bobdina
07-24-2009, 11:49 AM
Keeping the
enemy
at bay FOB Baylough’s mission is to win over locals and disrupt Taliban forces
By Sean D. Naylor
snaylor@militarytimes.com
FORWARD OPERATING BASE BAYLOUGH, Zabul Province, Afghanistan — “Welcome to FOB Baylough,” bellows Sgt. 1st Class Stephen Carney at new arrivals above the din of their departing helicopter. “The most important thing you need to know about FOB Baylough,” he said, is how to use the primitive latrine facilities, which include plastic bags.
Welcome to FOB Baylough, indeed.
FOB Baylough is old school, or as close to it as today’s Army gets. There are no women at this isolated platoon base in the foothills of the Hindu Kush.
There are no big dining facilities with eight flavors of ice cream and wide-screen televisions. Two Afghan men prepare breakfast and dinner, which the troops wolf down in a three-table chow hall. There is an Armed Forces Network satellite dish, but it hasn’t worked in months.
There are no flush toilets. The troops use plastic bags that they tie up and throw in a smoldering burn pit. There are no field-grade officers at FOB Baylough, pronounced baylow and named after a nearby village. The highest-ranking soldier and sole officer is a first lieutenant. What there is at FOB Baylough is a small but determined band of light infantry trying to win over local villagers while pushing back surrounding insurgents, one ridgeline at a time.
How those infantrymen are faring says a lot about the course of this war, because it is at FOB Baylough and other small outposts spread across southern Afghanistan where America’s counterinsurgency campaign meets a burgeoning guerrilla movement hiding among a rural Afghan population deeply suspicious of foreigners and their promises.
FOB Baylough occupies what must be one of the most beautiful sites of any U.S. military installation. At 7,500 feet above sea level in a valley the troops call the “Baylough Bowl,” the base is surrounded by mountains that glow in the sunsets. The valley floor is a lush green carpet of almond and apricot orchards.
Individual platoons from 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, have been spending six-month tours at Baylough since 2006. At present, 2nd Platoon shares the base with an Afghan National Army squad, a four-man Romanian mortar section and private Afghan security guards. A few hundred yards down the road, about 40 Afghan National Policemen occupy the district center. Together, these disparate elements constitute the only Afghan government or coalition presence in northern Zabul province’s Deh Chopan district, which has a population of 40,000 to 50,000 spread across almost 2,000 square kilometers.
The base is 26 kilometers from the nearest U.S. force and about 60 kilometers from its higher headquarters at FOB Lagman, in the provincial capital of Qalat. Because of the distance, and because the only road out is vulnerable to roadside bombs and is impassable in winter, all troops and supplies must be brought in by helicopter or fixed-wing cargo planes, at which insurgents sometimes fire rocket propelled grenades.
The soldiers
FOB Baylough may be a logistician’s nightmare, but it is a junior leader ’s dream. First Lt. Jason Basilides, 26, is the platoon leader. He readily acknowledges that the combination of distance from the flagpole and the multiple duties of working with the Afghan security forces, liaising with the local power brokers and even acting as contracting officer for U.S. Agency for International Development projects, all while leading his troops, makes for “a dream platoon leader job.” “I definitely do more than what a typical platoon leader does,” Basilides said. His boss, B Company commander Capt. Mark Garner, agreed.
“It’s a lot of responsibility, especially for the platoon leaders,” Garner said. “When I was a platoon leader, I wasn’t this isolated ... . It’s something I didn’t see in Iraq.” (In an enemy attack July 6, Garner and Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Tony Randolph were killed by an improvised explosive device while driving between Baylough and another FOB a few weeks after they were interviewed by Army Times.) The most visible leader on the base is Carney, the 33-year-old platoon sergeant, who talks tough and has tattoos covering his arms but checks his soldiers’ trays in the chow hall to make sure they’re eating their vegetables.
