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NPR: Transforming Afghanistan
Wednesday, December 04, 2002
Transforming
Afghanistan
It’s been a year since the US “won” the war in Afghanistan. But repairing the country’s infrastructure and economy has proved more difficult than imagined. With hatred of America still brewing in Kandahar is reconstruction losing momentum?
Guests:
Michael Ware, correspondent, Time magazine
It’s been a year since the US “won” the war in Afghanistan. But repairing the country’s infrastructure and economy has proved more difficult than imagined. With hatred of America still brewing in Kandahar is reconstruction losing momentum?
Guests:
Michael Ware, correspondent, Time magazine
TIME: Welcome to al-Qaeda Town
Monday, November 25, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE / ANGURADA with reporting by MARK
THOMPSON / WASHINGTON
On a remote stretch of Afghanistan's border with Pakistan sits a thriving bazaar crammed with grimy shops and simple houses. Locals know it as Angurada, but it might as well be called al-Qaeda Town. In an audacious show of force by an organization that is supposed to be on the run, al-Qaeda, according to U.S. and Afghan officials, has claimed the hamlet as its own and is using the redoubt as a base for attacks on U.S. forces. Strangest of all, this is happening in Afghanistan proper, where the U.S. military has, in theory, freedom of action to move against al-Qaeda.
Read More...
On a remote stretch of Afghanistan's border with Pakistan sits a thriving bazaar crammed with grimy shops and simple houses. Locals know it as Angurada, but it might as well be called al-Qaeda Town. In an audacious show of force by an organization that is supposed to be on the run, al-Qaeda, according to U.S. and Afghan officials, has claimed the hamlet as its own and is using the redoubt as a base for attacks on U.S. forces. Strangest of all, this is happening in Afghanistan proper, where the U.S. military has, in theory, freedom of action to move against al-Qaeda.
Read More...
TIME: Will They Strike Again?
Monday, November 25, 2002
By NELLY
SINDAYEN / MANILA; ANDREW PERRIN / BANGKOK; SIMON
ELEGANT / KUALA LUMPUR; LISA CLAUSEN /
SYDNEY;
MICHAEL WARE / KABUL; TIM
McGIRK / ISLAMABAD; MEENAKSHI GANGULY / NEW DELHI
At first sight, the video might be a routine tv ad for a luxury hotel, the camera dutifully following a waiter as he arrives at a room carrying a tray. But when the guest opens his door, the waiter whips out a pistol and calmly proceeds to blast the head off a papier-maché dummy. In other scenes, masked fighters abseiling down the walls of the "hotel" with grenades leave no doubt what this is: a training manual for an assault on a resort complex. The video, one of a batch of al-Qaeda tapes found outside Kabul this month, is a chilling reminder of the range of targets al-Qaeda and its proxies like Jemaah Islamiah are preparing to attack. With each new arrest -- last week Indonesian investigators nabbed Bali bomber Imam Samudra while the U.S. announced it had apprehended al-Qaeda's Persian Gulf chief Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri -- authorities learn more about how to thwart global terrorism. TIME consulted intelligence officials and security experts for this survey of Islamic terrorist networks and the threat level in Asia's possible target countries.
Read More...
At first sight, the video might be a routine tv ad for a luxury hotel, the camera dutifully following a waiter as he arrives at a room carrying a tray. But when the guest opens his door, the waiter whips out a pistol and calmly proceeds to blast the head off a papier-maché dummy. In other scenes, masked fighters abseiling down the walls of the "hotel" with grenades leave no doubt what this is: a training manual for an assault on a resort complex. The video, one of a batch of al-Qaeda tapes found outside Kabul this month, is a chilling reminder of the range of targets al-Qaeda and its proxies like Jemaah Islamiah are preparing to attack. With each new arrest -- last week Indonesian investigators nabbed Bali bomber Imam Samudra while the U.S. announced it had apprehended al-Qaeda's Persian Gulf chief Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri -- authorities learn more about how to thwart global terrorism. TIME consulted intelligence officials and security experts for this survey of Islamic terrorist networks and the threat level in Asia's possible target countries.
Read More...
TIME: Losing Control?
Monday, November 18, 2002
By TIM McGIRK and MICHAEL WARE
If the U.S. has won the war in Afghanistan, maybe somebody should tell the enemy it's time to surrender. The bad guys are still out there, undetectable in the rocky, umber hills of eastern Afghanistan--until they strike, which they do with growing frequency, accuracy and brazenness. These days American forward bases are coming under rocket or mortar fire three times a week on average. Apache pilots sometimes see angry red arcing lines of tracer bullets rising toward their choppers from unseen gunners hidden in Afghanistan's saw-blade ridges. Roads frequented by special forces are often mined with remote-controlled explosives, a new tactic al-Qaeda fighters picked up from their Chechen comrades fighting the Russians. With phantom enemy fighters stepping up attacks and U.S. forces making little headway against them, General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, felt compelled to acknowledge last week, "We've lost a little momentum there, to be frank."
