, July 25, 2010; B01

MARJA, AFGHANISTAN -- The distance from here to success is only 15 miles.

There, in the community of Nawa, a comprehensive U.S. civilian-military counterinsurgency strategy has achieved what seems to be a miracle cure. Most Taliban fighters have retreated. The district center is so quiescent that U.S. Marines regularly walk around without their body armor and helmets. The local economy is so prosperous, fueled by more than $10 million in American agriculture aid, that the main bazaar has never been busier. Now for sale: shiny, Chinese-made motorcycles and mobile phones. There's even a new ice cream shop.

But here in Marja, the same counterinsurgency strategy has not suppressed the insurgent infection. Dozens of Taliban fighters have stayed in the area, and despite aggressive Marine operations to root them out, they have succeeded in seeding the roads with homemade bombs and sniping at patrols. The insurgent presence has foiled efforts to help and protect the civilian population: Taliban threats -- and a few targeted murders -- have dissuaded many residents from availing themselves of U.S. reconstruction assistance.

In my five trips to the area over the past year, Nawa has felt like progress, while Marja still feels like a war zone. Together, they illustrate the promise and limits of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and the central challenge facing the new U.S. and NATO commander in Kabul, Gen. David H. Petraeus.

Marja and Nawa have much in common. Both are home to about 80,000 people, almost all of them ethnic Pashtuns. Both are farming communities where opium-producing poppies have been the cash crop of choice. Both are socially conservative southern Afghan backwaters, where tribal chiefs hold sway and women are rarely seen in public, even in head-to-toe burqas.

Both were stricken by the Taliban insurgency four years ago. And over the past year, both have been treated with America's new counterinsurgency formula: Each community has been flooded with U.S. Marines and Afghan security forces, at troop levels that meet or exceed what counterinsurgency theorists prescribe. Each has received a surge of cash and civilian experts in an effort to provide public services, rebuild infrastructure and dole out basic economic assistance. Each has been described as a priority by the central government in Kabul.

So why did all this work in one but not the other?

U.S. military officials contend that Marja needs more time to resemble Nawa. The Nawa operation began last July; efforts in Marja didn't start until February. But when the Nawa campaign was five months old -- where the Marja mission is now -- the district was just as quiet as it is today. The improvements in Nawa occurred quickly, and they seem to have lasted.

By now, Marja was supposed to be a success story as well, demonstrating to a skeptical public in America and Afghanistan that countering the insurgency with more troops, more money and a new strategy could resuscitate a foundering war. Perhaps more important, counterinsurgency proponents in the Pentagon and the State Department hoped to use both towns to make the case to President Obama that counterinsurgency works in Afghanistan and that he should attenuate -- or postpone outright -- his planned drawdown of troops starting next July.

The uneven progress complicates that case. But so, too, does Nawa, for those who maintain that counterinsurgency won't work in Afghanistan because the government is too corrupt, the security forces too inept and Pashtuns too distrustful of foreign troops.

So, which community is the rule? And which is the exception?

It is tempting, and perhaps fair, to view Marja as an outlier with unique tribal and geographic challenges. A patch of desert in Helmand province that was transformed into farmland by canals designed by American engineers in the 1950s, Marja was populated from scratch by the country's late king with settlers from a variety of tribes. The rank and file moved to Marja, but the chiefs didn't. This decades-old experiment in Afghan social engineering has now complicated efforts to find the same sorts of tribal leaders who influence the population in other Afghan communities. They simply don't exist in Marja.

The network of canals created incredibly fertile land, which initially was used to grow wheat and cotton. Then, in the lawlessness that enveloped the country after the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, residents began growing poppies. In recent years, Marja was home to perhaps the largest concentration of poppy fields in Afghanistan, enriching not just farmers but drug processors and smugglers, as well as the Taliban, which levied taxes on the crop.

For the Taliban, Marja was also an ideal location to establish bombmaking factories. The canals and the surrounding desert provided a natural defensive perimeter. It worked for years -- the British troops who were responsible for the area before the U.S. Marines largely stayed out. So did Afghan security forces.

Although there were poppy fields and bomb facilities in Nawa, too, they did not match what existed in Marja; as a result, Nawa may have been easier for the Taliban to abandon. Timing further complicated the Marja mission. When the Marines landed in Nawa, last year's poppy harvest was finished; they arrived in Marja two months before this year's harvest. "Our presence in Marja created an economic catastrophe for the Taliban that led them to fight back," said a senior Marine officer involved in both operations. "The guys in Nawa had a full belly when we showed up."

Marja also served as a retreating ground for insurgents in Nawa who did not forsake the Taliban. It is only a short drive away. For insurgents in Marja, there's no similar sanctuary. To the south and west, it's open desert all the way to the borders with Pakistan and Iran. "For the Taliban, Marja was a case of fight, or drop your weapon and pretend you're a civilian," the officer said. "There was no place for them to go."

Because of those complications, the Marja operation involved far more resources and planning than the push into Nawa. Two Marine battalions and three Afghan army battalions -- more than 3,500 total troops -- were devoted to Marja. Hundreds of Afghan paramilitary police were summoned to help secure the markets once they had been cleared of insurgents. There were a half-dozen U.S. and British civilians, assembled into a "district stabilization team," ready to work on governance and reconstruction. And the U.S. Agency for International Development had millions of dollars earmarked for quick-impact projects and assistance to farmers there.

