Reporter: Chris Masters

Date: 02/07/2007

CHRIS MASTERS: The location is Oruzgan province, Southern Afghanistan. A coalition of modern armies has gathered as if on a galaxy outpost where the future has come to negotiate a treaty with the past.

GENERAL DAN MCNEILL, US ARMY COMMANDER ISAF: You have to be conscious that there are 37 nations and that there's not a uniform view as to how they see the theatre, and each of their governments wants their resources applied in a certain way so my days are not uneventful.

CHRIS MASTERS: Out on patrol with the Australian Army it can feel as if we've drifted into the 17th century. Nomadic herders go about their business with barely a glance at the latest foreign army to pass this way.

DR AJAB NOOR (TRANSLATED): The current war in Afghanistan is not created by Afghans. It's imposed upon us from outside.

CHRIS MASTERS: The field of view is limited, not just by the circumstance of working from within the khaki perimeter of the army, but also by the complexity of a battlefield where progress is as hard to measure as it is to achieve.

CAPTAIN LIAM HANSEN: At the moment I think their respect is hard one. It continues to be that way. I guess at the end of the day I can't give you a definitive answer just yet. I think the jury is still out, but my feelings are that that we are going forward.

CHRIS MASTERS: As fighting intensifies, mounting civilian casualties means mounting anger, including from the President.

PRESIDENT HAMID KARZAI: The disproportionate use of force to a situation and the lack of coordination with the Afghan Government is causing these casualties.

CHRIS MASTERS: People trapped by the fighting are also directing anger at their own leaders.

ZAID MOHSENI, MOBY MEDIA GROUP: Generally there is growing frustration with the lack of progress from the Government, and that's across the board everywhere. And perhaps in some areas they are thinking, well, maybe things were not so bad under the Taliban.

CHRIS MASTERS: Tonight we travel with Australian troops as they fight to win people rather than ground. We examine the mission in Afghanistan to ask: is military victory that has eluded many before, feasible and can a nation be built where a nation has never been?

(On screen text: "FORWARD BASE AFGHANISTAN", "REPORTER: CHRIS MASTERS")

CHRIS MASTERS: The badlands of Southern Afghanistan is home for up to 1,000 Australians who have joined Task Force Oruzgan. In the hills beyond there are villages with no roads and electricity, where life has not changed for centuries.

BRETT HACKETT, AUSTRALIAN AMBASSADOR TO AFGHANISTAN: When people talk in Afghanistan about the need for reconstruction and redevelopment, many people smile when they think of Oruzgan because in fact, you know, it's an issue not of reconstruction but of construction, of development rather than redevelopment.

COLONEL HANS VAN GRIENSVEN, COMMANDER, TASK FORCE URIZGAN: The biggest part of Oruzgan is mountainous, very rough terrain and 70 per cent of the people are living in in the valleys, in the cities, actually at the places where we are. Outside that is more difficult in the mountains so that will be something for later on.

CHRIS MASTERS: Task Force Oruzgan is one of hundreds of bases operated by an international mission with three objectives - to implement security, reconstruction and governance.

The rationale for western intervention remains the same as it was when the Taliban and al-Qaeda bases were overrun in 2002 - either go to Afghanistan or let Afghanistan come to you.

PRESIDENT HAMID KARZAI (excerpt from speech, October 2004): We are very, very grateful to the people of the United States of America for bringing us this day, a day of peace, a day of democracy, a day of ...

CHRIS MASTERS: Since the democratic election of the Karzai Government in 2004 progress has faltered and the Taliban revived.

CHRIS MASTERS (to Zaid Mohseni): Which is more likely: that the Taliban will succeed or the Government will fail?

ZAID MOHSENI, MOBY MEDIA GROUP: I think the latter is probably more likely. The Taliban from what we know don't have the military capacity to succeed in taking over the country. It just didn't seem logical. They don't have enough forces on the ground and so on. But the Government failing, I mean that's a possibility because there seems to be a growing disenchantment with the Government.

