Winning the battle of Aybak

Richard Sennott, Dml - Star Tribune
Samayan, Afghanistan 12/07/09 Life passes by just outside the gate to Kanduk Aybak as a guard with an AK47 keeps watch It could be called a glimmer of hope at Kanduk Aybak. When American soldiers first arrived at the Afghan Army's Forward Operating Camp Aybak a couple of weeks ago, the issue was less about the security of the camp, an old Soviety public works facility, then it was about basic human needs. About 100 members of the Afghan Army were living in squalor, cooking next to human waste; sleeping on concrete floors, a roof dotted with holes. The Americans, a dozen members of the group the Minnesota National Guard charged with mentoring the Afghan military, demanded changes but expected very little. On a recent trip back to the camp in a little village in northern Afghanistan, the Americans were surprised. There was a new kitchen facility, away from where the soldiers relieved themselves amid the hulking rust of old Soviet tanks and tropp carriers. There was plastic and glass on the windows. Roofers were preparing straw and mud to repair the leaks, New heaters were installed in the barracks. Given cultural resistence, illiteracy, and high AWOL rates that coincide with religious holidays and the farming seasons, Major Rob Mattilla, who is in charge of the mentoring program, said his group of trainers doesn't expect to score touchdowns in its year long deployment to northern Afghanistan. It expects to move the ball five yards. On this sunny day in Kandak Aybak (the Afghan word for fort), there was an inch or two of movement in the right direction.

An angry confrontation between a Minnesota National Guard officer and a local commander led to some basic changes for Afghan soldiers.

SAMANGAN PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN- Maj. Robb Mattila had to put his finger in someone's chest to make it happen, but there is hope now for the Afghan soldiers inhabiting Forward Operating Camp Aybak.

The nearby Hindu Kush mountains already were crested with snow when Mattila and the other U.S. Soldiers first arrived at the Afghan Army camp. What they found was squalor.

The 100-some members of the Afghan Army at the converted public works facility were cooking next to human waste, sleeping on concrete floors, their roof dotted with holes. Rusting Soviet tanks served as wash bins.

The Americans, a dozen Minnesota National Guard members who make up one of 54 mentoring teams spread across the country, demanded changes.

That changes actually happened could be a sign that the Afghan military might finally be coming around, just as U.S. commanders begin a surge intended to bloody the Taliban and make it possible to turn security over to the Afghans. That the improvements took place only after American prodding bolsters the counter-argument that making this purely an Afghan war could be a long, frustrating process.

'Complete mess'

Capt. Mark Martin of New Hope did the security assessment when the Americans arrived at Aybak. His verdict? "A complete mess.''

Construction was going up next door, with the walls higher than those of the base, making the new structures an ideal place for snipers. The mud and straw construction protecting the base was nothing better than "Moses walls," in Martin's words, easily penetrated by vehicles or explosives. One entrance had no gate. Martin described another gate as a "Narnia door," as flimsy a barrier as the wardrobe in the children's story. A rusted lock barely kept it closed. Next to the camp, a major road provided easy access and escape to any attackers.

Even more pressing was the lack of basics -- drinkable water, food, shelter.

"Before you could talk about whether this group was capable of protecting their base, you had to talk about whether they were going to get sick just by being here," said Martin, who was a company commander in Iraq in 2006-2007.

Mattila, the commander of the U.S. team, was furious.

The Afghan base commander was living in a room with heat, electricity and a TV that provided a snowy but passable picture while his soldiers suffered outside. Mattila, of Sartell, decided to risk violating a fistful of military and cultural taboos. The no-nonsense onetime college ROTC instructor put his finger in the Afghan officer's chest and demanded action.
"I told him that I was going to take his heater away if he didn't get things right for his men," Mattila recalled.

'Always, we need help'

A month later, the Americans returned, accompanied by some of their Croatian counterparts. The two-hour trip from their base near Mazer-i-Shariff isn't made lightly. The route requires passage through mountain choke points and is dubbed "RPG alley'' because it's so common for vehicles to come under attack there from rocket-propelled grenades. The snaking paths through stone canyons have served as perfect ambush points against the Soviets, against British colonial troops, perhaps even against Alexander the Great, who invaded this land more than 2,300 years ago and whose name is believed to have inspired that of the southern city of Kandahar.