Carney revels in the freedom of action that FOB Baylough’s isolation automatically confers on leaders here.
“The remoteness is great,” he said. “We run the FOB how we need to run the FOB.”
The mission
The platoon has a small fleet of up-armored Humvees at the base, but they are rarely used. Combat vehicles are “a magnet for trouble,” said Staff Sgt. Danieto Bacchus, asquad leader here and a former mechanized infantryman with two tours to Iraq. “What I like about the mission here is the walking ... The freedom of movement of being able to walk anywhere ... just my rucksack, my radio and my guys that I’ve got to worry about.” The mission of the FOB Baylough platoon is twofold, according to Maj. Greg Cannata, the senior 1-4 officer in Afghanistan: to secure the district center and to “disrupt Taliban and other enemy forces in Deh Chopan.” The platoon is succeeding on both counts, Cannata said. “It’s positioned on the No. 1 [insurgent] supply route in Deh Chopan,” he said. “That forces the enemy to use less desirable routes for their mission.” Meanwhile, protecting the district center “prevents the Taliban from claiming a complete victory in one of the districts it wants the most in Zabul province,” Cannata added. The U.S. soldiers here talk about how they’re “taking the fight to the enemy,” such as with a May 28 operation conducted with Special Forces elements a few kilometers north of here that resulted in an estimated 35 dead insurgents. But after three years of 1-4 troops rotating through FOB Baylough, the area they control stretches no farther than the closest ridgelines, and perhaps not even that far. With the number of insurgents in Deh Chopan estimated in the hundreds, the counterinsurgent force is easily outnumbered.
Whenever the troops here venture from the base, they know the enemy is watching.
“There’s never not a patrol where you’re being watched by the Taliban,” except when it’s raining, Blanchard said, adding that U.S. troops and their interpreters hear the insurgents monitor their movements on unsecured handheld ICOM radios.
“It’s a pretty creepy feeling when you get ICOM chatter saying ‘We can see them,’ ” Blanchard said. “It’s better knowing than not knowing, though.” That the enemy is aware of virtually every interaction they have with the locals only serves to further complicate what is already the toughest part of Basilides’ and his men’s job here: winning over the Afghans they are trying to protect.Gaining their trust is one of the major challenges of the mission, Bacchus said.
“The people of Afghanistan, from what I’m seeing, just don’t straight-out flat trust Americans, even though they know we’re here to help them,” he said. “In their eyes, I think they just see it as a temporary help.” The nominal governmental authority in Deh Chopan, the district chief, lives in the district center but wields little power. He is an appointed — rather than elected — official, and he disappears for weeks or months at a time to Qalat, U.S. officers in Zabul said.
So rather than working primarily through one local powerbroker, Basilides must liaise with the elders who lead each tribe and each village. “They’re the unofficial leaders,” he said. “Even if you’re in the Taliban ... you still respect the tribal elders.” The platoon leader reaches out to the elders by inviting them to shuras, monthly meetings at the district center or nearby bazaar. The elders bring up whatever issues they think the coalition forces or government can help them with — such as a new well for their village.
Security is their No. 1 concern, Basilides said. “I try to get them to trust us more, cooperate more,” he said. But without more troops — Afghan or American — to provide a permanent presence in the villages, there are tight limits on how much Basilides can alleviate the elders’ concerns. The insurgents have the run of the villages beyond the Bowl and the ability to coerce the tacit support of the villagers.
Basilides said he doubted that any were true supporters of the insurgency.
“But they are just farmers, shopkeepers,” he said. “The local villagers, they support the Taliban not by choice, but out of fear of what [the insurgents] would do if they don’t cooperate.” Fear prevents the locals from helping the troops at FOB Baylough, Basilides said.
“Most of the time, I don’t get any credible intel,” he said. That is intensely frustrating for U.S. troops.