CHRIS MASTERS: The Mohseni family from Melbourne is busily engaged in its own reconstruction mission, establishing a commercial media network throughout Afghanistan.

ZAID MOHSENI, MOBY MEDIA GROUP: In a lot of the places the Government appointed people are not what you would call the best people. A lot of them are accused of war crimes. Some of them are accused of being involved in corruption and drug trafficking and so on. And in some of those areas these people are seen to be the bad guys. So the Government has aligned itself with the bad guys and the Taliban are taking advantage of that by marketing themselves as being the protector of the rights of the people.

CHRIS MASTERS: In the south and east is Taliban heartland where Government rule has been long resisted.

Task Force Oruzgan is led by the Dutch, who work alongside the Australians as well as some British and American forces with an ultimate aim of handing over to the Afghan people.

CHRIS MASTERS (to Lieutenant Colonel Harry Jarvie, Commander, 2nd Reconstruction Task Force): How much ground do you control here?

LIEUTENANT COLONEL HARRY JARVIE, COMMANDER, 2ND RECONSTRUCTION TASK FORCE: Well again I don't talk about it in terms of ground, it's all about the people. Open bits of desert mean absolutely nothing to the mission that we have here, it's all about where the people are.

LIEUTENANT WIL LANGDON: When we're on a mission we control the piece of ground we're holding at the time. Once we leave that piece of ground, we no longer control it. So gone are the days where you walk on a piece of ground and you think, yeah, you assumed that you own that. It's, as soon as you leave that position you no longer control it.

CHRIS MASTERS: The Australians know this place as Forward Operating Base Davis. While it bristles with modern weaponry, the military base is also a construction camp.

The main Australian contingent is Reconstruction Task Force 2, the second team of around 400 soldier/engineers.

CAPTAIN LIAM HANSEN: We've come over here very well equipped. We have armoured vehicles, we don't go anywhere without our armoured vehicles. We have very highly trained infantry and armoured soldiers who give us protection and provide us that hard shoulder to anyone who might want to do us harm, so at the end of the day I guess you could say it is still a dangerous place, but I feel very safe.

CHRIS MASTERS: The soldiers who venture outside the secure FOB, or Forward Operating Base, have a name for those who stay behind, the "Fobbits".

There is strong emphasis on minimising casualties. The base is well protected from occasional rocket attacks. While there are regular excursions outside, most of the Task Force remains secure behind a series of blast proof walls and within prefabricated steel bunkers.

When the engineers leave camp, they try to do so at an unpredictable time - in this case 3am. A convoy of thick-skinned Australian Bushmasters strikes out across country, avoiding roads where ambushes and explosives may have infiltrated through the night.

LIEUTENANT WIL LANGDON: The main threat is what we call spotters, people dressed, local nationals, who observe and report our movement to the Taliban. Tell-tale signs are people who are, look as though they shouldn't be there; so someone sitting up on a hill for no reason with a communication device, potentially reporting on our movement, coordinating an attack.

CHRIS MASTERS: The protection force does not seek confrontation. The idea is to carry the heaviest weapons and leave the softest footprint.

LIEUTENANT WIL LANGDON: I've got no doubt we've patrolled right past Taliban and they've seen the force capabilities we have and they decide to put their weapons in their houses and wave instead of fire at us.

CHRIS MASTERS: The term Taliban has become a catch-all for an indistinct enemy. With its passion for acronyms, the NATO led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, refers to the enemy as OMF - Opposing Militia Forces.

COLONEL JOHN FREWEN, COMMANDER, ADF, AFGHANISTAN: There's certainly a hard-core element, including those that have grown up through the Madrasas. There are others who take a more seasonal approach and it probably provides a source of income outside the farming months, and there would be others I think who are there because of coercion.

GENERAL DAN MCNEILL, US ARMY COMMANDER ISAF: They seem to me be organised more at the village district or provincial level than anything one might call a strategic organisation. There's no question that in sanctuaries outside of the reach of us, outside of the reach of the forces of Afghanistan, that there is something that looks like a strategic leadership.

