Local Afghan officials said they thought the men might have been killed for having voter registration cards, but no cards were found among them. The position of the bodies indicated that the men might have been trying to flee their attackers.
At 6:30 p.m., word flashed over the soldiers' radios that a smaller contingent of 20 U.S. troops left behind at Parlay, the Third Platoon of Alpha Troop, had come under a brief but intense ambush by suspected Taliban attackers firing small arms, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. No U.S. soldiers were reported hurt in the ambush, in which the attackers fired at least five mortar rounds and 15 RPGs.
Members of the Afghan national army, trained by U.S. Special Forces, on patrol earlier this year in the country's south, where Taliban guerrillas remain active.
(Dudley M. Brooks -- The Washington Post)
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The ambush appeared timed to coincide with the departure of the main force of Alpha Troop soldiers Sunday morning, and the tactic of ambushing and retreating was familiar to these soldiers. "That's what they do," said Staff Sgt. Sean Shirey of Culver City, Calif. "They won't come out and fight."
A similar incident occurred when Peterson and his 35-man unit arrived Thursday, along with a truckload of local militiamen. They were acting on tips from residents that as many as 300 armed Taliban members were in the area, intimidating villagers and making voter registration all but impossible.
But when Peterson's convoy of eight armored Humvees arrived, positioning themselves on a plain between the mountains and between two villages, the soldiers found most of the stone huts occupied by women, children and elderly men.
The Americans saw men racing away over the mountains as they arrived. The reconnaissance team and the militia fighters briefly gave chase, and two helicopters circled overhead. But the men disappeared over the rocks. The Americans found only a freshly burned pile of what appeared to be clothes.
The U.S. soldiers could also tell that they were under constant surveillance as they set up a temporary position. "See that guy over there!" shouted Spec. Nick Plummer, 25, of Klamath Falls, Ore., peering through binoculars from the gunner's hatch of Peterson's Humvee. "He appears out of nowhere. Then he disappears into the rocks whenever the aircraft fly overhead."
On Saturday morning, Peterson decided to lead a foot patrol through one of the tiny villages where the Americans had spotted suspicious activity at night. They also had, from local informants, the names of several high-ranking Taliban leaders in the area. But as the 16 soldiers and their Afghan militia allies arrived, racing through the almond groves, about 20 Afghan men could be seen fleeing across the mountains -- again, leaving behind women, children and elderly men sitting among sacks of almonds and dried apricots.
A quick search of one stone building in the compound found sleeping mats that could accommodate as many as 30 people -- far more people than were found there. There was also a rusting metal container, which, when opened, revealed a false bottom leading to a deep shaft, which could have been either a well or an escape tunnel.
The remaining villagers denied that any of the men who fled were with the Taliban. The men ran away, they said, because they feared being arrested. Peterson was unconvinced.
"When I come in and they run, that makes no sense to me," he told the villagers through his interpreter. "Who am I supposed to believe?"
For the troops, it was a familiar story. "We aren't going to find anything here," Schoch said. "We just have to wait for them to hit us."
Added Shirey : "This gets old."
The same unit did run into a Taliban ambush two weeks ago while returning from the same village. It was a classic ambush, with the Humvee convoy caught on low ground and peppered with automatic-weapons fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The U.S. troops returned fire, killing perhaps five attackers, although they did not recover the bodies. They took four prisoners, including a 12-year-old boy who picked up an assault rifle dropped by another fighter and began firing on the troops. The boy was shot in the buttocks and is undergoing treatment at the U.S. base at the Kandahar air field.
