KAPISA PROVINCE, Afghanistan – What would it take to make you stop fighting robbers, murderers and kidnappers in your hometown? Well, for one Afghan Local Police chief in a small village in Afghanistan’s smallest province, even nine bullet wounds and the loss of a leg was not enough to make him quit.
Qand Agha, the 28-year-old chief of the the ALP unit for the Landakhel village in the Kapisa province, continues to defend his village against Taliban domination, even after the loss of is left leg in a combat operation partnered with coalition forces near his village last December.
Agha described, with passion and tears, the fierce battle where he lost his leg.
“We were scouting an area to establish checkpoint when we were attacked by the Taliban,” Agha said. “I lost two guys but made it to the checkpoint location [with coalition forces].”
He described the combat movement and said he climbed into a “stronghold” on the mountain’s lap with coalition forces. Then it happened …
“I heard a blast,” Agha recounted. “After the blast my [left] arm was broken and my leg was about one meter away from my body. When I heard the blast I thought I was dead.”
Agha retold the events in explicit detail, as if they had happened yesterday, describing the condition of other casualties and the complex medical evacuation effort that ensued. As the smoke was clearing, their laid Agha, two of his men, and at least one coalition casualty.
“Some of the soldiers thought we were dead and they left,” said Agha. “But a brave special forces guy put his mouth on my mouth and put on a tourniquet -- And he did not leave me.”
Pressed but not crushed, Agha had not seen his last battle on this infamous day. After 2 and ½ months in a medical facility on Bagram Air Base, the young leader returned to the village where he was born, and continued to lead the fight against Taliban oppression.
Before he became the leader of the Landakhel ALP, Agha was a motorcycle mechanic in a bazaar near his village. He decided to stand against the Taliban after they killed his cousin and after a long and harsh regimen of oppression in his village.
“The Taliban had much influence in [my] village,” Agha remembered from his pre-ALP days. “They were harming kids and families. They were using houses as strongholds, and anyone who would stand against them would be killed … so I decided to participate with government and go against them. This is why I decided to pick up a gun against them.”
The local Taliban didn’t welcome this first ALP unit in the province (at the time called Road Maintenance Team) with open arms. They attacked this new force mercilessly. When traditional attacks failed, the Taliban resorted to kidnapping ALP family members and information warfare, but Agha and his band of Landakhel brothers were not dissuaded from defending their homes and neighbors.
According to sources in the area last year, the local populace has “embraced the concept of a village without insurgents.”
Agha’s men call him “our brother,” they know his voice, and they follow him. They described their team with the Pashto phrase “Sar-Tom-Bah,” which is commonly used to mean stubborn.
“We are using this name because in a fire fight we are afraid of no one, and we are never backing down,” Agha said with pride.
This term may just be appropriate for this police force considering that the Landakhel village is located in the highly contested key terrain district of Tagab in Southern Kapisa. The ALP there continues to repel Taliban attacks and helps to keep the nearby portion of the province’s only north-to-south corridor relatively safe and open for business.
When asked why he continues to fight the Taliban after all he’s been through, Agha replied simply “I have to fight to survive.”
| Date Taken: | 11.04.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 11.05.2011 07:32 |
| Story ID: | 79609 |
| Location: | KAPISA PROVINCE, AF |
| Web Views: | 165 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
This work, Policing Afghanistan: Afghan hero stands tall -- with one leg, by Capt. Jonathan Simmons, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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