the security forces here in logar in particular are making great strides, both in the police, the afghan national army and their intelligence director at the n.d.s. over the last five months or so that we have been here, incredible progress has been made with the police, specifically in logar and wardak provinces. what the afghan government is attempting to do is to give security back to the people, and that is the a.l.p., the afghan local police is a program by which communities stand up their own police force. and they get training by the afghan national police. local communities hiring from within their communities to defend their communities. so they get training by the afghan national police. they get partnership. they get oversight through forces. and they are paid, equipped, uniformed by the ministry of the interior. so it is essentially exactly where the afghans need to be. during this critical time of transitioning the security over to the afghan. >> from a security standpoint, as we look at the afghan army, it's out there patroling, securing the population and making a connecti

-- specifically in logar.ocal communities hiring from within their communities to defend their communities, so they get training by the afghan national police. they get partnership through us and mentorship. they get oversight again through -- and they are aid-equipped, union formed by the ministry of the interior. so it is essentially exactly where the afghans need to be during this critical time of transitioning security over to the afghans. >> from a security standpoint as we look at the afghan army, it is out there parole trolling, securing the population making a connection with the local people and showing them that they are in capable force. police as well, transitioning from counterinsurgency operations where they are kind of focused right now and moving into those civil policing functions that we see. i think we'll start to see some transitions to that. we're seeing it in some areas, especially very lows to the district center. where the police are able to go out and do civil policing, get out, kind o

logar is a critical area just south of kabul. south of kabul. clearly

-based in logar. despite being close to the base, is a borderline town. had some flooding problems that the bank on a coalition -- they blamed on coalition construction. has some residents that are not too friendly to the u.s.-led alliance. the 10th mountain lions had the idea to go into the village and take a long afghan and jordanian troops and use the afghans and jordanians, because they are muslim, to drop in on the village mosque. they need new rugs or loudspeakers, and the coalition can pay for those things as a gesture to the village to try to win them back to the coalition's side. on march 19, we drove into the town in a convoy. got out of the vehicles right outside of town and walked through the town, ending the jordanians and the afghans in each of several mosques as we passed by. there was some indication early on that things were not right in the village. the village has always been borderline, but that day, it was particularly irritated at the coalition presence. not uncommon for kids to throw rocks at coalition patrols. the rocks were a barr

lobar province -- logar province is just to the south of kabul.he security forces here in particular are making great strides, both with the police, the afghan national army, and also their intelligence director. from my point of view from -- over the last five months or so, incredible progress has been made with the police, specifically in logar and wardak provinces. what the government is attempting to do is get the security back to the people. that is the alp, the afghan local police, the committees are stepping up their own police force. they get training by the afghan uniformed police. local communities hiring from within their communities to defend their communities. they get training by the afghan basis. it partnering and mentor should. economy oversight from both forces and they are paid, a quick, uniformed by the ministry of interior. -- paid, he quipped, uniformed by the ministry of interior. -- vpaid, equipped and uniformed by the ministry of interior. >> a as we look at the afghan army, from a security standpoint, is out there patrolli

strong relationships with kabul, providing food, a lot of traffic moving between them -- places like logar are what i call bombing galleries where coalition troops are trying very hard to lock those provinces down and order to protect kabul, but every step they take they are threatened by i.e.d's, that are killing hundreds of nato troops and many times that amount of afghans every year. a few days before i was caught up in a i.e.d explosion, i accompanied a patrol, a team of u.s. army engineers whose job it is to find the i.e.d's before they hit the other troops. >> my name is captain brand -- commander. >> what we doing here today? >> today's mission is to conduct ground clearance. our purpose is to provide clear maneuver on the ground and clear these roads for any possible obstacles such as i.e.d's. so the forces can move freely throughout the battlefield and protect the afghan nationals as they traveled this road. >> why is this important? >> it is important keep our guys safe to conduct their mission and the local population, to provide them the ability to move freely on their roads. >

the security forces here in logar are making great strides both in the police, the afghan national army, and their intelligence director. from my point of view, over the last five months or so that we have been here, a credible progress has been made with the police, specifically. what the afghan government is attempting to do is give security back to the people. the afghan local police is a program by which communities stand up their own police forces. they get training from the afghan police. local communities hiring from within their communities to defend their communities. they get training by the afghan national police and get partnership and mentor ship through us. it they get oversight and they are paid, equipped, and uniformed by the interior, so it is exactly where they need to be during this critical time of transitioning security over to the afghans. >> the afghan army is out there patrolling, securing population, making a connection with the local people, showing them day are capable force. police are transitioning from counterinsurgency operations, moving into civil policin

truck i was in could have been any of a number of varieties of i.e.d's that extremist groups use in logar province. there are bombs made of all the explosive, old military grade military and mortar shells. there are bombs made of fertilizer. there are different kinds of trigger mechanism. there are radio controlled blasts. there are blessed triggered by pressure. -- a pressure plate. some are even triggered by an infrared beam across tyhhe road. this is probably a pressure plate, because those are easiest to detect. you can use an old style metal detector to detect them. it was not detected, it could be a fertilizer pact by plastic or wood. i say that because the bomb struck the front of the first vehicle in the convoy. piecing together the details, it seems the bomb had been there for a while. when we entered the village, somebody tipped off the taliban or they were watching -- it could then another extremist group, but likely the taliban. while we were having rocks thrown at us, the taliban stole motorcycle or was willing to give up his own, raise up to where the bomb was, activated, le