Oct 20, 2002 4 min read

MASI KALAY, Afghanistan (AP) – It’s a simple routine, repeated almost daily by U.S. soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division as they comb the rugged peaks along the Pakistani border in a continuing effort to flush out al-Qaida and Taliban fighters. A soldier, usually an officer, accompanied by a translator, knocks on the front door of a house to be searched. When a man answers – in Afghanistan, it’s almost always a man – the officer explains they want to search for weapons, asks if they have any and says all the women and children should be moved to one location, to be searched by a female soldier.

The 82nd, a combat infantry division, never trained for this mission. They are swooping into villages, brandishing weapons – then rummaging through the homes of people whose hearts and minds they are supposed to be winning.

“If we did what we’re trained to do, we would have wiped this whole village out,” said Lt. Sean Lucas, a 24-year-old from Stratford, N.Y., as his company searched a mountainside collection of stone and mud-brick homes. “We can’t do that here. Most of these people are innocents.”

So, the paratroopers knock on doors and politely ask before entering. But there’s only one acceptable answer: They are going to search, regardless of how the owner feels.

The military is increasingly using conventional forces like the 82nd to hunt remnants of al-Qaida and the Taliban in the volatile border region.

Previously the job was handled by special forces, elite soldiers who worked to blend with their surroundings, aided by local Afghan troops.

Some special forces troops say the 82nd’s approach alienates the locals, but military officials insist it works, that the enemy is on the run and ordinary Afghans appreciate the U.S. soldiers.

Still, “even if somebody says they appreciate you and they want you here, it’s probably unwanted,” said Lt. Col. Martin Schweitzer of Ft. Bragg, N.C., whose battalion is doing most of the work in southeastern Afghanistan.

“If you’re an absolute innocent … and all you see is some big tall American in uniform with full ‘battle rattle’ (gear) in and around your area, that’s got to be a little disconcerting.”

During a series of recent sweeps through villages along the Pakistani border some Afghans were welcoming.

“There is no more Taliban, no more fighting,” said a man who refused to give his name as soldiers searched his house in Sardak, a hamlet nestled in a valley along the border. He spoke to reporters through a U.S. army translator.

Others were resentful.

“These soldiers come in here and do what they want,” said Khial Badushah, a farmer in Sardak. “We do not want them here. This is our country.”

An hour earlier, Badushah’s brother was detained by soldiers who found a small weapons cache – mostly heavy-machine-gun ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades – and posters of Saddam Hussein in his house.

In a nearby village the wall-display of a candy advertisement featuring a picture of Osama bin Laden prompted the brief detention and interrogation of two other men.

Last summer soldiers from the 82nd reportedly roughed up people as they searched villages, blowing up wells and using male soldiers to search females, a grievous cultural offense among devout Afghan Muslims.

Officials have claimed such allegations were disinformation, but privately some acknowledge that mistakes were made by soldiers who were too gung-ho when they arrived.

Apparently in response to complaints paratroopers now knock and ask before entering homes and replace locks broken during searches if no contraband is found.

On recent missions nearly all soldiers treated Afghans with respect as they searched for weapons and wanted men.

At one house where a weapons cache was found, a female sergeant frisked women and children to see if they were hiding anything. One woman had an AK-47 rifle under her dress.

“Most of these people, they’re good people just trying to get by,” said Capt. Brain Sullivan, 29, of Dumfries, Va. His company arrived by helicopter around 1 a.m. and moved from house to house, searching each for hours.

“We’ve got be careful not to treat them like enemies,” Sullivan said.