The Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN)

دافغانستان د تحلیلګرانو شبکه د نیکمرغه لوي اختر د رارسیدو له امله ټولي اسلامي نړۍ، په ځانګري توګه د افغانستان مسلمان ولس ته دزړه له کومي مبارکی وایي. هیله ده چي دلوي اختر له برکته په افغانستان کې سوله، ثبات او ورورولي ټینګه شي. زمو‌‌‌ږ ورستۍ مقاله د لوی اختر د نمانځنې په باره کې دلته لوستی شئ:

شبکه تحلیلگران افغانستان فرا رسیدن عیدسعید اضحی (قربان) را به کافه مسلمانان، به ویژه مردم متدین و مسلمان افغانستان از صمیم قلب تبریک و تهنیت عرض میدارد. امیدواریم روزهای خوش و شاد با فامیل هایتان داشته و از برکت این عید، صلح و ثبات دایمی در افغانستان حاکم گردد. مقاله ما را در مورد فرهنگ تجلیل از عید قربان اینجا بخوانید:

The Afghanistan Analysts Network wishes a peaceful and delightful Eid al-Adha to all its friends and readers, to all Muslims and particularly to the people of Afghanistan. We hope that, with the blessing of this Eid, peace and stability will come to Afghanistan.

Turkey is both a means and an end for Afghan migrants. Many thousands of Afghans seeking better lives have come to Istanbul, the bridge between east and west, on their way to the European Union. Many thousands have stayed on and built an expatriate community that both aids and exploits those passing through. In this dispatch, AAN guest author Noah Arjomand* tells stories about life for Afghans in Turkey, explains the practical implications of Turkish and United Nations refugee policies and how the migrant smuggling economy works. Together, the stories show the networks of Afghans that include single men, families and the occasional lone woman, legal residents, asylum seekers, undocumented workers, smugglers and those who have already left Turkey for Europe.

The characters in this dispatch are fictional composites, constructed based on conversations with and observations of 33 people between June and August 2016, including Afghan migrants in Turkey, NGO employees and one Turkish employer of Afghan workers. The advantages of using composite characters are that they both protect individuals’ anonymity better than simple name changes and allow a tidier narrative with fewer individuals to keep track of. These composites are meant to show some of the range of experiences of Afghans who have come to Istanbul in recent years, though they by no means represent all Afghans in Turkey. (1)

The research for this dispatch is funded by the Kabul office of the German foundation Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) and is a part of the four-dispatch series for a joint publication with FES.

Coming to Turkey

Asef (2) came to Istanbul in 2010 at the age of 23. A Tajik from Kunduz, he had friends in Turkey who told him on Facebook that there was work to be found in the country. Knowing very little about Turkey, Asef and his younger cousin Hamid collected 1,000 US dollars each toward a total 1,400 US dollars per person that a smuggler, whom one of their friends in Turkey had introduced, demanded for passage to Istanbul. Asef and Hamid travelled overland in a large group of single men and families through Pakistan’s Balochistan province and Iran.

In Istanbul, their friends told them to come to Zeytinburnu neighbourhood, approximately midway between Atatürk Airport and the touristy old city. Afghans escaping the 1980s war had settled in the area, and in so doing had dropped an anchor for the chain migration to come. In Zeytinburnu, Asef and Hamid found an Afghan community and even a signature Afghan restaurant opened by an Uzbek who had fled the Soviet war. The smuggler who had brought them to Turkey set them up working in one of the small, Turkish-owned, textile factories that had sprung up in the neighbourhood to make use of cheap immigrant labour. After living expenses, their wages went to paying back the 400 US dollars each owed the smuggler.

Zabihullah (3) worked in Iran on and off for several years before paying to be smuggled to Turkey at age 35 in 2010, the same year that Assf came. He left his wife and five children behind in Faryab province. Instead of Zeytinburnu, Zabihullah moved straight to the urban outskirt of Küçüksü in the north of Istanbul’s Anatolian side, where his older brother Besmullah had an apartment.

Zabihullah, an Uzbek, could already understand a good bit of Istanbul-dialect Turkish from the satellite TV channels he had watched back home and when in Tehran, and arrived with construction skills he had learned working in Iran. In Turkey, aside from working-class Kurds whose employment he threatened, people were far friendlier to him than in Iran, where he had faced persistent discrimination.

If Zeytinburnu is the centre of the Afghan community in Istanbul and the key transit point for families bound for Europe, Küçüksu is an important outpost that houses thousands of Afghans, particularly young Uzbek men who come alone to work. Early every morning except Sunday, Afghans gather in their hundreds on the neighbourhood’s main street to be hired as day labourers. Turkish foremen pick them up in vehicles and drive them to work in construction, gardening, greenhouse farming or garbage collection. The street-side Küçüksü labourer market predates the large-scale influx of Afghans in the 2010s; they have gradually displaced Turkish citizens—mainly ethnic Kurds, according to Zabihullah—over the past decade. (4)

Qais (5) completed two years of university in Mazar-e Sharif, but then had to leave school because he could no longer afford it. (Despite this, he claimed to be just 17 years old, probably believing that telling me this might matter for his planned asylum case as an unaccompanied minor.) Even if he could have finished his degree, he was not optimistic for his prospects, as he lacked the family connections that were required, he said, to get a good job in Afghanistan. He worked at a restaurant for a time and was in contact on Facebook with friends who had successfully migrated to Europe. One such friend introduced Qais to the smuggler who had brought him as far as Iran. Qais had heard that some smugglers lie and say they are bringing you across the border but then just drop you off in another province within Afghanistan and take your money. But he figured that this smuggler’s track record of successfully getting his friend to Iran meant the man was trustworthy. Qais scraped together 100,000 Afghanis, around 1500 US dollars, with his family’s help, to pay for his passage as far as Istanbul. The smuggler told him that the route to Greece was open and that he could connect with an associate once in Istanbul who would bring him to Germany. Qais had friends in Germany and heard that the government there provided refugees with financial support and free education.

In April 2016, Qais left Mazar-e Sharif for a journey of more than two weeks. The trip was difficult, even for a healthy young man. He was driven with a group of two dozen others from Mazar first to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan—Qais showed me with amusement the Kandahari cap he wore as a local disguise there—and then through Pakistan’s Balochistan province. He crossed the region in the crowded back of a pickup truck on a track of choking dirt, then walked across the mountainous border into Iran in a party of more than a hundred. After being driven across Iran in a smuggler’s car and quartered in poor conditions along the way, he again walked many hours with fellow Mazaris through the mountains, this time led by Kurdish guides to Doğubeyazıt on the Turkish side of the border. There, Qais and his travelling companions were given bus tickets to Istanbul. He was pleasantly surprised to find that even as security forces in eastern Turkey stopped passenger vehicles and questioned locals, they allowed the bus carrying numerous illegal migrants to pass unmolested.

Qais had planned to go from Istanbul to the Aegean coast. When he arrived in the city, he went to the Zeytinburnu neighbourhood as recommended in order to connect with the smuggler who would bring him to coastal city of Izmir and then on a boat across the sea to a Greek island. In Zeytinburnu, he was told that the first smuggler had it wrong: the route to Greece was closed. Qais had not known when he left Afghanistan that the EU-Turkey deal signed just before, on 18 March 2016, coupled with new policies by the Balkan countries would close down the Balkan route into the EU (see recent AAN reporting on the Balkan migration route here and here). The deal made specific provisions for the eventual acceptance of Syrian refugees to EU countries but did not mention refugees from Afghanistan.

After the signing of that deal, smugglers began bringing migrants over a land route through Bulgaria to Serbia, instead of to the Greek islands (see recent AAN reporting on the smuggling along the Balkan route here). But they took far smaller groups, demanded advance payment and charged a greater fee, which Qais could not afford. He was stuck. He also had no interest in staying in Turkey where he saw no prospects for pursuing his goals. Qais told me that he first and foremost wanted to go to Europe in order to continue his education and have better opportunities after completing school, although he mentioned a generally dangerous environment and suicide bombings in Afghanistan as part of his motivation for migrating.

Threats were more specific for Mina and her husband Wahid. (6) Wahid was a local government official in an outer district of Kabul province which is contested by insurgents. The area is very dangerous, particularly at night and especially for state employees. After a man attacked Mina in the street and Wahid heard rumours of plans to kidnap a member of his family, they decided they had to flee with their three young daughters. They paid a bribe of several thousand dollars to an Afghan employee at the Turkish embassy in Kabul—Mina’s relative in a high government position was able to help secure this deal—and were able to get tourist visas to Turkey after a month’s wait.

They flew into Istanbul in July and met with a smuggler introduced by a friend in Kabul. The smuggler collected a down payment of 2,500 US dollars for the group and told them to prepare to board a bus that would take them to Antalya, on the country’s southern coast, from where they would take a boat to Italy. (It is difficult to know whether this itinerary through Antalya was merely an unusual case, a scam from the start or indicative of a new route that is becoming more common. Turkish government statistics of detainments of illegal migrants this summer do not show an uptick in Antalya through July — arrests are still concentrated in Izmir and on the land borders.) The smuggler lied to Mina and Wahid—for reasons that are not clear — that they could only register for asylum and avoid deportation if they did not carry IDs with them to Europe and they should leave their passports behind.

The next day, the family boarded a bus chartered for the purpose of bringing them to the coast. A Turkish driver chauffeured a mix of Afghan, Syrian, Iranian and Pakistani passengers, all bound for the same boat. Along the way, though, there was a dispute when the driver unexpectedly demanded money that he claimed the smuggler owed him. There was no solidarity among the migrants, and those with cash to pay continued on their journey while those without were abandoned at a remote bus station. Mina’s family was among those left at the station, where police eventually confronted them.

The police demanded identification. The family was in fact in Turkey entirely legally on one-month tourist visas but they could not prove this because they had left their passports behind in Istanbul and so were detained with the others. They spent several days at a police station where they were interrogated about their origin and the smuggling plan, then at a hospital for medical checks, then at a makeshift detention centre. The police treated them decently and provided them with food regularly, although fights repeatedly erupted between the Afghans and Pakistanis over things like access to cell phone chargers and outlets. Eventually the police simply let them go, and they got on a bus back to Istanbul.

Thriving or Surviving

Asef, the 23 year-old Tajik from Kunduz, became a smuggler. When he first came to Istanbul in 2010 with his cousin Hamid, the latter had ambitions to travel on, from Turkey to Europe. After they paid off their debts to the smuggler who had brought them from Afghanistan, the cousins tried to save money for Hamid’s trip but found it difficult to do so when their extended family relied on them sending remittances. In 2013, the number of Afghans travelling illegally to Europe was increasing, in part due to a UNHCR freeze on processing Afghan asylum seekers’ applications in Turkey (discussed below)—so smugglers were hiring. Asef and Hamid had by this time learned serviceable Turkish and the ins and outs of the underground economy that served migrants, thus qualifying for the job of assistant smuggler. They struck a deal to work part-time for several months in exchange for the smuggler transporting Asef to Germany.

During these years, Zeytinburnu was transforming as more Afghans arrived, creating new economic opportunities for their compatriots already settled in the neighbourhood. New Afghan restaurants opened, as did numerous call shops (referred to as public call offices—PCOs—in South Asia, they are not usually common in Turkey) that not only allow clients to communicate with friends and family in Afghanistan and elsewhere — a service that became increasingly obsolete with the proliferation of smartphones — but also function as hubs for the migrant economy. It is there that undocumented Afghans can buy SIM cards registered in others’ names, send money to their families through the informal hawala system, buy tea and other goods brought from Afghanistan, and make arrangements with smugglers. In 2015 and early 2016, long lines of Afghans waited outside these call shops with their baggage to be taken to the Aegean coast by smugglers.

An apartment shared by seven young Afghan men in Zeytinburnu, Turkey. Photo: Noah Arjomand

After Hamid left for Europe in 2013, the smuggler who sent him hired Asef full-time. By late 2014, he knew the business well enough and had the contacts with smugglers across borders to start his own operation. As the smuggling economy boomed through 2015, Asef hired employees – both Afghans who had settled in Turkey and others who worked for him temporarily to pay for their passage – and, lacking legal documentation in Turkey himself, informally rented out several apartments from Turkish landlords in Zeytinburnu to host clients.

Smugglers in Afghanistan and Iran would contact Asef to let him know they were sending him a group. He would coordinate with Kurdish smugglers in western Iran and eastern Turkey and then call Afghan and Pakistani smugglers in the Balkans to arrange passage for the group to Europe. Asef also received referrals to clients from local call shops and sent his employees to scout for Afghan and Iranian migrants at Istanbul’s transportation hubs.

For payment, clients would agree with Asef on a price and then give or have the money transferred via the hawala system to an Afghan sarraf (money exchanger) at a call shop or other front. The sarraf would hold the money and give the migrant a numerical code to memorise. Upon arrival at their destination, the migrant would call Asef or a subordinate and tell them the code, which would allow them to collect the money from the sarraf.

Since March 2016, the flow of clients has slowed dramatically. Last year, Asef told me, he was sending 50 to 60 people per day to Greece. Now, he sends five or six per month to Bulgaria. Migrants travel by car or bus to near the Turkey-Bulgaria border, then walk across to meet his associates on the other side, themselves migrants who, like Asef, have ended up staying in Bulgaria long enough to learn the language. Asef told me that they used to have problems with the Bulgarian police apprehending clients at the border, beating them and sending them back to Turkey, but, for reasons he refused to clearly elaborate, those problems have been resolved for his network.

Afghans, mostly young single men, are still arriving, but now Asef instructs them that they have to wait for the path to Greece to reopen and get jobs in the meantime, while subletting shared rooms in his apartments. Those few who come with enough money to pay upfront to jump the queue, mostly Iranians, Asef can send immediately overland to his associates in Bulgaria.

Asef supplements declining migrant smuggling income with sublet rent from his crowded apartments and a drug trafficking operation that brings in contraband from Afghanistan via the same routes that migrants take. He admitted to drug smuggling after I witnessed him selling hashish, but insisted that he only imports small quantities for consumption in Turkey as a side project to migrant smuggling, and that large-scale drug trafficking to Europe is a separate enterprise by different people.

When Zabihullah, the 35 year old Uzbek who had left his wife and children in Faryab, arrived in 2010, his brother Besmullah found him employment. This was not a difficult task in Istanbul amid a construction boom fuelled to great extent by the illegal, non-union labour of both Turkish citizens and foreigners. Zabihullah was soon able to start sending money home to his family. He was their only source of income, and he and Besmullah also supported their parents and other siblings, helping to pay for two younger sisters’ and a brother’s university education. Every month, they sent a few hundred dollars to Faryab through a sarraf based in Zeytinburnu. The sarraf transferred the money directly to a shop in their village through the hawala system for a three per cent commission.

After a few years, Zabihullah’s brother Besmullah decided to return to his own wife and children in Afghanistan. Besmullah chose to be deported, paying a fine at the airport and receiving a five-year ban from entering Turkey because of his years’ long illegal stay, as a less expensive alternative to being smuggled back. Two years ago, in 2014, Zabihullah’s eldest son Omar, then 15, and his younger brother Rahmatullah, aged 20, joined him in Küçüksu.

Zabihullah’s current job, overseeing a crew of Afghans renovating a mansion on the Bosphorus, pays 150 liras, about 50 US dollars, per day. Zabihullah found Rahmatullah employment in construction with a different crew. Rahmatullah, who does not have Zabihullah’s years of experience and skills, makes about half the wage of his brother. Days before I spoke with Zabihullah, Rahmatullah had fallen from a construction site when a board broke underneath him, hurting him but luckily not breaking any bones. Rahmatullah’s employer did not take him to a hospital or help to pay for his treatment. Instead, Zabihullah met his little brother at the end of the work day and took him to a hospital, getting Rahmatullah care by having him impersonate an Afghan friend with legal residency using the latter’s borrowed ID card.

Not having access to healthcare, lacking workplace protection and not being able to own a business are the biggest problems the brothers and nephew, being undocumented, face in Turkey, as far as Zabihullah is concerned. He does not worry about being deported. On one occasion, the police stopped him together with a Turkish boss and Kurdish labourers. They asked for identification, and when he showed them his Afghanistan passport, the officers smiled and told him he was a friend and could go, but treated the Kurds, who were Turkish citizens but working illegally in construction, more harshly.

Qais, the young man from Mazar who had been forced to drop out of university, has now been in Turkey for four months. He is living with a shifting group of young men in one of Asef’s apartments. Some are living and working in Turkey for the foreseeable future; others are waiting for Asef to give the green light for them to continue to Europe. The group currently numbers seven, including a 19-year-old who came to Turkey legally on a student visa and studies at a university in Izmir but joined his brother, an undocumented migrant, over the summer to save on living costs.

Asef found Qais work at a small textile factory in Zeytinburnu where he sweeps and fetches six days a week to earn 500 liras (170 US dollars) per month, barely enough money for apartment rent and food. His co-workers are a mix of Afghans and Syrians who earn 900 liras (300 US dollars) per month if they know how to operate a sewing machine. The boss is a Turkish citizen, and Afghans who have been in Istanbul for longer translate for Qais, though he is doing his best to start learning Turkish so that he can solve everyday problems on his own.

After their failure to cross into Italy, Mina and Wahid returned to Istanbul with their daughters. They recovered their passports from their friend but not the down payment they had given the smuggler. They stayed in Zeytinburnu a few days with the friend and heard rumours that it was still possible to travel overland through Bulgaria, but very dangerous and physically difficult for women and children. They decided not to chance it and instead to apply for asylum. They waited all day at the Istanbul office of an NGO that registers asylum seekers on behalf of the UNHCR; when at last it was their turn, an NGO worker speaking Iranian Persian asked them a few brief questions and then handed them vouchers for healthcare and school enrolment. In Turkey, registered asylum seekers are almost never allowed to stay in the country’s largest cities, but are instructed instead to report to small ‘satellite cities’ in Anatolia where they must sign in with police weekly to prove their continued local residency. Mina and Wahid were given a choice among three towns and they picked the one closest to Ankara.

When the bus dropped Wahid, Mina and their three daughters off in the town, they knew nobody. There was nobody from the UNHCR or Turkish government to greet or orient the family. All they knew was that they were to report to the local police station and sign in as asylum seekers. They had purchased blankets in Istanbul and planned to sleep in the open. But then, as they arranged their bedding in a public park, they met a family of fellow Afghan asylum seekers, complete strangers, who first put them up and then helped Mina and Wahid find an apartment of their own. The monthly rent is 300 liras, about 100 US dollars. Mina says it is bad, not a place for a family.

Lacking a work permit, Wahid finds irregular construction jobs. He gets paid anywhere from 15-70 liras (five to 20 US dollars) a day when he can find work. Their savings, including the money intended for the smuggler upon successful arrival in Italy, are already starting to deplete, though Mina’s sister in Canada is helping. Wahid and Mina told me they used to be valuable members of their community, working respectively in local government and as a schoolteacher. Now, Wahid does menial labour that is breaking his body and Mina is home trying to keep their children occupied and heartened. He might have been able to find better work if they had stayed in Istanbul instead of applying for asylum. But then they would not have had the legal access to free education and healthcare that asylum seekers are granted in Turkey, and these benefits were simply too important for their daughters to pass up, once they resigned themselves to remain in Turkey for the present. Mina told me, however, that they are trying to join her sister in Canada, but that does not seem possible, imminently. If they find a safe route, they will try again to reach Europe.

Migration plans…

Asef married an Afghan woman in 2015, whom he had met in Istanbul. She had come to Turkey with her family and they registered with the UNHCR for asylum, so he joined them. He is now waiting for their case to be reviewed; they have been assigned to live in a small city about a thousand kilometres east of Istanbul. Asef has realised, however, that the police are lenient toward Afghans when it comes to weekly sign-ins to prove local residency and will allow his father-in-law to sign for him, and so spends most of his time in Istanbul. (According to one NGO worker, this leniency is afforded to Afghans in particular; others such as Iranian asylum seekers are more strictly policed).

With little faith in the official resettlement process bearing fruit in the foreseeable future, Asef continues to put down roots in Turkey. He is working now on opening a call shop through a Turkish partner in his satellite city, so that he can spend more time with his family there. He cannot legally work or own a business as an asylum seeker, but he has found a Turkish partner happy to be paid to have the call shop and its utilities registered in his name.

… and side plans

This summer, Asef introduced me to Tahmina, a rare female migrant traveling alone, whom he had been hosting at his own apartment for several weeks. Tahmina told me that she was 16 and had fled Afghanistan because, after her father died, her cruel paternal uncle had demanded her mother bring the family to his village and remarry a local man of his choosing for the sake of honour. Tahmina is the eldest of four sisters, and several months ago the uncle had made plans to marry her off to an elderly man with two other wives for money and to resolve a dispute. (In Afghanistan this practice is called bad and there were many attempts in the twentieth century by different governments, from reformist king Amanullah to the communist regime, to the Taleban and the post-2001 governments to ban it, although none of these attempts was successful. According to the current law, it is illegal.) Tahmina’s mother called an old friend of her father’s, and he introduced her to a smuggler who helped Tahmina escape to Kabul and then Iran. Tahmina was caught and deported from Iran back to Nimroz province on her first attempt, but on the second try she made it across Iran and to the city of Van, in eastern Turkey.

In Van, Tahmina got caught in a money dispute between smugglers on the Turkish and Iranian sides of the border. The smuggler in Turkey held her captive, demanding she pay 1000 US dollars for her passage to Istanbul. Tahmina claimed she had already paid this fee to the smuggler in Iran but he had not transferred it to his associate. Asef was acquainted with these smugglers and intervened when he learned of the situation, paying the Van-based smuggler the 1000 US dollars for Tahmina to be released into his custody. He then brought her to Istanbul and claimed he had done so to help her just because they were from the same home province of Kunduz and he felt sorry for her. She was staying with him at his own private residence because he wanted to protect her from the other migrants staying at the apartments he sublets, he said.

The very next day, however, I was with an NGO worker who knew both Asef and Tahmina, when he received a breathless, tearful phone call from Tahmina saying she was out on the street. She did not know the neighbourhood so he instructed her to walk to an intersection and wait. We found Tahmina in Zeytinburnu’s main square, wearing the same clothes as the previous day and carrying all her possessions in a plastic shopping bag. Tahmina said that in fact, Asef had exploited her sexually. Despite his recent marriage, he had promised to get her to Germany if she became his ‘girlfriend.’ Tahmina said she relented when he promised to also arrange for her sisters, still in Afghanistan and under her uncle’s control, to be smuggled to Germany as well. But then, after an argument, Asef had surreptitiously thrown her out.

The NGO worker was able to find Tahmina a place at a shelter and assist her in registering an asylum application with the UNHCR.

Smuggling both ways: In and out of Afghanistan

Zabihullah’s eldest son Omar came together with his younger brother Rahmatullah to Istanbul in 2014. Whereas Rahmatullah stayed to work in construction, Zabihullah decided in 2015 to send Omar, then aged 16, via the Balkan route to Sweden to register for asylum while still a minor, despite the risks of sending the boy alone on the difficult journey. Zabihullah said Omar managed to get there and has been accepted as a refugee and is now attending high school there. This he had not been able to do when living illegally in Turkey. When I spoke with Zabihullah in July 2016, Omar’s refugee status made Zabihullah, his wife and other children automatically eligible to go to Sweden under the country’s family reunification policy (which in fact was made more restrictive just days after our interview). However, Zabihullah decided against moving to Europe. He likes life in Turkey and has become a prominent member of the Uzbek-Afghan community in Küçüksu. Zabihullah wants to open a business to serve as a communal hub in the neighbourhood, which despite its large Uzbek population so far has just one Afghan restaurant and a couple of bakeries, nothing on the scale of Zeytinburnu. He would prefer a legal residency in Turkey so he can open the business in his own name, instead of relying on a Turkish partner – who holds all the legal cards and might cheat him – and so that his other children can come and attend school in Istanbul.

The problem is that he has been living illegally in Turkey for six years. In order to return to Afghanistan by air, he would have to pay a hefty fine and receive a five-year ban on entering Turkey, as his brother Besmullah did. His plan, then, is that later this year he will pay a smuggler to bring him to Tehran, then get deported from Iran back to Afghanistan. From there, Zabihullah will apply for a visa as a prospective business owner, which Turkish migration law designates as a category for renewable short-term residency permits, and bring his wife and younger children with him.

When I interviewed Qais, several months after the EU-Turkey deal, he knew little of its details or of other legal obstacles for Afghans who want to go to Europe. What little information he had, he said he got from Asef and other Afghans in the neighbourhood or from friends on social media. The latest he had heard was a rumour that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was going to reopen the country’s borders soon. He still has his eyes on Germany and intends to wait and work in Istanbul until a path there opens. Recently though, he has been given pause by Facebook friends in Germany, who are now saying that conditions are not good, even that they want to get themselves deported back to Afghanistan.

On the waiting list

Mina and Wahid are waiting for when or if the UNHCR assigns them a date to be interviewed in Ankara so that the UNHCR can determine whether they meet the 1951 Geneva Convention’s definition of a refugee and thus be eligible for resettlement. Turkey will not be Mina and Wahid’s final destination if their case is approved because the country maintains a caveat – a so-called ‘geographic limitation’ – to the 1951 Refugee Convention: Turkey only accepts refugees from Europe. Other asylum seekers may apply from Turkey to be resettled in other countries, but Turkey will not permanently take them in as refugees.

