Soldiers in mountainous province reach end of line
Editor's note: For six weeks, our Marlborough Community Reporter Doug Grindle is again embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. While there, he plans to send us articles whenever he can to provide our readers with glimpses of what is going on in the region.

A soldier from the 158th Infantry in Laghman Province, Afghanistan DOUG GRINDLE

Many thanks to Doug and other journalists like him who put themselves in harm's way so that those of us safe at home can be wellinformed.

The following contribution is from Afghanistan.

By Doug Grindle Community Reporter

Combat Outpost Najil, Laghman Province, Afghanistan - Soldiers of 158th Infantry watch as mortar shells explode against hillside about a half-mile away. The sun beats down and the temperature is over 100 degrees on the soldiers who have walked more than two miles from their base to get here. They are happy to take a break.

The soldiers are spotting for the mortar rounds after walking near the impact zone to make sure it is clear of civilians. They shooed several herdsmen and their cows and sheep away. Now the mortars echo across the valley of four villages near the base. A few minutes later the Afghan artillery soldiers fire their big guns from the base. The shells zip overhead and explode, sending more echoes across the valley.

Soldiers and Afghan civilians walk the road outside of Combat Outpost Najil, Afghanistan.

Lobbing shells is good practice for the real thing. It is also a show of force designed to keep insurgents off the slopes near the base, and give them second thoughts about attacking. Insurgents favor attacking with mortars or rockets, but lately it's an infrequent problem.

"It is pretty quiet around there," said Spc. Chad Halstead, a National Guardsman from Honolulu. "I'm not worried about any big attacks. They do occasional hit and runs and we respond to that."

The operation to clear the shepherds before firing is one sign that soldiers are working to get the villagers on their side. Another is the slew of development projects in the province designed to win over the local pocketbooks. The road between here and the provincial capital, Methar Lam, is being widened. Just beyond the base, civil affairs soldiers are paying to rebuild a river crossing. Lately the strategy of an iron fist in a velvet glove has been working.

But it is not absolutely quiet here. A few days before, two men in a nearby village opened fire on a passing convoy of Humvees. The soldiers caught one of the men. They say the attack happened when the village headman decided to show the soldiers he does not approve of their presence. Luckily no one was hurt. But less than two months before, this unit, the 1-158th Infantry from Arizona, lost a soldier who died in an attack by a roadside bomb in Methar Lam.

"At first when it happened I was just really frustrated. We're out here trying to help them and they're trying to kill us," said Sgt. Jose Rodriguez of Ewa Beach, Hawaii.

If this area is not completely pacified, the problem increases the farther north one goes. The soldiers are forbidden to venture more than a few miles along the road past the base because it is deemed too dangerous.

Taliban and other insurgents - al Qaeda and a fundamentalist Afghan movement called the HiG - exist in strength in villages farther north. Local fighters for hire are also paid by the insurgents to attack the American and Afghan soldiers.

Combat Outpost Najil does not have enough soldiers to confront the nest of insurgents in the valleys further north. So the soldiers here settle for extending government influence, in the form of roads and other projects, this far and no farther.

The Americans have no plans to increase their troop numbers in this valley. Instead they are engaged in a two-pronged strategy to quell the violence.

They will wait for the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police to grow in numbers and effectiveness and eventually extend their influence north.

"My battalion's main focus is the buildup of the capacity of the Afghan security forces," explained Ltc. Alberto Gonzalez, commanding officer of the 1-158th Infantry battalion. "Ultimately it's their country and it's their responsibility to get into all those areas and provide the security people need in order to support the government."

And secondly, the soldiers will rely on development to tamp down the violence. Americans hope the locals will eventually turn away from insurgent money and toward regular commerce, as the number of jobs rises as new roads and development projects are finished.

This will take time, in fact years, in the estimate of many soldiers at Najil. But it is a strategy they say is already working in the areas where it has begun.