“When it comes to us protecting them, they know we can do that, but I don’t think they give us the opportunity to do that sometimes, with the lack of information they give us,” Bacchus said. But the platoon’s other two squad leaders said that the people of Deh Chopan were more willing than they used to be to provide intelligence. Blanchard said he had conducted “four or five good missions” based on information provided by locals.
“Now we have people who come from the Taliban towns to give us intel,” said Staff Sgt. Azhar Mehmood Sher. With three Baylough tours, he has the longest experience here of any of the U.S. troops. “Before, they were so scared that nobody would ever talk to us.” When the locals do provide information, they often give it to the Afghan police at the district center. The 1-4 troops at Baylough all agree that the police are a huge asset.
“Those guys are awesome,” Bacchus said. “One of the first times I had contact out here, I was with the ANP, and I didn’t need to tell them anything — they were maneuvering on their own.”
Into a village
On a sun-drenched patrol, the troops pick their way along the edge of the valley between boulders the size of minivans. The ground is littered with shards of shrapnel.
The soldiers occasionally pause in the shade of apricot and almond trees. The scene is idyllic. Birds sing as scores of white butterflies flit to and fro in the dappled sunshine. It seems easy to forget that there’s a war going on and that men were recently killed within sight of this spot. But Spc. (P) Brett Anderson has little trouble maintaining his combat focus. “It’s only pretty when you’re in the FOB looking out,” Anderson said.
When the troops set off again, for a long time there’s no sound other than that of boots crunching in the dirt. A farmer tills a field using two bulls drawing a crude wooden plough fashioned from a tree branch. Grubby sheep fleeces are laid out to dry on rocks.
In a village, scruffy children cluster around, asking the soldiers for pens. Some of the kids proudly display their copybooks from school.
Two men arrive, wearing turbans and shalwar kameez pajama-style garments. Basilides peppers them with questions about whether they’ve seen the Taliban, never taking his sunglasses off as he addresses them.
The younger of the two men says no, but then seems to reconsider and says he’s heard there are some Taliban in the mountains. The older man remains silent and unsmiling throughout
courtesy ARMY TIMES
enemy
at bay FOB Baylough’s mission is to win over locals and disrupt Taliban forces
By Sean D. Naylor
snaylor@militarytimes.com
FORWARD OPERATING BASE BAYLOUGH, Zabul Province, Afghanistan — “Welcome to FOB Baylough,” bellows Sgt. 1st Class Stephen Carney at new arrivals above the din of their departing helicopter. “The most important thing you need to know about FOB Baylough,” he said, is how to use the primitive latrine facilities, which include plastic bags.
Welcome to FOB Baylough, indeed.
FOB Baylough is old school, or as close to it as today’s Army gets. There are no women at this isolated platoon base in the foothills of the Hindu Kush.
There are no big dining facilities with eight flavors of ice cream and wide-screen televisions. Two Afghan men prepare breakfast and dinner, which the troops wolf down in a three-table chow hall. There is an Armed Forces Network satellite dish, but it hasn’t worked in months.
There are no flush toilets. The troops use plastic bags that they tie up and throw in a smoldering burn pit. There are no field-grade officers at FOB Baylough, pronounced baylow and named after a nearby village. The highest-ranking soldier and sole officer is a first lieutenant. What there is at FOB Baylough is a small but determined band of light infantry trying to win over local villagers while pushing back surrounding insurgents, one ridgeline at a time.
How those infantrymen are faring says a lot about the course of this war, because it is at FOB Baylough and other small outposts spread across southern Afghanistan where America’s counterinsurgency campaign meets a burgeoning guerrilla movement hiding among a rural Afghan population deeply suspicious of foreigners and their promises.
FOB Baylough occupies what must be one of the most beautiful sites of any U.S. military installation. At 7,500 feet above sea level in a valley the troops call the “Baylough Bowl,” the base is surrounded by mountains that glow in the sunsets. The valley floor is a lush green carpet of almond and apricot orchards.
