Soldiers hand out food, clothing; insurgents use bombs to spread message

Soldiers hand out food, clothing; insurgents use bombs to spread message.


Soldiers hand out food, clothing; insurgents use bombs to spread message
By Seth Robson, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, January 3, 2008

ZABUL PROVINCE, Afghanistan — The Taliban is using bombs and threats to villagers in an effort to make U.S. bases in Zabul province “irrelevant,” say U.S. soldiers fighting the insurgents in some of the country’s most remote areas.

Platoon leaders of Company A, 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment say they are holding onto Zabul’s districts but could use more people at their forward operating bases.

The few troops at Forward Operating Base Mizan in Zabul’s Mizan district spend their time promoting their Afghan counterparts and working to win the people’s support by handing out aid and conducting “information campaigns.”

The Taliban’s tactics include placing bombs on the road leading to the district center and telling people not to drive on it, according to 1st Lt. Joshua Sims, 25, of Talladega, Ala., who leads the platoon. The Mizan district center is a ghost town these days. A school built with Japanese aid that used to teach 120 students is closed, as are a medical center and veterinary clinic.

Sims hopes to reopen the school and veterinary clinic by spring, but the only facilities operating there recently were the district chief’s office, the police station and FOB Mizan, which is also home to a platoon of Afghan National Army soldiers.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=51382