A Hot War Rages in the 'Peaceful' North of Afghanistan

Advancing on a second bunker complex, Vinton's team and the 20 Afghan police got into "a very heavy firefight,'' taking sustained shelling from a tree line to the north and east. Eventually, Vinton's gunner got close enough to fire a half dozen high explosive grenades directly into the Taliban positions. The enemy went silent. Casualties: U.S. and Afghan, none ("Not a scratch,'' grinned Vinton). Taliban: six dead, including a Taliban commander.

This battle, which took place at the hamlet of Alefberdi on July 12, was unusual in one respect. "This was the first big fight we got into together with the Afghan police,'' said Vinton, a linebacker of a man with reddish blond hair and an easy grin. "In the beginning, they [the Afghans] were very tentative, but as the firefight went on they could see we were really willing to be there with them. By nightfall they'd taken charge of the situation.''

That's sweet news for the allied high command in Afghanistan and for the Obama White House. Both are banking on the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) being able to take over security, enabling President Barack Obama to begin withdrawing some U.S. forces beginning next July.

The bad news is that northern Afghanistan, from Herat Province east to Badakhshan, a stretch of some 700 miles, is a wild and insecure place with pockets of hard-core Taliban, their sympathizers and mixed insurgent-criminal gangs. According to local police officials there are traces of al Qaeda here as well. There are vast areas here that neither Afghan nor U.S. forces venture, "places even the Russians couldn't get to,'' an American officer said.

The region also holds the major cities of Mazar-e-Sharif and Kunduz, a vibrant farm center and university town with knots of chattering schoolgirls, women in bright turquoise robes and white scarves, ancient bearded farmers and young business sharpsters in western suit jackets. Security for them and others is tenuous. Hazara, Tajik and Pashtun ethnic groups mix uneasily across the region, and the Taliban commonly probe with raids, suicide bombings and IED attacks.

And they are vicious. In Baghlan Province to the south of Kunduz, Taliban fighters sacked government buildings July 21 and overran a police command post. The six Afghan police on duty were beheaded, the NATO command said.

The battle at Alefberdi, 40 miles northeast of Kunduz and only six miles from the Tajikistan border, came a day after the Taliban attacked a local police post, killing all but one. The responding U.S. and Afghan police attack cleared the area of Taliban -- but there are too few forces to hold it.

"We are woefully short,'' said U.S. Army Col. Sean Mulholland, deputy commander of the regional headquarters of the allied International Security Assistance Force.

In an interview in Mazar-e-Sharif, Mulholland described a situation in which joint Afghan-American forces, despite aggressive operations, are barely holding their own.

"Nobody's pulling out of here in July 2011,'' he growled. At least, he added, not until the Afghans can field more police.

In the interim, the U.S. command moved an infantry battalion into this region in April, ballooning the American combat force here from 90 to more than 800 soldiers. It is the third Afghan deployment in eight years for the 1^st Battalion, 87^th Infantry, of the 10^th Mountain Division's 1st Brigade (the battalion also fought two combat tours in Iraq, making five yearlong deployments in eight years).

The battalion, including Vinton's platoon in Alpha Company, is partnered with Afghan police. They are considered by U.S. commanders as decently equipped and well-led. Many have years of experience fighting as mujaheddin against the Taliban. The strategy is to live and operate with the Afghan police, said Lt. Col. Russell Lewis, battalion commander. To that end, the battalion is building 10 combat outposts where its platoons will live with Afghan police full time. Meanwhile, joint operations go day and night.

"We are their partners; we live, train and operate together,'' Lewis said. "We don't sit on the sidelines like a coach and say here's what you should be doing. We go together.''

A key commander in the July 12 battle of Alefberdi was the regional police commander, Razzaq Yaqubi, a heavy man with deep-set black eyes and a deceptively sleepy demeanor.

Razzaq assembled his men before the assault, telling them this was an extremely dangerous mission and anyone who wanted to leave was dismissed. "Everyone wanted to go into battle,'' he told me later, clearly proud. After his speech, Razzaq put on his helmet and body armor and climbed into his truck to lead the assault.

In the past year, Razzaq has managed to add 500 police to his force, bringing it to about 1,500. He set up new highway checkpoints and a quick reaction unit for emergencies. But he is short-handed and his men are busy. "We are on the front lines against the enemy, against narcotics, against corruption, against criminal gangs and the front lines of enforcing the law,'' he told me during a rare stopover in his ornate office in Kunduz city. "My men don't have even one free hour.''

But in contrast to last year, when Razzaq lost 30 soldiers and 35 wounded, this year so far two of his police have been killed and several wounded. He said his men are "self sufficient'' in operations. But they are stronger, he added, when they work with the Americans.

In the battle of Alefberdi, the Taliban "lost a lot of credibility,' Lt. Col. Lewis said. "They lost the battle. And according to the police, people told them they were no longer welcome in the village.''

Whether or not the local villagers have switched sides, Lewis and others say that each operation, with Afghans and Americans working together, adds to local perceptions of security.

"We aren't going to kill our way out of an insurgency,'' Lewis said. "But people are watching, and being perceived as having won the fight builds confidence in the eyes of the people, and extends the reach of the government.''

Lewis' battalion will be here a year. When I asked him what would happen when it leaves, he brought up Iraq, where he served for a bloody year in 2005-2006. He'd gone back there last fall. "I went to places that nobody in 2006 dreamed would be stable," he said. "People clearly saw the police as the trusted authority.

"I see some of the same indicators here. Some people are bringing their disputes to the police for resolution. They're seen as a credible, legitimate force. To say this place is solvable in six months, that'd be naïve. But I am an optimist. I think it can be achieved.'' With only 100 days of experience here, he added, "I know enough to see the potential is there.''

No one here will guess how long U.S. forces will be needed, but the command is acutely aware of the political clock ticking back in Washington, with an impatient Congress and the July 2011 date set by the White House looming like the gathering dust storms that periodically scour Kunduz.

But Colonel Mulholland, a veteran special forces commander, left me with this advice: "You have to be out there all the time, every day. Otherwise the weeds grow close to the fence . . . and you're trapped.''