Behind enemy lines

Soldiers guard the perimeter of a village meeting area while their commanders handle bickering and demanding elders. "Other villages are getting wells. Why aren't we?" asks one. "My people are dying of stomach sickness."

Another elder from a village some distance away is becoming angry and demands Warrant Officer Norb Thaler explain: "Why are you talking to him? Why was I not consulted first?"

Thaler rubs his forehead, sighs and makes a couple of critical errors. He promises one elder work will be done and then neglects the other elder to tour the village.

Those who have been to Afghanistan know that you never make promises, just in case the realities of operating in a war-torn land make you a liar. And perceived insults are not easily undone.

This time, the mistakes don't matter. They take place during a role play at a leafy camping ground by Vinegar Hill in Rangitikei, rather than in the rugged Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan, where New Zealand has sent detachments for the past six years.

But in a matter of weeks, reality begins for Thaler and 145 others from the New Zealand Defence Force as the latest group to go for a six-month deployment. Then, the lessons learned in New Zealand will be applied in one of the world's most-dangerous countries.

They will be our latest contribution to the War on Terror. While they carry weapons and wear body armour, their focus is rebuilding Bamyan Province where they are based as a Provincial Reconstruction Team.

Even as they rebuild, preparations are already under way for a very different kind of mission in the south of the country. Members of New Zealand's secretive Special Air Service have already been seen in the southern military base near Kandahar, where they are preparing for the squadron's first official deployment in Afghanistan since 2004.

When they go in, they will not be rebuilding. If anything, it is likely to add another pile of rubble to a country that – in its worst-affected places – resembles a pile of rubble.

It is expected they will be posted to the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan. The dangers they will face are real and constant, even as the Bamyan troops face increasing belligerence in their relatively peaceful zone.

When Prime Minister John Key announced the SAS was to be sent, he also announced that an end was in sight for the Bamyan deployments.

The increasing violence in Afghanistan has brought questions about whether New Zealand really understands the direction this eight-year-old war has taken.

And if we don't understand, what are we going to do when soldiers start coming home in body bags?

The last thing Thaler needs before going to Afghanistan is a journalist quizzing him over errors in a training role play. He bites his tongue and grimaces. "It's not going to be easy."

A Royal New Zealand Air Force avionics engineer, Thaler also knows that six weeks of pre-deployment training will slot into place once he gets feet on Bamyan's dusty ground. It will be a long way from his normal desk-job in Wellington.

It is a testament to NZDF's training that the meeting with the village elders is almost identical to a meeting witnessed by the Herald on Sunday in Afghanistan in August 2006.

While there is training for the worst – violent – situations, it is meetings like this, and the relationships they build, that typify the New Zealand deployment.

Afghanistan's need is enormous and seemingly endless. The heads of shurah — as each village's council is called — have found an oasis of opportunity after 34 years of war and are determined not to have it escape.

Bamyan is one of Afghanistan's poorest, most brutalised areas. The Hazaran people have long been an oppressed minority, and the Taleban took to them with vigour. Tales of bayoneted babies and massive butchery are not uncommon.

Even without the Taleban, it is such an unfriendly land. In summer, temperatures reach 40C and drop to minus-30C in winter. Kiwi Base is at 2800m, with mountain passes rising to 4000m. Bamyan's infrastructure and ability to create wealth has also been destroyed, and even though much has been achieved, life remains cruel. All statistics are grim and as starkly tragic as the fact that one in every five babies will be dead by its first birthday.

The PRT's job is three-fold: maintain security; support the local governor and police; identify and manage aid projects, which are then contracted out to local companies. The essence — keep the peace while guiding Afghanistan to recovery.

In provinces around Bamyan, violent death is a daily occurrence. Roads booby-trapped with home-made Improvised Explosive Devices exact a terrible death toll, and firefights — or "contacts", as the military call them — are frequent.