None of that happened in Nawa. Only one Marine battalion, with a handful of Afghan troops, was sent into the district. There was no civilian stabilization team on standby, no ready spigot of aid money.

Why, then, did the Taliban fold in Nawa? Residents interviewed in the bazaar earlier this year said it was in part because the insurgency enjoyed little support in the community. Locals chafed at the Taliban's taxation, and they grew tired of the near-constant firefights between the insurgents and a team of British police trainers holed up in the district center. Tribal leaders made it clear they wanted the bad guys out, in part so they could reassert themselves as the chief power brokers in the area.

But the residents also emphasized that the Taliban fighters left of their own accord. "They chose to flee from here," said one shopkeeper. "They drove away as soon as the Marines arrived."

Marine officials don't dispute that assessment. "The design [of the Nawa operation] was to allow them to get away," the senior officer said. "There was a built-in release valve."

Nonetheless, Marine commanders contend it was the application of overwhelming force that led the Taliban to depart from Nawa. But even more overwhelming force was applied to Marja, and it didn't achieve the same results.

How, then, can Petraeus create more Nawas? There simply are not enough troops to apply a similar degree of force -- either at a Nawa level or a Marja level -- to dozens of other insurgent-controlled districts in Afghanistan. Even though most of those districts are probably more similar to Nawa than Marja in terms of tribal dynamics and popular sentiment toward the Taliban, it appears that more Nawas will be in the offing only if the Taliban decides to give them up. But the Taliban doesn't seem willing to repeat its abandonment of Nawa anywhere else, and even if it wanted to, there are fewer sanctuaries to which its fighters can retreat as more U.S. forces pour into southern Afghanistan.

Marja may not be representative in terms of geography or drugs or bomb factories, but it may be closer to the norm in one key respect: The Taliban is contesting it.

In that sense, the insurgents themselves possess the power to give us more Nawas. That may not mean Marja is a lost cause, but it does mean it will take much longer to achieve similar results.

Consider Garmsir, the district south of Nawa. It, too, was infested with insurgents, some of whom chose to stay and fight. The Marines arrived there in the summer of 2008 to begin counterinsurgency operations, and it was not until earlier this year -- about 18 months later -- that the area was deemed by Marine commanders to have been cleared of the Taliban. "Garmsir is a better model for what will happen in Marja," the senior Marine officer said. "Nawa is the gold standard, not the example."

In many ways, what happens in Nawa and Marja will be far more indicative of the success of the overall counterinsurgency campaign than what occurs in Kandahar over the next several months. The insurgency in Kandahar, the country's second-largest city, is fueled by unique factors -- it is largely a competition for resources and a reaction to government corruption -- that do not mirror the forces driving the conflict elsewhere.

You can't have peace in Afghanistan without pacifying Kandahar, but doing so won't deal a death blow to the insurgency. For that to occur, the roughly two dozen districts in southern Afghanistan in which U.S. and NATO troops are conducting counterinsurgency operations need to look more like Nawa than Marja.

Aides to Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the former top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, called Nawa his "number one Petri dish." He had hoped the antibodies generated there could be harnessed and replicated. But that hasn't yet happened.

"We all like to think Marja was the exception, but what if it really was a place like Nawa?" wondered a civilian U.S. official in southern Afghanistan. "It doesn't mean the war is lost. It just means that we shouldn't expect everywhere else to turn around overnight."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/30/AR2010053003722.html

In Afghan region, U.S. spreads the cash to fight the Taliban

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, May 31, 2010; A01

NAWA, AFGHANISTAN -- In this patch of southern Afghanistan, the U.S. strategy to keep the Taliban at bay involves an economic stimulus.

Thousands of men, wielding hoes and standing in knee-deep muck, are getting paid to clean reed-infested irrigation canals. Farmers are receiving seeds and fertilizer for a fraction of their retail cost, and many are riding around on shiny new red tractors. Over the summer, dozens of gravel roads and grain-storage facilities will be constructed -- all of it funded by the U.S. government.

Pumping reconstruction dollars into war zones has long been part of the U.S. counterinsurgency playbook, but the carpet bombing of Nawa with cash has resulted in far more money getting into local hands, far more quickly, than in any other part of Afghanistan. The U.S. Agency for International Development's agriculture program aims to spend upward of $30 million within nine months in this rural district of mud-walled homes and small farms. Other U.S. initiatives aim to bring millions more dollars to the area over the next year.

Because aid is so plentiful in Nawa -- seemingly everyone who wants a job has one -- many young men have opted to stop serving as the Taliban's guns for hire. Unlike neighboring Marja, where insurgent attacks remain a daily occurrence, the central parts of Nawa have been largely violence-free the past six months.

But the cash surge has also unleashed unintended and potentially troubling consequences. It is sparking new tension and rivalries within the community, and it is prompting concern that the nearly free seeds and gushing canals will result in more crops than farmers will be able to sell. It is also raising public expectations for handouts that the Afghan government will not be able to sustain once U.S. contributions ebb.

"We've blasted Nawa with a phenomenal amount of money in the name of counterinsurgency without fully thinking through the second- and third-order effects," said Ian Purves, a British development expert who recently completed a year-long assignment as the NATO stabilization adviser in Nawa.