The Americans were in luck this time. The canyons stayed quiet.

At Aybak, surprises waited behind the rusted gates. No more garbage strewn across the compound. A brick shower was being built. Afghan soldiers were lining up for rice, potatoes and meat at a new kitchen that had been situated away from where the soldiers relieved themselves amid the old Soviet tank hulks. Plastic and glass had replaced the open windows, blocking the wind. Workers were preparing straw and mud to repair the roof leaks. Newly installed wood stoves were blasting out heat inside the barracks, which were lined with new bunks by order of the Ministry of Defense in Kabul.

One soldier, who gave his name as Aminullah, said the changes prompted by the American complaints had made life easier.

"We got stoves and firewood so the soldier is very happy now and they are happy that their command and the U.S. Army do this for us," he said. "Always, we need their help."
The Afghans are now patrolling the lonely, dangerous roads in Ford pickup trucks with stadium seats in the back. Pictures dangle from the windows in some of the vehicles. One has a new, plush pink dashboard.

Aminullah, who said he has been a soldier for five years, said it is often difficult to determine who is friend and who is foe. Transitory allegiances have served the people of this region well.

"Everybody is armed, we can't recognize who is Army or who is police. If someone is walking toward us we don't recognize whether they are friendly forces or enemy," he said. Hedging his bets, he said foreign Al-Qaida fighters, rather than the local Taliban or warlords, are the Army's true nemesis.

"Al-Qaida doesn't want to have peace in Afghanistan, and they don't want to finish the war," he said, speaking through an interpreter. "Day by day, they make trouble. Us and other local people in Afghanistan are scared of them the most."

Another decade?

The patrols out of outposts like Aybak are vital for protecting the roads and communications facilities that sometimes seem the only sign here that the traveler is in a country, not a trackless wilderness. When an insurgent group recently blew up a cellular phone tower, the Taliban apologized to the locals for the inconvenience.

The completion of a beltway-like Ring Road, a 1,925-mile rim of asphalt to connect Afghanistan's major cities, could prove a major landmark in modernizing the country. But construction on the $2.5 billion project has been held up in part by the Taliban's attacks on building sites and workers, particularly in the northwestern regions of the country. The Army and national police have so far failed to provide the tighter security needed to foil those attacks.

Assignments to the Forward Operating Bases can bring something worse than hardship. A half-dozen Afghan police recently disappeared without a trace from their post in a remote western province, raising fears that they were targeted by insurgents wearing stolen uniforms. One outpost in the Ghormach District near the Iranian border is so lawless that Americans won't spend the night there. The German military, which has overall command among coalition forces in the northern region, won't fly or patrol at night.

But during this visit, the Afghans and their advisers from half a world away talked about what was getting better.

Over an expansive lunch of chai tea, fresh bread and skewers of kabobs, top-level Afghan military leaders assured the Americans and Croatians that for all its new improvements, Aybak was only temporary. A better, more secure facility would eventually take its place.
"Everyone knows the ANA (Afghan National Army) is doing baby steps. Everything is new here, and we can't control everything," the Afghan commander told the Americans through an interpreter.

A recent report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace borrowed a term coined in the Vietnam War to describe the scope of the task ahead. The "Afghanization" of this war -- helping the Afghans take primary responsibility for their own security -- could take more than a decade, the report said.

"It is simply not feasible to transform a (mostly illiterate) force of 60,000 into a well-functioning army of 250,000 in only a few years, regardless of outside assistance," the report warned. In fact, the number of Afghan battalions capable of operating independently actually declined over the course of 2009, it added.

But driving back through the mountains, Mattila briefly relished this small victory.
"At least these guys will be OK for the winter," he said.

Mark Brunswick • 612-673-4434
By MARK BRUNSWICK, Star Tribune
Last update: February 7, 2010 - 12:11 AM