It should be a comfort to New Zealanders that the IEDs that Kiwis have faced do not carry the "signature" design of Taleban weapons in the south. The commander of this deployment, Colonel Martyn Dransfield, suggests that it would be "reasonable" to accept the dangers faced by troops at Kiwi Base come from ethnic and territorial tensions among competing groups around Bamyan central, rather than Taleban.

About 1300 soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, from 24 countries. This year is already the deadliest yet. New Zealand is among the handful of "coalition" nations to have not suffered a casualty — partly through the canny deal that saw our troops posted to the comparative safety of Bamyan, partly through the skills of our SAS and single-handedly through the heroism of SAS soldier Willie Apiata, who won a Victoria Cross after braving a rain of bullets to save a badly wounded mate.

In six years at Bamyan, the Kiwi troops have been caught by only a handful of IEDs and, officially, been involved in one exchange of gunfire, which lasted about 15 minutes.

In the solitude of the mountains, much has been achieved. There is now three kilometres of asphalted road where there had been none. Rivers which flooded in the spring thaw have been flood-banked, bridges have been built, generators installed at the hospital, schools built, police stations built and officers trained in a separate, NZ Police-supported camp next to Kiwi Base.

The emphasis now shifts to agriculture — allowing the 400,000 people in Bamyan to find a sustainable way of living. The province is believed to be poppy-free, and there are efforts to restore the country's once-thriving farming society, with its remarkable irrigation networks that were destroyed during prolonged warfare. In places, you can watch water run uphill as gravity is manipulated by gradual drops and slight inclines to carry it to whatever crops remain.

The work is not simple. A review of the NZPRT in the Australian Army Journal by academic Bryan Dorn, working for army general staff in Wellington, reported that "local government officials and security services were often reported to be corrupt, incompetent, or both". Corruption is endemic in Afghanistan — learning to roll with it and get the job done is difficult.

Dorn found "the New Zealand soldier possesses an outstanding ability to establish good relations relatively easy". Respect for cultural values, removing sunglasses and body armour, and simple good manners were cited as differences that established a rapport.

In Kabul in 2006, the Herald on Sunday found amazement among other PRT troops at the actions of the Kiwis. The other troops would report their village visits as simply slowing a truck down long enough to kick aid parcels off the back. Meanwhile, the Kiwis stop, drink tea, talk and build relationships.

When such stories are told in New Zealand, they are often dismissed as platitudes. Not so: Dorn quoted one retired American colonel as saying Kiwis had "cracked the code" when it came to building relationships.

New Zealanders would have been equally successful in "a more hostile environment", Dorn says — although to do so would have required more troops, and they would have faced greater casualty risks.

Among those "outstanding" Kiwi troops is Lieutenant Rosie Mercer, an engineer. A member of the Territorial Forces, Mercer has worked in Australia for the past four years, using her holidays each year to return to New Zealand to fulfil her commitment to NZDF.

Mercer expects to face extra difficulties working as a woman in a land where one's sex effectively determines one's class of citizenry.

As an engineer, she says she is used to working in a male-dominated environment. Afghanistan, of course, will be far more complicated.

She has been told that local men — on finding she is an engineer — will view her simply as an "engineer", and effectively genderless. But, nonetheless: "I'm preparing myself to wear a headscarf if I need to."

Her interests are boring, she insists. "Roads and airfields, dirt and concrete. I will not be able to drive along a single road without thinking how I could make it better."

While her tasks will be much more than just roading, it's a motivation that captures the spirit of Bamyan mission. It's the reason Afghan children run out to greet our soldiers, shouting: "Kiwi!"

When the Special Air Service goes to war, the soldiers do not tell family where they are sent, or why. Worried girlfriends and wives scan news reports, look for telltale signs and simply know that somewhere in the world their loved ones are at risk.

They are now in Afghanistan again, seen in Kandahar.

They were there last, off and on, between the end of 2001 and 2004. Those who served as part of Task Force K-Bar, a combined special forces grouping from a number of nations, were awarded the United States Presidential Unit Citation for "extraordinary heroism".