The UNHCR determines that a large proportion of Afghan applicants in Turkey to be legitimate refugees, but the problem is that many remain stuck in Turkey after receiving this determination. At the beginning of each year, countries issue quotas for refugees they are willing to accept, categorised by nationality, In the EU, the quota is based on the country’s domestic politics and/or ability to resist new EU mandates that each member country accept a minimum number of refugees. Few places in the quota are available for Afghans. In 2012, with Afghans arriving in increasing numbers and duly evaluated by the UNHCR as refugees, they formed a large backlog of people who are officially recognized as refugees but can not find a country to take them in.

Such was the workload created for the UNHCR that the organisation was assigning Afghans who arrived in 2013 preliminary interview dates in 2019. Eventually, in mid-2013, the UNHCR announced that it would suspend the processing of Afghan cases beyond the stage of registering them for asylum. Afghans protested in Ankara, including with hunger strikes and by sewing their mouths shut. In retrospect, at the time of this crisis the UNHCR had a relatively tiny caseload of Afghan asylum seekers compared to what awaited it in the great exodus of 2015-16.

source: UNHCR Turkey

According to the UNHCR, between 2014 and 2015 Turkey became host to the most refugees (excluding Palestinians under the mandate of the UNRWA), and the largest refugee resettlement operation of any country in the world. Along with millions of Syrians, Iraqis, Iranians, Somalis and others, close to 100,000 Afghans applied for asylum in Turkey. Additionally, around double that number passed through the country to apply for asylum from within the EU.

Afghan labourers waiting at a street corner in Kucuksu, Turkey. Photo: Noah Arjomand

Starting in 2015, the UNHCR quietly started again determining the refugee status of Afghans. Although in practice, according to an NGO in Turkey, the UNHCR continues to register all applicants, Afghan and other refugees are no longer automatically given interview dates. Instead, the UNHCR only interviews and makes determinations in those cases with realistic prospects of being picked by a recipient country for resettlement because of their particular circumstances. For instance, large families with relatives in receiving countries, survivors of torture or gender-based violence and applicants in serious need of medical treatment tend to be prioritised.

Prospects for legal resettlement for Afghans apart from those with special circumstances are getting ever dimmer. At the beginning of 2015, the UNHCR counted 4,209 Afghan refugees (individuals whose cases had been approved and were awaiting resettlement in a third country) and 5,862 Afghan asylum seekers (individuals whose cases were still being reviewed) in Turkey. As of the end of July 2016, in Turkey there were 3,109 Afghan refugees and 107,655 Afghan asylum seekers (not to mention the over 2.7 million Syrian refugees and around 126,000 other non-Syrian asylum seekers); the backlog of asylum cases waiting to be processed is massive. Some of that processing may be taken up in the near future by the Turkish Interior Ministry’s newly-created Directorate General for Migration Management, but it remains to be seen what that would practically mean for asylum seekers.

Mina and Wahid may be prioritised because they are with their young daughters and have a family member abroad, ie Mina’s sister in Canada. Furthermore, Canada allows groups of five or more citizens to privately sponsor refugees, in which case the country will accept them outside of its normal quota system. If Mina’s sister is able to convince four other sponsors to join her and takes care of the necessary bureaucracy, it is likely that the UNHCR will fast-track Mina and Wahid and their children, granting them interviews and making a refugee status determination relatively quickly.

Mina and Wahid found the asylum application process confusing and they have not been able to obtain any detailed information from the UNHCR or the Iranian translator who works with the Turkish police on how to expedite their case. (They also complained that the Turkish police translator favours Iranian asylum seekers and ignores Afghans). The NGO employee who registered them in Istanbul simply told them they would need to find a new home on their own, and did not have time for their questions.

Information networks and survival strategies

Many thousands of Afghans have come to Turkey in recent years, a flow that the March EU-Turkey deal slowed but did not stop. Although the great numbers of Afghans who arrived in 2015 were largely Europe-bound asylum seekers, a range of motivations brings Afghans to Turkey, from education to work to real estate investment.

The European Union’s Asylum and Migration Glossary makes the categories of asylum seeker, economic migrant and student (one might also add smuggler) seem clear-cut and mutually exclusive. Yet these categories are not so easily separated in the reality of Afghan life in Turkey. Networks of relatives and acquaintances include legal and illegal Afghan residents of Turkey, Europe-bound asylum seekers and temporary workers. The flows of migrants in transit to Europe and those with Turkey as their final destination are related in important ways. Afghans make use of the same infrastructures of money transfers, smuggling networks and available routes, crowded apartments and refugee laws whether they want to stay in Turkey or travel on.

Afghans are in many cases strategic about opting when to travel illegally, rather than legally, making choices shaped by rules and opportunities in Afghanistan, Turkey, and the EU. An individual may be both legal and illegal, both building a life in Turkey and Europe-bound at different times. Deciding whether to apply for asylum, to live illegally, to travel to the EU or to apply for legal residency in Turkey is often based on a cost-benefit analysis of the practical restrictions and opportunities created by different legal statuses.

Mina and Wahid meet the definition of refugee. Yet they decided to apply for asylum after attempting an illegal crossing to Europe primarily because of the healthcare and education benefits, not simply because refugee was the category of migrant they fit into. It was convenient for Zabihullah to live and work illegally in Turkey until he decided to start a business and bring the rest of his family, which is why he plans to smuggle himself our of the country and then apply to return and become a legal resident. At the same time, his son is a refugee in Sweden because last year Zabihullah saw that as the most practical way to get him an education. The ordinary pattern of piecemeal family migration might be for the head of the household and its least vulnerable member to lead the way, but Swedish law’s – until recently – special provisions for unaccompanied minors, as Zabihullah understood them, created an incentive to send his son alone on the perilous trip through Europe before the boy grew any older.

Lack of legal residency in Turkey thus has some disadvantages, but in practice, many legal obstacles can be circumvented or ignored: in many cases Turkish citizens are willing to employ, rent to, or start businesses in informal partnership with Afghans, and police turn a blind eye to their legal status. Furthermore, every Afghan interviewed for this dispatch who had spent time in Iran, without prompting, compared Turkey favourably to it, in terms of encounters with both state authorities and ordinary locals. Turks seem, in many cases, to be more favourably disposed toward Afghans than toward migrants from neighbouring Iran, Iraq or Syria (which are more closely connected with Turkey’s troubled foreign relations and domestic ethnic and sectarian tensions) and even domestic minorities like the Kurds.

Universally, the Afghans interviewed identified personal contacts, especially through social media in the case of the millennials, as their main sources for information about migration opportunities and challenges. Few mentioned mainstream media and none said they got their information primarily from governments or NGOs, although they, in general, provide more reliable information about relevant laws. Even those who try to obtain information through official channels, like Mina and Wahid, run into overburdened bureaucracy and byzantine legal processes.

Even knowing which seeming authorities are trustworthy is not always a straightforward matter. During a crowded bilingual Turkish-Persian information session about asylum procedures, held by a Turkish NGO in Zeytinburnu, a Hazara man raised his hand and surprised the presenter by asking in fluent Turkish whether the organisation would be registering attendees for residency permits (the NGO would not). After the session, I approached the man and he told me he had been living in Turkey for a decade and had heard rumours that the organisation would be signing undocumented migrants up for residency permits – one reason so many had shown up for the information session. He had come to the session, not because he believed the rumours, but to make sure that his compatriots were not swindled. In the past, he told me, there have been scams involving con artists claiming to be affiliated with the Turkish government and stealing ‘application fees’ from migrants who they falsely promised could apply for residency even after entering the country illegally.

The ability of Afghans to strategise is dependent on and limited by knowledge shared among contacts in both Afghanistan and Turkey, including smugglers and scammers who may not have their best interests at heart. Qais, for one, told me he would not have come to Turkey in April 2016 if he had known that –despite the smuggler’s assurances – the Balkan route was closed and that he would be funnelled into a system of low-wage textile work.

For those who do successfully navigate the informal economy and attain prominent positions in informal social networks such as Zabihullah and Asef, however, Turkey has become a place to thrive and build oneself up from humble origins to prominent community positions. At the same time, for particularly vulnerable and socially stigmatised individuals, such as Tahmina, reliance on informal systems can be disastrous.

*Noah Arjomand is a PhD student in sociology at Columbia University in the City of New York. He holds a degree in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School. Previous publications with AAN are the thematic report, ‘Eagle’s Summit Revisited: Decision-Making in the Kajaki Dam Refurbishment Project,’ and discussion paper, ‘The Folly of Double Government: Lessons from the First Anglo-Afghan War for the 21st century’.

(1) The characters do not incorporate, for instance, the experiences of wealthy Afghans who in recent years have in significant numbers been buying up property for part-time residences in Istanbul’s outer district of Beylikdüzü. It is also likely that some of the worst-off Afghans in Turkey escaped my study; I found my interviewees through social connections and so did not talk with anyone who was very isolated. As will be seen, social networks are key to survival and success, and thus socially isolated Afghans are likely to be worse off.

(2) The character Asef is based on four characters, all in their late 20s or early 30s, who have each been in Turkey for several years and worked in the migrant smuggling business.

(3) The character Zabihullah is based on three individuals from Faryab who have worked in the construction sector.

(4) A Turkish worker interviewed by a domestic newspaper in 2015 complained that the foremen hiring labourers preferred Afghans because they would do anything and for lower wages and did not demand per diem insurance as did citizens. This competition led to tension and street fighting, including a stabbing, between Afghans and Kurds that peaked in winter 2015-16, causing police to intervene by striking a deal according to which Afghans waited on one side of the street and Kurds on the other. By the time I visited Küçüksü in August, however, there were no Turkish nationals left. Afghans, almost all Uzbeks from Faryab, clustered along both sides of the road, the stench of sewage rising from a stagnant adjacent canal. One of them told me that the last of the Turks had stopped coming a few months earlier. He did not want to elaborate why.

(5) The character Qais is based on eight individuals, all of whom arrived in Turkey in 2015 or 2016.

(6) The characters Mina and Wahid are based on three families who arrived in Turkey after March 2016.

The recent public argument between Chief Executive Abdullah and President Ghani is more than an argument over appointments, management styles or how far government reforms should go. The core of the rift lies in the different views both sides have on why the National Unity Government (NUG) came into being and what this means for the balance of power and legitimacy within the partnership. This was brought to a boil in the face of the looming second anniversary of the NUG (on 19 September 2016) – considered by some to be its ‘expiry date’ – and a wish on the part of the Abdullah camp to revive rather than dissolve the political agreement. In this second dispatch, of two, AAN’s Martine van Bijlert dissects the speech that started the scuffle, explores the political context that led up to the fall-out and considers where we might go from here (with input from Ali Yawar Adili).

An earlier dispatch by AAN’s Ali Yawar Adeli and Lenny Linke revisited how the verbal sparring unfolded, how the various sides tried to defuse it and what has so far been agreed.

Abdullah’s 11 August 2016 speech: scathing and conciliatory

The argument between the president and the CEO kicked of on 11 August 2016, when Abdullah publicly accused President Ghani of constantly bypassing him (and others). Rather than simply a swipe at the president’s management style, the speech in which he called Ghani “unfit to be president” seemed to have had three main objectives. The first was to raise several specific grievances, in particular with regard to appointments (and replacements) that had angered him and his supporters. The second aim was to answer the critics in his own ranks and signal he would no longer accept the fact that the National Unity Government (NUG) had not delivered on any of the main commitments that had been negotiated at the time. The third objective was to force the president to engage with these grievances and demands, which included greater inclusion in decision-making and progress on the processes of elections, electoral reform, a Loya Jirga and amendments to the constitution that could allow the establishment of the post of executive prime minister. The speech seemed carefully calibrated to target several audiences – supporters, critics, the president’s camp and the opposition groups waiting in the wings. It was both scathing and conciliatory at the same time (see the annex to this dispatch for the full text).

Abdullah started the substantive part of his speech by defending his support of the NUG, establishing the sacrifice he had made in doing so, and describing the patience he had shown:

The National Unity Government is not the outcome of generosity of one person to another [referring to Ghani and himself], or from one group to another. It is the result of the big sacrifice which we [referring to his election camp, or possibly himself] made. This sacrifice does not mean that it was a deal with the aim of gaining access to a government post. This sacrifice was made to save Afghanistan. Imagine if, God forbid, the elections had led to a conflict, what would have happened in our country today?

He admitted that the government had not lived up to its commitments and pointed to the security situation as a main reason why electoral reform, the elections and the Loya Jirga had taken a back seat. He then discussed a series of concrete gripes related to the president’s lack of consultation: “Some say there are always tensions and disputes between us [Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani] over the distribution of government posts. However, let me tell you that we [Abdullah] have always emphasised on principles and key issues.” He then listed several examples where, in his opinion, the president had violated these principles and had failed to abide by the terms of the agreement (see below) and zeroed in on the president’s refusal to engage with him on the main fundamental issues:

Following a series of developments a few days ago, I phoned the president telling him that I would hold one fundamental meeting with him where we would discuss the bases of all issues. Why were electoral reforms not introduced? Was it my fault? I promised the people of Afghanistan to reform the electoral system. Dozens of other meetings are held, but when it comes to meetings on electoral reforms, one is held today and another four months later. They said they would hold a meeting this afternoon. I told them that I would no longer attend such general meetings unless the main issues facing people are discussed.

Abdullah emphasised that he did not intend to blow up or boycott the National Unity Government and clearly stated that he considered the duration of the national unity government to be “a full election term.”

I should assure everyone that we cannot boycott the government. Some say we should quit the government unless electoral reforms are introduced. [But] we formed this government just as we established the interim administration [in 2001]. We liberated Kabul and the far-flung areas of Afghanistan [from the Taleban]. How can you say we should quit this government?

Between the lines, he also indicated that he did not want to fatally derail communication with the president, but instead to jolt the dialogue into action:

From these men and women who have come here [today], to my political allies, they are all unhappy with me, asking why did you not insist on particular issues? I have showed patience and said that the work would be done with prudence. This is all I had to tell you here. God willing, I will hold talks on these issues with the president of Afghanistan on Saturday and I hope that common sense will prevail and the ground realities of Afghanistan will be understood. The time to deceive a person by giving him a piece of pastry is over. One can no longer deceive a person with mere words. The people of Afghanistan know the realities today. Two points: God willing, the NUG will remain intact. And we will continue with our work in the NUG by playing a fundamental role as required.

But at the same time the speech was clearly meant to rankle the president and to stir up of a sense of crisis and animosity, while portraying an attitude of prudence and patience on his side. This ‘crisis’ would then need to be defused and mediated, with the help of his supporters and assorted international diplomats and officials – a pattern that had also characterised the negotiations surrounding the electoral audit and the drafting of the political agreement that led to the establishment of the NUG in 2014.

What had been going on in the days before?

In the days immediately preceding Abdullah’s decision to annoy the president and to signal to his supporters that he would no longer accept being pushed around, there seem to have been at least four issues that were relevant to his decision.

The event that directly triggered the outburst was the appointment of former AIHRC commissioner and senior adviser to the president Nader Nadery as head of the Civil Service Commission on 9 August 2016 – an appointment that Abdullah had sought to block. Nadery replaced Ahmad Mushahed, a Jamiati and son-in-law of late former president Ustad Rabbani. His appointment, according to the Abdullah camp, represented another instance of ‘encroachment’ where the president’s side claimed as its own government positions that should have been divided equally. (1)

But Abdullah also mentioned other instances in his speech, including the introduction of AGO candidates whom he considered unfit (which seemed largely driven by his annoyance over the president’s refusal to appoint his candidate, former IEC chairperson Fazl Ahmad Manawi, to the position) and the awarding of a medal to the finance minister, whom he believes is being given far too many authorities and signs of appreciation. (2)

Secondly, there had been some suggestion of progress in the field of electoral reform and the distribution of the electronic ID cards in the days before. On 8 August 2016 Abdullah told the council of ministers that the new electoral decree was in its final stages. The local media further reported that Abdullah had proposed a compromise solution for the contentious issue of which personal details should be shown on the electronic ID (for background on the controversy, see AAN reporting here). (3) Real progress, however, was according to Abdullah bogged down by the failure of the president to engage (and meet with him). Abdullah now wanted to show that further delays should not be blamed on him.

Thirdly, there were hints that the ‘peace process’ with Hezb-e Islami was about to restart. On 8 August 2016, the Afghan press reported that a Hezb-e Islami delegation had travelled to Kabul to again “finalise the peace agreement” (see earlier AAN reporting here). This development was not referenced in Abdullah’s speech, but will have been watched with suspicion by some in Abdullah’s circle. Some see efforts to bring Hezb-e Islami and the Taleban into the government fold as an attempt to strengthen the Pashtun hand in a political field that is in many ways increasingly organised along ethnic lines (Pashtun/non-Pashtun). Also, relations between Jamiat and Hezb have been tense since the ‘jihadi’ times. (The ‘news’ that Hezb-e Islami is close to a deal was repeated again on 4 September 2016).

Fourthly, the weeks before Abdullah’s speech saw an increase in pressure, both on the government and on Abdullah himself, from the side of Jamiat-e Islami. The party that introduced Abdullah Abdullah as its presidential candidate during the 2014 elections started making public preparations (again) for an upcoming national congress (4). A Jamiat spokesman told Shamshad daily (8 August 2016) that they would discuss whether they should put pressure on the government to finally introduce the promised reforms, or possibly consider an alternative to the government altogether. Acting Balkh governor, and head of Jamiat’s executive council, Atta travelled to Kabul and stayed there. The various possible reasons for his visit – discussions around his possibly impending removal, the wish to put pressure on the government, and the fact that he may be eyeing the Jamiat leadership himself – could all be true at the same time.

In the meantime circles around the president continued to explore alternatives that involved him completing his term possibly without Abdullah, or in a different arrangement. Options that were reportedly discussed, other than making this format work despite its apparent problems, included giving Abdullah a new non-executive position (such as senior adviser, senior minister, head of the council of ministers, or even have him replace General Dostum as first Vice President) or getting rid of him all together. The fact that these options were still on the table will also have stirred Abdullah to signal the political price of such a move. Opposition groups, in the meantime, continued to challenge the NUG altogether, as it approached its two-year anniversary which its detractors see as the agreement’s ‘expiry date.’

The pressure on Abdullah – whether from the party of from the looming NUG ‘expiry date’ – has galvanised a greater cooperation between the chief executive and his erstwhile backers, at least for the moment. Apart from focusing on the specific of who gets to decide what inside the government, there also seems to be a concerted effort to force the president to now seriously engage with the demands included in the NUG agreement: elections, electoral reform, Loya Jirga and the possibility of a prime ministerial position. The desire for these processes to take place may be genuine, despite the immense practical and political difficulties involved in each of them. But the push is also aimed at changing the discussions that surround the NUG’s upcoming two-year anniversary in an effort to use the date to revive rather than dissolve the agreement.

What went on in the days after the NUG ‘crisis’?

After Abdullah and Ghani exchanged barbs and refused to meet, prominent Jamiat members – respectively former water and power minister Ismail Khan, current foreign affairs minister Salahuddin Rabbani and Atta Muhammad Nur – met with the president where they spoke in support of Abdullah’s stance. High-level US and other diplomats sought to mediate between the two men. When the two leaders finally agreed to meet – the first of several meetings was on 17 August 2016 – sources within the palace, rightly or wrongly, indicated that the president would take the opportunity to review the NUG agreement to see what shape it should take beyond its two-year mark.

Since then, public communication has been dominated by the chief executive’s office. It has released a string of statements indicating that the two leaders have agreed on the full implementation of the NUG agreement (including clauses that had so far been left unfulfilled, such as the establishment of a commission to draft amendments to the constitution) – just as Abdullah had demanded. The palace has however been silent. According to deputy presidential spokesperson Zafar Hashemi, it was agreed that Abdullah’s office would brief the press, but the reason is not immediately clear. It may have been a concession to Abdullah to allow his office to frame the discussions the way it wants to, but it is more likely that the president has simply chosen to refrain from comments until it is clear what the outcome of the discussions is. This also means that the president has, up till now, in no way publicly committed to any of the agreements the two leaders may have reached. Whatever the case, for the moment we have been spared the conflicted messaging that has accompanied much of the electoral reform process, and similar negotiations, in the past.

In the meantime pressures on the president increased. An increasing chorus, in the media and in his own circles, complained about his management style and tendency to micromanage. Also politically he is currently bearing the brunt of much of the pressure the government is under.

The Enlightenment Movement continues to call on the president, rather than the joint government, to heed their demands: the rerouting of an industrial-grade electricity line through Bamyan (for background see here) and the conducting of a proper investigation into the 23 July 2016 terrorist attack on the movement’s mass demonstration. Activists have threatened to “try the president in the court of public opinion” if he fails to do so. In the week preceding 2 September 2016, the 40th day after the attack that left over 80 people dead and hundreds injured, the president sought to ease tensions and preempt large-scare demonstrations by visiting Bamyan to inaugurate several projects (most of which had already been inaugurated in the past). The visit was overshadowed by protests and reports that activists had been detained in an attempt to prevent the demonstrations (see also this Human Rights Watch report). As an attempt to placate the Hazaras and prevent further mobilisation, it seems to have backfired. There is a concern that the diaspora branches of the Enlightenment Movement may seek to publicly embarrass the president while he is in Brussels (as was done during the president’s visit to London). (5)

Although the Enlightenment Movement is not related to the Abdullah campaign – several of its prominent members are former Ghani supporters – there is potential for common cause. Among Hazaras, but also other non-Pashtun groups, there is a latent suspicion that Ghani’s unilateralism, rather than representing a personal leadership style, in reality stems from an unwillingness to share power based on a Pashtun nationalist outlook. There is also a strand among Tajiks and Hazaras (although among Tajiks seemingly more limited to the political elites than among the Hazaras) that views the current period as a unique historical opportunity to finally establish a political system in Afghanistan where Pashtun rule is not an automatic given.

The Hazaras are politically the most organised group. They can, despite in-fighting when it comes to their leaders, count on a sophisticated volunteer network, financial support from the diaspora and a base of supporters that can be mobilised around substantive demands and grievances.

A second pressure point was the reburial of the remains of former king Habibullah II aka Habibullah Kalakani and a number of his supporters that were summarily executed in November 1929, on the 87th anniversary of this event – an issue Abdullah had already raised in his 11 August speech. The act was obviously symbolic and the timing was poignant. Other than Ustad Rabbani in the early 1990s, Habibullah is the only non-Pashtun ruler Afghanistan has had. The demands for reburial and greater respect coincided with the re-energised demands by Abdullah and his supporters that the electoral and government system be changed in ways that could create space for a non-Pashtun head of state. The event itself was chaotic and difficult to control and the fact that the streets of Kabul were full of armed un-uniformed men, reminiscent of the days of Kabul’s civil war, will have escaped nobody. When the ceremony moved from the hastily assigned burial ground to where they had initially meant to bury the former king, a shoot-out ensued between supporters of the reburial and security forces linked to first Vice President General Dostum. The proceeding provided was an opportunity to portray a show of force and to send the kind of implied threat that has by now become familiar.

Where do we go from here?

Although there is no mention of an expiry date in the NUG agreement, some take the clause that calls for a Loya Jirga within two years – “to consider the post of an executive prime minister” – to mean that the current set-up was supposed to be dissolved after this date (rather than the event). Some in Ghani’s circle would like to argue that beyond 19 September 2016 (6) they no longer need to share the government with Abdullah and his supporters. Opposition voices argue that the expiry of the deadline means the whole government should be replaced, either through new elections, a ‘traditional’ (as opposed to ‘constitutional’) Loya Jirga and/or an interim administration. US State Secretary John Kerry sought to lay the matter to rest during his visit in April 2016 (for more background, see AAN reporting here), but did not fully manage. But although the issue has not been definitively settled, it is unlikely there will be serious sustained calls for the government to step down for this reason. This is particularly the case as the international donors have been clear that this is the government and set-up they support – a position that will be reiterated at the international donor conference on 5 October 2016 in Brussels.

For now the crisis between the two leaders seems to have been a successful political tactic by Abdullah to reposition himself vis-à-vis the president and the critics among his own allies. It was also a way for his supporters to try to strengthen their hand at a time when the international community could be counted upon to rush to the rescue in the face of an upcoming international donor conference. It is however not clear to what extent they will have succeeded in the long run, as the president has so far shown little indication of how he views the talks that have come out of the crisis. (7) So far, the president seems to have maintained the status quo in which Abdullah is the demanding party and the president decides how much he will give or give in.

And although the direct ‘crisis’ has been averted and the two leaders are expected to work with each other again, going forward, the fundamental issues remain: a deep disagreement over how the elections went, why the NUG came into being and what this means for the balance of power and legitimacy within the partnership – complicated by the (ebbing and waning) conviction that the other side is not acting in good faith. (8)

(1) The appointment of Nadery had been part of a complex negotiation between the two camps that involved several interlinked moves, including the possible swapping of ministries between the two sides (Finance and Foreign Affairs) and the removal of Atta Muhammad Nur as acting governor of Balkh. One of the reasons Abdullah opposed Nadery’s appointment was that,  according to him, it represented another instance where government agencies (in this case the independent organs) that should have been equally divided between the two sides, were being taken over by the president. In this view, the president already had the National Directorate for Security (NDS) and the Independent Directorate for Local Governance (IDLG), had recently also taken the Attorney General’s Office and the Supreme Court, and was now claiming the IARCSC too.

Abdullah had this to say about Nadery in his speech: “When someone who has not [even] worked in a government agency for four days is appointed as head of the whole administrative reform of the country, we definitely [should] have a say in that. This is not because of rivalry or for the sake of our election team. It is because we made promises to the people.” Nadery, who had earlier also been given the title of Ambassador for Freedom of Expression, replaced Ahmad Mushahed, an Abdullah ally, who had headed the Civil Service Commission since the early Karzai years, presiding over an organisation that was accused of rampant corruption and nepotism. Mushahed was subsequently appointed presidential adviser for administrative reform on 12 August 2016.

