Since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, Kunduz province and the region around it had stayed relatively quiet. A German Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) based just outside the eponymous provincial capital coordinated development efforts, building roads and bridges to upgrade infrastructure shattered by the war. The nature of their mission was reflected in rules of engagement: German troops were prohibited from shooting first.
But a surge of roadside bombings and rocket attacks over the past year have taken the lives of several soldiers and shut down projects. Many aid workers have fled. According to one Western diplomat, construction is increasingly going to unsupervised Afghan contractors who are often forced to pay-off militants not to attack them in the districts they now control or contest. More ominously, police in the area say that among the militant ranks are groups of foreign fighters mostly from Uzbekistan seeking to open another front against the coalition and the Kabul government, drawing forces away from fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.
Now permitted to initiate the fight, German forces in July launched their biggest operation since World War II to clear Chahar Dara district, a Pashtun insurgent stronghold west of Kunduz city where hundreds of fighters travel openly in pickup trucks and demand money and food villagers. But, says local resident Abdul Matin, 28, the militants simply filtered back into the area when the Germans returned to base and police are nowhere in sight.
The insurgent efforts accelerated ahead of the Aug. 20 presidential elections, which the Taliban had vowed to disrupt. President Hamid Karzai's running mate, Mohammad Qasim Fahim, was nearly assassinated in late July while traveling through Kunduz province. Rockets were fired into the city of Kunduz on the day of the vote, though no one was killed. Less than a week later, the head of the provincial justice department died in a bomb attack.
U.S. officials have grumbled about the restrictions observed by Germany and other nations who have contributed troops to the Afghan operation, saying they have not done enough of the fighting. One senior U.S. military officer who has commanded forces in Afghanistan notes the Germans "have not had to fight insurgency or even study it, so [I'm] not sure how culturally ingrained the concept of protecting civilians is to them." With thousands more American troops expected to be deployed once McChrysal makes a formal request to President Obama, the officer indicated that military planners at the Pentagon are "definitely" looking to send reinforcements to help shore up the north.