Individual platoons from 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, have been spending six-month tours at Baylough since 2006. At present, 2nd Platoon shares the base with an Afghan National Army squad, a four-man Romanian mortar section and private Afghan security guards. A few hundred yards down the road, about 40 Afghan National Policemen occupy the district center. Together, these disparate elements constitute the only Afghan government or coalition presence in northern Zabul province’s Deh Chopan district, which has a population of 40,000 to 50,000 spread across almost 2,000 square kilometers.
The base is 26 kilometers from the nearest U.S. force and about 60 kilometers from its higher headquarters at FOB Lagman, in the provincial capital of Qalat. Because of the distance, and because the only road out is vulnerable to roadside bombs and is impassable in winter, all troops and supplies must be brought in by helicopter or fixed-wing cargo planes, at which insurgents sometimes fire rocket propelled grenades.
The soldiers
FOB Baylough may be a logistician’s nightmare, but it is a junior leader ’s dream. First Lt. Jason Basilides, 26, is the platoon leader. He readily acknowledges that the combination of distance from the flagpole and the multiple duties of working with the Afghan security forces, liaising with the local power brokers and even acting as contracting officer for U.S. Agency for International Development projects, all while leading his troops, makes for “a dream platoon leader job.” “I definitely do more than what a typical platoon leader does,” Basilides said. His boss, B Company commander Capt. Mark Garner, agreed.
“It’s a lot of responsibility, especially for the platoon leaders,” Garner said. “When I was a platoon leader, I wasn’t this isolated ... . It’s something I didn’t see in Iraq.” (In an enemy attack July 6, Garner and Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Tony Randolph were killed by an improvised explosive device while driving between Baylough and another FOB a few weeks after they were interviewed by Army Times.) The most visible leader on the base is Carney, the 33-year-old platoon sergeant, who talks tough and has tattoos covering his arms but checks his soldiers’ trays in the chow hall to make sure they’re eating their vegetables.
Carney revels in the freedom of action that FOB Baylough’s isolation automatically confers on leaders here.
“The remoteness is great,” he said. “We run the FOB how we need to run the FOB.”
The mission
The platoon has a small fleet of up-armored Humvees at the base, but they are rarely used. Combat vehicles are “a magnet for trouble,” said Staff Sgt. Danieto Bacchus, asquad leader here and a former mechanized infantryman with two tours to Iraq. “What I like about the mission here is the walking ... The freedom of movement of being able to walk anywhere ... just my rucksack, my radio and my guys that I’ve got to worry about.” The mission of the FOB Baylough platoon is twofold, according to Maj. Greg Cannata, the senior 1-4 officer in Afghanistan: to secure the district center and to “disrupt Taliban and other enemy forces in Deh Chopan.” The platoon is succeeding on both counts, Cannata said. “It’s positioned on the No. 1 [insurgent] supply route in Deh Chopan,” he said. “That forces the enemy to use less desirable routes for their mission.” Meanwhile, protecting the district center “prevents the Taliban from claiming a complete victory in one of the districts it wants the most in Zabul province,” Cannata added. The U.S. soldiers here talk about how they’re “taking the fight to the enemy,” such as with a May 28 operation conducted with Special Forces elements a few kilometers north of here that resulted in an estimated 35 dead insurgents. But after three years of 1-4 troops rotating through FOB Baylough, the area they control stretches no farther than the closest ridgelines, and perhaps not even that far. With the number of insurgents in Deh Chopan estimated in the hundreds, the counterinsurgent force is easily outnumbered.
Whenever the troops here venture from the base, they know the enemy is watching.
“There’s never not a patrol where you’re being watched by the Taliban,” except when it’s raining, Blanchard said, adding that U.S. troops and their interpreters hear the insurgents monitor their movements on unsecured handheld ICOM radios.