The citation described the SAS as carrying out "extremely high risk missions, including search and rescue, special reconnaissance, sensitive site exploitation, direct action missions, destruction of multiple cave and tunnel complexes, identification and destruction of several known al Qaeda training camps, explosions of thousands of pounds of enemy ordnance".

The missions ranged along the mountainous terrain southwest of Kabul towards Kandahar.

Images from one mission show SAS surveillance footage of a Taleban tank and fighters, and an armed SAS trooper sitting in a heavily wooded area. These images are the first time New Zealand has seen its secretive SAS in action in Afghanistan. Surveillance like this is a critical tool in fighting a war, particularly a guerrilla war of the sort the Taleban and associated combatants are prosecuting against coalition forces.

Private military contractors who have worked out of Kandahar predict the SAS will be sent into the Panjwayi district, where Canadian troops have fought fierce battles over the past three years. It is known as the "birthplace of the Taleban". The area is southwest of Kandahar, made up on long, flat and dry plains before hitting massive mountains that mark the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The NZDF already has a close relationship with the Canadian army, supplying medical staff to work out of the Kandahar military hospital. The SAS has also worked there in the past. It's a difficult area and would be a natural match with previous SAS missions. They go in on foot, by motorbike, desert patrol vehicles and helicopter. Once in an area that needs surveillance, they spend up to three weeks secluded, camouflaged, watching. One private military contractor says the porous Pakistani border needs constant surveillance, as Taleban cross back and forth.

"The role of the SAS is to gather information. They can get into places and stay in areas that others can't, for long periods of time. You don't see them."

Other times they call in air-strikes. If found, they will fight their way out, but this is usually the option of last resort, simply because they can do their enemy greater harm by staying hidden.

The Panjwayi area is filled with combatants. Soldiers at a Canadian base "were getting whacked all the f***ing time". Outside the base is even more dangerous — some areas will not be patrolled because of the risk involved. "You're locked and loaded and expecting trouble."

While there is a strong urge to reduce civilian casualties, soldiers will still often shoot first and check later. The military contractor says there is a saying among those in "the Sandpit", as Afghanistan is known: "Better to be judged by 12 than carried by six", referring to the number on a jury — and the number carrying a coffin.

It has also been suggested that the SAS will be posted to Uruzgan, just to the north of Kandahar. About 70 Dutch special forces have been working there alongside Australian troops, and are due to be withdrawn by 2010.

Afghanistan as a nation is still a basket case. President Hamid Karzai's legitimacy is gone after massive ballot box stuffing won him an election in which he probably didn't need to cheat. As his credibility wanes, corruption and violence increase.

Billions of dollars in aid has been poured into the country, with large chunks siphoned off into Taleban pockets. Western countries are, in effect, funding the murderous campaign against their own soldiers.

The solution is to get all Western troops out of Afghanistan, says Otago University lecturer Dr Najibullah Lafraie, who was Afghanistan's foreign minister from 1992 to 1996, before the Taleban took power.

The term "Taleban" has become a catch-all phrase for anyone who takes up arms against Western occupiers, he says. Afghans bridle against occupation — more so with every civilian death. The Afghan army and police have no true motivation to fight alongside Westerners.

"They see the foreigners around them and they don't see the need to fight the Taleban: 'Why kill my brother for the sake of a foreigner?'"

Lafraie says the United Nations needs to replace Western powers with a contingent of troops from Muslim countries. "I don't think that Nato and Western countries can play a formative role in Afghanistan because they have become part of the problem."

While endorsing the work in Bamyan — and the Kiwis as being a more effective PRT than others — Lafraie says the reintroduction of the SAS only contributes to the growing heat.

"If they were 10 years there and if there were two or three times as many, I don't think they can do much."

It is likely Lafraie, who has lost so many Afghan countrymen, may now face losses from his adopted country, New Zealand. "I hope nothing happens, but the possibility is very high. I hope people put more pressure on the Key Government to change its policy. The risk has risen substantially."