Read More...
If the U.S. has won the war in Afghanistan, maybe somebody should tell the enemy it's time to surrender. The bad guys are still out there, undetectable in the rocky, umber hills of eastern Afghanistan--until they strike, which they do with growing frequency, accuracy and brazenness. These days American forward bases are coming under rocket or mortar fire three times a week on average. Apache pilots sometimes see angry red arcing lines of tracer bullets rising toward their choppers from unseen gunners hidden in Afghanistan's saw-blade ridges. Roads frequented by special forces are often mined with remote-controlled explosives, a new tactic al-Qaeda fighters picked up from their Chechen comrades fighting the Russians. With phantom enemy fighters stepping up attacks and U.S. forces making little headway against them, General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, felt compelled to acknowledge last week, "We've lost a little momentum there, to be frank."
Read More...
TIME: Taunts From the Border
Monday, October 28, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE / PAKTIA
It was an impressive show of force. Under the cloak of darkness last week, Chinook and Black Hawk choppers dropped an entire battalion of 520 U.S. paratroopers into a remote valley in Afghanistan, just across the border from the rugged mountains of Pakistan, where al-Qaeda has re-established training camps. With dogs barking, cows chewing and a watchful camel resting, the heavily armed U.S. force trudged through irrigated fields and muddy Pashtun villages--cordoning off a 3.5-mile-long area and searching each of 150 residential compounds that dangle off the nosebleed hillsides by the Kakh and Khardala rivers. "We aim to get the maximum number of people on the ground at once," says Major Mike Richardson, paratroops operations officer. "It gives us shock value."
Read More...
It was an impressive show of force. Under the cloak of darkness last week, Chinook and Black Hawk choppers dropped an entire battalion of 520 U.S. paratroopers into a remote valley in Afghanistan, just across the border from the rugged mountains of Pakistan, where al-Qaeda has re-established training camps. With dogs barking, cows chewing and a watchful camel resting, the heavily armed U.S. force trudged through irrigated fields and muddy Pashtun villages--cordoning off a 3.5-mile-long area and searching each of 150 residential compounds that dangle off the nosebleed hillsides by the Kakh and Khardala rivers. "We aim to get the maximum number of people on the ground at once," says Major Mike Richardson, paratroops operations officer. "It gives us shock value."
Read More...
TIME: Karzai's New Bunker
Monday, October 21, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE
On a Kabul street with no name but alive with honking yellow taxis, something curious is happening. A new construction site has sprung up just outside the grounds of the presidential palace, with a formidable wall of soil-filled shipping containers stacked two levels high. The swarms of Afghan laborers say they don't know what they're building. American engineers shoo away anyone who asks about it. But members of the palace guard, charged with protecting President Hamid Karzai, say the construction sits above an aging bunker complex and that U.S. forces from the 769th Engineer Battalion are refashioning it for the President. "We're building an underground bunker for Karzai," a member of the battalion told TIME.
Read More...
On a Kabul street with no name but alive with honking yellow taxis, something curious is happening. A new construction site has sprung up just outside the grounds of the presidential palace, with a formidable wall of soil-filled shipping containers stacked two levels high. The swarms of Afghan laborers say they don't know what they're building. American engineers shoo away anyone who asks about it. But members of the palace guard, charged with protecting President Hamid Karzai, say the construction sits above an aging bunker complex and that U.S. forces from the 769th Engineer Battalion are refashioning it for the President. "We're building an underground bunker for Karzai," a member of the battalion told TIME.
Read More...
TIME: Kabul: Tense Moments on the Palace Grounds
Monday, October 07, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE
The Special Forces soldiers assigned to protect president Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan have learned to trust no one. That lesson was made abundantly clear when a gunman dressed as a soldier in the newly formed Afghan army attempted to assassinate their charge in early September. It's not hard to imagine how a recent altercation between Special Forces and Afghan government troops nearly erupted into a bloody melee inside the Presidential Palace grounds — a confrontation that says a lot about the future of the American presence in Afghanistan.
Read More...
The Special Forces soldiers assigned to protect president Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan have learned to trust no one. That lesson was made abundantly clear when a gunman dressed as a soldier in the newly formed Afghan army attempted to assassinate their charge in early September. It's not hard to imagine how a recent altercation between Special Forces and Afghan government troops nearly erupted into a bloody melee inside the Presidential Palace grounds — a confrontation that says a lot about the future of the American presence in Afghanistan.
Read More...
TIME: No Shortage of Suspects in Kabul Bombing
Monday, September 30, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE / KABUL
The stomach-clutching thud of an explosion rolled across Kabul at around 9pm last Saturday. It began with a flash in a small garbage pile on a grassy common outside a sprawling Soviet-era tenement. The building is home to several hundred families in the suburb of Microyan, and the detonation, only thirty yards from the ground floor apartments, shattered every window facing the park in the crumbling five-story block. Sleeping children woke terrified, coated in shards of glass. A three-year-old stood by her mother, her face laced with tiny cuts. Two or three people were reported injured, none seriously. For hours the tinkling of sweeping glass could heard up and down the corridors.
