Defence`s Feeds

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

Official announcements related to naval shipbuilding give the appearance of a Russian Navy that is undergoing a rapid revival. However, the reality is that many projects have faced lengthy delays and cost overruns. As a result, some of the most prominent naval procurement projects have been scaled back, while others have been postponed for years at a time. The delays and cost overruns are the result of a long-term decline in naval research and development, an inability to modernize the shipbuilding industry made worse by Western sanctions, and pre-existing budgetary constraints that have been exacerbated in recent years by Russia’s economic downturn. However, the Russian Navy has developed a strategy that compensates for these gaps by utilizing its strength in submarines and cruise missile technology to fulfill key maritime missions such as homeland defense and power projection in the face of a failure to build an adequate number of large combat ships.

—

Originally published by CIMSEC. Click here to read the rest of the article.

BAE's ACV 1.1 offering was selected by the Marine Corps for the EMD phase (Photo: BAE Systems)

Indian Excalibur Assault Rifle

The Taleban movement has entered its third decade with infighting threatening its – up till now ­– remarkable unity. The killing of Mansur Dadullah during clashes between Taleban factions in Zabul on 12 November 2015 highlighted the scope of this unprecedented discord. Dadullah had been deputy leader of a newly-formed, breakaway faction of the Taleban. That faction, under the leadership of Mullah Muhammad Rasul, is not the only group opposing the new Taleban leader, Akhtar Muhammad Mansur; there are other Taleban heavyweights opposing, if not openly challenging, him. AAN’s Borhan Osman maps the various Taleban factions that have emerged in the wake of the revelation of the death of the movement’s founder Mullah Omar. He concludes, however, that although the rifts have irreversibly broken the historic image of the Taleban as a unified group, they are, so far, a long way from posing an existential threat to the movement.

Sourcing unless specified comes from interviews with interlocutors within or close to the different Taleban camps that AAN has spoken to during the past four months.

The Taleban have long taken pride in a unity which made them stand out from almost all other major political-military groups active during the decades of conflict in Afghanistan. Born in conflict and a key warring party ever since, the Islamic Movement of the Taleban (as it first called itself) has gone through many turbulent times in the 21 years of its existence, but it has always stuck together. This ended in July 2015 when news of its leader’s death became public knowledge.

One day after the Taleban confirmed the death of Mullah Muhammad Omar – when they also announced that his then ‘deputy’ Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansur had taken his place – three (active or former) members of the highest decision-making body, the Rahbari Shura (Leadership Council), openly declared their disagreement with the succession. They accused the new leader of having engineered the succession so as to get himself ‘selected’.

Mullah Mansur’s ‘crowning’ as amir ul-mumenin (commander of the faithful) was, in many ways, merely a formalisation of his actual position in the movement. As official deputy to an increasingly mythical (dead or before that secluded) leader, Mansur had already been running the Taleban, albeit in Omar’s name, for about five years – since Omar’s other and more senior deputy, Mullah Abdul Ghani (aka Baradar), had been locked up by the Pakistanis in February 2010.

Mansur has a long record with the Taleban. While not one of the founders of the movement, he had several portfolios when they were in power, most notably Minister of Civil Aviation and Tourism. Very early on in the insurgency, in summer 2003, his name appeared in the 10-member shura announcing the comeback of the Taleban movement. In the following years, he led the insurgency in Kandahar province, a portfolio he kept after 2007 when, according to his official biography, he became one of the two deputies to Mullah Omar. After Baradar’s arrest and several months of confusion, Mansur was appointed by Mullah Omar as his (only) deputy and the news was made known to rank and file through an audio tape, according to Taleban sources AAN has talked to. As chairman of the movement’s Rahbari Shura and because of Omar’s absence from real life, Mansur gradually took over as the movement’s de facto leader. By 2013, he had marginalised a number of his political opponents and was pushing others to the margins.

When Mansur was announced as Omar’s successor on 31 July 2015, it was obvious that all those he had pushed aside would contest his claim to leadership. Moreover, consultations on who should succeed Omar were swift and conducted with a limited and not fully representative circle of leaders. This also made him more vulnerable to dissent.

Dissent goes on air

The three dissidents – two current members (Hassan Rahmani, Abdul Razaq) and one former member (Muhammad Rasul) of the 18 men strong Rahbari Shura represented a wider camp of Taleban who were critical of the way Mansur had propelled himself into the position of amir ul-mumenin. They complained that many important figures in the movement had not been consulted, that the succession had been decided hastily and that Mansur had manipulated the process. The three made their resentment public by phoning Shamshad TV, a private station based in Kabul. That was an unusual and bold venture for members of a movement that, up till then, had been characterised by keeping its internal debates internal. Many more Taleban notables spoke out subsequently, thrusting the movement’s future cohesion into uncertainty. However, had the discord really to do with the way the succession was managed, and therefore, was it completely unanticipated?

It rather seems as if Mullah Omar’s death revealed what had already been an existing power struggle. Until then, however, it had remained mostly out of public sight, but was known to insiders. For those watching the movement closely, the post-Omar rifts only brought to the surface existing fault lines that had been haunting the movement for some years.

Mansur had managed to build up a coterie loyal to himself and manoeuvred it into top positions in the leadership to consolidate his power. He has been doing this probably since 2010, and increasingly since Mullah Omar’s death in spring 2013 (the time all Taleban camps understood their former leader actually died). Therefore, Mansur is accused by his opponents of nepotism and of giving more power to his fellow Ishaqzais in the movement.

Mansur’s opponents accuse him of unjustly removing or demoting Taleban leaders like Mutasem Agha Jan, (the late) Abdul Rauf Khadem and Abdul Qayum Zaker as part of his efforts to build a movement submissive to him. Mutasem Agha Jan had been instrumental in raising funds for launching the insurgency in its early years (2003-2007) and had remained as head of the important financial commission until 2008. During Emirate rule, he served as minister of finance and had been close to Mullah Omar. He was forced out of the movement in 2009 and survived an assassination attempt in Karachi in 2011. The decision to expel Mutasem was taken by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar; he was removed apparently after being accused of embezzling donation funds. However, Mansur’s critics accuse Mansur of having been instrumental in the decision to push out Mutasem .

Abdul Qayum Zaker and Rauf Khadem were  the head and deputy of the Taleban’s military commission, respectively, effectively the two most important military chiefs in the movement. They led Taleban forces during the ‘surge’ of US forces from late 2009 to 2012. Zaker was relieved of his job by Mansur and replaced by a more loyal person, Sadar Ibrahim, in spring 2014. Khadem was effectively ousted, as a bête noire, apparently for promoting Salafism. Khadem became the first known insurgent commander to defect to the Islamic State, becoming its ‘deputy amir for Khorasan’ and launching the organisation’s first cell in Helmand early this year. Almost immediately thereafter, however, in early February 2015, he was killed in a drone attack. Zaker, who remains a Taleban commander (more on him below), still maintains a network of fighters loyal to him in the south, particularly in Helmand, but has declined to join either Mansur or his open opponents.

The opposition to Mansur and the way he has run the movement has created diverse ‘factions’ within the Taleban. This opposition is made up of scattered leaders, but no single person among them is strong or prominent enough to serve as a rallying point. Mansur’s opponents also face the challenge of lacking access to funding of their own to set up a significant rival faction. That leaves them as something even less than a loose alliance. In their objection to Mansur, they not only entertain varied demands, but seem to hold divergent positions on the issue of succession (who should be appointed as leader and how) and exhibit policy differences on important issues, such as a possible political settlement to end the war. (Some favour a political settlement, others are against it. Some are against the presence of the political office in Qatar and others support it as the key channel). Ideologically, the opposition contains both soft and hard-liners, representing a diversity not dissimilar from the mainstream Taleban. Overall, it is difficult to see in them an ideologically distinct current. Thus, the rifts are often more to do with power politics and personal grievances than defined ideological or political stances.

Mapping the factions

Since the discord does not follow a clear ideological line or a unified agenda, one way to make mapping the factions easier would be to divide them by their similarity in stated or perceived positions to the succession issue, levels of opposition, past affiliations and possible future trajectories. Individuals from the first three camps have been in some sort of informal contacts with the people from or close to the Afghan government during the past few years. Those contacts have not had the endorsement – and may have even been to the dismay  – of Mansur. Contacts by members of the fourth group from the Taleban’s political office in Qatar were approved.

