Defence`s Feeds

The European Defence Agency (EDA) today announced the two winners of the first EDA Defence Innovation Prize: AITEX, a Spanish textile research institute, and Clover Technologies, a Spanish company providing advanced technology services for information systems and communications.  The award ceremony will take place in the margins of EDA’s 2018 Annual Conference on 29 November in Brussels. 

The Prize, the first edition of which was launched early this year, rewards companies and research entities which come up with the most innovative ideas for new technologies, products, processes or services applicable in the defence domain. 

A call for applications was issued in February (see related EDA news here) inviting all types of industries and research institutions in Europe (defence and civil/commercial producers, large companies and SMEs, defence-related and civil research communities) to come forward with ground-breaking ideas which, if implemented between now and 2035, would help improve and enhance Europe’s defence capabilities in two specific domains:

• Autonomous detection, identification and monitoring/sampling/analysis through sensor and platform networking in the area of CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear) protection technologies and techniques
• Integration of multi-robot swarming concepts in support of future defence capabilities in the area of Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC).

A total of 24 companies and research institutes from across Europe participated in the contest. A jury thoroughly assessed each of the proposals and reached agreement on the two winners who are awarded €10,000 each. 
 

The winning ideas

AITEX won in the category ‘Autonomous detection, identification and monitoring through sensor and platform networking in the area of CBRN protection technologies and techniques’ with a smart textile idea: a ‘wearable computing’ system composed of many electronic devices (including sensors able to monitor environmental and personal parameters) fully integrated into textile solutions. For this purpose, it is proposed to develop Electronic Noses (ENs) integrated into textiles based on an array of sensors composed of Graphene Oxide (GO) capable of identifying and quantifying a wide range of chemical warfare agents. The complete system would be printed on a textile substrate obtaining a fully wearable system which has significant advantages compared to traditional rigid and semiportable ENs.

Clover Technologies won the prize in the category ‘Integration of multi-robot swarming concepts in support of future defence capabilities in the area of GNC’ with an idea based on a blockchain-based solution to provide a common platform for swarm nodes with an extra security layer. Swarm robotics is an emerging technology facing many challenges such as computational and storage limitations, heterogeneous communication protocols, information security, etc. The idea put forward by the winner aims at a solution which would facilitates the communication of the swarm robotic nodes within a secure environment that offers integrity, confidentiality and authentication. The projected solution is composed of: - a blockchain platform which allows a secure coordination of a swarm robotic; - a Group Key Distribution Algorithm which allows to manage, in a secure way, the joining/leaving operations within a swarm robotic; - and Java Card technology, which offers a tamper resistant solution to storage and manage the sensitive information in a robot.
 

Background

AITEX, based in Alcoy (Spain), is a leading Spanish centre of research, innovation and advanced technical services for the textile sector. AITEX is a private non-profit association set up in 1985 as an initiative of the Valencian Regional Government, through the Valencian Institute for Small and Medium Industry (IMPIVA), to make the textile sector more competitive. AITEX’ key activity domains include smart textiles, nanotechnology, materials and sustainability and biotechnology. 

Clover Technologies, based in Leganès/Madrid, is an industrial company providing advanced technology services for information systems and communications. It is also active in other domains such as IT solutions and information security management, ITSEC and Common Criteria consulting and evaluation and Blockchain consulting and development, security assessment and conformance analysis of security standards and protocols, design and development of UAV security solutions, as well as professional promotion, certifications training and awareness activities.

 

 

An impressive airlift operation to move the fuselage of the Maritime Patrol Aircraft to its final destination. On Oct. 18, the fuselage of the last BR-1150 Atlantic Anti-Submarine and Maritime Patrol Aircraft, MM40118/41-03, eventually reached the Italian Air Force Museum in Vigna di Valle, near Rome. The aircraft, retired on Nov. 22, 2017 with a […]

On 20 October, more than 400 female candidates will compete for the 68 parliamentary seats reserved for women. Many more women – there are over three million registered female voters – will cast their votes on Saturday, in an attempt to have their say on who represents them in the lower house of the parliament. AAN’s Jelena Bjelica and Rohullah Sorush have been looking back at women’s political participation in earlier decades and hearing from female candidates in Afghanistan about running for office despite threats, campaigning (in some places) despite having to wear a burqa, and being told by men that it is a sin to vote for a woman.

Afghan women, according to a 2014 UNDP report, have a higher political participation at the national and subnational level of governance than women do in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. The reason for this is Afghanistan’s constitutional quota system, which reserves 68 out of 250 seats in parliament (27 per cent) for women (see this AAN’s guide to the Afghan parliament). (See Annex 1) Yet despite this high ’gender score’, any Afghan woman actually wanting to get into parliament needs courage – or money or, according to one report, ‘warlord backing’.

The quota system means there will always be at least 68 women in parliament. In 2018, as in 2010, the number of women candidates is roughly the same – about 400 women out of a total of about 2,500 candidates. (See Annex 1 for detail about the women running and AAN’s basic facts about the 2018 elections here.) In 2010, official women turnout was significant, comprising about 39 per cent of the total (1,668,617 out of a total of 4,265,354 votes cast according to the Independent Election Commission [IEC]). There needs to be some caution about this figure, though, as particularly in southern provinces there was ‘bulk voting’, ie men casting votes ‘for their women’ without them being present at the polling centres (AAN reporting here).

In Nimruz province, there was a particularly high female turnout – 60 per cent of the votes were cast in female polling stations. The two main female candidates there were locked in such a fierce competition that they won both parliamentary seats allotted to Nimruz (see this AAN analysis here), both the reserved women’s seat and the ‘open competition’ seat. This is turn meant that women secured 69 seats in the 2010-elected Wolesi Jirga.

This year has seen a slightly lower proportion of women registering to vote­. In 2004 and 2010, the proportion of registered voters, male to female, was roughly 40:60. This year, it is 36:64 (3,067,918 women in total). (See this AAN analysis).

Although the numbers look good on paper, they belie the difficulties many Afghan women face, both those pursuing a political career and those exercising their right to vote, given Afghanistan’s traditional patriarchal society.

Favouring men

The most evident challenge that women candidates face is that they are women in a male-dominated and largely sex-segregated society, one that, in many areas, castigates women for taking public roles. The fact that a lot of politicking is done in all-male gatherings just adds a further obstacle. As the renowned historian, the late Nancy Dupree, wrote in her 1981 paper “Revolutionary Rhetoric and Afghan Women”, being an MP also hardly fits the dominant model of idealised Afghan womanhood:

Afghan history and folklore is replete with idealized accounts and legends of heroic mothers and wives who provided inspiration to their menfolk in times of crisis. If the ideal personality type for Afghan men is the warrior-poet, a lauded personality type for Afghan women is the poet-heroine.

In other words, the model Afghan woman inspires and supports her menfolk, rather than acting in her own right. Dupree, in the same paper, looks at how the first handful of women went against the grain by standing for the 1965 parliament (women were given the vote in the 1964 constitution). This was in the pre-quota era when all candidates, men and women, ran in open competition with each other (as was the case globally). It is only in more recent years that some parliaments and some political parties have established quotas for women. Four women, said Dupree “stood for, and won election to the Wolesi Jirga (Lower House) of the 12th Parliament.”

During the 1969 parliamentary elections, women failed to secure any seats (see Hafizullah Emadi’s paper, “Establishment of Afghanistan’s Parliament and the Role of Women Parliamentarians: Retrospect and Prospects”, 2015). Emadi points out that between the 1973 coup that brought down the monarchy and constitutional changes in 1987, noparliamentary elections were held. Nevertheless, four women participated in Prime Minister Daud’s Melli Jirga (National Jirga), a hand-picked parliament that was convened in 1977. During much of the pro-Soviet PDPA rule, the Revolutionary Council ruled the country had a number of female members.

After Najibullah introduced a new constitution in July 1987 that revived the parliamentary system, there were a number of women MPs from Kabul and the provinces. “Parliamentary elections under the Soviet occupation were supervised by the pro-Soviet ruling party and individuals with close ties to the party secured seats in both houses of parliament,” Emadi concludes. The 1988 election was mainly based on seats allocated in advance, with some given to non-party members, newly registered (leftist only) opposition parties and some seats kept for the mujahedin, and with only symbolic voting. All in all it was designed to safeguard a majority for Najibullah’s Watan party (the renamed People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan).

On the ‘other side’ of the war, in the exiled communities of Pakistan where millions of Afghan refugees lived, as Dupree noted in a 1989 paper “Seclusion or service: Will women have a role in the future of Afghanistan?” which also deals with women’s political participation, women’s lives there were deliberately limited. Dupree noted that the ‘interim government’ formed by the seven major Sunni mujahedin factions severely restricted the lives of Afghan women in refugee camps in Peshawar, on ideological grounds, to family duties and roles of mother and wife. The Supreme Council of the seven parties, she wrote, directed the interim government, to “Develop moral virtues and combat corruption and denigration by observing the principles of purdah…”(1) Dupree also noted that the political charters issued by the seven factions, in addressing women-related issues, ranged from “explicit insistence on strict seclusion to generalized statements supporting women’s participation in the task of development.” (see page 3 to 5 of the paper). She added:

At the two-week Shura (Consultative Council) meetings held in Islamabad in Feb.-Mar. 1989 to elect yet another interim government, a proposal to include women was flatly rejected (personal communication).

Since 2001, Afghan women have not only had the right to vote and stand, but the quota system reserves them seats. Even so, the social stereotypes referred to by Dupree in 1981 have survived, as have the obstacles women encounter if they attempt to go ‘against the grain’ and run for parliament, as AAN found out when hearing from some of the female candidates.

Going against the grain

Mariam Durrani,one of 13 female candidates from Kandahar province for the 2018 Wolesi Jirga elections told AAN that the people in her province are actively advocating againstwomen candidates:

I heard from a friend that a taxi driver was telling passengers not to vote for women. He said it was illegal [to vote for women]. We openly see that men have more [public] support than women. 

Mina Jalal, one of the three female candidates from Kunar province, shared a similar story:

The day before yesterday I went to campaign in an area. A woman told me that she and other women were told not to take part in election, but if they did, they should not cast their votes for female candidates because it was a sin.

Jalal praised the woman for her wittiness. “If voting is a sin,” she had told those trying to lay down the law, “it’s a sin for both men and women.”

IWPR also reported that Shahba Shahrokhi, one of the six female candidates running for one seat reserved in Samangan province was facing difficulties within her own family:

When I decided to nominate myself, my family immediately disapproved of my decision, with my close relatives then following suit by expressing negative ideas that, as a girl, I would be unable to succeed… [They told me] that there were too many problems, that this society and its traditions have always been against women who somehow make trouble for men. All these words and excuses were intended to change my mind, but I refused to accept this.

In Helmand province, where out of 92 candidates nine women are running for two reserved seats, one of the female candidates, Jamila Niazi, complained to Pajhwok that she was unable to conduct her election campaign, “We face public criticism – culturally motivated – if we display our photographs as part of the campaign.”

Some other candidates, like Shekiba Hashemi, sitting MP and candidate from Kandahar province have not been allowed to campaign in public places. Hashemi told AAN she was not allowed to campaign in the central Shia mosque in Kandahar, the Imam Bara mosque, because she is a woman. “They only allowed one candidate, Sayed Moqtada Miran, to campaign in the mosque, but not the others, specifically not me, a woman,” she said.

Yet ‘sisterly’ support is also not forthcoming, said some of the women candidates we spoke to, with fierce rivalry among women running for office. Shirin Mohseni, a female candidate from Daikundi said that, although she is in her view a leading candidate in Daikundi, “there is a strong and negative rivalry” among women contenders in her province. She told AAN:

There is a rumour that my name has been removed from the list of Daikundi candidates. I know it is the women who are saying this.

Samira Khairkhwa, a female candidate from Balkh also said her problem come from the competition. “Some rival candidates whose names I can’t say have torn down my photos in some areas,” she told AAN.

Security issues

Insecurity during the election campaign is, however, probably an even bigger problem facing women candidates. Humaira Ayubi, a former MP from Farah province and one of the three female candidates running there this year, described the problems:

I have not been able to get out of home and go for campaigning. I am running my campaign from home and people come and visit me here, but I was hoping to go to the villages and see the people. Now, when someone does not have a good appearance and comes to my home, I am really scared he might be an attacker. Insecurity is very high in Farah.

She said that in many villages in Farah province, elections will probably not take place, like in the village of Genahkan, where the fighting is so intensive that all its residents have left the area. This according to Aybi means 900-950 fewer voters. She said that in Kahdanak village, the Taleban have threatened people not to participate in the election.

In Kahdanak, there is propaganda against another female candidate, Belqis Roshan. People have been told [by the Taleban] not to vote for her because she is an infidel.

(Belqis Roshan is close to leftist-feminist former MP Malalai Joya, also from Farah, who has been expelled from the Wolesi Jirga in 2007 after she raised some vehement criticism of the warlords in its ranks.)

