Village life benefits US troops

Andrew North
BBC correspondent in Kabul

Improved intelligence could help US troops capture Bin Laden

A new strategy for tackling rebels in southern and eastern Afghanistan is paying off, according to the head of coalition forces in the country.

For the past few months, American troops have been stationed in villages instead of in heavily fortified bases.

Lieutenant General David Barno said troops had already started to receive more intelligence.

He also said he remains optimistic that Osama Bin Laden will be captured some time this year.

Al-Qaeda's leader is widely believed to be hiding in Afghanistan.

A US military spokesman confirmed the focus of the new operations was in provinces such as Zabol, Uruzgan, Kandahar and Khost, where the violence of the past six to eight months has been concentrated.

Most of the troops are from special forces units.

Encouraging results

The idea is for the soldiers to build stronger links with local leaders, to improve their understanding of the area and to get better intelligence on suspected members of the former Taleban government and al-Qaeda.

Where our units interact with the same elders, the same leaders on a regular basis, our intelligence will improve dramatically Lt Gen David Barno

The hope is also that the US presence will deny rebel fighters a haven.

The results so far have been encouraging, Lt Gen Barno told the BBC.

"Where our units interact with the same elders, the same leaders on a regular basis, our intelligence will improve dramatically and we've seen indications of that in the last two months," he said.

US commanders say they are receiving far more information on hidden weapons caches or stores.

Lt Gen Barno was speaking in Asadabad, in the eastern province of Kunar, at the launch of a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT).

PRTs are joint civilian-military projects involved in reconstruction schemes in more deprived and violence-stricken parts of the country.

Key targets

Kunar is one place where the radical Islamist leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is reported to be hiding.

An ally of the US during the war against the Soviet Union, his group, Hezbi Islami, has become a key target of American operations in Afghanistan.

But capturing the al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden, and his Taleban counterpart, Mullah Omar, remain a top US priority.

In an interview with the BBC in January, Lt Gen Barno said he expected to bring both men to justice by the end of 2004.

"I anticipate that we will bring that problem to resolution this year," he said, in a claim that received wide attention.

Nine children died in a US bombing blunder in December, 2003

He would not repeat the assertion when he spoke in Asadabad, but he did nothing to dampen expectations.

"Clearly the leadership of those organisations has a significant effect on their ability to function," he said.

"We're focused very much on capturing them or killing them and I'm still optimistic that this will be a very good year."

The "better connections with the Afghan people" that his new strategy was providing would help achieve this, he added.

Strategic shift

In some ways, the new approach is just an extension of past tactics - placing small units of special forces in potential hotspots.

But some of the US detachments are now up to 30 or 40 strong, and infantry units may run some of these village 'bases' in the future.

It also represents a shift in emphasis.

Until recently, US operations have largely involved raids on particular locations, after which troops withdraw to a secure local 'firebase'.

However, there have been a series of such raids in which civilians have been killed.

In the most recent incident, the Afghan government says a US air strike killed at least 10 people, including seven women and children.

American officials insist the only deaths were five armed men.

But the US has admitted killing 15 children in December last year, and many believe poor intelligence is the main cause of such incidents.

The US military spokesman in Kabul, Lt Col Bryan Hilferty, denied the new strategy is a response to such errors.

"It's a response to the situation," he said.

"We continue to evolve our tactics, as we try to stay inside the enemy's decision cycle."

Although reluctant to criticise US forces in public, some Afghan government officials have voiced their concern about past American tactics, and this is likely to have influenced the new approach.

Evolving approach

The opening of the PRT in Asadabad, the ninth so far, is another aspect of this evolving approach.

The aim of such projects is to encourage reconstruction, reconciliation and development work, under an umbrella of military security.

Most are US-run, but New Zealand, South Korea, Britain and Germany are responsible for four PRTs.

American commanders want to set up more PRTs in volatile southern and eastern provinces such as Kunar.

What they can achieve in such places is severely constrained by the security situation.

For the moment, the Asadabad PRT is focused on upgrading the road to Jalalabad.

Non-governmental organisations are reluctant to work alongside the US military, because of fears of compromising their independence and of becoming more of a target themselves.

Nonetheless, the US plans to have 16 PRTs in place by June, 11 of them in the south and east.