“ASSALAMU alaikum Nuristan” may not have quite the same ring as “Good morning, Vietnam”, but American troops stationed at the remotest base in Afghanistan are finding a makeshift radio station to be their most potent weapon in the war against Al-Qaeda-led militants.

Encircled by jagged 15,000ft mountains, Naray is the northernmost base on the border between Kunar province and Pakistan. It is reached via a five-hour helicopter journey along the Kunar river, through narrow gorges so treacherous that the commander and three of his men were killed in a crash in May. Gunners scour the hillsides for enemies and it is not reassuring to see that the Chinook’s cargo includes boxes marked “human blood for Naray”.

Over the mountain to the north is Nuristan, long thought to be Al-Qaeda’s last hideout in Afghanistan. Intelligence sources believe the organisation’s second and third-tier leadership is hidden in its mountain fastness and that this may be where the recent alleged plot to blow up transatlantic flights from Heathrow was hatched.

Every night the howitzers of Naray pound away at the enemy in the hills, shaking the whole camp. Every day Voice of the People broadcasts 10-12 hours of music, poetry, readings from the Koran and news into the villages of Nuristan.

“We’re fighting an insurgency and the cornerstone of fighting an insurgency is winning over the population rather than just destroying the enemy,” explains First Lieutenant Joe Lang, who heads the Information Operations cell. “We still do both but our priorities have switched.”

Lang is from the 3rd Squadron 71st Cavalry, the first conventional troops to be stationed at Naray. Until six months ago only special forces were based there.

The creation of the radio station is tacit admission that smashing down doors and raiding houses only turns locals to the opposition. It is also an attempt to counter the same slick Taliban propaganda that British troops have come up against in Helmand, where the population believes they are there to destroy poppy fields and thus livelihoods.

The radio station does not look like much from the outside. A cabin of nailed-together plywood with an antenna on top encased in a slightly wonky tower, it was built by First Lieutenant Daniel Hampton, whose previous experience was in combat and who had to learn everything from scratch.

But its importance is clear from the guard post alongside. Inside the cabin, one of a team of four Afghans sits at an old-fashioned microphone with a box of 200 cassettes and a sheaf of handwritten papers. Some of this is international news from the BBC that has been translated. The rest is news provided by the American troops, which ranges from development projects such as building schools to attacks on coalition trucks bearing reconstruction materials.

“Anything that happens with the coalition we put that out because the bad guys have a habit of putting their news out quickly, so we have to be pretty quick on the draw too,” said Hampton. “We aim to have things on air within an hour.”

The soldiers have distributed more than 8,000 radios, mostly wind-up or solar-powered, and have another 20,000 to hand out. The station broadcasts to 48 villages comprising 60,000 people but is extending. Boxes have been placed in villages for requests and they receive about 45 a day. “Many of the letters ask, ‘Why are you here?’” laughed Hampton.

()In fact, the radio station is already the most listened to of the three available in the area and this has brought some unexpected rewards. “When we broadcast asking people if they had any information about IEDs (improvised explosive devices), people started turning up every day with information,” said Hampton.

Similarly, when a Raven remote-controlled surveillance aircraft went down, the news was broadcast on the radio. Within an hour, someone was at the front gate with the 4ft craft.

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