Forces spare Afghan civilians

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Coalition forces in Afghanistan are being trained to avoid civilian casualties even if that means sometimes refusing to respond to direct attacks, a senior officer said.

The careful approach is part of a broad counterinsurgency program, which U.S. commanders said has begun to yield information from a fearful population about the locations of Taliban forces and improvised explosive devices.

“My guys have been shot at right through the windshield, and they thought they saw where it was coming from,” said Col. Thomas McGrath, commander of the Afghan Regional Security Integration Command-South. “But we said, ’Hey, we don”t need to open up with heavy weapons here. We know where it came from, and we”ll come back later.’

“If we had shot the whole place up, that would play right into [the Taliban’s] hands and would be an information-operations victory for them,” he said in a recent interview.

The cautious approach, adopted in the face of widespread anger at the deaths of civilians in a number of incidents, comes as U.S. commanders increasingly see winning the trust of Afghans as critical to the war effort.

The coalition has also initiated projects to build schools and bridges and renovate hospitals, Col. McGrath said.

In another innovative move, Col. McGrath said, the coalition plans a major effort to register southern Afghanistan residents though electronic fingerprinting, as well as the collection of addresses, phone numbers and photographs.

Western troops will then be in a better position to know “who’s supposed to be here and who isn’t.”

“And if they’re on the list, then you can ask more questions,” he said.

While fear of the Taliban remains high, the coalition’s outreach effort is paying off through better cooperation from the public, the colonel said. Coalition forces received 200 or 300 calls in the first days after they set up a hot line and distributed leaflets in one eastern town, urging people to identify Taliban members.

The Taliban responded the next day by planting an explosive device near the U.S. military base.

Afghans in some southern towns have refused to share information with coalition forces, fearing Taliban retribution. Instead, some paid protection money to the Taliban, who have also demanded food and shelter, but disperse when the coalition arrives, according to an Air Force intelligence officer who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.

The Afghans themselves have mixed feelings about the coalition strategy.

Isa Mohammed, an 18-year-old farmer with a wife in nearby Zabul province, cited new roads and hospitals and said he thinks life is better than it was under the Taliban. He said that before President Hamid Karzai’s election in 2004, Afghanistan had no economy, but now farmers can export grapes, almonds, wheat and other commodities.

Farid Ahmady, a 30-year-old teacher and interpreter for U.S. forces, was more cynical. Not enough is being spent on education, he said, and as a consequence Afghans “can’t read [and] don’t know about their country.”

“I don’t see a bright future for Afghanistan,” Mr. Ahmady said at a free medical clinic organized by coalition partners.

Government and foreign troops are concerned about developing local security forces, but people still fear the police, he added.

The U.S. intelligence officer said police officers may “shake down” locals because they have not been paid in several months.

Western advisers embedded with the local police and army aim to “straighten out the payment plans, help them to keep accountability of their weapons [and] make sure that the people are being taken care of,” he said.