I'm flying into Kandahar, the single biggest coalition base in southern Afghanistan from where Australian SAS and troops from the US, Canada and NATO are in the middle of fighting the strongest Taliban offensive since 2001.
Next month, NATO will be assuming command of operations here and it will be this man, Britain's Lieutenant-General David Richards, in charge.
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL DAVID RICHARDS, NATO COMMANDER, AFGHANISTAN: There's no doubt that the Taliban are in greater strength, and a little bit more organised, than hitherto but we're on the case.
Whilst the streets of Kandahar are bustling with activity, foreigners here travel in armoured vehicles as suicide attacks, bombings and shootings inside the city are now common. Just last Sunday, a suicide bomber in this car tried to kill the Governor of Kandahar in the centre of the city. The blast killed four civilians and wounded 12. The Governor narrowly escaped. It's here where the Taliban came from and it is here that they are fighting back.
It is only a 10-minute drive to the posts in the suburbs which are the front line in this war. Here the Taliban are strong enough to attack the police in posts like this one.
MAN, (Translation): The man standing here was shot, there are bullet holes there. Someone was firing from outside. He killed the people on the veranda.
BOY (Translation): The houses here facing the city belong to the Taliban, the people who live there were Taliban. There must be 10,000 homes, they call it a place of jihad.
The post commander, Rahmatullah, says they are barely equipped for their front-line role.
REPORTER: Does he have enough weapons to defend his post and this area properly?
RAHMATULLAH (Translation): The problem is all over Afghanistan, it is not just mine, but I have told the authorities and they have helped. Theyve helped to the extent they can.
REPORTER: For example, that weapon behind you is held together with sticky tape. Is the quality of your weapons a problem here?
RAHMATULLAH (Translation): This is one of our weapons, it has two magazines stuck together, we had to use scotch tape. All up, its an old weapon, it isnt modern. Look at it.
Out to the west of Kandahar city, the fighting has been constant. The day we head out towards Panjwai, the Afghan army posts are abandoned. Disturbingly, the police and the civilian population are nowhere to be seen. Three days later, this was the scene of a full-scale battle, the coalition called in air strikes, killing as many as 80 Taliban and civilians.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai protested about the casualties. It is incidents like these that are turning the people against the foreign forces and back to the Taliban. Dr Sharifa Saddiqi is the director of the Kandahar hospital where there are now daily incidences of civilian death, mostly shot by the coalition.
DR SHARIFA SADDIQI, (Translation): The day before yesterday three people drove by, when they saw Canadian soldiers they got off the road. Thats when they were hit, two died and one was wounded. When a car speeds up the troops get suspicious. They mistake it for a suicide mission and kill the occupants.
REPORTER: Are the families very angry? What's the reaction by the people here?
DR SHARIFA SADDIQI, (Translation): We are afraid people will react as they did when Russia invaded, we know our people very well. Be nice to them and they will obey you but if you coerce them, it can be a disaster. Yesterday when those families arrived, it was like doomsday. They were very upset.
Fearing for my safety because I was a foreigner, hospital authorities didn't allow me to see the wounded.
This handover to Lieutenant-General Richards marks the next stage in NATO's expansion in Afghanistan. His command is set to have 21,000 soldiers here by the end of the year. 8,000 of those will take over the security in the south, including 540 Australians.
REPORTER: With the Canadian deployment down there, they've already had quite a few casualties. Do you expect the British contingent the Australian contingent, the Dutch contingent to all to have, I suppose, the same kind of baptism of fire, more or less?
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL DAVID RICHARDS: Well, I think, inevitably, there will be a baptism of fire. I am absolutely confident, though, that the robust stance taken by the Canadians will be emulated by all the other nations going into the south. This is a big thing for NATO and, as the Secretary-General of NATO and many others have said, we cannot afford to fail. And all our soldiers are very clear on that. At the same stage, we can't afford to take lots of casualties so there is a balance to be struck.
REPORTER: This mission... Your previous experience in East Timor, of course, and also in Sierra Leone, how does this mission compare? It must be the toughest one you've ever faced.