CHRIS MASTERS: In the mountains beyond the forward operating base is a kind of "Talibanistan". Traditional Pushtun lands which straddle the border of Pakistan have become a sanctuary for both the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Within the main base are further enclaves of special forces, the soldiers who take the war to the enemy. The Australian Special Operations Task Group, now redeployed to Afghanistan, was in previous deployments involved in its heaviest fighting since Vietnam.

The Dutch Rapid Reaction Forces have experienced much the same, a sudden eruption of fighting with the enemy swarming upon them.

LIEUTENANT MARCEL, ROYAL NETHERLANDS ARMY: Most of the time you're surprised because it looks very peaceful out there and the next second it can be like, now, like a big fire fight. And well we were very lucky and we did our skills very well and I think that's why we were very lucky I guess.

CHRIS MASTERS: Last month saw the first Dutch soldier killed in action in Oruzgan. Weeks earlier an Australian soldier was also wounded. Both were victims of suicide bombers.

PRIVATE JAYSE BIRD: One close call, you probably know about, the suicide bomber. Yeah that was a bit of an eye-opener in itself because as you know the enemy around here don't wear a uniform like we do, so it could be anyone or any kid, any person.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL HARRY JARVIE, COMMANDER, 2ND RECONSTRUCTION TASK FORCE: A young man was approaching the check-point and acting suspiciously, that was communicated to one of the security check-points and as that, as the young bloke approached our position, one of our soldiers swung the weapon around to monitor his movements and we think that probably spooked him and he detonated his device short of essentially our position. And the basis of that good alert response by that young soldier probably saved a number of his mates.

CHRIS MASTERS: The most common victims of the attacks are the local people.

DR AJAB NOOR (TRANSLATED): Last year in May our superintendent, Dr Russel, who was accompanied by two nurses from Tarin Kowt hospital and a driver, they were travelling to Tamazan and Daikundi. As a result of a bomb explosion, they were all killed.

CHRIS MASTERS: At Camp Holland the Dutch born Australian doctor attends to yet another victim.

MAJOR ANDRIK LOHMAN, ADF MEDICAL DOCTOR: He's still in intensive care following yesterday. He was involved in an IED blast, which is an improved explosive device. Two guys from the Afghani National Police were riding a motorcycle and a bomb exploded. This guy survived. The other one unfortunately didn't. But he has now an amputation of his leg and an arm on the same side.

WARRANT OFFICER TONY QUIRK: We have had a a lot of, I suppose you'd call them finds, where they've actually been reported to us, in their local community. They've come up to our soldiers and and informed them or through a chain of informants, informed us of where likely IEDs have been placed so therefore we're able to get to them and render them safe before any troops or locals get injured.

CHRIS MASTERS: Warrant Officer Tony Quirk has a lot of experience of Afghanistan's minefields. He's been defusing them for the last 15 years. Now on his fifth visit they are finding about four to five Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs, a week, most of them primitive but no less effective.

SERGEANT MATT TANNER (referring to IED): They have a saw blade which is a reasonably strong material and gives it that bit of tension with just oil can steel on the bottom like the old oil cans, two wires hooked up. That'll go back to a battery pack. Some of the battery packs we've been finding are just C cell batteries or D cell batteries just in a line, the same as this. One wire from each of these hooks together and then the other two wires go to the main charger detonator, electric detonator there. As a vehicle rolls over the top the saw blade makes contact with the bottom piece of metal and creates a circuit to fire off the IED.

CHRIS MASTERS: When the last suicide bomb went off, it did so here within the township of Tarin Kowt, a short drive from the base. As the nearest population centre it's the principle area of operations in what is less a battle to capture ground as goodwill.

The mission today is to check on work undertaken at the local hospital. Making an appointment to come here inevitably risks forewarning the enemy. At the front gate tension is evident within the people and the task itself. A full body search is not always the best way to the heart and mind.