An earlier appointment that had also represented a ‘takeover’ by the president’s camp and that had angered Abdullah was the recall of Ambassador to Spain Massud Khalili, a Jamiati and former confidante of Ahmad Shah Massud (who was injured in the attack that killed Massud). As an added irritant Khalili was replaced by IEC Chair Yusuf Nuristani in July 2016, whom the Abdullah camp hold responsible for the 2014 “fraudulent election.” The appointment of Nuristani as Ambassador to Spain had been rumoured ever since he resigned as IEC Chair in March 2016 (although Nuristani at the time vehemently denied he had been promised a position). The appointment was widely seen as a reward for services delivered. Abdullah, however, did not refer to this in his speech – it may have been too long ago.

(2) With regard to the Finance Minister Eklil Hakimi Abdullah said, “We know where the problems are and what has caused them. Ministries are paralysed by nepotism. A minister was conferred the medal of Wazir Akbar Khan. The question is whether he really deserved it or not. The cabinet must discuss whether that minister has truly achieved something.” Hakimi, who received the medal on 7 August 2016 for “outstanding services,” is a close confidant to president who is often tasked with responsibilities that exceed his position as minister. Abdullah, irritated by the ‘special treatment’ Hakimi and other ministers that are appointed and trusted by Ghani receive, referred to the finance minister again in his speech when he said, “Most ministries are being run by acting ministers and a minister does not have the authority to even appoint an acting official. Once it was said that the minister of finance should appoint the heads of the finance departments of all ministries, but later it was realised that this was against the Afghan Constitution.”

(3) The compromise solution involved registering the person’s ethnicity on the chip of the electronic ID without printing it on the card itself. The person would then receive a printout of all the registered data (described in the media as “mentioning a person’s ethnicity on a separate document.”) The proposal was criticised by both Mandegar and Shamshad, two media outlets that are on opposites sides of the controversy.

(4) The Jamiat congress should, strictly speaking, have been held years ago, as the party’s constitution called for the election of a new permanent leader within a year after the assassination of its original leader Burhanuddin Rabbani in September 2011. His son, foreign minister Salahuddin Rabbani, has in the meantime been acting as head.

(5) In their statement (no 32) released on 2 September 2016, 40th day of the attack, the Enlightenment Movement announced 27 September 2016 as the starting date for another round of “indefinite demonstrations” across the country and internationally in front of the offices of the United Nations. By that time the political agreement will have completed its second anniversary (19 September 2016), but the international donor conference in Brussels, on 5 October 2016, may be affected.

(6) There has been some confusion over the date, but generally 29 Sonbola 1395 (which is 19 September 2016), ie two years after the original agreement was signed is considered to be the two-year anniversary – or, alternatively, the end date – of the agreement.

(7) President Ghani, however, did seem to refer to the arguments with Abdullah and others, in his – eloquent – address to the Joint Coordination and Management Board (JCMB), a high-level meeting that met on 4 September in Kabul to prepare for the Brussels conference:

The wounds of our bloodshed, displacement, and conflict are ever-present and they are important. But our population is reformist. They are looking for hope. They hate the bad press our country gets for corruption, for narcotics, and, I am sorry to say, for the fighting amidst our elites. And, here I do not exempt myself and our administration‫.. … Turning the thing of shreds and patches into a powerful set of instruments for ending poverty was never going to be an easy task. Replacing fragmentation with coherence was always going to bring with it broken eggshells and wounded egos. But we will not be stopped. … Pulling the civil service out from the spoils system is going to be a difficult and painful challenge. There will be howls of protest and pain as the noose against corruption grows ever tighter. Ignore them. We cannot afford a civil service of arrogant appointees who do not know their job, do not come to office, and do not show the Afghan people that service to the community is their right and obligation.

(8) According to Ghani’s people, they were the real winners of the election. They moreover argue that the president heads the NUG and that, of the two leaders, he is the only one whose position is constitutionally mandated. Abdullah’s people on the other hand believe that they were the winners of the election, that the outcome was stolen from them through fraud facilitated by a partisan electoral administration, that it was their sacrifice and willingness to compromise that prevented the country from spiraling out of control and that this should be acknowledged and rewarded. To complicate matters, the two sides do not trust each other to be of good faith. Ghani’s side sees (or portrays) the Abdullah camp as interested mainly in positions and privileges, while Abdullah’s camp does not trust that the circles around the president are serious when it comes to safeguarding the security of the country, particularly (but not exclusively) in the Northern non-Pashtun areas.

Annex. Text of CEO Abdullah’s speech on 11 August

Below are excerpts from Abdullah’s remarks at a function on World Youth Day in Kabul broadcast on private Tolo News TV on 11 August. The text is based on a translation by BBC Monitoring, with minor amendments for clarity.

[Passage omitted: Abdullah talks about the importance of the youth in rebuilding Afghanistan, the efforts of his government to tackle youth unemployment, the increasing role of educated Afghans in different walks of life, and the government’s commitment to deal with security and economic challenges.]

[Abdullah continues] I would like to shed light on a few other points which are linked to your lives, destiny and the days and night you pass.

First – about the National Unity Government [NUG]. You hear comments that the term in office of the government is two years and will expire within a week or two. You know that NUG has been formed as a result of election, despite the fact that the ballot had its own particular problems later. Our young brothers and sisters played a major role in this. The NUG represents the votes of all the people of Afghanistan. We made a lot of commitments to the people of Afghanistan.

Of course there were shortcomings as well during these nearly two years, which I will point out now.

The term of the national unity government is a full election term. The next presidential elections will be held in the fifth year of the current government. Under the accord, commitments were made, such as holding parliamentary elections. Commitments were made to first introduce electoral reforms and then hold parliamentary elections and call a Loya Jirga in line with the Constitution to confirm the post of the chief executive officer as the executive prime minister. I mean under the NUG accord the post of the chief executive officer would change to an executive prime minister after amending the Constitution in a constitutional Loya Jirga. Until the Loya Jirga is held, the CEO post cannot change to an executive prime ministerial post. We had hoped that the elections would be held on time followed by the constitutional Loya Jirga. This is because, without the election, the constitutional Loya Jirga could not be held. Unfortunately, we have fallen short in this area, maybe mostly because of the security problem. The enemies of Afghanistan thought that last year would be the year of Afghanistan’s collapse and the full return of the Taleban and terrorist groups. If you look at the issue from the viewpoint of priority, the most important priority was to rescue of Afghanistan and to safeguard its survival. [applause]

Since the elections have not been held yet, the constitutional Loya Jirga cannot be held on the planned date. So, all our efforts should be focused on holding the elections so that the entire terms of the NUG accord could be implemented, God willing. I just wanted to shed light on the essence of NUG. This is because a lot of debates are held and comments are made on the accord and some knowingly or unknowingly comment on it.

The second point is about the nature of the work of NUG. The NUG is not the outcome of generosity of one person to another, or from one group to another. It is the result of the big sacrifice which we [referring to his election camp] made. [applause] This sacrifice does not mean that it was a deal with the aim of gaining access to a government post. This sacrifice was made to save Afghanistan. Imagine if, God forbid, the elections had led to a conflict, what would have happened in our country today – while fighting was continuing after 2014 and terrorists mobilised all their forces and launched attacks with the idea of overthrowing the government in 2014 and 2015. What would have happened if we [the two election camps] had entered into another conflict? God forbid, Afghanistan would have faced a crisis with no path to survival. What would have happened to the fate of millions of people, both women and men, who had made sacrifices for the sake of relative peace and stability, and for the fate of the country? This was the situation when the NUG was formed. It was formed based on an accord and the commitment to this accord is mandatory and necessary.

Let me refer to a couple of points. Some say there are always tensions and disputes between us [Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani] over the distribution of government posts. However, let me tell you that we [Abdullah] have always emphasised on principles and key issues. We claim that we believe in meritocracy and that competent people should be appointed in government posts. So, if a person who has not even worked in the government for four days is appointed to be responsible for reforming the entire administration of Afghanistan, we [should] definitely have a say in that [applause]. This is not because of rivalry or for the sake of our election team. This is what we promised to the people. Reforms were our main promise. When reforms are undermined under the pretext of reforms, we must take a stance and express our opinion. Unfortunately, these points sometimes cause concern to our people.

Let me assure you that the NUG has never been engaged in any dispute over supreme national interests, such as national defence, protection of the territorial integrity of the country, restoration of nationwide peace and public welfare. But, as I told you earlier, problems do emerge sometimes when it comes to decision-making. This government has been formed and a person has become the president whom we call the president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan based on a political accord, meaning that we have proven our commitment to the accord from the very outset and we will continue to do so. We consider it the achievement of Afghans and the outcome of their sacrifices. But when a person becomes the president of a country, one must also remember that the accord as other terms as well. If all terms of the accord had been implemented as agreed, we would have had fewer problems today. For example, a mayor was appointed in a province without our knowledge where up to 400,000 people had voted for us. He was appointed without us being informed and without people being consulted. But, today his case has been referred to the prosecution department for questioning. As a result, people of the province had to miss one year. Our insistences are because of our past and current commitments to reforms. There are many other examples of this. Someone, who could not define the duties and responsibilities of an attorney-general was referred to me for this post. The referral letter is in my hand. I was told that he was more experienced and professional than every other candidate interviewed so far. I conducted a simple interview with him in the presence of the serving chief justice and the second vice-president. But, if we insist that such appointments are a serious betrayal of the legal and judicial department, it is then said that this is a two, three or five-headed government [applause]. We have promised to the people and the international community about [reforms].

Tomorrow [ie in the near future] we will go to the Brussels conference where we will have to talk about the commitments. It is very easy to write on a piece of paper that we have done the following things. But it is futile unless they are fulfilled. The essence of a government calling itself democratic is to keep its promises with the people and to respect the views of people. Millions of people are behind the state and the NUG. We have included them in the government and are here to support them. We are not regretting it, as this was a very informed rather than an emotional decision. And it was not made under any pressure. We made this decision in the light of the situation at the time, we decided what we would do then and in the future. The main reason for the nationwide stability when we came to power was the fact that millions of people lent their ear to our calls, from Herat to Torkham and from Spin Boldak to Faryab. Noone should underestimate this. No one should take it lightly. [It is wrong] to consult only a few irresponsible persons with no roots and bases in this country who have come here with the idea of turning Afghanistan into the scene of their selective approach. [It is wrong] to consult those, who do not have a star in the sky and nothing on earth. He has ignored the views that represent the views of millions of people. I very clearly speak to the people of Afghanistan.

Following a series of developments a few days ago, I phoned the president telling him that I would hold one fundamental meeting with him where we would discuss the bases of all issues. Why were electoral reforms not introduced? Was it my fault? I promised the people of Afghanistan to reform the electoral system. Dozens of other meetings are held, but when it comes to meetings on electoral reforms, one is held today and another four months later. They said they would hold a meeting this afternoon. I told them that I would no longer attend such general meetings unless the main issues facing people are discussed [applause]. We must remain committed to the people rather than saying at meetings in the palace that everywhere in Afghanistan the situation is rosy. We have a deep knowledge of the problems facing our people and Afghanistan. We know where the problems are and what has caused them. Ministries are paralysed by nepotism. A minister was conferred the medal of Wazir Akbar Khan. The question is whether he really deserved it or not. The cabinet must discuss whether that minister has truly achieved something [applause]. There are dozens of other such issues. Actually, ministers are not allowed to have a say at meetings. We have witnessed this and we will carry forward the state affairs with patience and prudence.

We will continue to exercise patience. The responsibility we have before the people is not easy to fulfil. This is an extremely huge and historic responsibility. Hundreds of thousands of people are discontented with us thinking that we have struck a deal and have forgotten their wishes. [But] we have dedicated the entire time of our lives to the people, the past one and a half years was little compared to that. [But] more needs to be done. There are many fundamental issues. The government is paralysed. Actually, cabinet ministers are not allowed to have a say. [The president] lectures the cabinet meeting for over an hour. He should also give a minister 15, 30 or at least 10 minutes to have a say to lend an ear to his problems. Most ministries are run by acting ministers and a minister does not have the authority to even appoint an acting official. Once it was said that the minister of finance should appoint the heads of finance departments of all ministries, but later it was realised this was against the Afghan Constitution.

Coming back to the electoral reforms, the question is whether we should again hold the same election. Do you call that an election? Are we satisfied with the previous election? No one is satisfied. [But] I should assure everyone that we can not boycott the government. Some say that we should quit the government unless electoral reforms are introduced. [But] we formed this government just as we established the interim administration [in 2001]. We liberated Kabul and the far-flung areas of Afghanistan [from the Taleban]. How can you say we should quit this government? Our leader Ustad [Burhanuddin Rabbani], who was the head of the state for 10 years [1992-2002] and who suffered serious problems following the martyrdom of [Ahmad Shah Massud], did not enter the presidential palace. Instead, he established his office in another building and said he did not come to build a government of his own again, but a government representing everyone. He said the enemies of Afghanistan had deprived the country of such a chance in the past and had imposed a war, but the international community would again focus its attention on Afghanistan. So, he said, he would do other work instead.

[Passage omitted: Abdullah says partner countries and donors at the recent Warsaw summit praised the two Afghan leaders for working together in the NUG. He says he has shown a tremendous amount of patience so far and that he vowed not to comprise the aspirations of the people. He says electoral reforms must take place. He blames the president for delay in the electronic ID card project and vows not to allow anyone to undermine the project. He says he will also hold talks with the president on the people’s request to rebury the remains of former king Habibullah Kalakani].

Well, should we allow the NUG to be challenged? I said that I was the first one who gave legitimacy to the government. I signed the paper saying Mohammad Ashraf Ghani is the president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. I was the first person who did this. That was the beginning of the legitimacy of the current system. As to what happened after that, I should say debates and discussions happen even in governments which are not coalition governments or which have a different background.

[Abdullah jokes and laughs after receiving a letter] These guys sometimes cause disturbances. They said it would be better if I mentioned one issue. [He continues] Debates and arguments do take place in a government and this is normal. However, if a person does not have the patience for a discussion, he is also not fit for the presidency. [applause] If a person does not have the patience to listen to someone, he will not listen even to the language and literature that I use when raising issues. I do not say that they should listen to everything I say. [Passage omitted: A quote from former President Hamid Karzai]. With all due respect, the presidential position is a respected position. I have respected the president and I want him to be respected by the Afghan people. But respect is not thing that is given as a gift [just] on paper.

[Passage omitted: Abdullah accuses Ghani of failing to win his and the people’s trust and praises several senior security officials for joining the frontlines in Helmand amid escalating conflict.] We are facing such a situation in our country, but our leaders are interested in something else, as if nothing is happening here. We are fighting terrorism and facing dozens of other challenges, such as narcotics, the problem of refugees, poverty, unemployment. Today I sought the views of a person who has a specialisation in financial affairs. He said the country’s GDP and per capita income has declined. This is unfortunate. In such a situation, we must pay attention to our problems and priorities. We must try to properly use our time, energy and ability. Is it worth to call into question the entire NUG and the accord by making decisions without consultation? Is this what the people expect of us? If the NUG accord does not mean vetoing the president’s order, it also does not mean acting arbitrarily. [applause]

From these men and women who have come here, to my political allies, they are all unhappy with me, asking why did you not insist on particular issues? I have showed patience and said that the work would be done with prudence. This is all I had to tell you here. God willing, I will hold talks on these issues with the president of Afghanistan on Saturday and I hope that common sense will prevail and the ground realities of Afghanistan will be understood. The time to deceive a person by giving him a piece of pastry is over. One can no longer deceive a person with mere words. The people of Afghanistan know the realities today.

Two points: God willing, the NUG will remain intact. And we will continue with our work in the NUG by playing a fundamental role as required. If we look at the opportunities our people have, I really regret the current situation. The people of Afghanistan have very good opportunities, but they face very big challenges as well. [Passage omitted: He talks about youth unemployment, violence against women and gives an overview of his lifetime activities]

Source: Tolo News 11 August 2016 in Dari

Just weeks before the upcoming donor conference in Brussels on 5 October 2016, the two leaders of Afghanistan’s National Unity Government (NUG) erupted into a fierce, public argument. Chief Executive Abdullah accused President Ghani of unilateralism and called him “unfit” for his office; the president hit back implying that the rival camp was merely trying to block government reforms. The core of the argument, however, was a last minute push by the Abdullah camp to put the full implementation of the 2014 NUG agreement back on the agenda, in the face of discussions on its possible imminent ‘expiry.’ In this first dispatch, of two, AAN’s Ali Yawar Adili, Lenny Linke and Martine van Bijlert revisit how the verbal sparring unfolded and how the various sides tried to defuse it.

In an upcoming second dispatch, AAN’s Martine van Bijlert will dissect the speech that started the scuffle, explore the political context that led up to the fall-out and consider where we may go from here.

How it began

The recent public crisis between CEO Abdullah and President Ghani kicked off on 11 August 2016 when, during a gathering to celebrate International Youth Day, Abdullah publicly criticised the president. He criticised the president’s unilateralism, raising issues such as appointments made and merits awarded without consulting him. He in particular blamed Ghani for not making time to meet with him one-on-one to discuss “fundamental issues,” leading into his most stinging comment that a person who “does not have the patience for a discussion, also is not fit for the presidency.” He then defended his participation in the NUG and discussed the challenges facing the country and how they had, in his view, stopped the government from implementing the NUG agreement. He stressed the need for elections, electoral reform and a Loya Jirga that would decide on whether to turn his position into an executive prime ministerial position. Towards the end of his speech he said that, despite his patience and prudence, the time to be deceived by mere words was over and that he hoped these issues could be addressed in his upcoming meeting with the president and that “common sense” and “an understanding of the realities” would prevail. (Full video, in Dari, here. Highlights here.)

President Ghani responded in kind, publicly, during another Youth Day celebration on 12 August 2016, hitting back that: “I too do not trust those who do not trust me because of their negative interests … [because] whenever I take action against corruption, part of a faction which has taken hundred of millions [not clear whether this referred to dollars or Afghanis] raises its voice to say that the president monopolises all power.” (1) His public reaction was followed by a terse palace statement that stressed the importance of unity and described Abdullah’s remarks as not in line with “the norms and spirit of governance.” The statement did not refer to Abdullah as “Chief Executive,” addressing him instead as mohtaram Dr Abdullah Abdullah, a generic prefix that means “esteemed.” The statement described the National Unity Government as having patiently worked for almost two years “under the leadership of the president.” The statement ended by saying that the National Unity Government would continue to move ahead “as a whole” and would soon conduct “serious and effective discussions about his [Abdullah’s] remarks.”

So although both sides made sure their grievances were loudly heard, neither side gave an indication of wanting to irreparably damage or destroy the partnership. They were, however, playing a risky game, given the precarious security situation in several parts of the country, the political tensions over issues such as the terrorist attack on the 23 July 2016 Enlightenment Movement demonstration in Kabul and the reburial of former king Habibullah II, aka Habibullah Kalakani, and the expectations of the donors and the public that the government would focus on presenting a unified, professional and well-prepared stance at the upcoming Brussels conference.

Joining in

Abdullah’s speech was speedily endorsed by several prominent supporters who at the same time sought to emphasise what, according to them, the main points of the speech had been, most prominently acting Balkh Governor Atta Muhammad Nur, who had come to Kabul in preparation for an upcoming political congress of Jamiat-e Islami (he heads the party’s executive council) and former NDS head Amrullah Saleh, a former Jamiati who now heads his own movement, the Green Trend. Nur said Abdullah had “categorically voiced the people’s demands and ideals” and called on the president and his team to pay due attention to the fact that the National Unity Government was the outcome of a political agreement between two sides and that all decisions should thus be taken jointly.

Saleh announced his “firm support” for Abdullah’s demands which according to him consisted of the “implementation of real reforms, respect for the political agreement and the implementation of all its clauses, amendment of the constitution, reform of the electoral system, the distribution of electronic ID cards and an end to the personalisation of the government’s system and agencies.” He echoed Abdullah’s criticism of the president’s attempts to concentrate all political power in his own hand, adding that “the real problem is that one faction thinks they won the elections; [but] they did not win the election. There was huge fraud in the elections. What legitimises the government is the signing of the political agreement. … [But] they try to consolidate their personal power and the price that they are willing to pay is to damage the national unity of Afghanistan. They have concentrated authorities in one point, they treat the ministers unequally and their definition of meritocracy is imbued with prejudices and factionalism.”

On 13 August 2016 Abdullah met with a large number of senior allies to show that his stance was widely supported (see here and here). Apart from Atta and Saleh, these included his deputies in the NUG Muhammad Khan and Muhammad Muhaqeq, Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani (also acting head of Jamiat party), former defence minister Bismillah Muhammadi, minister of justice Abdul Basir Anwar, head of the commission for overseeing the implementation of the political agreement Muhammad Nateqi and Nangarhar MP Mirwais Yasini. They expressed support for the position of the CEO and “insisted on the unconditional implementation of the political agreement.”

Escalation

The president, in response, cancelled the one-on-one meeting Abdullah had referred to in his 11 August speech and that had been scheduled for 13 August 2016 before the tensions arose (details here, in Dari). The tit-for-tat and abrupt cancellation of the meeting alarmed western diplomats and resulted in a steady stream of visitors and invitations in an attempt to advise and defuse. The US ambassador for instance invited Abdullah for a closed-door meeting and the following day, on 14 August 2016, the UN and the EU special representatives as well as the Indian ambassador went to meet Abdullah in his office in the Sapedar Palace, where he, according to the statements released by his office, again “emphasised his position on the implementation of the political agreement.”

On 14 August 2016, Abdullah sought to further mobilise his allies in an address to a large gathering of political leaders who had backed him in the 2014 presidential elections. He apologised for failing to fulfil the promises made to them over the last two years, defended his decision to accept the NUG arrangement as “a way to rescue Afghanistan from crisis” and justified his recent public criticism: “What I said on Thursday was not driven by sentiments, emotions, anger or personal demands, and it was not an exaggeration, but rather [reflected] the reality that exists. The people have to know where the problems lie.” He then sought to portray a tough stance, announcing that he would change his ways and show “a new face” – because the people “can no longer bear the situation” – while reiterating his demand that the NUG political agreement be implemented in full.

During the gathering, governor Atta, according to his own Facebook page, raised the issue of what Abdullah would do if his new attitude would not lead to the desired results when he asked: “What is your red line and what is the deadline? If your rival [i.e. president Ghani] crosses this line, what will we do next?” If the issue was indeed raised, it did not appear to have been answered.

Abdullah’s escalation was followed by several mediatory attempts to de-escalate. High Peace Council Chairman Pir Ahmad Gailani offered to mediate (but was not taken up on the offer), while the US government, through Elizabeth Trudeau, Director of the Department of State’s Press Office, sought to downplay the affair in a 15 August press briefing saying: “I would say we’ve seen the comments. We believe the Government of National Unity has made significant progress in Afghanistan. We believe that that’s the path forward and we continue to support it.” (2) On 19 August US State Secretary Kerry called both leaders to stress “the importance to move forward with political and economic reforms.”

The opposition weighs in

The various opposition movements that have sprung up since 2015 and that regularly criticise the NUG, or openly call it illegitimate, unsurprisingly, weighed in as well. Among the most outspoken was the New National Front of Afghanistan, led by former minister Anwar-ul-Haq Ahadi. He reiterated the front’s position on 12 August 2016, mildly at first, and then more explicitly on 25 August, when it said in a statement that:

The National Front believes the legitimacy crisis in Afghanistan is very deep. The best way to address this crisis is fresh presidential elections. … In the short run, the National Front proposes the end of the National Unity Government and the formation of a participatory and broad-based government whose members enjoy professionalism and political weight. … The National Unity Government formula, whether its leaders are at loggerheads or in unison, is not a good formula for governance. As it completes its two years, it is time for Afghanistan to have a new start, let the failed experience be history and [let us] start experiencing a new government that enjoys both professionalism and public support.

Former President Hamed Karzai, in an interview with Radio Azadi, as usual, emphasised the need for a Loya Jirga: “If a Loya Jirga is not convened, it will cause problems for our country and increase discontent. … I am sure that the traditional Loya Jirga will not only approve and renew the legitimacy of the system but will also find a way out of the existing problems. This is in the interest of the country and of our two brothers who lead the government and of the people of Afghanistan.”

Sayyaf’s Council for Protection and Stability, on the other hand, was rather silent. Its spokesman told AAN it would clarify its stance in a press conference. When on 30 August 2016 the press conference was finally held, spokesman Massud Tarashtwal said, “we believe Afghanistan is greater and more important than both the president and the chief executive. Therefore, the Council for Protection and Stability sees Afghanistan as the content and the rifts between the two honourables as form and we are never ready to sacrifice the content for form. Our stance is the stance of the people of Afghanistan and [we want them] not to keep the nation in frustration anymore.”

A string of meetings

When talks between the two sides restarted, rather than speaking with Abdullah himself, President Ghani first met individually with a few of Abdullah’s prominent supporters, including former water and power minister Ismail Khan, Rabbani and Atta (who, according to his Facebook page said that “Abdullah and his allies would not back down on this issue even one inch”). It was then agreed that the two leaders would have three rounds of meetings. One where Abdullah would lay out his demands, a second where the president would respond and a third where the two would seek to reach an agreement on the main issues.