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL DAVID RICHARDS: Just a little. Those were good training missions, really, learnt an immense amount from them. I think in many ways, East Timor was a model of what we need to do better out here and that's close military/civilian cooperation. But if we don't get that very close coordination right, then a military alone, in a counterinsurgency like this, will never win.
The reality for these farmers, who live on the western outskirts of Kandahar, shows some of the problems of fighting a war amidst a population you are trying to win over. They tell me how the Afghan police responded after a recent attack.
FARMER, (Translation): They confiscated peoples watches and beat them. They brought four here, killed two under the tree and cut the legs off the other two. It was an atrocity.
REPORTER: Were the victims Taliban?
FARMER (Translation): No, just ordinary people wearing white turbans, so they were mistaken for Taliban.
Abdul Qadar Noorzai is the local representative of the Afghan Independent Commission of Human Rights. He says the coalition operations in the south are alienating the population.
ABDUL QADAR NOORZAI, (Translation): The fact is that people loose trust in their security organisations. They have a mistrust of their own institutions. The other problem is the way they deal with people, searching their homes, detaining them, even killing them. One complaint is particularly relevant to our society, to our culture, which is very religious. When a foreigner enters someones house without any warning, particularly when there is a woman inside, that is a total breach of Afghan values.
Two years ago, Dateline filmed these pictures of US Marines conducting operations in Uruzgan province. The legacy of hate, generated by these US operations, will be inherited by Australian troops in Uruzgan.
REPORTER: There is a lot of bitterness within the community about the way the Americans have conducted operations, such as house searches, arrests, what are seen as arbitrary arrests, how will you overcome that resentment?
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL DAVID RICHARDS: It's an important point and one we're aware of. First of all, you learn lessons from all these things. The US commanders here are learning the same lessons about how to approach it. The need to be clinically precise - if you know there is someone in the house, OK, you might need to go in there but don't otherwise. Actually it's better, in terms of winning a campaign, to forego hot potential opportunities rather than go in because there just might be someone in there. It's breeding a culture that sees the big picture, and the long term, a little bit more.
REPORTER: Do you think the situation in the south of Afghanistan now is worse than it's been since 2001, when the Taliban fell?
ABDUL QADAR NOORZAI, (Translation): It is a bad situation, worse than the war against the Soviet occupation. The coalition forces have admitted their mistake and the government has acknowledged that the situation is getting worse.
He says his human rights investigators cannot visit the three worst affected provinces including Uruzgan.
ABDUL QADAR NOORZAI, (Translation): In the areas Im in charge of, the situation has got worse, we have to be careful. We cant enter those areas and I cant send workers there.
There is no safe way to travel from Kandahar to Tarin Kot, where the Australians are based. This is why no Australian journalists have been here since the deployment was announced. The Australian forces do not allow media to travel with them. If you go alone, you can be hauled out of your car at a Taliban checkpoint and, as has happened on this road, be beheaded on the spot. No foreigners, unless they are in armoured vehicles, ever travel this road now. It has the highest security rating of any in the country.
If you go in a convoy, like this one, they regularly get attacked. This convoy of 20 fuel tankers is guarded by just two ute-loads of police. They've got RPGs, AKs and heavy machine guns - but so have the Taliban. Commander Mohammad Isa was in charge of the escort on this convoy.
MOHAMMAD ISA, TALIBAN COMMANDER, (Translation): Whats going on in Tarin-Kot? No one knows and no one can find out. There is danger in one area one day, the next somewhere else .Its a situation where no one knows what is going on.
The week before a similar convoy of tankers was attacked near here and four of the police escort were killed. This is the heavily fortified home to the Australian special forces and the advance elements of the engineers in Tarin Kot. This base is regularly attacked and the only real area that can be said to be under government control. The main street is the only place in town where you don't run the risk of being stopped by the Taliban, although they watch it and there are regular suicide attacks here. Tarin Kot is the capital of Uruzgan province. The Taliban control three of the districts in Uruzgan and a fourth district, Chora, fell to the Taliban last week. An airborne coalition assault reportedly retook the area over the weekend, killing 12 Taliban.
