25 Tons of Bombs Wipe Afghan Town Off Map
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By Spencer Ackerman
- January 19, 2011 |
- 3:45 pm |
- Categories: Af/Pak
An American-led military unit pulverized an Afghan village in
Kandahar’s Arghandab River Valley in October, after it became overrun
with Taliban insurgents. It’s hard to understand how turning an entire
village into dust fits into America’s counterinsurgency strategy — which
supposedly prizes the local people’s loyalty above all else.
But it’s the latest indication that Gen. David Petraeus, the counterinsurgency icon, is prosecuting a frustrating war with surprising levels of violence. Some observers already fear a backlash brewing in the area.
Paula Broadwell, a West Point graduate and Petraeus biographer, described the destruction of Tarok Kolache in a guest post for Tom Ricks’ Foreign Policy blog. Or, at least, she described its aftermath: Nothing remains of Tarok Kolache after Lt. Col. David Flynn, commander of Combined Joint Task Force 1-320th, made a fateful decision in October.
His men had come under relentless assault from homemade bombs emanating from the village, where a Taliban “intimidation campaign [chased] the villagers out” to create a staging ground for attacking the task force. With multiple U.S. amputations the result of the Taliban hold over Tarok Kolache, Flynn’s men were “terrified to go back into the pomegranate orchards to continue clearing [the area]; it seemed like certain death.”
After two failed attempts at clearing the village resulted in U.S and Afghan casualties, Flynn’s response was to take the village out. He ordered a mine-clearing line charge, using rocket-propelled explosives to create a path into the center of Tarok Kolache.
And that was for starters, Broadwell writes. Airstrikes from A-10s and B-1s combined with powerful ground-launched rockets on Oct. 6 to batter the village with “49,200 lbs. of ordnance” — which she writes, resulted in “NO CIVCAS,” meaning no civilians dead.
It seems difficult to understand how Broadwell or the 1-320th can be so confident they didn’t accidentally kill civilians after subjecting Tarok Kolache to nearly 25 tons worth of bombs and rockets. The rockets alone have a blast radius of about 50 meters [164 feet], so the potential for hitting bystanders is high with every strike.
As she clarified in a debate on her Facebook wall, “In the commander’s assessment, the deserted village was not worth clearing. If you lost several KIA and you might feel the same.” But without entering Tarok Kolache to clear it, how could U.S. or Afghan forces know it was completely devoid of civilians?
As Broadwell tells it, the villagers understood that the United States needed to destroy their homes — except when they don’t. One villager “in a fit of theatrics had accused Flynn of ruining his life after the demolition.”
An adviser to Hamid Karzai said that the 1-320th “caused unreasonable damage to homes and orchards and displaced a number of people.” Flynn has held “reconstruction shuras” with the villagers and begun compensating villagers for their property losses, but so far the reconstruction has barely begun, three months after the destruction.
“Sure they are pissed about the loss of their mud huts,” Broadwell wrote on Facebook, “but that is why the BUILD story is important here.”
Broadwell writes that the operation is ultimately a success, quoting Flynn as saying “As of today, more of the local population talks to us and the government than talk to the Taliban.” That appears to be good enough for higher command. Petraeus, having visited the village and allowing Flynn to personally approve reconstruction projects worth up to $1 million, told his commanders in the south to “take a similar approach to what 1-320th was doing on a grander scale as it applies to the districts north of Arghandab.”
We’ve reached out to Petraeus’ staff to get a fuller sense of what the commander of the war actually thinks about the destruction of Tarok Kolache, and will have a forthcoming post on precisely that. But Petraeus has waged a far more violent, intense fight than many expected.
Air strikes, curtailed under Gen. Stanley McChrystal, are at their highest levels since the invasion. Tanks have moved into Helmand Province, rockets batter Taliban positions in Kandahar, and throughout the east and the south Special Operations Forces conduct intense raiding operations. Petraeus rebuked Karzai when the Afghan leader urged an end to the raids.
According to Erica Gaston, an Afghanistan-based researcher with the Open Society Institute, the level of property destruction at Tarok Kolache is “extreme” compared to other operations, so it doesn’t appear as if wiping out villages is standard procedure. The area is a “virtual no-go by civilian means because of the security concerns,” limiting the ability of analysts, including Gaston, to independently assess what happened.