CHRIS MASTERS (to Corporal Igor Moravcik): Do they get angry at being searched?

CORPORAL IGOR MORAVCIK: Some of them. Mostly they understand what's going on. People who are coming here for the genuine reason to get a medical care at the hospital that understand, they saw it before and no, but some people, I would say younger generations, kind of like similar like the teenagers, yeah, maybe those.

CHRIS MASTERS: The section leader known to his men as "Czech" is a good example of the expanding experience and gene pool of the Australian Defence Force. He is on his second tour, having fought here in the 1980s with the Russian Army.

To the locals, foreigners are much the same, although they have come to know and differentiate the Australians as the Americans who wear the symbol of the red rat.

PRIVATE ROB FRANKLAND: A lot of them think that we're American to start off with until we put across that we are Australian and they generally have a positive attitude towards us. And yeah that's exactly what Ben was saying, you know, you have to find that barrier between being friendly, but at the same time every single person out there could be the Taliban, it could be the enemy.

PRIVATE JAYSE BIRD: You try and project on basic sign language I suppose you'd call it. So we're not here to harm you, so you don't want around with your weapon pointed at people and stuff like that. You come in with your, you give them a hand signal and say hi. Or "salam alaikum" which is local language for, "hi, how are you?" And yeah, you just try and look as less intimidating as possible.

CHRIS MASTERS: It is a delicate undertaking which calls on street level diplomacy.

Engaging with the locals puts everyone at risk. The Australians plan, fund and supervise projects undertaken by local workers who risk reprisal.

AHMAD NOOR, ENGINEER (TRANSLATED): Our life is in danger. We get telephone calls quite often, warning us not to do this. This is not good receiving these intimidations.

CHRIS MASTERS: Australian plumbers and carpenters and engineers in uniform will put down their weapons and pick up their tools.

AUSTRALIAN SOLDIER (speaking with local about generator problem): The only person who knows about the faults is Davo back at the FOB, so we've used Khalil's phone to ring FOB, get Davo on the phone thru the Turk and we'll go back in there and try and fix it.

And when more expertise is needed, in this case to fix the generator which powers the women's wing, there is a call back to one of the soon to be former "fobbits".

AUSTRALIAN SOLDIER (on the phone): I appreciate that mate. How was your trip? Good?

SERGEANT WAYNE DAVIS: From the stories I'm hearing it's well overdue for service so tomorrow, yeah, I have to throw on my kit and head into town with my tool bag and some service parts and hopefully get the generator up and going again for the hospital, so.

CHRIS MASTERS: The hospital's primitive kitchen is also being replaced. Every new day sees a growing to do list.

CAPTAIN DAN KEEP: We've come out here hoping to fix up all the lights and everything but we've just got our hands full just fixing up all the safety issues first. So looking at all the wiring, you know, exposed wires etc. So the first thing we're doing is getting that sorted and then we're looking at fixing up all their lights.

DR AJAB NOOR (referring to child in hospital with bandaged leg): This one get infection again at home. They return to hospitaI, now it set good.

CHRIS MASTERS (to Dr Ajab Noor): It's getting better?

DR AJAB NOOR: Yes.

CHRIS MASTERS (to Dr Ajab Noor): So he was caught in all of the fighting, was he?

DR AJAB NOOR: Yes.

(speaks to child, not translated)

During the fighting between Taliban and Coalition Forces.

CHRIS MASTERS: The challenges are overwhelming. Lack of education, distance, limited transport, no budget, no medicine and no female staff.

DR AJAB NOOR (TRANSLATED): There are some cultural problems. The custom over here is such that often they won't allow their females to go to hospital. If they get sick they will not be allowed to seek medical assistance. They will only be allowed to get medical assistance when they become seriously ill and dying.

CHRIS MASTERS: Another project undertaken by the Australians is a school in one of the outlying villages. As the schools are built, particularly those for girls, they are frequently attacked and razed.

