Standoff in Afghan ghost town

[citizen k]

Stalemate in Afghan ghost town shows task ahead
By CHRIS BRUMMITT, Associated Press

NOW ZAD, Afghanistan – U.S. Marines patrol slowly along streets laced with land mines and lined with abandoned shops, clinics and homes. As night falls over this Afghan ghost town, the only sounds are the howling of dogs and the creaking of tin roofs in the wind.

Three years after its residents fled, the once bustling town of Now Zad is the scene of a stalemate between a company of newly arrived Marines and a band of Taliban fighters. The Americans have plenty of firepower. What they don't have is enough men to hold seized ground.

"We would just be mowing the weeds," said Capt. Zachary Martin of any move to drive out the Taliban.The deadlock shows how a shortage of troops has hindered the Afghan war and points to the challenges for the Obama administration as it sends 21,000 extra Marines and soldiers to the south to try to turn around a bogged down, eight-year conflict. The influx will bring U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan to about 68,000 by late summer — roughly half the current level in Iraq, a smaller country than Afghanistan.

It's unclear if more troops will be deployed to this town in Helmand province, the heart of the Taliban insurgency and the opium poppy trade that funds it. For the meantime at least, it appears Now Zad is too valuable to abandon to the insurgents — but not valuable enough for an all-out offensive.

The 300 or so Marines in Now Zad regularly patrol areas close to the Taliban front lines, skirmishing with them and risking attacks from the area's biggest killer — IEDs. Over the last month, improvised explosive devices have killed one Marine and wounded seven. Four of the men — including the fatality — suffered double leg amputations.

"Welcome to Hell," reads one message spray-painted on a wall in the town's main base by British troops whom the Marines replaced last year."Good Luck USA," reads another.
Along with the new troops and military aircraft, Washington plans a corresponding surge in development projects to convince the largely impoverished Afghan population that the central government_ not the insurgents — offers the best hope for the future. The U.S. is also spending more on training the Afghan police and army so they can eventually take on the Taliban.

But with Now Zad's 10,000 to 35,000 residents long gone, there are no hearts and minds to woo here — even it were safe enough to build schools, clinics and roads. The town also has no local security forces, and no one can say when they will arrive.

"Even in our wildest dreams we are not going to have enough Marines and soldiers to be everywhere," said Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, the commander of the first wave of 10,000 new troops pouring into Helmand and surrounding provinces. "That is why it is important to have the locals taking more responsibility, saying, 'This is my neighborhood and I'm going to have to defend it.'"

Like much of Afghanistan, Now Zad was relatively peaceful in the years following the U.S.-led invasion. Water pumps installed by the U.N. World Food Program are dotted around the town, and there is at least one health clinic funded by the European Union.

But in 2006 and 2007 — just when Washington was focused on sectarian bloodshed in Iraq — the Afghan insurgency stepped up a gear and Now Zad became the scene of fierce battles between NATO troops and the Taliban.

Now Zad remains so dangerous that this is the only Marine unit in Afghanistan that brings along two trauma doctors, as well as two armored vehicles used as ambulances and supplies of fresh blood.

Apart from one small stretch of paved road, the Marines patrol only behind an engineer who sweeps the ground with a detector. The men who follow scratch out a path in the sand with their foot to ensure those trailing them do not stray off course. Each carries at least one tourniquet.

"It's a hell of ride," said Lance Cpl. Aenoi Luangxay, a 20-year-old engineer on his first deployment. "Every step you think this could be my last," said Aenoi, who has found six bombs in the company's four weeks in the town.

Just after midnight recently, the medics were wakened by a familiar report: A patrol had hit an IED in town. Within five minutes, they put on their flak jackets and helmets and were in their vehicles leaving the base.

The bomb blew the legs off Cpl. Matthew Lembke as he walked to a building. Lembke, from Tualatin, Ore., was loaded onto the ambulance. On the trip to the helicopter landing zone, the medics tightened his tourniquets and gave him two units of blood along with antibiotics.
At one point, he stopped breathing. The medical team used equipment on board to pump air into his lungs.

"Our aim and intent is to give the guys the optimum chance of survival from the first minute," said the commander of the Shock Trauma Platoon, Sean Barbabella, of Chesapeake, Va. "If it was my son or brother out there, that is what I would want."

Lembke was in stable condition Monday at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.
The men of Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines in Now Zad know where to find their enemy — to the north of town, in a maze of compounds and tunnels that back onto lush pomegranate orchards.

The Marines are garrisoned in a base that occupies the town's former administrative center. They also have fortified observations posts on two hills. In one of them, named ANP hill after the Afghan police who presumably once had a post there, the men sleep in "hobbit holes" dug into the earth. The underground briefing room is partly held up by an aging Russian Howitzer gun.

Each day, the Marines aggressively patrol to limit the Taliban's freedom of movement. They keep a 24-hour watch on the battlefield using high-tech surveillance equipment and are able to fire mortar rounds at insurgents spotted planting bombs or gathering in numbers.

A recent daylong battle showed the massive difference in firepower between the two sides, as well as the tenacity of the Taliban. It took place close to "Pakistani Alley," so named because of one-time reports that fighters from across the border were deployed along the road.

The insurgents opened fire from behind high-walled compounds with automatic weapons, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades against five armored vehicles; the Marines responded with machine gunfire and frequently called in airstrikes.

