Routing out the Taliban through talks

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U.S. Army Cmd. Sgt. Maj. Richard Weik, 42, of Stone Mountain, Ga., keeps a watchful eye in Paktika province in eastern Afghanistan before his unit hosted nearly 1,600 people for a traditional elders meeting.


Routing out the Taliban through talks
By Les Neuhaus, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Tuesday, November 20, 2007

PAKTIKA PROVINCE, Afghanistan — As a three-week Afghan-led sweep of Taliban forces wrapped up in the country’s east on Sunday, U.S. military leaders and Afghan officials sat down with civilians to discuss snuffing out insurgent influence in the area.

During the operation, more than 6,000 Afghan and U.S. Army soldiers searched Afghanistan’s rugged Paktika province, and more specifically, Charbaron district, where Taliban rebels have put up stiff resistance to coalition forces.

“We’ve had tremendous fighting since I’ve been here,” said Capt. John Gibson, 30, who commanded a company from the 173rd’s Airborne Brigade Combat Team throughout Operation Attal.

“The Taliban’s influence was to the point that they were threatening to kill people who didn’t support them.”

However, Operation Attal netted just 12 detentions for what Afghan Maj. Gen. Abdul Khaliq, commander of the Afghan National Army’s 203rd Corps, called suspicious links to possible terrorist leaders in the province, which Gibson, a Shreveport, La.-native, also confirmed.

Roughly 5,700 of Khaliq’s troops led the Paktika operation, along with the help of another 400 U.S. soldiers from the 173rd.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=50385