DR NOURIA SALEHI, AFGHAN AUSTRALIAN DEVELOPMENT ORGANISATION: They want to go to school, but today it's not possible. So it is difficult to find a job for unskilled people. Today the Irani or Pakistani people, they are coming to Afghanistan and they work because they have a skill. But the Afghans, youth especially, they haven't got any skill. They cannot read and write.

CHRIS MASTERS: This school is for boys. A first priority has been the construction of a high wall to provide protection.

ABDUL MAJID, TEACHER (TRANSLATED): We had been promised three times before with the coalition forces, American, the Canadians, they promised but they didn't build our school. The Australians are the only ones that build the school - see the building? We are very happy with the Australians.

WARRANT OFFICER BRENDAN JOHNSON: We see the work that's being done and the progression being done. I think if we weren't here the progression of construction would be extremely slow. They would still carry on with their lives but we're giving them a step up, I believe.

CHRIS MASTERS: Halfway through a 15 hours day, the 58-years-old reporter his crew has dubbed "Dad's Army" is flagging. The mission can bear similar signs of fatigue if the locals lose patience.

One lesson learned is the importance of what they call "Backyard Blitz", or quick impact work. Experience has taught the importance of delivering rather than promising.

CAPTAIN DAN KEEP: They don't obviously appreciate it when someone says "Yeah, we're going to supply this" and then it takes two or three years to supply. So the fact that we've been able to deliver these buildings nice and quickly is a real plus for the Aussies.

CHRIS MASTERS: The project the Australians run which has attracted most attention from the other reconstruction teams is the Trade Training School.

Two thirds of the population gets by on less than a dollar a day. Here young males who may otherwise be working in the poppy fields or being recruited into the Taliban are paid $3.50 a day to learn a trade.

CHRIS MASTERS (to Warrant Officer Shane Johnsson): How do you know you're not teaching the enemy?

WARRANT OFFICER SHANE JOHNSSON: Hopefully the vetting process that they go through before coming here excludes them, but you're never 100 per cent sure.

CHRIS MASTERS (to Warrant Officer Shane Johnsson): Are they motivated?

WARRANT OFFICER SHANE JOHNSSON: Majority are motivated when they come here and they want to learn. You do get the few that are here because we do pay a wage while they're here learning so they come here for the money. However predominantly they're here to learn and we weed out the ones that are here for the money. They are generally lazy; they'll stand out and you eliminate them from the course and then you can concentrate on the ones that are here to learn.

CHRIS MASTERS: Twenty-five years of continuous conflict since the Soviet invasion means Afghanistan has already lost one generation. The battle to reconstruct the country is also about saving the next generation from a similar fate. While the median age of Europeans is 34, here it is 17.

CHRIS MASTERS (to Corporal Ric Saxby): What's the age range of the students?

CORPORAL RIC SAXBY: That can differ. They're supposed to be from 14 on but some of them lie obviously because they want to come in and they have a lower age group. So some of them we believe are probably from eight-year-old on.

CHRIS MASTERS (to Corporal Ric Saxby): And can I ask a question of Dahwood?

(to Dahwood Shah, student): What do you hope to be able to do with the skills that you learn here?

DAHWOOD SHAH (TRANSLATED): It's good that I came to learn the carpentry. I just want to start a shop in the bazaar to work for my family and support my country.

CHRIS MASTERS: At the end of the four weeks' course students who graduate are given a bag of tools. Soldiers notice some of the tools on sale in the markets soon after, but others hang on to the bag and the opportunity.

Every success is like a stitch in the fabric of a new society.

The school operates on base. Afghan born Melbourne doctor Nouria Salehi has organised a similar aid project, but like so many other non-government organisations, has kept away from the badlands.

DR NOURIA SALEHI, AFGHAN AUSTRALIAN DEVELOPMENT ORGANISATION: In Kabul it's pretty safe, but I don't think that in south or south-east of Afghanistan it is safe enough to go and work.

