Americans Raid Byways of Haqqani Insurgents in Afghanistan

C. J. CHIVERS

The New York Times

October 2, 2011

CHARBARAN, Afghanistan — The first he­licopter landed in the bluish gray gloom before dawn. More than 20 members of an American re­connais­sance platoon and Afghan troops accompa­nying them jogged out through the swirling dust, moving into a for­est smelling of sage and pine.
Three more he­licopters fol­lowed, and soon roughly 100 troops were on the floor of this high-el­evation valley in Paktika Province, near the bor­der with Pakistan. They were be­ginning their portion of a brigade-size op­eration to disrupt the Haqqani network, the in­surgent group that collab­orates with the Tal­iban and Al Qaeda and that has become a prima­ry focus of American countert­error­ism efforts since               

Osama bin Laden was killed.

The group, based in Pakistan’s northwest­ern fron­ti­er, flows fight­ers into Afghanistan and has or­chestrated a long campaign of guerrilla and terror­ist attacks against the Afghan govern­ment and its American sponsors.
Its close ties to Pakistan’s intelligence ser­vice, and Pakistan’s unwill­ingness to act against the Haqqani headquar­ters in Miram Shah, a city not far from the Afghan bor­der, have drawn con­demnation from Wash­ington and esca­lated ten­sions be­tween two nations that of­ficially have been countert­error­ism partners.
Against this backdrop, the he­licopter as­sault into Charbaran this past week high­lighted both the false starts and the lat­est set of urgent goals guiding the American military in­volve­ment in Afghanistan.
            

The Pentagon plans to have with­drawn most of its forces from the country by 2014. Talk among many offi­cers has shifted sharply from       

discus­sions of estab­lish­ing Afghan democ­racy or a ro­bust govern­ment to a more pragmat­ic and re­alis­tic military am­bi­tion: do­ing what can