Read More...
The stomach-clutching thud of an explosion rolled across Kabul at around 9pm last Saturday. It began with a flash in a small garbage pile on a grassy common outside a sprawling Soviet-era tenement. The building is home to several hundred families in the suburb of Microyan, and the detonation, only thirty yards from the ground floor apartments, shattered every window facing the park in the crumbling five-story block. Sleeping children woke terrified, coated in shards of glass. A three-year-old stood by her mother, her face laced with tiny cuts. Two or three people were reported injured, none seriously. For hours the tinkling of sweeping glass could heard up and down the corridors.
Read More...
TIME: The Price of a President's Life
Sunday, September 22, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE
What is a president's life worth? In Afghanistan it may prove to be as little as a pair of secondhand Toyota Corolla hatchbacks. That's the payoff Afghan intelligence officials believe was offered to Abdur Rehman, the man who attempted to assassinate president Hamid Karzai almost three weeks ago. The cars are said to have been waiting for Rehman across the border in Pakistan should he have succeeded and survived his bid to kill Karzai. He did neither. Instead, Rehman was gunned down after opening fire on the president's car on September 5, missing his target but wounding a provincial governor and a bodyguard.
Read More...
What is a president's life worth? In Afghanistan it may prove to be as little as a pair of secondhand Toyota Corolla hatchbacks. That's the payoff Afghan intelligence officials believe was offered to Abdur Rehman, the man who attempted to assassinate president Hamid Karzai almost three weeks ago. The cars are said to have been waiting for Rehman across the border in Pakistan should he have succeeded and survived his bid to kill Karzai. He did neither. Instead, Rehman was gunned down after opening fire on the president's car on September 5, missing his target but wounding a provincial governor and a bodyguard.
Read More...
TIME: Putting Arms in the Afghan Army
Monday, August 19, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE
Almost daily, sniper bullets and small bands of fighters threaten American soldiers hunting al-Qaeda and Taliban members left behind in Afghanistan. But a more benign task entrusted to U.S. special forces stationed in Kabul--training the fledgling Afghan national army--is also proving dangerous. Funds for the endeavor are scarce, and weapons and ammunition are "not the quality you'd want at Fort Benning," says Lieut. Colonel Kevin McDonnell, who is responsible for the training.
Read More...
Almost daily, sniper bullets and small bands of fighters threaten American soldiers hunting al-Qaeda and Taliban members left behind in Afghanistan. But a more benign task entrusted to U.S. special forces stationed in Kabul--training the fledgling Afghan national army--is also proving dangerous. Funds for the endeavor are scarce, and weapons and ammunition are "not the quality you'd want at Fort Benning," says Lieut. Colonel Kevin McDonnell, who is responsible for the training.
Read More...
ABC TV (AUS): World in Focus [transcript]
Wednesday, July 31, 2002
WORLD IN FOCUS
Interview with Michael Ware
Interviewer: Jennifer Byrne
Michael Ware is TIME Magazine's correspondent in Afghanistan. With the hunt for Osama bin Laden continuing, and renewed speculation about whether or not he is still alive, Jennifer Byrne talks to Ware about the Afghanis, their government, aid agencies, and the involvement of the U.S. military.
Read More...
Interviewer: Jennifer Byrne
Michael Ware is TIME Magazine's correspondent in Afghanistan. With the hunt for Osama bin Laden continuing, and renewed speculation about whether or not he is still alive, Jennifer Byrne talks to Ware about the Afghanis, their government, aid agencies, and the involvement of the U.S. military.
Read More...
TIME: Why Afghanistan's Leader Wants American Bodyguards
Sunday, July 21, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE
To keep your friends close but your enemies closer is a difficult thing to do in Afghanistan, where it can often be hard telling one from the other. For President Hamid Karzai there can be no room for error, and so this weekend he dismissed his Afghan bodyguards and replaced them with 46 American soldiers. It's an ominous sign. "There are currently very credible threats against the President," says a Western diplomatic source.
Read More...
To keep your friends close but your enemies closer is a difficult thing to do in Afghanistan, where it can often be hard telling one from the other. For President Hamid Karzai there can be no room for error, and so this weekend he dismissed his Afghan bodyguards and replaced them with 46 American soldiers. It's an ominous sign. "There are currently very credible threats against the President," says a Western diplomatic source.
Read More...