But from what she hears, destroying Tarok Kolache — in order, apparently, to rebuild it — has meant jeopardizing whatever buy-in local Afghans gave U.S. troops for fighting the Taliban in the Arghandab, which has been the scene of fierce fighting for months.
And that’s precisely because it’s not standard procedure for U.S.-led troops to destroy whole villages. “But for this, I think [NATO] would have started to get some credit for improved conduct,” Gaston e-mails. “Some Kandahar elders (and I stress ’some,’ not ‘all’ or even ‘most’) who had initially opposed the Kandahar operations — due largely to fears that it would become another Marjah — were in the last few months expressing more appreciation for ISAF conduct during these operations, saying they had driven out the Taliban and shown restraint in not harming civilians.”
Perhaps that popular goodwill would have dried up anyway, Gaston continues, but “I think this property destruction has likely reset the clock on any nascent positive impressions.”
It’s also not like the coalition has an overflow of goodwill in the Arghandab. Last year, Army researchers warned that the locals there trust the Taliban more than Karzai.
And it’s where the infamous rogue “Kill Team” from the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division allegedly murdered at least three Afghans in late 2009 and early 2010. The commander of the 5th Strykers, unaware of what the “Kill Team” was doing, was none too keen on the restraint urged on him by McChrystal.
For reasons like that, Josh Foust writes, not every Afghan automatically believes the U.S. military has benign intentions.
And it’s worth remembering why counterinsurgency even took hold in Afghanistan among military theorists in the first place. Although counterinsurgency has always been a violent affair, the theory holds that popular sentiment will ultimately determine who wins in a guerrilla war, something that many in uniform thought was vindicated by the Iraq surge — which imposes restrictions on how to use force.
Popular Afghan dissatisfaction was the reason that McChrystal and his predecessor, Gen. David McKiernan, rolled back the air strikes. McChrystal’s men ultimately thought his restraint went too far. But if Tarok Kolache is to become a new model for the military in Afghanistan, then it’s quite an irony for Petraeus, the military’s chief counterinsurgency theorist-practitioner, to swing the pendulum in the direction of decimating whole villages.
Photo: Paula Broadwell, via Tom Ricks’ blog
See Also:
- Army Researchers: Why the Kandahar Offensive Could Backfire …
- Afghan Ultraviolence: Petraeus Triples Air War
- Bombs Away: Afghan Air War Peaks With 1,000 Strikes in October
- Drones Surge, Special Ops Strike in Petraeus Campaign Plan
- Did a New Rocket Help Rout the Taliban? Depends What You Mean by ‘New’ and ‘Rout’
- New U.S. Plan in Afghanistan: ‘Awe and Shock’
Well i do not see anything wrong with this since it appear that our troops did not kill any civilians; and is actually effectively removing a threat that is slowly killing our troops. Also on another note at least we actually going to try to rebuild the village; rather then salt the land to make sure nothing grows there for the next hundred years like how the Romans use to take out a village.
@orangeMonkey11
You clearly lack reading comprehension, as well as any semblance of effective reasoning. This was a good article with a reasonable viewpoint, whereas you offer up nothing but nincompoopery.
What may be reported by our media and what is felt by any surviving locals are a world apart. No surprise there I’m sure.
Obliteration of any Taliban presence in that village, yes, mission accomplished.
Any surviving locals in the vicinity feeling warm & fuzzy thoughts towards the people who flattenend their former homes ? Not so much.
We need to get out of the various sandy places we have our military forces. Yes, the local situation will degenerate into a generation of hideously bloody tribal violence. And we care why ?
Well orangeMonkey11, I don’t see anything wrong with the DEA obliterating your home and neighborhood because there are drug dealers in the area and they are only “removing a threat” that is killing our kids and because they are afraid to get hurt.
I’m sure you won’t mind because they will rebuild your house and all will be well.
Okay by me.
“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it”
- Unnamed US Officer talking about capital city Bến Tre, Vietnam Feb 7, 1968
“It Takes A Village to Raise a Child” and a FOKing idiot to destroy it, spending million of taxpayer dollars on mud huts. “Some observers already fear a backlash brewing in the area.” WHY, Why?
Cant we just go back to imperialism and conquest where wars make profit and encourage the winning nations growth? oh wait, we would actually have to go somewhere besides one of the poorest countries in the world for that to work.
