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  • Jan 13th, 2004
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Before taking his heavily-armed soldiers on a patrol around Afghanistan's second city Kandahar, US Sergeant Rich Wind first warns his troops of the dangers they face in a metropolis known for its links to the ousted Taleban regime.

It is less than a week after a bomb blast in the city centre left 15 people dead and scores injured. The victims of the attack in the crowded centre of the city, which the Islamist fundamentalists once used as their base, were mostly children.

"The explosion was for us," Wind tells soldiers preparing to leave Kandahar Air Field for a day mission to the outskirts of the province in search of the bombers.

"Be very cautious," he orders. "There are Taleban looking for coalition vehicles to attack."

As the convoy of five armoured vehicles enters the congested city, Wind again warns his men to be on their toes.

"Everything is possible," he says. "We have the possibility that 25 Taleban have entered the city with explosives," he adds, referring to a threat circulating in Kandahar that a truck or vehicle loaded with explosives is winding its way through the city waiting to attack.

Since the Kandahar bombing there has been a heavy deployment of Afghan soldiers and police on the streets of the city. Meanwhile the US troop presence has also been intensified and vehicles are being stopped as authorities search cars for suspected terrorists or arms.

Further south in the Spin Boldak region, US troops conducted a search operation for a suspect in the bombing but made no arrests.

The south and south-east of the country has seen an increased number of attacks by militants of late, prompting aid agencies to pull staff back to safer areas.

At a United Nations briefing last week, spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva confirmed that operations were "very restricted" in these areas because of security concerns.

On Saturday five Afghan soldiers were killed and three injured in an attack by suspected Taleban militants in the southern frontier district of Sharawak near the border with Pakistan, the military commander of the province, General Khan Mohammad said.

The 25 soldiers on the mission from the 10th Mountain military police have two objectives, says Wind: "One is a weapons cache and the second is to go around the city looking for the bad guys."

"It's very hard to find the bad guys among so many people," says another soldier, Sergeant Charlie McCall, while searching a building under construction believed to hold weapons. "They can see us but we can't see them."

"What we are here for is, to come out to react to whatever happens in the city," he explains.

But while the soldiers carry out the search, a crowd of bearded and turbaned Afghan men gather to protest. The sight of an American soldier climbing over a wall into an area inhabited by women has enraged the men of this deeply conservative city.

"What are you doing, there are women there," one man yelled angrily in Pashtu.

"If they are helping with security that's good but they should consider our traditions," another man said, adding that the soldiers had entered the compound without permission.

The search for the weapons continued at a second compound a few meters away but again nothing was found.

"The mission is aborted for now," Wind announces, and the US troops continue their patrol around the city fringes.

The soldiers continue to drive the dusty roads of Kandahar in search of militants for several hours but no arrests were made.

The convoy returns back to the Kandahar military base, with one of the vehicles in tow and in need of repairs to a broken water pump.

When asked what did the troops get out of this mission, Sergeant Wind replies simply: "Actually, nothing."

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2004


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