Jim got word of the insurgent radio chatter. Good. Let’s see what they’ve got.
Jim was in the Dewagal to stir things up, to make a statement to the Safi insurgents: We have no fear, and we are moving into your valley, your tribe.
Earlier that day, dawn cast a soft blue light on Jim and his team as they rolled out of the village of Mangwel and left Mohmand tribal territory. They crossed the Konar River as it coursed past the White Mosque Bridge. On the north side of the river, they entered Chowkay District and the domain of the Safis, the biggest and strongest tribe in Konar. Historically the neighboring Safi and Mohmand tribes fought over land and water, but came together during times of external threat. The Safis controlled a large swath of territory that extended from the western side of the Konar River far into the Pech River valley. One of the most dissident Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan, the Safis led a major revolt from 1947 to 1949, fighting a number of successful battles against government forces. Eventually, though, Afghan government troops suppressed the uprising, bombing Safi villages and arresting tribesmen. The government then forcibly relocated Safi leaders and their families around the country. But the Safis had once again proven fiercely independent.
For months, Jim had been courting the Safi tribe in Konar through its most influential leader, seventy-five-year-old Haji Jan Dahd. Feared and revered as a brutal former mujahideen commander, Jan Dahd had waged guerrilla warfare against Russian troops in the 1980s. He captured and killed scores of Russians and liked to roll up his sleeves and pants to show visitors his multiple gunshot wounds. He battled the Taliban regime in the 1990s and served as the first governor of Konar after the Taliban government fell and President Karzai took office in late 2001. As the reigning tribal chief in central Konar, Jan Dahd maintained access to hundreds of armed men, whom he could call on at a moment’s notice. Jan Dahd had influence over a significant part of the province’s illegal timber trade. His son, Haji Jan Shah, was the CIA-trained deputy chief in Konar of the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan government intelligence service. The U.S. military had at times placed Jan Dahd on its target lists, even while actively engaging him and seeking his help when critical events took place in Safi territory, such as the Norgrove kidnapping, or threatened protests when U.S. military air strikes killed civilians in the Dewagal in early 2012.
Holding court daily in his large qalat, set against a steep mountainside in Chowkay, Jan Dahd advised Safi elders who came to him in droves seeking his advice to resolve conflicts over land, water, and other disputes. A religious man and conservative Pashtun, he wore a long gray beard and plain, coarse clothing, and often went barefoot. But he displayed perhaps the ultimate power symbol in Pashtun culture—he wore no gun, protected instead by bodyguards. And his enemies dreaded him as a man who would kill without hesitation.
Jim believed that Jan Dahd, based on his stature and authority among the Safis, was the best person to raise a tribal force to secure central Konar. After Petraeus gave Jim the go-ahead in May to launch the local security initiative in Chowkay, it took little time for Jan Dahd to agree. He had heard of Jim’s work with the Mohmand tribe and respected Jim as a fighter, remembering him from clashes they had in 2003 when ODA 316 blew up the weapons cache of Jan Dahd’s border police.
“You shouldn’t have destroyed our heavy weapons—we will need them now!” Jan Dahd joked.
In a gesture of respect, Jan Dahd traveled to Mangwel to see Jim and Noor Afzhal, who put on his most handsome gray turban for the occasion. The two tribal elders had known each other for years but had not met since 2002. They embraced warmly and traded pleasantries, as is the Pashtun custom. Sitting together cross-legged in a tent on the qalat protected by Mohmand tribesmen, they drank green tea and shared stories on the Russian occupation and Taliban era. Then, after a meal of flatbread, chicken stew, and rice, Jan Dahd and Noor Afzhal turned to the real business—the relations between their two tribes.
“If we have problems with the Mohmands, we will solve them together,” Jan Dahd told Noor Afzhal.
“Yes, we will come to your aid, and you will come to ours,” Noor Afzhal replied.
The informal alliance of the Mohmands and Safis was significant and a direct outgrowth of Jim’s work with both tribes. “We need to deal with one malik. I will pick the people to control all the area, for example, the Pech and Chapadara. . . . We need people who are strong and fearsome,” Jan Dahd said.
