Taliban Returns To Northern Afghanistan

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U.S. Army Lt. Mike Kehoe (right) sits down for a chat with a village elder and the local police chief in Ali Abad, Kunduz.


Taliban Returns To Northern Afghanistan
by Quil Lawrence
August 9, 2010

Violence in southern Afghanistan, heartland of the Taliban, is expected. But some of the new U.S. troops surging into the country this year are being sent north, to areas previously thought to be free of Taliban influence.

The province of Kunduz, in northeast Afghanistan bordering Tajikistan, isn't supposed to be Taliban territory. But at a police checkpoint in the Ali Abad district in southern Kunduz, only a winding river separates insurgents from government forces.

Zukrullah, a junior officer in the Afghan national police, says he's sure the Taliban are watching his men.

"Actually, the enemy is back that side of the river. They are 50 (people), and we are like five people," Zukrullah says, speaking in his native Dari.

Those aren't very good odds, but Zukrullah has some backup at the moment, in the form of a few dozen U.S. infantrymen visiting his lonesome outpost near the village of Puli Kheshti.