This is how the coalition troops are forced to move inside the town of Tarin Kot, which they say they control. These American troops, accompanied by an Australian officer, are simply making a routine visit to the local recruiting office of the Afghan National Army. As you can see, even in town they take no chances.
The Australian officer is following orders and will not talk to the media at all, even though I identify myself as an Australian. The US commander and the Governor are visiting the hospital when we arrive they both have their own security. There is more security inside the hospital.
DR ABDUL JALI, TARIN KOT HOSPITAL: There is Taliban forces near, in Mirabat and Kholma. About 2km from this city, we cannot go. 2km. All of the villages, there is no security, there is no government.
DOCTOR (Translation): We cant address the needs of our patients from the outlying districts, our doctors cant go and see those patients. If they did they would remember it for the rest of their lives. Say a doctor who had studied for 22 years is harmed and threatened by someone in such a district and that is part and parcel of our security issue.
The hospital is guarded by men with AK47s and heavy machine guns. As the only functioning government institution in Tarin Kot, it is a prime target. For these besieged government workers, one of the main problems is nobody outside knows just how bad the situation is.
DOCTOR (Translation): Theres a lack of journalists in this province, events such as accidents and war crimes whether committed by insurgents or government forces, should be revealed in the worlds media.
The local police commander in Tarin Kot shows me the vehicles that have been blown out from under him.
COMMANDER RAZI KHAN, POLICE CHIEF (Translation): I went looking for opium, this is what happened to my car, my other car ran over a mine and blew up. Four cars belonging to commanders from our station have been damaged so far. Out of our squad four of our mates, no three of them were injured and about eight were killed.
Commander Razi Khan has been police chief in Tarin Kot since 2001. The area he controls has now shrunk to a 10km circle around the town as the Taliban have gained strength in Uruzgan.
COMMANDER RAZI KHAN (Translation): Ten kilometres to the other side near Roshan Valley and ten from Mirabad thats where the Taliban can be found.
REPORTER: How long has Tarin Kot basically been cut off from the rest of the province?
COMMANDER RAZI KHAN (Translation): In the past two or three months we have had this situation in those two districts. Prior to that we had peace there, but recently we have had an emergency situation.
REPORTER: Why do you think it's got stronger in the last three to four months? Why do you think they are so close?
COMMANDER RAZI KHAN (Translation): The insurgents are stronger than us because they are supported from outside. They are trained by the Pakistani government which gives them money and weapons to further Pakistans aims. They have hired local people and the Taliban are ready to help. The government is very weak, we havent been paid for five months.
He tells me that the Australian troops already here are actively engaged in major operations against the Taliban - this one, only 30km away, on May 5.
COMMANDER RAZI KHAN (Translation):The operation started in the morning, on the first day, when the troops approached the village, they came under attack. They moved their tanks and heavy weapons back and the air attack began. That didnt start until the next day, The bombing cleared the area of Taliban, they all ran away, they moved to the other side of the area.
The operation failed in its objective. The Taliban simply returned to the area after the Australians left.
REPORTER: How many people did the Australians kill?
COMMANDER RAZI KHAN (Translation): We do not know the exact number of people killed, but it could be seven or eight local people and some of those casualties were Taliban.
The last four months have been the worst since the Taliban fell. Brigadier Shah Machmud, from the Defence Ministry in Tarin Kot, described another Australian operation.
BRIGADIER SHAH MACHMUD (Translation): The Taliban tried to resist the attack, but couldnt.
REPORTER: Do you know if anybody was killed or injured?
BRIGADIER SHAH MACHMUD (Translation): There were five people in one area and three in another.
The operations conducted by the Australians already in Uruzgan have been shrouded in secrecy by the Australian Defence Department. They don't want to admit that our troops are fighting the Taliban and killing people they believe to be the enemy. None of this is reported and these Australian officers, who interrupted my interview with Uruzgan's Governor, refused to talk and instructed him not to. Despite their reluctance to talk to the media, it is clear the security situation for the Australian troops in Tarin Kot is dire and, if anything, getting worse.
The next contingent of 240 Australian troops are engineers, due at the end of next month. They are supposed to be carrying out reconstruction. Given the war zone they are entering in Uruzgan, it's unlikely they will be building anything, they'll be fully occupied defending themselves against the Taliban. Casualties are a certainty in this deployment.