Together, Jim and Jan Dahd made rapid progress in identifying hundreds of Safi tribesmen willing to serve as arbakai in Chowkay. When the Taliban tried to co-opt the process by having their sympathizers in the Chowkay district government take charge of choosing the arbakai, Jan Dahd and Jim worked together to thwart it. Jim wanted to press his advantage and test the Taliban’s will directly, face-to-face—in the Dewagal.
THE MOUNTAIN FELL AWAY steeply to the left as our Humvee hugged the road up the valley.
Jim turned to his driver, Pfc. Kyle Redden. “If an IED goes off on us, push right. If we go left, we’re done,” he said.
We punched through the lower Taliban ambush location and pushed one, then two miles farther up the valley. With a single road leading in and out of the Dewagal, it was an incredibly gutsy move by such a small force. Jim could hardly have done more to invite an attack. The Taliban had plenty of time to prepare to hit us on the way out. Insurgents were particularly active that day because a U.S. Army unit had arrived at the foot of the valley that morning in an effort to meet with local elders but was rebuffed. Another report came in that the insurgents were tracking our vehicles.
A radio call came in telling Jim that his Air Force JTAC (joint tactical air controller), Staff Sgt. Andy Deahn, no longer had communications with some helicopters that had come into the area. Did he want Andy to make comms?
“Negative,” Jim said. “I’ll call CAS [close air support] if we need it.” He almost never called for airpower, preferring to maintain a tactical edge on the ground as long as possible. The aircraft could also scare off the enemy.
Everyone was vigilant. I was scanning the hillside for insurgents using the zoom lens on my camera. I was tracking what looked like a shepherd walking down a path. Just then, I spotted a white flag flying from the corner of a qalat up ahead. White did not signify surrender. On the contrary, it was the Taliban’s color—symbolizing their claim to fight for peace.
“A Taliban flag!” I called up. Drew had seen it, too.
Immediately, Jim knew what he was going to do.
“Let’s get it,” he said, and halted the patrol.
With his Afghan comrades, Abe and Ish, and another U.S. soldier, Jim dismounted and scrambled down the hillside to the qalat. There, Abe climbed onto Jim’s back and plucked the Taliban flag off the corner of the qalat wall. They climbed back up to the road and attached it to an antenna in the rear of our Humvee.
Jim led the patrol a short distance farther up the valley. Still the insurgents held their fire. Jim decided he’d pushed far enough, and ordered the patrol to turn around. The return trip down the single valley road was perhaps the riskiest of all, especially after we had stopped and seized the flag. Everyone was braced for an attack, but it never came. Only later, back in Mangwel, would we learn the reason.
We slowly wound down the long road and then drove through the Chowkay bazaar with the Taliban trophy for all to see. Afghans turned their heads and gawked at the white flag flying on the back of a U.S. military Humvee. Jim had made his statement—one far louder than any gunfight.
Almost as quickly as the patrol crossed the Konar River and returned to the qalat in Mangwel, word spread that Commander Jim had ventured unscathed far into the Dewagal. Later, Jim and I walked down the dirt path from the qalat, past the tailor’s shack and the baker’s house and the village cemetery, to Noor Afzhal’s home for dinner.
When we arrived, his son Azmat approached us, excitement shining on his face.
“There were four groups of Taliban in the Dewagal watching you,�
�� he said. “They watched you take the flag. But they knew you were Major Gant and you were a friend of Haji Jan Dahd, so they didn’t attack,” he explained.
The Taliban’s hesitation gave Jim a wealth of information, all of it vital to his plan to recruit the Safi tribe. First, it confirmed Jan Dahd’s power and influence. It also told him that, months after he had started working with Jan Dahd to raise a tribal force, the insurgents were still unsure how to react. That, in turn, signaled an opportunity, the possibility that Jim and the Safis could eventually win some of the Taliban to their side. From that moment, Jim knew he could press ahead with the Safis as planned—going into a heavily contested area with only a small American and Afghan force and empowering the tribe to safeguard the villages and valleys. It would be risky, but it offered a huge payoff: engaging tens of thousands of people as well as the insurgents and bringing security from the outside in.