During this meeting Abdullah presented a list of demands that was immediately leaked to the press and printed in Mandegar newspaper. His demands focused, first of all, on the full implementation of the political agreement, which included “purposeful and honest” participation and representation; joint decision making and effective cooperation; the delegation of duties to the post of executive prime minister and non-interference in his affairs; full participation of the chief executive in the process of proposing and approving appointments on different levels and equitable participation in the appointments process of high ranking government officials; the establishment of a commission towards amending the Constitution; expediting the process of electoral reform; address the “time-wasting” that has prevented the start of the e-tazkera distribution; a timeline for the implementation of the political agreement.

Other demands addressed how the president managed the government and called for an end to the creation of parallel government institutions [under the president] and (3) the over-centralisation of decision making and micromanagement; an end to the executive authorities of [presidential] advisers; an end to discrimination in decision-makings and the double-standard in the treatment of ministers, ambassadors and directors of independent bodies; an end to the arbitrary and extra-legal activities and decision-making of bodies associated with the Secretariat of the National Security Council and sub-bodies of the president’s office; an end to unilateral decisions [by the president] on issues such as foreign policy, the removal of Taleban names from the sanctions list and the granting of medals, and a complete review of the appointments of the last few months.

The meeting was described as “cordial” in a palace statement that further said that the president would now “review the chief executive’s demands during upcoming meetings.”

On 22 August 2016 the worst seemed to be over when Abdullah participated in the cabinet meeting – even though he had earlier vowed he would not do so until his “disagreements” with the president were settled. But this meeting was an important one, as the cabinet was set to approve the new electoral law (a draft had already been discussed on 20 August 2016, see this palace statement). On 22 August the electoral law was indeed approved, but only “in principle.”

Omid Maisam, a deputy spokesman for the chief executive, told AAN that Abdullah had participated “for the sake of the supreme interest of the country,” but Abdullah probably also wanted to make sure he could not be blamed for further delays in a process that he was now insisting on. The draft law itself – which included a shift to single-member-constituencies and the merging of the two electoral commissions – has hit some obstacles, as Vice President Danesh, who was the main point of contact for the reform from the side of the president, and others, opposed the changes (see forthcoming AAN analysis).

On 23 August 2016, Mujib Rahimi, the spokesman for the chief executive, sought to ratchet up the heat again, telling a meeting with media figures that Abdullah would have all options on the table when meeting Ghani again: “This time the stance is very clear: full implementation of the agreement. Otherwise, we have all other options on the table which, if the meetings fail to yield results, we will put into effect, after consultation with our allies and the people.” He did not specify what these options were.

The second meeting took place on 25 August 2016 was meant as an opportunity for the president to respond to Abdullah’s demands, and to present his own stance, but instead the two men reportedly discussed confidence-building measures. The CEO’s office released a statement, again describing the atmosphere as “cordial” and saying that “the president had expressed his views” and “both leaders agreed to discuss the effective conduct of affairs within the framework of the political agreement in joint meetings next week.”‫ Abdullah, keen to keep his promise that from now on he would consult the members of his team, briefed Muhaqeq, Atta, Rabbani, Yasini, Saleh and others in his office.

After the third meeting on 28 August 2016, the CEO’s office released a statement saying the two leaders had reached agreements on the electoral system, the distribution of electronic ID cards, the establishment of a commission to amend to the constitution and the appointment of new members to the committee to oversee the implementation of the political agreement. (The current 11-member commission, headed by Muhammad Nateqi, was entirely appointed by the chief executive, as the president had at the time refused to introduce his members.) The details, according to the statement would be officially announced in the following week.

An additional meeting focusing on ‘practical issues’ took place on 31 August 2016. A statement on the CEO’s Facebook page describes it as having focused and agreed on exactly everything Abdullah had demanded. (4) It is however important to note that the palace, since its first statement on 17 August 2016, has not yet provided any reading of how all the meetings went and what kind of agreements may have been reached. (5)

On 3 September 2016, in a meeting with the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General, where they discussed the political developments, the electoral reform process and the meetings between the NUG leaders, Abdullah seemed to announce the end of the rift when he said, “we adhere to reforms, working together with a new spirit and joint commitment.” And on 5 September 2016, in his opening remarks at the weekly meeting of the council of ministers, Abdullah painted an optimistic picture of the remaining three years of the National Unity Government’s term, when he said they were “witnessing an improvement to the situation … with a clarity for the next three years [in terms of] working and planning. … [Although] we foundered on our two year commitments and we should be able to explain to the people why we have had these failures, the next three years will be the three years in which the main foundation of Afghanistan will be developed.”

(1) This has become the common reaction by the president and his supporters to complaints by the Abdullah camp. The president said something similar again on 2 September 2016 during the inauguration of a new township when he said that “those who are making noise, are no longer able to make billions of dollars, I do not concentrate on their noise.” He added that government is not a milking cow that everybody can use for their personal interest.

(2) The spokesperson struggled to avoid saying that the US government was concerned (edited for clarity):

QUESTION: Thank you. As you know nowadays there’s conflicts or rifts between Dr. Ghani and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah [and it] has become quite bad. Do you have any comment about it? And also, do you think that the U.S. needs to send some delegation to Afghanistan to solve their problem in this sensitive time? It’s a big problem.

MS TRUDEAU: So we’ve seen Chief Executive Abdullah’s public remarks regarding President Ghani and the Government of National Unity. We remain supportive of a government of national unity, and we encourage both President Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah to work together to pursue these common goals.

QUESTION: Hold on a second. This was one of – what Secretary Kerry points to as a big achievement, not just of his but for the Administration as a whole, engineering this kind of president and chief executive agreement. Is there a concern in this building [the State Department] that that is unraveling?

MS TRUDEAU: No. We – there’s not. We still think that there’s work to be done, but there has been concrete and significant progress in Afghanistan since the Government of National Unity. We do remain in touch with the Afghan Government and we will remain in touch as they move forward.

QUESTION: Yeah, I know. But you’re – really, there’s no concern at all that the progress is in danger?

MS TRUDEAU: I wouldn’t say that at all, Matt. I would say we’ve seen the comments. We believe the Government of National Unity has made significant progress in Afghanistan. We believe that that’s the path forward and we continue to support it.

QUESTION: These are the comments where he basically threatens to pull out of the government?

MS TRUDEAU: Yeah. We’ve seen those.

QUESTION: And you’re not concerned about it?

MS TRUDEAU: We remain in close touch with them on these particular comments as well as the future of the government.

QUESTION: So you are concerned that there might be a problem?

MS TRUDEAU: I’m not going to characterise it as concern, Matt. What I’m going to say is we think that there’s a lot of work to be done, but we believe a lot of progress has been made.

(3) The “creation of parallel government institutions” refers to the criticism that the president has monopolised all substantive executive discussions and decisions by establishing a slew of inter-ministerial committees and councils, often under his own chairmanship.

(4) The statement said the meeting had focused on “appointments based on the political agreement, principles of consultation, national participation, fair representation, meritocracy, honesty and commitment to the National Unity Government’s reform programmes, avoiding double standards and full participation of the chief executive in the proposing of individuals fit for senior government posts. While emphasising the implementation of the agreement articles, cooperation, differentiation of responsibilities and authorities of the president and the chief executive and strengthening of the pillars of the National Unity Government, agreements were reached.”

(5) The only indication that something may be moving was an announcement by Second Vice President Sarwar Danesh on 5 September 2016 that the electoral decree would be finalised “in the next few hours.” This looked like an attempt to still issue the decree before the parliament returns from its summer recess (scheduled to end on 6 September 2016).

The president also introduced National Security Adviser Hanif Atmar to a committee that is tasked to review the e-tazkera process. Abdullah introduced former NDS head Amrullah Saleh and his senior adviser Mustafa Mastur (who is also deputy finance minister). But, so far, there have been no public decisions or decrees yet related to what is supposed to be a more rigorous implementation of the political agreement.

The attack on the American University in Kabul on 24 August 2016 was unprecedented in many respects. For the first time, a ‘complex attack’ – often reserved for high-profile and well-guarded targets – hit an educational institution. It also came in the wake of an ideological campaign by circles in the Taleban movement that had demonised the American University Afghanistan (AUAF) as a centre of hostile ‘Western’ efforts. No group – including the Taleban – has officially claimed responsibility for this attack, leaving a lot of ambiguity. AAN’s Borhan Osman looks into the insurgency’s internal dynamics – the rise of new ideologues and young ultra-radicals influenced by them and their influence on Taleban decision-making – for clues about the ‘who’ and the ‘why’ of the assault.

An earlier dispatch by the AAN Team put together an account of what happened during the attack on AUAF and, in commemoration, gathered biographical details of the students and the lecturer killed.

Why AUAF – and who was the main target?

Previous attacks on educational facilities have been confined to schools in the countryside. They have not always been the act of insurgents; nor have they always been politically motivated. Some school were attacked as government institutions, others as a result of local conflicts about their location, property or similar issues. (1)

Attackers targeting schools in rural areas have long been able to get away with their actions since such assaults, particularly in faraway areas, rarely attract wider public attention or are of a comparatively small scale in a long-lasting war situation. However, in the attack on AUAF in Kabul, the assailants knew well that their actions would make waves.

Eyewitness accounts of the attack suggest the assailants did not look for specific individuals, offices or buildings. Survivors consistently recalled that the attackers went into classrooms where students were trying to barricade or hide themselves and shot at them at random, and this mainly during the initial one to two hours of the attack. When the university guards were joined by the Afghan commando forces to fight the assailants, they seem to have dug in. They appeared to simply want to do as much harm as they could and that the university and whoever they found in it were their general targets.

Additionally, two factors suggests that the university itself and its students were the target of the assault and that the attackers wanted to interrupt or end the AUAF’s activity by doing as much harm as they could to the people. One is the timing of the assault, which occurred during the university’s peak hour. The second is the complexity of the operation, involving a car bomb, possibly a suicide bomber and assailants armed with small arms and hand grenades.

The Wall Street Journal wrote that “the university has long been at high risk of attack from Taliban militants because of its association with foreigners.” But it is not known whether the attack was preceded by concrete threats.

Searching for clues about the perpetrators

No group has officially claimed the attack so far. But some international media and AAN contacts among Afghan authorities suspect the Taleban. (2) The movement emerges as the prime suspect as the assault bore the familiar hallmarks of a complex attack, and that type of attack has been typical of the Taleban’s modus operandi. (3) No other group has a proven capability of mounting such an attack in Kabul. (The bombing of the TUTAP rally on 23 July 2016 claimed by the Afghan chapter of the Islamic State, or Daesh, calling itself Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISKP, possibly involved suicide bombers but was not a complex attack on a fortified target. The same goes for an ISKP attack on a bank in Jalalabad in April 2015 that was carried out by a single suicide bomber and therefore does not qualify as a complex attack.) More importantly, there is no obvious reason why a small, new insurgent group like ISKP would not claim such an attack, as they are usually much more publicity-thirsty than the Taleban, the dominant insurgent actor.

ISKP has even claimed attacks in the past that it had definitely not carried out and even attacks that never happened, such as the alleged killing of ministerial staff in Kabul in August 2016 or a bomb attack on police in Jalalabad in May 2016. Thus, the Taleban – defined in the broadest sense, to include any network that operates under its brand, no matter how close or loose the connection is – remains the chief suspect.

Attacks by the Taleban against fully civilian targets are also not unprecedented. It has conducted numerous attacks, including on hotels or restaurants frequented by common Afghans (Serena and Spozhmai) or mainly foreign civilians (La Taverna, Park Palace and Le Jardin) and on the audience of a theatre performance (Lycee Istiqlal).

While the Taleban movement has officially remained silent about the incident, its members, on social media and in person, have left little doubt about the attack being an act of the Taleban. Soon after the attack was initiated, a number of Taleban social media activists, including members of its normal media operations, celebrated it in their comments. They applauded the attack as one on the tenets of the ‘Americanisation’ of Afghanistan. A day later, as voices critical of the attack came up from among common Afghans, including Taleban’s sympathisers, Taleban social media activists defended the attack. One person, a mid-level Taleb, who is part of the movement’s media operations, wrote, “The target is the enemy. If its educational centres are against Islamic principles and Afghan culture, there is no justification, from the Sharia point of view, to spare them. In the American University, anti-Islam lessons were taught.”

A more senior member of the movement, who said he personally did not follow who exactly carried out the attack, maintained he would not be surprised if the Taleban carried it out. He also did not respond directly to whether the attack was carried out by the Taleban. However, the background he provided about how the risk of an attack loomed large – combined with comments by Taleban social media activists – suggests the movement was the most plausible perpetrator.

This senior Taleban member added, though, that the feeling towards the AUAF among many Taleban foot soldiers he met in Pakistan during their training and amid commanders was of a hostile organisation: “The American University has been widely seen as a target that should be hit. Given that many Taleban read about the university in books [by ideologues in the movement], the attack looked inevitable.”

In these books, the university is depicted as a key centre of US efforts to stop the emergence of an Islamic government in Afghanistan. They include one by what many young Taleban call “the thinker of the modern jihad,” known by his pen name Abdul Hadi Mujahed. From the years of the anti-Soviet jihad until around 2011, he was a member of Hezb-e Islami and lived in a Gulf country for a considerable time. He is a Taleban theorist of the ‘clash of civilisations’ and believes that the West’s “cultural invasion” is far more dangerous and of longer consequences for Afghanistan than the military invasion. Now based in Peshawar, his views are not mandated officially by the movement, but many Taleban fighters and supporters see him as one of their main ideological sources. They attend his lessons and circulate his books despite the fact that his ideas have considerably varied from the movement’s main lines of thought. Written originally in Pashto, his works have been translated into Dari, Urdu, English and Arabic.

In his first book, Fikri Pohana (“Ideological Knowledge”), published in 2013, he dedicated an entire chapter to the AUAF – under the title of “De Kabul Masihi Pohantun” (“Kabul’s Christian University”). That chapter is full of misinformation, irrelevant comparisons and a distorted reading of history. He describes the AUAF as a “missionary” institution “inspired by Protestantism,” a “centre of US intelligence networks in Afghanistan” providing “a pool of advisors and consultants for the CIA.” He also accuses the university of intending to “produce secularists” who would “promote and rule by Western liberalism and oppose Islamic laws.”

(Those making these statements seem to have had little information about whom they are talking about and who later got caught up in the attack. For example, as profiled in a previous AAN dispatch, among the casualties of the AUAF was a devout religious student whom his classmates called imam since he was leading the prayers at the university mosque. A lecturer, who was killed, was a graduate of the prestigious madrasa, and a Hafiz (a person who had memorized the Holy Quran by heart). This lecturer was teaching an Islamic law class at the time of the attack.)

Scans from that chapter popped up on social media feeds of Taleban activists soon after the attack unfolded. The book was cited widely as a justification of the attack, as if the assault was directly inspired by it. Indeed, as one Taleb put it on his Facebook page: “Whoever conducted this attack has done a great job. They have put the words of our ideological guide, Ustad Abdul Hadi Mujahed, into practice.”

In addition to the themes produced by Mujahid regarding AUAF, specific justifications for attacking AUAF and killing its students also appeared in the Taleban’s social media in the wake of the attack. Two common themes were the following:

– AUAF was a university attended only by children of the political elite, ambassadors, MPs, ministers and commanders. No children of ordinary people can afford studying in AUAF.

This sounds very much similar to the justification a Pakistani Taleban commander who attacked an army school in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in December 2014 where most of those killed were teenage students. There is also an interesting similarity in thinking between this radical segment within the Afghan Taleban and elements of the Pakistani Taleban.

– AUAF promoted moral corruption with its co-education system and was a place for homosexual match-making.

This is a reference to an Afghan lecturer who was dismissed in late 2013 after publicly boasting about his gay sexual orientation.

In the Taleban movement, who decides what to attack?

Given the Taleban’s officially more tolerant position vis-à-vis educational institutions in recent years, (4) the attack on AUAF is hard to explain without taking into account some recent dynamics within the movement. It has, in principle, designated educational facilities as off-limits to attack. Its own rules of engagement have progressively emphasised that ban. During the initial years of the insurgency (2004-2008), Taleban fighters attacked schools more often in the absence of a strong proscription of doing so. Later, the group’s attitudes hugely evolved, as the leadership issued a layha (rulebook) for the fighter that was frequently updated (more in this AAN report). One of its aims was to reign in operations by local field commanders conducted outside of the chain of command – which included attacks on schools.

Just a week before the attack on AUAF, the Taleban released two statements spelling out its policy towards schools, and educational institutions generally, to once again reiterate its principle of an absolute ban of attacks on education. One statement said, “According to the principles of the Islamic Emirate, no mujahed has the permission to destroy a bridge or burn a school. . . . Our countrymen have to be aware that the Islamic Emirate mujahedin never intentionally harm any school or public property. The Emirate’s leadership has repeatedly brought the protection of these institutions to the attention of mujahedin.”

Another statement also talked about the Taleban’s commission for education and higher education which “supports and takes care of madrasas, high schools and higher education institutions.”

Against this background, how could the movement attack AUAF?

Against this background, the attack on AUAF can only be understood in the light of three other concurrent developments deep inside the Taleban movement. The first is a process that allows for the redefinition of attack targets – including taking particular ones out of a protected category and making them a legitimate target again. This is not limited to education, but also encompasses the media, humanitarian organisations and cultural activities. This would result in a policy where the Taleban, for example, would continue to tolerate universities in general, but not one like AUAF, with its US links.

Something similar happened in the media sector in October 2015 when the Taleban singled out two private TV channels – Tolo TV and 1TV – declaring them legitimate targets, after accusing them of operating as “propaganda outlets” in the service of the “infidel invaders” and as “hostile” to the movement. (In the same statement, the Taleban re-assured the rest of the media that it will continue to “cooperate” with them.) The Taleban delivered on that threat when its fighters attacked a shuttle bus carrying staff of a TV production firm that belonged to the media group that owns Tolo on 20 January 2016.

A second, related development has to do with the flow of ideas and how decisions are made within the movement. Even the most fringe elements can influence the movement’s attitude towards a specific issue through lobbying, if they are able to find influential supporters in the movement’s hierarchy. In the case of Tolo and 1TV, foot soldiers from Kunduz acted in tandem with a strand of the movement’s Pakistan-based young fanatics who had developed a strong antipathy against free media. They together persuaded the Taleban’s military commission to take out the two channels from the list of the (protected) media. The Pakistan-based fanatics were, mostly, the same people as had been engaged in a vicious propaganda campaign against AUAF.

The third development (not new, but relevant) is the existence of semi-autonomous networks under the umbrella of the Taleban movement with their own sources of funding and a particular chain of command. The Haqqani network is probably the largest and most powerful of these; another is the former Taleban military chief Qayum Zaker’s network in Helmand, which retains its semi-autonomy despite being partly dependent on resources from the Rahbari Shura (the Leadership Council). There are also smaller networks that serve as direct proxies of Pakistan (these are much more loyal to the Taleban than the Haqqanis are) but that enjoy the freedom to act freely within the insurgency sphere. These are thought to be responsible for a series of assassinations (or assassination attempts) against politicians, tribal elders (especially in the south), ulama and even Afghan Taleban members.

In other cases, powerful local commanders who contribute resources under their tight control to Taleban operations overall are able to keep operational (semi-) autonomy, as long as the money flow continues. Furthermore, where the Taleban rely on existing local networks to establish their presence in new areas, the local networks will tend to have a larger influence on the operations, if not full autonomy, until they are fully integrated into the movement. This has been almost always the case in areas outside the movement’s southern stronghold. A remarkable case in the initial years of the insurgency was Badakhshan, and recently Nangarhar and Kunar provinces.

For these networks, the official policy towards a certain issue does not always matter. They are bound only to the Taleban’s universal red lines – for example, that they cannot engage in sectarian attacks, beheadings and rapes – in order to keep their pledge of allegiance to the movement, and benefit from the name. There is a wide grey area in which these networks can operate in some divergence from official Taleban policies. For the time being, the Taleban leadership seems to heed those networks’ insistence on operational autonomy, in part as a reward for their important military contributions. This also provides the Taleban leadership deniability when it comes to particular ‘operations,’ for example, when the attacks by these networks cause remarkably high numbers of civilian casualties.

How does the AUAF fit into the Taleban’s hit list?

With the Taleban’s official – but not given – stance that universities are protected institutions and the possible influence of semi-autonomous networks and even possibly fringe groups, there are two scenarios regarding how the attack on AUAF might have occurred. In the first scenario, the attack was planned and carried out under the central chain of command after the institution was redefined as a ‘legitimate target’. AUAF, in this case, would be considered not an academic entity, but an institution that was part of a political agenda hostile to the Taleban. Similar disinformation has been used in the above-mentioned cases of attacks on hotels, restaurants, cultural centres and even hospitals.

The second scenario is that one of the semi-autonomous networks carried out the attack bypassing the central chain of command. The Haqqani network comes first in the list, given its proven capability of conducting sophisticated attacks in Kabul. In this case, too, AUAF would have been seen to occupy a grey targeting area, to allow the mainstream Taleban deniability. Indeed, the scenario that one of the most brutal networks in the Taleban movement carried out what their most extreme ideological strand lobbied for makes the most sense. In this case, an explanation of how the attack fits into the Taleban’s targeting pattern is not needed, since these networks are not fully bound by the policies of the mainstream.

Why silence?

The Taleban do not always claim attacks they carry out. Their official position toward attacks varies, ranging from proud claims of responsibility to silence, denial or even condemnation. The type of behaviour is determined by various factors, mainly how the attack will affect the Taleban’s image in the wider public, the Taleban support base and the broader political spectrum. For example, the assassination of Ustad Borhanuddin Rabbani in 2011 obviously resonated well with the Taleban’s support base, but claiming it publicly was too grave for its political image among the political forces of the former mujahedin. The Taleban’s response was silence – although it became clear that the perpetrator had come as an alleged Taleban peace contact. Other possible instances where the Taleban denied responsibility include the huge truck bomb that seems to have exploded prematurely in an August night in 2015 in Kabul, killing dozens, mainly civilians (see here and here). Denial and, more so, occasional condemnation are typical responses when the attack causes utterly unjustifiable damage or casualties, according to the Taleban’s standards, even when they are seen as ‘collateral’ rather than intended outcome.

Examples of Taleban condemnation of attacks carried out by their own fighters include two of the deadliest ones, in Paktika in 2014 and 2015. In July 2014 – and the holy month of Ramadan that year – a truck bomb went off in Urgun killing scores, almost all of them civilians, and turning a huge part of the town into a pile of rubble. Details provided to AAN then by local people left no doubt the attack was carried out by a well-known local Taleban commander, who actually wanted to target a notorious pro-government militia commander in the town, Azizullah Karwan. It was not clear, though, whether the bomb detonated prematurely or intentionally, given that many local Taleban foot soldiers considered the entire population of the town a legitimate target for its collective hostility toward the movement. Another attack targeted a group of people considered similarly hostile when a suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd that included a number of ALP commanders watching or participating in a volleyball tournament in Yahyakhel district in November 2015. The Taleban officially condemned the attack in a statement and promised to hold those responsible to account, while a pro-Taleban website provided apologetic accounts and detailed justification for the attack.

The ideology behind the AUAF attack

The assault on AUAF, however, was the first time the Taleban widely cited specific texts to justify or celebrate an attack. As much as the attack indicates an increased ferocity in the Taleban’s tactics, it also brings to the fore the existence of a new layer of extremists within the movement. These new extremists are taking ideology much more seriously than the movement’s (or its leadership’s) political considerations, which include being flexible on rules so as not to upset the wider population. What makes the rise of the new strand a worrying phenomenon is not the mere obsession with ideology versus political considerations, but the essence of their ideology. Proponents of this ideology, such as Abdul Hadi Mujahed, have elaborately argued that the main enemy is not the West per se, but the ideas it promotes – meaning the “cultural invasion” which spans the fields of education, media, scholarships and humanitarian activities. Mujahed has called on the Taleban to pay more attention to this ‘invasion’ and to stop it. While Mujahed’s ideas might not be that attractive for senior Taleban, they have definitely struck a chord with the internet-savvy young generation. His book and its title have inspired several Facebook pages, which spread its contents. His fans have even made an Android application for his book, the only book on jihadism in local languages customised for smartphones.

Although not endorsed by the movement, according to various senior Taleban sources, articles by Mujahed have been published on the official Taleban website, al-emara, in 2014 and 2015. Taleban media representatives, however, told AAN at that time that they only did so out of personal respect for him, rather than because they agreed with what he wrote. One of his articles was also published in May 2014 in al-Qaeda’s InFight Magazine. Indeed, his ideas more resemble al-Qaeda’s thinking than that of the Taleban.

Rise of the new ultra-radicals?

The rise of strands in the Taleban movement with ideas more radical than its main line of thinking, their followers’ ability to influence decision-making by lobbying and the grey areas provided for semi-autonomous networks clearly illustrate the limits of centralisation of the movement. These limits also offset the success of the Taleban’s institutionalisation and decision-making mechanism based on a defined hierarchy in the form of more than a dozen quasi-ministerial bodies (see this AAN assessment). The ultra-radicals have played a decisive role in legitimising the attack on AUAF.

Both trends – increased centralisation and the radicalisation of certain elements – exist at the same time. While it is too early to say whether the rise of the radicals foreshadows a shift towards a broader extremism, there does seem a strong element of tension in the movement. Much depends on how dangerous the movement’s seniors, especially the new leader (who is more of a classical religious conservative), will perceive this development and what the new leader is willing and able to do about. For the time being he has managed to further consolidate the movement’s unity (even some leaders of dissident factions have returned to the mainstream organisation), and maintaining the current situation provides welcome deniability to ‘operations’ causing high numbers of civilian casualties.