CHRIS MASTERS: What we found was that perceptions of progress and safety varied widely, day-to-day, province-to-province and even army-to-army.

(to Lieutenant Colonel Harry Jarvie, Commander, 2nd Reconstruction Task Force): Is it safe to say travel to Kandahar?

LIEUTENANT COLONEL HARRY JARVIE, COMMANDER, 2ND RECONSTRUCTION TASK FORCE: Relatively safe. We don't, it's outside our area of operation, so we focus mainly around Tarin Kowt and within Oruzgan province itself. But certainly that's where all our logistics comes from right from Tirin, sorry right from Kandahar and we really have no problems there.

COLONEL HANS VAN GRIENSVEN, COMMANDER, TASK FORCE URIZGAN: No it's not safe. I mean that's the only road we have actually in the province, a hardened road from Kandahar to TK. It's a long road, about 150 kilometres through terrain that is dominated now and then by OMF so it's never really safe and that's also the problem if you want to travel that because we always need force protection.

CHRIS MASTERS: Across Afghanistan there are 25 different PRTs or Provincial Reconstruction Teams. There are varying approaches to prosecuting war and peace.

(Excerpt from meeting at a house between locals and uniformed men):

LOCAL: All the problems we have and also the other day in the Chora district, they catch two of our teachers and they broke their hands."

How are you how's everything?

AUSTRALIAN UNIFORMED MAN: Please apologise to everybody for me being late.

(End of excerpt)

CHRIS MASTERS: Every week the Australian and Dutch PRT conduct a "shura" - a meeting with local leaders.

(Excerpt continued):

LOCAL: ... It's almost done, the school is almost done. We have a plan to build the walls for the school too.

(End of excerpt)

ABDUL WAHID, MAYOR OF TARIN KOWT (TRANSLATED): Just a few people are real al-Qaeda. Some other people, they don't have education, that's why they don't know anything. They don't know what's going on and they will go and join the Taliban or al-Qaeda.

CHRIS MASTERS: The Dutch/Australian PRT has adopted what they call the ink-blot approach which is intended to slowly spread good will.

(Excerpt continued):

LOCAL: I'll write it down. We need some help. We should work together, and help all our schools.

(End of excerpt)

MAJOR PHIL MCKAY: As we move further away from Tarin Kowt, particularly down into areas like Talani, where we're working on the school, and down in Spin Kecha where we're working on security check points and some mosques, you'll see that our acceptance down there is very good.

MARTEN DE BOER, DEVELOPMENT ADVISER, DUTCH PRT: And we hope that, by little by little expanding our influence, with the help of the people of course, they are the centre of everything, that we will be able to resist the insurgents and their interests.

CHRIS MASTERS: While other coalition partners, the American, British and Canadians have undertaken the heavier lifting of fighting in the south, criticism of the more cautious approach of the Australians and Dutch has grown.

COLONEL HANS VAN GRIENSVEN, COMMANDER, TASK FORCE URIZGAN: I mean people talk a lot all over the world and I think we are busy with the, involved in a typical counter-insurgency operation. That means that the centre of gravity for us is the big population. They can make a change in the end. It's not about chasing Taliban or killing Taliban, because it's more important to make them irrelevant and we think the key to that is the population.

GENERAL DAN MCNEILL, US ARMY COMMANDER ISAF: Mostly that criticism is about the Dutch PRT and the Australian reconstruction taskforce, both of which I find to be pretty capable organisations and contributing significantly in our line of operation called reconstruction, especially the reconstruction taskforce that goes through a cyclic training period with indigenous people, the Afghans.

And the beautiful, the wonderful thing about it is that typically before the course ever comes to an end they have employment for all these people. I think that's going to play out good for us in the long term.

CHRIS MASTERS: But small gains can be undone in an instant - an air strike from 20,000 feet, an artillery round fired from 40 kilometres. Barely a week passes without a new reverberation of anger towards NATO led ISAF forces.

