Afghanistan Articles

By Najmuddin A. Shaikh

 

BASING its assessment on Afghan reports, the Associated Press says that coalition forces killed 203 Afghan civilians in the first five and a half months of 2007. It puts the number of those who died at the hands of the Taliban at 178.

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Afghanistan says that the figure for those killed by the militants and coalition forces is 213 and 207 respectively for the first five months of the year.

Most observers agree that these are conservative estimates and that the death toll among civilians is far higher. In an incident on Friday, Afghan officials confirmed that a bombing raid on a Taliban hideout killed 45 civilians along with 62 Taliban.Suicide attacks, earlier unknown in Afghanistan, have surged. In the first five months of 2006, 11 suicide attacks took 63 lives while in the same period this year there were 42 attacks in which 171 people were killed. There are media stories that the suicide bombers are being trained in camps in the tribal areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan by Arab veterans of the Afghan jihad and the Arab Brigade created by Osama bin Laden during the Taliban era.

The trainees are, for the most part, Afghans or recruits from other parts of the Muslim world. The Arabs themselves have apparently not carried out any suicide attacks. Suicide bombings and the means of indoctrinating volunteers have been learnt from the experience of insurgents in Iraq and were probably brought to Afghanistan by the Al Qaeda.This is not all. There are indications that the insurgents have now started the manufacture of the same sort of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) that have become the bane of the American army in Iraq.

The statements from leaders of the coalition partners all suggest that they are committed to staying the course in Afghanistan and that unlike in Iraq they believe that the battle in Afghanistan against the Taliban is a “noble cause” and an essential element of the war against terrorism.

Actions on the ground, however, belie these assertions. The Germans are now talking of withdrawing the 100-strong contingent of special forces that are fighting alongside the American special forces as part of Operation Enduring Freedom and there is speculation that the German Bundestag will not renew permission for the deployment of German Tornado fighter planes to fight support missions in southern Afghanistan.

The Canadians who provide a genuine fighting force are hard pressed in the face of domestic opposition to retain their forces. The French, the Italians and the other “old” Nato members are all facing opposition within their coalitions and among the voters.

All observers are agreed that the battle against the insurgency cannot be won from the air, but “boots on the ground” are pathetically few. The Americans have had no success in persuading their Nato allies to send their troops to battle zones in Afghanistan. Their own army is badly overstretched with the deployment in Iraq. There is little success, therefore, in pursuing the avowed objective of “winning the hearts and minds” of the people.

In Afghanistan, there is increasing nostalgia for the Taliban era which the Pashtuns recall as a period of security in which they were not harassed by corrupt officials or suffered indiscriminate air raids killing Taliban and innocent civilians in almost equal numbers.

This year the opium harvest in Afghanistan is expected to top last year’s record-breaking production of 6,600 tons. Afghanistan will contribute about 92 per cent of the total world production, with Helmand province alone producing more opium than the rest of the world. Unlike past years, UN officials estimate that the bulk of the opium, perhaps as much as 90 per cent, will be processed in Afghanistan and exported as heroin or other derivatives.

Given this addition, the narcotics industry in Afghanistan will be worth more than the three billion dollars that it generated last year and will certainly be more than one-third of Afghanistan’s GDP. The farmer gets only a third of this amount and corrupt officials get much of what traffickers have to offer. But there is no doubt that a part of the bribes the traffickers pay goes to the Taliban to finance their insurgency.

It should be noted as a significant aside that heroin consumption in the West is estimated at 170 tons annually. The balance of Afghanistan’s production is, therefore, available for the four million addicts in Iran and an almost equal number in Pakistan. As supply grows so will efforts to encourage further use in these two countries as well as in the Central Asian states.

The Taliban recruits in Afghanistan get paid about $10 a day. In a region plagued by the lack of employment opportunities such concrete inducements — far more than religious fervour — make for a plentiful supply of volunteers.

In contrast, little in terms of development or employment opportunities has been generated by the $13 billion which is estimated to have been spent by the international community in Afghanistan, particularly in the south and east of the country.

The famous offensive launched in Helmand to clear the area and to allow the reconstruction of the hydel power station at Kajaki has, after more than four months, yet to achieve its objective. The area is partly under the control of coalition forces but villagers in the area testify that such control lasts only as long as the coalition forces are present.

The road along which the heavy earth-moving machinery and turbines are to be moved has yet to be built. The repair of pylons and transmission lines is still on the drawing boards. Local officials have little hesitation in contradicting coalition forces’ claims of control over the area.