Mariam Zurmati, one of eight female candidates in Paktika province has similar concerns. She is reliant on meeting the people, she says, because she cannot afford to pay voters – but meeting the voters is difficult because she is a woman.

There are threats from the Taleban. It is against all Afghans and the candidates, but it impacts women more because it prevents women from having big gatherings and campaigns. Also, because the society is very traditional here and the level of awareness is very low, it is difficult for women candidates to appear in big gatherings. Some former MPs and also current candidates are spending a great deal of money to buy the people and their votes, but I can’t do this.

Mina Jalal, one of three female candidates from Kunar province also pointed to the restrictions female candidates face. She said many have to wear burqas when they go to campaign in the villages, which for a candidate campaigning in Afghanistan where his or her face is their identity, is a serious impediment. She told AAN:

I went to campaign in my own district, Narai. There were security threats from the Taleban… I went only with a driver and another person and I also wore a burqa so that nobody could know me on the way. Women candidates can’t hold big campaigns due to threats. They also must wear a burqa when they go to villages.

Many other women candidates AAN spoke to faced the same or similar security concerns, with threats coming not only from the Taleban, but also local armed groups. Gulalai Nur Safi, a former MP from Balkh province who is running again, told AAN that security concerns in her province revolve around ‘irregular armed groups’. One of her campaigners was beaten up in Salarzayi village by “powerful irregular armed men,” she told AAN. For security reasons, she did not want to name them.

In Takhar, in Rustaq district, a campaign rally for female candidate Nazefa Yusofi Beg was targeted with a bomb (see here). 22 people were killed and many others injured in the attack, although Yusofi Beg escaped unscathed. Given the marginal presence of the Taleban in the district and the history of irregular armed groups there, suspicion has largely fallen on the latter (see this AAN report about insurgent groups in Takhar). (There is more information about female candidates in this AAN overview).

Women – once they get into parliament

Justbecause Afghan women can stand and vote and have a secured presence in parliament does not mean, however, that women MPs will necessarily work for women’s rights. A study by Oxfam in 2011 on safeguarding women’s rights found that Afghan female MPs lack of unity holds them back. Women MPs have not capitalized on their chunk of seats and their potential influence in parliament to try to improve women’s lives. The Oxfam study pointed not only to disunity, but also who was backing at least some of them and who they might actually be answering to.

Female parliamentarians are disunited; many are elected with the support of warlords and are answerable to them. One result of this is that female politicians do not necessarily work to support women’s rights. For example, the 2009 Shia Personal Status Law was passed by a parliament with over 25 per cent female representation despite the fact that it drastically restricts the rights of Shia women and violates the constitution.

Another case in point is the 2013 parliamentary discussion on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW) law, when MP Fawzia Kufi insisted the law be debated, a move which almost cast it into oblivion (for more detail on this, see AAN reporting here and here).

If running for parliament in Afghanistan as a woman is a job for a heroine – facing down security threats and fighting stereotypes – the record of women MPs once in power has been something less than heroic. Afghanistan’s high ‘gender score’ based on the parliamentary quota system belies a less attractive reality.

Edited by Kate Clark

 

 

(1) The Islamic Unity of Afghan Mujahideen (IUAM) interim government included: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e Islami; Hezb-e Islami-ye Afghanistan headed by Mawlawi Muhammed Yunos Khales; Mahaz-e Melli-ye Islami-ye Afghanistan led by Sayyed Ahmad Gailani; Rabbani’s Jamiat-e Islami; Harakat-e Enqelab-e Islami-ye Afghanistan led by Mawlawi Muhammadi; Mujadidi’s Jabha-ye Nejat-e Melli-ye Afghanistan; and Sayyaf’s Ittehad-e Islami-ye Afghanistan.

Dupree writes in a 1989 paper “Seclusion or service: Will women have a role in the future of Afghanistan?” on page 6:

An official published pronouncement which disturbed many men as well as women was issued in March 1988 when the Supreme Council of the 7-party Islamic Unity of Afghan Mujahiden (IUAM) sponsored the formation of an interim government. On 4/24/88, they published a set of guidelines (Itehad-e-Islami; Afghan Jehad 1(4):2). This document consists of four chapters with 87 articles. Only one specifically mentions women. Article LVII, in Chapter III, outlining the Powers and Duties of Government, directs the government to:

Develop moral virtues and combat corruption and denigration by observing the principles of purdah (seclusion) provided for in the Sharia, ensure the unalienable rights of all individuals, men and women alike, and provide dignified conditions in the light of Islamic teachings.

Although the effectiveness of the interim government is widely questioned, this document seems to reflect a disturbing collective thinking among the Peshawar leadership and projects a dim future for women. One article cannot adequately address the problems facing women and certainly the insinuation that corruption and denigration must necessarily rise from women’s public presence is deplorable.

  

Annex 1: Number of reserved seats for women in Wolesi Jirga and number of women candidates for the 2018 Wolesi Jirga election (by province)

1. Kabul has 13 reserved seats, out of a total of 33 seats allocated for the province. Of the 119 female candidates for Kabul province, nine are incumbent MPs. Shahgul Rezayi who represented Ghazni province in the 2010-elected Wolesi Jirga, withdrawn her candidacy for this year’s election. Two female candidates, Sayyeda Masuda Yari and Mariam Sediqa Sadat, are former members of Kabul provincial Council. Two other female candidates for Kabul are members of political parties.  Nabila Sayedjan Zada Hamid affiliated to Hezb-e Ensaf-e Islami-ye Melli and Anisa Maqsudi is affiliated to Hezb-e Wahdat-e Islami.

2. Bamyan has one reserved seat out of a total of four seats allocated for the province. Of 11 female candidates competing for Bamiyan procince, one is an incumbent MP, Safor Elkhani. One female candidate, Sharifa Arman Wasiq is affiliated to Hezb-e Ensejam-e Melli-ye Afghanistan.

3. Nuristan has one reserved seat for women, of a total two seats allocated for the province. Of seven female candidates competing in Nuristan, none are incumbent MPs and none are affiliated to any political parties.

4. Kunar has one reserved seat, out of a total of four seats allocated for the province. Of three female candidates competing in the province, one is an incumbent MP – Wajma Safi. None are politically affiliated.

5. Khost has one reserved seat, out of a total of five seats allocated for the province. One of the two female candidates competing for a seat is Sahera Sharif an incumbent MP. Neither one is politically affiliated.

6. Uruzgan has one reserved seat, out of a total of three seats allocated for the province. None of the eight female contenders is an incumbent MP. One candidate, Duranil Nurzai is affiliated to National United Movement Party of Afghanistan (De Afghanistan de Melli Wahdat Wolesi Tahrik Gund)

7. Nimroz has one reserved seat, out of a total of two seats allocated for the province. One of the three contenders, Farida Hamidi is an incumbent MP.

8. Balkh has three reserved seats for women, out of a total of 11 seats allocated for the province. Of 22 female candidates competing, three are incumbent MPs (Gulalai Nur Safi, Breshna Rabi and Saifora Niazi); and the other three are politically affiliated (Sonia Rajabi to Hezb-e Melli-ye Taraqi-ye Mardom Afghanistan (Afghan People’s National Progressive Party), Merman Robaba Nayebi, to Hezb-e Wahdat-e Mardom-e Afghanistan and Shekiba Shekib is affiliated to Jamiat-e Islami Afghanistan).

9. Daikundi has one reserved seat, out of a total of four seats allocated for the province. Of eight female candidates competing two are incumbent MPs (Shirin Mohseni and Raihana Azad). Raihana Azad represented Uruzgan province in the 2010-elected Wolesi Jirga. Shirin Mohseni is affiliated to Hezb-e Wahdat-e Mardom-e Afghanistan.

10. Herat has five reserved seats, out of a total of 17 seats allocated for the province. Of 28 female candidates competing, three candidates are incumbent MPs (Simin Barakzai, Massuda Karokhi and Nahid Ahmadi Farid). None of 28 contenders are politically affiliated.

11. Kapisa has one reserved seat, out of a total of four seats allocated for the province. Of eight female candidates competing none are incumbent MPs, nor are politically affiliated.

12. Paktika has one reserved seat, out of a total of four seats allocated for the province. Of eight female candidate,competing, Najia Babakarkhel Urgunyar is an incumbent MP. None of them have political affiliation.

13. Panjshir has one reserved seat, out of a total of two seats allocated for the province. Of two female candidates competing Rahila Salim is an incumbent MP. Neither one is politically affiliated.

14. Parwan has two reserved seats, out of a total of six seats allocated for the province. Of 11 female candidates competing, two emale candidates are incumbent MPs (Zakia Sangin and Samea Azizi Sadat). None of 11 female contenders from Parwan are politically affiliated.

15. Wardak has two reserved seats, out of a total of five seats allocated for the province.  Of nine female candidates competing, two are incumbent MPs (Seddiqa Mubarez and Engineer Hamida Akbari). Two other candidates are politically affiliated. Rohina Walizada is affiliated to Hezb-e Islami and Dr Zia Gul Rezayi is affiliated to Hezb-e Wahdat-e Mardom.

16. Laghman has one reserved seat, out of a total of four seats allocated for the province. Of four female candidates competing, Zaifnun Safi is an incumbent MP. None of them have political affiliation.

17. Sar-e Pul has one reserved seat, out of a total of five seats allocated for the province. Of four female candidates competing, Aziza Jales is an incumbent MP and Marzia Ramazani is affiliated to Hezb-e Wahdat-e Mardom.

18. Badakhshan has two reserved seats, out of a total of nine seats allocated for the province. Of 9 female candidates competing, Nilofar Ibrahimi is an incumbent MP and Sadiqa Adib is affiliated to Jombesh-e Melli Islami.

19. Jawzjan has one reserved seat, out of a total of five seats in the Wolesi Jirga. Of four female candidates competing none are incumbent MPs nor politically affiliated.

20. Faryab has three reserved seats, out of a total of nine seats in the Wolesi Jirga. Of 19 female candidates competing, two are the incumbent MPs (Asifa Shadab and Rangina Kargar); and two others are affiliated to Jombesh-e Melli Islami (Gita Said and Shafiqa Sakha Yolchi).

21. Zabul has one reserved seat, out of a total of three seats in the Wolesi Jirga. Of six female candidates competing, none are incumbent MPs nor politically affiliated.

22. Samangan has one reserved seat, out of a total of four seats in the Wolesi Jirga. Of six female candidates competing, none are incumbent MPs, nor politically affiliated.

23. Kandahar has three reserved seats, out of a total of 11 seats in the Wolesi Jirga. Of 13 female candidates competing, three are incumbent MPs (Fariba Ahmadi Kakar, Shekiba Hashimi and Bibi Hamida Yosufi). Shamsia Fazli is affiliated to Hezb-e Motahid-e Melli Afghanistan.

24. Helmand has two reserved seats, out of a total of eight seats in the Wolesi Jirga. Of nine female candidates competing, Nasima Niazi and Habiba Sadat are incumbent MPs; and two other candidates, Razia Baloch and Nargis Rokhshan are former Provincial Council members of Helmand.

25. Kunduz has two reserved seats, out of a total of nine seats in the Wolesi Jirga. Of 16 female candidates competing for two are incumbent MPs (Shukria Paikan and Dr Fatema Aziz). Two other female candidates are politically affiliated. Shukria Sarbeland is affiliated to Hezb-e Islami and Frozan Golchi is affiliated to Jombesh-e Melli Islami.

26. Nangarhar has four reserved seats, out of a total of 14 seats in the Wolesi Jirga. Of 18 female candidates competing two are incumbent MPs (Sayeam Khogyani and Arian Yun). Another candidate, Shafiqa Sherzai Seyar is affiliated to Hezb-e Islami.

27. Badghis has one reserved seat, out of a total of four seats in the Wolesi Jirga. Of nine female candidates competing, only Safia Aimaq is an incumbent MP.

28. Logar has one reserved seat, out of a total of four seats in the Wolesi Jirga. Of five female candidates competing, Dr Shakila Hashimi is an incumbent MP.

29. Baghlan has two seats, out of a total of eight seats in the Wolesi Jirga. Of 12 female candidates competing, two are incumbent MPs (Najia Aimaq and Shukria Isakhel).

30. Paktia has one reserved seat, out of a total of  five seats in the Wolesi Jirga. Of five female candidates competing, Razia Saadat Mangal is an incumbent MP.

31. Takhar has two reserved seats, out of a total of nine seats in the Wolesi Jirga. Of 12 female candidates competing, Habiba Danesh is an incumbent MP and Shahnaz Mariam Mahtab is affiliated to Jombesh-e Melli Islami.

32. Ghor has two reserved seats, out of a total of six seats in the Wolesi Jirga. Of 5 female candidates, Ruqia Nayel is an incumbent MP.

33. Farah has one reserved seat, out of a total of five seats in the Wolesi Jirga. Of three female candidates competing, Humaira Ayubi is an incumbent MP.