Mindful of the need to engage with what few locals remain in the area, every couple of days a small group of Marines and translators leave the base and walk a mile to a village south of Now Zad where some families who fled the town now stay.

They try to convince them that the Marines are there to help, remind them that Taliban militants plant bombs that kill innocents and discreetly try to gather intelligence. Many of the locals are suspicious and worried about Taliban retribution for talking with the visitors, who are besieged by children demanding candy and notebooks.

Capt. Martin got some encouraging news. One villager said he was a former soldier in the Afghan army and would be willing to fight the Taliban; another said he would like to vote in August elections, though with no local government in place that looks unlikely.

But later, one man accused coalition forces of killing 10 women and children in a bombing last year.

"I take it as a sign of success they are willing to talk to us," Zachary said. "Before, if you said the word Taliban, they ran away."

In this photo taken Tuesday, June 23, 2009, U.S. Marine Capt. Zachary Martin, Golf Company commander of 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines of the 2nd MEB patrols with a squad through the empty town of Now Zad in Afghanistan's Helmand province. Three years after its residents fled, the once bustling town of Now Zad is the scene of a stalemate between U.S. Marines and Taliban insurgents and an example of the challenges facing the U.S. administration even as it sends 21,000 extra Marines and soldiers to the south to try and turn around a bogged down, 8-year-long war.                                          (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

[Phillip V]

He should shave his moustache.

[HisMajestyBOB]

He should shave his moustache.

It's a good porn-star mustache. Very manly.

[Martinus]

He should shave his moustache.

It's a good porn-star mustache. Very manly.

1980s gay porn star maybe. 

[Syt]

Looks like Freddie Mercury in army gear.

[Razgovory]

Scary.  What sort of anti-ghost munitions does the US have?

[HisMajestyBOB]

Scary.  What sort of anti-ghost munitions does the US have?

None since the IAEA outlawed nuclear-powered proton packs. God damn UN.

[Scipio]

Everything was going fine until dickless over there shut off the containment unit.

[KRonn]

These guys are doing a very tough and dangerous job; they appear to be doing very well at it. Best of luck to them, all of them over there.

[Darth Wagtaros]

So Now Zab is more like Then Zab.  When will Soon Zab arrive?

[jimmy olsen]

Elsewhere, the Marines are on the attack.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/world/asia/02afghan.html?hp

U.S. Marines Try to Retake Afghan Valley From Taliban

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Published: July 1, 2009

KABUL, Afghanistan — Almost 4,000 United States Marines, backed by helicopter gunships, pushed into the volatile Helmand River valley in southwestern Afghanistan early Thursday morning to try to take back the region from Taliban fighters whose control of poppy harvests and opium smuggling in Helmand provides major financing for the Afghan insurgency.

The Marine Expeditionary Brigade leading the operation represents a large number of the 21,000 additional troops that President Obama ordered to Afghanistan earlier this year amid rising violence and the Taliban's increasing domination in much of the country. The operation is billed as the first major push in southern Afghanistan by the newly bolstered American force.

Helmand is one of the deadliest provinces in Afghanistan, where Taliban fighters have practiced a sleek, hit-and-run guerrilla warfare against the British forces who have been based there.

British troops in Helmand say they rarely get a clear shot at Taliban attackers, who ambush them with improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles. The explosive devices — some made with fertilizer distributed to Afghan farmers to wean them from opium production — are the most feared weapon. The Taliban favor ambushes in the morning and evening and do not often strike during the blazing afternoon heat.

In recent weeks some British troops have been setting up what are known as "blocking positions" on bridges over irrigation canals and at other locations, apparently to help stop the flow of insurgents during the main military operation and to establish greater security before the presidential election scheduled for August.

The British have had too few troops to conduct full-scale counterinsurgency operations and have often relied on heavy aerial weapons to attack suspected fighters and their hide-outs. The strategy has alienated much of the population because of the potential for civilian deaths.

Now, the Marines say their new mission, dubbed Operation Khanjar, will include more troops and resources than ever before, as well as a commitment by the troops to live and patrol near population centers to ensure that residents are protected. More than 600 Afghan soldiers and police officers are also involved.

"What makes Operation Khanjar different from those that have occurred before is the massive size of the force introduced, the speed at which it will insert, and the fact that where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces," the Marine commander in Helmand Province, Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, said in a statement.

Eros Hoagland contributed reporting.

[Lettow77]

Fortunately, the death toll for Southerners is relatively light. We shouldent lose too many this time around to pay the upkeep of empire.

And here's to not being there myself!

[Barrister]

Fortunately, the death toll for Southerners is relatively light. We shouldent lose too many this time around to pay the upkeep of empire.

And here's to not being there myself!

Fuck you.

[Lettow77]

Yes, because my appreciation for a low death toll and not having to be there myself killing johnny foreigner who I have no quarrel with is so riotously offensive, yes?

That job does look like hard graft, and there are brave men doing it. I dont feel inclined to say its right or wrong, but I will say it isnt neccessary, and the lives lost, even as mercifully few as there are, are hard to justify. It's a professional army, so I cant squeal too loudly. I wish them well, and success in their endeavours, but above all they should probably be back home.

[Neil]

Yes, because my appreciation for a low death toll and not having to be there myself killing johnny foreigner who I have no quarrel with is so riotously offensive, yes?

It's not for you to decide who you have a quarrel with.