Toggling Between Fighting and Outreach in Afghanistan

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times A funeral in Marja, Afghanistan, was attended by villagers during ongoing fighting in the area between American Marines and Taliban fighters.
However the Afghan war is faring over all, across the wide and varied expanse of Afghanistan, with all of its political and cultural complexity, one thing is abundantly clear: toggling between fighting and outreach can create head-spinning scenes. Some of these scenes underline the difficulties inherent in a counterinsurgency doctrine that mixes lopsided violence with attempts to make nice. But they also simultaneously demonstrate that the efforts to follow the doctrine far from Kabul, out on remote ground, have become a central part of how the war is waged, even as the merits of the doctrine are quietly debated.
One example was in mid-February, when Kilo Company, Third Battalion, Sixth Marines, was still isolated and alone in the agricultural strip in northern Marja, a region of small villages between patches of open steppe and irrigated poppy fields. The old-school fighting between Kilo Company and the local gunmen and Taliban fighters had consumed a large part of each day for several days running. Both sides had settled into rifle and machine gun battles across the farmers’ fields. The Marines were also using their 60-millimeter mortars and calling in helicopter attack gunships and occasional air or rocket strikes, pushing off the insurgents while continuing down their list of tasks: seizing a bridge and bazaar, selecting a site for a large Afghan police outpost, clearing roads of mines, and more. Each day was basically a rolling gunfight, punctuated by the larger explosions of supporting arms.
In the darkness before sunrise one morning, Col. Brian Christmas, who commands the battalion, landed by helicopter at the small compound that Kilo Company had temporarily occupied for its command post. He wanted to visit an elderly Afghan man who a few days before had suffered a terrible loss: his family had been inside a compound that was mistakenly struck by a ground-to-ground guided rocket. Twelve civilians had been killed, five of them children, and one man remained missing, presumably buried under the rubble.
At dawn, a small foot patrol set out with the colonel to visit the ruined home. This meant crossing several open areas that had been watched over by insurgent snipers and machine gunners, who each day had fired on the Marine patrols and turned previous crossings into intensive skirmishes and long mad dashes for cover. On this morning, the colonel’s patrol walked through the open for roughly two kilometers (about a mile and a quarter) without coming under fire. Something, it seemed, was different. And then the patrol, anticipating being ambushed on the return walk, made it almost all the way back a few hours later without getting into a firefight again. As the lead Marines entered the last cluster of buildings near the company command post, the tail end of the column came under rifle shots from a distant field. But these were a desultory effort, and the Marines, after orienting toward the fire and assessing it, paid the incoming shots little more mind, and slipped into the village with plans to get on with the day.
Then something unusual happened.
In the center of this tiny village, a large group of Afghan men were gathered at a freshly dug grave. The men eyed the Marines coldly.
Colonel Christmas was intrigued. Soon he was invited into a home, where he talked with a family for a short while to get a sense of what was happening in the graveyard. The initial stories did not quite square. A child was being buried, the villagers said; he had been hit in the cross-fire the day before. This did not add up. The hole was perhaps seven feet long and wider than a grown man. Why dig such a hole for a child? As the rest of the Marine patrol stood back, Afghan soldiers mingled with the villagers. The story became more developed. O.K., the new line went, maybe the victim was in fact an adult. And maybe he had been shot in the fighting. Then the villagers’ story took its final shape. Yes, the man had been shot in the heavy fighting the day before. But he was not an insurgent. He was a bystander. Asked where the man had been standing when he was shot, and at what time, the villagers grew hazy with details. The Marines now wondered. Had they walked into a Taliban funeral? And was the funeral the reason that they had not been ambushed throughout the morning, because many of the men who had been ambushing them all week were now right here, taking a break while tending to ritual?
Colonel Christmas, following the mores of counterinsurgency, chose to use the funeral as an opportunity. Very few Afghan men had been willing to mingle near the Marines in the first days. The village had seemed deserted. Whoever these men were, this was a chance to talk. He approached the graveyard, was invited to sit and addressed the men.
“We mourn with you for the loss of one of your sons,” he said. “These are unnecessary losses in a time of war.”
He added: “The only way we will be successful is if the Afghan National Army, the Marines and you work together.”
