Pentagon Tells Troops in Afghanistan: Shape Up and Dress Right

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Sept. 11 — For several months, the Special Operations Forces soldiers whom the United States sent to Afghanistan have been growing beards and donning local garb in an effort to blend in with the local people and their surroundings.

But last weekend, the story goes here, Pentagon brass were shocked by news photos of scruffy looking Special Operations Forces swinging into action to help abort the assassination attempt here against President Hamid Karzai in which his companion, Gul Agha Shirzai, governor of Kandahar Province, was wounded.

"On Monday," said a Special Operations Forces officer, leaning against the mud wall of a local bazaar, "we got the word: some general in Washington ordered no more beards."

Asking that his name not be used, the freshly shaved officer continued, "The guys are really burning on this" and nodded to his squad, men who all looked as if they had just emerged from a sheep-shearing shed.

The Special Operations Forces commander here has declined to explain or defend the new rules to reporters, according to Army Major Teri Oman, a spokeswoman for conventional Army forces at Kandahar Airfield.

The impact on the ground is that American patrols now stand out sharply against the Afghan landscape.

Instead of knots of bearded men with a few touches of local garb and concealed weapons strolling through this city with a studied casualness, a Special Forces squad looks like what it is: foreign soldiers patrolling in Afghanistan.

With M-4 rifles slung over their shoulders, men patrol dressed in the beige, brown and olive green uniforms made famous in the Persian Gulf war.

Their faces are shaved as smooth as those of most high school seniors. The Special Operations officer, a six-month veteran of Afghanistan, looked as if he had just stepped off a troop transport from Germany.

In Afghanistan, where beards are a sign of manly maturity and wisdom, the Pentagon initially maintained "reduced grooming standards" for Special Operations Forces in the field. Green Berets and Navy SEALs operating here have grown beards, often modifying their uniforms to local standards, adding such items of civilian wear as dust scarves and loose shirts.

"We ate their food, we grew the beards," continued the Special Operations officer who was in full uniform, with the exception of a checkered scarf, a touch probably in violation of the new rules.

Smiling to passers-by, he added ominously: "We didn't act like an occupying army, like the Soviets. Well, now we are moving in that direction.