U.S. officials responsible for Afghanistan policy contend that the initiative in Nawa, which is part of a $250 million effort to increase agricultural production across southern Afghanistan, was designed as a short-term jolt to resuscitate the economy and generate lasting employment. They say concerns about overspending are misplaced: After years of shortchanging Afghans on development aid, the officials maintain that they would rather do too much than too little.

"Our goal is to return Nawa to normalcy, to get folks back to their daily lives of farming, and that requires a large effort," said Rory Donohoe, USAID's agriculture program manager in Helmand province.

Of particular concern to some development specialists is USAID's decision to spend the entire $250 million over one year in parts of just two provinces, Helmand and Kandahar. In Nawa, which has a population of about 75,000, that works out to about $400 for every man, woman and child. The country's per-capita income, by comparison, is about $300 a year.

"This is a massive effort to buy people off so they won't fight us," said a U.S. development officer in southern Afghanistan.

The spending here is a preview of what the Obama administration wants to accomplish on a larger scale. USAID's "burn rate" in Afghanistan -- the amount it spends -- is about $300 million a month and will probably stay at that level for at least a year.

The White House recently asked Congress for an additional $4.4 billion for reconstruction and development programs in Afghanistan, with the aim of increasing employment and promoting economic growth in areas beset by the insurgency.

Although some of that money will be directed through Afghan government ministries and local aid organizations to fund projects designed and run by Afghans, most of it will go to large, U.S.-based development firms with the ability to hire lots of people and spend lots of money quickly.

Among the programs in the pipeline is a $600 million effort to improve municipal governments across the country and to increase the provision of basic services to urban dwellers. The program is supposed to include extensive day-labor projects to pick up trash and plant trees, and it calls for the contractor to implement "performance-based" budgeting systems within two years, something that most U.S. cities do not have.

USAID also envisions spending $140 million to help settle property disputes. One of the agency's hoped-for achievements is to train Afghans to appraise and value land.

Some development specialists question whether Afghanistan can absorb the flood of money, or whether a large portion will be lost to corruption, inefficiency and dubious ventures funded to meet Washington-imposed deadlines.

"We've turned a fire hose on these guys -- and they can't absorb it," said a development specialist who has worked as a USAID contractor in Afghanistan for three years. "We're setting ourselves up for a huge amount of waste and fraud."

Improving farming

The $250 million agriculture program is the Obama administration's principal effort to create jobs and improve livelihoods in the two provinces where U.S. troops are concentrating their counterinsurgency mission this year. It was designed to address what senior administration officials, particularly presidential envoy Richard C. Holbrooke, deemed to be scattershot and underfunded initiatives over the first eight years of the war to assist farmers, who make up most of the country's workforce.

The program aims to make farms more productive, thereby increasing employment and living standards. It would do so by cleaning canals so more water gets to crops, offering subsidized seeds so farmers would be encouraged to switch from growing opium-producing poppies, establishing cooperatives to share tractors and constructing a network of gravel roads so they can take their goods to market.

To forge links between residents and their government, a 42-member community council decides which canals to clean and which roads to improve.

USAID selected International Relief and Development (IRD), an Arlington-based nonprofit development firm, to run the program. To get the work started quickly, the agency gave the company the $250 million as a grant last summer, instead of hiring it under contract to do the work, which would have taken longer.

Grants also involve fewer auditing requirements for USAID, but once awarded they limit the government's ability to make changes.

The program has been a hit with Nawa residents since the day it began in December, largely because of the plentiful cash-for-work opportunities. Once the day labor began, unemployment disappeared almost overnight.

The initiative has put money in the pocket of almost every working-age male in the district. More than 7,000 residents have been hired for $5 a day to clean the canals, and a similar number of farmers have received vouchers for heavily discounted seeds and fertilizer. Thousands of others have benefited from additional forms of assistance through the program.

"We had nothing here before -- only bullets," said Gul Mohammed, a lanky tenant farmer, as he scooped mud from a narrow canal. He said the day labor is essential to feeding his family because he decided last fall, after a battalion of U.S. Marines arrived in Nawa, not to plant poppies on his 6.5-acre plot.

Now he is growing wheat, which fetches only about a quarter of what he would have made from poppies.

"We are so thankful for this work," he said. "Without it, we would be going hungry."

Local infighting

USAID's decision to involve the community council in the disbursement was intended to help build local governance. It has done that, but it has also generated new frictions in the district.

When the council was formed last fall, the seven principal tribal leaders in the area decided not to participate. They did not want to risk the Taliban's wrath by siding with the United States and the Afghan government. But now that the council has the ability to influence millions of dollars worth of projects, the leaders want a piece of the action.

The senior elder, Hayatullah Helmandi of the Barakzai tribe, has launched a campaign to discredit the council members, calling them opportunists and drug users. "The Marines should be working with us," he said.

The infighting has prompted concern among some U.S. officials in the area. "These tensions probably wouldn't be so severe if there wasn't as much money involved," one of them said.

Then there is the question of what to do with all the additional crops grown this year. Purves estimates that the program will increase agricultural production by tens of thousands of tons across central Helmand province.