34. Kuchis have three reserved seats for women, out of a total of ten seats allocated for them. Of eight female candidates competing, Hamida Ahmadzai is an incumbent MP.

35. Ghazni has three reserved seats for women, out of a total of 11 seats in the Wolesi Jirga. However, Wolesi Jirga elections in Ghazni will not be taking place as planned on 20 October. (see AAN analysis here)

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An attack in Kandahar city has left the province’s governor, NDS chief and police commander, the unrivalled strongman of southern Afghanistan, General Abdul Razeq, dead. The commander of United States and NATO forces, General Scott Austin Miller who had just been meeting the three, was unharmed. The attack mimics earlier assassinations of officials and strongmen. With a slew of well-documented war crimes to his name, Razeq was also credited with keeping the south of Afghanistan relatively stable. Yet the repercussions of this assassination are difficult to underestimate and not just because the deaths of the province’s main officials came two days before an already shaky election, concludes AAN’s co-director Thomas Ruttig. (With input by Kate Clark and a short biography of Razeq by Jelena Bjelica.)

How the attack happened

The full details of the attack on 18 October 2018 are yet to emerge, but Afghan media reports, based on sources in Kandahar, and official statements by Afghan authorities, Resolute Support and the US military in Afghanistan (USFOR-A) have begun to make the contours of the incident visible.

The attack took place in the afternoon of 18 October at the governor’s compound, after a high-ranking meeting about election security had ended, and the participants were on their way out. “Provincial officials including the governor, the police chief and other officials were accompanying the foreign guests to the [helicopter] when the gunshots happened,” said Sayed Jan Khakrezwal, head of the Kandahar provincial council according to the BBC.

Spokesmen for the ministries of defence and interior said at a press conference later in the day reported by Kabul daily Etilaat-e Ruz that a member of Kandahar governor Toryalai Wisa’s bodyguard opened fire. They identified him as “Gulbuddin.” The Taleban, who immediately claimed responsibility for the attack on their website, said he was an “infiltrator” called “Abu Dujana.” According to officials quoted by the BBC, there were also at least two hand grenade explosions. Photos of the alleged assassin appeared on the social media but their source remained unclear.

According to the ministries of defence and interior statement, Razeq was killed along with the provincial NDS chief, Abdul Momen Hussainkhel, while Governor Wisa and the police chief of the southern zone, General Nabi Elham, were injured and hospitalised.

Resolute Support tweeted confirmation of the attack and reported that Gen Miller was “uninjured,” the attacker was “reportedly dead” and “3 Americans [were] wounded.” Later tweets by USFOR-A specified that those wounded had been “1 US servicemember [sic], 1 US Civilian and 1 [non-US] Coalition contractor” and that they had been “medically evacuated and are stable.”

The Associated Press quoted “Army Col. David Butler, who attended the Kandahar meeting with Miller, [saying …] Raziq […]  was clearly the target, not the U.S. general. “It was pretty clear he was shooting at Raziq,” Butler told The Associated Press, adding that Miller was nearby but not in the line of fire.” And further

The delegates had just gathered for a group photo when gunfire broke out inside the provincial governor’s compound in Kandahar City, according to an AP television cameraman who was present when the shooting began. Everyone scattered, and the U.S. participants scrambled toward their nearby helicopter. But a firefight broke out between the U.S. service members and Afghan police when they tried to stop the U.S. delegation from reaching their helicopter, said the cameraman.

There were also reports about further casualties. The Afghanistan Journalists Centre tweeted the photo of Muhammad Salim Angar, cameraman for the Kandahar branch of Radio Television Afghanistan who was reportedly killed in the incident. Akmal Dawi, a journalist with the Voice of America, said, also on Twitter, that “several were killed in cross fire by various armed parties” (as in the original).

The Taleban statement posted quickly after the killings as ‘breaking news’ signed by “Qari Muhammad Yusof Ahmadi, spokesman of the Islamic Emirate” evolved over the hours to follow. First, it was a two-paragraph simply reporting that an infiltrator had killed “the brutal commander (wahshi kumandan) Abdul Razeq”, without mentioning Miller. Later, it grew to four paragraphs, claiming that “the actual targets were the American commander Miller and Kandahar’s brutal commander Abdul Razeq.”

By contrast, the RS and USFOR-A statements soon after the attack insisted, also in tweets, this was an “Afghan-on-Afghan” incident, in what sounded like an attempt to rescue the recent started US-Taleban talks led by Washington’s special peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad. Although in the past “fighting and talking” went on simultaneously, it is difficult to imagine how the US government will be able to defend holding talks with an organisation that claims it attempted to kill the US supreme commander in Afghanistan.

Hours after Razeq’s assassination, what the Voice of America’s Pashto service called “his tribesmen” called on President Ashraf Ghani to appoint his younger brother, Tadin Khan, as new police chief in Kandahar. According to information AAN received from Kandahar, also member of the Karzai family, former Kandahar governor Gul Agha Sherzai (who do not belong to Razeq’s Achakzai tribe) and many members of Kandahar’s provincial council attended the meeting.

A constellation of the southern strongmen

Although all three Afghan deaths will reverberate, the death of General Razeq will have the greatest consequences. Like many powerful Afghans, he was greater than his official position, the police chief of Kandahar province, implied. He was, in fact, the strongman of greater Kandahar, the whole Afghan south (Afghans sometimes call the region the south-west). He had began as the border police chief in Spin Boldak, initially as a client of Ahmad Wali Karzai, the younger brother of then president Hamed Karzai. Because he was devoid of a strong, armed power base in his home region, the president had made Ahmad Wali into a kind of regional warlord. Officially, Ahmad Wali Karzai was the head of the elected Provincial Council of Kandahar, a position that in most places rarely rises above the ceremonial. Unofficially, though, he presided over a network of provincial strongmen who, like him, tended to be appreciated, admired and courted by parts of the US military and CIA, as well as some Afghans for their ruthlessness and anti-Taleban prowess. (Allegations against Ahmad Wali, that he was on the CIA payroll and played a major part in the southern drugs trade can be read here.)

Razeq was one of the constellation of strongmen, allies of the Karzais, who emerged in the south in the early years after 2001. Others included former Uruzgan governor Jan Muhammad (assassinated in July 2011 – AAN background here), his nephew, Uruzgan police chief Matiullah (assassinated in 2015 – AAN background here and here); former governor of Helmand, Sher Muhammad Akhundzada; and Assadullah Khaled, former governor of Ghazni and Kandahar (2005-08) and chief of the NDS (2012-15), who was maimed but not killed by a Taleban assassin in January 2012. (Khaled, has recently returned into Afghan politics and set up his own political group, Omid-e Sabah (Hope for Tomorrow; media report here). He appears to harbour ambitions for the 2019 presidential elections. (1))

After Wali Karzai was assassinated by a member of his personal entourage in July 2011, five days before Jan Muhammad, Razeq replaced and surpassed him as a much more powerful strongman, with clout across southern Afghanistan.

As of January 2018, Razeq started to support then Balkh provincial governor Atta Muhammad Nur who was fighting not to be replaced by President Ashraf Ghani. He then came under threat to be removed himself, by the Interior Ministry (media report here). He states these attempts were conspiracies to destabilise southern Kandahar and countered the removal threats by saying the Ghani-Abdullah government had not appointed him (he came into his latest position in May 2011, under President Karzai, following the assassination of his predecessor as Kandahar’s police chief, Khan Muhammad Mujahed; media report here), so it also could not fire him:

“This government has neither appointed me, nor it can remove me. I have been appointed based on the demands of Kandahar people and I will leave based on Kandahar residents’ demands,” Raziq said in the interview.

Razeq was also critical of the peace agreement between the Afghan government and Hezb-e Islami. He alleged that Hezb fighters who had released as a result of the deal has joined the Taleban insurgency in his domain southern Afghanistan.

As a result, Razeq received Atta‘s support and was courted by newly emerging anti-Ghani opposition groups, particularly the so-called ‘Ankara Coalition’ (see AAN background here) of which Atta is one of the leaders. After today’s incident in Kandahar, Atta issued a statement online (quoted here), that Razeq’s assassination in a safe place and under strict security measures proved that he had been killed “due to conspiracies of his rivals and ‘inner circles’ having links with the top government officials.” Observers in Kandahar told AAN Razeq’s involvement in a countrywide political issue like that of Atta’s replacement was more a policy of self-insurance than real appetite for a political role on the national level – in contrast to Atta’s political ambitions.

The Taleban had tried to kill Razeq several times before. The most spectacular attempt was a sofa bomb that, in January 2017, killed 11 people, including the UAE ambassador and four more UAE diplomats (which led to a crisis between the Arabic country and the Taleban), but left Razeq, who had left the room just before the bomb detonated alive. (A similar bomb killed Helmand candidate Abdul Jabar Qahraman in nearby Lashkargah only one day before the attack on Razeq.)

US dilemmas

The killing of Razeq shines a new light at one of the dilemmas of US policies in Afghanistan. All too often, the international military, diplomats and donors look for individuals, single strong men, that they can ‘work with’. (The same was the case on the national level, with president Karzai – until, in US government’s eyes, he no longer complied.) Yet, men like Razeq are also extremely brutal, committing atrocities that have stirred up resistance. An account of this is provided by Canadian journalist Matthieu Aikins as he described how Nurzais in Panjwayi responded to violence by Razeq’s Achakzai-dominated border police, including the extrajudicial killings of 16 tribesmen in 2006 by joining the Taleban. (See also this Chatham House report.)

In May 2017, the United Nations Committee against Torture released a report describing “numerous and credible allegations” that Razeq is “widely suspected of complicity, if not of personal implication, in severe human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and …secret detention centers.” In response, Human Rights Watch’s Patricia Gossman asked “Will Afghanistan Prosecute Kandahar’s Torturer-in-Chief?“ Razeq “operates far outside the law,” Gossman wrote, “and has powerful support, notably from US intelligence and security officials, who consider him an ally in the fight against the Taliban.”

HRW had earlier accused Razeq (and a number of other strongmen and commanders) in a 2015 report titled “’Today We Shall All Die’: Afghanistan’s Strongmen and the Legacy of Impunity“ of well documented allegations of “serious human rights violations [with] impunity [that] include allegations of mass killings, murder, rape, torture, beatings, enforced disappearances, theft, and arbitrary detention. (…) Brig. Gen. Abdul Raziq ha[s] committed many acts of torture and enforced disappearances, and there is strong evidence that Raziq himself has been responsible for extrajudicial executions.” A graphic account of these disappearances was provided by journalist Anand Gopal reporting on more than 40 unidentified bodies that were found in Kandahar city and other places in the province in October 2013 alone, many of which could not be identified “because of smashed teeth, and missing noses, eyes or heads”. (See also this 2011 piece by Aikins.)

Both US and Afghan governments turned a blind eye to the numerous atrocities which Razeq was accused of, because they felt Kandahar’s security depended on him. (The same pattern of international supporters ‘holding their noses’ and ignoring war crimes can be seen in their dealings with Ahmad Wali Karzai, Matiullah, Assadullah Khaled and a host of others.)

Razeq’s rule drove the insurgency, but also contained it. Kandahar, under his watch, especially in recent years, has been relatively stable. He drove the Taleban out of Kandahar city and adjacent districts, while there is significant but static Taleban control over more outlying areas.

This means that, whatever comes of the 18 October bloodshed at the Kandahar governor’s mansion, it is unlikely to be good. Relying on single charismatic, if brutal individuals to keep order will always leave the Afghan state vulnerable if that individual is killed. Here, what happened in Uruzgan province, after Jan Muhammad and Matiullah were killed is a warning. Both men were brutal. The actions of both had driven the conflict. Yet, after they were assassinated, the Afghan National Security Forces fragmented. Smaller commanders started competing for power and security deteriorated. A number of observers have expressed that Kandahar could experience the same fate with the ‘kingpin’ gone (see for example here and here).

Conclusion: an attack not on the elections that will affect the elections

Everyone has been expecting that the Taleban would take aim at Afghanistan’s soon-approaching parliamentary elections. They had said they would “leave no stone unturned“ (quoted here) to prevent them. Indeed, ten candidates have been killed in the last two months and four others injured in attacks although, with the exception of Qahraman, the Taleban have not taken any responsibility for any of them. However, this attack, on Razeq and the other senior officials was not expected at this time.

Assuming the Taleban were responsible, the elections do not seem to have been the point of this attack. Eliminating a formidable opponent was the goal. The death of Razeq could reduce the southern region to turmoil, if only because there will be wrangling over who will replace him (chief of police in Kandahar is a powerful and, because near the border and major drugs producing areas in Helmand, lucrative position). Also, in the very short-term, his death – and those of the two other senior provincial officials and the hospitalisation of a fourth – will affect the elections. Security forces, primed to safeguard polling stations and other electoral infrastructure, have been left leaderless. An imminent Taleban attack on Kandahar city cannot be ruled out.