Observers agree that while the insurgency is an issue, the main grievance and source of insecurity is the corruption of Afghan officials and the poor governance provided by administration officials, most of whom are ill-trained and owe their appointments to the influence of the local warlords to whom they kowtow. The judicial system is weak and the prosecution system poorer still.

As I write this, an international conference is being held in Rome, with President Hamid Karzai and the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in attendance, to devise programmes to improve the law and order situation in Afghanistan.

The new UN secretary-general on his first visit to Afghanistan a few days ago made this the principal theme of his visit, and his representative in Afghanistan said that in the last five years little progress had been made to end the “era of lawlessness, corruption, unprofessional police and an unreliable justice system”.

While the conference will probably bring pledges of fresh technical assistance and training programmes, past experience shows that implementation on the ground will be poor.

An American commander has claimed that 60 of the 83 districts in southeastern Afghanistan now owe their loyalty to the Karzai government while last year only 19 districts could be so classified. On the other hand, the World Food Programme has suspended its food aid programme in this area because of the frequency with which its trucks are being looted. According to their statistics, the WFP’s vehicles were attacked 85 times in the last year and in 25 of these incidents (13 of them in the past three months) the WFP lost 200 tons of wheat and $400,000 worth of cooking oil.

Since the WFP ration has meant the difference between life and death for the poor of the area, the distress and despair this suspension will cause needs no emphasising. The poverty-stricken people will now turn to the Taliban and offer their services for whatever succour they can get from that quarter.

Political developments have been just as disquieting. The United National Front, largely a collection of leaders of the former Northern Alliance, formed in March this year has recruited as member Mr Gulabzai, the interior minister in Najibullah’s cabinet and an arch enemy in those days of the so-called Mujahideen who made up the Northern Alliance. It is incongruous but perhaps to be expected that even this former enemy of the stalwarts of the United Front is welcomed in their ranks because he, like them, is opposed to Karzai.

It is also perhaps uniquely Afghan that most of the prominent members of the Front are members of the Karzai government holding what are theoretically important positions. Most observers believe that the Front is a bid by these warlords to restore their regional spheres of power — Dostum in Mazar-i-Sharif, Ismail Khan in Herat, Fahim in Panjshir and so on. They cannot dislodge Karzai while he retains US support but they can and have added to the instability in Afghanistan.

Within the government there are divisions best exemplified by the alleged attack on the attorney-general by a former interior ministry official and by unsuccessful raids conducted by the interior ministry (presumably at the behest of the attorney-general) on the house of a former Kabul police chief, currently the security adviser to Karzai.

It has been generally believed that the Taliban have been receiving, in addition to the recruits from madressahs, much of their arms and ammunition from Pakistan. Recent reports, however, suggest that a substantial quantity is being supplied from Iran.Whether this is with or without the Iranian government’s support is not yet clear, although the western media and some western officials maintain that given the quantity and quality involved it could be presumed that the Iranian government is a party to the supply.

The Karzai regime, anxious to maintain its relations with Iran on an even keel, has been categorical in denying that any evidence exists of Tehran’s involvement in arms smuggling from Iran, but regional officials are less reticent.

The Taliban are, of course, the elements in Afghanistan that the Iranians most abhor. But in the twisted politics of the region, it is possible that elements in the Iranian government regard assistance to the Taliban as a means of discomfiting the coalition forces and keeping Afghanistan unstable so that communication routes through Iran to the Central Asian states acquire an irreversible permanence.

Iran, however, is not the only other source of arms for the Taliban. The northern warlords have surrendered only some of the arms that they had accumulated during the jihad. It is estimated that after the DIAG (Disarming of Illegal Armed Groups) had collected some 70,000 weapons more than one million still remained in the arsenals of the warlords.

Now reports suggest that large quantities of such arms are being transported from the north to the Taliban in the south and are earning a neat profit for the arms dealers. While the Karzai government is aware of this it lacks the means to put an end to it.

All in all, Afghanistan is a mess and is likely to remain so for many years to come. It is against this backdrop and with the full realisation that this mess has perilous consequences for Pakistan that Pakistan’s policy towards Afghanistan has to be framed. What that policy should be will be the subject of my next article.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.