1. The armed opposition: Muhammad Rasul and Mansur Dadullah

Muhammad Rasul (1), the governor of Nimroz during the Taleban regime and a comrade of Mullah Omar from the anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s, has emerged as the leader of the only group which has taken its opposition to the level of declaring a rival amir. In early November 2015, Muhammad Rasul appeared amid a crowd of fighters and local residents in Bakwa district of Farah to launch his faction (or as he would probably see it, the ‘true’ Taleban) named the Higher Council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. He has since also travelled to Shindand district of neighbouring Herat province, where he held a similar gathering of supporters and sympathisers, mostly from the Nurzai.

Along with Akhtar Mansur, Rasul was a member of the first shura formed in summer 2003 that oversaw the launch of the Taleban insurgency under Mullah Omar’s leadership. In recent years, he has had no known position in the movement. He has been joined by three Taleban commanders and a former governor. Two of the commanders, Mansur Dadullah (who has already been killed) and Baz Muhammad, were appointed as his deputies, while the third deputy is the Emirate-era governor of Kabul Abdul Manan Niazi. The third commander is tribal elder-turned Taleb Raz Muhammad, who is based in Shindand district of Herat province.

The first deputy, Mullah Mansur Dadullah, with his power base among the Pashtun tribe of the Kakar in Zabul, was appointed one of Rasul’s two military deputies. Dadullah was the most powerful commander of the group, but was killed quickly after his position in the dissident faction was made public in a clash with ‘Mansur’s Taleban’ which had been brewing anyway.

Multiple sources from Taleban and local notables suggest Dadullah was killed by Akhtar Mansur’s fighters on 12 November 2015 during an offensive against the dissidents in Zabul. A radio communication between an apparently Zabul-based Taleban commander and a government forces’ member leaked on the internet confirmed that he was dead. Rasul’s men have claimed since that Dadullah was only seriously wounded and is still alive. However, given Dadullah’s habit of staying regularly in touch with the media, which put him in contrast with other insurgency commanders, it seems reasonably to assume he would have come out to disprove reports of his death were he still alive.

Mansur Dadullah was a younger brother of Mullah Dadullah, a brutal Taleban frontline commander during the Taleban regime and early insurgency period. The older brother virtually launched the insurgency with the killing of an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) engineerin March 2003 – a shocking indication of what sort of insurgency was to come because the ICRC had always been respected by all parties to the conflict. Dadullah was himself killed in 2007 in a US-led coalition airstrike. Mansur Dadullah, also known as Bakht Muhammad and Mullah Akhtar, took over his brother’s network. He immediately accused both Akhtar Mansur – then in charge of the insurgency in Kandahar and possibly, also, just appointed second deputy to Mullah Omar – and Mullah Omar’s first deputy, Mullah Baradar, of having conspired to have Dadullah killed. Mansur Dadullah was subsequently disowned by Mullah Omar in an audio message in late 2007 after he had been charged with brutally killing two veteran Taleban fighters whom he had accused of spying on his brother. Another possible reason for his expulsion might have been revelations that he had been secretly talking to Western diplomats in Helmand.

Mansur Dadullah was detained in 2008 by the Pakistani government and freed in September 2013 and returned to Zabul in early 2015 to revive a part of his brother’s network. (Some contemporary AAN background reports here and here).

The second military deputy to Rassul, Baz Muhammad Haris (not to be confused with the current shadow governor of Farah, Mawlawi Baz Muhammad) is a Nurzai from Farah province and was once probably the most influential commander in Farah. It seems he had been overseeing drug trafficking in the province and got embroiled in a dispute with other Taleban commanders over the distribution of income in 2012. At that time, Akhtar Mansur supported the commanders who summoned Baz Muhammad and beat him up; this marked the start of the hostility between him and Mansur. Baz Muhammad facilitated the November gathering in Bakwa where the rival faction and amir were officially launched. It was attended by many Nurzais in addition to around 200 fighters. However, according to some Taleban sources, most of Baz Muhammad’s fighters deserted him when they realised their leader would be going to become part of a rival faction.

A third commander, Raz Muhammad, has been chosen as the group’s commander for the ‘south-western region’, a possible reference to Herat, Nimroz and Helmand provinces. Also known as Jawed Nangyal, he is the son of former local militia commander Amanullah Khan, who was killed during fighting with a rival militia commander in his home district of Shindand in 2006.(2) Subsequently, Raz Muhammad, a Nurzai, has led his broader family and relatives into the Taleban movement. He mobilised a couple of thousand people for the gathering in his own home district in support of Rasul on 7 November 2015; these included about 200 armed men as well. Raz Muhammad controls most of the Zerkoh area in Shindand.

Also prominent in Rasul’s faction is Mullah Abdul Manan Niazi, an Achakzai from Herat’s Gulran district. He was Mullah Omar’s first spokesman upon his emergence in the mid-1990s and also served as governor for Kabul, as his most prominent position, and governor of Balkh province in 1998 as his most notorious. He was put in charge as the governor of Balkh after the Taleban captured Mazar-e Sharfi when the group massacred thousands of people, mainly Hazaras. Witnesses reported him delivering sectarian anti-Shia speeches and urging them to ‘convert’ to Sunni Islam. In recent years, Niazi has not held a specific position in the Taleban, but ran a private business as a property dealer in Pakistan. He acts as a political deputy for Rasul and spokesman for the group.

A fourth deputy in the rival faction has been announced – Sher Muhammad Mansur who is a little-known commander from a well-known family, that of Nasrullah Mansur, leader of the mujahedin faction Harakat-e Nawin-e Inqilab-e Islami during the anti-Soviet jihad in the 1980s. His family has denied his acceptance of the position, but nothing has been heard from Sher Muhammad himself. Neither has he been seen in any of the gatherings in support of Rasul. He seems more a symbolic addition to the group so that it looks broadly based and representative of Taleban from various areas – in this case from the southeast. Sher Muhammad is from Paktia and his family and faction played a notable role in the Taleban during both its rule and the insurgency era.

To leave space for expanding the faction into an umbrella organisation for all dissidents, Rasul was named acting (interim) amir in the Farah meeting; the group’s spokesman Manan Niazi told AAN the appointment of a permanent amir (for the whole Taleban movement – as the group insists it has not left the movement but rather represents its legitimate leadership) should involve consultation with a wider base. Altogether, Rasul’s ‘High Council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’, as it calls itself, apparently enjoys the support of around a thousand fighters, as each leader – Raz Muhammad, Baz Muhammad and most notably Dadullah (or whoever now takes over his network) ­– has contributed a fighting force of between 200 and 400 men. They are mainly distributed in southern and western parts of the country, namely Zabul, Farah and Herat. Dadullah is also said to enjoy some support in Wardak, closer to Kabul.

Dadullah had long acted as leader of his own group with his own spokesman and tactics and was always an uneasy subordinate to the Taleban leadership. He had initially supported Omar’s son Mullah Yaqub as successor; that prospect was annulled after Yaqub, along with his uncle, Mullah Manan, declared their support for Akhtar Mansur in mid-September. Rasul’s faction has also accused Akhtar Mansur of assassinating Mullah Omar, despite Omar’s son and brother – who initially tilted towards the dissidents – insisting he died a natural death. In early September, Dadullah also appeared in a video in early September in the company of around a dozen of his armed men declaring himself amir ul-jihad (leader of the jihad), a title previously unknown in the Taleban movement. In the video tape, he attacked Mansur as an agent of Pakistani intelligence and asked Taleban fighters to join him in the fight against the Pakistani ‘intelligence cell’. In that video, he also mentioned that he had agreed to an ultimatum from Akhtar Mansur’s commanders to leave the area. Taleban sources on Akhtar Mansur’s side say he failed to abide by that initial two-week ultimatum plus two subsequent deadlines. There had been a build-up of force in Zabul from both sides before the first deadline was agreed.

Dadullah had rooted himself in Khak-e Afghan, Daichopan and parts of Arghandab districts of Zabul province. There, his fighters, together with Central Asian militants who had arrived in summer 2014 from North Waziristan, fleeing the Pakistani military operation there, mutually supported each other. The Central Asians, reportedly mostly Uzbeks from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), had grown hostile to Akhtar Mansur after they settled in Zabul. They pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) and openly insulted Akhtar Mansur, according to IMU group’s communication (which AAN has seen). They called him an agent of the Pakistani intelligence services, who had diverged from Mullah Omar’s path and sold Taleban fighters out. The Central Asians had initially arrived in Zabul as family groups (about 400), but most of these families have reportedly fled to other areas, mainly to northern Afghanistan. According to a document AAN saw, the IMU-cum-IS group agreed with Akhtar Mansur’s Taleban to also leave the area by mid-September. That agreement was achieved with the help of local ulama mediating between the two sides and seems to have been separate from the Dadullah/Mansur agreement, although both had the same timeframe.