Edited by Kate Clark and Martine van Bijlert

 

(1) A former Canadian deputy ambassador to Afghanistan who worked closely with Assadullah Khaled, testified before the Canadian parliament in 2009 that Khaled was directly involved in torture (media report here). Sher Muhammad Akhundzada was Helmand governor (2001-05) under Karzai, then removed under British pressure as a precondition for the UK sending NATO/ISAF troops to Helmand because of his involvement in the drug trade (900 tonnes of opium were found in his home). Karzai then appointed him senator, and Sher Muhammad is now running for parliament.

 

Annex: Abdul Razeq, a short biography

Abdul Raziq was born in 1979 and spent early years of his life in Spin Boldak, a border district with a major border crossing to Pakistan in Kandahar province. He is an Achakzai Pashtun.

It is not clear when his family fled to Pakistan, but Razeq probably spent his teens in exile. He joined Gul Agha Sherzai’s and Fayda Muhammad’s unit formed in 2001. He was then about 22 years old and still completely unknown. The Institute for the Study of War in its 2010 report, “Politics and Power in Kandahar” points out that in post-2001 ‘Sherzai came to rely heavily on Razeq and his militias to provide him with military muscle’.

It is not clear when exactly Razeq was given a colonel rank of the Afghan Border Police (ABP). According to an international organisation working closely with the ABP, this probably happened as early as 2004 or 2005 (personal communication with UN law enforcement official). But Razeq played all cards: military, political and economic. “Raziq’s influence in Spin Boldak derives not only from his military strength, but from his ability to use his power to exert considerable influence over Spin Boldak’s transit economy,” said the Institute for the Study of War in its 2010 report, using a euphemism for what is a mix of legit and illicit trade.

A Canadian journalist Matthieu Aikins, who wrote extensively about Razeq described him in 2006:

At thirty years of age, Razik was the most powerful Afghan Border Police officer in the southern part of the country—a former child refugee who scrambled to power during the post-9/11 chaos, his rise abetted by a ring of crooked officials in Kabul and Kandahar as well as by overstretched NATO commanders who found his control over a key border town useful in their war against the Taliban. With his prodigious wealth, loyal soldiers, and connections to top government officials, Razik was seen as a ruthless, charismatic figure, a man who brooked no opposition to his will. 

He also pointed out to a role Razeq and his militia played in 2009 presidential elections (see AAN report here):

In the 2009 presidential elections, Raziq proved that he could deliver vote counts through his commander network that extends through the districts of Maruf, Arghestan, Spin Boldak, Reg, Shorawak, and Daman.

But Razeq’s most important was a military role he played in his home-province Kandahar. According to Aikins’s report in The Atlantic), in the fall of 2010:

Raziq and his militia were given a starring role in the U.S.-led military offensive into Taliban- controlled areas west of Kandahar City, a campaign that boosted his prestige immensely. Mentored by an American Special Forces team, Raziq’s fighters won public praise from U.S. officers for their combat prowess. After the offensive, Raziq was promoted to brigadier general—a rank requiring a direct order from President Karzai—in a January ceremony at the governor’s mansion. As Ben Moeling, who was until July the State Department’s senior official in Kandahar province, explained to me at the time, the promotion was “an explicit recognition of his importance.”

Following the assassination of the police chief of Kandahar province, Khan Muhammad Mujahed, on 15 April 2011, Razeq was appointed the chief of the police of the province in May 2011. He continued to command his border units.

Razeq, Aikins reported, has long been publicly suspected of drug trafficking and corruption; allegations that he and his men have been involved in extrajudicial killings, torture, and illegal imprisonment. Razeq categorically denied all these charges, when Aikins confronted him.

Gen Razeq was quoted in January 2018, after the Ministry of Interior warned that it might take “legal action” against him, as saying that the National Unity Government had neither appointed him, nor could remove him from the post. “I have been appointed based on the demands of Kandahar people and I will leave based on their demands,” Raziq said,

 

 

 

will take place on Monday, 19 November (14:30-18:30) and Tuesday, 20 November (9.00-12:30 and 14:30-18:30) in Brussels.

Organisations or interest groups who wish to apply for access to the European Parliament will find the relevant information below.

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Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

SEDE organised a public hearing on 'Artificial intelligence and its future impact on security' on Wednesday 10 October 2018, from 09.00 to 11.30, with four external experts
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The OODA Loop: WHY TIMING IS EVERYTHING by Wendy R. Anderson, Amir Husain, and Marla Rosner
As AI Begins to Reshape Defense, Here’s How Europe Can Keep Up by Wendy R. Anderson and Jim Townshend
As Budget Polemic Drives Headlines, Do Not Lose Track of NATO’s Approach to AI Amir Husain, August Cole and Wendy R. Anderson
Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

Afghanistan’s parliamentary election campaign ended on Wednesday 17 October 2018 with the killing of Helmand candidate Jabbar Qahraman by a mine explosion in his campaign office – the fifth candidate killed during the campaign period. “Taghir” – change – has been a key word in many of the campaigns and a hope expressed by many voters, even though the slogans were rarely backed by detailed political programmes. Among the 2565 candidates running countrywide – 418 of them women according to IEC figures – there are many new faces, alongside a majority of the sitting MPs. Thomas Ruttig and the AAN team look at the spectrum of candidates and ponder what the turnover in the Wolesi Jirga might be (without claiming to be complete or exhaustive).

AAN has put together a dossier of dispatches related to the coming elections, looking at preparations and political manoeuvring. Each dispatch in the Election Conundrum series will be added to it.

A desire for change

“Taghir” – change – had already been a key word during the presidential election in 2014. Chief Executive Dr Abdullah represented a coalition called “Taghir wa Omid” (change and hope) and although president Ashraf Ghani did not use the word in his slogans, he did run on a promise of change, while preserving what had been achieved: “tahawol wa tadawom” (“transformation and continuity”). This time, “taghir” features again, as illustrated by many candidate posters and in some of the programmes that candidates distributed, some in print, others on memory sticks.

A surprising number of candidates who declare themselves ‘pro-reform’ are wealthy businessmen. One of them is Fahim Hashemi, running in Kabul. He is the owner of one of the biggest private television channels, One TV, and a big contractor for the international troops and oil import business. On his election materiel, the word “taghir” is the only feature, apart from his name, election symbol and ballot number. Similarly, another big business candidate for Kabul, Khan Muhammad Wardak, owner of one of Afghanistan’s biggest companies, Khan Steel, and also in the contracting business, further developed the slogan to say: Khan Muhammad ta raya, musbat badlun ta raya (“Vote for Khan Muhammad, vote for positive change”). So did Muhammad Latif Fayaz, from Ghazni province but running from Kabul under the slogan: Ba tadbir ba su-ye taghir (“With a plan for change“). He has worked for the United Nations and several national and international NGOs and is now teaching at private universities. Muhammad Sangar Amirzada, also competing in Kabul and a former member of ex-president Hamed Karzai’s chief of staff office, heads the youth activists’ network Shabaka-ye Eslah wa Taghir (“Network for Reform and Change“) affiliated with former minister and presidential hopeful for 2019 Omar Daudzai.

Many of the candidate businessman, and also some of the candidates with civil society background, own or run institutions of higher learning. This caters to the widespread demand for higher education, gives them an air of philanthropy, and helps create a voter base. Jan Muhammad Sherzad, a candidate in Helmand, told AAN that he believes that all 300 students of his English courses will vote for him (although, as usual, candidates have a tendency to overestimate the strength of their ties).

The next generation?

Conversations with many Afghans in the run-up to this election, as well as media reports indicate that there is widespread hope, again, that a new, young generation of candidates will make it into the now 250 seats-strong Wolesi Jirga. The hope underneath is that they will behave more honestly than the current set of parliamentarians who, as the New York Times recently wrote, are “notoriously corrupt” (see also AAN research on corruption in the Afghan parliament here and this AFP news item here). A poll by the Afghanistan Institute for Strategic Studies (AISS) published this month showed that only 9.6 per cent of respondents answered ‘yes’ when asked whether they were “satisfied” with the work of the current set of members of parliament (15.1 per cent said “somehow”) and only 6.5 per cent said they had “benefited” from their work (10.2 per cent said “somehow”).

This hope that a new generation will be voted in is fortified by the many new and young faces on some candidate lists, particularly in Kabul. In the capital alone, 804 candidates are running – the ballot paper has a newspaper format, with 15 pages – which leaves enough space for new, young faces. The officially published candidates’ lists however (see here; the lists themselves are in Dari only) do not give the dates of birth of the contenders, so their ages must be guessed. On many provincial lists, from Kunar via Uruzgan, Parwan and Panjshir to Herat, the faces of elders and mid-agers dominate.

Sons, daughters and relatives of the post-2001 establishment: politicians, former mujahedin leaders, businessmen

Among the younger candidates, the children and relatives of well-known warlords-turned-politicians and members of other prominent families are most easily identifiable. Some Afghan media have already browsed through the lists and categorised the candidates – foremost the Dari-only news website Khabarnama (see here).

One subcategory extensively described are the sons, daughters and other relatives of the first tier of the mujahedin party leaders, such as:

• Bator Dostum running from Jawzjan province: son of General Abdulrashid Dostum, first vice president and leader of the Uzbek-dominated Jombesh party,
• Muhammad Baqer Muhaqeq and Muhammad Ali Muhaqeq, running from Kabul and Balkh respectively: sons of Haji Muhammad Muhaqeq, leader of one of the Hazara-dominated parties, Hezb-e Wahdat and second deputy of the chief executive,
• Muhammad Alem Khalili running from Kabul: son of Muhammad Karim Khalili, the leader of another Hazara-dominated party, Hezb-e Wahdat-e Mardom, a former vice president and now chairman of the High Peace Council (HPC);
• Haji Abdul Reza Khalili running from Kabul with the slogan “Excellence, pragmatism and accountability”: a nephew of HPC chief Khalili, with interests in real estate; he reportedly also owns production companies for mineral water and construction materials,
• Jamaluddin Hekmatyar running from Kabul: son of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the recently reconciled leader of Hezb-e Islami Afghanistan (AAN background here),
• Zaher Qadir, a sitting MP already and the son of late eastern mujahedin leader Haji Qadir, in Nangrahar,
• Sayed Taha Sadeq running from Herat: son of western Afghanistan’s grey eminence, former governor Ismail Khan,
• Sayed Mujtaba Anwari and Sayed Mahdi Anwari, both running in Kabul: sons of the late Sayed Hussain Anwari, leader of the Shia mujahedin party Harakat-e Islami, former minister of agriculture and of planning and former governor of Kabul and Herat.

None of the major ‘mujahedin party’ leaders are running themselves: not Sayyaf, Qanuni or Muhaqeq who were members of both the 2005 and 2010 Wolesi Jirgas (1); HamedGailani, who was candidate in 2005, or Ismail Khan and Hekmatyar, who had so far never ran.

Other – not so young – close relatives of powerful politicians include Muhammad Rafiq Sherzai, the brother of 2014 presidential candidate and former Kandahar and Nangrahar governor Gul Agha Sherzai, and Humayun Ramazan, the brother of Ahmad Shah Ramazan, a sitting MP; both are running from Balkh. Also, Sayeda Massuda Yari, daughter-in-law of late Haji Sulaiman Yari, who was a selected senator for the Upper House from Maidan Wardak, and Ruqia Alemi Balkhi, sister of minister for Refugees and Returnees Sayed Hussain Alemi Balkhi. Both are running from Kabul.

Almost as well known, at least among Afghans, are those from the families of the second tier of former mujahedin leaders:

• Zabihullah Almas, running from Kabul: son of sitting MP Haji Muhammad Almas Zahed from Parwan province, who was recently appointed as presidential advisor and is not running again,
• Haji Ajmal Rahmani, running from Kabul: nephew of General Baba Jan, a major commander in the area of Bagram airbase, who became rich as a contractor providing for the base’s supplies and is said to be financially supporting a number of other candidates; Haji Ajmal himself recently injected substantial capital into Afghanistan’s professional football league – now named the “Rahmani Foundation Afghan Premier League” in his honour – and bought one of its teams. (A brother of Baba Jan is also running, again: Mir Rahman Rahmani, currently the head of the Wolesi Jirga’s economic commission),
• Azizullah Amiri, running from Kunduz: son of late commander Amir, one of the famous Ittehad-e Islami leaders in the north, running for the first time,
• Haidar Khan Naimzai, a current MP who is running for the kuchi constituency again: son of Naim Kuchi, a former Taleb who reconciled with the Karzai government after he was released from Guantanamo,
• Mir Wais Salam, running for a kuchi seat, while his father, sitting MP Abdul Salam Raketi, runs in Zabul,
• Shah Aghasi Ibrahimkhel, running from Balkh: son of famous Jihad-time commander Akhtar Muhammad Ibrahimkhel (better known as Akhtar Luchak),
• Bashir Ahmad Ziayi, running from Takhar: son of Mullah Piram Qul Ziayi, one of the most important Jamiati commanders in the northeast and a 2005 MP, who branched out into the militia ‘business’ (AAN background here),
• Ahmad Tamim Jurat, running from Kabul: son of General Din Muhammad Jurat, a commander under late commander Ahmad Shah Massud, former deputy National Security Advisor and presidential advisor on security and defense who was sacked on 1 October 2018
• with Zia-ur-Rahman Kashmir Khan, in Kunar, the son of insurgent Hezb-e Islami commander Kashmir Khan, who reportedly died in a Pakistani capital in 2016, runs.