 

Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda organization were in need of state. Therefore they made Afghanistan their base by the late 1990s to pursue their brand of Jihad and attempt to establish an Islamic Caliphate. However they somehow miscalculated the US reaction to the 9/11 attack and in the process the US and its NATO allies occupied their secure sanctuary, Afghanistan. Despite a 6 year insurgency they could not pose a credible strategic threat to the NATO occupation forces. With Pakistan joining in on the war on terror things become difficult for the achievement of their ultimate aim in an earlier timeframe. The attention of the Al Qaeda has therefore shifted to Pakistan for reasons discussed below.

          

.     A large segment of the population because of ignorance was sympathetic to their

      cause and did not support President Musharraf in his war on terror.

 

    .    The vernacular press oblivious of the disastrous consequences supported their cause

         and turned a blind eye to their atrocities they committed on their fellow muslim

         countrymen and the security forces that attempted to contain them.

 

    .    A large Jihadi forces out of business because of the downgrading of the Kashmiri

         Jihad and NATO troops occupying Afghanistan were available to recruit and

         unleash on the Pakistan security forces.

 

    .    Religious political parties were either sympathetic to their cause or turned a blind

         eye to their activities in the settled areas of NWFP where these parties were ruling.

 

    .    The secular political parties were either scared or played party politics and became

         apologetic in their views.

 

    .    Money could be used freely to buy the loyalties of the tribesmen in the tribal

         areas. They killed pro government tribal leaders with impunity.

 

    .     Pakistan had a viable banking system where finds could be easily transferred. Air

          and land communications were available to move within Pakistan or overseas with

          relative ease.

 

    .    The state security forces were neither organized, trained or motivated to fight an

          invisible enemy in a brutal insurgency where there were no holds barred in acts of

          barbarism.

 

    .     Clerics like these of the Lal Masjid could be used to embarrass the government

          through defiance and incase of action discredit it for killing innocent men, women

          and children.

 

   .      The country was in political turmoil especially after the Chief Justice affair and the

          onset of elections in the later part of the year. In any case some important figures in

          the leadership of ruling party had sympathies with extremists supported by

          Al Qaeda.

          

 

   .     The US/NATO operations in neighboring Afghanistan had resulted in large scale

         civilians causalities which enflamed passions in Pakistan. The US counter

         insurgency operations were flawed and failed to win the hearts and minds of a large

         segment of the Afghan population. These operations could be used as an effective

         propaganda tool against the Pakistan state.

 

   .     A relatively free electronic media was available which is at times was hard on the

         government but apologetic and ambivalent towards the extremists. It was willingly

         or otherwise playing into the hands of the extremists who were being shown to the

         general public as heroes.

 

    .    The most important factor is the availability of nuclear weapons with Pakistan.

         These weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery would give the

         terrorists, means to destabilize the entire world with unpredictable consequences.

 

     By spring of 2007 with the expected Taliban offensive not gaining the estimated ground, Al Qaeda shifted focus to Pakistan. It had already gained enough ground in the North /South Waziristan and Bajuar areas. All that was required was to expand to the settled districts where a nucleus of militants already existed. Their game plan appears to develop as follows:

 

    .     Create nucleus of extremists in the settled areas of NWFP and establish its writ

          through bombing of CD/ music shops, barber shops, and ladies outlets. (achieved

          in most of NWFP to varying degree)

 

   .      As the state surrenders its authority, establish own administrative apparatus and

          obtain the cooperation of the local population willingly or unwillingly through fear

          and coercion. (achieved in Swat, Bannu, Tank and a few agencies of FATA).

 

   .      Over awe the security forces through suicide bombings, abductions, sabotage,

          brutal killing and humiliating them by parading them in front of media for

          propaganda purposes.

 

   .      Play on the religious sentiments of the people by making demands of enforcement

          of Sharia, brutal acts of the US forces against Muslims over the world in

          general and in the region in particular. In the same vein ask for financial assistance

          for Islamic causes.

 

    .     Spread fear and dependency in the country through sabotage activities, bombing

          including suicide.   

 

    .     Cow down liberal/ secular political parties and its leadership through threats or

          actual suicide bombings. (More or less achieved).

 

    .      Discredit current leadership in the country through propaganda by describing them

           as agents of the west and working for a status quo of a decadent system.

 

    .      Create safe havens/ areas for command and control, training, motivating and for

           extremist to sally out and carry out subversive activities in the country through its

           length and breath. 

 

     .    Paralyze state administrative and security apparatus in the safe havens. (Already

          achieved).

