Restraint even facing death

One in an occasional series.

PECH RIVER VALLEY, Afghanistan - The soldiers of C Company huddled around the radio as the bad news spread: Insurgents had ambushed a platoon about 10 miles upriver, killing the turret gunner of an armored humvee.

"One KIA," said First Sgt. John Mangels, a 20-year veteran, swearing under his breath. "One wounded."

A quiet rage ran through the main camp in eastern Afghanistan that day, Aug. 17. Army Capt. Robert Stanton, the company commander, hovered over a topographical map with one of his platoon leaders, jabbing at routes the Taliban might take to flee into the Hindu Kush mountains.

The Americans' instincts told them to strike back with great force - to send a strong message to anyone associated with the militants who had set up the ambush. But their training instructed them to retaliate only when the time was right, at precisely the right target - that winning over the population was just as important as killing the enemy.

"A lot of Afghans are sitting on the fence," said Mangels, 43, who has also served in Iraq. "If you are careful, they see that, and they come to your side. But if you kill the wrong people, it's damage that takes months - years - to recover from."

Five years after America launched the war on terrorism here after the 9/11 attacks, the battle in Afghanistan has evolved into a protracted counterinsurgency campaign stretching along much of the 1,500-mile Pakistani border, where resurgent Taliban forces live among the Afghans or find sanctuary in tribal areas across the border.

U.S. conventional military forces, trained to employ shock-and-awe power, have retooled for a more sophisticated mission. For a year before C Company and the other units of the 10th Mountain Division's Third Brigade Combat Team were deployed to Afghanistan in March, even the lowest infantryman was drilled in the new doctrine. The soldiers learned Afghan language, culture and history. No more calling the enemy Haji - not when the Afghan government that the Americans are supporting is Muslim, too.

"We are trying to advance the state of the art in counterinsurgency here," said Col. John W. Nicholson Jr., the brigade commander whose forces are stationed in eastern Afghanistan.

But the mission is difficult and frustrating, particularly when the Taliban get infusions of money, recruits and arms from outside Afghanistan. The enemy is clever and elusive, preferring to fight from afar, using rockets or improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

"Whenever they attack us directly, we win," Mangels said. "But they fire rockets at us, and they run. Or they leave IEDs. They're like ghosts out there."

While NATO troops fighting in Afghanistan's southern deserts have received much attention, Americans are dying here in mountainous eastern Afghanistan. It's the forgotten front in a forgotten war.

Of 28 coalition deaths in Afghanistan in the last month - 10 Americans, eight Britons, eight Canadians and two French - a quarter occurred here in Konar and Nurestan provinces, a few miles from Pakistan.

In a little more than a week in August when an Inquirer reporter and photographer were embedded with forces, seven Americans died in engagements near the Pech valley.

This is the territory of the First Battalion, 32d Regiment - one of the Third Brigade's light infantry battalions now deployed in eastern Afghanistan. During six months in Afghanistan, the 1-32 has taken more casualties than it did during its yearlong deployment to Iraq.

"When I first came to Afghanistan, I actually thought it was more of a peacekeeping mission at the time," said Pvt. Adam Boguskie, a humvee gunner from Kentucky. "I couldn't have been more wrong."

Into the teeth of al-Qaeda

The Afghanistan government has never exerted much control in the severe highlands of Konar and Nurestan, where the mountains contain some of Afghanistan's only forests. Nurestan, the more northern province, is so isolated that its inhabitants converted to Islam only in the 19th century, more than a thousand years after the rest of the country.

This region traditionally has been governed by tribal groups, who conspire with smugglers and insurgents to transit arms and fighters on narrow footpaths that thread through the valleys. Before the Taliban fell, Islamic militants trained here without much risk of detection. Even after the Americans in 2002 established a base in Konar's capital, Asadabad, coalition control did not extend far beyond the wire.

"The terrorists who attacked the Trade Center were trained up here," said Stanton, the C Company commander. "It's a traditional safe haven for al-Qaeda... . They're here, they're in the country, they're very prevalent, and they don't want us here. More specifically, they don't want the government of Afghanistan to succeed."

In 2005, three members of a four-man Navy SEAL team were killed in an ambush in Konar, in the hills along the Korengal River, a Pech tributary. The militants shot down a Chinook helicopter sent to rescue the SEALs, killing all 16 aboard, the biggest blow against U.S. forces in Afghanistan since 2001.