"What on Earth will happen to that?" he said. "There's no way all of that can be gotten to market, and even if it could, there simply isn't a market for that much more food."

Holbrooke and USAID agriculture experts want to construct cold-storage facilities so the produce can be trucked to markets in other parts of Afghanistan or exported to nearby countries. But that effort will not be completed in time to help farmers with this year's crop.

The effort to spend the program funds as fast as possible has resulted in some items going to waste, according to people familiar with the effort.

Plastic tunnels to allow farmers to grow crops over the winter were not distributed until February -- well after the winter planting season -- so many of them simply used the plastic as window sheeting for their mud huts. The metal rods were turned into fences.

The cash-for-work programs are so plentiful and lucrative that some teachers and policemen sought to enroll before U.S. and Afghan officials barred their participation.

Among Nawa residents, the biggest worry is what will happen when the program ends Aug. 31. U.S. officials hope this effort will result in new farm jobs, but nobody thinks it will be enough to employ all of those participating in the day-labor projects. Although USAID is considering a follow-on agriculture program, it is not clear whether the labor component will be as large as it is now.

If not, Afghan officials said their government does not have the resources to make up the difference.

"Those cash-for-work men -- half of them used to be Taliban," said the district governor, Abdul Manaf. "If the Americans stop paying for them to work, they'll go back to the Taliban."

http://www.centcom.mil/news/marines-afghan-army-combat-ieds-in-trek-nawa

TREK NAWA, Afghanistan (Aug. 17, 2010) — It was only six hours into the first day of Operation Thresher and the men of India Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, and their Afghan Army partners were seeing success.

The goal of the operation was to conduct a clearing mission to remove weapons caches, disrupt Taliban activity and interact with the local populace in an area of Trek Nawa that has seen scarce coalition force involvement.

A recent increase of improvised explosive devices being found in India Company’s area of operations was part of what spurred the operation. Removing IED caches would at least temporarily stall IED activity, but more importantly interacting with the people could prevent the Taliban from having freedom to work in the area.

The men had already found three caches, but when a helicopter crashed nearby, the focus of the mission shifted to providing security for the down bird until the following morning. The operation paused for a short while but then began again a few days later and concluded July 27.

In the end, the operation yielded four cache finds and a few detainees, but most importantly, Zavala said, was the successful interaction with the locals.

“Now that we’ve finished Op Thresher, people are coming up to the Marines and thanking them for clearing the area and they’re saying the Marines have provided a lot more security for the area, and they’d like to work hand-in-hand with us,” Zavala said.

Zavala hopes to continue to build on the growing relationship by beginning a project development shura to reinforce the new ties to the locals.

Prior to the operation, Zavala considered the area to be heavily under the influence of the Taliban, due in large part to intimidation, as there isn’t a strong Afghan government presence and the area is on the edge of India Company’s area of operations. Most of India Company’s focus has fallen on more heavily populated regions.

The shift in attitude was due in large part to the success of the Afghan soldiers during the operation. The operation was Afghan-led, with Marines providing support.

“I think they do a great job,” said Fiedtkou, a Queens, N.Y. native. “They know how to search, they know exactly what they’re doing and they ask for help when they need it. We mainly just support them.”

The Afghans soldiers were also responsible for helping to counter Taliban misinformation in the area.

“The ANA worked with the population and explained to them security is coming and we’re working hard to do it, but we need you to stop helping the Taliban so we can bring you the reconstruction and development everybody else is getting, but we need you to work the Marines and ANA to provide security,” Zavala said.

India Company plans to maintain contact with the population and continue to build the strength of the initial relationship. The next planned step is to begin having meetings with the populace to discuss beginning projects in the area.

http://presszoom.com/story_158964.html Marine gives life trying to save Afghan policeman PATROL BASE JAKER, Afghanistan — Cpl. Joe L. Wrightsman gave his life trying to save an Afghan policeman drowning in Afghanistan’s Helmand River July 18. And while the two would ultimately become victims of the powerful currents, Wrightsman’s actions weren’t in vain.

(PressZoom) - PATROL BASE JAKER, Afghanistan — Cpl. Joe L. Wrightsman gave his life trying to save an Afghan policeman drowning in Afghanistan’s Helmand River July 18. And while the two would ultimately become victims of the powerful currents, Wrightsman’s actions weren’t in vain.

Wrightsman’s squad had a mission to conduct a zone reconnaissance patrol in an area rumored to be inhabited by enemy forces, and perhaps no one in the squad looked forward to the prospect of a fight more than the squad leader. Wrightsman was a quintessential infantryman, a combat veteran on his fourth deployment in as many years.

Since arriving in Afghanistan more than two months ago, Wrightsman took time out on occasion to talk with his Marines about the work they’d been doing. Third battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment may not have been seeing as much action as other battalions in the region but he wanted them to know they were doing a good job and making a difference. Today though, there was a chance of a firefight — every grunt’s dream. Wrightsman was excited and just like his work ethic and smile, the enthusiasm was contagious.

“That’s just how he was,” said Lance Cpl. Michael A. Barnhouse, a Kilo Company team leader who Wrightsman has mentored for more than two years. “The Marine Corps was his life.”