Spencer draws many wrong conclusions here. He quotes from Paula Broadwell who places the attack within context and Spencer ignores these conclusions and instead ignores the fact that there were no villagers present within the Taliban controlled area, as they had been chased out, and instead brings up the kill radius of tools used. The Afghan population is smart and this is a struggle for their hearts and minds and we need them on our side in order to win, but destroying a clear taliban stronghold is a win win situation. The townspeople were not welcome into their own town while the taliban was there and now that it is being rebuilt with American dollars they will hopefully see the good will that the forces on the ground are trying to create.
@xodus52 The article had an obscure inaccurate viewpoint and orangemonkey offered more thought than your parroting could ever hope to reach.
@Dave The world is becoming a global place and we no longer can afford to repeat the policies of isolationism. We must remain active on the global stage, at what level I am not sure but we cannot withdraw into our own and expect the world to remain a place we know.
@MAQuinonez
Wow,that is an awful anology. Keep it up guys, hooah!
This was a walled compound that was home to a small community of farmers who had been driven out quite awhile ago, not a village. There was never any actual assault on the compound. Causalities were taken when operating near the compound, and any plan to actually assault the compound would have led to significant destruction anyhow. Even before a breach (which would have taken place on the west most side on the compound in relation to the photo and led to almost total destruction of the living areas) there would have been significant softening of the target because civilians were not present, and had long since resettled elsewhere.
Petraeus has chosen to take the fight to the enemy during the winter, non-fighting season, in an effort to blunt their ability to rest, reinforce, and re-equip. Because of the weather and terrain, the majority of actions will be dropping ordnance. But the HVT task forces will still be operating.
This is an enemy that has historically felt much too secure during this time, just as they did during the initial invasion stages. We missed significant opportunities at that time to catch or kill the very top leadership who were simply sitting on their hands, in the open. The same occurs during the winter months when these guys typically come out of their rat holes for personal reasons, and to conduct business. With the installation of secret SIGINT bases in the high mountains on the border with Pakistan (and very likely within Pakistan too), the goal is to pick them off this time around. Or at very least, hurt their ability to gain any significant momentum when the fighting season returns.
And from personal experience, the reality on the ground with your average Afghan is not the reality being sold to the civilian back home. COIN has become a household word, and everyone wants to be the smartest person in the room. What we actually hear, is that they want the Taliban dead. They dont understand letting the enemy escape due to RoE, when all that accomplishes is more engagements with the enemy. The farmer who lives with the Taliban roaming his land only to take shots at us multiple times a week, and thus destroying his ability to farm effectively–just wants the enemy dead.
This is just bad journalism, but welcome to the current state of journalism…
@Dave_Sattar
Agree wholeheartedly that we need to get out of sandy places (in fact, all places). However, if we ARE there, and take out a village, phooey on the poor downtrodden locals. You allow bums in your neighborhood, we take out the bums (and your neighborhood) too bad. Rebuild it? Not!
From the article: “destroying Tarok Kolache — in order, apparently, to rebuild it — has meant jeopardizing whatever buy-in local Afghans gave U.S. troops for fighting the Taliban in the Arghandab”
What local buy-in? We leave, Taliban takes over. Taliban takes over Paki- stan. Taliban has nukes. Indians very upset. Lots of glassy places. No more Pakistan.
So why, indeed, are we there?
Anyone who thinks that we are going to win hearts and minds (or this war) with tactics like this has absolutely no ability to imagine what it is like to be on the receiving end of this barbarity. Every action like this undoes months of effort in achieving the trust of the locals.
@ryan378, and @v99.
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I stand and applaud you soldiers. You both have more sense and insight then 10 reporters.
Just a small observation…
Three years ago this article would have been faulting the Commander-in-chief overseeing the war, not a General or Lt. Col.
That said – my heart goes out to the citizens who are displaced and down trodden by Taliban militants.
Right, no civilians were killed. This is insane. And destroy the village in order to rebuild it — insane.
They didn’t have to clear it — they didn’t have to do anything but surround it and seal it off.
And if and when they rebuild it the Taliban won’t come back? INSANE!!!!
We are there to help the Afghanis, because inside every towelhead there is an American trying to get out. How about getting with the program? Why don’t you jump on the team and come on in for the big win?
If the civilians run off and leave their town abandoned and at the will of the enemy, who gives a s_ about their homes? It war. You should know damn well that if the battle comes into your home territory the likelihood that your property will receive damage if not all out destruction is VERY high.
