Fighting in Afghanistan’s “Injun Country”

But it is important to remember why U.S. units ended up in such far-flung valleys: It is an extension of the larger success they have enjoyed in “Regional Command-East,” the official designation of the long-standing American sector of the NATO International Security Assistance Force. The region’s main population center, the city of Jalalabad, was the first target of sectorwide counterinsurgency operations that began several years ago. By Afghan standards, Jalalabad is relatively secure, and is a pretty good example of the kind of protect-the-population approach that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal preaches. Success in Jalalabad encouraged U.S. forces to expand the “ink spot” of security outward into Jalalabad’s hinterlands. The city stands at the intersection of the Kabul and Kunar rivers; the Kabul River connects it to the Afghan capital to the west while the Kunar flows from the mountains in the north. Over time, U.S. and Afghan forces pushed up the river valley, which essentially defines that section of the border with Pakistan, through Kunar province and thence to Nuristan. The outposts at Wanat and Kamdesh stood along tributaries of the Kunar River. Both are a long way from Jalalabad, but Wanat also represented an important position vis-a-vis the town of Asadabad, the capital of Kunar and home to an ISAF provincial reconstruction team. So there was a strong tactical and operational logic for being in Wanat and Kamdesh. Nor is it that much of a surprise that the units at the far end of the stagecoach line have to take a go-slow approach to mingling with the local villagers; at best, these outposts are in no man’s land and often as not they are a step or two into Injun country.