TIME: A Man with Many Enemies
Monday, July 15, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE / KABUL
"I will be in the car soon," Haji Abdul Qadir told his nephew over the phone. "I'm coming in maybe 15 or 20 minutes." But Qadir, one of Afghanistan's five Deputy Presidents, as well as its Minister of Public Works, never made it home for lunch. In fact, he never made it to the street. Witnesses later said that two gunmen had been waiting outside the ministry compound's gates for half an hour. As Qadir's green Toyota Land Cruiser nosed its way out, the men, dressed in the clothing of Qadir's home province, leaped out of the bushes and opened fire. Qadir's driver floored the accelerator as bullets sliced through the windshield and panels of the car, hitting Qadir in the head. As the car collided with some metal poles lining the driveway, the gunmen continued firing into the rear window. When the vehicle finally crashed into a concrete wall, the men jumped into a taxi parked up the road and roared away.
Read More...
"I will be in the car soon," Haji Abdul Qadir told his nephew over the phone. "I'm coming in maybe 15 or 20 minutes." But Qadir, one of Afghanistan's five Deputy Presidents, as well as its Minister of Public Works, never made it home for lunch. In fact, he never made it to the street. Witnesses later said that two gunmen had been waiting outside the ministry compound's gates for half an hour. As Qadir's green Toyota Land Cruiser nosed its way out, the men, dressed in the clothing of Qadir's home province, leaped out of the bushes and opened fire. Qadir's driver floored the accelerator as bullets sliced through the windshield and panels of the car, hitting Qadir in the head. As the car collided with some metal poles lining the driveway, the gunmen continued firing into the rear window. When the vehicle finally crashed into a concrete wall, the men jumped into a taxi parked up the road and roared away.
Read More...
TIME: Losing the Peace?
Monday, July 15, 2002
By MICHAEL ELLIOTT with MICHAEL WARE / KABUL
The Afghan province of Uruzgan, north of Kandahar, is brutal territory. Its villages have been racked by decades of war, and the summer heat can reach an inhospitable 120[degrees]. A few weeks ago, Abdul Rahim, a local chieftain in Uruzgan's Deh Rawod district, reclined on a pillow in the shade of a thatch awning and spoke of what it would take to bring hope to this blighted land. It's a simple list, really: a few roads, schools and hospitals. "Rebuilding this country is the way to deny it to al-Qaeda," he told TIME.
Read More...
The Afghan province of Uruzgan, north of Kandahar, is brutal territory. Its villages have been racked by decades of war, and the summer heat can reach an inhospitable 120[degrees]. A few weeks ago, Abdul Rahim, a local chieftain in Uruzgan's Deh Rawod district, reclined on a pillow in the shade of a thatch awning and spoke of what it would take to bring hope to this blighted land. It's a simple list, really: a few roads, schools and hospitals. "Rebuilding this country is the way to deny it to al-Qaeda," he told TIME.
Read More...
TIME: Afghans Say U.S. to Help Wedding Victims
Wednesday, July 10, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE / KABUL
Although the U.S. military remains tight-lipped over any liability for the July 1 incident in which a number of Afghan villagers were killed at a wedding celebration in the remote mountain district of Deh Rawood during an American air attack on suspected Taliban positions nearby, Washington may be letting its money do the talking. "Verbally, at least, the Americans have admitted the attack was a mistake," says Afghan cabinet minister Mohammed Arif Noorzai, the man who headed the joint U.S.-Afghan investigation into the killings. And, he says, in a meeting earlier this week with Afghan officials in Kabul they did much more than that — they promised cash to allow the victims to be compensated.
Read More...
Although the U.S. military remains tight-lipped over any liability for the July 1 incident in which a number of Afghan villagers were killed at a wedding celebration in the remote mountain district of Deh Rawood during an American air attack on suspected Taliban positions nearby, Washington may be letting its money do the talking. "Verbally, at least, the Americans have admitted the attack was a mistake," says Afghan cabinet minister Mohammed Arif Noorzai, the man who headed the joint U.S.-Afghan investigation into the killings. And, he says, in a meeting earlier this week with Afghan officials in Kabul they did much more than that — they promised cash to allow the victims to be compensated.
Read More...
TIME: A Killing in Kabul
Saturday, July 06, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE
At a little after noon on Saturday in Kabul Yusuf Khan called his uncle, one of Afghanistan's four deputy presidents, to ask when he would be home for lunch. "I'll be in the car soon," Abdul Haji Qadir told his young relative. "I'm coming in maybe 15 or 20 minutes." True to his word Qadir drove out of Kabul's Ministry of Public Works — his new cabinet portfolio — at 12:40 p.m. But he never made it on to the street. Two assassins with AK-47assault rifles were waiting in the bushes shrouding the driveway. As Qadir's dark blue Land Cruiser nosed out of the white grill gates they leapt up and opened fire. Two minutes later the gunmen were gone, Qadir lay dying and the country was once again in turmoil.
Read More...
At a little after noon on Saturday in Kabul Yusuf Khan called his uncle, one of Afghanistan's four deputy presidents, to ask when he would be home for lunch. "I'll be in the car soon," Abdul Haji Qadir told his young relative. "I'm coming in maybe 15 or 20 minutes." True to his word Qadir drove out of Kabul's Ministry of Public Works — his new cabinet portfolio — at 12:40 p.m. But he never made it on to the street. Two assassins with AK-47assault rifles were waiting in the bushes shrouding the driveway. As Qadir's dark blue Land Cruiser nosed out of the white grill gates they leapt up and opened fire. Two minutes later the gunmen were gone, Qadir lay dying and the country was once again in turmoil.