Next month, NATO will be assuming command of operations here and it will be this man, Britain's Lieutenant-General David Richards, in charge.
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL DAVID RICHARDS, NATO COMMANDER, AFGHANISTAN: There's no doubt that the Taliban are in greater strength, and a little bit more organised, than hitherto but we're on the case.
Whilst the streets of Kandahar are bustling with activity, foreigners here travel in armoured vehicles as suicide attacks, bombings and shootings inside the city are now common. Just last Sunday, a suicide bomber in this car tried to kill the Governor of Kandahar in the centre of the city. The blast killed four civilians and wounded 12. The Governor narrowly escaped. It's here where the Taliban came from and it is here that they are fighting back.
It is only a 10-minute drive to the posts in the suburbs which are the front line in this war. Here the Taliban are strong enough to attack the police in posts like this one.
MAN, (Translation): The man standing here was shot, there are bullet holes there. Someone was firing from outside. He killed the people on the veranda.
BOY (Translation): The houses here facing the city belong to the Taliban, the people who live there were Taliban. There must be 10,000 homes, they call it a place of jihad.
The post commander, Rahmatullah, says they are barely equipped for their front-line role.
REPORTER: Does he have enough weapons to defend his post and this area properly?
RAHMATULLAH (Translation): The problem is all over Afghanistan, it is not just mine, but I have told the authorities and they have helped. Theyve helped to the extent they can.
REPORTER: For example, that weapon behind you is held together with sticky tape. Is the quality of your weapons a problem here?
RAHMATULLAH (Translation): This is one of our weapons, it has two magazines stuck together, we had to use scotch tape. All up, its an old weapon, it isnt modern. Look at it.
Out to the west of Kandahar city, the fighting has been constant. The day we head out towards Panjwai, the Afghan army posts are abandoned. Disturbingly, the police and the civilian population are nowhere to be seen. Three days later, this was the scene of a full-scale battle, the coalition called in air strikes, killing as many as 80 Taliban and civilians.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai protested about the casualties. It is incidents like these that are turning the people against the foreign forces and back to the Taliban. Dr Sharifa Saddiqi is the director of the Kandahar hospital where there are now daily incidences of civilian death, mostly shot by the coalition.
DR SHARIFA SADDIQI, (Translation): The day before yesterday three people drove by, when they saw Canadian soldiers they got off the road. Thats when they were hit, two died and one was wounded. When a car speeds up the troops get suspicious. They mistake it for a suicide mission and kill the occupants.
REPORTER: Are the families very angry? What's the reaction by the people here?
DR SHARIFA SADDIQI, (Translation): We are afraid people will react as they did when Russia invaded, we know our people very well. Be nice to them and they will obey you but if you coerce them, it can be a disaster. Yesterday when those families arrived, it was like doomsday. They were very upset.
Fearing for my safety because I was a foreigner, hospital authorities didn't allow me to see the wounded.
This handover to Lieutenant-General Richards marks the next stage in NATO's expansion in Afghanistan. His command is set to have 21,000 soldiers here by the end of the year. 8,000 of those will take over the security in the south, including 540 Australians.
REPORTER: With the Canadian deployment down there, they've already had quite a few casualties. Do you expect the British contingent the Australian contingent, the Dutch contingent to all to have, I suppose, the same kind of baptism of fire, more or less?
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL DAVID RICHARDS: Well, I think, inevitably, there will be a baptism of fire. I am absolutely confident, though, that the robust stance taken by the Canadians will be emulated by all the other nations going into the south. This is a big thing for NATO and, as the Secretary-General of NATO and many others have said, we cannot afford to fail. And all our soldiers are very clear on that. At the same stage, we can't afford to take lots of casualties so there is a balance to be struck.
REPORTER: This mission... Your previous experience in East Timor, of course, and also in Sierra Leone, how does this mission compare? It must be the toughest one you've ever faced.
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL DAVID RICHARDS: Just a little. Those were good training missions, really, learnt an immense amount from them. I think in many ways, East Timor was a model of what we need to do better out here and that's close military/civilian cooperation. But if we don't get that very close coordination right, then a military alone, in a counterinsurgency like this, will never win.