An increase in the number and influence of those driven by more extremist ideas bodes ill for the protection of civilians and could make the insurgency even more lax when it comes to preventing civilian casualties. It sends worrying signals to the humanitarian community, as the movement (and its identification of ‘legitimate’ targets) becomes harder to predict. It could also further complicate an exit from the current wave of violence, a receding hope after the collapse of most initiatives to bring about peace negotiations.

Edited by Thomas Ruttig

(1) In this April 2016 report on children and armed conflict, the UN Secretary-General spoke of 132 verified incidents of attacks on schools and protected personnel in Afghanistan in 2015, 82 of which were attributed to the Taleban and 13 to Daesh-affiliated groups.

(2) The Voice of America and this AP report (but only in a photo caption, not the main text) spoke of a “Taliban attack” while the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle wrote that “suspicion is likely to fall on the Taliban.”

(3) Tim Foxley’s blog Afghan Hindsight has a collection of Taleban “complex” or “coordinated attacks,” here.

(4) In recent years, the Taleban have even cooperated with the Ministry of Education (unofficially, on the latter’s side) to keep schools in areas of their control open. This was often on the Taleban’s terms, as they had a say on which teachers were employed and on the curriculum. On this subject, also see AAN’s 2011 report “The Battle for the Schools: The Taleban and State education” and this 2012 dispatch, “The Battle for Schools in Ghazni.”

By the time the attack on the American University in Afghanistan (AUAF) in Kabul on 24 August 2016 ended, 13 people had been killed and 49 wounded, most of them students. Families looking forward to bright futures for their children have been left to bury them or are now waiting anxiously at hospital bedsides. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. The AAN team has spoken to over a dozen people who survived the attack and put together an account of what happened during the attack and, in commemoration, gathered biographical details of the students and the lecturer killed.

In a second dispatch, AAN’s Borhan Osman looks into the insurgency’s internal dynamics – the rise of new ideologues and young ultra-radicals influenced by them and their influence on Taleban decision-making – for clues about the ‘who’ and the ‘why’ of the assault on AUAF.

The attack

When two or three militants (1) attacked the university on the evening of 24 August 2016, an estimated 700 students – out of a total of 1700 – and staff were on campus. It was the first week of the 2016 fall semester and, for some – students and lecturers – the first week of their academic career. The evening hours are the busiest at AUAF, as the university – a non-profit organisation financed out of the Afghan government’s budget but also with funds from USAID and the World Bank – offers a number of evening courses for students who are already professionals and who work during the day. Although the sons and daughters of Afghanistan’s elite study at the university, there are also many students there on scholarship. Between 7 and 8 pm is a peak hour at AUAF, and this is when the gunmen struck.

A vehicle packed with explosives was detonated outside the university’s gates, next to the Noor School for the Blind, Afghanistan’s only vocational high school for people with visual impairments. Some students reported hearing gunshots before the explosion, which, as it later turned out, were the shots that killed the guard at the school before the vehicle with the explosives was moved into position, blasting a hole into the AUAF compound wall. This then enabled the attackers to enter the campus. Apart from the wall, there was limited structural damage to the AUAF from the initial explosion.

A container near the wall facing the Noor School took the brunt of the explosion, which seems to have protected what is known as the Faculty Building inside the university compound, which houses lecturers’ offices. Shortly after the explosion, the electricity supply to the campus was cut off, plunging it into darkness, with the exception of a few emergency lights. This also took out all surveillance cameras, as well as the internet connection.

Within five minutes of the initial explosion, as students tried to flee, two attackers entered one of university’s main buildings, the Saleha Bayat Building, where classes were taking place. The Bayat Building – named after one of the university’s Afghan private sector sponsors (2) – is a two-winged, three-story structure, divided by a central entrance and staircase, containing offices and classrooms. The administrative offices on the first floor deal with registration, IT, students and financial affairs. There is also a student common room. The second floor is mostly made up of classrooms. The third floor houses more classrooms as well as administrative offices.

Map of AUAF Campus indicating the location of the various buildings (Source: Google Maps with labels added by AAN)

The attackers seem to have gone to the top floor first. There, according to AUAF students, Naqib Ahmad Khpulwak, a young Afghan lecturer, was killed (see more in the bios further down in this text). While the building had several exit routes and escape ladders outside windows, students remained inside in the confusion and panic. As the attackers apparently moved from room to room and floor to floor, many did not want to risk escaping and barricaded themselves in various classrooms on the second and third floors of the Bayat building.

One attacker appears to have moved relatively quickly to the smaller Azizi building, a one-story structure used both for classes and for the administrative staff of the Professional Development Institution (PDI), an AUAF branch that offers English language and other professional courses. One of this building’s two gates was blocked, according to a survivor’s report. While a group of at least three students and a guard attempted to head towards the second gate, they ran into the attacker, who opened fire on them. At least one student in the group died, while another, in spite of critical injuries, managed to escape. (3)

Most of the students who had been in the library and the so-called C Building – another building with many classrooms – were able to escape through emergency gates leading to an adjacent UN compound. They reported that the layout of the university was well designed and helped them escape, as did the security training they had received, provided by the university.

The students trapped in the Bayat Building heard grenade explosions and sporadic gunfire during the ten hours it took the various security forces – including the Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF) guarding the university, an armed security team hired by the AUAF and the Ministry of Interior’s Crisis Response Unit (also known as 222s) supported by the Norwegian and US special forces – to search the campus and to locate and kill the attackers. According to some reports, they were wearing ANSF uniforms. (4)

At various points during the night, fighting stopped as injured security forces were evacuated. Remaining staff and students were only evacuated from the Bayat Building in the early hours of 25 August. Then the search mission began for the injured who were unable to get themselves out, and for the dead. At around 8 am, the bodies of many of those who had been killed were found. Within hours, the first reports in the media appeared with their names. Security forces handed the campus back to the AUAF’s administrative staff on the same day. The clean up began immediately and students were notified that the undergraduate program would restart around 20 September 2016. Other programs, such as the MBA programme and the university’s administrative offices, have continued to function in less affected parts of the main AUAF campus, as well as the international campus located across the street.

The victims of the attack

Even a week after the attack, the exact number of casualties remains unclear – reported figures continue to vary, in particular regarding the number of affected civilians. On 1 September 2016, UNAMA, in correspondence to AAN, confirmed 61 civilian casualties:

– 13 deaths: six male and two female students, two professors, two university security guards and one from the Noor School for the Blind;

– 48 injured: 43 students and two professors, a Ugandan national and another foreign citizen, and three university security guards.

Apart from civilians, three members of the ANSF were killed; including Lieutenant Muhammed Akbar Andarabi, who was in charge of the Afghan National Police’s special forces, the so-called Crisis Response Unit, that conducted the operation in the university. He was shot by one of the attackers hiding in the building. Ten members of the security forces were injured: nine members of the Ministry of Interior’s CRU and one member of the National Directorate of Security. UNAMA reported that three assailants, referring to them as “suicide attackers“ were also killed.

A statement released by the Ministry of Interior to the media on 25 August 2016 said that 12 people had died in the AUAF attack (seven students, three policemen, one AUAF guard and one guard from the School for the Blind). The statement also cites 45 wounded individuals (36 students and AUAF staff, and nine policemen). In an editorial published on 27 August 2016, Ministry of Public Health officials are quoted as “confirming on Thursday afternoon [25 August 2016] that among those killed were eight students, including two females, three Crisis Response Unit (CRU) members, two security guards, two university professors and one civilian from the adjoining school where the initial car bomb was detonated.”

AUAF has yet to release the names of the casualties, as the verification process is still ongoing. Based on the accounts of various sources, AAN, at the time of writing, has been able to confirm 12 deaths: five male and two female students, one Afghan professor (find their biographical details below), as well as three university security guards and one guard from the School for the Blind. The exact figure of civilians injured in the attack has been difficult to determine, as some individuals who were treated and discharged with minor injuries have not been reported by hospitals. Furthermore, the large number of different medical facilities where the injured were treated has also made it difficult to collect and verify a total count for all those injured in the attack.

On 31 August 2016, the program coordinator at the Emergency Hospital in Kabul, which appears to have received the majority of those injured, told AAN that the facility had received 24 wounded adults, of which 19 were admitted: five female and 14 male patients. Three of these patients were in serious condition; one has since died at the hospital. The other two patients are still undergoing treatment.

Killed AUAF students and faculty staff

(In alphabetical order)

Alina Jamal (registered at AUAF under the name Alnaz, but called Alina by friends and family), 18, was the oldest child of a street-vendor and a scholarship student studying for a BA in Political Science and Public Administration. Alina had spent most of her life in Karachi, Pakistan, as a refugee. Her dream, as a relative told AAN, had been to study in a prestigious university such as the AUAF and then to get a job to help support her family. When the attackers broke into the campus, Alina had been in an English class. She called her mother, telling her they were being attacked. When the insurgents got into her building and reached the floor below her, she jumped out of the window in a bid to escape. It is believed she was shot while she was on the ground. Alina’s father was in Pakistan at the time of the attack, her relative said; he had gone to pick up her high school transcripts. Her mother was at home, “fainting with grief.”

Abdul Walid Karimzada, 26, was from Kabul from Serahi Alawudi, not far from AUAF. After graduating from Ghazi High School, located close to Dehmazang Square, and obtaining a dental degree from Guetta Institute, he began a business administration course at the AUAF. Walid was the Director of the NGO Afghanistan Libre, a position he had held since 2010. The NGO focuses on education. According to a tribute on the ACBAR website, “Walid had been working for Afghanistan Libre for more than 10 years. He had met the founder, Mrs. Shekeba Hashemi as a young adult and committed to the NGO since then… He chose to commit entirely to Education, let it be women education, young girls’ or his own.” Before joining Afghanistan Libre, he was the designer and manager of the publication Mujaleh Roze (Day Magazine).

Jamila Ismailzada, in her mid-twenties, was in her final year of studying business administration.  Originally from in Mazar-e Sharif, she moved to Pakistan during the Taleban regime. She completed her primary education in Pakistan and upon returning to Afghanistan attended Rokhshana High School in Kabul from which she graduated in 2009. Having already completed a degree in computer science at Kabul University, she had joined AUAF to study management. According to information she had provided on a webpage in 2013, Jamila wanted to help women to set up small businesses to improve their lives and have a positive effect on economy of the country.

Jamshed Zafar, 23, was in the final semester of his last year at the university, studying law. Originally from Ishkashim in Badakhshan province, he grew up in Kabul. Before enrolling at AUAF he had attended high school in the United States through the YES Program (the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study program). He was the nephew of Barry Salam, a well-known journalist and civil society activist. A relative told AAN that Jamshed was also an activist and a member of the advisory board of a newly established national civil society organization called Roshna (Dari for Brightness). According to his classmate Safia Jamal, Jamshed “wanted to be a good politician and help the people of our country.” He worked as the marketing manager of Seven TV channel, Sobh Bakhair Afghanistan Radio program and Awanama Production (a group of media production companies owned by his uncle).

Mujtaba Aksir, 22, was a third year student of Business Administration. Originally from Panjsher, he had spent his childhood in Pakistan and later attended Naderia High School in Kabul. He lost his mother in childhood and an elder brother had drowned in the Panjsher River two years ago. He was the son of a well-known doctor and professor at the Medical University of Kabul, Nader Aksir. A friend told AAN that Mujtaba was a calm person, friendly and hard working. His ambition had been to become a pilot.

Last year, AAN was told that Mujtaba raised 4,000 US dollars for the victims of the avalanches that had struck his home province. On another occasion, his university friends had launched a campaign to collect clothes as an Eid gift (Eidi) for street children, and he suggested they should give them books as well. The campaign to collect books was halted after the attack on the protestors of Jombesh-e Roshnayi, during which Aksir and his friends lost many friends. “We will continue Aksir’s way,” said one friend, “and provide street children with books.”

Samiullah Sarwari, 18, had just begun his studies. He was in his first week at AUAF. “I’m in,” he wrote on his Facebook page, the two days before the attack (22 August 2016). “Looking forward to a beautiful and bright future.”

From a poor family, Sami had attended Afghanistan’s only music institute, Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM), but, according to The New York Times, had given up music after the 2014 attack on the French Cultural Centre in Kabul. “His family is so poor, and his mother tried to support her children to achieve their goals.” Sami had won a scholarship to study at the AUAF, but he and his family had expected him to work while he studied. ANIM director, Ahmad Sarmast, told the Times, he had wanted to support them and “be with them like a mountain.” Sarmast wrote on his facebook page that Sami represented Afghan Music as a cultural ambassador in various cultural festivals outside of Afghanistan. 

Zubair Zakir, 28, from Kabul, was studying for a Political Science and Public Administration degree, and was attending a class on State Building and Political Development in Afghanistan when the attack began. Zubair was working at the Etisalat communications company during the day to support his family and going to class at night, a friend told AAN. With an untrimmed beard, a trimmed moustache and white prayer cap, Zubair looked and was a deeply religious student. He frequently led students as imam in communal prayers at the university and was described by friends as humble, well respected and well liked. His grief-stricken father, Abdul Zahir, said in an interview with Tolo News that the insurgents were nothing but criminals and must be brought to justice.

Naqib Ahmad Khpulwak, 32, from Behsud district in Nangarhar province, was the only lecturer among those killed. He was teaching an Introduction to Islamic law class on the third floor of the Bayat Building when the attack happened. He had also been teaching other law classes at the AUAF. A graduate from Nangarhar University and holder of a Master’s degree from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, Khpulwak was also a visiting scholar at Stanford University Law School in California and had just gained a place at Oxford University in England to study for a PhD.

During the day, he had been working as the programme manager of the rule of law portfolio at the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) in Kabul. He also worked on rule of law projects with the Supreme Court of Afghanistan, the Ministry of Justice, the Afghan Parliament and the Afghan Independent Bar Association. He had also been working with Afghan communities on consultations regarding a proposed conciliation law, linking informal and formal justice mechanisms.

One of his friends told AAN that when they heard about the attack, “We called Khpulwak a few times, with no answer… Eventually, his phone was off.” She and another friend went to the Emergency Hospital to look, fruitlessly, for Khpulwak, and then spoke to AUAF who assured them he must be in the safe room. The following morning, he said, “We found out he was on his way to the safe room when he was shot… What bothers me most is that his body was not found until this morning and it was in front of the safe room.” Some sources also stated that he died alongside some of his students.

There has been much praise for Khpulwak. “It’s a devastating loss,” USIP’s vice-president, Andrew Wilder, told AAN. “He really was a remarkable individual – someone who really lit up the room when he entered with his infectious smile and enthusiasm.” USIP wrote on its website in memoriam of him:

He was a leader in the Afghan legal community, and deeply dedicated to his students at the American University of Afghanistan. A voracious reader and lover of knowledge… a passionate builder of peace in Afghanistan. He thought tirelessly about how to rebuild his country after decades of war, and never ceased in his efforts to heal the many wounds that war has inflicted.

Erik G Jansen of Stanford University said Khpulwak’s former colleagues there were heartbroken. “He believed strongly in the power of education, and the need for legal education in Afghanistan. He was always emphatic that we — Afghans who care about the future of the country — cannot back down to insurgents and criminals who threaten a future of possibility.”

One of Khpulwak’s friend, describing how he used to collect books for his old university in Jalalabad, said that everything he did in life, “was with a peaceful, better Afghanistan in mind. He was a brilliant man, one of the smartest people I have met in my life.” Another friend and fellow Fulbright Scholar, Sediq Amin, told AAN: “I have lost a friend, and Afghanistan lost one of her true sons… He was… a man with a pure heart, sharp mind and a very clear vision for the future of Afghanistan.”

Khpulwak loved reading, cricket and spending time with his family.

Here is more biographical background on him, as given by AUAF and by his LinkedIn profile:

Since 2013, Naqib Ahmad Khpulwak has been an Assistant Professor of Law at AUAF teaching courses on Introduction to Afghan Law, Introduction to Islamic Law, Public International Law, Family Law, Property Law, and Traditional Justice & Dispute Resolution; he was also the faculty advisor for a law students association. Naqib has previously worked as Legal Counsellor and Team Leader for NRC Afghanistan. Naqib has also worked as a volunteer lecturer for Nangarhar Law and Political Science Faculty. His other works include: Senior Political Analyst for WSC- Kabul, intern/consultant at Afghan Embassy in Washington DC-US, and Afghanistan Desk Assistant for Civil Military Fusion Center, NATO- Norfolk, VA. Sponsored by PJRA-LLM Scholarship Program, Naqib studied at Stanford Law School and worked as Visiting Student Research Scholar for the Afghanistan Legal Education Program at SLS. A Fulbright Scholar, Naqib received an M.A. in Comparative Politics, and Security Studies from Old Dominion University (GPIS). Naqib has a Bachelor of Law & Political Science from Nangarhar University, where he graduated first in his class.

(1) The number of the attackers is unclear to date. Available information indicates there may have been two or three, depending on whether one of them blew himself up in the car bomb used to breach the university’s compound wall or whether he had time to park the car and participate in the assault. Our information seems to suggest the second version, as the guard of the neighbouring Noor School was been shot dead which would have allowed the driver to leave the bomb-rigged car. See more detail in the text above.

UNAMA speaks of a “suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device“ – this would indicate a third assailant who could have blown himself up in the car. The two assailants who shot at students and staff apparently did not blow themselves up, but were killed by security forces. (They may have been called “suicide attackers” as they probably knew they would not leave the AUAF compound alive.)

(2) See the list of AUAF’s main sponsors on the university’s website here.

(3) See also survivors’ accounts in the following news reports: The Guardian, Associated Press, Radio Liberty, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times.

(4) There was also one report quoting an eye-witness talking about attackers being “in normal clothes.”

The Afghan government has continued to increase the amount it collects in revenue – by 22 per cent last year and 33 per cent in the first six months of this year. This revenue growth well exceeded expectations and projections. Thirty-seven per cent of the total revenue increase in the first half of 2016 was due to the greater revenue mobilisation efforts of the government and new or higher tax rates imposed in the latter half of last year, as opposed to one-off windfalls or currency depreciation – indicating robust underlying revenue growth estimated at 12.4 per cent. The continuing high revenue growth, however, is not due to any significant improvement in the economy, raising significant issues for the future. AAN Guest authors Bill Byrd and M Khalid Payenda* take a look at the figures and explain what they mean for Afghanistan ahead of the Brussels conference where new pledges of aid to the country are expected.

Afghanistan’s turnaround in revenue in 2015 was impressive and has continued into 2016. In the first half of 2016, revenue rose to nearly Afs 70 billion (just over US $1 billion), an extraordinary 33 per cent increase in nominal local currency terms compared to the same period of last year. (1) Nevertheless, revenue still comprises well under half of total budget expenditure—the lion’s share of spending continues to be financed by aid.

Twenty-six per cent of the revenue increase reflects the estimated impact of the 18 per cent depreciation of the Afghan currency: customs duties on imports and other revenues levied on foreign exchange flows have had their Afghani value increase artificially due to the weakening Afghani. (2) Another 24 per cent consisted of one-time revenue injections from public enterprises (including Afs 2.14 billion in recoveries of lost or stolen Kabul Bank funds and transfers of about Afs 1 billion each from public enterprises under the Ministry of Urban Development and Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock), which do not represent regular revenue and are not necessarily sustainable. Finally, although they are genuine revenues, the large increases in proceeds from the sale of state-owned land and buildings and from passport fees, accounting for 13 per cent of the total revenue increase, are also unlikely to be sustainable. Indeed, the latter may be a concerning sign of economic weakness and prospective human flight.

The remaining 37 per cent of the total revenue increase can be reasonably attributed to a combination of strong revenue mobilisation efforts and the impact of new taxes and higher rates implemented in the latter part of 2015. Their full impact is being felt this year. These new taxes and rates include, in particular, a doubling of the main rate of the Business Receipts Tax (BRT) from two to four per cent, a new 10 per cent levy on mobile phone top-ups, an increase in overflight charges for using Afghan airspace and new levies (road toll fees) on imported oil and natural gas. In sum, after excluding all of the factors discussed in the previous paragraph, the estimated underlying revenue growth in the first half of the current fiscal year was a robust 12.4 per cent.

Available preliminary data for the first eight months of this fiscal year show continuing rapid revenue growth, with total revenue up by 32.9 per cent, compared to 33.3 per cent in the first six months alone. (3) Revenue growth for the full 2016 fiscal year appears to be on-track to reach well into double digits for the second year in a row.

Revenue collection and the state of the economy

How was this continuing high revenue growth in the first half of 2016 achieved? Not, unfortunately, due to any substantial improvement in the economy; of this, there is no significant sign in the revenue data nor in the macroeconomic indicators. Also worrying, and in contrast to its strong performance in 2015, collection of customs duties has been weak this year, showing virtual stagnation in nominal Afghani terms compared to the first half of 2015. Excluding the impact of currency depreciation, there was an estimated decline of 15.6 per cent in customs duties receipts. The extent to which this is due to lower imports or worsening collection is not yet clear, but preliminary data indicate that the deterioration in customs duties collections has continued in recent months. This is a problem area in an otherwise generally good picture, and needs to be both monitored and addressed in the coming months.

Revenue buoyancy has been most prominently reflected in the categories where new taxes/fees or increased rates were introduced last year. As mentioned earlier, these include, most notably, the doubling of the main Business Receipts Tax (BRT) rate levied on imports, sales, contracts, etc from two to four per cent (with BRT levied on imports comprising the lion’s share of the increased receipts), as well as the new 10 per cent telecommunications service fee, higher overflight charges (raised from $400 to $500 per flight), new road toll fees for imported fuel and natural gas (3 Afghanis per litre of fuel or kilogramme of gas). Taken together, these new or increased revenues accounted for over 40 per cent of the total revenue increase, or more than all of the 12.4 per cent underlying revenue growth in the first half of 2016, ie after the impact of depreciation and other one-time/unsustainable factors was excluded. The strong growth in revenue from these categories more than offset declines in some other categories, such as customs duties.

Income tax collections also increased, primarily due to 16.5 per cent growth in receipts of withholding tax taken from employees’ wages. Receipts from the 10 per cent BRT on selected services also rose by 26 per cent, without any rate increase in this case. In the absence of significant growth in the economy, revenue increases in these two categories most probably reflect intensified collection efforts.

The strong revenue growth in the first half of this year coincided with some other markers of progress, including among others, Afghanistan’s official accession to the World Trade Organization (on 29 July 2016), successful completion of the IMF Staff-Monitored Program (on 13 May 2016), the agreement on and approval of a new three-year IMF program (on 20 July 2016), and achievement of many of the performance benchmarks under the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund Incentive Program and USAID’s New Development Partnership. In addition, the Afghan government has focused on improving governance, including inter alia the centralisation of major procurement under the new National Procurement Committee and submission of declarations of their assets by 95 per cent of top government officials as called for under Afghanistan’s Constitution.

These developments are setting the stage for the upcoming Brussels international conference on Afghanistan (to be held on 5 October 2016), at which donor countries and international organisations are expected to reaffirm their continuing commitment to support Afghanistan and pledge or indicate civilian aid funding for the country over the next four years. Brussels follows the NATO summit in Warsaw on 9 July 2016, at which a total of around $4.5 billion per year was pledged by donors to support the Afghan national security forces (ANSF) through to 2020.

Despite these achievements, the Afghan economy remains weak, which is not surprising in view of ongoing war and political uncertainty in the country. Real GDP growth in 2015 is currently estimated to have been only 0.8 per cent – significantly lower than earlier estimates. In 2016, economic growth is projected at only two per cent. That is well below the rate of population growth, estimated at around 3 per cent per year, meaning that average per-capita income is continuing to decline. (For economic growth estimates and projections, as well as other macroeconomic data, see the most recent IMF Staff Report) Another sign of economic weakness is the low levels of business investment and new firm registrations, as reported by the Afghanistan Investment Support Agency (AISA). In this regard, there may be a risk that continuing aggressive revenue mobilisation vis-à-vis the relatively small formal sector of the Afghan economy, combined with a tight expenditure policy, could become a drag on economic revival and further weaken incentives for private sector investment. Creative approaches to stimulating at least a modest economic revival are called for.

Civilian versus military aid

Turning to aid prospects, the Warsaw NATO summit was financially successful in mobilising support for the ANSF, but there is a risk that civilian expenditure requirements will be underfunded, at the cost of Afghanistan’s development progress in areas such as infrastructure, education, and health. This would, in particular, be the outcome if the level of total annual civilian aid that has been discussed in some circles – around $3 billion per year – is what materialises in the end. This would be considerably less than the international community committed to at Warsaw in support of the ANSF ($4.5 billion per year), and also well below the international community’s civilian aid pledge at the Tokyo Conference on Afghanistan in 2012 ($4 billion per year). Moreover, it is substantially below current levels of civilian aid disbursements (which have been over $4 billion annually in the past several years). Depending in part on the composition of the aid, $3 billion per year would appear to be insufficient to close Afghanistan’s large structural fiscal gap. If civilian aid pledges turn out to be more than that and reach $4 billion per year, Afghanistan’s economy, development prospects, fiscal picture, and civil-military balance would all benefit.

How aid is channelled and delivered is also very important. Assistance channelled through the Afghan government budget, especially aid that can be flexibly deployed by the government as opposed to aid earmarked for specific projects, in support of effective development programmes and with sound fiduciary controls (which are in place and can be further improved), will achieve more ‘bang for the buck’, in terms of results, as well as in benefiting the Afghan economy, while helping maintain fiscal balance.