Read More...
TIME: 'We Were Better Off Under the Russians'
Monday, June 10, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE / KANDAHAR
The Afghan commander laughed at the way the Americans were going about their work. U.S. troops, he said, were obsessed with finding caches of Taliban documents to help track down their fugitive enemies. The commander's friend explained the mirth by pulling out his own identification card: a small passport-like book made by the Taliban and authorized with a Taliban stamp. It was issued April 16, long after the fall of that regime. It's a legitimate document, and the man isn't an enemy -- the local government doesn't have money for stationery, so decrees and papers are still being printed on leftover Taliban stock.
Read More...
The Afghan commander laughed at the way the Americans were going about their work. U.S. troops, he said, were obsessed with finding caches of Taliban documents to help track down their fugitive enemies. The commander's friend explained the mirth by pulling out his own identification card: a small passport-like book made by the Taliban and authorized with a Taliban stamp. It was issued April 16, long after the fall of that regime. It's a legitimate document, and the man isn't an enemy -- the local government doesn't have money for stationery, so decrees and papers are still being printed on leftover Taliban stock.
Read More...
TIME: Making Friends in Afghanistan
Saturday, June 08, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE / KANDAHAR
The Afghan commander laughed. The way the Americans were going about doing their work, he thought, was hilarious. U.S. troops, he said, were finding caches of documents with Taliban markings and stamps and using those papers to identify and pinpoint enemy operatives. A man seated near the commander explained the fighter's mirth by pulling out his own identification card: a small passport-like book made by the Taliban and authorized with a Taliban stamp. It had been issued April 16, long after the Taliban fell. But the card is legitimate, and the man isn't an enemy. The local government just doesn't have money for stationery and so decrees and documents are still being printed on existing Taliban stock. If you must have an I.D., you'll have to be Taliban for now. But watch out for those Americans.
Read More...
The Afghan commander laughed. The way the Americans were going about doing their work, he thought, was hilarious. U.S. troops, he said, were finding caches of documents with Taliban markings and stamps and using those papers to identify and pinpoint enemy operatives. A man seated near the commander explained the fighter's mirth by pulling out his own identification card: a small passport-like book made by the Taliban and authorized with a Taliban stamp. It had been issued April 16, long after the Taliban fell. But the card is legitimate, and the man isn't an enemy. The local government just doesn't have money for stationery and so decrees and documents are still being printed on existing Taliban stock. If you must have an I.D., you'll have to be Taliban for now. But watch out for those Americans.
Read More...
THE AUSTRALIAN: From Front Line to Front Row [Interviewed at Australian Fashion Week]
Saturday, May 18, 2002
Marion Hume talks to Time magazine foreign
correspondent Michael Ware
By MARION HUME
By MARION HUME
MAY
8, 2002 : Former model turned actor Elle Macpherson
with Time Magazine journalist Michael Ware
in Sydney 08/05/02 during Australian Fashion
Week.
ABC TV (AUS) Foreign Correspondent: Afghanistan - America's Blind Eye [transcript]
Wednesday, April 10, 2002
Afghanistan - America's Blind
Eye
Reporter: Mark Corcoran
CORCORAN: Whoever controls the opium poppy controls southern Afghanistan – such is the power of this humble plant. It was a lesson quickly learned by the Soviets, the Mujahudeen, then the religious zealots of the Taliban. Now it is the turn of the Americans, descending from clear skies on Operation “Enduring Freedom” with lofty ideals of good versus evil – only to find they’ve landed in a grey world of compromise.
This airport is the gateway to Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second city, capital of the biggest opium growing region in the world. It’s now a base for more than four thousand troops, an American led Coalition of Canadians, Australians, Danes and Germans, all fighting the so-called “War on Terror”.
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Reporter: Mark Corcoran
CORCORAN: Whoever controls the opium poppy controls southern Afghanistan – such is the power of this humble plant. It was a lesson quickly learned by the Soviets, the Mujahudeen, then the religious zealots of the Taliban. Now it is the turn of the Americans, descending from clear skies on Operation “Enduring Freedom” with lofty ideals of good versus evil – only to find they’ve landed in a grey world of compromise.
This airport is the gateway to Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second city, capital of the biggest opium growing region in the world. It’s now a base for more than four thousand troops, an American led Coalition of Canadians, Australians, Danes and Germans, all fighting the so-called “War on Terror”.
Read More...
