More Progress in Alasay

The fight in Alasay Valley continues. First off, here is some video footage a colleague shot during the initial onslaught last month.

The news from the valley continues to be encouraging: several more MEDCAPS providing health services to villagers up and down the valley, and many elders my colleagues have spoken to have expressed a keen interest in partnering with the district sub-governor to cement into place the tentative peace that’s been established.

Anand Gopal has written a dispatch from Alasay, discussing some of the issues currently facing the French, American, and Afghan forces in the area:

Here in Alasay Valley, a restive district a two-hour trip north of Kabul, government-backed mediation efforts had floundered for months. The presence of insurgent group Hizb-i-Islami and the Taliban had grown tremendously here, in Kapisa Province, over the past couple of years. By last year, most of the Alasay Valley was under militant control.

But in a series of offensives this year Western forces were able to dislodge the guerrillas and reassert control in parts of the valley. Normally, when this happens, the insurgents regroup and attempt to reclaim territory,

In this case, however, tribal elders offered an olive branch to the besieged fighters. Muhammad Ismail, a tribe leader and former insurgent during the Soviet days, approached a local guerrilla commander, Ghafor Khan. “I told him that we will create job opportunities and bring education. I told him I spent time in prison for fighting jihad, so I know his feelings.”

One quibble: Alasay is not remote by any stretch of the imagination. It is easily accessible by road from Kabul, even if the last stretches are unpaved (I’m assuming Mr. Gopal drove up through Parwan and down from Nijrab, rather than north through Uzbin and Sarobi). His main points, though, about how the peace deals so far are tenuous even as the Coalition presses ahead with development and governance work, are spot on.

Tagged as: Afghanistan