Many candidates use photos of their prominent family members to make the relationship plain. In some cases even non-relatives do this. Kabul candidate Sayed Baqer Mohseni Kazemi, for example, has put a picture of assassinated Shia party leader Mustafa Kazemi in the background of his posters – even though they are no relation of each other (he belongs to the same party, though).

Campaign poster of Kabul candidate Sayed Baqer Mohseni Kazemi with assassinated party leader Sayed Mustafa Kazemi in the background. Photo: Thomas Ruttig

There are also wealthy businessmen, or their young relatives, running who do not have a commander’s past. They include owner of Afghan United Bank, Ahmad Jawed Jaihun, who has a paid-for banner on the top of the ToloNews website (and, according to Reuters, “started life selling water on the streets of Kabul”); Ajmal Nawab, son of former governor of Paktika, Helmand and Nangrahar Gulab Mangal who have also branched out into the construction business; and Rais Muhammad Ibrahimzada in Balkh province, son of Ghulam Abbas Ibrahimzada, who is one of the richest men in the north and currently the deputy head of the Wolesi Jirga’s economy commission.

But the overlap between the categories of those who had a leadership background in the fight against the Soviets and those who have joined in the post-2001 wealth is obvious. Khabarnama has published two lists with 16 of the country’s richest businessmen – no businesswoman among them – running in the 20 October election. Part 1 can be found here and part 2 here (AAN’s English translation in the annex).

Relatives of (former) government officials

With Mariam Soleimankhail, Jamil Karzai (both in Kabul) and Rohullah Khanzada(in Kandahar), young, distant relatives of both post-2001 presidents are running. Soleimankhail is a niece of president Ghani who worked as head of the international affairs department in the presidential office and later in the government’s rural education programme. Jamil Karzai, a distant nephew of Hamed Karzai, was already an MP in the 2005 parliament. He is a minor businessman and runs his own National Moderation Party (Hezb-e Etedal-e Melli). Khanzada, a  businessman and contractor, is another cousin of Karzai.

In Herat, Basir Ahmad Arwin Taheri, a nephew of Rangin Dadfar Spanta, foreign minister and national security advisor under Karzai, is among the candidates. A cousin and a brother of Sayyed Abdul Wahid Qatali, President Ghani’s chief of staff – Sayyed Azim KabarzanI and Sayyed Khalil Qatali – are also running from Herat. Kabarzani has a background of working for Afghan cultural and international NGOs. There are also the sons of a former Herat mayor (Omar Nasir Mujaddedi), the influential head of the ulama council in western Afghanistan (Juma Gul Rahmani) and the former commander of the regional army corps who lost his life in a helicopter crash (Muhammad Omid Ghori).

A relative of a member of the Independent Election Commission is running from Herat: Naqibullah Arwin, brother of commissioner Wasima Badghisi.

A special case is the candidacy of Baktash Eshchi in Jowzjan. He is the son of former Jombesh politician Ahmad Eshchi, better known as Engineer Ahmad, who fell out with General Dostum. His outspokenness over the abuse he suffered led to a political crisis between president Ghani and his vice president Dostum that has still not been fully resolved. It will be interesting to see how Eshchi’s son will fare on 20 October. In Takhar province, former Jowzjan provincial governor Alem Sa’i, another Jombesh dissident, is running (more AAN background on both Eshchi and Sa’i here).

A Kabul shopkeeper has pinned a poster of former TV presenter and sitting MP Baktash Siawash to the wall of his stall. Photo: Thomas Ruttig.

Civil society, social movement and media candidates

At the other end of the spectrum, in particular when it comes to financial means, are the candidates with a background in civil society, social movements and the media. Probably the most prominent among them is Soraya Rahim Sobhrang, a previous member of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) who did not apply for the renewal of her AIHRC mandate (AAN background here). She is running in Herat. Maria Bashir, a former civil society activistrunning in the same province, was the first woman to hold a prosecutor’s position in the country.

In Nimruz, among only 12 candidates for two seats, Mir Ahmad Baloch is running, the head of the now defunct Baloch Social and Cultural Center in Zaranj that was ransacked and looted by local vested political interests. Somaya Ramesh, a long-standing civil and human rights activist, was a Herat provincial council member and before that director of a civil foundation called Nawandishan (New Thinkers) and founder of local radio station Shahrzad Radio. In Kabul, Baqi Samandari is well-known for his work with street children, as is Zahra Yagana, who organises support for families of victims of terrorist attacks and who heads a group of environmentalist volunteers who frequently clean Kabul’s notoriously dirty parks and streets. Zakia Wardak is the head of a charity organization, which her husband founded, and women’s rights activist. She is also head of the female engineers association. All three are running in Kabul.

Ahmad Behzad, a well-known sitting Herat MP who became one of the leaders of Jombesh-e Roshnayi (the Enlightenment movement, see AAN reporting here), is now running from Kabul.

Asef Ashna, running in Kabul too, also became active in several social movements – the Tabasom Movement (AAN background here), the Enlightenment Movement and Uprising for Change – after he resigned as deputy spokesman for the NUG’s Chief Executive. He had started his political career with the Right and Justice Party (AAN background here) but separated from it during the 2014 presidential election.

Ajmal Balochzada was a member of the Transitional Justice Action Group and the – promising, but now somewhat less active – youth network Afghanistan 1400 (AAN background here). In 2014, he supported the presidential campaign of Zalmai Rassul. After that he worked in the National Directorate for Security under its then chief Rahmatullah Nabil. He is now allied to Nabil’s Mehwar-e Mardom opposition group (AAN analysis here).

A somewhat special category are the former journalists, such as sitting MP and glamorous former Tolo TV host Baktash Siawash running from Kabul again or newly running Belal Sarwari in Kunar. There are several dozens of similar candidates, including a number of women such as Mariam Sama and Saleha Sadat, both formerly of Tolo TV, and Pashtana Arabzai from Shamshad TV.

Particularly the former TV hosts among them benefit from their face and name recognition. These include Muslim Sherzad and Same Mehdi. Mehdi worked for One TV and Tolo TV, where he was anchorman of the popular Siah-o Safid (“black and white”) weekly political show. He now runs the Payk investigative journalism centre. He is a son of Jamiat-e Islami MP Mohiuddin Mehdi who is also running again from Baghlan. An English-speaking journalist told AAN he recognised at least six former Afghan BBC reporters among the candidates. The number of former Tolo journalists is in the same range.

There are also a number of political and military analysts who are regular guests in TV talk shows that are running for parliament. These include Fazl-ul-Minullah Mumtaz from Parwan who is deemed to be close to Hezb-e Islami and General Jawed Kohestani, who used to head a moderate political party, was active in various anti-Soviet resistance groups and unsuccessfully ran in earlier elections.

As various prospective voters (and non-voters) told AAN, these candidates will try to build on their on-screen “fame” and may hope to appeal to a broad audience across ethnic boundaries. With successful journalist-turned-MP Baktash Siawash they have already a role model who, in 2010, was still a pioneer with this shift in his career.

But candidates with a civil society and social movement background are not necessarily independent or without political influence of their own. Various private TV channels are linked with political parties. Also, the presidents – Karzai, in his later years, and increasingly also Ghani – pulled younger personnel into their administrations, including from civil society, the media, NGOs and international organisations. A number of these figures later left the government, joined its critics or are preparing to play a role in the various presidential candidacies that are building up to compete with Ghani’s re-election campaign.

… and many known faces

Of the 230 MPs that are currently still in the Wolesi Jirga (after deaths and resignations) 174 have registered as candidates for the upcoming election– 58 women and 116 men. They include current Wolesi Jirga speaker Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi who served in this position during the whole extended tenure of eight and a half years. His slogan – “entering the parliament again to fight mafia and thieves” – somehow sounds hollow, as he had been involved in a corruption case himself and was ordered to pay back 5.4 million Afghani to the house which he was ruled to have inappropriately received (AAN reporting: here). Ibrahimi has repeatedly been urged to comply with the order by well-known critic, Kabuli MP and former planning minister, Ramazan Bashardost, who is running on an anti-corruption platform. Bashardost’s slogan: Palau az duzdha, ray az ma (“[Take the] palau from the thieves, [give your] vote to me”).

There are also two women from Ibrahimi’s family running, both in his home province of Kunduz: his daughter Kamela Ibrahimi and Basira Rasuli, who is a more distant relative.

Ibrahimi is joined in his candidacy by the entire current administrative board. (2) At least nine of the current heads of the 15 standing parliamentary commissions are also running again (revisit AAN’s guide to parliament here). (3) These are influential candidates, as they have been able to muster majorities in the house to be elected, often including support from both camps in the National Unity Government, who compete against each other for positions.

At the provincial level many influential and long-standing MPs are also running again, and for many it would be surprising if they did not win. Examples include Khaled Pashtun in Kandahar, Mawlawi Shahzada Shahed in Kunar, Jamiati commander Hazrat Gul and Mir Wais Yasini in Nangrahar, Amanullah Guzar in Kabul; Nader Khan Katawazai in Paktika, Sayed Muhammad Jamal Fukkuri-Beheshti and Muhammad Akbari in Bamian, Gul Pacha Majidi and Humayun Humayun in Khost, as well as the Zabuli heavyweight triumvirate of former commander Haji Abdul Salam Raketi, former provincial governor Hamidullah Tokhi and Abdul Qadar Qalatwal. This time, they are joined by Haji Muhammad Hashem Granai, a member of the Zabul provincial council and an influential war-time commander, running for Hezb-e Islami. He will compete with them for the three male seats in this province. Furthermore, there are former mujahedin commanders Mullah Malang (known as Lala Malang) in Badghis who was linked with Harakat-e Inqilab-e Islami, and Ibrahim Malekzada in Ghor, the latter linked to Jamiat-e Islami.

A rest from work under a collection of election posters. Photo: Thomas Ruttig.

Ex-ministers and former government officials

Among the candidates for the new tenure of Wolesi Jirga there are at least six former ministers who are running themselves. Most of them belong to less powerful political forces or are independent, so it is difficult to gauge how big their chance to win are:

• Masuda Jalal running from Kabul: a former minister for women’s affairs and first female candidate for head of state in Afghanistan – during the 2003 Constitutional Loya Jirga and in the 2004 presidential election,
• Sayed Makhdum Rahin running from Kabul: former minister of information and culture, member of one of the pre-war elite families of Kabul and head of a new political party named Hezb-e Khedmatgar-e Afghanistan (Servants of Afghanistan Party) (media report here),
• Abdulhadi Arghandiwal running from Kabul: a former minister of economy and, more importantly, leader of a rival Hezb-e Islami faction that has not joined the party’s mainstream led again by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (AAN dossier here),
• Assadullah Zamir running in Kabul: a former agriculture minister and member of the Afghanistan 1400 network,
• Muhammadullah Batash running from Kunduz: former Minister of transport and governor of Faryab. He belongs to Jombesh party,
• Muhammad Aref Norzai running from Helmand:minister of tribal affairs in the Karzai era and MP in the 2005 Wolesi Jirga.

They are joined – all running from Kabul – by Mirza Muhammad Yarmand, former deputy minister of interior; Lutfullah Mashal, former deputy head of NDS and governor of Laghman; Tamim Nuristani, the former governor of Nuristan; Yunos Nawandesh, a former mayor of Kabul; General Sayed Aman Sadat, the former deputy chief of the Afghan Border Police; Hawa Alam Nuristani, a former MP for Nuristan and member of High Peace Council; Muhammad Qasim Jangalbagh, an ex-police chief of Kunduz (according to the Afghanistan Justice Project he was involved in the Afshar massacre in 1993); and former MP Shinkay Karokhel who is also running, after resigning as ambassador in Canada. Muhammad Omar Sherzad, former governor of Uruzgan and Farah, is running from Kandahar. Finally, Jawid Faisal, running in Kandahar, and Dawa Khan Minapal, a candidate for the kuchis, are both former government spokesmen.

Party politicians as independents

Only 205 candidates out of the total of 2565 – eight per cent countrywide – have registered as members of political parties. A fair number of known political party members, including leading ones, have registered as ‘independents’. Many of them seem to assume that they can garner more popular support if they do not publicise their membership. Among many Afghans, political parties are not particularly popular; many of the older ones are despised for their role in the wars of the past, while many new ones are considered vanity or money and influence generating schemes. Nevertheless, there are currently 72 political parties registered with the Ministry of Justice, of which 26 are fielding candidates under their name (more detail in this AAN analysis).

