Can a softer approach deter insurgency?

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A group of young Afghan men watch U.S. troops drive through the village of Naray, in Nuristan province, during a recent operation. Soldiers with the 173rd Airborne Brigade’s Task Force Saber have been working for nearly a year to strengthen governance, improve security and foster economic development in the eastern Nuristan and northern Kunar provinces.


Can a softer approach deter insurgency?
By Drew Brown, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Wednesday, May 7, 2008

NARAY, Afghanistan — The people are the prize in any counterinsurgency.

There are an estimated 190,000 of them in Task Force Saber’s area of operations, a remote mountainous area that stretches over eastern Nuristan and northern Kunar provinces.

The region, on the border with neighboring Pakistan, has been one of the most unruly and contested areas in Afghanistan since U.S. and allied forces ousted the Taliban from power nearly seven years ago.

For nearly a year, the troops of Task Force Saber, of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, have been locked in a high-stakes struggle with insurgents over who will control this part of eastern Afghanistan.

There are few roads in the area, none of them paved. There is little electricity, no fresh water, and few schools. Ninety percent of the people are subsistence farmers. Most of them can’t read or write.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=54594