ZHARI DISTRICT, Afghanistan — The battle for this rural Taliban stronghold is not about killing insurgents, U.S. military officials say. It is about getting the new district governor to stop the grenades.
Soon after Karim Jan assumed the post in June, the explosives began sailing over mud walls and onto U.S. troops patrolling the labyrinth of Senjaray, the biggest town in a district that U.S. officials say is under near-complete Taliban control. Two weeks later, five soldiers had been wounded in a half-dozen strikes.
The attacks amounted to a test: Would Senjaray’s elders side with Jan or the Taliban?
“All I need you to do is to protect your village,” Jan, 35, told 80 weathered men who gathered at his office. “I’m begging you.”
As thousands of new U.S. troops push into Kandahar city and nearby villages, their focus is on propping up inexperienced local leaders such as Jan. The aim is to persuade the population to defy the Taliban and back the weak Afghan government at its lowest levels. The mission is sure to be watched closely for signs of progress during the Obama administration’s war review in December.
“It’s a trial, and the people are the jury,” said Army Capt. Nick Stout, 27, a commander of the 101st Airborne that has patrolled Senjaray out of a sun-scorched hilltop outpost for two months. “Whoever presents the best case . . . they’re going to side with.”
Jan is the government of Zhari, an agricultural belt west of Kandahar that the Taliban uses as a key command and supply center. Jan’s 20 or so district Cabinet positions remain unfilled because the provincial government is slow to approve candidates, and most are too afraid to take the jobs anyway, U.S. officials said.
If Jan holds sway anywhere in Zhari, it is in Senjaray, a town of 10,000 people that is the district’s main population center. But even though he insisted people are weary of the Taliban, U.S. soldiers say Senjaray leaders sit on the fence.
U.S. soldiers visit the town’s compounds in hopes of making inroads with the influential elders. Recently, though, the structures became launching pads for grenades. It is a tactic that sows fear, Stout said.
“You throw a grenade in there, it’s going to hit something,” he said.
After the sixth attack, Jan met with the elders. They came up with a solution that made the U.S. soldiers’ eyes light up. They would nominate a group among them to join the patrols.
Three days later, however, Jan said he had heard nothing more about that idea.
“They could have been intimidated by the Taliban,” he said.
The next day, there was a grenade attack. Two days later, another. As of Thursday, nine U.S. soldiers had been wounded in the strikes, four seriously enough to be sent to the United States to recover. The elders never presented nominees for patrol duty.
“When it came time to decide, everyone stepped back,” Stout said in an e-mail Thursday. “Karim Jan is continuing to pressure the elders of Senjaray to take action, but we have yet to witness this in the town.”
