SENJARAY, Afghanistan - People in Kandahar's Zhari district, where eight Canadian soldiers have lost their lives in the past year, are at the mercy of bloody-minded insurgents, the district's leader said this week.
In a blunt assessment, Niaz Mohammad Sarhadi noted the strategic importance of the district to both the Taliban and the international coalition, but said it's the Taliban who are firmly in control.
"Right now, people are detained by the insurgents in their villages, they are under their threat, and they are controlled by them," Sarhadi said.
"The people don't trust (the International Security Assistance Force), don't trust the government, and don't trust anyone."
Zhari, just north of the Arghandab river and to the west of Kandahar city, has long been a hotbed of Taliban activity.
Many in the Taliban leadership who took over the national government in 1994 came from the area. It's a crucial insurgent gateway into Kandahar city, the second-largest city in the country.
Highway 1 runs through the rural, poppy- and grape-growing district -- a key roadway for both coalition and commercial convoys.
"The district is of vital strategic interest to both the Afghan government and the insurgents, who see it as an income centre," Sarhadi told a shura, or community meeting, attended by Canadian Brig.-Gen. Daniel Menard.
"The enemy is attacking those convoys in order to get something from those convoys."
In the fall of 2006, about six months after a determined insurgent push into the area, the district saw one of the fiercest battles between western forces and insurgents since the Taliban regime was ousted in 2001.
Since then, however, the situation has only deteriorated in favour of the insurgents, Sahardi told Menard.
"For the past three years, (coalition soldiers) go to one village, go to the other village, to no avail and with no results, and the insurgents are coming back," he said.
"If you come in the daytime into a village, and a villager just talks to you, that is a threat to his life, because you are leaving in the night. When you go, the insurgents are coming and killing that person or taking him away."
The leader said it was frustrating to see what happens to insurgents that villagers had captured and turned over to international troops, who routinely hand them over to Afghan authorities. The prisoners are often able to bribe or otherwise make their way back to freedom within days.
In stark contrast to the political storm raging in Ottawa over the abuse of detainees handed over to Afghan authorities, Sahardi said villagers have little time for due process when it comes to insurgents.
"I'm not scared of the human-rights commissions or the people who are crying about human rights," he declared.
"If I catch an insurgent, I will kill him myself. I will not send him to Kandahar city. I will do the job myself."
Sahardi pleaded for the Canadian and international coalition to take advantage of the winter season, when the insurgency tends to become less active in part because foliage cover disappears.
"We can do a lot right now," he said.
"If we don't, I'm sure the insurgents will return in the spring and summer."
Menard said he wanted to hear the concerns of local citizens and work with them to deal with the issues.
While not endorsing Sahardi's view of how captured insurgents should be treated, Menard addressed other ideas raised at the meeting. "A lot of what you're saying is not only what I think is right, but it's what I believe in and it's what's going to happen," he said.
In an interview after the shura, Menard said he didn't necessarily buy Sahardi's bleak take on Zhari, but said he understood the frustrations.
"Zhari," he said, "is certainly not a simple district."
