Zabul residents report more Taliban activities - Military News | News From Afghanistan, Iraq And Around The World - Military Times

Zabul residents report more Taliban activities

FORWARD OPERATING BASE MIZAN, Afghanistan — Despite a smaller U.S. presence in Zabul province, insurgent attacks are down because villagers are coming forward in record numbers to report Taliban hideouts.

The number of tips to Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police units has tripled in the last five months, from 17 a week in November to 60 a week in March, said Army Lt. Col. David Oclander, commander of Task Force 1 Fury, the unit that oversees U.S. forces in Zabul.

“We want the villagers trusting the ANA and the ANP enough to come forward,” Oclander said.

Much of the information has led to arrests and the retrieval of major weapons caches throughout Zabul, which borders Pakistan and serves as a key transit route for the Taliban.

Oclander pointed to the spike in tips as proof that American troops are continuing to bring down the enemy even though their own numbers have been cut nearly in half since November, when 800 soldiers with the 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team left to join coalition forces for the fight in Helmand province. Today, there are roughly 1,000 U.S. service members in Zabul.

“We have seen an aggregate reduction of attacks and an increase in tips provided to the Afghan National Army and Police,” Oclander said. “You can draw your own opinions from that.”

The ANP chief of the Mizan district, who arrived about a month ago, has never seen such a level of cooperation with the Afghan government in his six years with the unit.

“As we prove ourselves, we gain the trust of the people,” police Chief Badamgul Qalamyar said.

The 15 police officers often patrol the nearby villages with U.S., Romanian and Afghan soldiers. U.S. paratroopers, from 1-508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, help the police investigate improvised explosive devices and arrest suspected insurgents.

On March 12, Qalamyar received a tip that Taliban fighters had buried an IED in an orchard about two miles from here. The next day, a villager led Qalamyar to what first looked like a Chinese rocket.

The police chief then radioed Sgt. 1st Class Victor Delvalle, who was leading a patrol of a coalition soldiers nearby. The men met in the orchard.

“It looks like a Chinese rocket to me,” Delvalle told the soldiers and police officers standing in the orchard. A rocket had exploded about 800 meters outside the FOB four nights earlier.

When Delvalle moved closer, what he saw was a green tube buried under loose soil.

When Delvalle looked closer, he didn’t see any wires coming from the tube and he noticed that it was buried next to a wall, which few people would walk past.

“It looks like it is being cached,” Delvalle told Pfc. Alan Nutt, his radio operator, who sent the report to Mizan’s tactical operations center.

Delvalle then walked back to the tube, set down his M4 and started digging.

“This is too long to be a rocket,” Delvalle told a couple of his soldiers.

In one motion, Delvalle lifted the tube out of the ground, then looked inside and took a deep breath, trying to smell any powder.

“Something was fired out of this,” Delvalle said to Sgt. Jonathan Dean. “Smell it.”

Dean took a whiff and nodded. Delvalle told the Afghan police officers to bring the tube back to the FOB for inspection.

“I didn’t see any wires and saw it wasn’t in a place where people would be walking by, so I figured it wouldn’t go off,” Delvalle said when asked why he didn’t wait for an explosives ordnance team.

The tip was the third to come in to the ANP in four days. Villagers also had told the Afghan police officers to watch for a red truck mounted with explosives and an IED dug into a road three miles from here.

At a meeting a few days later, local elders promised the police chief and the local Afghan National Army commander that they would continue to report when Taliban fighters traveled through their villages.

The elders, however, told the officials that they worry the insurgents will hurt their people for cooperating with the government.

“Security is good now, but the Taliban have come in the night and kidnapped our family members for working with you,” the elder from the nearby village of Mokarak told Delvalle.

First Lt. Sean Snook, the platoon’s executive officer, told the elders that the only way troops could expel the Taliban fighters was with the villagers’ help.

“We can’t do it by ourselves,” he said. “Without you, we can’t be successful.”