From February 2015, the foreign militants have taken dozens of people hostage, most of them Shia Hazaras, with the help of Dadullah’s commanders. Some hostages were exchanged for Central Asian militants detained by the government. Others have been beheaded or had their throats slit in killings which were filmed and published, in an effort to push the government for a deal to free remaining Central Asian detainees. One group of eight people was freed on 8 November 2015 by Mansur’s Taleban after they captured the area where the hostages had been held from the foreign militants and Dadullah’s fighters. They found that seven other hostages from the same group had already been killed, their throats cut just a day earlier during the fighting. The victims included two women and a child. This brutal killing stirred an outcry in many parts of the country (see AAN’s account of the mass protests in Kabul here).

The fighting in Zabul looked like a clash that would have happened anyway, regardless of whether Dadullah had joined the new Rasul faction. It resembled more of an offensive by Akhtar Mansur against the Dadullah-IMU/IS alliance than a fight between two Taleban ‘factions’. The offensive took place less than a week after the announcement of Rasul’s declaration of being Taleban amir and was not Mansur’s first massive mobilisation against the Dadullah-IMU/IS alliance. That took place less than a month after he was announced as Omar’s successor in August, before any of the dissidents had taken the shape of a ‘faction’. (See here  for AAN reporting, which includes information about the first escalation in Zabul.) Dadullah’s killing has, however, taken out the strongest and most brutal commander from Rasul’s faction before it had the chance to consolidate – a grave setback for this particular band of dissidents.

2. Prominent members of the Rahbari Shura opposing Mansur, but not in the Rasul camp

Before Rasul declared his own faction, he had been part of the loudest anti-Mansur group which brought together the largest number of anti-Mansur Taleban notables. With Rasul and Niazi going it alone, this other group still includes some of the most well known Taleban figures. Taleban era interior minister Mullah Abdul Razaq and the regime’s governor of Kandahar, then the emirate’s quasi-capital, Mullah Hassan Rahmani, are leading this group. The two, along with Rasul, were the ones who first publicised their opposition to Mansur’s succession on 31 July 2015. The group also includes the Emirate-era deputy foreign minister Mullah Abdul Jalil and erstwhile governor of the Central Bank Abdul Rahman Zahed. Razaq and Rahmani have served as members of the Rahbari Shura in recent years, and Razaq was also one of the early members of the shura overseeing the initiation of the post-2001 insurgency.

This camp had eyes on Mullah Omar’s son Yaqub as a possible new leader of the movement and tried to pit him against Mansur. Reportedly, they pushed him in a bid to become a rival amir after Mansur had installed himself. Yaqub and Manan’s final choice of joining the Mansur camp delivered a fatal blow to that particular plan. This camp is still waiting, though, and has not declared its support for either Rasul or Akhtar Mansur’s, despite the latter’s persistent efforts to court them. They seem to be continuing to assess the two factions’ trajectory before making a decision.

3. An eastern front dismantled in favour of Taleban centralism

Another potential dissident Taleban faction could emerge in eastern Afghanistan. There, Anwar ul-Haq Mujahed, son of late mujahedin leader Mawlawi Yunos Khales (usually known as Hezb-e Islami/Khales, as opposed to Hekmatyar’s), founded the local Tora Bora Jihadi Front in Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan in 2007. His stated aim was to fight the US-led coalition forces and the US-supported Afghan government; his father had already declared that the jihad was not over in 2005 before his death. However, in less than two years, Mujahed’s group had merged with the Taleban. After the merger, however, the network kept its name and Mujahed kept in touch with his loyalists, to the dislike of the Taleban leadership who did not want a separate entity within the Emirate kept alive. Therefore, Mujahed was removed from his eastern power base in 2009 to serve as shadow governor of Paktia province and then was gradually marginalised.

Since Mansur’s succession, Mujahed became active in the opposition camp, although seeking not to stir up too much public attention. He has reportedly been blaming Akhtar Mansur for marginalising him. Under pressure of the conflict with the Islamic State-affiliated groups in Nangarhar and with resources flowing from Akhtar Mansur, groups formerly loyal to the Tora Bora front had to completely give up any remaining semblance of affiliation to it and become part of the Taleban mainstream. In a meeting of the front’s commanders with Mujahed in Pakistan on 10 October 2015, it was declared defunct, although Mujahed hinted he would “come back to jihad in a new form.” It is difficult to quantify how many fighters once operated under the front’s name, how many of them fully joined the Taleban and how many stayed loyal to Mujahed. A number of the front’s men have reportedly joined the regional IS franchise, the Islamic State Wilayat Khorasan, in Nangarhar.

4. Leaders of the political office

Another grouping that resigned from their positions (but not from the movement) in protest against Mansur’s leadership, or the way he came to be leader, are three senior members of the Taleban’s political commission. The commission serves as the movement’s outlet for external relations and negotiations, but also helps in fundraising, and had been based in Qatar since 2011, two years before it was formally launched. It was set up on Mansur’s initiative. Its head, Tayyeb Agha, was the first to resign on 3 August 2015, he said, because Mansur’s appointment had been made outside Afghanistan and because Mansur had concealed Mullah Omar’s death. He described both as “historical mistakes” in the letter of resignation AAN saw. Two other founding members of the commission, who were instrumental in facilitating the official opening of the political commission’s office in Qatar in 2013, also resigned subsequently. They were Nek Muhammad and Aziz Rahman. (For their bios see here.)

Tayyeb Agha had been one of the closest men to Mullah Omar during both his government and the initial years of insurgency, first as head of Omar’s office in Kandahar and then, post-2001, as his personal secretary. Nek Muhammad was also close to Mullah Omar when he served as head of the education department in Kandahar. During the insurgency years, he was also head of the Taleban’s ‘Education Commission’. Aziz Rahman was secretary to the Taleban’s embassy in UAE (one of the only three countries to recognise the Emirate as Afghanistan’s government).

The three have not spoken of their opposition to Mansur publicly. However, their resignations did clearly signalise discontent with Mansur’s leadership. They have not supported any other faction either. People close to Tayyeb Agha told AAN he preferred unification of the movement around Mansur than around the leaders of other factions. Agha has also suggested he may embark on an independent peace process using his experience and contacts among both the Taleban and foreign diplomats.

Mansur’s men tried hard to bring Agha back to his job, but after months of unsuccessful efforts, the Taleban website announced his replacement on 21 November. Sher Muhammad Abbas Stanekzai, who served as deputy foreign and deputy health minister during the Taleban, who had been one of most active members of the political office has been appointed as its head. Abdul Salam Hanafi, an Uzbek from Jawzjan, and deputy minister for education during the Taleban, has been named as his deputy.

5. The Taleban’s counter-surge commander

Qayum Zaker has been one of the longest standing and most talked about rivals of Akhtar Mansur, well before the summer’s leadership crisis. The two jockeyed for the position of vicegerent when Mullah Baradar – the former uncontested deputy leader of the movement – was arrested by the Pakistani government in February 2010. Mansur finally won out over Zaker, and the latter took over as the most important military leader, ie head of the military commission, in charge of managing and running the fighting. He was pushed out of that post, too, however, officially in April 2014 (when he reportedly ‘resigned’), but actually from 2013. Zaker is still said to wield influence on a sizeable number of fighters in the south, especially in his native Helmand province. Estimates about the fighting force loyal to him vary greatly from a few hundred to a few thousand.

After Omar’s death was announced, Zaker was a natural key contender to be the new amir. However, according to people close to him, he never opted for making a bid for himself. He did walk out of one important consultation meeting about whom to pick as the Taleban’s successor in late July, ie before the announcement of Omar’s death. He did so in protest at the dominant proposal being made by other participants to choose Mansur. He has since sympathised with Mansur’s opponents in private. However, after intensive efforts at mediation by influential religious and political Taleban and pro-Taleban figures from Mansur’s camp, he has maintained a tacit disagreement with Mansur’s leadership while also, reportedly, refusing to join any anti-Mansur faction. The Taleban website ran a statement in his name in August dismissing reports of his conflict with Mansur and saying he was not a member of a dissident camp. However, it seems a part of that letter, was spun by Mansur’s media team, or that his position has become more ‘fluid’ since then. Nevertheless, Zaker’s commanders are apparently fighting shoulder to shoulder with Akhtar Mansur’s shadow governor in Helmand against the Afghan government forces there. There has not been any report of a lack of coordination, or infighting, between the fighters loyal to both.

No large-scale infighting on the horizon

The scale of open factionalism in the wake of Mullah Omar’s announced death is unprecedented in Taleban history. However, the rifts are not large enough to amount to a serious threat to the overall operational capabilities and organisational structure of the Taleban movement. The important measurement is not how many pieces have broken away from the movement, but how large and influential they are.