The Americans responded with an intense campaign in the Korengal valley last fall, and followed in the spring with an assault called Operation Mountain Lion. But the militants only fled deeper into the mountains until the operations ended.

This summer, American commanders have changed their strategy. They launched an aggressive road-building program, replacing rutted gravel tracks with roads that can accommodate two lanes of traffic. The new roads allow more rapid troop movement, spur economic growth and loyalty to the government, and are far more difficult for the enemy to mine.

"Where the road ends, that's where the influence of the antigovernment elements begins," said Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the overall commander of the coalition forces.

To protect the road builders and expand the government's influence, the Army established small valley outposts manned by one or two platoons in spartan conditions.

They have crude latrines, no showers, minimal fortifications and no tents. The soldiers can shower and call their families once every two weeks, during 24-hour "refits" at the big operating bases.

"There's no Internet, no phones, no television, no radio," Stanton said. "It's literally a patch of dirt on the side of the road."

C Company moved into the Pech valley in June to protect a contractor rebuilding the 20-mile road between the American forward operating bases at Asadabad and Nangalam. Before the company established itself, IEDs routinely filled the road.

Three months later, American patrols move up and down there 24 hours a day. "Now we own this road," said Lt. Christopher Haynes, a platoon leader.

But ownership has come at a price.

The militants initially rained down rockets on the American bases or peppered them with machine gun fire at dusk.

And then there were IEDs. Even with greater control, fears lingered that militants might slip in and bury a bomb.

"There are days when I spend the whole patrol staring at the road thinking, 'It's going to blow up,' " Haynes said.

On June 16, militants exploded a bomb beneath a six-wheeled all-terrain vehicle that carried Lt. Forrest Ewens and Sgt. Ian T. Sanchez. They were killed instantly.

As is typical after many IED strikes, a firefight broke out immediately between the Americans on the road and the militants on the high ground. The Americans said they had returned fire into the nearby village of Dag. An undetermined number of civilians were killed.

Two days later, a jittery private guarding one of the U.S. outposts fired on a car bristling with rocket-propelled grenades as it sped past the camp. It turned out to be a friendly, unmarked police vehicle. Three officers were killed.

In both cases, the soldiers have attempted to mend relations by meeting with villagers and police officers.

In a meeting in Dag, Haji Osman Jan told Lt. Timothy Lo that many villagers were still wary of the Americans, but appreciated the road project.

"People are happier, now that they know you are helping our country to rebuild," he said.

'It has become personal'

A big part of C Company's routine is "village assessments," which often last a week. A platoon of foot soldiers, each hauling 100 pounds of equipment and Kevlar body armor, hikes into the mountains to live in small villages, gathering intelligence and information on the local needs.

On July 24, one such patrol received intelligence that a militant group had abducted a civilian friendly with the Americans, and the soldiers went in pursuit. Soon they were engaged in an intense firefight. Even Stanton, the company commander, was pinned down.

Six insurgents died, but so did David M. Hierholzer, a popular squad leader from Tennessee. The loss of Hierholzer - along with Ewens and Sanchez - stung the company.

"It took me 20 years in the Army to lose somebody close to me," Mangels said, "and it was real bad."

The soldiers blame a local militia commander, Habib Jan.

"It has become personal," Mangels said. "I don't want to leave Afghanistan with Habib Jan still alive."

More killed, then attack

There was no sign of Habib Jan in the Pech valley in August. But other militants were active.

On Aug. 11, insurgents attacked a B Company foot convoy, and three soldiers died.

On Aug. 17, A Company took the next casualty, in the Korengal valley, where the militants had supposedly been cleared out. In that ambush, turret gunner Pvt. Joseph R. Blake, 34, was shot in the head, showering blood and brains over the soldiers in his vehicle.

It was the radio news of that attack that so enraged C Company, even though it held back from pursuit.

On Aug. 19, two days later, the radio crackled again with another grim report from the Korengal.

The insurgents had struck A Company again, this time with a roadside bomb that set a humvee ablaze. Three soldiers were wounded and three killed.

The response that night was swift and powerful.

From 10 miles away, the sky rumbled with thunder from artillery fire and the primal buzz-saw of an A-10 Thunderbolt raking the mountains with its lethal Gatling gun.

The ridge line erupted in light - the soldiers said a plane had dropped a phosphorous bomb - and for a few seconds the horizon turned crimson, like hell on earth.

This time there was no holding back.