One Hundred Victories by Linda Robinson Read Free Book Online Page B

One, the sole paved “ring road” linking Afghanistan, in this case Helmand Province, into Kandahar City. These districts would be Terry’s focus. The conventional brigade based in Zhari would also work in Panjwayi; Terry requested special operations teams in both of those districts, and he especially looked to them to turn around Maiwand, where he had few troops.
    MAIWAND
    Captain Dan Hayes and his team, Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) 3314, were ordered to Maiwand to look for a suitable site to embed. Maiwand was a desolate place marked in history by the 1880 Battle of Maiwand, an ignominious blow to the British during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. The economic rhythm revolved around the poppy crop, grown in fields irrigated by American-supplied pumps, followed by hashish. Once the opium tar is harvested, usually in May, the young men pick up their guns and the fighting begins.
    The team moved into the Maiwand district center (akin to a county seat), a place called Hutal, and began daily patrols into every corner of the district in a ceaseless search for a village that wanted help defending itself. The conventional battalion assigned to Maiwand tended to hug the Highway One corridor, attempting to keep it open and free of bombs and ambushes. As the special operators left the gate of their Hutal base each day, they passed by the old British fort, a reminder of previous failures and their possible fate.
    Unsurprisingly, Hayes found the going slow in this Taliban stronghold. He found no welcome south of Highway One, a rich agricultural belt along the Helmand River known to be a Taliban safe haven and transit zone. Its Ishaqzai tribe was cut out of the opium trade and did not have a role in the district’s Noorzai-dominated government, which was linked to the Karzais by marriage. To the west of Hutal was the area where Tunnel’s rogue band had done its killing; it was unclear whether anyone there would give the Americans another chance. So ODA 3314 began to scout villages north of Highway One.
    Scott Miller’s staff had discovered a possible source of help. A local defense group called the Gomai militia had operated in the Soviet era, and its leader in Maiwand, Hero Jabbar, was not only still alive but a member of parliament. He agreed to come to Maiwand to try to rally the population and ask old leaders of the militia to come forward. He sketched a map for the Americans showing the villages around Hutal that had contributed to the Gomai militia, which the team called the Hutal hub. Jabbar also introduced them to his friend Fazil Ahmad Barak, an engineer who had helped to build irrigation canals and other infrastructure in Kandahar and Helmand. His old blueprints and expertise were invaluable in planning restorative and new development projects.
    Hayes finally settled on Ezabad, a flyblown village just north of the district center. The elder of the town had a foot in each camp of the war, one son a doctor and the other a Talib. The elder agreed to support the arrival of the team and arranged for the special operators to live in a nearby qalat , as the mud-walled compounds where Afghans live are called. The high walls built of mud and straw were surprisingly sturdy. The walls enclosed one or more homes, a garden, a yard for animals, and a shed for crops or animals. Qalats sometimes shared adjoining walls when family members or neighbors built their homes next door. Outside the walls were defecation areas, as the soldiers quickly realized.
    Ezabad was only a few kilometers off Highway One, but it was a world away. Over several days, the team ferried their impressive collection of armored vehicles from Hutal to the qalat—their new home. Each team was supplied with vehicles with varying levels of protection and mobility. The heaviest were the massive RG-33s, which were the safest but, weighing in at 50,000 pounds, the least able to traverse steep hills, narrow passes, or the deep moondust of Maiwand. Next in their