One huge splinter group bent on actively fighting the mainstream Taleban would be a much larger threat to the movement’s cohesion than a handful of small splinter factions, whether they are militant or non-belligerent. Fedai Mahaz, for example, was one of the very first militant groups that split from the mainstream in 2012. It has been aggressively hostile to Akhtar Mansur and the powerful clique around him. It has also been greatly successful in persistently gaining media attention with claims of attacks, such as the 2014 March killing of a Swedish journalist, and leaking alleged secrets of Mullah Omar’s death or even ‘assassination’ in July this year.(3) As it has little, if any at all, footprint on ground, it has failed to tip the balance either vis-à-vis the mainstream Taleban or the Afghan government.

Mullah Dadullah’s network is the only one so far that has got to the point of fighting with the mainstream. That (in)fighting was also partly caused by Dadullah’s having made an alliance with the Central Asian militants, who had run amok after switching their allegiance to IS.

Although the transition from Mullah Omar to Mullah Mansur was not completely smooth, the Taleban have managed to avoid splitting into two or more large rival factions and seem to be surviving their first change of leadership. This fighting season, Akhtar Mansur fared well with the existing structure; the absence of the dissidents was not felt.

Indeed, most of the dissidents had long ago ceased to play any active military or political role in the movement. They can become a force to undermine Akhtar Mansur’s mainstream if they manage to rally larger support, unite against their common enemy and get access to independent funding. They would also need to be able to incite a sufficient number of fighters to turn against their erstwhile brethren in the Taleban mainstream. The coexistence of several factions appears unlikely given how exclusivist the Taleban have always been. Prospects of infighting happening on a larger scale, however, are, for now, not in sight.

On the whole, Akhtar Mansur’s mainstream encompasses the bulk of the fighters and the Taleban’s traditional structures. His Taleban achieved a huge boost which helped maintain the integrity of the movement when he gave the Haqqani network a place in the highest echelons of the hierarchy. Serajuddin Haqqani, the de facto leader of the Haqqani network, was chosen as one of the two deputies to Mansur. Although that does not mean the Haqqanis have given up their operational and financial semi-autonomy, it cemented their bond with the ‘centre’ in a way stronger than had been seen before.

Having won the support of most of the Taleban networks with the hard power (the fighting force), Mansur has long tried and still tries to deftly manage those with a political legacy or credentials. In the initial weeks after his succession, he faced the opposition of one third of the Rahbari Shura. Five members – Razaq, Rahmani, Rasul, Zaker, Mullah Omar’s brother Mullah Manan, Nek Muhammad and the former member Muhammad Rasul – were then denying the legitimacy of his succession. However, Mansur did not appear deeply bothered. He had already fully sidelined Razaq, Rahmani and Rasul, and partially sidelined Zaker. In the meantime, he was extensively, and successfully, negotiating with Zaker and Manan. Nek Muhammad posed no harm as he resigned from all official positions with the movement so silently. According to well-placed Taleban sources, Mansur is now further consolidating his power over decision making by adjusting the mechanism for promoting his legitimacy, ie reshuffling and expanding the whole Rahbari Shura. The expanded structure includes five people from non-Pashtun ethnic groups, Turkmens, Tajiks and Uzbeks. Mullah Abdul Razaq and Hasan Rahmani have been removed from the shura, while Zaker is considered as a non-member for his regular absence from the shura meetings.

Mansur’s Taleban might not be a fully centralised organisation, but this has always been the case with the Taleban movement. Its structure is characterised by an acknowledged and religiously legitimised (4) leadership and defined hierarchical structure, but, one that is permissive for local operational decision-making and fund raising.

Despite the leadership crisis, there has been no sense of let up in Taleban attacks against the government. Indeed, Mansur’s succession was followed two months later by the movement’s temporary capture of Kunduz, the first time the Taleban had control of a city since its defeat in 2001. Such a symbolic gain on the battlefield will have helped consolidate Mansur’s leadership. Should the Taleban under Mansur continue to run the bulk of the insurgency without letting the existing fissures widen, the movement’s military ability will largely remain unaffected.

 

(1) He is known as ‘Mullah’ Muhammad Rasul, he has not obtained the sort of religious education to qualify as a mullah. He got this title during the Emirate reign when the Taleban used ‘mullah’ loosely for any senior member as an expression of respect, rather than denoting his actual educational background.

(2) Raz Muhamamd Nekzad (his full name) became a Taleb after his father Amanullah Khan Nekzad was killed in 2006 in fighting with another local militia commander, Arbab Basir, who was believed to be close to Ismail Khan, the powerful pre and post-Taleban governor of Herat. Amanullah also fought against Ismail Khan’s forces in 2003 and 2004, leading to him being removed from his governorship to a ministerial position. The sustained fighting made the central government mobilise local militias, some with reported links to the Taleban. Amanullah himself was accused by Ismail Khan’s men as being a supporter of the Taleban.

(3) Fedai Mahaz claims Mullah Omar was assassinated by Akhtar Mansur, but it has given contradictory details about how that happened. The claim was widely circulated by the media a week before the Afghan government announced the news of Omar’s death on 29 July.

(4) Mansur’s leadership has been approved by almost all prominent pro-Taleban Afghan and Pakistani ulama, most of whom are based in Pakistan. Mansur has put increased efforts in keeping the ulama to his side. His picking of Hibatullah Akhunzada, a mullah highly respected by Mullah Omar and many individual Talebs, as his deputy appears to be part of those efforts. Thus, his leadership is religiously legitimised in the eyes of the bulk of the Taleban and its constituency.

The Subcommittee on Security and Defence and the Committee on Development will hold a public hearing to discuss the intertwined challenges of development and security and how to address them in a joined-up approach.
Location : Paul-Henri Spaak 5B001
Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

The global fight against improvised explosive devices will shortly have a new capability in its arsenal. The Joint Deployable Exploitation and Analysis Laboratory (JDEAL) programme will conduct two courses specifically designed for the set up and technical management of a new deployable capability (JDC) and its equipment. These courses are being conducted under the framework of the JDEAL programme and are taking place ahead of final delivery to Soesterberg (The Netherlands) in mid December 2015.

The courses will be hosted by Spain at the International Demining Centre facilities near Madrid from 23 November until 4 December 2015 and are particularly significant because they represent the first opportunity for Member States to familiarise themselves with the full laboratory and its capabilities.

Firstly, trainees from the thirteen participating Member States contributing to the programme will be instructed by the manufacturer, the Spanish company Indra Sistemas on the process needed to set up the facility. A comprehensive training package on the design, set up, maintenance and dismantling in all operational modes of the JDEAL system is envisaged.

Secondly, practical activities will be conducted for JDEAL related experts on the specific electronics items, tools and adequate skills to manage and operate complex laboratory equipment – providing them with a full insight into the capability.

After the execution of these courses, the laboratory will be packed up and moved to Soesterberg, at which point this deployable capability will be definitely considered to have reached Full Operational Capability (FOC) – after approximately only one year from the start of the initiative.

 

More information:

• Counter-IED project page

With the release of the United Kingdom's 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review, Daniel Fiott and James Rogers discuss what the Review means for British power and the UK's partners.

The post The Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015: ‘Offshore Balancer’ and ‘Strategic Raider’? appeared first on European Geostrategy.

The debate about what will be in the UK’s 2015 Strategic Defence and Security (SDSR) review is over. It started before the ink was dry on the

German MAN KAT 1 6x6 Military Truck

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

 

So, as predicted, the world really is a more dangerous and complex place. It was ever thus.

Speaking on Radio 4 this morning, the Defence Secretary argued that no-one could have predicted the rise of a capable insurgent force, a global jihad or a Russia doing things we didn’t like at the time of SDSR 2010. Other views are definitely available. Indeed, lots of people were expressing just these views in 2010 for the rush-job, Cabinet Office and Treasury-led review that seemed to insulate itself not only from expert voices from outside Whitehall but from those in Main Building too (hence the circular PR firing squad of military voices that boomed out prior to the publication of the review). So, having been pilloried in the press, by military experts and even by academics (including myself in measured tones) you would be a reasonable person if you’d have thought the government would have learnt from the experience. And they may have. This is a balanced programme. It might not require the sort of revisions that most defence reviews are subject to, which would make a distinct change to the past. But Cameron still said ‘full spectrum’, which to me kicks the ‘we just don’t have the money for this’ can further down the road.
The ‘trip-wire’ brigades are an interesting innovation, even if they are not going to be rapidly formed (they’ll be ten years in the making). Whilst 2010 was an insular review, signalling a withdraw from expedition – followed immediately by Libya (oops) – this implies that we’re still in the expeditionary game (be it eyeing up Eastern Europe, or the Middle East). Should these brigades need moving via the oceans then we might have a problem, even with the new announced capacity. But from 2025 onwards, wherever there is a fight with a western coalition of the willing, the UK will be in the middle of it. On one reading of the recent past, this sort of activity then causes the requirement for further investment in counter-terrorism capabilities.

