AfPak realities

A post a Bouhammer's Afghan Blog (American milblog):

But, They Are Our Allies

Posted By The Dude on May 7, 2009

I confirmed our position on the map by cross checking the GPS coordinates, with my map and the local terrain. My small dismounted patrol of 10 Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers and fellow American Embedded Tactical Trainer (ETT) [more on American ETTs here, here and here] were walking along the Afghan-Pakistan border, greeting locals and just trying to be neighborly - while at the same time gleaming them for information about recent enemy movement along the border of Paktika Province.

While on the way to the first locals compound we spotted a Pakistan Military (PAKMIL) soldier leading a supply donkey towards a PAKMIL observation post that we estimated to be approximately 800 meters from our position. My patrol hollered hello and waved to this PAKMIL soldier and in returned he just stopped and stared at us, then continued along his way. Not thinking much about this cross-border snub, we turned and started a conversation with the compound’s owner and his family. Although the owner and his younger sons were appearing to be pleasant enough to chat with us, they didn’t offer any chai (nor any information on bad guys as according to them “We’ve never heard of the Taliban or Al Qaeda in our area.”).

The SOP that I developed when trying to do a quick analysis on the friendliness of a family / village was the quicker you were offered to sit down and drink chai with them, the friendlier (typically) they are towards US and Coalition Forces. If the conversation went over 5 minutes and still weren’t offered chai, they are closely connected to the bad guys one way or another. My ANA and interpreter (Terp) decided they were finished with this family and wanted to move to the next compound which was approximately 100 meters away from our current location in the direction of the Pakistan border. Remembering our position on the map I knew we had at least 300 meters to the border (which of course isn’t clearly marked out on the ground). As we approached this compound, its occupants came outside to meet us with smiles and handshakes.

All of a sudden we had the unmistakable sound of bullets snapping over our heads and kicking up the ground from which we just walked over. Running for cover I told my Terp to tell the family to go back inside and for everyone else to get to the back of this compound. After doing a quick head count and making sure everyone was OK, my Terp turns to me and says “The PAKMIL are shooting at us...

Read on.