SIRKANAY, Afghanistan - On a mountain trail toward the border
with Pakistan, the explosions became louder, more constant and finally
visible as puffs of smoke on distant peaks and rising from valleys.
Families
escaping the fusillade led donkeys strapped with mattresses and bags of
clothes the other way, down the steep footpaths. They passed crippled
trees, cratered houses, empty villages. Some of the villagers had
shrapnel scars and described seeing relatives blown apart during a
five-week artillery barrage from Pakistan.
"My grandson was nine
years old," said Juma Gul, a 60-year-old village elder in the Sirkanay
district in eastern Afghanistan. "He and three other children were
herding our goats when a rocket came. All four were killed. We could
not find most of their bodies."
A loud crack sounded and rolled
over the peaks. Gul swept his hand toward the mountain range rising
toward Pakistan. "Still the rockets are landing here," he said.
The
shelling in Kunar province is taking place along one of the most
strategically important fronts of the war — a haven for hardcore
insurgent groups fighting in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Pakistan
has been so stung by insurgents' recent cross-border attacks, they
launched an offensive that also highlights NATO's struggles to pacify
the area and the lack of cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan
against their common foes.
NATO officials, in fact, say they were
unaware of the extent of Pakistan's artillery barrage across
Afghanistan's border until last week because Western troops have been
pulled back from more remote outposts in Kunar.
Afghan government
officials have accused Pakistan of launching more than 761 rockets over
the border into Kunar province since May and causing the deaths of at
least 40 people and injuring 51. Pakistan has denied hitting
Afghanistan intentionally, but acknowledged its military has been
targeting Islamic militants to halt cross-border raids and that some
rockets may have strayed off course.
Last month, President Hamid
Karzai complained about the shelling to the top NATO commander in
Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry
and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zadari.
Since those meetings, however, the assaults appear to have intensified in Kunar, about 125 miles (205 kilometers) east of Kabul.
During
a two-hour visit to three mountain villages, an Associated Press
reporter witnessed at least 50 artillery strikes. One rocket struck a
mountain slope about five miles outside of the provincial capital,
Asadabad.
The bombings have reopened old wounds along the Durand
Line, the disputed 19th century demarcation between Afghanistan and
Pakistan. Both countries claim rugged Pashtun tribal areas on either
side of the poorly marked border — which is now the sanctuary for some
of the fiercest insurgent groups in Central Asia. The Afghan- and
Pakistan-based wings of the Taliban, Hizb-i-Islami, and more
international faction such as al-Qaida and Lashkar-e-Taiba also have
bases there.
Coalition officials acknowledged that recent
tensions along Kunar's border has festered for weeks without an
adequate response from the international alliance, in part because they
consolidated troops from scattered valley and border outposts to
centralized bases after coming under relentless attacks from militants.
The
redeployment reflects a tactical shift from counterinsurgency
operations — emphasizing development projects and regular contacts to
win over local populations — to counterterrorism operations that
emphasize killing militants.
Last week, U.S. forces launched an
offensive in Watapoor district in northeastern Kunar province, said
U.S. Army Lt. Col. Chad Carroll, a spokesman for the 1st Calvary
Division at Regional Command East. Carroll said the objective of the
operation was less to take strategic terrain than to target insurgents.
"It's
more about enemy locations than it is about a spot on the ground," he
said. U.S. soldiers have killed 80 to 100 militants in the district,
Carroll said.
But Taliban fighters still manage to stage attacks on both sides of Kunar's border, Afghan officials say.
"There are only finite resources, manpower," said British Maj. Tim James, a NATO spokesman.
"The shelling has routinely gone on where we don't have troops," he said.
A
study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published in
June says "the reorganization of U.S. forces in Kunar and Nuristan has
led to an insurgent advance."
"The fact is, the force was too
dispersed, and local opposition — the population was allied with the
insurgents — led the American command to evacuate the most isolated
valleys ... as well as certain border outposts," wrote Carnegie
visiting scholar Gilles Dorronsoro.