From a medium to longer-term perspective, it is clear that Afghanistan will remain heavily aid-dependent for many years to come. Feasible increases in government revenue will not change this picture, though higher revenues will ease fiscal management and avoid fiscal crunches like that seen in late 2014. One factor would turn the economy around like no other. An end to the Taleban insurgency would yield a ‘peace dividend’ for Afghanistan. Even then, aid requirements would not decline rapidly, though the composition of aid could then shift away from security sector expenditures in favour of demobilisation, disarmament, and reintegration of combatants (DDR), reconstruction, and development.

Overall, continuing impressive revenue growth represents a significant achievement, especially in the challenging context of Afghanistan. A key policy issue is how, over time, to expand the tax base in Afghanistan – which currently consists primarily of imports and the very small formal sector – so that revenue would be more buoyant if and when economic growth revives, however modestly. There are concerns over the weak collections of customs duties, the heavy reliance on new levies and rate increases, as opposed to broadening the base of tax collection, and above all, the very weak economy which, among other adverse effects, harms revenue prospects. In any case, it is doubtful that this kind of revenue growth can be sustained over the next five years or decade (which would make a real difference in terms of reducing aid requirements), unless there are major improvements in the overall situation, of the kind that would be brought about by a peace agreement or, at least, a sharp reduction in the level of conflict, as well as greater political stability.

Bill Byrd is a senior expert at the US Institute of Peace. His last publication with AAN was the paper, Economic Management in Afghanistan: What worked, what didn’t, and why? (26 August 2015) M Khalid Payenda is senior adviser to Afghanistan’s Minister of Finance and leads the Macro-Fiscal Performance Department in the Ministry of Finance. The views expressed in this dispatch are the authors’ own.

(1) Afghanistan’s fiscal year is approximately 21 December-20 December. The first half of the current 1395 fiscal year ran from 21 December 2015 to 20 June 2016. The figure of nearly Afs 70 billion for total revenue of the first six months excludes a very sizable Afs 10.26 billion transfer from the Central Bank (Da Afghanistan Bank – DAB) to the budget, since this was the result of an increase in the local currency value of foreign exchange inflows due to depreciation and should not be considered revenue (it will be used not to finance expenditures, but rather to shrink the fiscal ‘hole’ resulting from the failure of Kabul Bank).

(2) The average exchange rate depreciated from 58.27 Afs per US dollar in the first half of the previous fiscal year to 68.67 in the first half of the current fiscal year. Import duties and other taxes levied on imports are collected in Afghanis, but since they are calculated as a percentage of the foreign exchange value of the imports concerned, the Afghani value of the customs duties and other taxes levied on imports increases proportionally to the extent of depreciation. In addition, overflight fees for use of Afghan airspace are levied in US dollars.

(3) Both of these figures exclude the Central Bank transfer referred to in footnote 1, so they are comparable.

Norway has published the first comprehensive evaluation of one country’s contribution to the international intervention in Afghanistan. The evaluation was conducted by a government-appointed commission led by Bjørn Tore Godal, a former foreign and defence minister. However, most commissioners were independent researchers. The ‘Godal report’, as it has become known, is a candid and sharp assessment, says AAN advisory board member Ann Wilkens. It finds that only the domestic goal of the mission, to prove Norway a trustworthy US and NATO ally, was fully achieved. It was far less successful in its ‘Afghan’ goals – preventing Afghanistan from lapsing back into being a haven of international terrorism and contributing to state-building. The report includes the first, comprehensive account of Norway’s early talking to the Taleban and its role in peace diplomacy, as well as important insights into applying the Laws of War.

At the time of writing, the report, “A Good Ally, Norway in Afghanistan 2001-2014”, was not yet available in English (an official translation is under way). All page numbers in the text refer to the Norwegian document and all quotes have been translated by the author. The full report in Norwegian can be found here: 

A summary in English is available here.

Goals and costs

The Godal report, published in June 2016 evaluating the diplomatic, military and aid-related aspects of Norway’s mission, is an official government document. It is long (over 200 pages), but written in clear and accessible language and richly illustrated with graphs, timelines and photos. It starts with a summary, and already in its second paragraph it delivers a devastating conclusion: “On the whole, Norway has not made a great difference.” (p 9)

The Norwegian intervention was guided by three overarching objectives. Of the three goals, the commission deems the wish to be recognised as a trustworthy supporter of the USA and a good NATO ally to have been the most important one – and the only one to have been fully achieved. The second goal of preventing Afghanistan from relapsing into a haven for international terrorism is found to have been only partially reached, and the third goal – to contribute to state-building in Afghanistan – the commission deems not to have been achieved. In practice, this third goal referred mainly to the Norwegian contribution through a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Faryab, which turned out to be a much more extensive and complicated engagement than originally envisaged.

One explanation offered for this limited outcome is the “partly conflicting goals” of the intervention: military considerations had a decisive influence on state-building and development assistance, with a preference for short-term security objectives, which benefitted local power structures connected with abuse and corruption. The report also points out that the prolonged, international military presence contributed to a feeling among parts of the Afghan population that they were under occupation, which strengthened groups that the military intervention was meant to combat. (p 10)

While the results were meagre, the cost has been high. First of all for the Afghan people – the total number of Afghans killed during the intervention is estimated at “maybe over 90 000” – but also for Norway, with 10 soldiers killed and many more seriously injured. In financial terms, the Norwegian expenditure is estimated at around 20 billion Norwegian crowns (approximately 2.4 billion USD), corresponding to 0.26 per cent of the total international military expenditure and 2.3 per cent of the total international civilian expenditure in Afghanistan. (p 10) As these figures indicate, Norway was a small actor on the ground in Afghanistan – but in Norway, with a little over 5 million inhabitants, the intervention in Afghanistan was one of the largest international undertakings ever carried out.

History of the international intervention

In its first, main part, the report details the history of the international intervention. In the massive literature on this subject, the little over 20 pages of the report stand out as a concise summary of events, with little diplomatic fuzz. The way robust contributions in Afghanistan were welcomed by several European countries as a possibility to compensate the United States for their reluctant positions on the Iraq intervention is clearly reflected: “[Not only for Norway] but also for other European countries, contributions to a NATO-led and expanded ISAF operation presented themselves as a possibility to maintain a good bilateral relationship to the USA without sending troops to the war in Iraq.” (p 26)

The report describes how, already in its early stages, the international intervention was fragmented, due to “lack of coordination between donor countries and Afghan authorities, weak formal Afghan institutions and donors´ need for political visibility.” One example of this was the distribution of areas of responsibility within the security sector to different lead nations. (p 24) Norway was not part of that division of tasks, but it did eventually get involved in one of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) that were established by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) across the country.

PRT commitment

The report describes the problems linked to the choice of PRTs as the instrument for ISAF´s expansion: the approach of dividing Afghanistan into different areas of responsibility allotted to different foreign actors with little knowledge of the local political economy and power struggles served to “undermine rather than obtain the goal of building a centrally managed Afghan state.” (p 199) In addition, the military dominance of the PRTs led to a military bias in aid-related interventions. As some countries ploughed considerable development resources into ‘their’ provinces, development in Afghanistan became uneven, often with a preferential treatment for unstable areas. (p26)

The Norwegian armed forces were not in favour of engaging in a PRT, as it was deemed to be an overly extensive and risky commitment. However – under pressure from NATO, as well as the UN – the government still decided take on the task. Under the circumstances, the Norwegian government considered such participation an unavoidable consequence of Norway´s NATO membership. The government was also anxious to support the US and cooperate with the United Kingdom, which wanted to move its troops from the north to the south of Afghanistan. (p 113) In order to minimise risks, the (then) relatively peaceful north-western province of Faryab was selected.

In its PRT engagement, Norway applied a specifically ‘Norwegian model’, based on development cooperation principles which aimed to separate military and civilian contributions. Military PRT leaders were tasked to work solely on stabilisation efforts, while aid was channelled through a parallel, civilian structure manned by development experts. The two tracks were supposed to cooperate, but the guidelines for this collaboration remained unclear and the arrangement led to frustration and misunderstandings between the two strands of personnel on the ground, as well as vis-à-vis Afghan authorities and ISAF partners. (p 199) Apart from the period 2005-2006, when the PRT leadership used Norwegian development funds to carry out minor development projects (p. 120), this separation was maintained throughout the intervention – causing increasing difficulties.

When the counter-insurgency policy (COIN) was introduced as the main ISAF approach in 2009, Norwegian PRT leaders were squeezed between national and international guidelines. In fact, Norway applied double standards, approving the COIN approach in the NATO Council, while at the same time preventing its PRT leaders from applying it on the ground. (p 36) While this ambivalence reflected Norwegian principles, the COIN approach in itself is also deemed to have been problematic: “The COIN doctrine rests on a prerequisite which was fulfilled only to a small degree in Afghanistan. An anti-insurgency operation cannot be better than the regime it is meant to support. If the authorities were perceived as a bigger problem than the Taleban, there was not much Western military power could do to persuade the population to the contrary.”

The report comes very close to declaring the Faryab PRT a failure: “In an Afghan national perspective, the Norwegian PRT and the Norwegian model made little difference. … There were several reasons why, in practice, the possibilities to make a difference in Faryab were minimal.” The report lists three such reasons: “Fundamental circumstances linked to Afghan power constellation were difficult. The Norwegian contribution was also small in relation to the size of the province. No coherent Norwegian strategy was formulated, linking goals to means….” (p 136) In its final conclusions, the commission states that, in the future, “Norway should not take responsibility for sizable, integrated interventions (state-building, development and security). Within the framework of comprehensive, international commitments, Norway is best served through the development of special capacity in areas where there is a long-term need and a clear role.” (p 204)

Peace diplomacy

Part two of the report deals with a number of specific themes, some of them of mainly internal Norwegian interest (such as media response and personnel policy). However, two subjects stand out as relevant for an international audience: Norwegian peace diplomacy and the discussion on problems related to international law.

As a country outside the European Union, Norway did not have to adhere to EU sanctions and felt free to take initiatives towards a dialogue with the Taleban at a relatively early stage. At the time, these initiatives were surrounded by the usual secrecy, as well as overshadowed by a host of similar efforts by other actors – so their history may have been written for the first time in the Godal report. (p 138-156) Norway saw its peace diplomacy role in Afghanistan as threefold: to prepare the ground and transmit messages, to mediate between the parties and to promote dialogue between them. (p 138)

Grounded in an earlier project aimed at promoting intra-religious dialogue in Pakistan, direct Norwegian contacts with the Taleban were established during the beginning of 2007. During the first phase of 2007-2010, the Norwegians communicated with representatives of the Quetta shura, which eventually led to a meeting planned in Oslo for 28 February 2010, between representatives of the Taleban and the Afghan government. Among the enlisted participants was Taleban leader Mullah Barader whose arrest in Pakistan shortly before that date may or may not have been linked to the meeting, which in any case did not come about. A renewed effort in August 2010 stumbled on a late cancellation from the Taleban side. After that, Norway stepped back but continued its bilateral, thematic dialogue with the Taleban. In this context, it provided technical assistance in various ways. For instance, Norwegians helped the Taleban to formulate a political platform on election participation and organised a meeting with the UN in Oslo in late 2010. (p 151)

The ‘Quetta track’ was later replaced by the ‘Doha track’, where Norway initially worked in the shadow of German-American cooperation. When the German-American track floundered in 2012, Norway took on a more central role in trying to re-establish the dialogue with the Taleban; in the winter of 2012 and the spring of 2013, Norway, Qatar and the UK were the main go-betweens in negotiations between the US, the Taleban and Afghan authorities. In November 2012, a Taleban delegation visited Oslo and a meeting was held between the Norwegian minister for foreign affairs and Tayyab Agha, the leader of the Taleban political commission in Doha. (p 152) After the problem-ridden official opening of the Doha office in June 2013, Norwegian diplomats continued their dialogue with the Taleban on a bilateral level, again reverting to specific themes, most importantly the position of women, international laws of war, and the Afghan constitution. In parallel, the Norwegian government started to direct more of its efforts towards Afghanistan´s regional surroundings. During 2009-2011 it promoted and partially financed a series of regional dialogue meetings, leading up to the Heart of Asia process. (p 155)

The Norwegian peace diplomacy was related to two of Norway’s overarching goals for its participation in the intervention: to strengthen the relationship to the US and to contribute to state-building in Afghanistan. Again, the goal unrelated to Afghanistan was the most successful. According to the report, high-level US representatives showed interest in the Norwegian initiatives, especially after the Obama administration came to power. Norwegian contacts with the Taleban provided a recurring agenda point in meetings between the Norwegian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jonas Gahr Støre, and US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. These US-Norwegian discussions may, according to the Godal commission, have played a part in the emerging US acceptance of a negotiated end to the conflict. (p 151-152) Whether this was the case or not, they did again put Norway solidly on the map of international diplomacy. As a side effect, the report found, efforts in Afghanistan also contributed to the professionalization of Norwegian peace diplomacy and helped develop the country’s understanding of the role of intelligence services in this context. (p 156)

The second goal – the intended contribution to state-building through a dialogue between Afghan authorities and the armed opposition – obviously has yet to materialise. It also remains be seen whether Norwegian representatives have managed to do much with regard to their secondary intention within that goal, i. e. to influence the Taleban when it comes to “humanitarian and political issues, among them women´s rights” (p 138), even if the commission lists such influence as one of the achievements. (p 156)

International law

The Norwegian tradition of standing up for international law was put to test during the Afghanistan intervention, which challenged existing rules on several scores. One example was the legal basis for Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) after the establishment of the Afghan transitional government in June 2002, when the situation in Afghanistan no longer involved a conflict between states. The commission criticises the government for the lack of clarification at the time on how it arrived at its conclusion that the legal basis of collective self-defence, as described in article 51 in the UN Charter, was not affected by this change. If, for instance, the commission points out, Norwegian pilots had been taken prisoner, they would not have been able to claim treatment according to the Third Geneva Convention (which applies to international armed conflict). (p161) The commission is also critical of the Norwegian government’s explicit interpretation that the self-defence doctrine applied not only in Afghanistan, but also for operations across the border in Pakistan (where Norway had no government consent). Norwegian fighter planes were engaged in operations close to the border and could easily have been drawn into cross-border operations. (p 159)

Lack of legal clarity also surrounded the Norwegian participation in ISAF, particularly during the initial years: Were Norwegian troops involved in war or just an operation to maintain law and order? Even at the later and more kinetic ISAF stages, the Norwegian government was, according to the commission, unnecessarily reluctant to use the word ‘war’ when talking of the engagement in Afghanistan. (p 161-162) The blurred dividing line between war and policing became particularly tricky when, from 2006 onwards, international forces also started targeting the drug trade as a source of financing for the armed opposition. (p 170-171) Police officers were sometimes tagged on to military patrols with no attention paid to the fact that they, unlike military personnel, had no immunity from judiciary consequences that could have resulted from these military operations. (p 162-164) Another grey zone arose as Afghan interpreters were armed and given uniforms when participating in operations together with Norwegian ISAF troops, as happened from time to time in spite of instructions from Oslo to the contrary. Here also, the commission points out that, had judiciary consequences followed, the interpreters (unlike Norwegian soldiers) would have been unable to rely on the immunity bestowed on combatants. (p 172)

The report points to the treatment of prisoners-of-war according to humanitarian norms as yet another area where Norway´s commitment to international law was difficult to uphold. Individuals captured by ISAF forces were handed over to Afghan authorities in spite of the fact the Afghan National Directorate for Security (NDS) was known to systematically break international rules. Like several other ISAF participants, Norway, in October 2006, signed an agreement with Afghanistan on the follow-up of prisoners’ treatment, stipulating monitoring by Norwegian personnel in order to ensure that prisoners were treated correctly – an alternative made possible by the limited number of individuals involved. When, in October 2011, UNAMA published a report showing that torture was routinely applied in Afghan prisons, ISAF stopped all transfer of prisoners. In its assessment, the commission still underlines the importance of having a formal agreement in place in any future operations with similar problems, but stresses that it should be more consistently followed up than was the case in Afghanistan. (p 169)

The commission´s reflections

In the third and final part of the report, which contains reflections on Norwegian goals and results, experiences and lessons learned, the commission points out that, by and large, the domestic political unity surrounding Norway´s participation in Afghanistan was never seriously challenged, in spite of the fact that opinion polls showed that the population was divided in its assessment of the military part of the engagement. (p 194) When it came to the maintenance of popular support, the growing emphasis on development assistance and state-building during the course of the international intervention played into the hands of the government. An implication that the commission chooses not to elaborate on is that the parts of the intervention most welcomed by the Norwegian population – contributions to state-building, aid to the Afghan people – were, in fact, the parts where results were the worst.

For the government, on the other hand, a consistent and central goal for its security policy since 1949 has been “to cultivate a good relationship to the USA and to ensure the relevance and strength of NATO.” For Norway’s participation in the intervention in Afghanistan, this goal was, in fact, more important than reflected in the public discussion. Indeed, the report points out, it was the raison d´être for the intervention in Afghanistan: “To appear as a competent partner in Washington D.C. and Brussels was more important for Norway´s decisions than evaluations of the effect that Norwegian contributions might have in Afghanistan.” (p 194) In this context, the Norwegian refusal to send troops to southern Afghanistan involved a degree of risk-taking. However, the commission concludes, it had “no serious or long-term consequences for Norway´s relation to its allies or for Norway´s position in NATO.” (p 196) As the commission speculates, a contributing (albeit unforeseen) factor in the limited fall-out of Norway’s position may have been the gradually worsening security situation in Faryab, which increased the risk for Norwegian troops in relation to those who had accepted more dangerous locations. In addition, contributions from Norwegian Special Forces and intelligence units in Kabul from 2007 onwards were much appreciated and the innovative way in which these units tightly collaborated was particularly noted. (p 196)

For domestic reasons, it was important for Norway to match its spending on the military component of the intervention with funds allocated to development assistance in Afghanistan. This goal was never reached, even though Norway´s civilian contribution was relatively higher than that of most ISAF partners. (1) However, this may have been just as well, since neither the Afghan absorption capacity, nor the Norwegian administrative capacity was sufficient even for the reduced proportion. “Thereby,” concludes the report, “Norwegian development assistance became part of an international picture of large assistance and weak follow-up and control. Gradually, [international] development assistance contributed to an extensive corruption problem. While Norwegian authorities had a clear picture of this, political ambitions to contribute a large volume of assistance were more important than professional evaluation of the consequences.” (p 199)

Reception of the Godal report in Norway

In June 2016, when the report was published, Norway had just engaged with the US to send special forces to Syria – ostensibly with a mandate limited to capacity building of Syrian opposition forces in Jordan. However, it soon became clear that Norwegians would, in fact, also be present inside Syria. In the midst of the discussion caused by this commitment, the publication of the Godal report, by providing opponents of military undertakings in unfamiliar surroundings with solid arguments, further complicated the government´s task to ensure public support. It all made for a lively public debate, more about Syria than about Afghanistan, but, in the end, did not change the government´s decision. Nor did the Godal commission´s call for increased openness around commitments of this kind appear to have had much of an influence on the process.

Not so much for Afghanistan

In altruistic terms, the three Norwegian goals for the Afghanistan intervention are hardly on the same level. In substance, the primary goal – to be a good supporter of the USA and a good NATO ally – is different from the other two goals – to prevent Afghanistan from relapsing into a haven for international terrorists and to contribute to state-building in a war-ravaged country. While it may be good for Norway that the first goal was actually achieved, it is sad for the world that the two other goals did not fare as well. By the same token, it may have been good for Norway´s international prestige that its peace diplomacy with regard to the Taleban brought it positive attention in Washington and other capitals, but one could wish, of course, that more had come from Norwegian efforts. The most successful aspects of the Norwegian intervention in Afghanistan remain those which have to do with Norway, not with Afghanistan.

The report does not weigh the goals along these lines, but it laudably refrains from presenting the number of schools built and clinics opened as achievements justifying a military intervention at astronomic cost. Already on its first page, the report delivers a frank explanation of the failure of the state-building exercise: “To a small degree only has the international engagement, including that of Norway, been based on knowledge of Afghanistan and local conditions, culture and lines of conflict. State-building directed from outside – built on grand military investment, massive transfer of money and weak Afghan institutions – has proved to be a very demanding undertaking. In Afghanistan, a society marked by 23 years of war, it was impossible within the given framework.” (p 10)

Norway, of course, was not the only country that was led into Afghanistan by its own international and security priorities, more than anything else. However, no other country has, so far, had the political courage to analyse just that. This is all the more remarkable as Norway is a small nation with a close-knit population which lost 12 citizens (10 soldiers and two civilians in related attacks) during the intervention. If nothing else, by its own report the Godal commission has set a good Norwegian example.

(1) As mentioned in the first section of this dispatch, Norway spent close to 20 billion NKR (approximately 2.45 billion USD) on the intervention, corresponding to 0.26 per cent of the total international military expenditure in Afghanistan and 2.3 per cent of the total international civilian expenditure in Afghanistan. In monetary terms, 11.5 billion NKR went to the military component and around 8.4 billion NKR was used for civilian purposes.

Three of the eight remaining Afghans detained by the United States in Guantanamo have been transferred to the United Arab Emirates. The three had each spent 13 or 14 years in detention. None were captured on the battlefield, but detained after tip-offs or were handed over to the US by Afghan forces. Their files reveal multiple mistakes in intelligence, mistakes in Afghan geography and history, and cases largely made up variously of hearsay, secret evidence and confessions. One of the three was almost certainly tortured and another probably was. AAN’s Kate Clark, who has read through the US military and court documents, says the cases against two of the men were without evidentiary basis, while the third detainee looks to have possibly been a low-level insurgent.

AAN will be releasing a report, “Kafka in Cuba: The Afghan experience of detention in Guantanamo,” based on a study of the cases of the eight last Afghans to be held there, three of whom have now been transferred. This dispatch is based on research for that report.

Afghans were, by far the largest national grouping held in Cuba: more than a quarter of the total detainee population – 220 out of 781. (1) Three Afghans died in Guantanamo (2) and after the transfer of three men this week, just five Afghans remain. They include Muhammad Rahim, the last man to be tortured and rendered to Guantanamo by the CIA (see here).

The three now transferred (announced on 15 August 2016) are Mohammed Kamin and Obaidullah, both from Khost, and Hamid al-Razak (aka Haji Hamidullah) from Kabul. Along with 12 Yemenis, they are now in the UAE, which the US thanked for it “its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.” The Wall Street Journal reported that, although US officials would not discuss specific security arrangements, “people familiar with the matter said the U.S. typically conducts electronic surveillance of former detainees, while local authorities keep physical tabs on them.” A senior official also told the paper that the 15 men would enter a rehabilitation facility designed to ‘de-radicalize’ former detainees and would “be held indefinitely until authorities decide they can be released at a minimum of risk.” It is not yet clear if the men will eventually be allowed to return home.

Mass detentions

Kamin, Obaidullah and Hamidullah were all detained in the early years of the intervention when US Special Operations Forces (SOF) and the CIA were detaining people en masse in their hunt for ‘Taleban remnants’ and to try to get intelligence on what they feared might be the next al-Qaeda plot against America. Some Taleban were detained, but Afghan commanders working with US forces in 2001 were also able to denounce factional or personal enemies as ‘terrorists’ and get them killed or detained. The US practice of giving money for information helped fuel the denunciation of innocent individuals. In trying to fathom why a particular individual was detained, rather than trying to figure out their links to the Taleban or al Qaeda, it often makes more sense to look at the local allies of US forces and their relationship with the detainee. Understanding the particular tribal and factional context, and factoring in the opportunities there were to make money can clarify otherwise bizarre detentions.

In Kunar, for example, the anti-Taleban, Salafist leader, Haji Rohullah Wakil, had been chosen to represent Kunar in a national gathering, the Emergency Loya Jirga in June 2002. Two months later, in August 2002, he was detained and taken to Guantanamo. It seems a rival, keen to scoop up logging business and contracts for counter-narcotics work and the building of US bases, had told the US he was a terrorist. In the south, Uruzgan’s first post-Taleban governor, Jan Muhammad, a man with close, long-standing ties to the Karzai family, “used his relations with US Special Forces and his reputation as an effective Taliban hunter to target a wide range of tribal leaders and former Taleban officials, particularly from the Ghilzai and Panjpai tribes.” (3) In Kandahar, “entire tribes, like the Ishaqzai in Maiwand, a district west of Kandahar City,” reported van Linshoten and Kuehn were systematically targeted and denounced as Taleban.” (4) The tribes in Maiwand, Kandahar, had indeed supported the Taleban when they first came to power in 1994, but, said Gopal (5), “US forces were unable to recognize when those same tribes switched allegiances in 2001.” This, he said, was precisely what made Maiwand so lucrative in the eyes of the new US-allied governor, Gul Agha Shirzai, and his men, “There were weapons to be requisitioned, tribal elders to be shaken down, reward money to be collected—boundless profits to be made.”

The pattern of arbitrary detentions was seen across the border, as well. Those detained by Pakistan and handed over to the US included some senior Taleban, including ambassador Abdul Salaam Zaeef and governor of Herat, Khairullah Khairkhwa (see AAN reporting here) (both civilian members of the regime), but also many ordinary Afghans. Former Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, revealed in his memoirs, for example, that Islamabad had “earned bounties totalling millions of dollars” for such handovers.

The search for information

The Bush administration insisted the detainees in Cuba were all dangerous men who had been “picked up off the battlefield,” had been trying to kill American forces and were “terrorists, bomb makers and facilitators of terror,” “trainers… recruiters, financiers, [Osama bin Laden’s] bodyguards, would-be suicide bombers, probably the 20th 9/11 hijacker.”(6) It was difficult to dispute this at first, as the US government kept details of the detainees secret. The first inkling of how arbitrary many of the detentions actually were came in December 2002 when military officers at Guantanamo (see here) complained about the ‘poor quality’ of detainees being sent:

At least 59 detainees – nearly 10% of the prison population… – were deemed to be of no intelligence value after repeated interrogations in Afghanistan….None of the 59 met U.S. screening criteria for determining which prisoners should be sent to Guantanamo Bay, military sources said. But all were transferred anyway, sources said, for reasons that continue to baffle and frustrate intelligence officers nearly a year after the first group of detainees arrived at the facility.

