Skeptical elders size up American commander’s gesture of peace in southern Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, a small step toward trust

BADULA QULP, Afghanistan — A day after the battle, the elders came to talk.

Ten bearded Afghan men in robes and turbans sat on mats in the chill Monday to discuss their hopes and grievances with American and Afghan officers a day after a patrol of U.S., Canadian and Afghan troops fought insurgents in the fields and earthen compounds just north of the besieged Taliban town of Marjah.

It was a test case for building trust in this part of southern Afghanistan, and the village leaders, who have known only Taliban authority for at least a year and a half, were hedging their bets.

They also wanted payback. During the firefight, a missile-firing helicopter destroyed a mosque after troops on the ground said they were taking fire from the building — and the 15-year-old son of the mullah, or Islamic cleric, was killed.

At least one insurgent also died and one U.S. soldier was injured Sunday in the Badula Qulp region of Helmand province, where U.S. Marines are conducting a big offensive against the hardline Taliban movement in its bastion of Marjah.

The meeting started with Afghan Maj. Abdul-Jalal Jalal appealing, cajoling and even mildly threatening the elders from the villages where the fight happened. Give us information about the Taliban, he said. Don’t let them into your homes. They are taking advantage of you.

“If you won’t help us, then whom are we fighting?” the major asked. “We might think we are fighting you.”

U.S. Lt. Col. Burton Shields, commander of the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment of the 5th Stryker Brigade, then stood up in his faded green uniform and addressed the seated elders in clipped sentences.

“I think you all know why American forces are in Afghanistan, but I’m going to remind you,” he said, delivering a summary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — the 3,000 people who died, some of them Muslim. The war started when the Taliban refused to hand over al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Shields apologized for the death of the mullah’s son and the destruction of the mosque. He promised to rebuild it, noting at the same time that the Taliban had failed to build schools and clinics during their time of uncontested control.

“It was a very unfortunate incident,” he said. “They shot from the mosque because they wanted us to destroy the mosque.”

The elders, however, were not easily convinced. They withheld clear declarations of support, perhaps because they fear the Taliban may come back someday after the Americans have grown tired of the war. Whatever the reason, they stood their ground.

Nurul Hadi, the mullah whose son was killed, said he had last seen his son reading a book in the mosque. Another elder, Abdul Ajan, denied that anyone had shot from the mosque, saying it was a “place for worship, not a place for combat,” and declared that an apology was no solution.

“When someone gets shot, you can’t put a price on it,” he said. “I don’t want your sympathy after you kill someone.”

At that, Jalal cut him off, saying he had witnesses who saw someone firing from behind the mosque.

“You have to agree,” he insisted. “You know the truth. Don’t tell us ‘no.’”

The matter was not clarified, nor was the nature of the relationship between the elders and the Taliban, who are predominantly ethnic Pashtuns from the southern regions of Afghanistan.

As though attempting to confirm they had no links to the Taliban, some of the elders said they had migrated from other parts of the country decades ago. They also questioned the reliability of the new heavyweights in the neighborhood.

“As long as you are here, then we can tell you when they (the Taliban) come to our village,” Ajan said. “When you leave this area, then I don’t know what we can do.”

The elders agreed to take compensation for the death of the mullah’s son, a negotiable figure which can run into a few thousand dollars. They also welcomed Shields’ promises to rebuild the mosque, the only place they have to worship. The end of the meeting was cordial: handshakes and smiles.

“It’s a start,” Shields mused afterward. “It takes a while to break the ice. They’re very skeptical.”

He wondered whether the mullah’s son was shooting when he died, and said: “There’s no doubt in my mind they weren’t telling the full story.”