The squad was on a timeline, and when it looked like they might not make it to their first checkpoint in time, Wrightsman made a joke to ease the mood. He was always doing that, cracking jokes and talking trash. He liked for his Marines to be relaxed, but diligent. He knew when to play and when to work.

“He was like a dad to us,” Barnhouse said. “He’d take us under his wing and make sure we didn’t mess up. If we did he wouldn’t yell at us, but show us what we did wrong and how to correct it.”

The men arrived at the checkpoint in time, early actually. Wrightsman had taught his men how to make everything a small competition, at the very least to push themselves. When they were running behind, that mindset kicked in.

“He always wanted to finish first,” said another of Wrightsman’s Marines, Lance Cpl. Thomas C. Morton. “He always pushed us to beat the other squads in competitions, and it made us feel like we were something separate. We were kind of the golden children.”

The Marines pushed on to the Helmand River. Barnhouse’s fire team was point on the patrol, but Wrightsman moved up to cross the river first. He wanted to make sure it was safe. He was always looking out for his Marines. Even back in the battalion’s home station of Hawaii he would continually take the blame for mistakes made by the men in his squad and then handle their discipline.

“He would never let someone else get on us,” said Lance Cpl. Michael X. Shaw. “He always cared about us more than he seemed to care about himself.”

The squad knew Wrightsman wasn’t a strong swimmer. He told them. Like most things, he’d joke about it. But his squad might not have known how much the 23-year-old from Jonesboro, La., genuinely feared the water. While attending a squad leaders course back in Hawaii Wrightsman and his fellow students would go to the pool for physical training sessions, he always elected to get thrashed twice as hard on land rather than set foot in the water.

But Wrightsman would never let fear keep him from taking care of his squad. He traversed the river first. He made it across and the others followed. Barnhouse’s team took point again, but the Helmand river twists and winds. Before long the squad needed to cross again. Wrightsman took the lead once more. The current was stronger at this point in the river. The water level rose from ankle to waist-deep at the crossing point. Nevertheless, Wrightsman made it across, and the rest of the squad began crossing in pairs.

An interpreter and an Afghan policeman, Wahidullah Fida Mohamad, were the next two behind Wrightsman. The Marines often went on partnered patrols with the Afghan National Police, and they liked when Wahidullah came along. They called him the Watermelon King for his tendency to produce watermelons seemingly out of nowhere during breaks in the patrol.

Wahidullah and the interpreter made it halfway across the river when they were separated. The current was strong and the riverbed was made up of mud and rocks. Even the Marines, with their heavy combat loads weighing them down, sometimes had trouble keeping traction with the riverbed.

The Watermelon King was not a large man. He fought to walk against the current but just ended up getting pushed further down river. Wrightsman went back into the river to help Wahidullah to shore.

Another Marine crossing the river hit a drop-off and completely disappeared into the water, save for a lone hand rising above the surface. Marines helped pull him out and then all of the men began making their way back out of the river except for Wrightsman. He continued trudging through the water to help Wahidullah.

Wrightsman caught up to the drifting policeman and was pulling him out of the water when the two suddenly disappeared completely — swallowed by the Helmand River.

Barnhouse immediately removed his gear and headed for the water after watching his mentor vanish. After getting about 25 meters into the river Barnhouse saw Wrightsman’s head pop out of the water. He no longer had his helmet on as he yelled out, “I need help.”

It was the last time Barnhouse ever saw him.

He swam frantically toward where Wrightsman popped up and kept swimming down river after him. Barnhouse struggled in the river. His boots were weighing him down, and his uniform dragged and resisted the water as he tried to swim. He had trouble staying afloat and started making his way back to shore but couldn’t. He succumbed to the river.

“I don’t know how long I was under but I was able to get my head back up out of the water and I heard somebody yell, ‘there he is,’ but I was so disoriented I didn’t know if they were talking about me or Wrightsman,” he said.

Barnhouse tried to stay calm, the way Wrightsman had always taught him to. He knew he had to stay relaxed to get out of the river, but the water overtook him again.

“The second time I went under I pretty much made my peace,” the 22-year-old said. “I thought, ‘this is it. I guess this is what it feels like to be drowning,’ and then I got pulled out of the water.”

Face down in the dirt, fighting to put air back into his lungs, Barnhouse could hear Marines around him screaming, “Where’s Wrightsman? Has anybody seen Wrightsman?”

That evening, from exhaustion, or maybe heartache, Barnhouse’s body shut down on him and he had to be medically evacuated. The search for Wrightsman continued while Barnhouse sat in a recovery room at Camp Dwyer more than 30 miles away.

He stared at the ceiling, replaying the events and telling himself it couldn’t really be happening.

When Wrightsman had popped up out the water and hollered, “I need help,” he didn’t sound fearful.

“I think what he meant was, ‘I need help getting this guy out of the water,’” Barnhouse said. “He wasn’t worried about himself.”

Barnhouse had a scene in his head. Marines would make their way up the river and there’d be Wrightsman, a cigarette hanging from his signature smile. As always, the charismatic Marine would make a joke and tease his Marines, “What took you guys so long?”

Barnhouse held onto the hope that they’d find Wrightsman alive. Morton and Shaw tried to stay optimistic as well, but after seeing Wrightsman when he popped up out of the water again further down the river they thought they’d already lost him.