The fighting then shifted to
areas where U.S. forces evacuated and now "is intensifying throughout
the rest of Kunar," Dorronsoro added.
The situation along Kunar's
border suggests the kind of future challenges Afghanistan, Pakistan and
NATO will face as U.S. forces leave according to President Barack
Obama's schedule for the withdrawal of combat troops by 2014, when
security will transition to Afghan control.
During two days in
Sirkanay district, Afghan Border Police were the most conspicuous
forces on the roads, where they appeared to operate with a degree of
autonomy from NATO. Only two other security units were seen: An armored
NATO patrol and a newly established local police unit. Two new border
police camps built next to NATO bases housed a well-maintained fleet of
new Ford pick-up trucks and young policemen carrying AK-47s.
The
border police's movements, however, were severely limited by shelling
from Pakistan and by Taliban hiding in mountain villages.
Gen.
Aminullah Amerkhail, the eastern region commander of the Afghan Border
Police, accused Pakistan of assisting the insurgents — using artillery
to clear Afghan villages so Taliban fighters could use them as
sanctuaries. Between 700 and 1,000 families have fled border areas in
Kunar and neighboring Nangarhar province, Amerkhail said.
"The
withdrawal of NATO forces has had a direct effect on insecurity," said
Amerkhail, who added that his forces were not strong enough to assault
known Taliban positions. "I will not go to those villages without air
support from the Americans."
Amerkhail, who earned a reputation
for interdicting heroin shipments when he was in charge of security at
the Kabul International Airport, offered his resignation to the Afghan
interior minister on Thursday to protest NATO's and Pakistan's response
to the problems along the border.
Pakistani officials, too, have complained about NATO inaction in southeast Kunar.
Five
times in June, militants based in Kunar and Nangarhar massed up to 300
fighters to stage cross-border attacks against Pakistani security
checkpoints, killing 55 paramilitary soldiers and tribal police,
Pakistani army officials said. Pakistani air and ground assaults drove
the insurgents back.
Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Athar Abbas
said that no rounds have been fired into Afghanistan intentionally,
although it is possible that "a few" rounds may have accidentally
fallen over the border. Abbas defended the assaults.
"There is no
effort to act against these strongholds or sanctuaries," he said. "Many
terrorist leaders are gathered there, and there is no pressure on them
to leave."
Whatever Pakistan's defensive rationale, Afghanistan views the border attacks as an infringement on its sovereignty.
"The
Pakistani artillery attacks are just a continuation of various kinds
interference by our neighbors during the last 10 years," said
Lutifullah Mashal, a spokesman for Afghanistan's intelligence service.
"These have included suicide attacks, roadside bomb attacks and
sometimes, sending terrorists to hotels and hospitals and sometimes by
firing at us directly."
Afghan security officials have warned
Pakistan that continued artillery fire into its territory will be met
with a response that could include Afghan military action.
Three
villages the AP visited along the Afghan side of the border —
Khadikhail, Shingi Salehabad and Sabagai — were each separated by a
20-walk along undulating footpaths. A fourth village, Mullah Goray, was
further away from the Pakistani border, but all four were close enough
that interviews were punctuated by the sounds of detonations at various
ranges. Some shelling was so close that both the launches and impacts
were heard. Pakistani helicopters could also be seen over the mountains
in what villagers said was Afghan territory.
"Here is shrapnel
from Pakistan's artillery and rockets, which killed our innocent
villagers and children playing in front of their houses," said Mohammad
Hasan, 45, in Shingi Salehabad. A rocket exploded within earshot and he
looked toward Pakistan. "Attacks are still going on. You can still hear
the sound of heavy artillery. During the night we cannot go to sleep."
A villager named Fazel, 18, said he and five relatives were all struck by flying metal.
"The
rocket hit our house when we were at home," he said. "Day and night our
villages are under attack. In my village 25 people have been killed and
wounded."
His relatives fled with 60 other families, he said. He
was trying to take care of the remaining animals but did not know how
long he would be able to stay.
As the bombs continued falling, Fazel showed visitors his shrapnel scars. AP