But the big missing element is the coherent strategic vision the Prime Minister promised. Having failed to articulate one in 2010 and now in 2015, I think we have to conclude that despite the hours that have been invested in discussing ‘strategy’, the Parliamentary Committee inquiry led by Bernard Jenkin and so on, that strategy is a lost art. And it’s an expensively lost art. Because it causes us to cover everything badly, rather than build capabilities behind something coherent. These best single line articulation of the strategy the UK ‘ought’ to have is from Malcolm Chalmers of RUSI – ‘a force for stability in the world’, amending the ‘force for good’ that was so widely scoffed at, at the time. Such a strategy would build upon cooperative work with our ‘frenemies’ (relevant today might be Russia and Iran, who will almost certainly need to be the boots on the ground element to sort out the Syria debacle). Prosperity and security as bonded concepts has some traction, but it definitely spending to save, and it’s not clear to me why the UK has to be at the centre of it (the old east of Suez debate writ large). I may be being unfair. If there is a strategy, it’s to return to the post-war UK, of global reach just reframed for today.

The positioning of the nuclear deterrent could have been sorted out with a simple political decision – to underwrite that the money attached to the deterrent could be kept within the defence budget not repurposed away from defence and into something else. I think that the issues around the nuclear question become much more solvable with that in place: pound for pound into conventional forces the nuclear money becomes not just useful, but game-changing. I wrote a few years ago about how and why the defence review had made our nuclear deterrent unsafe. The missing ladder of escalation not only rendered the deterrent useless, but potentially dangerous too. The death and/or retirement of those who really understand nuclear deterrence is a gaping gap in our collective knowledge of defence currently.

One of the most important things to have come between the 2010 and 2015 reviews was the decision to break the tie to our native defence manufacturers. I wrote about what I saw as the significance at the time, but I had subsequently concluded I just was interested by something very dull. The decision to replace Nimrod with Boeing P8s, and the potential (and large) markets for smaller, and alternative defence manufacturers to meet the new threats I think evidences that breaking the tie was significant. I’m not sure it can be justified in terms of off-the-shelf capabilities being cheaper (the shelf is still expensive to fill), and ultimately it will undermine our defence industries, who are already migrating to markets that appreciate them more. The European system of manufacturing – be it collaboratively, or brokered via the European Defence Agency – has merely entrenched competition between European states, rather than broken them down. Consequently, the UK has left itself hostage to its relationship with US defence giants, rather than being part of a European alternative, or an expensive indigenous capability. It is made expensive by the absence of competing supply. When the UK led the way in aircraft, four or more manufacturers competed for aircraft contracts, with the MoD underwriting the losses (they could innovate because failure didn’t result in bankruptcy). What we have now are contractors who have to be cautious and who are forced to underbid – and then overrun. There are half as many officials involved in UK defence procurement as there are in the entire European Commission. Given the scale of their respective challenges, that’s shocking. But losing a third of defence civil servants is equally shocking, in its own way.

The UK can offer something unique to its network of allies in ‘these dangerous times’. And that’s intelligence plus disruption. Because of our genuinely special relationship with the US in the intelligence field we do punch way above our weight in this field. The 1900 extra officers announced last week should be a welcome initiative, and meet some of the need of ‘Security Politics’, although recruitment and training puts extra capability years away. But in this area lies the British USP. Certainly on this budgetary spend.

So, do we have a coherent strategy? Maybe.

Do we have capabilities arriving quickly enough for the challenges? Not really.  

Is the navy still two men and a dinghy? Sadly yes.

Is the nuclear deterrent issue resolved? Yes.

Do we have answers for how we’re going to deal with the challenges presented in the Middle East and Eastern Europe? No…
But we have extra money, albeit coming relatively slowly, and some nice announcements and a balanced platform. Not a bad effort, given the timeline allowed for the review. But if you’re sat in Main Building tonight it’s one cheer and one raspberry apiece.

It’s SDSR-day in the UK, when we finally get to hear what the government hasn’t leaked over the weekend (more F-35s), overnight (a pair of 5000 person ‘strike brigades’ for overseas use), last week (2000 new spooks), and so on, and so forth. The Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015, has a lot to make up for, given that the fudges (carrier strike, anyone?) of the last one are already coming home to roost. In fairness, however, the four highest priority risks identified in the 2010 SDSR (terrorism, cyber security, natural hazards, preventing international military crises) all appear to have been on the money, so to speak. Of the four, Libya and the Crimea is perhaps evidence that the UK did worst on the last point. Still, after Paris, and the rise of ISIS/ISIL/IS/Daesh, it’s clear that terrorism is going to remain a clear focus for the 2015 SDSR. Given that the Government appears to be on a full-court press to get Parliamentary approval for airstrikes in Syria (except when they’re an act of self defence versus its own citizens), it’s a fair prediction to make. But what’s the point? What is the end that the UK is seeking?

In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, it’s understandable that the rhetoric against ISIS has been ramped up, both at home and abroad. The UK has been talking about “defeating” ISIS’ ideology for a while now, and witnessing Brussels lock itself down to raid and arrest suspected terrorists lends a sense that European states are starting to take the “Trudeau approach” to jihadists. Still, as a strategy document, I hope that the 2015 SDSR doesn’t have “defeat ISIS” written into it, because, frankly, that’s impossible. Sure, we can bomb Raqqa, send in special forces, arm Kurds, arm Sunnis, arm Syrian rebels, and, in theory at least, pull apart the Islamic State as a functional entity, but that’s not going to make these ideas go away. As Will McCants points out in his excellent new book on ISIS’s ideology, there’s no telling what lessons ISIS (and its adherents) would learn from such a defeat. They might pack up their bags, but equally, they might take it as a lesson that they need to “double down” on apocalyptic violence, bloodletting and fear. That can never be defeated by force, nor, really, can it be “defeated” or “eradicated” in the increasingly illiberal environment at home. British society is, however, littered with the remnants of violent ideologies from the past decades and centuries. The British state never “defeated” or “eradicated” anarchism, Stalinists, Maoists, and so on, and so forth. Nor, for that matter, is there anything that the British state could do to eradicate these ideologies. Although there are plenty of smart people who profess similar beliefs, at the extremes there are always those who are essentially as impervious to reason as the most warped jihadist getting his kicks with a kalashnikov somewhere in between Aleppo and Mosul. Setting out to defeat an ideology is a set-up for a fall. Anarchists once struck fear into the states of Europe, now, they are, to borrow from Douglas Adams, “mostly harmless”. The UK shouldn’t seek the end of ISIS, it should seek to make it irrelevant.

Andrea Gilli received the EDA-Egmont PhD Prize during the European Defence Agency’s (EDA) Annual Conference held on 16 November 2015. The award was handed over by Prof Sven Biscop, Director of “Europe in the World Programme” at the Egmont Institute, and Rini Goos, EDA Deputy Chief Executive. 

The biannual EDA-Egmont PhD prize is awarded by the European Defence Agency and the Egmont Institute to academic scholars to stimulate research in the field of European defence, security and strategy. This year’s winner, Andrea Gilli, is a post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Security Studies, Metropolitan University Prague, and his research on armaments cooperation has received recognition. The awarded thesis is titled “Unipolarity, Technological Change and Arms Manufacturing: Industrial Alliances in the European Defense Industry”.

Before handing over the award, Rini Goos, EDA Deputy Chief Executive, raised the issue of the future visions which often combine the practitioner’s and academic perspectives: “The practitioner’s view comes from accumulated experience, realism, pragmatism and an understanding of the practical mechanics of defence and diplomacy. The academic view on the other hand is blessed by being outside the system and provides objectivity, independence, innovation and analysis in a global context. Together, these perspectives provide a complete picture.” 

Prof Sven Biscot pointed out that the winner of the prize delivered a very courageous thesis based on an extensive and empirical material, and that it presents very concrete ideas for defence policies. 

“It is an honour to be here today to receive this prize and to share the contents of my research with you,” said Andrea Gilli. “In the age of fast technological change and budgetary constraints, we often hear that European countries have to increase their cooperation on future military technologies,” he said and added that such cooperation may be extremely difficult because of “the process of technological disruption”. In his thesis, Gilli dwells upon, among other things, various aspects of cooperation in armaments production, technological advancement as well as implications for the European defence industrial base.

