An American soldier patrolling in Jalrez Bazaar, Afghanistan, where American troops set up camps in February.

By SABRINA TAVERNISE


JALREZ BAZAAR, Afghanistan - A year ago, the Taliban were tormenting this lush valley just kilometers from the Afghan capital, kidnapping people and blocking the road.

All that changed when American troops arrived in February. They dropped from helicopters and set up three camps where there had been none, expecting a fight. Instead, the Taliban put up almost no resistance and left for other areas. Now trucks travel freely and merchants no longer fear for their lives.

“Compared with last year, it’s 100 percent different,” said Muhamed Zaker, an apple farmer from the area.

The Jalrez Valley is a test case, the first area in Afghanistan where President Obama’s strategy of increasing troop levels has been applied, and it is a promising early indicator.

But in Afghanistan, a complex patchwork of tribes, ethnicities and rivalries, it remains unclear whether the early success in this area can be replicated.

In the painstaking business of counterinsurgency, security requires more than just extra troops. It means giving Afghans reasons to reject the insurgents by providing the basic trappings of a state - an effective police force, enough government services, and economic opportunity so they can work rather than fight.

Defense Secretary Robert M.Gates has said the troops here have about a year to show they can turn around the momentum of the war, before Afghan and American patience runs out.

But Afghanistan is a country where only a third of the population can read and even the most rudimentary infrastructure is lacking, and commanders on the ground say rushing the process would be a mistake.

“It’s construction, not reconstruction,” one American officer said, comparing the task with that in Iraq, where the American effort was referred to as reconstruction.

One problem is that the gains in Jalrez could still be temporary. Insurgents regularly leave areas where Americans appear, only to resurface later. “We are hearing it’s better now,” said Hoji Mir Ahmad, a fruit merchant based in Kabul, “but God knows what things will be like when the harvest comes.”

When the Americans came to the Jalrez Valley, a skinny finger of green just 48 kilometers west of Kabul, the capital, Taliban fighters had controlled it for more than a year. A unit of about 200 American soldiers had patrolled an area of half a million people and was so thinly spread that its captain had to drive 12 hours to hold a meeting with a local leader.

Humiliations had become routine: The Taliban would blacken the faces of men they said were thieves and parade them. In Jalrez Bazaar, a town west of the valley, eight people were killed in 2008, residents said.

“It looked like we didn’t have any destiny,” said Momin Shah, a farmer.

Fearing that the Taliban were tightening their hold around Kabul, the Americans were sent to secure the two provinces just south and west of it, Logar and Wardak, the gateway to the capital and the location of the country’s main north-south highway.

Then came the first surprise: The Taliban left for other areas rather than fight.

The reason, American officers said, was simple math. The new contingent increased the number of Americans tenfold.

What is now causing unrest in Jalrez is an assortment of low-level criminals, Americans and Afghans said, men who may be thought of as Taliban, but whose main pursuit is money, not infidels. That gives the Americans hope that if they bring money and jobs fast enough , they could substantially weaken the insurgency.

For Afghans, life has improved, a fact that, for Jalrez Bazaar residents, has trumped the irritation at having foreign troops on Afghan soil. “People hate them but it’s better to have them here,” said Shah Mahmoud, a farmer, 70. If security is established, “we don’t need the Americans and they don’t need us.”

The Americans are trying to strike a balance between wooing villagers with public works projects and continuing to put pressure on insurgents in the same areas. Progress is slow.

The Americans say the effort in Wardak could succeed if given enough time. Pashtuns are slowly coming forward to join the guard forces. Local residents are beginning to call in tips.

“It’s moving as fast as it can,” said Matthew Sherman, the Americans’ political adviser. “If we force it, then it won’t work.”