CHARBAGH, Afghanistan — The U.S. soldiers climb over walls, jump ditches and scan the dirt for trip wires in an hour-long hike, all to meet with one man: the new head of a mosque in a tiny village in a southern Afghan river valley. They hope to persuade him to support the Afghan government.
They have a tough sell. The mullah, Bas Mohammad, said Charbagh residents never see government representatives — not doctors, teachers or agriculture workers — though the village sits on the edge of the south’s largest city, Kandahar.
In areas such as these, where government authorities rarely venture, patrolling NATO troops are not just a security force: They also are envoys of the Afghan government. The Taliban clearly have a presence in Charbagh. The road between the village and a U.S. outpost is so littered with homemade bombs that soldiers from the 2nd Battalion,508th Parachute Infantry Regiment avoid it altogether, making what should be a 300-yard walk last an hour. Mohammad’s predecessor was run off by the
militants, and the new mullah, a month into his job, has been warned to leave.
The violence isolates Charbagh and other areas around Kandahar.
Often soldiers are the only ones willing to risk the journey. But NATO and Afghan forces aren’t planning a major offensive to rout the militants around
Kandahar, as they did in the southern town of Marjah this past
winter. Commanders have said they are instead taking a softer approach in the area — known as “Operation Hamkari." which means cooperation — squeezing the Taliban by strengthening government services.
Government workers, though, are having a harder time getting around the Arghandab
valley, as violence has increased with the summer growing season. There have been bombings, firefights and assassinations throughout the area. The district government chief was killed in June. “A couple more weeks of this kind of
fighting, and we’re worried that contractors are going to start refusing to go out there,”
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