Among the candidates that have not declared their party allegiance are leading members of Jamiat-e Islami such as Nur-ul-Rahman Ekhlaqi, Abdul Hafiz Mansur and Mohiduddin Mehdi, as well as one of Hezb-e Islami’s chief negotiators for the 2017 peace deal (AAN background here), Karim Amin. There are also Ibrahim Malekzada, a well-known Jamiati commander from Ghor, and Hamidullah Tokhi from Zabul, who is known for his Hezb-e Islami affiliation. Even the high-profile leader of the small Hezb-e Kangara-ye Melli (National Congress Party), Latif Pedram, registered as ‘independent’. Ex-minister Rahin did not register under the name of the party he founded, and Zulfeqar Omid, who ran unsuccessfully from Daykundi in the past and now is a Kabuli candidate, did not give the name of the party he leads, Hezb-e Kar wa Tausea (Labour and Development Party). The same goes for Sayed Muhammad Hadi Hadi in Kabul from Harakat-e Islami-ye Mardom.

Nangrahar candidate Muhammad Sediq Patman is a member of the leadership council of the New National Front established by former finance minister and Afghan Mellat chairman Anwar-ul-Haq Ahadi. In Kandahar, a young candidate, Nesar Ahmad is supported by leftist Hezb-e Watan activists.Jombesh and Hezb-e Islami members seem to have less problems to identify themselves as such. They are the two parties with most candidates registered, over 40 in each case.

Other candidates, such as sitting MPs Muhammad Naim Lalai Hamidzai and Hamdullah Nazek, the former head of NDS in Zabul and Helmand, and former senator and Helmand governor Sher Muhammad Akhundzada are known as close to ex-president Karzai – who is not represented by a political party.

Rahmatullah Wahidyar, a former Taleban member and later member of the High Peace Council is running again in Paktia.

Conclusion: new faces, old faces

Looking at the 2018 candidate lists, there is continuity in the overall number – as in 2010, some 2500 candidates are running. Also the percentage of the female candidates among them has remained stable, slightly over 15 per cent (for 25 per cents of the reserved seats). The bad image of the parliament has clearly not translated in a decreased interest to run: the number of candidates vying for a Wolesi Jirga seat is similar to that in 2010, with some 2500 contenders. The promise of access to power and resources, the possibility to build up political prestige and, for some, the parliamentary immunity that membership in the lower house provides has clearly not lost its attraction.

There is also continuity in the fact that a large majority of the sitting candidates – some 170, out of 230 by now (there were demises and resignations) – are competing for a seat again. Although their images might drown in the sea of the posters, their established influence – and their chances of winning – should not be underestimated. And on many provincial lists, from Kunar via Uruzgan, Parwan and Panjshir to Herat, it is the faces of elders and mid-agers that dominate over the young ones.

There is also a clear wish for change – reflected by, and attached to, the many new faces that are running. Some might run to because they want to serve their constituencies and do better than their predecessors, but many of them are linked to vested interests. And not all young, new or female candidates are reformers. On the other hand, even though several of the young and rich might run with the intention to protect or expand their families’ influence, they may not be opposed to reform. So far many voters hope for change, but they are not holding their breath.

 

(1) At the end of the 2010 Wolesi Jirga session none of these three leaders were still MPs. Qanuni replaced Fahim as Karzai’s vice president after his death in March 2014, Sayyaf resigned to run for the presidency in 2014 and Muhaqeq resigned to be on Abdullah’s presidential ticket (again).

(2) The current administrative board of the Wolesi Jirga, which is running again in its entirety, consists of:

1. Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi, the current speaker of the house, running from Kunduz
2. Humayun Humayun, first deputy speaker, running from Khost again
3. Amir Muhammad Khan Yar, second deputy speaker, running from Nangarhar
4. Mirdad Khan Nejrabi, secretary of the Wolesi Jirga, running from Kapisa province
5. Erfanullah Erfan, deputy secretary of the Wolesi Jirga, running from Kabul

(3) In 2010, there were 18 standing commissions (“committees”) in the Wolesi Jirga, which by 2016 had been reduced to 15. The committee heads that are running again include:

• Mir Rahman Rahmani, head of the commission for the National Economy, NGOs, Rural Rehabilitation, Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, running from Parwan again
• Qazi Nazir Ahmad Hanafi, head of the legislative commission, running from Herat again
• Eqbal Safi, head of the internal security commission, running from Kapisa
• Muhammad Azim Mohseni, head of finance and budget commission, in Baghlan
• Obaidullah Barekzai, head of the complaint commission, from Uruzgan, this time running from Kabul
• Sayed Muhammad Hassan Sharifi Balkhabi, head of the judiciary affairs, administrative reform and anti-corruption commission, running from Sar-e Pul
• Kamal Naser Osuli, head of education/higher education commission, running from Khost
• Muhammad Naim Lalai Hamidzai, head of counter narcotic commission, running from Kandahar
• Abdul Hafiz Mansur, head of the central audit commission, running from Kabul

Kabul street with banners for the 30 October 2018 parliamentarian elections in Afghanistan. Photo (c): Reuters/ Omar Sobhani – RC17C584F110

 

Annex: Businessmen running

Source: Khabarnama (here and here – some of these candidates are already discussed in the text)

Nine Known Rich Candidates for the Wolesi Jirga Election 2018

Haji Ajmal Rahmani: he is one of the richest young businessmen of Afghanistan. He is original from Parwan province. His father, Mir Rahman Rahmani, is currently a member of the Lower House, head of the economy commission. He made most of his wealth from oil trade and transportation services. He is thought to be one of the well-known contractors of foreign troops in Afghanistan. He is a candidate for Kabul in the Wolesi Jirga election.

Muhammad Fahim Hashimi: he is one of the richest businessmen of Afghanistan. He made most of his wealth trough oil and gas trade, transportation and producing military clothes. He is the owner of One TV and Ufuq-e Sharq airline. He is a candidate for Kabul for the Wolesi Jirga election.

Ahmad Jawed Jaihun: he is one of the richest businessmen of Afghanistan. He made most of his wealth through oil and gas trade, transportation, armored vehicles, mines and banking. He is a stakeholder and general director of the Afghan United Bank. He is a candidate for Kabul for the Wolesi Jirga election.

Nurullah Dawoodzai: he is also one of the richest young businessmen of Afghanistan. He has made most of his wealth through contracts from foreign forces in Afghanistan, oil and gas trade, and transportation.He has also invested in real estate. He is from Qarabagh district of Kabul. He is a candidate for Kabul for the Wolesi Jirga election.

Abbas Ibrahimzada: He is thought to be one of the richest businessmen of Afghanistan. He has made most of his wealth through oil and gas trade in the north, building construction and money services. He is currently a member of the Wolesi Jirga from Balkh Province. He is again a candidate from Balkh for the 2018 Wolesi Jirga election.

Haji Shekib Ahmadyar: One of the youngest businessmen of Afghanistan. He has made most of wealth through oil trade in north Afghanistan. He is originally from Panjshir province and his brother, Tawakol Ahmadyar is the head of Afghanistan oil and gas union. He is a candidate for Panjshir in the Wolesi Jirga election.

Haji Hafizullah Jalili: he was born in Qarabagh district of Ghazni province. He is one of the rich national businessmen of Afghanistan. He has made most of his wealth from Arabic countries where he has hotels and restaurants. In Afghanistan, he is active in real estate section and construction. He is a candidate from Kabul for the Wolesi Jirga election.

Nesar Ahmad Faizi Ghoryani: he was born in 1970 in Ghoryan district of Herat province. He is also one of the richest businessmen of Afghanistan. He has made most of his wealth through electric supplies. He is currently a member of the Wolesi Jirga from Herat and a candidate for the same province in the election for the Wolesi Jirga.

Feraidun Nurzad: he is one of the richest national businessmen of Afghanistan. He has made most of his wealth from money services and banking. He is graduated from Kabul Medical University. He has worked as deputy CEO for Kabul Bank and Azizi Bank. Currently he is the owner of Maiwand TV and Maiwand Bank. He is a candidate for Kabul in the Wolesi Jirga election.

Rich Candidates for the Wolesi Jirga (Second part)

1. Ahmad Hamid Warasta: he is running from Kabul for the Wolesi Jirga Election with the slogan “One Nation, One Goal”. He was born in Kabul in 1983 in a political, cultural and economic family. His father was one of the well-known businessmen of Afghanistan and his grandfather was one of the pioneers of novel literature. He has done his higher education in business and administration outside of Afghanistan. He has several business companies under the name of “Hamid Warasta Group”. He made most of his wealth through business activities and contracts.

2. Rajab Ali Andishmand: he is one of richest businessmen of Afghanistan. He has made most of his wealth through car imports in Middle East countries. He is politically active as well and has close relations with some of Afghan politicians. He is running from Kabul for the Wolesi Jirga Election. (note: mostly the people in west Kabul know him as Bacha-e Sharbat – ‘Sharbat’s son’. He was the one who give each cabinet minister a land cruiser at the beginning of the Karzai administration)

3. Abdul Sabor Gardizi: he is son of the famous and biggest businessman of iron products in Afghanistan, Rahim Gardizi (he imports iron products from Russia and Tajikistan). He has made most of his wealth through importing iron products or ironware and construction. He is running from Kabul for the Wolesi Jirga Election with the slogan ‘Commitment, Honesty/Integrity, action and providing justice’.

4. Haji Abdul Reza Khalili: he is son of Haji Muhammad NabiKhalili and nephew of Muhammad Karim Khalili, current chief of HPC. He has made most of his wealth through real estate. Now he has several product companies such mineral water and stone. He is running from Kabul for the Wolesi Jirga Election with the slogan ‘Excellency, pragmatism and accountability’.

5. Khan Muhammad Wardak: he is one of the richest men of Afghanistan. He is running from Kabul for the Wolesi Jirga Election with the slogan Khan Muhammad ta raya, musbatbadloon ta raya – ‘Vote for Khan Muhammad, vote for positive changes’. He has made most of his wealth through transportation and oil business for foreign troops. He has one of the biggest companies ‘Khan Steel) producing rebar and other ironware for constructions. He has invested more than 50 million dollars in two phases of his company.

6. Sayed Javid Andish: he is one of the Afghan businessmen. He is running from Kabul for the Wolesi Jirga Election. He has made most of his wealth from educational services and contracts. He is the chief and owner of Karwan Private University.

7. Haji Gul Ahmad Nurzad: he is one of richest businessmen. He is running from Nimroz province for the Wolesi Jirga Election. He has made most of riches through oil and gas business. He is also involved in exchanging money services as well. He has several product companies in west of Afghanistan and his business activity is in Nimroz and Herat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Item 4 - Public Hearing on Artificial intelligence and its future impact on security - The OODA Loop: WHY TIMING IS EVERYTHING - Mrs Wendy R. Anderson, Adjunct Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security
Item 4 - Public Hearing on Artificial intelligence and its future impact on security - As AI Begins to Reshape Defense, Here’s How Europe Can Keep Up - Mrs Wendy R. Anderson, Adjunct Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security
Item 4 - Public Hearing on Artificial intelligence and its future impact on security - As Budget Polemic Drives Headlines, Do Not Lose Track of NATO’s Approach to AI - Mrs Wendy R. Anderson, Adjunct Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security
Item 5 - Exchange of view on Future challenges for The European Union Satellite Centre (EUSATCEN) : Presentation by Mr Pascal Legai, Director EUSATCEN
Item 6 - Exchange of view with Operation Commander Rear Admiral Enrico Credendino on the State of play of Europrean Union Naval Force - Mediterranean EUNAVFOR MED
Item 7 - Exchange of views on Mine action and the European Union's integrated approach with Mr Frank Meeussen Policy Officer, Conventional Arms - Disarmament, Non-proliferation and Arms Export Control, EEAS
Item 7 - Exchange of views on Mine action and the European Union's integrated approach with Mr Juan-Carlos Ruan, Director of the Implementation Support Unit of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining
Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

A Royal Australian Air Force C-17 Globemaster III took part in the traditional Brisbane Riverfire Festival. Clips of the airlifter flying between the buildings inundated the social networks. And someone labelled the display as an unnecessary “9/11 stunt”. Here’s why that’s pure nonsense. Held each year at the end of September, Riverfire is the big […]

Unconfirmed reports say an American pilot was also aboard the Ukrainian Flanker. On Oct. 16, a Ukrainian Air Force Su-27 flying a training mission crashed near Ulaniv (between the settlements of Berdichev and Khmilnyk) in Ukraine, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine announced. According to Meduza, a Riga-based online newspaper and news […]

Jorge Domecq, the EDA Chief Executive, met today in Warsaw with the Polish Minister of Defence, Mariusz Błaszczak. He also had talks with the Head of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, Michał Dworczyk, the National Armament Director, Brig Gen Karol Dymanowski, as well as with senior representatives from the Ministry’s Capability, R&T and Budget directorates, and from the Polish Defence Policy Director’s office.   