Colonel Christmas asked the villagers to help separate the Taliban from the population and said that once the fighting eased, development could begin. Millions of dollars had been set aside for projects and jobs, he said. With security, the local standard of living could improve. And without accusing any of the young men in front of him of being fighters, he elliptically suggested that those who had been fighting consider setting aside their guns and moving forward with what would become a new life.
“Tell the young Afghanis who the Taliban had told to take up arms to put them down and come home,” he said. “Nothing will happen to them.”
One of the older Afghans interjected. “We can’t fight the Taliban,” he said. “We have nothing. That’s your job.” The man also complained that Marines were searching homes. “This is disrespectful of us,” he said.
The colonel said that house searches were part of the initial sweep through Marja but were stopping. On the subject of the initial sweeps, the elder had a request: One villager was dead already, and another – Abdul Ghani — had been detained by the Marines and not been seen for several days. What could be done about this?
Abdul Ghani had been found by the Marines in a home near the graveyard on the first day of the offensive. The home contained a room with a cluster of materials the Marines considered to be bomb-making ingredients: stacks of new cooking pots, electrical cables and sacks of fertilizer. Abdul Ghani had been led away, and though the villagers did not know it, he was being held under guard in the temporary command post a short walk away. [Note: Abdul Ghani was not the man in this video. Kilo Company detained two suspected bombmakers in the first week in Marja.]
The colonel gestured to Capt. Joshua P. Biggers, the commander of Kilo Company, who leaned close. They had a quick conference. Then the colonel faced back to the small crowd.
“I will see what I can do,” he said. “Give me two or three hours.”
Captain Biggers stepped away and spoke into his radio. “I’m authorizing the release of the detainee,” he said.
If American counterinsurgency doctrine is sound, and to have a chance of succeeding in Afghanistan – two assertions that remain subjects of debate within the ranks – then the contest for public sentiment among Afghan civilians will arguably be more important over the long run than the relative effectiveness of each side’s martial skills. A series of recent posts looked closely at the Taliban’s equipment, tactics and marksmanship, including their recent use of snipers in Helmand Province. Fighting skills and fighting methods obviously matter to the outcome of the American and Afghan effort against the Taliban. In many ways, the quieter and less spectacular struggle for popular sentiment is much harder to measure, or the measurements (numbers of voters registered, numbers of local men coaxed into joining small governing councils, etc.) feel disconnected from the ways Afghan villages actually make decisions and tend to their affairs.
The decision with Abdul Ghani’s detention is the sort of action that is difficult both to assess and to make extrapolations from. How much do actions like this influence the war? No one can quite be sure. But a sizeable contingent of officers on the ground believe that the potential gains from such a gesture can outweigh the risks.
After a few minutes, Captain Biggers approached the colonel and spoke softly. The colonel nodded.
“In 10 minutes, I will bring Abdul back, and I will give him to you,” the colonel told the group. “To show that I trust you, and you must trust me.”
A short while later, two Marines rounded the corner of a building. Between them was Abdul Ghani, who walked slowly, unsure of what was happening. He eyed the sights in front of him: a few local dozen men, sitting at a funeral with a patrol of armed Marines.
Colonel Christmas excused himself from the elders and approached the man he was about to set free.
“Take care of your family and work with the A.N.A. and the Marines,” the colonel said, using the acronym for the Afghan National Army. An interpreter translated the colonel’s words to Pashto. Abdul Ghani nodded. “May God be with you,” the colonel said. “And may he help you make good decisions.”
Abdul Ghani walked slowly away from the Marines, toward the edge of the cemetery and the freshly dug grave, as the village’s men moved toward him. Soon he was passed from man to man in a series of embraces and hugs.
Was Abdul Ghani a bomb maker? Was he just unlucky and caught up in a fast sweep? The evidence had been uncertain. The Marines did not know for sure. Certainly there were hidden bombs nearby, and they had been made from the kinds of components found in his home. (A few days later, when the roads into northern Marja were opened, the colonel’s convoy would strike one of the hidden bombs, and several others would be found.)
But no matter. The decision had been taken. On this day, after several days of intensive fighting and an errant rocket strike, the release of Abdul Ghani offered a chance for a spontaneous good-will gesture. Under the ideas that at the moment drive Western notions of counterinsurgency, he was seen to be more valuable being set free at a funeral for what may well have been a Taliban fighter than being moved along toward jail.