 

    The genesis of the problem dates back to our policies that we have been pursuing at the behest of the United States or because of our Indo centric vision. The proxy wars in Afghanistan and Kashmir give rise to militant militias who carried out operations at the behest of the state but pursued their own agenda within the country also. The establishment over the years turned a blind eye to the activities of the Jihadi militia. Jihadi culture is anarchist and isolationist. In the 90’s Pakistan increasingly became difficult to govern and was isolated in the international community. The state gradually lost its space which was taken over by the militias and they started confronting the state. Monopoly over violence, a function of the state was now out sourced to the various Lashkars and Sipahs. A realization did come as to the damage these organizations caused to Pakistan but by then they had become a formidable force. The establishment was either too weak to confront them or the fear of a political fallout led to expediency.

 

    Simplistic solutions or views points are offered by our political leaders like that there will be no problems if the Army is withdrawn from troubled areas and we need to stop supporting United States policies globally and regionally. This flawed thinking. Al- Qaeda and the Pakistani militants have an agenda and are pursuing the same relentlessly. If at times they agree to talk it is because they are temporarily weak and need to buy time. Once they are strong enough to restart they will do so without bothering to keep their commitments.

 

    The Pakistani state and its people ought to realize that they are faced with a huge problems which if not confronted will shake the very foundation of the state and we may cease to exist as a viable state. There are scores of militias in the country who wish to impose their own brand of Islam. This will lead to the country breaking down into fiefdoms where local warlords will hold sway.  The internal integrity of the state will cease to exist and result in a melt down. We therefore need to come up with a solution on a fast track basis. We must recognize the fact that there cannot be easy solution to the militancy. This will be a long drawn affair of low intensity conflict perhaps requiring a time period of may be ten years or so. Some measures are suggested in the succeeding paragraphs. 

 

 

Military:

     .      Instance military operations may be done away with. This is likely to result in

            collateral damage, alienate the local population and cause inter provincial

            disharmony. This may also result in increasing the number of militants. An

            immediate requirement is to saturate the areas affected by militancy with troop

            (a la Indian held Kashmir). This would also mean setting up permanent

            cantonments in the areas. After consolidating the main population centers, the

            militants would be forced to withdraw to the surrounding areas. The security

            forces can then under a well planned operation tackle the fragmented enclaves of

            the militants.

   

    .       Intelligence gathering especially by local field units (who must stay in the area for

            extended periods) must form the backbone of intelligence gathering. For that they

            must win the hearts and minds of the local population. Once their confidence is

            gained, intelligence gathering would become easier and meaningful. Informants

            must be given full security whenever compromised. 

 

    .       Initial operations must be conducted by the paramilitary forces and

            police under the overall supervision of the military commander. The Army should

            only be used for back up and heavy firepower support whenever required.

 

    .        The military instruments must give the environment in which other aspects of

            dealing with militants/insurgents must be left to the political and economic/

             reconstruction aspects of the strategy.

 

    .        The military should be given the means to deal with the insurgency like bullet

              proof jackets, IED proof vehicles and communication to call for ground and air

             assistance.

 

   

    Economic:       

              Most of the areas affected by militancy are economically neglected. This aspect needs attention at priority.

 

    .       Mega projects be left to a later time frame. Small projects cottage industry need to

            be taken up in the first phase. 

 

    .       The local tribal leaders need to be integrated in the economic uplift. Once these

            leaders have a stake in the system they can drum up support for the project in the

            general population.

 

    .       Projects should aim to enhance the skills of locals for economic uplift and poverty

            alleviation.

 

     .       Special economic zones with international assistance must be considered.

 

     .       Pak Afghan trade through a number of corridors would help in uplift of the local

             economy.

 

   

Political:  

    

     .       The system of political agents must be revived. They should be the conduit to

             liaise with the locals. The military must be kept out of it.

 

     .     The Political Parties Act must be extended to the tribal areas so that the main

           stream political parties can compete with the local mulla who has aligned himself

           with the militants.

 

    .       The FATA reform committee recommendations must be implemented and FATA

            under a phased programme be made subject to the laws of the state. 

 

    .       All Afghan refugees must move back to their country by 2009 as planned.

 

      While dealing with militancy is not easy feat to achieve, the above mentioned prescription has a reasonable chance of success. The military component of the strategy should be subservient to the overall strategy and not the other way around.  Heavy handed and long drawn military operations are not the right recipe to alleviate the dangers to Pakistan’s sovereignty.