Morton was one of the closest to Wrightsman and Wahidullah when they went under. He dropped his gear and went in after them, but like most in the river, he quickly exhausted himself fighting to swim in the current. He managed to make his way back to shore where he removed his boots in case he had to go in again and walked along the bank hoping to sight Wrightsman.

Before Wrightsman and Wahidullah had gone under, Shaw had been sucked under by the river as well, but was able to make his way back to shore quickly. Shaw, from Ashburn, Va., is a confident swimmer. He removed his gear and went in after Wrightsman. The 22-year-old likes to body board in his free time. The sport has taught him to work with the currents and how to handle himself in rough waters. He was able to navigate the river quickly and began gaining on Wrightsman.

Shaw and Morton worked together. Morton and Lance Cpl. Joshua S. Leventhal moved along the bank as scouts, searching for bubbles or any sign of Wrightsman so they could direct Shaw to him.

Wrightsman made his way back up out of the water one last time, about 70 yards from where he’d first come up and asked for help. Morton and Leventhal began yelling at him, trying to get his attention.

The noise registered with Wrightsman, but he only had about half of his face out of the water. He looked over at the Marines, let out a half-lunged groan and went back under.

Within seconds Shaw made it to where his squad leader went under.

“I dove down as far as I could,” Shaw said. “I felt the bottom of the river and couldn’t find him. I stayed underwater and kept swimming down river along the bottom. I’d come up and go back down. I kept diving and couldn’t find anything.”

Every asset available, Afghan and U.S., worked together to continue the search for Wrightsman and Wahidullah.

A recovery team found Wahidullah’s body the next day. A day later they found Wrightsman.

A memorial service for Wrightsman was held at Patrol Base Jaker July 30. He was remembered as a beloved leader and received a posthumous combat meritorious promotion to the rank of sergeant.

“He had a commitment to his brothers in arms that went beyond combat,” Capt. Shon S. Belcher, Kilo Company commander, said. “He believed in taking care of people, and that’s how he went out — sacrificing himself for someone in his squad.”

Wrightsman might not have saved Wahidullah that day, but the Afghan policeman wasn’t the only one who needed saving. Wrightsman’s Marines adored him — loved him in the purest form of brotherhood. When he went in the river after Wahidullah, his Marines did what they’d always felt compelled to do, follow his example. They couldn’t save him, but they saved one another in several instances.

They were there for each other because Wrightsman had always been there for them. Even with his fear of water, he had no hesitation in trying to save a man from a different country, a man in a different uniform, but a brother and a member of his squad all the same.

“His dedication will stay forever in the history of Afghanistan and will be remembered forever by the people of Nawa,” the Nawa District governor, Haji Abdul Manaf said during the memorial service.

The Helmand River may have claimed his body, but Sgt. Joe L. Wrightsman lives on in his Marines.

“You can definitely see an imprint of Wrightsman on our team leaders. All of them have been with him for years,” said Morton, from Nashville, Tenn. “They’re all their own men, but you can see Wrightsman in them.”

http://www.marines.mil/unit/imef/Pages/ABraveChoiceInNawa.aspx A Brave Choice In Nawa 6/8/2010 By Sgt. Mark Fayloga, Regimental Combat Team 7

FORWARD OPERATING BASE GERONIMO, Helmand Province, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan — A main goal in the War on Terror has been to hunt down leaders of enemy forces, but during an Afghanistan National Army-led reintegration shura a former Taliban commander was released from custody and welcomed back into Nawa, June 1.

Hussein Akhundzada, a Taliban leader in the Nawa area responsible for the production of improvised explosive devices and recruiting fighters, was released by an ANA general after months in detainment when it was determined he was no longer a threat.

Both government and tribal leaders vouched for Akhundzada’s intent to reintegrate into the area as a peaceful citizen during the brief meeting. His reintegration is only the fourth in Afghanistan.

“In any counterinsurgency, eventually this has to be a part of the peace process,” Lt. Col. Jeffrey C. Holt, commanding officer, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, said.

After the shura Akhundzada spoke with Lt. Col. Matt Baker, commanding officer, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, and Holt, whose battalion is set to take over 1/3’s area of operations in the coming days.

“He vowed to participate in the peace and prosperity that the people of Nawa enjoy,” Holt, from Dallas, said. “The greatest challenge is how do you reintegrate the Taliban into the peace process? We’re brave enough to do it in Nawa. The question is, how do you spread that? We know this guy believes that we’re here to help people prosper and make them more self-sufficient.”

The U.S. deemed the former enemy commander was no longer a threat, but ultimately it was the decision of Afghan leaders to allow him to reintegrate.

“An Afghan general released him today,” Holt said. “This was an Afghan-led shura. The only Marine who spoke at it, for a few words, was Lt. Col. Baker. It’s great to see that the Afghans are taking so much of a role in all of our lines of operation: leading patrols, leading governance. Instead of doing or enabling, we find ourselves watching — with pride.”

For many, the question remains: how can you trust Akhundzada and other enemy leaders won’t return to old ways after reintegrating?

Holt has an answer.

“Don’t give him a choice,” he said. “Give him a job. He needs work just like any other guy. Give him whatever he needs: security, success, anything possible to make a better life.”