More important, six months after the cold, overcast day when he’d moved into Mangwel with the Mohmand tribe, Jim had laid the groundwork to expand to the Safis. The work was painstaking, slow, frustrating, and endlessly complex, but the momentum was unmistakable. Meanwhile, prominent leaders from other important eastern Afghan tribes across the area were reaching out to Jim and expressing interest in launching tribal forces.
What was only a vision on paper in late 2009 was becoming a reality. His strategy was working. Throughout history, foreign forces had successfully engaged the Afghan tribes or ignored them at their peril. Now Jim was advancing on the ground, one tribe at a time.
AS JIM WAS MAKING HEADWAY with the Safi tribe in the spring and summer of 2011, he opened up a major opportunity with another Konar tribe, the Mushwanis.
In late May, five trucks full of armed Afghan security forces sped down a tree-lined commercial street in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad and stopped outside the metal gate of a large, four-story home. A young man in sandals and a light blue tunic quickly pulled the gate open, and a sedan quietly drove into a crowded outer courtyard.
Out of the vehicle stepped a well-dressed Afghan man in his mid-forties wearing a black pakol and vest and a white tunic, and sporting a neatly trimmed dark beard. His face was almost expressionless but bore a slight frown. Haji Ayub was the leader of the Mushwani tribe, which dominated several contested districts in northern Konar. He had come to the Jalalabad residence to meet Jim, who waited upstairs. Ayub was the son of Malik Zarin, a former mujahideen commander and previous leader of the tribe, which dominated several contested districts in northern Konar. A tall, strong man, Malik Zarin was uneducated but smart, and respected for his ability to solve disputes impartially. He was in many ways the tribal counterpart in northern Konar to Haji Jan Dahd of the Safis farther south. The two men had known each other for years and vied for power. Both tribal leaders were among the first in Konar to fight Russian occupation forces, battle the Taliban, and come to the aid of the U.S. military after the 2001 invasion. Both also profited from the province’s lucrative timber trade, over which they sometimes clashed, and had sizeable militias. Afghan government officials felt threatened by their influence, and the U.S. military tended to view them as warlords. But among Afghans the widespread belief was that between them, the two men could rule all of Konar.
In April 2011, however, disaster struck for the Mushwanis. Zarin and some forty followers were attending a tribal council in Asmar District where Zarin sought to rally opposition to the Taliban and foreign fighters affiliated with Al Qaeda in Konar. A teenage boy wearing a suicide vest reportedly approached Zarin, hugged him, and detonated his vest, killing the tribal chief and a dozen other people, including one of Zarin’s sons. The tribal elders urgently summoned Ayub back from Pakistan. Well educated and politically savvy, Ayub was untested but also respected by his people. When he arrived at the Jalalabad residence in May, Ayub was taking charge of the tribe even as he was convulsed with anger and a desire for revenge. He had heard of Jim and his tribal strategy and wanted to meet him.
“Welcome, my brother,” Ish told him. “Come this way.”
The armed guards took position inside the gate as Ayub and his younger brother followed Ish up a series of narrow staircases and walkways into a formal meeting room. At the age of twenty-five, Ish, with his soft dark eyes and calm, measured voice, was the seasoned diplomat among the three brothers of the Khan family—Ish, Abe, and Imran—who were working with Jim. The Khans also belonged to Ayub’s Mushwani tribe and were originally from Konar. Ish’s father and mother and more than thirty members of the family lived in the lively Jalalabad home. Ish exuded responsibility, consulted closely with his father and uncles, and was the father of two young sons. Abe, the older brother, was much more impulsive and violent. Abe was a loner prone to strange visions, but he had a tender heart and everyone in his family loved him dearly. Imran was an excellent student and more carefree than his two older brothers. They had studied English while refugees with their family in Pakistan, and together they gave Jim an immeasurable advantage in his dealings with the Pashtuns. He employed each of the brothers skillfully according to their strengths. The meeting with Ayub was critical. Ish would translate for him that day.