No home is worth the life of a soldier. Civilians are gonna be mad, but at the end of the day they’ll get over it and be glad they can at least return to their town and rebuild. People think war is always surgically precise. If they cared so much they should have attempted to keep the Taliban out, whether with force, or with intelligence that NATO could have used to target just the Taliban.
@8×10: Agreed. Thanks for your insight ryan378 and nv99.
For those of you that doubt the effectiveness of this kind of warfare, remember it kinda won WW2. Perhaps civilians in this region would support the insurgents less if it meant there was a good possibility all of their property would be wiped out in a counter-attack. This is a war of staying power. The surge worked in Iraq, not because of popular opinion, but because of the resolve the US showed. Things got tough there, we escalated the fight and showed no end to our resolve… that’s what kept more people from joining the insurgency, not being nice to the locals. How is being nice to the locals and limiting our options, effective in fighting foreign fighters? You beat the bad guys by killing them, not by reasoning with them, only to let them go back to their previous behavior as soon as we leave the area.
I appreciate the posts from the few folks with (apparently) first-hand experience in the region; and, thanks for your service, too, of course. I still am unclear on the strategy. The area depicted as agricultural with, apparently, pomegranite and other crops being cultivated. So, now we’ve destroyed the village that tends to the crops. If we don’t rebuild, will the fields go fallow (wasting the years of labor and capitol invested)? If we rebuild in time to keep that from happening, what prevents the Taliban from returning and taking over, just as they, apparently, did before?
Well we also bombed Laos for nine years night and day 24 hrs a day — good ol US A
@macrumpton
This is the first and only case that I’ve ever heard of our military wiping an entire “village” (which consists of a few houses), but obviously we wouldn’t have done it if there were civilians in harms way. We killed the enemy without and civilian deaths, we’ll rebuild the village, and bring economic help to their area just like we do everywhere else. So yes, we will continue to win their hearts and minds like we’ve been doing, but you don’t realize the other things that go into helping the people of Afghanistan. Those who comment negatively on articles like these and are ignorant to the facts or all aspects surrounding the issue at hand make me cringe. All one can do is facepalm at comments like macrumpton’s.
Some of the comments here are genius (aren’t they always!)
You, the US rucked up in Afghanistan (along with us, the British, granted) & started shooting people. You can’t just turn around and go “bored now, let’s go home”.
You appear to want it both ways – to influence world opinion & yet not be involved in the world. Pick one. Either stick to your corner of the world and leave us alone, or man up & deal with consquences.
It’s chilling how people can be so callous to say things like, “…they’ll get over it…”
American’s are the World’s murders and thugs. The only remaining thing the US ‘Empire’ has going for it is its military. It is certainly not its enlightened leadership or morality. The US will trigger WW3.
wow Spencer loves to inflate the damage, Calling that compound of mud huts a TOWN. Even the original only dared to upsize it to a “village”.
/And I suspect not even a single Plate Glass Window around for Spencer to do his favorite activity with.
While I understand how many of you are ‘outraged’ or upset, I think you’re missing something obvious. This is the Army we’re talking about here, not the Peace Corps. Their job is destroy the enemy, and/or his will to fight. That’s their only mission – that’s why they’re called an ARMY. If the Army can destroy their will to fight by winning their hearts and minds, great. But if they can’t… flattening a town overrun with insurgents is also an effective military strategy. In this case, the people in that town were displaced by insurgents, or at the very least the civilians in that town were either sympathetic to or under the thumb of insurgents. Those insurgents (or enemy soldiers as they should be called) were effectively demoralizing American soldiers by maiming them with improvised bombs – that they were making in that town. The insurgents were, in effect, winning – and if the people in that town weren’t helping them, they certainly weren’t helping us. At best, they were getting in the way. The military response was, is, and always will be to destroy them all. That means kill them. All of them. Even those civilians that were (rightfully) too afraid to stand up for themselves, sympathetic to our enemy, or unwilling to get out of the way. That sucks… I’m not arguing that point. But really, what did you expect? That town isn’t half the threat to American troops that it used to be (if it’s a threat at all). Flattening that town saved American soldiers, improved our soldiers’ moral (making our soldiers more willing to fight), demoralized the enemy and made civilians far less likely to be sympathetic to their cause (as it’s now clear that they’re risking their entire town by helping the enemy of the occupying army). We are basically forcing the locals to pick a side. And that is, in fact, THE POINT. We need them to be with us, or we need to kill them. That is what Armies do in war.
