A friend sent me photos he took in 2007 of the Kamdesh area and one of the outposts that was attacked this weekend.
First is an aerial shot of the village of Kamdesh. The OP that was attacked after the COP in the valley is near the top.
Kamdesh from above.
Then, a shot of the village from further away, to give an idea of how exposed and isolated it is.
The village in its local context. The main COP is in the valley below.
Then, a photo of the area near the COP itself. It is not an easily-defended position.
The valley near the COP at Kamdesh.
For some history, our best source is Richard Strand, a ethno-linguist who has studied Nuristan since the 1960s. Here is a Kshto settlement, Kshtorm, which was razed during a war with the neighboring Kom in 1998.
The village of Kshtorm in 1968. Thirty years later the Kom burnt it to the ground during a local war.
This is Kombrom, a Kom village in Kamdesh. Much of it was destroyed during the Soviet jihad.
Kombrom, a Kom community, in 1968. Much of the settlement was destroyed by the Soviets.
Now, a brief note on geography. Notice how the Nuristanis seem to build their settlements on top of hills and mountains? It’s a basic defensive gesture. Why do we keep building our bases at the bottom of valleys? That doesn’t seem right, but surely there must be a reason for it… right?
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1849 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua's writing has appeared in the Columbia Journalism Review, Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust
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Just a little different from the North European Plain.
Villages in Nuristan are sited on hillsides and ridgetops for several reasons. Defense against attackers was not the main factor.
Perhaps the key factor for defense was the distance and inaccessibility of communities. In many valleys, steps were taken to deliberately obscure the paths and routes to the outside world out of concern that enemies would use them to gain access to the vicinity of the villages. Raids for Kafir slaves were a constant concern.
Village women who tended the nearby fields had to work them during the summers when most able-bodied men were off with their animals at distant pastures.
An even more effective factor in defending the communities was for the Kafirs to stage raids deep into the lands of their enemies thereby forcing their enemy to devote time and energy into their defense.
The Nuristani/Kafir villages were also sited on hillsides which were too steep to farm even using the elaborate engineering techniques of terraced fields and elaborate irrigation channels that ran for miles in some cases. Even then, terrain which could be converted to irrigation agriculture was limited.
And another key factor was position villages with respect to sun in the winter months.
And, as to why we build where we do, it’s all driven by logistics and the need for a steady flow of fuel tankers and other heavy trucks to be hauling material to the bases. Efforts to support the base at Kamdesh foundered because the road linking Kamdesh to Barikot was never improved and secured so that the base could be supported by a ground line of communication. That is the same reason that the Nuristan PRT is located at Kalagush which is many kilometers from the provincial center. Kalagush’s only virtue is that it’s accessible by a good, relatively secure road to the outside world. So it’s not surprising that the bases are down by the rivers which is where most decent roads are.
To clear up any confusion that might arise from the names of the communities shown above, the village shown in the first two pictures is the same as the one in the fifth picture, taken from my website. All are of Kamdesh (the Pashto name), or Kombrom as it is called in the local language. Kombrom is not merely “a Kom village in Kamdesh”; it IS Kamdesh.
And this is why Strand is the true expert here.
well then would avalanches play a part in this.( just thinking )i mean snow would be a bitch there.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post From the Front: 10/06/2009 News and Personal dispatches from the front and the home front.
i was deployed in kamdesh for 14 1/2 months @ camp Keating in 2007-2008….i would like to coment to dennis that yes snow is a bitch there when it comes….i was on the OP, which was then called Warheight and now called OP Fritche…when the snow came and it sucked… and i have many pics from this area that you wouldnt believe so let me know if you want some for your site~!
I’m amazed by photos of the terrain. Every time. It points to the incredible logisitical difficulties, doesn’t it? And, so isolated-looking!