By Shah Noori and Gareth Porter
KABUL/WASHINGTON, Feb 18, 2011 (IPS) - The commander of U.S.-NATO forces in
southern Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. James Terry, asserted last month that the homes
systematically destroyed by U.S. forces across three districts of Kandahar
province as part of Operation Dragon Strike in October and November "were
abandoned, empty and wired with ingenious arrays of bombs."
But in interviews with IPS at the site of the destroyed village of Tarok Kalache,
now nothing more than a dusty plain surrounded by orchards, former residents
disputed that account of the circumstances surrounding the destruction of their
village.
The residents said that they don't believe most of their homes had been
booby-trapped by the Taliban and that, even after they had evacuated their
homes, farmers from the village had continued to tend their properties in and
around the village right up to the time the destruction began.
Beginning on Oct. 6, Tarok Kalache was subjected to bombing by planes and
long-range rockets that spread cluster bombs throughout the village, according
to Paula Broadwell. Her account of the destruction of the village, based on U.S.
military sources, was published in military writer Thomas Ricks's blog and on
her own Facebook page in January.
Broadwell, who is working on a biography of Gen. David Petraeus, wrote that the
village was also razed with Mine Clearing Line Charges, which destroys
everything in a 600- meter-long stretch wide enough for a tank.
Residents told IPS the village was then bulldozed, because the bombing had
created huge craters which had to be filled in and leveled off. They said the
operation was carried out over an entire month.
Based on briefings from U.S military sources, Broadwell claimed on her Facebook
page in mid-January that the villagers had not really been displaced by the
U.S. offensive, because the Taliban had "paid the village Malik [village
chief] around June-July to move out of the village", and the villagers had
followed, having "made the judgment call to 'sell' the village to the
Taliban".
But residents of Tarok Kalache told IPS that they had begun leaving their homes
when the Taliban began gearing up for a battle with U.S.
troops over the village, and that the Taliban had allowed residents to return to
check on their houses, and to tend their gardens and orchards in and around the
village until the U.S.
attack began.
Haji-Dawoud Shah, a Tarok Kalache resident whose house was destroyed by U.S.
troops along with the rest of the 36 houses in the village, said in an
interview that he and others had begun to leave only last August, when the
Taliban began planting IEDs and preparing for battle. "We realized that
one day our children and women would be killed either by IEDs or
fighting," he said.
But he said residents had returned frequently to the village from Kandahar a few kilometers
away to take care of their houses and orchards, and had "left our farmers
in the village to take care of the gardens".
Another resident of the village, Nik Muhammad, 40, agreed that local people had
been able to move in and around the village even after they had left their
houses, because the Taliban had opened certain routes for the locals to use
safely so they could maintain their gardens and orchards.
Muhammad said the Taliban let farmers and other people looking after their
properties use certain footpaths that were normally seeded with IEDs during the
hours of 9 am to 4 pm. He explained the Taliban ability to turn IEDs on and off
as involving removing and replacing batteries in the IEDS buried in the ground.
After 4 pm, he said, they put the batteries back in the IEDS so they were ready
for detonation.
Haji-Abdul Qayoum, 52, from the nearby village of Khisrow Ulla,
confirmed that Taliban arrangement with local farmers. When the Taliban
anticipated a patrol by U.S.
troops during those hours, they told people to evacuate the area, warning that
the IEDs were going to be turned on again, according to Qayoum. In some cases
people who didn't get the message were injured by IEDs in the area, he said.
Specialists on IEDs at the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) at the U.S.
Department of Defence have never heard of battery-operated IEDs being used in Afghanistan,
according to JIEDDO spokesperson Irene Smith. But in an e- mail to IPS, Smith
said the Taliban do use both radio- controlled and command-wired IEDs, either
of which would have allowed them to activate and deactivate IEDS buried in
certain pathways.
One resident of Tarok Kalache, Dad Gul, 60, told IPS he was taken back to the
pulverized village by ANA and U.S.
soldiers 10 days after the end of the U.S. operation. The soldiers told
him there had been an IED in his house, and when they got to site of his former
home, the Americans pointed to an object lying on the ground and said,
"This is the bomb."
"Actually it was my pressure cooker," said Gul. "I grabbed it
and told them, 'This is mine! This is not a bomb!' "
Gul said some of the houses might have had IEDs in them, "but not like
Americans say."
One of the ANA soldiers who had been listening to an interview with three
residents of the village commented, "The Taliban planted IEDs inside
houses, so the Americans destroyed them, but people said IEDs were not planted
in all of the houses that were bombed."
Although 250 labourers from the villages are now employed on U.S-funded cash
for work projects, no reconstruction has begun on any of the 36 houses that had
stood the village, although work has started on rebuilding the village mosque.
Hajji Abdul Hamid, a village elder from Tarok Kalache, told IPS he has been
offered money to rebuild five of the 14 houses he owned in the village, and
that the land for the other nine is to be used for a U.S. Forward Operating
Base in the village, for which he will be paid rent.
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