PRESIDENT HAMID KARZAI (excerpt from speech, 23 June 2007): The incident, based on the information that I have from the local people, occurred when NATO forces came under fire in a village at around sunset and then the NATO forces went and bombed the village at around 10 in the evening, 10pm.

The question is: why?

GENERAL ZAHER AZIMI, AFGHAN NATIONAL ARMY (TRANSLATED): When such civilian casualties occur, it helps the enemy as a weapon of publicity in their hands.

ZAID MOHSENI, MOBY MEDIA GROUP: Sometimes to settle old scores Afghans may be giving false information and that's being not checked properly and perhaps it results in the death of people. Perhaps the Taliban are using that to their advantage and spreading propaganda. It's very difficult to know for sure. But certainly there's no doubt that there has been a growing casualty rate of the local Afghans.

GENERAL DAN MCNEILL, US ARMY COMMANDER ISAF: We take every possible measure to make sure we mitigate risk to people and property.

CHRIS MASTERS (to General Dan McNeill): So, but when it does go wrong is there the potential that ten civilians means a hundred new Taliban?

GENERAL DAN MCNEILL, US ARMY COMMANDER ISAF: I think that may be flawed math but the will of the people is certainly important to what we're doing here.

CHRIS MASTERS: On the firing range outside Tarin Kowt locals regularly cross - in front of the guns. This is a nation over-conditioned to war. Tracing the cause of unintended casualties is invariably complicated.

Such accusations have been levelled at Australia's Special Forces, whose secret operations make independent investigation more difficult. The ADF says it's investigated all allegations and found no evidence of non-combatants being killed.

COLONEL JOHN FREWEN, COMMANDER, ADF, AFGHANISTAN: Well the Special Forces are coming back in to feed into the security piece of this problem. Their primary role will be to establish a more secure environment for the reconstruction taskforce so that we can, you know, focus more on the reconstruction effort and take the reconstruction effort to areas where isn't so permissive right now.

What they bring is quite different to what our conventional combat forces provide in terms of immediate security and they'll be about very specifically going after individuals who may be leaders or people with particular skill sets.

GENERAL DAN MCNEILL, US ARMY COMMANDER ISAF: There without doubt are some problems in Oruzgan, typically north of the river. There are a certain number of insurgents up there. I've had conversations with President Karzai about it often. And it will require work and it's work that we'll do before the end of the summer. We have other places in the south that are a little higher on the priority for us to get to right now. We're getting to those and I'm satisfied that before we're done we'll have taken care of Oruzgan as well.

CHRIS MASTERS: A week ago the Dutch were engaged in heavy fighting in the Chora Valley which one year ago was said to have been cleared of Taliban by Special Forces. According to reports one Dutch soldier was killed along with around 100 Afghans, some of them women and children.

Overall, an anticipated spring offensive has not favoured the Taliban. But if they are losing strength, so too is the Government.

ZAID MOHSENI, MOBY MEDIA GROUP: I mean corruption is rampant and corruption was not as bad in 2003 because most people were careful. You know, they they didn't know what was to come. They they had no expectations as to what was going to come, so people were careful. They didn't want to do anything that was going to land them in trouble in the future.

But as it appeared that people were not being punished and instead being rewarded for certain activities, people became, took greater chances and bribery got to a stage where it was open and people essentially asked for a bribe pretty much everywhere you went, in every government organisation.

CHRIS MASTERS: The coalition is in a race to train an Afghan Army of 30,000, buttoning more than seven ethnic groups with 32 languages and dialects into the one uniform.

SERGEANT SAID NAJIBULLAH (TRANSLATED): I have been taught that when you wear this uniform there will be killings, injuries and capturing. I have no fear whatsoever because I am defending my country, defending the soil and sanctity of my country.

CHRIS MASTERS: At the Tarin Kowt hospital a hard pressed Dr Noor is also fighting for Afghanistan, but from a kind of no-man's land.