“It’s a pretty creepy feeling when you get ICOM chatter saying ‘We can see them,’ ” Blanchard said. “It’s better knowing than not knowing, though.” That the enemy is aware of virtually every interaction they have with the locals only serves to further complicate what is already the toughest part of Basilides’ and his men’s job here: winning over the Afghans they are trying to protect.Gaining their trust is one of the major challenges of the mission, Bacchus said.
“The people of Afghanistan, from what I’m seeing, just don’t straight-out flat trust Americans, even though they know we’re here to help them,” he said. “In their eyes, I think they just see it as a temporary help.” The nominal governmental authority in Deh Chopan, the district chief, lives in the district center but wields little power. He is an appointed — rather than elected — official, and he disappears for weeks or months at a time to Qalat, U.S. officers in Zabul said.
So rather than working primarily through one local powerbroker, Basilides must liaise with the elders who lead each tribe and each village. “They’re the unofficial leaders,” he said. “Even if you’re in the Taliban ... you still respect the tribal elders.” The platoon leader reaches out to the elders by inviting them to shuras, monthly meetings at the district center or nearby bazaar. The elders bring up whatever issues they think the coalition forces or government can help them with — such as a new well for their village.
Security is their No. 1 concern, Basilides said. “I try to get them to trust us more, cooperate more,” he said. But without more troops — Afghan or American — to provide a permanent presence in the villages, there are tight limits on how much Basilides can alleviate the elders’ concerns. The insurgents have the run of the villages beyond the Bowl and the ability to coerce the tacit support of the villagers.
Basilides said he doubted that any were true supporters of the insurgency.
“But they are just farmers, shopkeepers,” he said. “The local villagers, they support the Taliban not by choice, but out of fear of what [the insurgents] would do if they don’t cooperate.” Fear prevents the locals from helping the troops at FOB Baylough, Basilides said.
“Most of the time, I don’t get any credible intel,” he said. That is intensely frustrating for U.S. troops.
“When it comes to us protecting them, they know we can do that, but I don’t think they give us the opportunity to do that sometimes, with the lack of information they give us,” Bacchus said. But the platoon’s other two squad leaders said that the people of Deh Chopan were more willing than they used to be to provide intelligence. Blanchard said he had conducted “four or five good missions” based on information provided by locals.
“Now we have people who come from the Taliban towns to give us intel,” said Staff Sgt. Azhar Mehmood Sher. With three Baylough tours, he has the longest experience here of any of the U.S. troops. “Before, they were so scared that nobody would ever talk to us.” When the locals do provide information, they often give it to the Afghan police at the district center. The 1-4 troops at Baylough all agree that the police are a huge asset.
“Those guys are awesome,” Bacchus said. “One of the first times I had contact out here, I was with the ANP, and I didn’t need to tell them anything — they were maneuvering on their own.”
Into a village
On a sun-drenched patrol, the troops pick their way along the edge of the valley between boulders the size of minivans. The ground is littered with shards of shrapnel.
The soldiers occasionally pause in the shade of apricot and almond trees. The scene is idyllic. Birds sing as scores of white butterflies flit to and fro in the dappled sunshine. It seems easy to forget that there’s a war going on and that men were recently killed within sight of this spot. But Spc. (P) Brett Anderson has little trouble maintaining his combat focus. “It’s only pretty when you’re in the FOB looking out,” Anderson said.
When the troops set off again, for a long time there’s no sound other than that of boots crunching in the dirt. A farmer tills a field using two bulls drawing a crude wooden plough fashioned from a tree branch. Grubby sheep fleeces are laid out to dry on rocks.
In a village, scruffy children cluster around, asking the soldiers for pens. Some of the kids proudly display their copybooks from school.
Two men arrive, wearing turbans and shalwar kameez pajama-style garments. Basilides peppers them with questions about whether they’ve seen the Taliban, never taking his sunglasses off as he addresses them.
The younger of the two men says no, but then seems to reconsider and says he’s heard there are some Taliban in the mountains. The older man remains silent and unsmiling throughout
courtesy ARMY TIMES