I’m sorry you don’t like it, but this isn’t a neighborhood overrun with drugs, it’s a war zone. If you don’t like that it’s a war zone of America’s making, bitch to your representatives, who are representing you, apparently with the full support of the American public. You can try to get elected if you think that’s not true (but let’s be honest, most Americans don’t seem all that concerned about it). But if you don’t like how the military is waging war… you’re free to join up and take over just as soon as you can prove that your methods would be more effective at neutralizing a deadly threat to our forces in country.
Anything else is just sound and fury signifying nothing… (in all it’s meanings).
Spencer cares not for the men and women of the 1-320th, only his upcoming terror-free wedding. Congratulations!
Why are we fighting the Taliban? They didn’t do 9/11. Once Al-qaeda was out of Afghanistan, we had no further reason to be there. Granted, they are a nasty bunch, but we have no business fighting with them if they no longer are harboring bin Laden. The Afghanis and Pakistanis need to decide whether they want to put up with Taliban BS. Time to exit, stage right.
The author’s attempt to divide the population into civilians and militants muddles the discussion and makes the ethics seem gray, when they are really very black and white.
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If the “civilians” trust the Taliban more than the Allied Force, then they are enemies, and it is strategically and ethically logical to kill them. If they trust the US more, then they will do what they can to help us destory the Taliban. The first step is to take action which will force the resident “civilians” to show their cards – make them reveal whether they support the Allied Forces or the Taliban. Once you’ve forced the “civilians” to commit, then you’ll know whether levelling a village is justified.
What a waste of money, could have moved some bulldozers in and achieved the same results. Using bombs to move dirt around seems like a huge waste of military resources.
Unless you can prove civilians died, I will take the word of the commander that the Taliban drove them out well before it was leveled. It’s idiotic to criticize this over mindless speculation.
Just one of my pet peeves, I would take issue with the use of the term “decimate.” Even if you take the modern use of “decimate” to mean “to severely weaken,” it doesn’t fit this context. The term is almost never used in its real, original meaning, to destroy 1/10th of something (it had other connotations as well). In this case, the village was annihilated, vaporized, obliterated, and crushed, to name a few better choices (in my opinion).
@voodoowhammy
For those of you that doubt the effectiveness of this kind of warfare, remember it kinda won WW2.
And lost the Vietnam war.
Hard decision for the commander.
The lives and limbs of his brave hard-fighting soldiers.
or a clump of Afghan mud huts.
@Nexus:
Too bad you’re not a woman living in Taliban controlled areas. Then you would know the meaning of murderer and thug.
The only problem I see is they only did it to one village.
War… is war. Perhaps if we start removing more Taliban villages form the map, the world will become a BETTER place. After all, it’s not like we flew a 747 full of jet fuel and Taliban prisoners into their mud huts.
Remember 9/11. Seems like some people commenting, have forgotten already.
We’ve seen this before. A lot of talk of coin and winning over the population but in the end it’s free fire zones and destroying villages to save them.
I say we take off and nuke the whole site from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.
orangeMonkey, it is common knowledge that the first casualty of war is the truth. I would take any official statements from the battle field with a big grain of salt. I want to believe there were no civilians, but experience makes it difficult. I really want to believe.
Reminds me of having to destroy the village to save the village. That conflict didn’t end well either.
What an excruciatingly stupid and ignorant article. It just reeks of amateur political punditry, just filled to the brim with illogical nonsense, completely tainted by the predetermined conclusion that Mr Ackerman wanted to corral readers to.
1) That’s not a “town” that was one large complex.
2) There were no civilians killed. It doesn’t matter how powerful the weapons used were, if there were no civilians present then who cares how powerful the weapons were? What does the power of the weapons used have to do with that. “OMG they didn’t kill civilians, but they used big bombs! SO they must have!”.
The point was to destroy a Taliban stronghold, so that’s what they did.
3) We’re in a war. There are larger political objectives in the counter-insurgency, which include reducing risk to civilians and their property, but that doesn’t mean that our military is going to refrain from, you know, using force to destroy the enemy which is the definition of war. Tactical vs strategic outcomes are weighed against each other. What did you really expect? US and Afghan troops were suffering casualties, they needed to destroy the Taliban in the complex. What do you think they should have done? Use their magical unicorn deathray that only kills bad guys but causes no damage to buildings? Get a grip on reality.