The reality for these farmers, who live on the western outskirts of Kandahar, shows some of the problems of fighting a war amidst a population you are trying to win over. They tell me how the Afghan police responded after a recent attack.
FARMER, (Translation): They confiscated peoples watches and beat them. They brought four here, killed two under the tree and cut the legs off the other two. It was an atrocity.
REPORTER: Were the victims Taliban?
FARMER (Translation): No, just ordinary people wearing white turbans, so they were mistaken for Taliban.
Abdul Qadar Noorzai is the local representative of the Afghan Independent Commission of Human Rights. He says the coalition operations in the south are alienating the population.
ABDUL QADAR NOORZAI, (Translation): The fact is that people loose trust in their security organisations. They have a mistrust of their own institutions. The other problem is the way they deal with people, searching their homes, detaining them, even killing them. One complaint is particularly relevant to our society, to our culture, which is very religious. When a foreigner enters someones house without any warning, particularly when there is a woman inside, that is a total breach of Afghan values.
Two years ago, Dateline filmed these pictures of US Marines conducting operations in Uruzgan province. The legacy of hate, generated by these US operations, will be inherited by Australian troops in Uruzgan.
REPORTER: There is a lot of bitterness within the community about the way the Americans have conducted operations, such as house searches, arrests, what are seen as arbitrary arrests, how will you overcome that resentment?
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL DAVID RICHARDS: It's an important point and one we're aware of. First of all, you learn lessons from all these things. The US commanders here are learning the same lessons about how to approach it. The need to be clinically precise - if you know there is someone in the house, OK, you might need to go in there but don't otherwise. Actually it's better, in terms of winning a campaign, to forego hot potential opportunities rather than go in because there just might be someone in there. It's breeding a culture that sees the big picture, and the long term, a little bit more.
REPORTER: Do you think the situation in the south of Afghanistan now is worse than it's been since 2001, when the Taliban fell?
ABDUL QADAR NOORZAI, (Translation): It is a bad situation, worse than the war against the Soviet occupation. The coalition forces have admitted their mistake and the government has acknowledged that the situation is getting worse.
He says his human rights investigators cannot visit the three worst affected provinces including Uruzgan.
ABDUL QADAR NOORZAI, (Translation): In the areas Im in charge of, the situation has got worse, we have to be careful. We cant enter those areas and I cant send workers there.
There is no safe way to travel from Kandahar to Tarin Kot, where the Australians are based. This is why no Australian journalists have been here since the deployment was announced. The Australian forces do not allow media to travel with them. If you go alone, you can be hauled out of your car at a Taliban checkpoint and, as has happened on this road, be beheaded on the spot. No foreigners, unless they are in armoured vehicles, ever travel this road now. It has the highest security rating of any in the country.
If you go in a convoy, like this one, they regularly get attacked. This convoy of 20 fuel tankers is guarded by just two ute-loads of police. They've got RPGs, AKs and heavy machine guns - but so have the Taliban. Commander Mohammad Isa was in charge of the escort on this convoy.
MOHAMMAD ISA, TALIBAN COMMANDER, (Translation): Whats going on in Tarin-Kot? No one knows and no one can find out. There is danger in one area one day, the next somewhere else .Its a situation where no one knows what is going on.
The week before a similar convoy of tankers was attacked near here and four of the police escort were killed. This is the heavily fortified home to the Australian special forces and the advance elements of the engineers in Tarin Kot. This base is regularly attacked and the only real area that can be said to be under government control. The main street is the only place in town where you don't run the risk of being stopped by the Taliban, although they watch it and there are regular suicide attacks here. Tarin Kot is the capital of Uruzgan province. The Taliban control three of the districts in Uruzgan and a fourth district, Chora, fell to the Taliban last week. An airborne coalition assault reportedly retook the area over the weekend, killing 12 Taliban.
This is how the coalition troops are forced to move inside the town of Tarin Kot, which they say they control. These American troops, accompanied by an Australian officer, are simply making a routine visit to the local recruiting office of the Afghan National Army. As you can see, even in town they take no chances.