The paper said classified intelligence reports described dozens of Afghan and Pakistani detainees who were “farmers, taxi drivers, cobblers and labourers. Some were low-level fighters conscripted by the Taliban in the weeks before the collapse of the ruling Afghan regime.” Eventually, after many years of legal challenges, determined investigations by journalists and human rights groups, better information came out. The names of the prisoners were eventually released in 2006 after a Freedom of Information Act request and litigation by the Associated Press. However, it was WikiLeaks’ publication in 2011 of secret assessments of the detainees which revealed just how disingenuous the Bush administration has been: the evidentiary basis for its allegations of terrorist activity was frequently hearsay, secondary hearsay (X told Y that Z was a terrorist), unverified intelligence reports, confessions and detainee testimony. The assessments were also rife with basic factual errors about Afghanistan.

The secrecy also worked against the US administration. They released senior Taleban commanders, not knowing who they were, including Mullah Shahzada, against whom there was detailed evidence of his command role in the 2001 massacre of civilians in Yakowlang. “U.S. officials were apparently unaware of the commander’s past record,” the Afghanistan Justice Project said, “which indicates either a serious intelligence failure or indifference to war crimes that do not fall under the official designation of ‘terrorist acts.’”

Generally, though, it was difficult to get out of Guantanamo. The Bush administration had decided detainees would not be covered by either criminal or military law, including common article 3 of the Geneva conventions. There was little protection, then, against arbitrary detention. As the three cases of the men now transferred show, the various military boards eventually set up to screen detainees at Guantanamo frequently failed to uncover the many glaring mistakes and improbable narratives in detainees’ files.

As for the courts, it turned out to be even more difficult to obtain a release through habeas corpus – when the state has to justify its detention of a person in court or free them. Judges have generally accepted the state’s version of events, including allowing secret evidence and at times, testimony obtained by detainees who had been tortured. They also accepted hearsay and pieces of evidence which were individually weak, but together produced a ‘mosaic’ of (apparent) culpability. US justice has moved immensely slow in these cases. Another Afghan still being held, Wali Mohammed who filed a habeas petition in 2005 waited until 2013 for his hearing and then another three years for the judge to rule; she decided he should stay in custody.

The chances of release are now higher since a new review body, the Periodic Review Board, started hearing cases. It is made up of military and non-military personnel, one senior official each from the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice and State and the Offices of the Joint Staff and Director of National Intelligence. In about two thirds of the cases it has heard so far, it has recommended transfer. Of six Afghan cases heard, it has decided that five men be transferred and one should stay in indefinite detention.

One might have thought that, by now, there would only be genuinely dangerous people left in Guantanamo. Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ed Royce, also appeared to assume this. He criticised the Obama administration for the transfers, portraying those freed as “hardened terrorists.” Yet, a reading of the cases of the three Afghans released this week at least shows no such thing.

Summaries of the allegations and evidence against the three can be read below. Readers can also see the full details, with sourcing, of each case by clicking on the relevant link. As names and the spellings of names vary in different documents, each detainee’s unique Internment Serial Number (ISN) is also given.

A note on sourcing:

The New York Times’ ‘Guantanamo Docket’ website has gathered together all the documents from Guantanamo for each of the 771 detainees known to have been held there. Here can be found summary sheets and transcripts for the military boards which assessed whether detainees were enemy combatants, the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CRSTs) and the boards which, every year, assessed whether detainees were still a danger to the US, the Administrative Review Boards or (ARBs). On the same website are secret Joint Task Force Guantanamo Detainee Assessments which were published by WikiLeaks in 2011. They give information about a detainee’s capture, mental and physical health, reasons for his continuing detention, the allegations against him, something of his side of the story and usually the nature of the sourcing on which allegations were based (detainee’s testimony, other detainee’s testimony, Intelligence Information Reports, which are unverified and unprocessed, and reporting by the CIA and FBI. Analysis of the cases also used documents from the Periodic Review Board hearings, habeas petitions and Military Commission trials (these were brought in twice, in 2005 and 2006, during the Bush administration, and declared illegal twice by the Supreme Court, in 2006 and 2008; they were re-introduced in 2009, by President Obama).

Obaidullah, from Khost (ISN 762) 14 years in detention

In July 2002, a ‘walk in’ source, ie a previously unknown informant, told US forces in Khost that Obaidullah was a member of an al-Qaeda bomb-making cell. They raided the shopkeeper’s house and found two dozen anti-tank shells buried on his land which Obaidullah said had been left by PDPA communist government forces in the 1980s. They also found a notebook with bomb-making instructions on Obaidullah’s person. He has given various explanations for this and one interrogator, at least, said Obaidullah did not understand what was written there. However, this remained the strongest piece of evidence against him. Every other piece of evidence, however, has had to be discounted or seriously questioned.

Much of the case against him is made up of his own testimony: under interrogation, he had admitted to being a member of al-Qaeda and also implicated several other men, notably Bostan Karim, his former business partner, who is still in Guantanamo, but also cleared for transfer (all other members of the alleged cell were released years ago). Obaidullah withdrew both confession at the first chance he had to speak publically, at a military review board in 2004, saying he had spoken under torture:

When the Americans captured me… they began punishing me. They put a knife to my throat, tied my hands and put sandbags on my arms. At the airport in Khost I was walked around all night with the sandbags on my arms. They took me to Bagram where the interrogation and punishment increased. I was very young at that time, so whatever they said, I agreed to.

Obaidullah’s testimony is consistent with reports by human rights groups, the media and official US investigations looking into CIA and US interrogations in Khost and Bagram at this time. (7) The US state chose to drop his confession as evidence, rather than contest the accusation of torture in court during Obaidullah’s petition for habeas corpus.

In Obaidullah’s petition for habeas corpus, judges ruling on his petition and its numerous appeals accepted the state’s accusations, even as much of its evidence fell away, shown to be questionable or wrong. Most significantly, the judges did not question the assertion that Obaidullah was a member of al-Qaeda. This was critical as a ‘freelance insurgent’ would not be covered by the US president’s legal authority to detain. Instead, judges deemed retrospectively that the walk-in source’s original accusation that Obaidullah was al-Qaeda must have been correct because his tip-off had led to the note book and anti-tank mines being found on Obaidullah’s property. That informant was the lynch pin on which the state’s case against Obaidullah rested. Obaidullah tried to discover his identity and whether the US paid him money for the information. However, the courts accepted the government’s stance that information about this source is too sensitive for even Obaidullah’s security-cleared counsel to read.

Obaidullah appeared at most to have been a low-level insurgent; if he had been captured a few years later, he would have been sent to Bagram, or even let off with a guarantee from elders for good behaviour. The rationale for holding him in the high security detention camp in Cuba was never apparent.

Mohammad Kamin, from Khost (ISN 1045) 13 years in detention

A dispatch about this case was published after the Periodic Review Board recommended his transfer from Guantanamo (in September 2015).

US documents said that Kamin, a 25 year old imam, was detained in Khost city on 14 May 2003. They do not specify who captured him, but from court documents, it seems he was probably picked up by Afghan forces who may have beaten him prior to US interrogation (the most likely force would have been the then 25th Division of the army, which was made up of former PDPA communists from Kamin’s home area – it still operates, as the Khost Protection Force under CIA command). Kamin was allegedly detained with a GPS device which had grid points for the Afghan/Pakistan border stored on it. If he did possess this GPS, the evidentiary chain is missing.

The US accused Kamin of being a member of, or affiliated to, five different terrorist groups, Afghan, Arab and Pakistani: “Al-Qaida, the North African Extremist Network (NAEN), Taliban, and Jayshe-Mohammed (JEM) terrorist Organizations and leaders; furthermore detainee has admitted ties to the Harakat ul-Mujahidin (HUM).” NAEN is not an actual group; it only exists as a US intelligence acronym. Such lists are common in detainees’ files, although nowhere does the US explain why or how one man could be affiliated with so many groups. Like Obaidullah, Kamin was supposed to have been working with the al Qaeda commander, Abu Leith al-Libbi. Looking through his documents, however, it becomes apparent that, apart from the alleged GPS device and his possession of a model of watch which is used in bomb-making – and which is also a global best-seller (the Casio F_91W), all the allegations against him come only from his own testimony. He was never accused of any actual attack. 

Hamidullah, from Kabul (ISN 1119) 13 years in detention

The case against Hamidullah was always one of the strangest of all: he was accused of working as a terrorist with multiple Afghan factions, including ones which are enemies of each other, and of working with the “extremists” of Mahaz-e Milli (the National Islamic Front). Derided as being Westernised ‘Gucci guerrillas’ by its Islamist rivals, the monarchist Mahaz was famously the most moderate mujahedin group and laid down its arms in 1992. Many of Hamidullah’s alleged co-conspirators are pro-US intervention, establishment figures, either pro-government or members of the government. Hamidullah is accused, among other things, of scheming to bring back the former king, although the US does not explain why this should be controversial or require his removal to Cuba.

His documents are littered with gross factual errors and misunderstandings, with dates, factions, alliances and whole countries wrong. Moreover, like all three of the Afghans now released, he is accused only of planning attacks or meeting alleged co-conspirators, not of carrying out any actual attack. Explanation for his detention, however, is clear. He actually comes from a prominent Hizb-e Islami family in Kabul. When Hezb-e Islami’s historical enemy, Jamiat-e Islami, the dominant force in the Northern Alliance, captured Kabul after the fall of the Taleban, it took control of the security ministries, including the intelligence agency, the NDS. Hamidullah’s detention, made in 2003 by Afghan forces then under Jamiat control, looks to have been motivated by factional enmity. Less clear, however, is why a series of military boards over many years did not realise how absurd the accusations were against him or question a case riven with factual errors. A Periodic Review Board did, however, reveal in 2016 that it was the NDS which had asserted his links with extremists. His main enemy, his lawyer contended, had not been America, but “the Northern Alliance.”

(1) Men from 49 nationalities have been held in Guantanamo. The largest contingents have been Afghans (220), Saudis (135), Yemenis (115) and Pakistanis (72).

(2) They were: Inayatullah, ISN 10028, a 37 year old who committed suicide in 2011, Abdul Razzaq Hekmati, who died of cancer on 30 December 2007, and Awal Gul, who died on 2 February 2011 after exercising.

(3) Martine Van Bijlert ‘Unruly Commanders and Violent Power Struggles: Taliban Networks in Uruzgan’, Chapter 7 in Antonio Giustozzi (ed) Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field, Columbia University Press/Hurst, 2009.

(4) Alex Strick Van Linschoten And Felix Kuehn, An Enemy We Created: the Myth of the Taliban-Al Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan, 1970–2010, Hurst, 2010.

(5) Anand Gopal, No Good Men Among the Living Men: American, the Taliban and the War through Afghan Eyes, Metropolitan Books Henry Holt, 2014.

(6) All quotes are from 2005 from (in order) President Bush, the White House press secretary, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld. Stuart Taylor ‘Falsehoods About Guantanamo’ The Atlantic, 27 June 2005 from. The same ‘worst of the worst’ assertions were also made early on and still continue.

(7) See human rights investigations, including “‘Enduring Freedom’ Abuses by U.S. Forces in Afghanistan’”, Human Rights Watch, March 2004, and Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition’, Open Society Foundations, February 2013; and official US investigations, including, ‘United States Senate Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody’, Committee on Armed Services, 20 November 2008, and ‘Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program’, The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 12 December 2014. (the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) lists other government investigations up till 2008, ‘Research Brief: Selected examples of Defence, Intelligence and Justice Investigative Reports into detention and interrogation practices’, 2 November 2008). There was also numerous press reporting, including an investigation by the author for the BBC’s ‘The World Tonight’ (audio no longer available, but cut-down text version available here: Kate Clark ‘Afghans tell of US prison ordeals’, BBC, 21 July 2005) and two reports into Khost by Craig Pyes and Kevin Sack, ‘Two Deaths Were a “Clue That Something’s Wrong”’ The Los Angeles Times, 25 September 2006, and ‘U.S. Probing Alleged Abuse of Afghans’, The Los Angeles Times, 21 September 2004.

(8) Kamin was charged with “providing material support to terrorism” in March 2008. Charges were dropped, without prejudice, on 11 December 2009 and were not re-filed. The charge of ‘providing material support to terrorism’ was thrown out as non-indictable in a 2012 ruling by an Appeals court which said it was not a war crime and new laws could not retrospectively punish actions not illegal at the time.

The Taleban’s recent takeover of both Qala-ye Zal and Dasht-e Archi’s district centres is the latest episode in the long-running battle for possession of Kunduz province. It follows the spectacular takeover of Kunduz’s provincial centre by insurgents in late September 2015, the hard-won recapture by pro-government forces two weeks later and the government’s unsuccessful counter-offensive in the province’s districts. Lola Cecchinel, a regular AAN guest author, examines the Taleban’s latest gains and the dismantling of government structures outside of the provincial capital (with contributions by Thomas Ruttig and Obaid Ali).

Two of Kunduz’s district centres, those of Qala-ye Zal and Dasht-e Archi, fell to the Taleban once again on 20 July 2016. In Qala-ye Zal, the government temporarily retreated to a local teacher training college in the village of Aqtepa while the administration centre itself was held by the Taleban until 8 August 2016. The Taleban then also overran the district’s security headquarters. With the local government officials still trapped in the training centre, the Taleban is effectively in charge of the district.

In Dasht-e Archi, government officials retreated to an area in Qarloq village, which had, until then, been a government stronghold. As almost all the district’s officials hail from Qarloq, most local pro-government and Afghan Local Police (ALP) forces are concentrated here to protect them. The other part of Qarloq is under Taleban control. There are occasional exchanges of fire, including with heavy artillery, which mostly affect civilians and damage buildings. Most residents have now fled the district centre.

Furthermore, on 4 August 2016, the Taleban launched an attack on Emam Saheb district, which lies on Tajikistan’s border. This district had remained quiet since the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) recaptured it in their late September offensive. District governor Emamuddin Quraishi warned that if no reinforcements were sent, the district would fall once again. The Afghan press reported that the following day, an Afghan Air Force strike killed dozens of Taleban.

Of the remaining districts, Chahrdara, to the south of Qala-ye Zal, is still “ninety per cent” controlled by insurgents, District Governor Zalmay Faruqi told the author. Khanabad, to the east of Kunduz city, is caught between the Taleban, local militias and the ANSF. On 17 July 2016, four members of a peace jirga were killed in a fight not far from the Khanabad road. For now, of all the districts in Kunduz, only Aliabad in the southeast of the province had not come under an outright attack, although there has been a strong Taleban presence in all areas to the west of the river. Regular Taleban incursions have also taken place on the main road connecting Baghlan and Kunduz via Aliabad (as illustrated by the mass kidnapping on 31 May 2016).

District centre attacks and takeovers are, it seems, no longer newsworthy. They have happened before, and more than once. Dasht-e Archi and Chahrdara districts fell once to the Taleban in June 2015, and again during the Taleban capture of Kunduz city. Qala-ye Zal fell for the first time then (see here and here).

The war in Kunduz did not start with the fall of the city in September 2015, however, nor did it end when its provincial capital was recaptured by government forces. Since 2008, the insurgency has been spreading its roots as divisions within society have deepened. Kunduz is currently the most vulnerable province in the Afghan North (see also AAN’s Kunduz dossier and all other dispatches since then). Since the provincial capital fell last year, Kunduz has seen more Taleban attacks on district centres than any other province in the country.

A stranded population

Life in Kunduz province is a challenge for everyone, with thousands having already been displaced due to the conflict. Before the provincial capital fell to the Taleban, many families moved from the districts to the provincial centre or to neighbouring provinces in the face of growing insecurity. As of July 2015, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre counted “36,600 people newly displaced in Kunduz province since April 2015.” As the events of late September showed, however, the city was no longer a safe place to live. OCHA reported that the escalating conflict in Kunduz led to increased and widespread displacement, with 22,400 more people displaced as of 30 April 2016. The press reported on 8 August 2016 that in Qala-ye Zal alone, over 600 families had been newly displaced.

Those who remain in the districts no longer venture into Kunduz city, the risk of traveling along the district roads is too high. In Chahrdara, where the government only controls part of the district centre, people know that, while the ANSF control the main road between 8 am and 2 pm, the Taleban have freedom of movement at all other times. While the ANSF still control the main roads between most district centres to the provincial capital, the Taleban make regular incursions to set up temporary check-posts, arrest and interrogate passengers and, as recent events show, assassinate travellers and abduct others. The same goes for many areas in and around the city, notably the Kabul-Kunduz and Kunduz-Takhar highways near Kunduz airport (situated a few kilometres outside the city) and Sar Dawra, where there is a large settlement of IDPs.

On 28 May 2016, for example, the Taleban kidnapped the provincial police’s deputy administrative officer, Wahidullah, as he was travelling along the Kunduz-Takhar highway (read short report here). He is still being held captive. The Taleban have said they will exchange him for Qari Salim, one of their main commanders captured in April this year in Dasht-e Archi. On 31 May 2016 at dawn, the Taleban abducted passengers from several buses driving through the Omarkhel area in Aliabad district (from where the provincial governor comes), at the entrance of Kunduz city, kidnapping over 50 passengers and subsequently killing over 20 of them for allegedly being identified as members of the government (read Afghan media reports here and here). On 30 July 2016, two gunmen killed Nasim Khan, the executive manager of Aliabad district, local sources told the author. The Taleban claimed responsibility for the murder.

The atmosphere in Kunduz city is tense. Local shopkeepers and passers-by continue to ply their trade, yet the threat of violence hangs over the city and its 300,000 inhabitants: residents reported feeling observed, being suspicious about neighbours or passengers in a collective taxi disclosing information, fear of being questioned by the National Directorate for Security (NDS) or the Taleban on the way back to their villages.

Several residents told the author that they restrict their and their family members’ movements in the city – praying at home instead of going to the mosque, for instance. The provincial governor’s office building in Kunduz is surprisingly empty most days; it used to have long lines of visitors waiting. Aside from security guards and office staff, the number of daily visitors is around ten people a day. The civil administration’s work has essentially ground to a halt.

A resident of Chahrdara described life as “a kind of death,” and feeling “imprisoned,” for he saw no way out of the current state of insecurity in his area. These feelings were exacerbated as rumours had spread during the month of Ramadan that the Taleban were going to launch another attack on the city after the Eid holidays. As Kunduz residents retreat behind walls of mutual distrust and are cut off from their local government, their relationship with the state is further weakened.

The government’s lost grip on Dasht-e Archi and Chahrdara

On the other hand, Kunduz’s authorities’ reach outside the city has been severely reduced. The Provincial Governor’s Office has limited access to information outside the centre, little capacity to monitor and thus to exert oversight over district administrations. The Director of the Civil Service Commission (CSC) in Kunduz, for example, reported that he could not send his staff to the districts anymore to solve issues or to monitor civil servants’ attendance. Similarly, the Directorate of Education and other departments, while still working, struggled to monitor the work of their departments in the districts.

Provincial Governor Assadullah Omarkhel, a Pashtun from the province and a former head of the Provincial High Peace Council, appointed in February 2016, confirmed this during an informal encounter: “I am supposed to be governing a whole province, but currently I am mostly stranded in the city.”

In Dasht-e Archi and Chahrdara districts, the government’s presence is merely symbolic. Even before the district fell on 20 July 2016, Archi’s district governor was rarely in his district. When the author visited the provincial governor’s office in late July, the district governor had been out of reach for several days. Civil servants stopped showing up for work and withdrew into the last government-held area in Qarloq, where most of the police forces are concentrated. A resident reported that in order to get a tazkera (national ID card), one had to visit the relevant officials in their own homes. The government has all but ceased to function in Archi.

In its place, the Taleban have established quasi-total dominance over the population, exploiting long-standing grievances of the Pashtun majority against a mafia-like Uzbek elite, who hold the important positions in the district. Dasht-e Archi comprises a majority of Pashtuns and minorities of Uzbeks and Turkmen. A group of Uzbeks and Turkmen from the Qarloq area, mainly affiliated to the Jamiat-e Islami and Jombesh parties, monopolised power and resources at the expense of Pashtuns but also members of their own ethnic groups. For years, they controlled decision-making, access to irrigation water, recruitment of the Afghan National Police and the Afghan Local Police programme as well as holding key positions, such as that of district governor or police chief. This created tensions between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots.’

These tensions were exacerbated by widespread discriminatory practices, corruption and client-patron relationships that characterised the local administration. (2) As a result, as the ALP chief put it, “the people reject the government as a whole.” Meanwhile, most regular and ALP policemen have abandoned their posts. According to ALP Chief Mullah Akhtar, they sell their weapons and ammunition to the Taleban shadow district governor, who, he says, has set up a weapons-trading business between Archi and Helmand, (3) the most important battleground for the Taleban in the south of the country. This makes Archi the most fertile breeding and training ground for the Taleban in the Afghan north.

Today, the district is the military operational base for insurgents in Kunduz. Most shadow governors and commanders operating in the north hail from Archi, while foreign fighters under Taleban command use it as a rear-base for their operations elsewhere in the province. A series of government and allied US forces operations have done little to change things, although they have managed to deal a few blows to the local insurgents’ leadership. For example, according to the district governor, a shadow district governor was killed (but quickly replaced) in November 2015, several commanders were arrested during night raids in April 2016, and US Special Forces have carried out a series of drone attacks in Archi since the beginning of the spring.

In Chahrdara district, another insurgent hotbed since 2008, the Taleban have established a fully-functioning parallel administration. They have set up offices in the Nawabad area to the west of the district centre, in concrete buildings and assigned full-time clerks to respond to people’s demands. They use laptops, printers and fingerprint scans, all captured during their temporary takeover of Kunduz. Ironically, Nawabad is where the US Special Forces used to have a base – which the Taleban now use – and where they used to train local ALP units. They reportedly handle cases and issue decisions swiftly, in contrast with the government’s slow, bureaucratic and corrupt administration.

Breakdown of government services

Worsening security has affected the overall provision of government services to the local population, particularly in education and health. Schools have been used as bases by the Taleban as well as by government forces during the fighting, such as Abdul Fatah Shahid High School in Chahrdara, which remained closed for several days; other have been fully destroyed, have closed down or are now completely under Taleban supervision. (4) In Chahrdara and Archi, schools are still open except where there is fighting nearby. There, the Taleban monitor the attendance of teachers, modify the curriculum and preach anti-government messages to students, according to a report by the local German-supported NGO, Mediothek Afghanistan, published in December 2015 also confirmed by the author’s sources. One teacher in Emam Saheb told AAN that the Taleban had asked education department officials to take part in a discussion about girls’ schools. Media sources and Human Rights Watch have also reported that the Taleban have increasingly recruited fighters from among public school pupils and madrasa students (see media report here; and HRW report here).

Health facilities have been similarly targeted, the most notable event being the bombing of the MSF trauma centre in Kunduz city by US airstrikes on 3 October 2015 (see the latest of a series of AAN analysis here). Currently, Kunduz’s regional hospital is overcrowded with patients from all districts flocking to the centre to get emergency healthcare; however it does not have the capacity to treat them all.

Although various NGOs – including the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan and the Norwegian Refugee Council – have managed to keep their operations running in the province, they are struggling to access people in the most insecure districts, where ongoing fighting disrupts the delivery of humanitarian assistance. Most donor programmes, however, such as those run by USAID or the German government’s development agency (GIZ), shut down long ago when security began to deteriorate within the city.

If some level of education and health services is still provided, people face greater risks in accessing them. As a female resident of Archi told the author in May 2016: “People face many barriers in receiving humanitarian assistance because of insecurity. They cannot move from one area to another because the Taleban create problems for them.” (5)

Kunduz’s power (im)balance

Omarkhel’s room for manoeuvre on other urgent matters, such as reconstruction, is fairly limited. Donor and NGO projects have stalled. In an interview with the author on 16 July 2016 he lamented the lack of resources: “We will take anything you can do to help us, even if it’s a single bullet or a single brick.”

The district governors are just as helpless or incapable. Most have been in their positions for many years (the only new face being the governor of Aliabad, Hayatullah Faqiryar). They form an integral part of a system of poor governance and, as such, are perpetuating the very dynamics, which have distanced people from the state and pushed them closer to the insurgents: corruption, patronage and discrimination.

When the author sat with all but one of Kunduz’s district governors in July 2016 to ask about priorities in their districts, they listed government offices that needed building, equipment and stationary that needed to be bought and development projects that needed launching. Accustomed to ever-available and unconditional funding for security, development and governance by the international community in the province (which itself has added to problems), their incentives for addressing the root causes of instability are limited. They are certainly not commanded to do so by the government in Kabul, which is perceived as either turning a blind eye to the problems of people in Kunduz, or willingly fostering instability in the province.

Provincial and district governors are operating in survival mode, as are local policemen, community council members and even civil society and the media in Kunduz. As confirmed by Afghan NGO sources, journalists in Kunduz received money from public authorities in exchange for publishing positive – and sometimes incorrect – reports about the government. Not only this, they have been threatened by security and other officials as well as local strongmen not to report abuses or human rights violations that have occurred during military operations, for instance.