The main topics discussed during these meetings included the current state of play and way ahead in the implementation of the various EU defence initiatives (PESCO, CARD, EDF), the recently revised EU Capability Development Priorities, Poland’s current and potential future contributions to EDA projects and programmes, the implications of the Agency’s recent Long-Term Review (LTR) as well as the EU-NATO relations.

Participating in around 40 EDA projects, Poland is among the six greatest contributors to the Agency.

“We are in an important phase of the implementation process of the various EU defence initiatives. After the approval of the revised EU Capability Development Priorities (CDP) in June, we are now finalizing the report on the trial run of the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD) to be presented to Ministers in November when Member States are also expected to select the second batch of Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) projects. More than ever, it is important that CARD, PESCO and European Defence Fund (EDF) are implemented in a coherent and coordinated manner, based on agreed EU Capability Development Priorities, and in full transparency and complementarity with NATO”, Mr Domecq stated.

Mr Domecq also attended today the opening of the Conference on the second Phase of the Consultation Forum for Sustainable Energy in the Defence and Security Sector (CF SEDSS II) in Warsaw (see other EDA news here).  The Forum brings together experts from the defence and energy sectors to share information and best practices on improving energy management, energy efficiency, the use of renewable energy as well increasing the protection and resilience of defence energy-related critical infrastructures. 

 

Over 140 experts from 27 European countries and more than 30 different institutions and organisations participate in the Conference on the second Phase of the Consultation Forum for Sustainable Energy in the Defence and Security Sector (CF SEDSS II). The Forum brings together experts from the defence and energy sectors to share information and best practices on improving energy management, energy efficiency, the use of renewable energy as well as increasing the protection and resilience of defence energy-related critical infrastructures.

Managed by EDA, the Consultation Forum is a European Commission initiative (DG ENER) receiving funding under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 R&I programme. The   conference of today was officially opened by Mr Tomasz Zdzikot, Polish Deputy Minister of Defence. Jorge Domecq, the EDA Chief Executive highlighted in his speech the “large number of participants which send the strong message that sustainable energy matters for defence, and a greener defence energy matters for the European Union”.

Mr Hans Van Steen, Acting Director for Renewables, Research and Innovation, Energy Efficiency, DG ENER, European Commission, underlined the importance of having seen “a network develop, information being exchanged, best practices being shared, and capacity, trust and self-confidence grow”.

The Consultation Forum provides a unique platform that can assist the Ministries of Defence of the EU Member States to generate ideas for defence energy policies, strategies, action plans and defence energy-related project ideas. This process will enable them to move towards a more sustainable energy model bringing down energy bills that can be allocated to other military priorities. In this respect, the second phase is more project-oriented, and as the Chief Executive underlined, it “presents a financial and strategic opportunity to improve energy efficiency and to diversify the energy supply and enhance resilience to security challenges”. Mr Hans Van Steen drew the participants’ attention to the fact that “At a time of tight defence budgets, the Defence and Security sector cannot afford to ignore the opportunities that a state-of-the-art approach to energy efficiency and renewable energy sources offer in terms of economic advantages, security of supply and environmental impact”. He then added that, in this context, “It is very important that the Defence community has a clear understanding of how the new EU legislation on energy could affect its work. The Energy Union Framework Strategy is not only about energy and climate: it is part of a wider policy aimed at accelerating the fundamental modernisation of Europe's entire economy, making it low-carbon and energy and resource efficient, by transforming the whole energy system in a socially fair manner.“

The Warsaw Conference focusses on a range of financing and funding options, coming either from the national public sector or the European Union instruments. To support this process, the Chief Executive has launched today the European Funding Gateway for Energy in Defence, a dedicated web-page on the EDA website. Through this instrument, he encourages the participants to explore what is “an overview of the financing and funding opportunities that the defence sector, and the Ministries of Defence and Armed Forces, industry, research and technology organisations or academia, can access at the European level for energy-related projects”.

The Conference will last two days and address several topics ranging from energy data in defence, energy metering & data collection, energy performance contracts, RES projects including energy storage to critical energy infrastructure resilience and energy-related legislation.
 

Next Conference

The third Conference of the Consultation Forum will be hosted by the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Cyprus and will take place in Nicosia on 26 and 27 February 2019.
 

About the CF SEDSS II

The Consultation Forum for Sustainable Energy in the Defence and Security Sector (CF SEDSS) is a European Commission initiative managed by the EDA. It aims at bringing together experts from the defence and energy sectors to share information and best practices on improving energy management, energy efficiency, the use of renewable energy as well increasing the protection and resilience of defence energy-related critical infrastructures. On 20 October 2017, the second phase of the Consultation Forum (CF SEDSS II) was launched. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, and the agreement is between the EASME executive agency and the EDA. The contract was signed on 16 October 2017 for 22 months, expiring on August 2019. 
Based on the foundations laid during the first phase of the Consultation Forum (2015-2017), the second phase has been further expanded to cover the following interrelated subjects though three main working groups (including sub-working groups): WG 1: Energy Management including Energy Efficiency (Sub-WG1: Energy Management and Sub-WG2: Energy Efficiency; WG 2: Renewable Energy Sources and Technologies; WG 3: Protection of Critical Energy Infrastructure and one cross-cutting theme: Finance.

More information:

• About CF SEDSS II at https://www.eda.europa.eu/european-defence-energy-network/cf-sedss-phase-ii
• European Funding Gateway for Energy in Defence at www.eda.europa.eu/eufunding/energy 
• Speech, EDA Chief Executive Jorge Domecq

Myanmarese MA-S Designated Marksman Rifle

The F-35 Patuxent River Integrated Test Force (ITF) achieved a new milestone performing a Shipborne Rolling Vertical Landing (SRVL) on aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth. On Oct. 13, an F-35B STOVL (Short Take Off Vertical Landing) variant of the Joint Strike Fighter performed the first  Shipborne Rolling Vertical Landing (SRVL) on the flight deck of […]

The European Defence Agency (EDA) is actively participating in the 13th Air Navigation Conference of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), under the umbrella of the European Commission Directorate General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE). The agenda of the conference themed 'From Development to Implementation' includes a topic on civil-military cooperation. The EDA plays a key role in this domain and at EU level, to facilitate the coordination of military views and act as interface between the Military community and the EU institutions. As a result, EDA coordinated the development of the working paper proposed by the EU on this topic.

ICAO Member States and aviation stakeholders attend the conference to exchange on global strategies for safety and air navigation planning, development and implementation. As part of the European Union delegation mandated by Violeta Bulc, European Commissioner for Mobility and Transport, Mr Christophe Vivier, Head of Unit SES/SEAR, and Mr Denis Bouvier, Project Officer SES Policy, will participate on behalf of the EDA.

This year’s conference focuses on the implementation of operational improvements from the conceptual phase until deployment. It emphasizes the importance of concepts for global use, the development of regional implementation plans and the local implementation of performance improvements, based on specific operational requirements in a cost-effective approach. Participants will establish priorities for safety and air navigation planning for the coming years and develop a set of high-level recommendations in different key performance areas of the air navigation system, to be submitted to the ICAO Council for subsequent endorsement by the 40th Session of the ICAO Assembly in 2019.

In close collaboration with the European Commission Directorate General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE) the Agency contributes to technical discussions on civil-military cooperation and coordinates the European Union’s military inputs towards it. Civil-military cooperation is necessary to enhance Air Traffic Management (ATM) as well as communication, navigation and surveillance (CNS), and to create a safe and more interoperable airspace. Its goal is to move from coordination to collaboration and from ATM research and development to implementation.

This contribution from the EDA reflects the strong collaboration links forged with DG MOVE regarding the military side of the SES/SESAR operations. The overall objective is to ensure that a modernised aviation system will accommodate the needs of all stakeholders, including the military, for operations and training, all types of platforms (manned and unmanned) and all types of missions, roles and applications, in a balanced and proportioned way, in peace time and in crisis situations.

In preparation for this important event, the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) set up an ad-hoc ECAC/EU coordination group for safety and ATM in which the EDA was represented. This group, co-chaired by the European Commission and by ECAC, has been tasked to steer the preparation of draft ‘European Working and Information Papers’ to be presented at AN-Conf/13.

Regarding Civil-Military cooperation, the AN-Conf/13 will be invited to agree on four recommendations:

1. Urge States to agree with the strategic approach moving from civil-military coordination to collaboration.
2. Request ICAO to provide appropriate guidelines on the strategic approach.
3. Encourage ICAO to develop together with States mechanisms to collaborate with the military community at global and regional levels.
4. Request ICAO to reinforce the development of civil-military synergies thanks to an effective collaboration starting from research and development to deployment of interoperable systems.

The final report will be available in two weeks.
 

More information:

• ICAO website
• Committee A - Agenda Item 3: Enhancing the global air navigation system (video)

 

 

There is a vibrant electoral atmosphere in Herat city and nearby district centres. Rival political forces have brought supporters onto the streets to show their power and candidates have opened campaign headquarters and engaged in a range of heated campaign activities. In the midst of the bustle, there are also concerns over a series of small-scale bombings and the arrival of tens of thousands of internally displaced families – whose presence may have repercussions for the elections. Moreover, the farther you go from the city and nearby district centres, the more insecurity grows and the election campaign diminishes. AAN researcher Said Reza Kazemi writes from Herat city that deteriorating security poses serious questions about how many voters will be able to get to the polls on 20 October and therefore how representative the election can be.

AAN has put together a dossier of dispatches related to the coming elections, looking at preparations and political manoeuvring. Each dispatch in the Election Conundrum series will be added to it.

Electoral atmosphere in and around Herat city: from reluctance to liveliness

When voter registration began in Herat city on 14 April 2018 (see here), there was a reluctance to participate. The previous fraudulent presidential and provincial council polls had fostered a disillusionment with the Afghan government and with elections. For one working day, the government closed its offices and public places such as institutes of higher education to at least get public servants, university teachers and students to register for the vote. Fears about security and Taleban threats fed into the disinclination to get involved. Thousands of people decided they did not want election stickers pasted on the back of their tazkeras (national ID cards). In some areas in some districts of Herat, where the Taleban hold sway, there was no registration at all. The Independent Election Commission (IEC) was not able to access one district, Farsi, when it carried out a security assessment of registration and polling centres in late 2017 (see AAN reporting on this here).

The consequence of all this was that, out of an estimated one million voters in Herat province, only around half registered (see also a previous AAN dispatch on new voter registry here), with, it is alleged, some communities hit harder than others. A Hazara elder who has lived around Herat city for more than a decade and a half and recently met two Hazara candidates (Habibullah Ghoryani, a newcomer, and Muhammad Reza Khushak Watandost, a sitting MP) for campaign purposes put it bluntly: “Thousands of our people did not register because they were afraid that… if they needed to travel overland between Herat, Kabul and elsewhere,” the Taleban, “would cut off their heads if they caught them with sticker-pasted tazkeras.” His estimate was that the Hazara vote should be 60,000-strong in Herat, but this year registered voters had “fallen to 26,000.” Some influential Shia Hazara and Sayyed residents of Herat told AAN they believed the threats could have been a conspiracy to scare their people away from the elections in order to disenfranchise them.

Even now, so soon before the vote on 20 October, there are contradictory voter registration figures. The Independent Election Commission (IEC) in Kabul has reported 539,141 registered voters (297,391 men, 239,818 women and 1,932 kuchis or nomads) (see page 9 here). According to Ahmad Shah Qanuni, head of the IEC office in Herat, the figure is less: 500,057 (about 55 per cent men and 45 per cent women). Meanwhile, an IEC official in Herat, who asked not to be named, told AAN that 557,720 people (308,613 men, 247,434 women and 1,673 kuchis) have registered to vote in the coming parliamentary elections in the province.

Nevertheless, despite all this, as time has gone by, Heratis have become increasingly interested in the elections. The city is bustling with election activity, some of it confrontational as rival groups face off ahead of the poll. (1) Protests have been deployed in a game to show off apparent power. One of the two main players in this game are those affiliated to the Grand National Coalition, an alliance of political parties that emerged from the so-called ‘Ankara coalition’ of several senior politicians, including First Vice President and leader of Jombesh-e Milli Abdul Rashid Dostum, Second Chief Executive and leader of Hezb-e Wahdat Mardom Muhammad Mohaqeq and (now former) Balkh Governor and Chief Executive of Jamiat-e Islami Atta Muhammad Nur (see AAN analysis here, here and here). Locally, the coalition is mainly represented by former Herat governor and regional strongman Ismael Khan who among others has his son Sayyed Taha Sadeq running for parliament. The other main party in the protest game are supporters of the central government, led by Sayyed Abdul Wahid Qatali, former head of the provincial council, subsequently Herat mayor and currently President Ashraf Ghani’s chief of staff.