TIME: On the Mop-Up Patrol
Monday, March 25, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE / SHAH-I-KOT
The attack comes a little before 5 a.m. Sporadic machine-gun fire has been heard throughout the night, and in the early hours of the morning, a hilltop observation post tells the team of U.S. special forces that there is suspicious movement south of the perimeter. Then comes small-arms fire, followed by the whoomp of an incoming rocket-propelled grenade. Tracers show a stream of outgoing rounds in reply. Afghan soldiers fighting with the Americans send their own RPGs into the night. The local Afghan commander, a short, stern man called Ismael, says they were plundered from a store of Taliban weapons he has discovered. His men try to fire illumination rounds, but two of three pop straight up. "We're helping the enemy more than we're helping ourselves," a U.S. soldier says with a laugh. The special forces are hamstrung by a lack of information; radio batteries in the forward positions have drained. "Walk in a direct line to the hill and head up to the observation post and get me information on what's out there," the American commander orders an Afghan patrol. "And take these batteries."
Read More...
The attack comes a little before 5 a.m. Sporadic machine-gun fire has been heard throughout the night, and in the early hours of the morning, a hilltop observation post tells the team of U.S. special forces that there is suspicious movement south of the perimeter. Then comes small-arms fire, followed by the whoomp of an incoming rocket-propelled grenade. Tracers show a stream of outgoing rounds in reply. Afghan soldiers fighting with the Americans send their own RPGs into the night. The local Afghan commander, a short, stern man called Ismael, says they were plundered from a store of Taliban weapons he has discovered. His men try to fire illumination rounds, but two of three pop straight up. "We're helping the enemy more than we're helping ourselves," a U.S. soldier says with a laugh. The special forces are hamstrung by a lack of information; radio batteries in the forward positions have drained. "Walk in a direct line to the hill and head up to the observation post and get me information on what's out there," the American commander orders an Afghan patrol. "And take these batteries."
Read More...
TIME: Reporters' Notebook
Monday, March 25, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE; CATHY
BOOTH THOMAS; JAMES CARNEY
MICHAEL WARE has been in Afghanistan for TIME since December. Based in Kandahar, he has been at the Shah-i-Kot front for the past two weeks.
Read More...
MICHAEL WARE has been in Afghanistan for TIME since December. Based in Kandahar, he has been at the Shah-i-Kot front for the past two weeks.
Read More...
TIME: Encountering the Taliban
Saturday, March 23, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE / KANDAHAR
General Tommy Franks, commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, calls the recent assault on Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants in the Shah-i-Kot Valley an "unqualified and absolute success." But he concedes that pockets of resistance remain and promises to go after them unceasingly. The British last week pledged to help, committing 1,700 troops to the effort. Who are these holdouts, and what are their aims? To find out, TIME embarked on a search for surviving Taliban fighters who refuse to yield. It required weeks of negotiation with Taliban commanders, who finally proffered an invitation to meet with two of them. "They will talk," said an Afghan contact, "but not in Afghanistan, somewhere safer."
Read More...
General Tommy Franks, commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, calls the recent assault on Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants in the Shah-i-Kot Valley an "unqualified and absolute success." But he concedes that pockets of resistance remain and promises to go after them unceasingly. The British last week pledged to help, committing 1,700 troops to the effort. Who are these holdouts, and what are their aims? To find out, TIME embarked on a search for surviving Taliban fighters who refuse to yield. It required weeks of negotiation with Taliban commanders, who finally proffered an invitation to meet with two of them. "They will talk," said an Afghan contact, "but not in Afghanistan, somewhere safer."
Read More...
TIME: In Afghanistan, Shutting Down Taliban Support
Wednesday, March 13, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE
No army exists in a vacuum. One reason the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces holed up in their Shah-i-Kot stronghold have been able to last so long is that they have had crucial help from sympathetic locals. So this week, as the assault by Afghan forces to move the terrorists out of their base shifted into high gear, a team of Australian commandos conducted a raid designed to cut off some of that support. The mission came Monday, as an Afghan force of more than 350 footsoldiers led by General Zia Lodin and backed by six tanks and American air cover stormed up the western reaches of the terrorists' domain. Elements of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division swept down from the north. The plan: to drive the remnants of al-Qaeda's fanatical militia into the southern and eastern killing fields set by U.S. and Australian Special Forces along the most feasible escape routes.
Read More...
No army exists in a vacuum. One reason the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces holed up in their Shah-i-Kot stronghold have been able to last so long is that they have had crucial help from sympathetic locals. So this week, as the assault by Afghan forces to move the terrorists out of their base shifted into high gear, a team of Australian commandos conducted a raid designed to cut off some of that support. The mission came Monday, as an Afghan force of more than 350 footsoldiers led by General Zia Lodin and backed by six tanks and American air cover stormed up the western reaches of the terrorists' domain. Elements of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division swept down from the north. The plan: to drive the remnants of al-Qaeda's fanatical militia into the southern and eastern killing fields set by U.S. and Australian Special Forces along the most feasible escape routes.
Read More...
