At site of NATO's largest Afghan ground battle, race is on to prevent Taliban return

Gunfire rang out from every hedgerow, irrigation ditch and storage hut. The leaves on the raisin-grape vines had grown so thick that U.S. Special Forces soldiers couldn't see the muzzle flashes from the AK-47s aimed their way.

NATO said more than 500 militants were killed in the operation last autumn to clear Taliban from the Panjwayi district of southern Afghan's Kandahar province, but now there are fears they could return.

It was the alliance's largest ground battle in Afghanistan, one so important that former southern NATO commander Canadian Brig. Gen. David Fraser wrote in a September letter to U.S. and NATO military leaders that "it is no exaggeration to say that the future of NATO, and of Afghanistan, hung in the balance."

Today, as U.S. Special Forces Humvees roll through the barren, winter grape fields, children in dirty clothes wave and smile.

Special Forces soldiers are training the Afghan army and police, and the Canadians are reopening schools and running medical clinics to try to win over residents so they will refuse sanctuary to Taliban fighters.

But the question hangs in the air: Will the plan succeed, or will the fighters return?

"In August, we had a failing security situation here in the south, no doubt about it," said Lt. Col. Donald C. Bolduc, commander of U.S. Special Forces in southern Afghanistan.

Bolduc, with two months left on his current rotation, said that attacks are already up by about 30 percent over his 2005 tour.

He expects more.

"I believe the enemy is going to attempt to conduct attacks in the spring and summer," he said. "If we do not get the Afghan national security forces in place before that, it will be very problematic."

When about 2,000 fighters moved into Panjwayi last autumn with the apparent aim of overrunning Kandahar city, the Taliban's former stronghold 25 kilometers (15 miles) to the east, an estimated 20,000 Afghan families loaded up trucks, carts and donkeys and fled, leaving watermelons and grapes to rot on the vine.

NATO and U.S. Special Forces entered the region in September on a mission dubbed Operation Medusa. They found a "well-equipped, well trained force, not like we've seen before," said Rusty, a Special Forces captain. Under Special Forces rules for embedded journalists, soldiers may not be fully identified.

Outnumbered Special Forces soldiers repelled Taliban attacks from a hilltop school that now serves as a NATO base. Aircraft supported U.S. and Canadian ground forces, but almost every fighter jet ran out of ammunition.

"Every hedgerow, every irrigation ditch, every grape hut had fire coming from it," Rusty said.

Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid said Panjwayi was weak because it only had 45 police and not enough soldiers.

Khalid said that today the situation is "completely changed," with Panjwayi not seeing a roadside or suicide bomb attack in over a month.

He said 90 percent of the population supports the government, while the other 10 percent still back the Taliban and drug mafia.

Col. Ahmed Habib, an Afghan army commander, said the Taliban has historically sown fear in local residents; they beheaded two men in the nearby village of Talukan last month.

But Habib insists that more Afghans now trust the country's security forces, telling authorities when roadside bombs are planted.

However, military success came at a cost to civilian life that didn't help NATO's mission to win residents' support.

Forty-eight civilians died in the operation, many from NATO bombs or gunfire targeting Taliban militants who were hiding in villagers' homes, said the governor's spokesman, Dawood Ahmadi.

Of the 20,000 families who fled, about 70 percent have returned, he said.

On a recent morning security patrol, Special Forces soldiers pass dozens of tall, mud-brown huts where farmers dry their grapes. Airstrikes had destroyed many of the huts, favored by Taliban fighters because bullets cannot penetrate the thick mud walls. Troops had plowed new roads through grape fields, upsetting some farmers.

Mohammad Khan, 45, said NATO had offered him money for his ruined land, but not enough.

"They destroyed all my land, and they said I can either take the money or not," he said.

However, Mohammad Nabi, 35, sees the destruction as the price of progress. "Some people are unhappy because their fields are being destroyed, but if the government is going to help them, I think it's OK. We also want to have roads."

A "massive" development campaign started in Panjwayi three weeks ago, said Shaheer Shahriar, spokesman for the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development.

He said that work has begun on 16 of an expected 50 projects, and that the ministry has US$18 million (euro13.9 million) in U.S. and Canadian aid for development projects in the province.

U.N. agencies like the World Food Program and UNICEF started work in the region in January. Spokesman Aleem Siddique said the U.N. is seeing some frustration among Afghans, but also some reasons for optimism.

Afghans praised the improved security as they recently lined up at a NATO medical clinic.

"The Taliban were forcing us to give them food and water and a place to stay. We had no choice," said Sardam Mohammad, who brought his 4-year-old son for a checkup. "We're happy that the soldiers are here. If they leave, we won't be safe."

He said the Taliban had burned his children's school. "If they come back, we will stand up and fight," he said.

NATO and U.S. forces hope that's true. Special Forces intelligence indicates that very few Taliban remain in Kandahar province, but that many have filtered into neighboring Helmand province, and could return.

One Special Forces soldier, a Sgt. 1st Class intelligence specialist, says he expects Taliban fighters to start "trickling in again at the end of next month." The fighting in Panjwayi could start up again then.

"How well we do with the humanitarian work will dictate how successful (Taliban fighters) are," he said.

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Associated Press writer Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.