 

Background

EDA-Egmont PhD prize was created in 2013 to stimulate research in the field of European defence, security and strategy. The unique partnership enables Egmont to ensure academic substance while the EDA exposes the research to the heart of the European policy making.

More information 

• News "2015 EDA-Egmont PhD prize awarded" (20 May 2015)

The existing structure of law enforcement and prevailing views of terrorism are officially antiquated. Decentralisation, destabilisation and insurgent methodology using mixed techniques in multiple sites, simultaneously are the hallmarks of the new wave of terrorism Europe is grappling

The idea for a European 'white book' on defence is again gaining traction, but Sven Biscop argues that it must become an integral part of the work on an European Global Strategy if it is to meet its full potential.

The post Out of the blue: a white book appeared first on European Geostrategy.

The Afghan government, much to its chagrin, has found itself embroiled in a controversy that has direct links to the 2010 Kabul Bank scandal. On 4 November 2015, a small group of high-level government officials presided over the stone-laying ceremony of a new and ambitious township called Smart City. What was meant as a good news story spectacularly blew up in the government’s face, when it turned out that Khalil Ferozi – one of the main perpetrators of the plundering of the Kabul Bank, convicted for embezzlement and money laundering – was both shareholder and guest of honour. Since then it has become clear that the agreement with Ferozi was linked to a loan recovery policy that was both authorised by the Cabinet and backed by the president. The question now is how much the president was aware of the details of the deal and the extent to which corners were being cut, and whether he intends to continue along the same lines. AAN’s Martine van Bijlert takes a forensic look at the affair so far.

I. The Smart City signing ceremony; an unpleasant surprise

Smart City (in Dari alternatingly called Shahrak-e Hoshmand and a phonetic rendition that reads like “Esmart Siti”) was to be built along the Kabul Airport road, next to Shahrak-e Aria – a collection of eye-catching white apartment blocks with red roofs. It is one of several shahraks or townships – literally small cities – that are being built around Kabul to provide housing for a growing middleclass. (An average three-room apartment in Shahrak-e Aria, according to this article, costs 140,000 USD).

The stone-laying ceremony on 4 November 2015 was attended by the Minister of Urban Development Sayed Saadat Mansur Naderi; the president’s Special Adviser on Good Governance (recently elevated to vice-presidential level) Ahmad Zia Massud; and the president’s Legal Adviser Abdul Ali Muhammadi. All three spoke, praising the initiative as an important step forward. Zia Massud described the project as “very valuable,” as it would bring the government a lot of profit, and introduced Khalil Ferozi as one of the shareholders. Legal Adviser Muhammadi explained how the Kabul Bank clearance committee was pursuing different ways to recover the bank’s loans and that this project was the best way to do it. The presence of Khalil Ferozi was treated, not just as a normal occurrence, but as a highly positive sign.

Urban Development Minister Naderi gave details of the project, proudly referring to Smart City as the first shahrak in both the country and the region that would be built according to modern and international standards. It would, according to a post on the ministry’s Facebook page, house 8000 families in three, four, or five-room apartments built according to 15 different “international designs.” The township was to have its own facilities, such as shopping centres, mosques, kindergartens, offices, parks and clinics.

Naderi then presided over the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Khalil Ferozi, who was providing the land for the project, and a representative of the Nabizada Wardak construction company, that would be in charge of the actual building. (1) The officials and other dignitaries who were present at the ceremony (see pictures here) did not seem to think they were involved in anything untoward.

The initial investment in the project, it was announced, would start at 95 million USD, while the total amount of money involved was expected to reach an estimated 900 million USD. It is not clear, though, where the initial sum was going to come from and whether this figure also included the value of Ferozi’s land. Although reporting so far has focused on the two main shareholders – Khalil Ferozi and the Nabizada Wardak construction company – there has been some buzz within Afghanistan’s wider business community, in particular among businessmen with prior links to the Kabul Bank shareholders, about the possibility of joining the project and making some money. The current going rate for real estate, according to one source, is around 1000 USD per square metre, while the cost of building is estimated at 400 USD per square metre. Even if these figures are optimistic, the prospects for profit seem huge – provided that the apartments sell. The government was slated to receive 50 USD for every square metre, in tax.

Although some of the national coverage was initially very bland, and probably based solely on the provided press releases, (2) the story soon broke with scathing headlines. The New York Times and The Guardian opened with respectively “Afghan Businessman Convicted in Kabul Bank Fraud is Still Free to Make Money” and “Afghan government signs huge property deal with shamed ex-banker.”

The rest of the government seemed to have been caught off guard, both by the ceremony and its fall-out. Insiders in the Palace described scenes of stunned disbelief and exasperation when the news broke. The question on everybody’s mind, of course, was whether the president had known about the deal and, and – whether he had or had not – how it could possibly have happened.

II. The problems with the Smart City arrangement

Criticism against the deal was swift and stinging. The collapse of Kabul Bank had been the biggest financial crisis to hit Afghanistan and a major embarrassment for the government, starkly illustrating the entanglement of money, power and impunity. As details of the Kabul Bank scandal emerged, in 2010 and the years that followed, it became clear that the bank’s leadership had over the years plundered the bank through a system of double-bookkeeping that allowed them to give huge illegal loans to the bank’s shareholders, as well as gifts and payments to a large number of politicians. (The lists of shareholders and debtors have been made public; those of the recipients of gifts and other largesse have not).

The total amount of debts owed to Kabul Bank was a whopping 982.6 million USD. Over 92 percent of these loans were handed out to nineteen individuals and businesses, ultimately benefiting twelve individuals. Ex-Chairman Sher Khan Farnod and ex-deputy chairman Khalil Ferozi were among the largest debtors and were both sentenced to five years imprisonment for money laundering and ten years for embezzlement in November 2014 (however, according to Afghan law only the longest prison sentence will be enforced.) The other shareholders and recipients of illegal loans were not prosecuted, although they were instructed to repay their loans. (For an earlier AAN analysis of this “exercise of containment” see here). The shareholders included Mahmud Karzai, brother of former president Hamid Karzai, and Hassin Fahim, brother of former vice-president Qasim Fahim.

Businesses that owe the Kabul Bank money, according to the MEC public inquiry, include Gas Group (121.2 million USD), Pamir Air (88.9 million USD), Zakhira (22.9 million USD), Kabul Neft (21.5 million USD), Hewadwal corporation (15.5 million USD), Gulbahar Towers (16.8 million USD), and Ariana Steel (1.5 million USD).

The Kabul Bank saga cost the Afghan state a lot of money. To prevent the collapse of the country’s financial system and to restore consumer trust, the government provided the bank with an 825 million USD lender-of-last-resort instrument, funded from its central reserve. This money is now slowly being repaid from Afghanistan’s annual budget; for instance in 2014 the government paid approximately $67 million, or 1.35 per cent of the year’s operating budget. Moreover, the New Kabul Bank is still operating at a loss (7.4 million USD in 2013, with an accumulated loss of 46.8 USD million at the end of December 2013 and possibly up to 65 million USD by August 2015). This is being paid for by the Afghan government, as part of its commitment to sell the bank with a clean balance sheet.

Tackling the Kabul Bank case had been one of President Ghani’s campaign promises and has long been upheld as one of the early (and few) tangible of achievements of this government in the much needed fight against corruption. The government in its own September 2015 ‘self-assessment’ document for the Senior Officials Meeting described how “[i]mmediate action on the Kabul Bank case broke the aura of impunity that had surrounded high level malfeasance.”

So to then find senior government officials organising and celebrating the inclusion of one of the architects of the scandal in what was probably going to be a highly profitable partnership, while condoning the obvious flaunting of a prison sentence, was embarrassing to say the least. Moreover, Farnod, Ferozi and their business partners, had squandered large chunks of the bank’s money through big and imprudent investment schemes, including in real estate. So it was also awkward that Ferozi would be allowed to earn back his debts in ways that resembled how he had made them in the first place. And all of this while presumably making a handsome profit, in a shareholder arrangement that seemed to carry no personal financial risk whatsoever.