DR AJAB NOOR (TRANSLATED): We face similar problems in our remote clinics from the Government side. Sometimes our staff members are held by Government security. Sometimes it is alleged against us that we are working for the Taliban and as a result some of our staff members have been detained.

BRETT HACKETT, AUSTRALIAN AMBASSADOR TO AFGHANISTAN: It's wisdom borne of pain from the Afghan perspective. You know, they've seen a number of, you know, dominant forces come and go and the traditional way of approaching this has been to wait and see where the cards fall before you throw your support behind any one party or another.

CHRIS MASTERS: It may well be the biggest problem for the coalition is less the capacity of the Taliban as the credibility of the Karzai Government.

GENERAL DAN MCNEILL, US ARMY COMMANDER ISAF: This is something the Australian audience will appreciate. If it's football, whether it's American or Australian Rules, typically you've got a coach or a manager out there and he's got his starting team on the field. Somebody gets hurt or he wants to change, he turns round to his bench and picks from a lot of depth. "OK, you, get out there."

President Karzai wants to make a change, he turns around, there are not of lot sitting on the bench.

CHRIS MASTERS: As the Australian engineers understand, no one said it would be easy. This is a war of inches where encouragement grows with every small advance. When the soldiers saw locals volunteering to save this bridge they are building at Tarin Kowt, they took heart.

CAPTAIN LIAM HANSEN: As each day goes by there are more people that are starting to see what we're doing here and as a result, you know, there's a lot more positive sentiment as time goes by for what we're doing here. But to be able to help people who are, who have nothing is quite a satisfying and ultimately humbling experience.

CHRIS MASTERS: For the soldiers who helped build it, children taking their places in the classroom at the Talarni school, was like occupying an enemy trench line.

LIEUTENANT WIL LANGDON: You see the reconstruction that's being done here and when you see the the way of life that these people have come to accept, the work we're doing actually has a direct impact on improving that way of life. And to improve that way of life that directly dislocates the Taliban from the locals.

CHRIS MASTERS: And back at the hospital, "Davo" got the generator going.

SERGEANT WAYNE DAVIS: This is the, yeah, the frontline and the cutting edge of really what it's all about being in the army. It's the greatest experience I think any soldier can ask to do, to actually be deployed and serve his country overseas.

CHRIS MASTERS: In Holland where the Afghanistan mission does not have bipartisan support, they count their own body bags and the civilian casualties. In August they will decide whether a two years commitment will be extended.

COLONEL HANS VAN GRIENSVEN, COMMANDER, TASK FORCE URIZGAN: The Netherlands said we are going in for two years obviously and then we will see, we will go normally but okay and somebody else has to take over because if you look at the whole process I think International community should stay here for another 20 years at least.

CHRIS MASTERS: Australia has more recently committed to a two years $250 million deployment and on the ground here it's obvious a similar estimate applies to how long this will ultimately take.

COLONEL JOHN FREWEN, COMMANDER, ADF, AFGHANISTAN: Military victory is achievable in this country. The the Taliban are not offering a viable alternative here. They don't offer a viable system of government. They are, you know, extreme in their views and they they are divisive in what they offer the population. So I think militarily we can defeat them but politically they can be defeated as well.

GENERAL DAN MCNEILL, US ARMY COMMANDER ISAF: I think we owe the legitimate government of Afghanistan a chance to get their institutions built up. We owe them a duty to help them build those institutions and I think if we leave too fast, it just means we will come back some number of years later to start it again.

GENERAL ZAHER AZIMI, AFGHAN NATIONAL ARMY (TRANSLATED): We wish that the other countries would learn from the Australian forces in order to focus more on the rehabilitation. In fact, the security is impossible without the rehabilitation, and the rehabilitation is impossible without security.

CHRIS MASTERS: Long-term success will depend on the good sense and training of young soldiers. It will depend also on clever politics and enduring patience. As they have done for centuries, war weary Afghans will keep one eye on the performance of their leaders and the other on the staying power of the foreigners.

(End of transcript)