ABA Journal - Law News Now

There are a lot of beautiful spots in Afghanistan, but Nuristan beats them all. We took a helo ride from Kabul to this far Eastern mountainous province where Osama Bin Laden is rumored to be hiding.

The PRT is on the western tip of the Province. As you fly over the plains of Laghman province you suddenly become aware of a wall of mountains in front of you. "What the heck are we flying into?" I wondered.

Just before we are about to hit mountains towering over 16,000 feet (they get up to 20,000 deeper into the province), the helo drops down on a little knob in the valley -- called Kala Gush, the place where heads are kept.

Nuristan has a colorful history and was formerly known as Kefiristan where Rudyard Kipling's "The Man Who Would Be King" is set. Kefir means infidel in Persian and Dari. The place remained independent and non-Islamic until only the late 19th Century. When the Afghans tried to conquer it and convert the people to Islam the Nuristani chopped their heads off and placed them near where the PRT is now as a warning. Eventually they were conquered and forcibly converted. But they still retain a strong independence streak and speak a different language than the rest of Afghanistan.

We landed in fairly bad weather -- dark threatening clouds. After spending the day briefing each other though, it cleared for some rather glorious views.

The PRT is commanded by another Navy Submariner, CDR George Perez, who has just come from being XO on a Boomer sub. The PRT though is new in country so this visit was good for them as well as us.

Their biggest problem is of course the tremendous mountainous areas that make travel and building roads incredibly difficult - if not downright impossible. As far as I know, they are the only PRT that has to do Air Assaults to get around the province. So many places are just not accessible by anything other than foot traffic and in the winter are completely isolated. It is probably the least developed province in Afghanistan for that reason.

There's no effectively functioning government for that reason either.

The capital is nothing but a small compound isolated from the rest of the province. The PRT hopes to build a road to it soon. But there is still a lot of optimism. The insurgency can't operate here either and the governor has a lot of popular support -- he is also an Afghan-American having spent many years in Northern Virginia. I was fortunate to meet him on my trip.

The next day we got up early for the mission to check out a microhydro power plant in a village not too far away. We had travel down into the valley to cross the main river of the province. But it was already starting to rain. There are no such things as guard rails and a single lane unpaved muddy road is not what I call a safe trip -- especially when there's a drop of a hundred feet right off your door.

But we managed to traverse down and back up the other side without incident. Still we sped along for several miles with steep drop-offs right out the door. We stopped after a few miles to check on the road construction project that is extending farther into the valley to several other villages. We could see figures up on the mountains watching us, but fortunately they were construction workers and not Taliban.

We then turned back to a village we had passed earlier and got out of the humvees to check the water projects and the micro-hydro plant. We had just gotten started when it really started to rain. It ruined some of my pictures. We climbed down the steep hill, taking care not to stumble as it was pretty steep. We got down ok without too much falling.

We met the workers and some village children who came over to inspect us. We tried to press on to the other side of the large stream but there was too much water to safely ford. We slipped and fell many times on the muddy land and I was thoroughly dirty. As we went through the muddy terraces, I wondered if this was like my father's trips in Vietnam, cold and raining and trodding through fields. At least I felt a lot safer and there was no jungle.

After I got back I found I had dirt all in my rifle. Good thing I didn't need it.

The next day the weather was much better. We were able to attend a Shura or meeting of elders, but unfortunately had to leave early when our helo came for us. Actually maybe we were lucky as lunch usually consists of goat parts and rice. You remember: Parts is parts. One person told me of pulling out the goat testicles in his portion and another of being handed the jaw -- complete with teeth still in it.

Yum, yum.

We left in much better weather than we came, flying past alpine vistas of incredible beauty. The view opened up and I could see across into Nangarhar province and in the far distance of the Tora Bora mountains.

Maybe that's where Osama Bin Laden is hiding.

Sterling

All photos courtesy of Sterling DeRamus.