US Takes Afghan Strategy to Villages - Michael Phillips, Wall Street Journal
The deepening US involvement in the Afghan war is forcing villagers to answer a dangerous question: Whose side are you on?
The Afghan government and US military have kicked off an ambitious project to build local opposition to the Taliban, reminiscent of a successful American effort to win over Sunnis in Iraq's once-turbulent Anbar province. For the elders of the village of Zayawalat, a safe haven for insurgents conducting attacks into Kabul, it's time to make the call on whether to join. So far, they have balked...
More at The Wall Street Journal.
In Recruiting an Afghan Militia, US Faces a Test - Dexter Filkins, New York Times
The ambitious American plan to arm local militias in villages across the country was coming down to a single moment.
The American officers sat on one side of a long wooden table; a group of Afghan elders on the other. The pilot program was up and running, but the area's big enclave of Pashtuns -- the ethnic group most closely identified with the Taliban -- had not sent any volunteers. The Pashtuns were worried about Taliban reprisals...
The meeting in Maidan Shahr, Wardak Province's capital, tucked into the mountains about 30 miles southwest of Kabul, concerned one of the most unorthodox projects the Americans have undertaken here since the war began in 2001: to arm, with minimal training, groups of Afghan men to guard their own neighborhoods...
More at The New York Times.