TIME: When Bad Information Kills People
Monday, March 11, 2002
By TIM McGIRK with reporting by MARK THOMPSON /
WASHINGTON and MICHAEL WARE / KANDAHAR
This is what bad intelligence produces: a girl's dress, its embroidery stained dark red with blood, lying amid the rubble of a bombed-out building. Men wandering through the debris, gesturing to show where people were dancing when the bombs began to fall. And a U.S. special-forces soldier, who is said to have surveyed the scene and asked, "Why did we do this?"
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This is what bad intelligence produces: a girl's dress, its embroidery stained dark red with blood, lying amid the rubble of a bombed-out building. Men wandering through the debris, gesturing to show where people were dancing when the bombs began to fall. And a U.S. special-forces soldier, who is said to have surveyed the scene and asked, "Why did we do this?"
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TIME: On al-Qaeda's Western Flank
Saturday, March 09, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE / NEAR MANDZHAVAR
In a small stretch of pine trees at Dara, a village near Gardez, Special Forces and Afghan allies hunker down on a frontline. Al-Qaeda's forward positions lie across a few hundred feet of rocky ground, in the first of the mountains of Shah-I-Kot. The sky is filled with light snow and the drone of U.S. strike aircraft pounding the white capped peaks above. Occasionally, the jagged walls of rock rumble with explosions, and belch plumes of black smoke. Within hours the ground attack will recommence. Led by U.S. soldiers, these bedraggled Afghan fighting men in dirty shalwar kameez, vests, sandals, camouflage jackets and pukul will step out from their cover and charge the terrorists' bunkers, praying the bombardment has softened the waiting defenses. "This is 100 per cent danger," says a mujahid nursing his Kalishnikov. "But I'm not afraid," he adds, unconvincingly.
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In a small stretch of pine trees at Dara, a village near Gardez, Special Forces and Afghan allies hunker down on a frontline. Al-Qaeda's forward positions lie across a few hundred feet of rocky ground, in the first of the mountains of Shah-I-Kot. The sky is filled with light snow and the drone of U.S. strike aircraft pounding the white capped peaks above. Occasionally, the jagged walls of rock rumble with explosions, and belch plumes of black smoke. Within hours the ground attack will recommence. Led by U.S. soldiers, these bedraggled Afghan fighting men in dirty shalwar kameez, vests, sandals, camouflage jackets and pukul will step out from their cover and charge the terrorists' bunkers, praying the bombardment has softened the waiting defenses. "This is 100 per cent danger," says a mujahid nursing his Kalishnikov. "But I'm not afraid," he adds, unconvincingly.
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TIME: How the U.S. Killed the Wrong Soldiers
Monday, February 11, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE / URUZGAN with reporting by MARK
THOMPSON / WASHINGTON
At first the U.S. military was quite proud of what it had done in this tiny hamlet tucked among orchards and snowcapped ridges north of Kandahar. In what appeared to be a perfect sneak attack, U.S. special-operations soldiers on Jan. 24 stormed Sharzam High School in Uruzgan. That same night, another unit conducted a similar commando raid at a military compound a mile away. In all, the soldiers killed 21 Afghans, who the U.S. claimed were Taliban, captured an additional 27 and destroyed troves of weapons and ammunition. All that, and only one U.S. soldier was hurt--and just barely. It was the most dramatic ground operation the U.S. has acknowledged since the opening weeks of the campaign in Afghanistan.
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At first the U.S. military was quite proud of what it had done in this tiny hamlet tucked among orchards and snowcapped ridges north of Kandahar. In what appeared to be a perfect sneak attack, U.S. special-operations soldiers on Jan. 24 stormed Sharzam High School in Uruzgan. That same night, another unit conducted a similar commando raid at a military compound a mile away. In all, the soldiers killed 21 Afghans, who the U.S. claimed were Taliban, captured an additional 27 and destroyed troves of weapons and ammunition. All that, and only one U.S. soldier was hurt--and just barely. It was the most dramatic ground operation the U.S. has acknowledged since the opening weeks of the campaign in Afghanistan.
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TIME: How the U.S. Killed the Wrong Afghans
Wednesday, February 06, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE / URUZGAN
Uruzgan nestles in a pristine valley ringed by snow-capped peaks that form a natural fortress in the mountains north of Kandahar. Its orchards climb peacefully to the snowline, a spectacle of pastoral tranquility that belies the village's emergence as the site of the largest U.S. ground operation of the Afghan conflict — and the most tragic.
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Uruzgan nestles in a pristine valley ringed by snow-capped peaks that form a natural fortress in the mountains north of Kandahar. Its orchards climb peacefully to the snowline, a spectacle of pastoral tranquility that belies the village's emergence as the site of the largest U.S. ground operation of the Afghan conflict — and the most tragic.