Apart from the optics, there were obvious legal problems with the Smart City arrangement, as many commentators have pointed out. There is of course the issue that the executive should not interfere with a court’s verdict, by overturning or modifying a prison sentence. Although the president under certain circumstances can pardon a criminal, prison convictions for administrative corruption are exempted (article 350 of the criminal code). Legal adviser Muhammadi – who has since been suspended from his job – argued that Ferozi had not been released, but that he was simply being given a kind of leave that every prisoner is entitled to when needing to take care of private business. However, it is clear from other reporting that Ferozi had already been allowed out of prison for quite a while, at least during the day. (3)

Moreover, according to the procurement law, contractors with the government need to be of clean background and not have been convicted for a crime. There is also some debate whether article 113 of the criminal code applies, which says that a person who is sentenced to “long imprisonment” of more than ten years is not allowed to make contracts with or receive privileges from government institutions, nor are they allowed to manage assets and properties. Ferozi, depending on how one counts, was sentenced to exactly ten years. (4)

The move, of course, left people wondering whether bribes were paid and to whom. Several MPs claimed to have information, although they have not provided details. On 11 November 2015 members of the Wolesi Jirga complaints commission claimed a seven million USD bribe had been paid to allow the project happen and to release Ferozi from jail (the recipients were not specified). Similarly, on 15 November 2015 the Adalat wa Towsea daily quoted an unnamed MP who said minister Naderi had told them in a private chat that Zia Massud and Muhammadi had received bribes from Ferozi of respectively 2.5 million and 1.8 million USD. None of the allegations have so far been substantiated with evidence.

This is, incidentally, not the first time Ferozi has been subjected to a very lenient interpretation of ‘detention’. Under Karzai, both Ferozi and Farnod could often be found in the capital’s upscale restaurants, meeting friends and business partners under the guise of trying to recover their money so they could pay back their debts, even though they had been arrested and were supposed to be detained.

III. How the government reacted

The government’s reaction to the Smart City outcry came in instalments and suggests the president has been uncomfortably caught between the wish to still be seen to be firm and decisive, and the need to tread carefully. The question, of course, is why the caution?

The first formal reaction came from deputy presidential spokesman Sayed Zafar Hashemi on the day after the ceremony. He reiterated the president’s commitment to recovering the Kabul Bank debts and referred specific questions on the ceremony to the three officials involved, thus leaving it to them to defend the arrangement. Minister Naderi sought to reassure critics, by stressing that Ferozi’s activities would be closely monitored and that no untoward deal had taken place: “We are monitoring the project and there is no reason to be worried about it,” he said. Legal Adviser Muhammadi, in an interview on Tolo TV on the evening of the ceremony, argued that Ferozi had been neither forgiven, nor freed, but that this was the best way to recover the Kabul Bank’s money. He then proceeded to explain the mechanism, based on a government directive, through which the debtors were allowed to repay their loans in instalments over a period of one to seven years.

Muhammadi further defended the fact that the government had not simply taken the land from Ferozi, saying there had been no Cabinet instruction to do so and that whoever was ready to hand over their assets would be allowed to invest them. “What would the government do with 68 jerib of land,” he asked. “Why take it, if Ferozi can change it into money?” He added that Farnod, the former Kabul Bank chairman, would also be allowed to do so if found ready. Ali Akbar Zhwanday, president Ghani’s private-sector adviser, when asked by the New York Times, sided with Muhammadi saying that given the country’s economic hardships, allowing Ferozi to work and pay his debts and his hefty tax bill was a good idea. “What is better: for him to die in prison, or to pay back the money?” Zhwanday asked. (5) Ferozi himself also defended the deal, while speaking to Reuters by phone from prison. He said the project had already raised 14 million USD in debt repayments and, if it went ahead, would raise $75 million for the government. “The land belongs to me but if the government wants to sell it, they have the authority. But if they let the company build the township, from the money I earn, I will pay Kabul Bank’s loan back,” he said.

On 7 November 2015, the Palace released a statement containing several presidential decisions. It was framed in legal language and started by staking out those parts of the policy that the government presumably wishes to salvage: it reiterated the government’s commitment to recover the loans by all possible and legal means, and noted that the MoU was signed based on legal advice from the Kabul Bank clearance committee and the good will to expedite the loan collection process. It then described four decisions, based on what it said had been an urgent and thorough review of the project: (a) the court’s verdict on Ferozi is “unalterable and binding;” (b) the MoU is considered null and void; (c) the Kabul Bank clearance committee should review whether Ferozi’s land can be handed over to the Kabul Bank; and (d) the Attorney General’s office should report on the full enforcement of the court’s verdict.

It then took the Palace another ten days to decide whom it wished to hold responsible, at least for the moment. On 18 November 2015, it issued another statement (full Dari text here, English version not yet posted) in which it suspended legal adviser and head of the Kabul Bank clearance committee Muhammadi until further notice and relieved him of all responsibilities relating to the Kabul Bank loan recovery.

The president, in the same statement, tasked a delegation to review the evidence with regard to the “unlawful way” the Kabul Bank loan recovery had been managed; two members are mentioned: Seyed Ghulam Hussein Fakheri, head of the High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption (HOO) and Muhammad Yassin Osmani, member of the Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC). (For details on the different ways in which these two organisations, that have had a troubled relationship in the past, have viewed the Kabul Bank case, see here). The statement again reiterated that although the MoU was no longer valid, the process of loan recovery would continue.

IV. The clearance committee and its encouragement mechanism

The inquiry team will probably need to tread carefully, given that both Urban Development Minister Naderi and Legal Adviser Muhammadi have consistently argued that they were implementing a Cabinet-approved government policy – while blaming each other for what went wrong (Zia Massud, incidentally, has remained very quiet). Palace communications further suggest that the Smart City arrangement – and presumably other arrangements that are now slowly coming to light – was directly inspired by a preoccupation with loan recovery which seems to prioritise debt collection over punishment. What is less clear is whether the details of the deal itself were authorised and at what level.

Originally the Kabul Bank receivership together with the Attorney General’s Office were responsible for recovering the squandered loans, but when progress remained slow President Ghani apparently decided to take firmer control and established the Kabul Bank clearance committee (komite-ye tasfiah in Dari). Its establishment in March 2015 was not formally announced, nor does its composition seem to be public knowledge, but a report of the first three-monthly meeting, chaired by the president himself, appeared on the Palace website in June 2015. The report explains that the committee had been tasked with “expedit[ing] inquiry into the case of Kabul Bank based on a specific procedure” and mentions a one-week deadline for those who had not paid their debts in the preceding three months. Those who failed to clear their accounts within that deadline would be banned from leaving the country and referred to the Attorney General for prosecution.

The specific procedure referred to is the so-called ‘encouragement mechanism’. It has been alluded to and explained by legal adviser Muhammadi on various occasions in the media and on his Facebook page. (6) Under this mechanism Kabul Bank debtors were given the opportunity to either repay their loans in full in exchange for a significantly decreased interest rate (around 0.5%), or to negotiate a phased timetable for the repayment (against an interest rate of around 3.5%). Senior economic adviser and former finance minister (now slated to become Afghan ambassador to Pakistan) Omar Zakhilwal appears to have been at the origins of the scheme, but over time Muhammadi became the main person responsible.

One of the main points of contention now appears to be whether the scheme as described could have extended to Ferozi and Farnod, as, unlike other debtors, their obligation to repay their loans with interest and an added-on fine had already been established by the court in their conviction.

Muhammadi, in the meantime, continues to maintain he has done nothing wrong, stating that he simply implemented a Cabinet-sanctioned policy. He has also maintained he knew nothing about the deal with Ferozi, but that, at least, has been proven untrue. After Muhammadi again blamed the minister of urban development Naderi for the deal, the minister hit back on 10 November 2015 revealing that Muhammadi had sent three letters to his ministry, urging him to grant the license for the township. (For more detail, see here). At least two of these letters have since been leaked to the press and at least one of them includes an explicit reference to a contract signed between Ferozi and Nabizada Wardak. (7)

So far Muhammadi has been the only one who has been publicly singled out as being responsible for what the Palace has referred to as mismanagement of the clearance initiative and/or a misinterpretation of the law.

V. Where to go from here

Tackling the continued fall-out from the Kabul Bank scandal is obviously not just a financial matter, it was also symbolically very important. In the run-up to the joint Senior Officials Meeting in September 2015, the Afghan government described decisive action on the Kabul Bank scandal as a “top signalling priority.” During the meeting itself the president said the actions he had taken had made the Kabul Bank “no longer a symbol of impotence, but a symbol of resolve.” This makes it extra painful that the government has now been caught in cahoots with the Kabul Bank defaulters by facilitating the repayment of their loans and fines, and providing opportunities for them to play with new investments and, presumably, amass new wealth practically risk-free.