Ayub strode across the room, its rich red carpets, golden draperies, and ornately painted ceiling fitting for a family of the Khans’ stature. Seated against a row of maroon pillows, wearing a lavender tunic, Jim stood up and lightly pressed his palm on Ayub’s chest, a Pashtun gesture of welcoming and respect, while Ayub did the same.
“It is an absolute honor to meet you, thank you for coming,” Jim said in Pashto as he shook Ayub’s hand.
“The honor is mine. I have heard about you,” Ayub said.
“Keena, please sit down,” Jim said. “I am deeply sorry for your loss. There is nothing I can say, but I believe maybe there is something I can do. Are you familiar with the mahali police program?”
“Yes, I know a little,” Ayub said.
“The most important thing is that the police are chosen by the people. They defend their home, village, and valley,” Jim explained.
Ayub looked at Jim intently. “I can help you with five districts and across the border as well,” he said, describing the Mushwani presence in the Konar Province districts of Shigal, Asmar, Naray, Dangam, and Ghaziabad.
He went on: “I have five thousand fighters that are like arbakai securing the border with Pakistan.”
Jim knew Ayub was not exaggerating. Indeed, on April 21, a few days after Malik Zarin was assassinated, reports circulated that hundreds of men from an Afghan tribal army, or lashkar, crossed into Pakistan and attacked a Pakistani outpost, killing some forty-four personnel in Lower Dir District, Malik Zarin’s former home in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (North-West Frontier Province). Jim confirmed that these were Mushwani tribal fighters loyal to Malik Zarin, and they had actually recaptured the Pakistani military outpost after Pakistani Taliban insurgents overran it. According to Jim’s reports, the insurgents had killed several Pakistani military personnel, but the Pakistani military was unable to recover the bodies, so it asked for help from Ayub. Ayub’s ability to mobilize the lashkar and retake the outpost was a potent demonstration of Mushwani strength and his own resolve in the wake of his father’s killing. Indeed, Ayub had just come from a meeting in Kabul with President Karzai, who was eyeing Ayub for a position in control of Afghan border forces.
The tribe’s influence on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border held major appeal for Jim. One of the primary goals of his one-tribe-at-a-time strategy was to leverage the tribes to help uproot the insurgent safe havens in Pakistan that were vital to sustaining the Taliban’s war in Afghanistan. The Mohmand, Safi, and Mushwani tribes all had large populations on either side of the border.
“The areas that are mine are now yours,” Ayub told Jim. He looked him straight in the eye. “Whatever I say to you is a promise, not like other people.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Jim replied, placing his hand on Ayub’s knee. “I have fought
here many years and I know that the enemy is easy to find—it is friends who are hard to find.”
Ayub nodded. “The most important thing now is to take care of the guys who killed my father. We need to get rid of them, or they are going to blow our heads off.”
“Has OGA contacted you at all?” Jim asked, using the military acronym for “other government agencies,” which referred to the CIA.
“No, you are the first one,” Ayub said, his face darkening. His disappointment at the failure of the U.S. government to help him avenge his father’s death was palpable. His father had fought the Russians and stalwartly supported the Americans, yet now he was so easily ignored, forgotten? How could the most advanced military in the world come up empty-handed with information about this brazen assassination? “Even a blind donkey can find water,” Ayub scoffed, reciting a Pashtun proverb.
Jim took out his white ceramic prayer beads and began running them through one hand.
“I will give you all the information the Americans have on who killed your father,” Jim said. “But it will be on paper, and you can’t discuss it on the phone.”
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” Ayub said. “This is my destiny, to get rid of them,” he said, his voice shaking. “My life is yours,” he said. “We will help you however and wherever we can. We will share our intelligence with you—not only about the ones who killed my father, but all of the Al Qaeda and Taliban who are working in Afghanistan. We are with you to the death.”
BACK IN MANGWEL A week later in June 2011, Jim gathered Tribe 33 for a team meeting after dinner, as he did almost every night.
In T-shirts and camouflage pants, the soldiers crowded into the tent that served as the crude operations center. They were sweaty and energized. That morning, Taliban insurgents had again attacked the team in the Shalay valley. Jim was riding on the hood of his Humvee after looking for an IED near the Shalay clinic when insurgents opened fire with a Russian machine gun.
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