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TIME: Where Danger Lurks
Monday, February 04, 2002
By TIM McGIRK / KABUL with reporting by MARK
THOMPSON / WASHINGTON and MICHAEL WARE / TARIN KOWT
On an icy, still night in Kabul, two weeks ago, Marine guards in full combat gear at the U.S. embassy were startled by the whoosh of a fireball exploding underneath wintry trees at the far end of the diplomatic compound. The resident bomb-disposal expert decided to wait until dawn before venturing out of the fortified embassy to investigate. That's what makes him an expert. The explosion was only a decoy. The real killer was a land mine that was invisible in the dark but was spotted in the daylight half buried. Says Corporal Matthew Roberson of the Marine antiterrorist unit at the embassy: "It looked like somebody did it so we'd come running out and step on the mine."
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On an icy, still night in Kabul, two weeks ago, Marine guards in full combat gear at the U.S. embassy were startled by the whoosh of a fireball exploding underneath wintry trees at the far end of the diplomatic compound. The resident bomb-disposal expert decided to wait until dawn before venturing out of the fortified embassy to investigate. That's what makes him an expert. The explosion was only a decoy. The real killer was a land mine that was invisible in the dark but was spotted in the daylight half buried. Says Corporal Matthew Roberson of the Marine antiterrorist unit at the embassy: "It looked like somebody did it so we'd come running out and step on the mine."
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TIME: Dead Men Talking
Saturday, February 02, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE / KANDAHAR
Afghan commander Abdullah Lalai knew he faced a fight to the death as he waited outside a barricaded hospital ward. Inside were six al Qaeda fighters, armed with hand grenades and a pistol, whose seven weeks of defiance in the heart of Kandahar had become an embarrassment to the U.S. and anti-Taliban Afghan forces who controlled the city. But they had resisted every offer of surrender, and now it was left to Lalai and his American special forces comrades to resolve the standoff.
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Afghan commander Abdullah Lalai knew he faced a fight to the death as he waited outside a barricaded hospital ward. Inside were six al Qaeda fighters, armed with hand grenades and a pistol, whose seven weeks of defiance in the heart of Kandahar had become an embarrassment to the U.S. and anti-Taliban Afghan forces who controlled the city. But they had resisted every offer of surrender, and now it was left to Lalai and his American special forces comrades to resolve the standoff.
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TIME: Meet The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss
Monday, January 14, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE
On Wednesday night, the bandits moved from door to door, brandishing rifles and flashing knives. In the Kandahar suburb of Manan Medical, 15 men smashed their way into one mud-brick house after another. A local businessman named Shir Mohammed waited as they robbed his neighbors, holding blades to their throats. By 3 a.m., the thieves were inside his house, tying up a guest and demanding cash. But Shir and his relatives fought back and, in a running gun battle that lasted until dawn, chased the robbers to their safe house, the local police headquarters.
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On Wednesday night, the bandits moved from door to door, brandishing rifles and flashing knives. In the Kandahar suburb of Manan Medical, 15 men smashed their way into one mud-brick house after another. A local businessman named Shir Mohammed waited as they robbed his neighbors, holding blades to their throats. By 3 a.m., the thieves were inside his house, tying up a guest and demanding cash. But Shir and his relatives fought back and, in a running gun battle that lasted until dawn, chased the robbers to their safe house, the local police headquarters.
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TIME: Into the Heart of Baghran
Wednesday, January 09, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE
In Kandahar, a dusty, ramshackle place swirling with intrigue and all manner of scheming, a great Afghan mystery envelops us all — where is Mullah Omar? To foreign eyes the Muslim cleric who carried the Taliban from this, their spiritual home, to rule the country vanished with the fall of his regime five weeks ago. There is no sign, no trace. He is invisible to our technology.
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In Kandahar, a dusty, ramshackle place swirling with intrigue and all manner of scheming, a great Afghan mystery envelops us all — where is Mullah Omar? To foreign eyes the Muslim cleric who carried the Taliban from this, their spiritual home, to rule the country vanished with the fall of his regime five weeks ago. There is no sign, no trace. He is invisible to our technology.
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TIME: In Kandahar, Power Fills a Vacuum
Thursday, January 03, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE
On Wednesday night the bandits came, brandishing rifles and flashing knives. In Kandahar's outer suburb of Manan Medical, 15 men smashed doors at one mudbrick house after another. Shir Mohammed's weaponless neighbors were robbed with blades to their throats. At 3 a.m. the thieves were at his house, tying up his guest and demanding cash. A businessman in a city of paupers, Shir admits "my guests have money, as do I." Shir's relatives fought back. They stirred into a one-family posse; the running gun battle lasting until dawn. The morning sun chased the robbers to their safe house — police headquarters.
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On Wednesday night the bandits came, brandishing rifles and flashing knives. In Kandahar's outer suburb of Manan Medical, 15 men smashed doors at one mudbrick house after another. Shir Mohammed's weaponless neighbors were robbed with blades to their throats. At 3 a.m. the thieves were at his house, tying up his guest and demanding cash. A businessman in a city of paupers, Shir admits "my guests have money, as do I." Shir's relatives fought back. They stirred into a one-family posse; the running gun battle lasting until dawn. The morning sun chased the robbers to their safe house — police headquarters.
Read More...