The Marine Mayor of Koru Chareh in Marjah

McClatchy:

Among the U.S. Marines at Combat Outpost Turbett, Gunnery Sgt. Brandon Dickinson is better known as "Gunny D."

These days, the 32-year-old non-commissioned officer, who's spearheading U.S. Marine counterinsurgency outreach in this central slice of Marjah, has a new nickname: "The mayor of Koru Chareh."

In the weeks since the Marines with Bravo Company , 1st Battalion , 6th Marine Regiment seized control of this opium-rich region from the Taliban , Dickinson has emerged as a neighborhood godfather in the ragtag Koru market outside this Marine outpost.

Every day, Dickinson hands out money to pay storekeepers recovering from the fighting, hires scores of workers to clean canals, and wanders into the street without his flak jacket to talk to Marjah elders.

The new "mayor" only has to walk a few feet to encounter the opposition, however.

The Marines' immediate neighbor is a crumbling mud mosque run by Mawlawi Abdel Rashid, an unapologetic Taliban supporter who makes little effort to hide his distaste for the Americans who've taken over his town.

"If I lived 1,000 years, praise God, I would prefer the Taliban ," Rashid said through one of the Marines' interpreters during a brief visit to the military outpost.

"They failed before, so now they are trying to win people's hearts using different tactics and strategies," Rashid said of the Marines as several sat listening nearby. "But they will never be successful."

If Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's strategy for winning the eight-year-old war by regaining the trust of wary Afghans is going to be a success, this is one place where it must take root.

Dickinson's tireless campaign should be the cornerstone of a counterinsurgency strategy, but it won't have credibility until and unless the Marines can convince Marjah residents that they're safe, that the ousted Taliban rulers will never regain power, that the new Afghan police force can be trusted and that the U.S.-backed district government is truly in charge.

Dickinson's title as the local mayor is an unintended reminder that, aside from the Afghan police and soldiers working with the Marines, there are few signs of the new Afghan government that at some point will take responsibility for Marjah.

Bravo Company is in charge of a narrow, six-square-mile slice of Marjah and holds firm control over the Koru market.

Once they win over Afghans living around the 150 stalls in the market, Marines are betting they can gradually extend their influence into areas that Taliban fighters still contest with daily roadside bombs and sporadic gun battles.

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Until the Marines arrived, Rashid said, he had more than 100 Taliban students who'd regularly come to his mosque for classes and guidance. They've gone.

Now that the American military is across the road, Rashid has given permission for the educated commander of the new Afghan police force to hold regular elementary school classes in the mosque courtyard.

When invited to the Marine compound for tea, Rashid politely rebuffed the Americans' politically charged request that he teach 15 minutes of Koran studies each day to the growing number of young boys in the class.

Throughout the days, Rashid tries to counter the American influence by inviting Afghan soldiers, police and military interpreters to come across the street to pray. Sometimes they join Rashid and other local men answering the hoarse, atonal call to prayer.

Though Rashid won't take any money for his own needs, the Marines said he accepted about $150 from the Marines to repair some minor damage to his mosque, and he tacitly acceded to the Marines' plans to build a new community well outside the mosque.

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Rashid seems committed to his religious bigotry, but he is also becoming pretty isolated. He probably is sticking around to be the eyes and ears of the Taliban. The Marines need to keep a close eye on him as well as anyone who goes to talk with him. They probably should put a video surveillance on him and the mosque.

Meanwhile the people are getting more support than the Taliban could give them in a hundred years. That should eventually mean success for this operation.