Seriously, this article is so amazingly stupid and disingenuous. Utter trash. It does not belong on Wired let alone any legitimate publication of any kind. Maybe Mr. Ackerman should get a job at Al Jazeera.
If a gang of criminals stormed into your neighborhood armed to the teeth and started building bombs, would you stick around to see what happens? If this “village” which seriously isn’t large enough to register as more than a compound, were your neighborhood and you stayed, you’re either working with the criminals or are REALLY stupid to hang around. I think the military made solid efforts to conventionally recapture the “village” and then decided (wisely,) that a scorched earth policy was the most realistic option. This is a country at war, not Napa Valley. I applaud their decision to show the enemy that forced occupation of “villages” is going to result in certain death.
grog18b, 15 of the 19 of the 911 terrorist were Saudi, not Afghans. The royal family of Saudi Arabia is funding the Taliban and al Qaeda.* This one of the big reasons those pesky environmentalist want the US to ween itself off fossil fuels. The less we need Mideast oil, the less power they have over us, and the less money they have to fund terrorist. This is something we can do to take part in our own security. Each of us may only be able to contribute a little, but do it millions of times over it can make a difference.
al Qaeda has long since left Afghanistan. They have decentralized, gone global. It is Yemen, not Afghanistan where al Qaeda is operating.
@WiredPaul
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“If we rebuild in time to keep that from happening, what prevents the Taliban from returning and taking over, just as they, apparently, did before?”
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Because the people who were there before have been killed. I don’t buy the argument that killing the enemy just creates more enemies ad infinitum. Such a situation can only endure for a limited time. Eventually, the only people remaining will be the ones who don’t wish for the total annihilation of the United States and Israel. The only way to put an end to the flow of enemies is to cut off at the source the roots of the endemic culture which has as its defining characteristic a violent hatred of all things Western and non-Islamic.
@jarra
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“Three years ago this article would have been faulting the Commander-in-chief overseeing the war, not a General or Lt. Col.”
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Truer words have never been spoken.
“Just one of my pet peeves, I would take issue with the use of the term “decimate.” Even if you take the modern use of “decimate” to mean “to severely weaken,” it doesn’t fit this context. The term is almost never used in its real, original meaning, to destroy 1/10th of something (it had other connotations as well). In this case, the village was annihilated, vaporized, obliterated, and crushed, to name a few better choices (in my opinion).”
This…is exactly what I was thinking.Another reader commented that we should have just “Sealed them off”.That reader has obviously never spent the night “Outside the Wire ” in hostile territory defending both an inner and outer perimeter.We do not have the Manpower to lay “Siege” to every pocket of resistance we encounter.As far as Nation Building is concerned,with the corruption in the present Karzai Regime,he will loot the country and flee to his retirement Villa as soon as we are gone.No doubt transported by the US Military at Taxpayers Expense.
I’ve been saying for years we should turn Afghanistan into a parking lot. Finally someone got the message…one village at a time baby!
Really, this housing complex look like a “Town” to you? Calling it a “Town” is a bit over kill.
@bruno: “I don’t buy the argument that killing the enemy just creates more enemies ad infinitum. Such a situation can only endure for a limited time.”
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Why would you buy the argument? You’re not the type to let the facts get in the way of your beliefs.
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Let’s start with the obvious — the Russians killed a *lot* more Afghans than we ever will, more than a million. Didn’t stop the Afghans. They’ve never stopped. They’ve kicked *everybody’s* ass.
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As if that weren’t enough, yes, they’ve actually done studies which show, that yes, in fact, using airpower creates more insurgents than it kills. You can find one such study in the DR archives.
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Those would be facts.
“If a gang of criminals stormed into your neighborhood armed to the teeth and started building bombs, would you stick around to see what happens?”
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Who would be the “criminals”, exactly? The Taliban? They’re no worse than the Afghan police, army, or government. They *all* abuse the Afghan people. So why would they see the Taliban as worse? In fact, as consistently shown in polling and studies, the Afghan people trust the Afghan government *less* than the Taliban — they see it, in short, as more “criminal” than the Taliban.
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Secondly, where exactly are the local people supposed to go? You’re expecting them to pack up their families and leave their homes behind to go someplace else where no one knows them, no one will help them, and no one will feed them? There’s no social safety net in Afghanistan. The closest thing is provided either by NGOs or, perversely enough, the Taliban.
How does anyone know for sure no civilians died? This is not a good way to make friends