On 15 September 2018, dozens of Grand National Coalition supporters staged a sit-in in front of the IEC office and closed it down for public access. They were protesting alleged lack of transparency in election preparations and what they claimed was the deliberate engineering of it by President Ghani and the team in and around the presidential palace. The following morning, Herat provincial police chief General Aminullah Amarkhel ordered police forces to reopen the premises by force. The police dispersed the protestors by firing shots in the air, and rolled up their protest tent, injuring and arresting some people in the process (see here). On 26 September, the government brought a large crowd of its supporters to the city centre, those who, according to a statement issued by the Administrative Office of the President (and seen by the author), backed “the national election process, national development projects and the peace process.” There have been reports that both sides paid daily-wage labourers, who are not few in number in the city, to participate in the demonstrations to increase protestor numbers as a show of strength directed at the other side.

The election atmosphere has become even more vibrant – and in a more positive way – since campaigning began on 28 September 2018. The face of the city and nearby district centres such as Injil, Guzara and Zendajan changed overnight. In these places, many of the 161 candidates, among them sitting MPs, (2) 28 women and several young people (see the list here), are fiercely engaged in the campaign, both in real terms and online, particularly through Facebook. In their bid to try to gain one of Herat’s 17 seats (five reserved for women) in the parliament, they have recruited and paid campaign staff, opened their campaign headquarters where they receive and feed large numbers of local people, met people from different walks of life and put up a great number of billboards, posters and banners in and around the city, courting and wooing people for their votes. So many restaurants, hotels, printing houses, marketing companies and scaffolding businesses are all extremely busy nowadays in and around the city. In Herat city, local environmentalists have voiced their concern about the sheer number of candidate posters and banners, the hammering of nails into trees and urban cleanliness in general. In response, Herat Municipality has been removing posters and banners from trees and traffic signboards.

The city: pressure building up

In the run-up to the election campaign period, from August 2018 onwards, Herat city witnessed a series of small-scale improvised electronic device (IED) attacks. On 9 August, explosives planted in a motorbike went off opposite a vehicle carrying a former Afghan Local Police (ALP) commander, Haji Amir Shindandi, in the Old Corps Road in Police District (PD) 1, killing at least four people and injuring 12 others including the ex-commander. On 5 September, there were two consecutive explosions in Chawk-e Gulha area in downtown Herat, injuring at least six people, including two traffic police officers. In late August, earlier in the same place (ie Chawk-e Gulha), an explosion killed at least two people. On 4 October, a blast targeted a parked police vehicle in Darb-e Khush area in the city centre, injuring about ten people, among them a child. In the same place, Herat police later on seized IED equipment in a hotel. On 12 October, there was an IED attack on an audio-video centre in Gawaliyan area in the south of Herat city which damaged the centre but left no casualties; the centre has been involved in the management of some high-profile events.

What could be called ‘social pressure’ has also been building up in Herat city. Quoting several sources, including the Provincial Directorate of Refugees and Repatriation, the Afghan daily newspaper Hasht-e Sobh said there are about “one million internally displaced persons from Farah, Ghor, Badghis and some southern provinces” currently living in and around Herat city. (3)  This seems to be a cumulative number reached over several years. Most recently, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and its partners have reported that in the western region as a whole, over 250,000 people have been displaced of which about 60,000 are in Herat city and twice that number in Qala-ye Naw in Badghis province (see here and here). People from the insecure and drought-affected districts of Herat province – Shindand, Adraskan, Kushk-e Kuhna, Kushk-e Rubat Sangi and Gulran – have either also been displaced to the city or have fled to Kandahar province (see also here). In Herat, most IDPs have settled in tents set up on plots of land, due to be built on, but as yet clear, in the areas of Sheydai, Dasht-e Hawz and Maslakh, respectively in the east, north and south. These neighbourhoods are regarded as the ‘gates’ to Herat city from these three directions. AAN heard from several IDPs in Sheydai about the severity of the drought and the insecurity in their areas of Badghis province that has forced them to leave their houses, orchards and lands for the sake of protecting their families.

A growing number of local government officials and residents have drawn a direct connection between the displacement and the rise in security-related incidents. They have attributed responsibility to IDPs for the recent security and crime incidents. The Killid Group, a media organisation that is also active in Herat, said in a research paper that local security and justice authorities had said the IDPs were implicated in “30 per cent of security incidents in Herat” (see here). These officials claimed that the Taleban and other insurgent and criminal groups had established links with some of the IDPs with a view to destabilising the city and the wider province. Many local Heratis and government officials, alarmed by the scale of the displacement – not seen since the drought of 2000/2001 – have increasingly called for the return of the IDPs to their original provinces (see for example here).

The IDPs – whether or not some are actually involved in crime and/or the insurgency – have become an election issue and a matter of debate in Herat. Some Heratis are also alleging they will be used to carry out fraud in the election. There have been reports that some of the IDPs have got tazkeras during recent tazkera distribution in Herat and then registered to vote in the upcoming elections by getting stickers fixed to the back of their tazkeras. It is, of course, their legal right to be registered to vote in their place of sanctuary. Still, some local Heratis worry that the sheer number of outsiders, not all from the province, could affect who will represent Herat in the next parliament.

Unfortunately, given this charged atmosphere, security-wise and politically, the suffering of a large number of people who have been displaced because of the war or the drought or both is glossed over.

Because of fears about security in Herat city, the districts and neighbouring provinces, there is a greater, visible presence of security forces at the gates to and in key intersections in the city. Government security forces have also conducted two military manoeuvres or parades, one on the streets inside the city and the other on the way from Herat city to Shindand district in a display of power and attempt to boost confidence in the security arrangements for the coming elections (see here).

The districts and neighbouring provinces: mounting insecurity

The government is right to be concerned about security. It has been deteriorating during the last couple of years in several districts of Herat province where the government and Taleban have been engaging in a violent contest for control. Roads between several districts, particularly the faraway ones, and the provincial centre are increasingly unsafe. There are frequent Taleban checkpoints on the way that control the movement of people and goods. Some of the posts are temporary, but others are more permanent. Those working for the government and foreign organisations are particularly afraid of travelling overland as they are targets for attacks. They thus go to great lengths to hide their institutional affiliation while on the road.

The Taleban provincial base, the southernmost district of Shindand, recently divided by the government into five smaller districts to improve its managementand therefore, it was hoped, its security, is the most insecure in the province. There are continual clashes between the Taleban and government forces (see for instance here and this previous AAN analysis). The two opposing Taleban factions – one loyal to the mainstream Taleban led by Mullah Haibatullah and the other to Mullah Rasul, who set up his own group after the death of Mullah Omar was announced in 2015 – also recently resumed fighting each other in Shindand (read previous AAN analysis on Taleban after Mullah Omar here). There are also reports about recent Taleban infighting in Guzara district that left at least 17 of their members dead and eight others injured. However, according to local Kohandazh news agency, the Taleban version of events is that they clashed with the Afghan Local Police (ALP) killed 16 local policemen and captured their post.

In other districts, the Taleban have attacked government checkpoints, closed roads at least temporarily and provoked the government to launch operations in response, leaving casualties on both sides. Such incidents have occurred recently in the southern district of Adraskan, the eastern districts of Pashtun Zarghun and Obe, (4) the northern districts of Kushk-e Rubat Sangi and Kushk-e Kuhna, the eastern district of Ghoryan and the north-eastern district of Kohsan. Although there have been, so far, no large-scale attacks by the Taleban to take control of district centres in Herat, some are vulnerable.

Herat province has also seen specific election-related violence. In late May 2018, the Taleban killed one IEC voter registration centre staff member and a soldier in Chesht-e Sharif district. In another similar event in the same month, the Taleban shot dead an ALP soldier who was guarding a voter registration centre in Guzara district. In early September, a rocket was fired at a campaign office in Islam Qala Township in Kohsan district. It damaged the office compound, but caused no casualties. On 13 October, unknown armed men attacked the campaign headquarters of a candidate – Sayyed Azim Kabarzani – in nearby Injil district, killing one of the guards; a child was also killed and two other children were injured in the incident.

A similar security trend is seen in Herat’s immediate provincial neighbourhood (see also here). In neighbouring Badghis to the north, the Taleban have encircled Qala-ye Naw, the provincial centre. It seems unlikely it will fall, at least in the foreseeable future, because of a concentration of government forces stationed there as well as the dispatch of commando forces. The fall of Qala-ye Naw would be disastrous for the Afghan government in the entire western region. Recently, there have been severe clashes between the Taleban and government forces in Muqur, Qades and Abkamari districts of Badghis province. In most cases, the government has launched operations in response to Taleban attacks on its checkpoints. The neighbouring province of Ghor to the east is also unsafe, but to a much lesser extent. In a recent security incident, an attempt by government security forces to arrest an uprising commander, Alipur, who is from Behsud district in Maidan Wardak province but was visiting a parliamentary candidate in Lal wa Sar Jangal district, resulted in a firefight which left around 10 people, including one woman and four policemen, dead. To the south, Farah province remains troubled with the Taleban still near its gates since they attacked the provincial centre in May 2018 (read AAN’s recent dispatch here). Backed by NATO-led troops, government security forces have increased airstrikes on insurgent positions to keep the road access between the provincial centres of Farah and Herat open. It seems in Herat, at least, the current strategy on the part of the NATO-backed Afghan security forces is to keep attacking insurgent positions so as to make them busy defending areas under their control instead of giving them time and space to interfere in and disrupt the electoral process.

This complicated security environment has prompted senior government officials to be more outspoken to at least attract attention to what they see as happening on the ground. They consider the Taleban to be intent on extending their military influence to areas of Herat where government security forces are not concentrated and then expanding to encircle and vie for control of district centres. Muhammad Asef Rahimi, Herat provincial governor, and General Nurullah Qaderi, the top military official for the western region, have given the narrative of the government repeatedly: backed by Iran and Pakistan, the Taleban are aiming to devastate the country’s infrastructure projects, implying for example that the Salma hydropower dam in Chesht-e Sharif district in Herat province is at risk. Putting the blame on neighbouring countries obviously ignores the government’s own failings in many different areas from security to development and to governance in general.

Conclusion: elections amid growing insecurity

The vibrancy of election campaigning in Herat city and nearby district centres coupled with the rising insecurity in the rest of the province raises serious questions about the nature of the coming elections. Hundreds of thousands of Heratis did not register to vote or will not be able to vote in their areas in several districts. This is both in the provincial centre (in the case of Shia Hazara and Sayyed residents) and particularly in districts contested or controlled by the Taleban. In some areas of some districts, especially the far-flung ones under Taleban control and in one whole district, Farsi, no voter registration took place and there will be no election at all. According to the IEC official quoted above, of all 462 polling centres in Herat province (see their list here), 162 will be closed on polling day. Most of the province will be affected to some degree. In two newly created districts in Shindand, ie Zerkoh and Pushtkoh, no polling centres will be opened. Only in Herat city and the immediate district of Injil will all designated polling centres be opened.

Campaign activity has thus focused on Herat city and district centres, while voters residing in villages situated far from them are potentially disenfranchised. Some residents told AAN that powerful candidates and their local community supporters might be able to influence at least some local Taleban forces to let elections take place in particular areas, or if that did not work, would bring their supporters to safer areas where they could vote. At the same time, there are fears that insecurity in areas far away from the district centres might provide an environment conducive for widespread fraud because few candidate agents and observers can go there to monitor the vote. This has been a pattern in previous elections.

The provincial electoral landscape is thus marked by a strange co-existence of hope and fear, of participation and its lack. The parliamentary elections of 2018 in Herat are not taking place in a normal or conducive environment and there are concerns as to how inclusive they will be and whether the widespread insecurity will aid fraud. Yet, it seems the Afghan government and its international backers have decided that an election, whatever it is and however it is held, is better than no election at all.

Edited by Sari Kouvo, Thomas Ruttig and Kate Clark

 

 

(1)There has also been a protest for Herati parliamentarian Abdul Hadi Jamshidi who was initially disqualified by the IEC (read a recent AAN dispatch here), but was recertified by the Election Complaint Commission (ECC). Jamshidi had been initially disqualified for allegedly failing to hand over to the government some weapons and ammunitions his men had seized in an armed clash with the Taleban in Kushk-e Rubat Sangi district. He was then reinstated.

(2) All sitting MPs in Herat are again running for parliament, apart from Ahmad Behzad who is running from Kabul province (for the list of and some information about sitting Herat MPs, see here). A female MP from Herat – Shahnaz Hemati – died in a car accident in Iran in 2013.

(3) To the IDPs, one should add thousands of recent returnees and deportees from Iran and Turkey, some of whom stay in Herat at least for some time, according to AAN’s interviews with some Afghan returnees and deportees from Iran and Turkey in Herat city in September 2018.

(4) The information is from AAN interviews with government officials, activists and residents who are from/in Obe, September 2018, Herat city.

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