This has come into even more stark relief with the recent reports that Smart City was not the only possibility being explored to help Ferozi repay his loans. On 18 November 2015, Khaama Press disclosed yet another leaked letter from Muhammadi. In this one he was said to have asked the Ministry of Finance to instruct all government institutions to purchase their gas from Gas Group during the winter season. Gas Group, as mentioned before, was one of the largest recipients of illegal Kabul Bank loans. The company was established in 2006 by Hassin Fahim, brother of the late former vice-president Qasim Fahim, and later taken over by Farnod and Ferozi. (For details see here, p 39-44). According to Muhammadi’s letter, Gas Group had recently resumed operations based on an agreement with the Kabul Bank clearance committee; the revenue from the company’s operations would flow into the account of the Kabul Bank loan department to cover Ferozi’s loans. (An illegible picture of the letter can be found here). A handwritten instruction at the bottom of the letter apparently states that copies of the document(s) should be sent to the Kabul Bank clearance committee and the Office of Administrative Affairs, which – if this is an original addition – strongly suggests that the revival of Gas Group was a move authorised at the highest level.

The government, or parts of the government, seems to have decided that if it is spending money on fuel anyway, it might as well do so in a way that makes the money flow back into its coffers. It is, however, a roundabout way of dealing with the problem. More importantly, it lets Ferozi – and other defaulters – off the hook and gives them privileged treatment. Such a directive to buy only from Gas Group, is, in fact, reminiscent of the monopoly that the Kabul Bank used to have with regard to the payment of government salaries – thus making this government look a lot more like the previous one than it would like to admit.

In terms of which details were known when, it seems highly unlikely that the president was not aware of the Smart City project and the Gas Group plans at all – given the amount of attention he has paid to the Kabul Bank case and his propensity to micro-manage portfolios he considers crucial. It is of course possible that details were held from the president or were misrepresented, or that those involved had misinterpreted the limits of the authorised policy (or misjudged the damaging effect of a festive ceremony). But it is also possible that the president knew and is now trying to separate himself from the most damaging fallout. All in all, the attempts to help revive Ferozi’s businesses seem to illustrate a broader willingness on the part of the government – possibly all the way up to the president – to consider partnerships with tainted businessmen and to welcome their ‘black money’ if they are willing to invest.

 

(1) Nabizada Wardak does not seem to be a well-known company. It has a Facebook page, but the website listed there is inactive. The company is headed by one Abdul Bari Wardak and has been awarded government contracts before, including, in 2012, a contract for the construction of the Doshi to Pol-e Khumri part of the northern ring road.

(2) On the bland side, Khaama opened with “Foundation stone of a modern city laid in Kabul.” Wadsam had “A modern city called ‘Smart City’ to be built in Kabul.” Both articles focused purely on the inauguration, while ignoring the presence of Ferozi. Tolo News, on the other hand, had “Kabul Bank Defaulters Now Partner to Government Projects,” and the next day “Criticisms Spark After Kabul Bank Criminals Allowed To Enjoy Business.” Pajhwok, opened with “Bank fraud convict Ferozi invests a fortune in housing scheme” and explained that Ferozi’s release “had become possible in line with the court decision and his signing of the agreement to pay back the bank loan.”

(3) See for instance this New York Times article,  and also the reporting by US anti-corruption watchdog SIGAR (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction) in October 2015, noting that:

Despite a presidential order, a special oversight committee, and President Ghani’s claims of taking “decisive action” in holding accountable those responsible for the Kabul Bank theft, Kabul Bank’s ex-CEO Khalil Ferozi was reportedly released from prison this quarter at behest of high-ranking Afghan government officials after serving only a fraction of his 10-year sentence. This was ostensibly done to enable him to more easily liquidate and transfer assets and properties to the government to help satisfy his debts. (p 169-70).

(4) Khalil Ferozi and Sher Khan Farnod were both sentenced to five years imprisonment for money laundering and ten years for embezzlement. However, according to Afghan law such prison sentences run concurrently, so both should serve ten years.

Muhammadi has tried to argue that the real problem had to do with the interpretation of article 113 (and that that, the cabinet’s decision to find creative ways to expedite the return of the embezzled money was still sound and unchanged). He blamed Naderi, saying: “What the Ministry of Urban Planning did was a mistake, not what Ferozi did,” claiming that the ministry should have been aware of the legal prohibitions.

(5) Zhwanday is co-founder, shareholder and ex-vice-chairman of Afghanistan’s Azizi Bank and is another banker with roots in the hawala system. Zhwanday was part of the consortium, MTZ, that in February 2013 made the only remaining bid for the New Kabul Bank. The bid was rejected, according to a finance ministry official, because it was “not consistent with the current banking system.”

When the New Kabul Bank was re-advertised in September 2013, two firms bid on the bank, but neither ended up buying. A new bidding process was announced on 28 October 2015.

(6) See for instance in this article, dated 1 July 2015: “Abdul Ali Muhammadi, legal advisor to the President, said on Sunday that $437 million of the total $987million stolen from Kabul Bank had been recovered, but $578 million remained unpaid. According to Muhammadi, 24 individuals involved with the scandal have cleared their debts with the bank while 21 others have pledged to pay their debts to the bank. He added that the government has developed a persuasive procedure for collecting the money, saying that properties of those who have failed to commit for clearing their debts will be sold for clearing their debts with Kabul Bank.”

(7) A copy of one of the letters can be found here; and an illegible photo of a second letter can be found here. The first letter references a contract between Khalil Ferozi and Nabizada Wardak that was signed on 1 September 2015 (and thus preceded the annulled MoU of 4 November 2015). This is potentially interesting, given that, according to the president’s statement of 7 November 2015, the MoU was null and void because it was “not binding,” failed to “carry the legal weight of a contract” and had an inherently weak legal basis. This leaves one wondering whether this means that behind the annulled MoU, there might still be a contract that the government may want to revive in the future.

(8) Advisers close to the president who have been accused of involvement in the Kabul Bank scandal include, among others, former finance minister and current Economic Adviser to the president Omar Zakhilwal (see here, here and here) and current Senior Good Governance Adviser Ahmad Zia Massoud (see here and here).

American AGM-114 Hellfire Anti-Tank Guided Missile

The European Defence Agency together with EuroDefense Deutschland co-organised a conference entitled “Unmanned Maritime Systems – A Key Enabling Technology for the 21st Century Navy”, held at the Representation of Schleswig-Holstein in Berlin.

 

The conference featured participants from thirteen different nations and had ninety attendees. The conference consisted of three different panels which addressed the pertinent and topical questions in relation to the development and adoption of Unmanned Maritime Systems (UMS).

In his opening remarks, Rini Goos, the Deputy Chief Executive of the European Defence Agency (EDA), highlighted the role the EDA plays in the development of capabilities and that the EDA “is the place to go for Member States who are keen to develop defence capabilities through cooperation”.

Rear Admiral Kähler, the Chief of Staff at the German Naval Command, provided an opening keynote speech. His address set the tone for the conference, as it outlined the importance of UMS and the need for European cooperation, but, additionally, it contained a word of caution, in that we must not neglect the need for internal and external investments in a time of shrinking budgets. In the broader Unmanned Systems environment, he asserted that many of the technological developments are dual-use in nature, and there are many complimentary features between the civil and military sides. 

The conference panels proceeded to address three broad areas relating to UMS, namely the operational concerns on the adoption of UMS, the need for multinational cooperation in overcoming complexity and, finally, a focus on the challenges facing the wider adoption of UMS in terms of classification, safety and regulations. 

An interesting theme consistent throughout the conference related to the next steps on the use of UMS. It was emphasised that the current focus of UMS in the area of mine countermeasures is very much a first step and not the end point in itself. Navies must continue to innovate and accept new technologies and this often requires a cultural shift. As Dr Heiko Borchett outlined in his presentation, innovation requires a level of risk tolerance and acceptance, and that it is only by the wider adoption of UMS that we can ensure confidence and reliability in these systems and shift the debate from men vs machine, but rather focus on the men-machine and machine-machine collaborative aspects that will open the door on future uses. 

This lead into the second panel discussion, moderated by the EDA Project Officer for Naval Systems, Paul O’Brien. This panel focussed upon some of the areas addressed in the EDA Unmanned Maritime Systems programme, which consists of fifteen coordinated projects and has a monetary value of €56 million. The conference participants were informed of the ongoing efforts to develop technologies to meet the capability requirement for Maritime Mine Countermeasures. 

The Capability Armament and Technology Director, Peter Round, moderated the third panel, which focused on the challenges facing the wider adoption of the UMS. This had a particular focus on regulatory aspects and legal classifications. 

The conference concluded with a speech from the Cypriot Minister of Defence, Mr Fokaides who provided an overview of the security considerations in the Eastern Mediterranean. In particular, he outlined the importance of the recent discovery of natural resources in the area and stated that these could act as a catalyst for political solutions. He further asserted that UMS technologies and the civil-military dimension have an important role to play.

 

More information:

• Unmanned Maritime Systems (UMS) research

Slovak Zuzana 2 Self-Propelled Howitzer