Tracking down Afghan insurgents like "a chess game" for U.S. troops

NAKA, Afghanistan — The tea was hot and sweet, and while the morning was freezing, a woodstove warmed the carpeted room overlooking the apple orchard.

But the hospitality was lost on Staff Sgt. Jason Haynes, sitting on the carpet with his rifle at his side.

"I can't believe I'm sitting here drinking tea with the Taliban," Haynes muttered.

"I told you, he's not Taliban," said Capt. Joseph Geraci, sitting cross-legged on the floor and sipping his chai. "He's al-Qaida."

"Whatever, sir," Haynes said. "I say the enemy is the enemy."

But who the enemy is in the hills of eastern Afghanistan these days isn't at all clear.

The soldiers from Geraci's unit — A Company, 1st Battalion of the 508th Infantry, part of the 173rd Airborne Brigade — were in Naka, the northern district of Paktika province along the Pakistani border, a week ago to try to find the people responsible for attacks that have killed U.S. and Afghan forces.

The question they hoped to answer was whether the owner of the comfortable home where they were sitting — a black-bearded, stern-faced Pashtun named Janbaz — was responsible for those attacks.

And if soldiers such as Haynes were amazed to find themselves sipping tea in Janbaz's home, it's little wonder. There was a time any face-to-face encounter between Janbaz and the Americans could only have ended with someone dead.

Janbaz had been on the run after the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban four years ago.

But in January, he sought amnesty under President Hamid Karzai's reconciliation program, in which insurgents who pledge to renounce violence and support the government are forgiven.

Janbaz was allowed to return to his home in Naka, a remote district in an impoverished province that has proved one of the most stubborn refuges of diehard Taliban and al-Qaida fighters.

Soon after his reconciliation, Janbaz was named police chief for the district in which he previously had organized insurgent attacks. Predictably, his tenure was less than successful. His officers did not staff the checkpoints the Americans set up to interdict the insurgents, and he did nothing, so far as they could tell, to stop the attacks. And so the new provincial governor fired him.

Now informants claim that Janbaz, angry at his dismissal, is again actively supporting rocket and roadside-explosive attacks. But proving who is responsible in the district can resemble chasing ghosts, and soldiers can count on little help from the inhabitants.

"Time for peace"

At the unit's headquarters, there's a map that shows the districts of Paktika province in three colors: green for friendly, red for hostile and yellow for those "on the fence." There are four green areas around the larger towns, and a strip of red along the Pakistani border. Most of the province is yellow.

The extent to which the residents of Naka are on the fence was apparent a day earlier, when Geraci's soldiers searched the home of Mullah Ismael, the head of a religious school who informants claimed was hiding weapons.

When the U.S. and Afghan soldiers appeared at the door of his compound just after dawn, a nervous Ismael tried to assure Geraci that he was not involved.

A search of the compound turned up nothing.

But the mullah's first question to Geraci when the search was over seemed odd: "Did you find anything?"

The mullah told the soldiers he and his family had been the first in Naka to support Karzai's government.

"I pledge to you if I see anybody placing bombs or working against the government, I will let you know, or I will tell the police," the mullah said.

But Ismael's pledges rang hollow to Geraci, 29, a West Point graduate from Covington, Ky.

The attackers who had been placing roadside bombs in the district were using trails on the hills practically in the mullah's backyard, and in the tiny villages it seemed impossible that the people wouldn't know who was responsible.

"The people who are placing the bombs run right through these mountains, and you know who they are," Geraci told the crowd that gathered outside the mullah's home. None replied.

"The ANA [Afghan national army] are actively pursuing those that are working against the government. If they find the enemy, they will put a bullet right in the head," Geraci said, tapping a finger against his forehead.

The provincial governor "is willing to receive the enemy with open arms," Geraci told the crowd.

"You've been fighting for too long. It's time for peace."

The "bad guy" mystery

The next morning, dozens of soldiers from Geraci's company, along with Afghan soldiers and police, converged on Janbaz's sprawling compound in the valley at Naka.

Geraci and some of his soldiers, including Haynes, from Rio Hondo, Texas, and 1st Lt. Justin Freeland, from Grand Rapids, Mich., were greeted by Janbaz's brother, Shawalikhan. He led them into the compound's guesthouse.

"This is a nice place, for a dude who doesn't have a job," Geraci said.

Where Mullah Ismael a day earlier had been nervous, Janbaz and his brother seemed perfectly at ease, sitting serenely on the carpet with their legs crossed.

While tea was made, the Americans settled back on their cushions and waited for the talk to begin.

"It's like this every time," Geraci said quietly. "It's like a chess game."

Janbaz's opening move was a standard one: "Your soldiers coming to my home frighten the women and the children."

It was unavoidable, Freeland told Janbaz through an interpreter.

"I'm going to be upfront with you," Freeland said. "There are weapons moving through this area, and your name was used. I want to be able to clear your name. I'd like to search your compound."

"This is your fifth time searching our compound," Janbaz told him. "That's fine. But you won't find anything."

The rumors about his work for the enemy were lies, Janbaz said, the result of tribal disputes and bad feelings when he renounced al-Qaida.

"The bad guys tell me, 'You are working with the Americans,' " Janbaz said. "The Americans tell me, 'You are working for the bad guys.' "

The statement made the Americans wonder: When was Janbaz talking to "the bad guys"?

Fruitless search

In the compound, a maze of buildings and mud and stone walls where the families of Janbaz and his three brothers live, the soldiers found several spots that seemed suspicious.

In a small room off to the side of a room where the women sleep in Shawalikhan's home, Staff Sgt. Chris Mayo of Chicago stomped on the floor.

"The concrete here is new," Mayo said. One of the Afghans brought a pick, which broke up the patch of the soft concrete. But after he had made a hole a foot deep, there was only dirt.

"There's nothing here," Mayo said.

In a shed outside, they dug up another spot where the dirt floor sounded hollow, but they also found nothing. After the search was over, Geraci gave Janbaz and Shawalikhan several dollars to pay for a couple of bags of concrete to fix the holes.

The brothers shook hands with the Americans, and the soldiers filed out of the compound empty-handed, facing the tough truth about their job here: The foolish and the foolhardy among the insurgents — the low-hanging fruit on the terrorist tree — have, like the apples in Janbaz's orchard, already been plucked.

Those who have survived this long won't be easy to catch.

"It's pretty frustrating sometimes, when you feel like they're dirty, but you can't prove it," Freeland said.

"I just wish these guys would do something overt, anything to give us a reason. But whatever you can say about them, they're definitely not stupid."