In the newly won districts around this southern city, American forces are encountering empty homes and farm buildings left so heavily booby-trapped by Taliban insurgents that the Americans have been systematically destroying hundreds of them, according to local Afghan authorities.
The campaign, a major departure from NATO practice in past military operations, is intended to reduce civilian and military casualties by removing the threat of booby traps and denying Taliban insurgents hiding places and fighting positions, American military officials said.
While it has widespread support among Afghan officials and even some residents, and has been accompanied by an equally determined effort to hand out cash compensation to homeowners, other local people have complained that the demolitions have gone far beyond what is necessary.
It would also seem to run counter to Gen. David H. Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy, which calls for respecting property as well as lives, and to run up against recent calls by President Hamid Karzai for foreign forces to lower their profile and avoid tactics that alienate Afghan civilians. There have been no reports of civilians casualties from the demolitions.
General Petraeus, the NATO commander in Afghanistan, has recently pointed to progress in routing the Taliban in Kandahar, thanks to 30,000 additional troops, although the insurgents have countered that they have simply gone into hiding to wait out the American push.
What they have left behind are vacant houses and farm buildings so heavily rigged that soldiers have started referring to them as house-borne improvised explosive devices.
Thousands destroyed?
In recent weeks, using armored bulldozers, high explosives, missiles and even airstrikes, American troops have taken to destroying hundreds of them, by a conservative estimate, with some estimates running into the thousands.
“We don’t know the accurate number of homes destroyed, but it’s huge,” said Zalmai Ayubi, the spokesman for the Kandahar provincial governor, Tooryalai Wesa, and who with the governor visited on Oct. 21. “It’s the insurgents and the enemy of the country that are to blame for this destruction, because they have planted mines in civilian houses and main roads everywhere.”
Lt. Col. Webster Wright, the spokesman for NATO forces in Kandahar, said he did not know how many homes had been destroyed in the campaign, but put the number of deliberate demolitions since September at 174, including homes and other structures.
The number seemed well below the destruction indicated by the accounts of local officials.
In the most fiercely contested areas, especially in Zhare District, but also in parts of neighboring Panjwai and Arghandab Districts, American troops have been routinely destroying almost every unoccupied home or unused farm building in areas where they are operating.
In Arghandab District, for instance, every one of the 40 homes in the village of Khosrow was flattened by a salvo of 25 missiles, according to the district governor, Shah Muhammed Ahmadi, who estimated that 120 to 130 houses had been demolished in his district. “There was no other way; we knew people wanted us to get rid of all these deadly I.E.D.’s,” he said, referring to improvised explosive devices, the military’s term for homemade bombs.
“In some villages where only a few houses were contaminated by bombs, we called the owners and got their agreement to destroy them,” Mr. Ahmadi said. “In some villages like Khosrow that were completely empty and full of I.E.D.’s, we destroyed them without agreement because it was hard to find the people.
“And not just Khosrow, but many villages,” he said, listing a half-dozen others. “We had to destroy them to make them safe.”
Military units in the field have been seen keeping meticulous records, recording not only every house they blow up, but also every grape-drying shed, retaining wall, tree and vine, and entering that data into computerized systems.
“I don’t know exactly how many people have received compensation yet, but there are hundreds of people waiting to claim for their losses and many who already have put in claims,” said Karim Jan, the governor of Zhare District, where the destruction of homes has been most extensive. In neighboring Panjwai District, Gov. Baran Khaksar said 60 families had been compensated for destruction of their homes or other property.
Safeguarding locals
Responding to questions about whether house demolitions contradicted counterinsurgency strategy, Col. Hans E. Bush, a press aide speaking on behalf of General Petraeus, said the steps had been taken to safeguard the local residents.
“The buildings in question posed a threat to everyone in the area since they were rigged with explosives and booby-trapped in a way to prevent E.O.D. personnel from rendering them safe,” he said referring to the American Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams.
American troops are using an impressive array of tools not only to demolish homes, but also to eliminate tree lines where insurgents could hide, blow up outbuildings, flatten agricultural walls, and carve new “military roads,” because existing ones are so heavily mined, according to journalists embedded in the area recently.
One of the most fearsome tools is the Miclic, the M58 Mine-Clearing Line Charge, a chain of explosives tied to a rocket, which upon impact destroys everything in a swath 30 feet wide and 325 feet long. The Himars missile system, a pod of 13-foot rockets carrying 200-pound warheads, has also been used frequently for demolition work.
Often, new military roads go right through farms and compounds, cutting a route that will keep soldiers safe from roadside bombs. In Zhare District alone, the 101st Airborne’s Second Brigade has lost 30 soldiers since last June, mostly to such bombs.
Activists at the organization Afghanistan Rights Monitor have been critical of the campaign. “These are all mud houses, quite humble houses,” said Akmal Dawi, of the group, “so they are just taking the easiest way and saying, ‘We will destroy them and then help them rebuild, give them a couple hundred dollars and show we are on their side.’ ”
However, with winter approaching and the fight continuing, owners are not likely to begin rebuilding anytime soon. “It’s not enough,” Mr. Dawi said. “People will not be satisfied with that.”
The number of refugees from the districts around Kandahar is difficult to determine, because most of them stay with relatives or friends in the city, but local officials estimate that nearly 1,000 families have fled Zhare and Arghandab in the past month alone. Many others left before military operations stepped up, fleeing Taliban domination in the area.
Abdul Rahim Khan, 50, a tribal elder from Spirwan in Panjwai District, claimed that in many cases the American troops had been destroying empty homes, even when there were not any explosives inside. However, military officers pointed out, searching empty homes was often too dangerous.
“People are not happy with the compensation,” said a tribal elder in Zhare, who said he was afraid to give his name for publication. “Compensation is just kicking dirt in our eyes.”
Taimoor Shah reported from Kandahar, and Rod Nordland from Kabul, Afghanistan. Christoph Bangert contributed reporting from Zhare, Afghanistan.
This story, "To Save Lives, NATO Is Razing Booby-Trapped Afghan Homes", originally appeared in The New York Times.