The Australian officer is following orders and will not talk to the media at all, even though I identify myself as an Australian. The US commander and the Governor are visiting the hospital when we arrive they both have their own security. There is more security inside the hospital.
DR ABDUL JALI, TARIN KOT HOSPITAL: There is Taliban forces near, in Mirabat and Kholma. About 2km from this city, we cannot go. 2km. All of the villages, there is no security, there is no government.
DOCTOR (Translation): We cant address the needs of our patients from the outlying districts, our doctors cant go and see those patients. If they did they would remember it for the rest of their lives. Say a doctor who had studied for 22 years is harmed and threatened by someone in such a district and that is part and parcel of our security issue.
The hospital is guarded by men with AK47s and heavy machine guns. As the only functioning government institution in Tarin Kot, it is a prime target. For these besieged government workers, one of the main problems is nobody outside knows just how bad the situation is.
DOCTOR (Translation): Theres a lack of journalists in this province, events such as accidents and war crimes whether committed by insurgents or government forces, should be revealed in the worlds media.
The local police commander in Tarin Kot shows me the vehicles that have been blown out from under him.
COMMANDER RAZI KHAN, POLICE CHIEF (Translation): I went looking for opium, this is what happened to my car, my other car ran over a mine and blew up. Four cars belonging to commanders from our station have been damaged so far. Out of our squad four of our mates, no three of them were injured and about eight were killed.
Commander Razi Khan has been police chief in Tarin Kot since 2001. The area he controls has now shrunk to a 10km circle around the town as the Taliban have gained strength in Uruzgan.
COMMANDER RAZI KHAN (Translation): Ten kilometres to the other side near Roshan Valley and ten from Mirabad thats where the Taliban can be found.
REPORTER: How long has Tarin Kot basically been cut off from the rest of the province?
COMMANDER RAZI KHAN (Translation): In the past two or three months we have had this situation in those two districts. Prior to that we had peace there, but recently we have had an emergency situation.
REPORTER: Why do you think it's got stronger in the last three to four months? Why do you think they are so close?
COMMANDER RAZI KHAN (Translation): The insurgents are stronger than us because they are supported from outside. They are trained by the Pakistani government which gives them money and weapons to further Pakistans aims. They have hired local people and the Taliban are ready to help. The government is very weak, we havent been paid for five months.
He tells me that the Australian troops already here are actively engaged in major operations against the Taliban - this one, only 30km away, on May 5.
COMMANDER RAZI KHAN (Translation):The operation started in the morning, on the first day, when the troops approached the village, they came under attack. They moved their tanks and heavy weapons back and the air attack began. That didnt start until the next day, The bombing cleared the area of Taliban, they all ran away, they moved to the other side of the area.
The operation failed in its objective. The Taliban simply returned to the area after the Australians left.
REPORTER: How many people did the Australians kill?
COMMANDER RAZI KHAN (Translation): We do not know the exact number of people killed, but it could be seven or eight local people and some of those casualties were Taliban.
The last four months have been the worst since the Taliban fell. Brigadier Shah Machmud, from the Defence Ministry in Tarin Kot, described another Australian operation.
BRIGADIER SHAH MACHMUD (Translation): The Taliban tried to resist the attack, but couldnt.
REPORTER: Do you know if anybody was killed or injured?
BRIGADIER SHAH MACHMUD (Translation): There were five people in one area and three in another.
The operations conducted by the Australians already in Uruzgan have been shrouded in secrecy by the Australian Defence Department. They don't want to admit that our troops are fighting the Taliban and killing people they believe to be the enemy. None of this is reported and these Australian officers, who interrupted my interview with Uruzgan's Governor, refused to talk and instructed him not to. Despite their reluctance to talk to the media, it is clear the security situation for the Australian troops in Tarin Kot is dire and, if anything, getting worse.
The next contingent of 240 Australian troops are engineers, due at the end of next month. They are supposed to be carrying out reconstruction. Given the war zone they are entering in Uruzgan, it's unlikely they will be building anything, they'll be fully occupied defending themselves against the Taliban. Casualties are a certainty in this deployment.