 

 

 

fasicp@gmail.com

AL Qaeda – Focus Pakistan

LAST year in Afghanistan, while serving with the British army, I sat on the rooftop of our patrol base in the middle of Sangin, a small town in Helmand province. Surveying the skyline of flat-roofed mud homes and barren hills, I took stock of the situation.

We had seized and occupied Sangin a few days previously, wresting control of the town from the Taliban. During our advance an 11-year-old boy was killed in the crossfire, shot in the head accidentally by our allies, the Afghan national army. Despite this we established our base in a local government building, the district centre, and patrolled the bazaar every day. We bought mangos and chatted to the locals – who seemed ambivalent about our presence.

Just below the surface, however, tension simmered. The boy’s death made us a threat to the local population. Despite promising development we had nothing to show for all our big talk. Crucially we had no real answers to questions about the future of the all-important poppy, the basis of Sangin’s economy. To the locals, we were clumsy, interfering foreigners, whose arrival presaged conflict and the destruction of their livelihood. Days later Sangin exploded into violence, seeing some of the fiercest fighting by British troops since the Korean war, and which continues as I write.

Sadly, many more civilians across Afghanistan have met the same end as the 11-year-old. Recently in Sangin an estimated 21 civilians were killed by bombs dropped from Nato planes after US and British soldiers were ambushed. In the eastern city of Jalalabad in March, US soldiers shot dead 19 civilians in the aftermath of a bomb attack. And on Tuesday seven policemen were killed by “friendly fire” in an air strike in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

The Jalalabad shootings may yet be deemed a war crime, but civilian deaths are normally tragic accidents. Often outnumbered and outgunned by militia men, the immediate response of Nato troops is to call on overwhelming firepower delivered by artillery, helicopter gunships and jets. The troops aren’t wicked, they’re just keen on staying alive. But these weapons are blunt-edged and indiscriminate. The price of overwhelming firepower is the death of nearby civilians.

But accidental or not, civilian deaths catastrophically undermine the entire Nato effort, as relatives of the dead, bent on vengeance, flock to the Taliban cause. As Pashtuns, the inhabitants of Helmand hold Badal, the pursuit of revenge, as a central concept of their social code, which is devotedly adhered to. “A Pashtun waited a hundred years for revenge,” a local saying goes, “and was pleased with such quick work.” Indeed, the Taliban are ruthlessly exploiting this mindset by deliberately engaging Nato troops from villages. But it was never supposed to be like this. On my arrival in Afghanistan, I was optimistic about being involved in a reconstructive, nation-building endeavour. Our strategy, the Comprehensive Approach, was supposed to provide security, development and governance. The UK army was to guard a secure “inkspot” around Lashkar Gah (Helmand’s capital), inside which the Foreign Office and international development department DfID could establish an alternative to opium production and initiate development to improve the lives of ordinary Afghan people, some of the world’s poorest. Afghan hearts and minds would be won over, leaving opium traffickers and the last remnants of the Taliban marginalised.

But the Comprehensive Approach was never given a chance. Our occupation of Sangin and other towns across the north of Helmand was a wild digression away from the “inkspot”, motivated by haste and beset by ignorance. We acted as the army alone, purely as a military force, without the crucial hearts and minds-winning capabilities DfID and the Foreign Office should have provided. Far from improving Afghan lives, we have committed a terrible military blunder.

Afghans are sick of foreign armies killing their people. Their president, Hamid Karzai, has publicly criticised Nato’s methods and warned that “bad consequences” will follow if civilian deaths continue unchecked. The Afghan parliament has called for a halt to Nato military offensives, and for negotiations with Afghan members of the Taliban. In Kabul last month, I met displaced civilians from Helmand province, some of the 80,000 to 115,000 people the UN estimates have lost their homes in the fighting in southern Afghanistan. “Why do British planes kill our people?” they said. I struggled to answer.

The British command in Helmand should heed the president’s warning. The Taliban now control 50 per cent of Helmand province. Development is happening nowhere, and opium production has reached record levels. Unless we immediately de-escalate the level of violence and prevent further civilian deaths, all of Helmand will be lost.

In Sangin today the district centre is a battle-scarred fortified position where more than a dozen British troops have been killed fighting from trenches. Soldiers no longer sit on the roof to enjoy the view. The town lies in ruins, with little trace left of the once thriving bazaar. A peaceful, developed Helmand cannot be won by the sword, and the longer we try, the greater the tragedy. —Dawn/Guardian Service

The writer served with the British Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is the author of “Desert of Death: A Soldier’s Journey from Iraq to Afghanistan.”

By Leo Docherty