Word: uruzgan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...special forces had a busy night on Jan. 24. A mile away, they attacked a second Uruzgan compound, which had been seized by rogue warlord Mohammed Yousif - a challenger for the title of district chief. At 2am helicopters landed nearby and soldiers stormed his perimeter. "A great noise woke me up," says the steely Yousif, "and when I got out of my room I could see Americans." He claims he ordered his men not to open fire, but "when I knew they were going to kill us and bombard, I escaped." Yousif and a small coterie of aides evaded...
...Hamdullah, an anti-Taliban militiaman was woken at 2am for his shift on guard duty that day. Around him all was still, the compound asleep. Helicopters buzzed overhead, but that didn't much perturb the sentry - their sound had filled Uruzgan's night sky for the past two weeks. Then came an explosion, "not like any that I have heard before, not a rocket or a grenade", he says. He could make out only a strange vehicle, and a dot of red light that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. He rushed back to alert the others, before diving...
...terrible mistake has been made," says Uruzgan businessman Abdul Ghani. All the dead, including the twin leaders of the military commission Haji Sanagul and Qadous Khan Jahadwal, had been appointed by the provincial government. "They were not Taliban, they were a military commission working with (Interim Prime Minister) Hamid Karzai," says schoolteacher and Uruzgan elder Farou Khan. The men slaughtered in Sharzam High School had been loyal to Hamid Karzai's interim government. Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, says he knew six or seven of them personally. Qadous Khan Jahadwal, he says, "had been with us for 23 years...
...hard to see how the largest ground operation by U.S. forces in Afghanistan may may have turned into a friendly-fire tragedy. All of Uruzgan province had been strong Taliban country. And Uruzgan village was a Taliban nursery - hundreds, if not thousands, of Taliban soldiers volunteered from this district (though villagers claim all were forcibly conscripted). Even now, unrepentant Taliban commanders and their troops have returned to seek refuge in its remote mountain passes...
...today's post-Taliban Afghanistan, the local political infighting often intersects with charges and counter-charges of Talib connections. Take warlord Mohammed Younis, for example. "He was saying he was chief of this district, he was saying this district is mine. He wanted to take it by force," says Uruzgan shura chairman Haji Sofi Mohammed Halim. Days before the U.S. attack, Younis had lost out in acrimonious local power struggle. But it may have been his possible links to very senior Taliban leaders that help explain the events at Uruzgan...