Holt believes it’s possible for the Taliban to move away from extremism and become a legitimate political party, one that supports the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and cited the Sunnis in Western Iraq as an example of how reintegration can be successful.

“I hope the Taliban understands that we’re here to help the people and that includes them — that includes the Taliban as long as they want to reintegrate,” Holt said.

The 3/3 commander understands there is risk in integration, but said you have to make peace. He said he isn’t ready to call the reintegration of one member of the Taliban a tipping point in the war, but he is hopeful.

“Without hope we have no future,” Holt said. “It is our hope they choose peace.

“I think they’re tired of war.”

http://www.usmc.mil/unit/imef/Pages/America%E2%80%99sBattaliontakesoverLavaDogs%E2%80%99areaofoperationsinHelmand.aspx America’s Battalion takes over Lava Dogs’ area of operations in Helmand 6/11/2010 By Sgt. Mark Fayloga, Regimental Combat Team 7

FORWARD OPERATING BASE GERONIMO, Helmand Province, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan — IV id=ctl00_PlaceHolderMain_EditModeControls_ctl03__ControlWrapper_RichHtmlField style="DISPLAY: inline">As Col. Randall P. Newman spoke during the transfer of authority ceremony from the ‘Lava Dogs’ 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, to 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, at Forward Operating Base Geronimo, June 6, he had to raise his voice to be heard over the hum of a nearby generator.

The Regimental Combat Team 7 commanding officer didn’t mind competing with the steady whir of the generator. To the contrary, he saw it as progress. After all, if he had been in the same spot last year, he would need to yell to be heard over the sound of gunfire. FOB Geronimo isn’t the only area to have seen that kind of change.

“Now in areas of Nawa, most specifically the district center and the likes, there are places where a short year ago, rounds were exchanged in combat as people resisted that effort to bring this back to the Afghan people,” Newman said. “Today, in place of that combat, there are men and women shopping, going about their normal business with a sense of freedom that hasn’t been felt there in a while. Nothing can speak more highly than that. We’ve given back to a fellow human being the opportunity to achieve a better future.”

Although 3/3, known as “America’s Battalion,” has been operating in Helmand province for weeks, the ceremony marked the official turnover of the area of operations from 1/3’s authority to 3/3’s.

At the ceremony, Newman wasn’t the only one to note the progress made as a result of 1/3’s work. Haji Abdul Manaf, Nawa District governor, was quick to praise 1/3, remarking he wished the U.S. government would write the names of the battalion’s men on golden pages for the people of the United States and Afghanistan.

“[Lt.] Col. Matt Baker is a great warrior and great supporter of Nawa peace and prosperity,” Manaf said. “This word is coming from all the elders and citizens of Nawa, that we express our appreciation of Col. Matt Baker and his hard work and we hope that 3/3 will keep that same support and relationship.”

Baker, though honored by the praise, was quick to point out there is a set of names far more important than his own.

“While my name ends up being the name that gets mentioned, first and foremost there are more important people to mention,” Baker said. “There is an entire battalion of Marines that did work for us, it’s not possible to have the accomplishments we’ve had if it weren’t for Sgt. Maj. [Dwight D.] Jones and all the officers and staff of 1/3. The names that I want to make absolutely certain that we say out loud today are the names of those who will not be going home.”

Baker went on to solemnly read off the names of the four men from 1/5 and five from 1/3 who died supporting Nawa.

“These Marines will not be going home, did not go home with their battalions,” Baker said. “It’s very, very important that we never forget their names.”

Remembering Those Lost

1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

Sgt. William J. Cahir

Lance Cpl. David R. Baker

Lance Cpl. Donald J. Hogan

Lance Cpl. Justin J. Swanson

1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment

Cpl. Mark D. Juarez

Lance Cpl. Jacob A. Meinert

Lance Cpl. Timothy J. Poole

Lance Cpl. Noah M. Peir

Lance Cpl. Curtis M. Swenson

http://www2.marines.mil/unit/imef/Pages/%E2%80%98America%E2%80%99sBattalion,%E2%80%99AfghanArmycompletefirsttaskinOperationCobra.aspx ‘America’s Battalion,’ Afghan Army complete first task in Operation New Dawn 6/21/2010 By Sgt. Mark Fayloga, Regimental Combat Team 7

SOUTHERN SHORSHORK, HELMAND PROVINCE, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan — Marines from Company L, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, in partnership with the Afghanistan National Army, successfully completed their first task of establishing an observation post in support of Operation New Dawn in Southern Shorshork, Helmand province, Afghanistan, June 17.

Operation New Dawn is a joint operation between Marine Corps units and the Afghanistan National Army to disrupt enemy forces which have been using the sparsely populated region between Marjah and Nawa as a safe haven.

The men of ‘America’s Battalion’ and their ANA counterparts are responsible for establishing a defensive blocking position to deny enemy forces freedom of movement in the area.

“We’re going to be conducting patrols, vehicle checkpoints and looking at the population, making sure there aren’t people from out of the area coming in and causing harm or issues for the local people,” said Capt. Luke Pernotto, Company L commander and commander for 3/3’s ground force in Operation New Dawn. “We want to make sure enemy forces can’t be reinforced, and don’t fall back to regroup in this area. We’ve made extreme progress in Nawa, and to have it all go to waste, especially when we’re doing our last bit of clean-up in the Trek Nawa area, would be a shame.”

