Rare Afghan Haven at Risk as U.S. Departs

Share

Wall Street Journal, 31 October 2013

In this article we learn about district control in southern Afghanistan: Hutal, the district centre of Maiwand district (Kandahar province), is a "bubble" of government control, the only one in the district: "There is a health clinic and a functioning district administration. Women and children roam its streets freely, and girls last month enrolled in school for the first time. … And hundreds of black-red-and-green Afghan national flags fly above Hutal's clustered mud-brick buildings, with the Taliban insurgency's white banner nowhere in sight. But 'we can't go more than two kilometers outside the district center in Hutal because the roads are full of land mines', says a tribal elder. … And many residents fear that once the few foreign forces left in Hutal depart, the town, like the area around it, risks falling to the Taliban. They don't want the U.S. troops to leave. According to a U.S. Army civil-affairs captain, some said they wanted to start a petition to stop the departure of the U.S. forces."