Following a nearly seven-hour convoy from Combat Outpost Toor Ghar, which took much longer than expected due to traveling on roads unused by coalition forces, and vehicle problems, an initial observation post was set up in a local’s compound.

During the first 48 hours of the operation, the Marines overcame obstacles to establish an observation post. While continuing to build up their defensive position, the Marines began to patrol in their new area of responsibility.

Afghan elders gathered nearby within a few hours of beginning to build up the compound, Pernotto and ANA 1st Sgt. Najibullah Bakht Beland along with fellow leadership met with them.

The compound the men moved into was located near a cemetery where local women often go to pray. The elders worried the women would no longer be able to travel to the cemetery and adamantly asked the military to move to a new position.

“We are here for Afghanistan to build up the area,” Beland, from Jalalabad, said to the elders. “We are from this country, to serve this country.”

Beland and Pernotto persuaded the elders to allow them to stay in the compound for one night, before moving further south to a position on the edge of the desert, but close enough to interact with the local populace.

“We’re essentially on the line where the desert ends and cultivation and civilization begins,” said Pernotto, from Shreveport, La. “Once the population realizes that a lot of their fears are unwarranted and we really are here to help them, that’s when we can begin to work with them and show that the government of Afghanistan, along with the partnership of the Marines, are here to help them and here to make their lives better. Yes, we had to take some land, but we took unfavorable land out in the desert to establish an operating base.”

It became evident the area the Marines and ANA now occupy hasn’t been patrolled or observed. While sweeping the observation post, Lance Cpl. Steven B. Lowe, an engineer from Headquarters Company, 3/3, discovered a buried cache of materials needed to make two pressure-plate, improvised explosive devices.

“Anytime you take away a position that the enemy uses, or you occupy a position that’s known to be frequented by the enemy, you hope to yield positive results,” Pernotto said. “Those two pressure plates could easily trigger two 200 pound IEDs. Taking those off of the battlefield, that alone, we’ve already contributed to Operation New Dawn and the overall security of this area.”

The Marines and ANA have taken their time with establishing their position and for good reason — they understand the importance of making a positive impression with the people here. The area has little electricity and few forms of distraction so the Marines have become the primary source of entertainment.

“All of our movements are watched by both those who support us and those who don’t, and that’s completely acceptable,” Pernotto said. “Even the guys that don’t like us, when they see us handling ourselves well and acting well, I think we can win over people who may originally not like us.

“I’d like to continue to build up the area and provide the security to where we can get the elders together and start discussing the issues and having partnership with the elders and the ANA as they continue to improve life around here.”

http://www2.marines.mil/usmc/Pages/photo.aspx?image=/unit/imef/PublishingImages/2010/100616-M-1558F-097.jpg - Melendez 1st Recon launches new operation near Marjah

By Dan Lamothe - Staff writer Posted : Friday Jul 2, 2010 9:37:20 EDT

Reconnaissance Marines in Afghanistan have launched a new operation near the former Taliban stronghold of Marjah aimed at pushing insurgents out of nearby areas they have used to launch repeated attacks on Marine patrols.

Operation New Dawn will be “attacking areas that insurgents use in transit to and from Marjah,” said 1st Lt. Joshua Benson, a spokesman for 1st Marine Division (Forward), based in Afghanistan. Marines with 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, out of Camp Pendleton, Calif., launched the operation June 15.

New Dawn is an extension of Operation Moshtarak, Benson said. The Corps launched that mission in February with a massive assault to push the Taliban, drug traffickers and other insurgents from Marjah, a sprawling rural area in central Helmand province with more than 80,000 people.

Already, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, out of Marine Corps Base Hawaii, has assisted in New Dawn, establishing observation posts in southern Shorshork, an area in between Marjah and Nawa, a district to the east with about 89,000 people, according to a Marine Corps news release. Lima Company 3/3 established blocking positions for 48 hours beginning June 17 that limited insurgents’ freedom of movement, Marine officials said.

The actions are likely just the beginning. Marine leaders in Afghanistan plan to use 1st Recon to root out insurgents in several other areas surrounding Marjah this summer, said Brig. Gen. Joseph Osterman, commander of 1st MarDiv Fwd., during a June 1 interview with Marine Corps Times in Afghanistan. Those areas include the Sistani Desert to the west of Marjah and Trek Nawa, a sprawling area to Marjah’s east filled farm compounds controlled by the Taliban. The Taliban has coordinating repeated attacks on Marine patrols from both areas.

“First Recon, before they even left [the U.S.], were training in more of a ground combat-type of role,” Osterman said in June. “They still retain a lot of their reconnaissance skills and the maturity that goes with that type of unit, but basically they’ll be working those outer areas.”

The decision to send recon Marines to Marjah wasn’t made because commanders in the region need their ability to go deep behind enemy lines without detection, but because the other infantry battalions the Corps has in Afghanistan already have defined missions underway.

“Once we go into an area, we never want to leave it until it’s ready to be transitioned to Afghani control,” Osterman said. “With the units that are out here and the timing of where they are and how things are going, it makes more sense to deploy recon than it would be to uncover somebody else and sharing” the job.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2010/07/marine_recon_070110w/