If someone tries to break the cycle of patronage and corruption, they are pushed out of the system. One good example is former provincial governor Omar Safi. He was the first provincial governor to be appointed by President Ashraf Ghani in December 2014 in a gesture signifying Kunduz was to be a priority, and an example of the change in the way provinces were to be run. Safi was continually undermined, however, by local office holders and their patrons in Kabul, including in his efforts to disband militias in the province. His deputy, Hamdullah Daneshi, a Jamiati who has retained his position for 13 years (indicating strong support from Kabul), has been a staunch supporter of militias in Kunduz. As he said in an interview published in June 2015, they prevented the province from falling back into the hands of the Taleban, an opinion shared by his former mujahedin compatriots (see also this AAN analysis). Ghani was eventually forced to drop Omar, also due to political pressure and rumours that Safi had fled (more in this AAN analysis).

Khanabad’s current district governor, Hayatullah Amiri (the son of famous commander Amir Muhammad Chugha) (6), initiated a process of disarmament of militias in 2015. The Afghan National Army began to dismantle illegally armed group checkpoints in the city, and militiamen were called to the centre to lay down their weapons. However, some of these groups’ commanders then pulled connections in the Ministry of Defence in Kabul and the process was stopped. Amiri’s predecessor, Nezamudin Nasher, who served between 2010 and 2012 and who hails from the famous and influential family of the founders of the originally Kunduz-based and now countrywide textile company Spinzar –publicly accused then-provincial governor Engineer Muhammad Omar of corruption. (7) He also ensured that local militia commanders such as Muhammad Omar Pakhsaparan and Mir Alam – the latter controls a large militia network in the province – were no longer able to access the district centre, in order to enhance citizens’ safety. Nasher was targeted in a car bomb attack in Kunduz city in July 2012 and injured. The background of this attack was never publicly clarified, but Nasher fled to Europe. (More background on Kunduz’s militia networks in this AAN dispatch and this AAN report)

A number of these governance problems were highlighted in a government-commissioned fact-finding report published in November 2015, following the Taleban’s temporary takeover of the city. (8) Alongside security issues, it highlighted a number of key governance issues for the government to tackle, including a) neutralising the influence of the ‘grey government’ in Kunduz (ie of ‘powerbrokers’(mostly former Jihadi commanders), who play a crucial role in politics, the security sector and the informal economy); b) ensuring provincial governors have the authority and capacity to respond to people’s expectations; c) resolving historical frictions which have deeply divided society in Kunduz, and d) ensuring the representation of all groups in the appointment of provincial-level officials as well as merit-based recruitment among the pool of qualified Kunduz candidates. (See AAN’s look at the report here). Candidates had even been identified by the government – or more precisely, by President Ashraf Ghani – hence Safi’s appointment. However, he was thwarted by the very structures he was supposed to reform. His successor Omarkhel has been even less able to sidestep the province’s patronage networks, as he is deeply engrained in them himself. (9) As a result, the initiative has been left to the Taleban to shape the course of events in the province.

Military operations without governance reforms

Kunduz’s recent history has shown that successive military offensives (ANSF-led, with or without the support of US Special Forces or militias recruited to swell the ranks of the ANSF) have not resulted in a viable solution to the structural crisis in the province that has been unfolding for the past ten years. This has been exacerbated by the failure to couple them with decisive changes in the distribution of power in the province (as highlighted in this 2013 AAN report, “Local Afghan Power Structures and the International Military Intervention“). The unchallenged patronage networks are one of the deep-rooted drivers of conflict that have bolstered the insurrection since 2008. Safi’s removal from office is a further setback to such efforts.

This time again, despite considerable efforts by the ANSF, the Taleban have only been pushed back temporarily. Although they have not succeeded in repeating their 2015 success, their July 2016 operations in Dasht-e Archi, Chahrdara and Emam Saheb have shown their resilience and ability in not only inflicting losses on the government but also on recapturing lost territory, including district centres. Their hold on extended rural areas is a key feature of that resilience. In the context of this deep and complex crisis, it is unrealistic to expect that the local government alone could tackle what amounts to a state of paralysis in Kunduz.

(1) There are contradicting reports about where the set up of these districts stands. IDLG sources told the author in early July that district governors had been appointed, the location of the district centres decided and borders defined. Sources in the Kunduz provincial government, however, said this was on paper only because the areas of the districts-to-be were inaccessible to the government. Neither did they know anything about the appointment of district governors.

(2) The current district governor of Dasht-e Archi, Nasruddin Saidi, for example, has taken over from his father, late Sheikh Sadruddin, a former jihadi commander linked to Jamiat who was killed in 2013. The new district governor of Aliabad, Hayatullah Faqiryar – mentioned further down in the text – is the son of a former Jamiat commander. Both are young, inexperienced and unable to command the respect of local elders.

(3) This weapons trade is likely part of a much larger system, involving US, Russian-made and other weapons. US weapons that fell to the Taleban during the takeover of Kunduz in 2015 and elsewhere, when disarming or trading with the ALP and possibly other pro-government units, are redistributed among the Taleban with their changing structure (made up of special units and forces, see this AAN analysis). For Russian-made weapons, the main supply route is through Emam Saheb and Badakhshan province. Through these areas, large amounts of weapons and ammunition are supplied to other parts of the country, including by pro-government commanders (see for example this media report). At the same time, it is doubtful whether the Kunduz insurgency would contribute large amounts of weapons to the fronts in Helmand, since the battlegrounds in the northeast, particularly in Kunduz and Baghlan, are big and in need of lots of ammunition and military hardware themselves.

(4) For 2015, UNAMA and UNICEF documented the highest number of such incidents for Kunduz province: military use of 15 schools by pro-government forces affected 6,680 students (3,980 boys and 2,700 girls).

(5) This quote comes from an in-depth interview conducted by ATR consulting under an NGO-commissioned assessment of humanitarian needs in Kunduz province, 2016, in which the author participated.

(6) Amir Muhammad Chugha (sometimes also: Chughay) from Khanabad district was one of the most powerful commanders in the province during the war against the Soviets. He was linked to Sayyaf’s Ittehad-e Islami party (now renamed Dawat-e Islami) and was killed in 1994.

(7) Eng. Omar was assassinated in an unrelated attack in October 2010.

(8) The fact-finding delegation investigated the reasons behind the fall of the city between 11 and 30 October 2015. The report was handed to the National Security Council on 21 November 2015. Only a summary was released to the public.

(9) Omarkhel is the leader of Sayyaf’s Dawat-e Islami party in the northeastern region.

The Taleban have made significant inroads in a number of strategic areas in the northern province of Baghlan over the past two years. They now pose a greater threat than ever to the Baghlan-Balkh highway, part of the Ring Road which here links Kabul to the north. The Taleban know that by blocking highways, they can effectively undermine the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), both psychologically and physically. In response, the ANSF have conducted several military operations, beginning in late 2015 and continuing throughout 2016. AAN’s Obaid Ali examines the current security situation along this crucial highway, while also looking at the insurgents’ shift in tactics and the impact of ANSF operations. One such operation resulted in the displacement of hundreds of families and the erosion of local communities’ trust in the government.

In May 2016, the Taleban established a check post in Chashma-ye Shir, an area located directly to the east of the Baghlan-Balkh highway and only a few kilometres northwest of the provincial capital, Pul-e Khumri. Since then, the group have searched vehicles in order to capture ANSF service members. In the past few years, the area has been an important foothold for the Taleban. Its strategic location connects the contested areas of Dand-e Ghori (AAN analysis of 2015 developments here) and Dand-e Shahabuddin, through which this important highway passes.

The Baghlan-Balkh highway, which forms part of the important Ring Road connecting the north to the west of the country, is a vital transit route between Pul-e Khumri and the northwestern provinces of Samangan, Balkh, Jawzjan, Sar-e Pul and Faryab. The Taleban have strived for some time to increase their presence along this arterial route, particularly following the fall of Kunduz in late September 2015.

The roads connecting Baghlan to Samangan and Kunduz are especially important to the ANSF. They use these for transporting military equipment, ammunition and reinforcements in their attempts to secure the increasingly insecure provinces of the north, and, in particular, the northeast. Having understood the importance of these routes, the Taleban have started to close in on the Baghlan-Balkh highway by establishing mobile checkpoints in their search for members of the ANSF, as well as to establish a permanent presence in the area. The increased Taleban presence in Chashma-ye Shir has enabled them to monitor the highway more closely, which locals see as a first step towards taking complete control of this section of the highway.

Dand-e Ghori: between the ANSF and the Taleban

Dand-e Ghori is a Pashtun-dominated area of around 60 to 70 villages to the northwest of Pul-e Khumri, where the ANSF have always struggled to retain control. After the Taleban announced their so-called spring offensive in 2015, they began attacking the ANSF in Baghlan with Dand-e Ghori as their initial target. Local support for the insurgency in some of the villages and limited ANSF manpower put the government forces at a disadvantage. The insurgents, on the other hand, were able to move around the area freely.

In September 2015, Dand-e Ghori fell to the Taleban and remained under their control for five months (see report here). In January 2016, the ANSF conducted a large-scale operation to clear the area. On 6 March 2016, they managed to repel the Taleban and retake control. However, a day after the ANSF left Dand-e Ghori, handing over responsibility to local forces – an Afghan Local Police (ALP) unit led by Mullah Alam, a former commander of Hezb-e Islami-ye Afghanistan, from the Ahmadzai tribe of Dand-e Ghori – the Taleban conducted a counter-offensive. They re-took Dand-e Ghori within a day.

The impact of ANSF operations on civilians

The ANSF operation in Dand-e Ghori, termed Khurshid 20, while having no lasting impact on the security situation in Baghlan, had significant, negative repercussions on the lives of the local civilian population caught up in the fighting. According to Afghan media reports, more than 1,500 families had to leave Dand-e Ghori and neighbouring Dahna-ye Ghori district as a result of the operations (see here and here). The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Kabul reported that the number of officially registered IDPs for these two locations still exceeded 5,000 families as of mid-June 2016 – indicating that the displacement was not restricted to the period of the operations. UNAMA also highlighted this displacement in its civilian casualty report, citing “new patterns of displacement in Baghlan province,” with “more than 32,500 individuals displaced by the fighting in Dand-e-Ghori and Dand-e-Shahabuddin by the beginning of 2016.”

Civil society representatives and local elders had earlier accused the government of failing to protect Dand-e Ghori, which had been considered ‘cleared’ in March 2016. Atef Arefyan, a civil society representative, told AAN “the ANSF has not pursued the insurgents in their hiding places.” He said the Taleban fled to Bibi Ghahwara in March 2016, an area about 15 kilometres northwest of Dand-e Ghori in the direction of Samangan, but the ANSF had not even tried to challenge them there. He was referring to the fact that, after the operations, the ANSF handed over responsibility for securing the area to Mullah Alam’s ALP unit, without taking any other action to protect the area. Furthermore, Arefyan pointed out, it was impossible for a 200-person ALP unit to secure this vulnerable area of mostly Pashtun villages (some of the Taleban are also from the area – notably, the shadow governor of Baghlan, Mullah Helal.) Local elders also doubted the ALP’s ability to protect the area. One of them told AAN “the ALP and the anti-Taleban uprising group are not sufficient to defeat the Taleban [in our area],” adding that “the shortage of ammunition, the lack of modern weapons as well as the influence of powerbrokers for personal gains are the reasons that have prevented the ALP from protecting the area successfully against the Taleban.”

According to video evidence made available to AAN, many ALP fighters surrendered to the Taleban when they counter-attacked the day after the ANSF left Dand-e Ghori. Some laid down their weapons and returned home, while others joined the Taleban outright. According to a Taleban source at the ALP base in Qala-ye Khoja, around 40 local police under the command of Rais Faiz surrendered to the insurgency.

 In light of these developments and the accusations made against the government, emotions have been running high among the local population. Many cannot understand why the government is unable to protect them or at least to make an attempt to do so. Ahmadzai, a local tribal elder, told AAN that he thinks discrimination is behind this approach, echoing what many local Pashtuns say about the Tajik-dominated provincial government: “The local government intentionally does not want to ensure stability in Pashtun-dominated areas; instead they want to shut down schools and health clinics and make a battleground out of Dand-e Ghori. (…) If the government really wanted to maintain stability in Dand-e Ghori, it would have established [permanent] military bases to protect the cleared areas.”

Government officials, however, portrayed the collapse of Dand-e Ghori as a result of not having enough ANSF personnel to maintain permanent bases there. Mahmud Haqmal, the spokesman for the Baghlan governor, tried to defend the government’s position by pointing out that, “the ANSF has the responsibility to conduct operations in other parts of the country, [too]. That is why, after the clearance operations in Dand-e Ghori, the ANSF deployed to other contested areas.” However, the police chief also admitted that the security forces, even when in the area, could not effectively fight the Taleban due to shortages of equipment and weak morale after sustaining heavy losses in the area. Nur Habib Golbahari, Baghlan’s Chief of Police, claimed that security forces, after having to fight in Burka, Nehrin, Baghlan-e Jadid and Dand-e Ghori districts, were “tired of fighting.”

Regardless of the reasons, the ANSF have been unable to secure the area permanently. Accusations by local elders against the ANSF and the government, as well as a lack of solutions on how to address current challenges, are exacerbating local communities’ existing frustrations. Their reactions to these accusations, in turn, signal that few, if any, improvements will be made in the near future. Indeed, the Taleban appear to have set their sights on extending their control along the crucial Baghlan-Balkh highway.

The Taleban closing in on the highway

The Taleban have been trying to intimidate people travelling along the Baghlan-Balkh highway since late 2015. Holding onto earlier territorial gains, they continued attacking ANSF check-posts along the highway and slowly expanded their grip over more territory, such as Bagh-e Shamal, some five kilometres to the north of Pul-e Khumri, and around Surkh Kotal.

Ahead of the Taleban completely capturing Chashma-ye Shir in May 2016, they had already established a mobile checkpoint there during daylight hours and searching of vehicles for ANSF service members has first been reported in October 2015. In December 2015, the Taleban attacked the vehicle of General Hessamuddin Haqbin, former head of the Hairatan port in Balkh province and a prominent local figure. Haqbin himself was seriously injured, as were three other passengers. His bodyguard was killed. According to an Afghan media report, in that month alone, there were three major attacks on this part of the Baghlan-Balkh highway.

As a result of this increase in attacks, local residents and provincial council members called on the National Unity Government to do more to improve security along this section of the Baghlan-Balkh highway. It took a few months, however, before the government finally took action. It was only following the locals’ protests (and several smaller operations in Dand-e Ghori and Dand-e Shahabuddin in the first months of 2016), that the ANSF conducted several counter-offensives to repel the Taleban from the highway. To date, they have yet to produce any substantial or lasting outcome. After the counter-offensives, the ANSF only managed to secure the highway during the day, between 8 am and 6 pm, by establishing mobile check-posts along the highway. The Taleban, however, have meanwhile further bolstered their presence. They overran strategic bases close to the highway, such as Surkh Kotal, as well as areas around Pul-e Khumri.

According to provincial council members, by the beginning of May 2016, Chashma-ye Shir was entirely under Taleban control. They were now regularly searching vehicles for ANSF personnel and government officials.

The siege of Surkh Kotal

Another nerve centre is Surkh Kotal, located eight kilometres to the northwest of Pul-e Khumri, a pass known for its nearby archaeological site, the ruins of a terraced Zoroastrian fire temple. This area is predominately inhabited by Hazaras, who suffered abuses at the hands of the Taleban prior to 2001. In 2015, possibly in an attempt to pre-empt fighting in their area, community elders from villages around Surkh Kotal entered into a ceasefire deal with the local insurgency under the following conditions: local communities would pay taxes to the Taleban, grant them unhindered passage through the area and provide them food when requested – in exchange for the insurgents promising not to fight in the Surkh Kotal area (see AAN’s previous report here). The deal fell apart, however, in January 2016, when the local Hazara communities supported the ANSF military operations against the Taleban in Dand-e Ghori.

As a consequence, the Taleban attacked Surkh Kotal village on 14 May 2016 in an attempt to capture it and eliminate the newly-established, local anti-Taleban militia unit known as khezesh-e mardomi (Dari for ‘people’s uprising’). This group, like so many similar ones established over the past few years, is supported by the National Directorate of Security (NDS) with weapons, money and logistics (see short report here and also AAN’s dispatches on NDS supporting anti-Taleban uprising groups in Ghazni here and here). Apart from the local anti-Taleban militia, there was also a small Afghan Local Police (ALP) unit of about 20 men established in 2012 and supported by the Ministry of Interior.

Despite the different origins and sources of support, both groups are led by local commander Juma Din Mubarez, a prominent former jihadi commander of Hezb-e Wahdat-e Islami Afghanistan, a Hazara party led by former vice president Muhammad Karim Khalili. This commander and his relatively small number of men had to stand against a large group of Taleban fighters (mainly local men from Dand-e Ghori and Dand-e Shahabuddin) in mid-May 2016, when the insurgents attacked Surkh Kotal village from different directions. The anti-Taleban uprising group and the ALP initially tried to hold their ground and fought hard before Mubarez and his men were finally forced to flee. They retreated to a strategic elevated post located a few hundred metres away, known – for some reason – as Tapa-ye Germanha (‘Hill of Germans’) (1), which is now the base of a Ministry of Interior sub-unit tasked with the protection of the historical site. As such, the unit only consists of a few policemen not formally trained to engage the insurgency.

Unlike past confrontations, when the Taleban allowed pro-government forces to leave the area without pursuit, the Taleban unexpectedly followed Mubarez and his men to Tapa-ye Germanha where they besieged them, as well as the special MoI police unit based there. Hostilities between the two camps lasted for a week. Intensive fighting took place until 23 May 2016, when some of the men from Mubarez’s group and the special police unit managed to escape, driven by the fear that they might eventually be killed if they were captured.

While these pro-government forces were fighting for their lives, the local government in Baghlan issued a controversial statement. On 18 May 2016, provincial governor Abdul Satar Barez claimed that security forces had rescued the fighters who had been besieged (read report here and here). However, on 24 May 2016, Juma Din Mubarez, the commander of the forces who fled to Tapa-ye Germanha, said that the Taleban had still been in control of the hill when he and his men escaped on 23 May 2016. Furthermore, Mubarez noted that the besieged forces had received neither reinforcements nor logistical support from the provincial government at any time (see more here).

Speaking to AAN, Baghlan’s governor’s spokesman Haqmal admitted, “The local government could not deploy reinforcements.” He claimed that the Taleban had planted roadside mines and thus “prevented us from rescuing those besieged security forces.” Local community members largely saw this as an excuse, as there had been no reports of mined roads. It was obvious, however, that provincial government did not have the manpower to deploy reinforcements; the ANSF were engaged in battle against the Taleban in Dand-e Shahabuddin and Baghlan-e Jadid district at the time.

Consequences of Surkh Kotal falling to the Taleban

After all the pro-government forces finally managed to escape, the insurgents established control over Tapa-ye Germanha, a strategic position given it overlooks Surkh Kotal. They have continued to use it as a key location from which they could expand their influence in the area. For example, from there, they could target the highway more effectively as they now had virtually unrestricted access to the now unprotected security check posts along the Baghlan-Balkh highway.

Map of the Northwest of Baghlan Province with the location of Surkh Kotal marked in yellow – the province of Samangan is located to the west and the district of Chahrdara of Kunduz to the north.

The Taleban’s presence in Surkh Kotal also connects the insurgency fronts of western Baghlan province to the ones in the north of Pul-e Khumri, the adjoining Baghlan-e Jadid district and all the way to the restive Chahrdara district in Kunduz province, which is located to the north of Baghlan. The Taleban have had ample opportunity to consolidate their military fronts and supply routes. The insurgents were also to strengthen their strategic position in the wider northeastern region with a better interconnected and secured supply route system. The expansion of the Taleban’s network has also resulted in the potential for the ANSF’s supply routes coming under threat or being cut off – in particular preventing reinforcements from being deployed to areas under insurgency attack, as seen in the case of Kunduz in early October 2015.

Although the ANSF managed to repel the Taleban from Surkh Kotal and retake control of the position on 17 June 2016, this success for the ANSF has probably done little to reverse the Taleban’s gains. Their presence along the highway and around the provincial centre remains a challenge for the ANSF in Baghlan as seen on 14 August 2016 when the Taleban managed to overrun the district centre of Dahna-e Ghori. According to local officials, after serious clashes with the insurgents, the ANSF had to retreat and the Taleban gained control of the district centre.  

Outlook for situation in Baghlan

Since early 2016, Taleban activities in Baghlan have created the impression among local residents that they are preparing for a large-scale assault, not only on the Baghlan-Balkh highway, but also on the province’s centre. Even if such an attack does not take place, their presence in the areas along the Baghlan-Balkh highway as well as close to Pul-e Khumri constitutes a serious threat to the government. According to civil society representatives, the Taleban are currently engaged in collecting ushr (equal to a tenth of a harvest’s yield) from local farmers. This likely explains the current lull in their operations. Unlike before, the Taleban are not only taxing farmers, but also traders and local businessmen. One local businessman told AAN that, for a truck of watermelons coming from areas under Taleban control, he has to pay around 13,000 Afghanis (about 200 US dollars) to the local Taleban commander. The increased income from ushr and other such taxes, help finance the insurgents’ expenses locally as well as bolstering their war chest. This makes them less dependent on the central Taleban leadership to provide them with resources to launch attacks.

The recent flare up of Taleban activity in Kunduz province (AAN dispatch on the Kunduz situation is forthcoming) has further raised concerns among the local population. These developments leave local communities fearful of what is to come.

The latest quarterly report of the Special Inspector of the [US] Government for Afghan Reconstruction (better known for his acronym SIGAR) cites Baghlan as one of the Taleban’s current focal areas.

Beyond the security trends specific to the area, there have been other disquieting developments in Baghlan province as a whole, which seem to indicate a strategic shift in dynamics between the insurgency and the ANSF, with the Taleban ensuring they maintain control, rather than just making territorial gains along the Baghlan-Balkh highway. They achieve this by persistently disrupting security along this vital transport route. Then they connect the areas they occupy (from Dahna-ye Ghori through Dand-e Ghori and Dand-e Shahabuddin to Baghlan-e Jadid towards Chahrdara district of Kunduz province), thereby creating a larger, cross-provincial area of control. This enables them to deploy reinforcements between the east and west of Baghlan, and likewise to and from Kunduz.

The negative effects of the ANSF’s inconsequential clearance operations and their failure to establish a presence in the area has undermined locals’ trust in both the government and the ANSF. This could pose a serious challenge if at some point they need the local population’s support to oust the Taleban. Their trust will be particularly necessary if the government continues to rely on the ALP and other groups to form the backbone of its local security strategy. Prospects for improved security in Baghlan in the second half of 2016 remain as bleak as they were during the first half, especially after the fall of Dahna-ye Ghori on 14 August 2016, the first district to fall into Taleban hands in Baghlan province since 2001.  Worsening security would mostly affect the local civilian population, but also threatens the many seeking to travel or transport goods to and from the northwest. One of the country’s main communication routes remains at risk.

Edited by Lenny Linke, Thomas Ruttig and Kate Clark

(1) This cannot be because of recent German presence, as the area had no German PRT outpost. Locals say that under the reign of Emperor Kanishka the Great (circa 124-140 AD) during the Kushan dynasty, ‘Germans’ were based there. This is a subject for further research…

When the Balkan corridor closed in March 2016, Afghans trying to reach Europe found themselves stranded, once again at the mercy of smugglers’ networks. Many are still slowly making their way towards the outer fringes of the European Union at the Serbian-Hungarian border. Almost everyone transits through Belgrade, which has become an important hub for the Afghan-linked smuggling networks. In this dispatch, the last in a series of three, Martine van Bijlert and Jelena Bjelica discuss the nature of these networks and describe how the situation for many Afghans currently in transit has become increasingly desperate.

Part I: The opening and closing of the Balkan corridor

Part 2: In transit through Serbia

Part 3: The re-emergence of smugglers along the Balkan route

The ‘Afghan Park’ in Belgrade

In June 2016, AAN researchers visited Belgrade in Serbia where they interviewed Afghans on their way to Europe, about their experiences as well as on the mechanics of the smugglers’ networks. The Afghan travellers were easy to find. Most spend their days in an area now referred to as the ‘Afghan Park.’ Here, they sit around on benches or on the grass, watching passers-by (while marvelling at the different breeds of dogs Belgradians walk). They stand in line for ad hoc distributions, they chat, sleep and wait for word from their smugglers.

The area is in downtown Belgrade, in the historical Savamala neighbourhood, close to the river Sava. This is where the main refugee aid organisations are active, including the Asylum Information Centre, Miksalište refugee centre and Info Park (see this second dispatch for details). The area’s epicentre lies between two small parks next to Belgrade’s central bus station. The park directly adjacent to the bus station is where many Afghan and Syrian migrants are dropped off after having crossed the Bulgarian-Serbian or Macedonian-Serbian border, often in minibuses organised by smugglers. (Some volunteers called this the ‘Syrian Park’, although Afghans, Pakistanis and people from other countries spend their days here too.) The main attraction in this park is the Info Park wooden shack, run by the philanthropic organisation Foundation B92, which provides free Wifi, a charging station for mobile phones and, increasingly, free meals and other aid.

The second park – the ‘Afghan Park’ – is situated across a busy road behind a covered parking garage in front of the University’s Faculty of Economics. The main attraction in this park seems to be a small hamburger kiosk in the corner, where smugglers hold court in the late afternoons and early evenings. The park is also the place from where onward travel to the Hungarian border is organised. According to one volunteer, Afghans arriving in Dimitrovgrad (the first city after the Bulgarian border) often ask where the ‘Afghan Park’ is. Or, in the words of one young man from Jalalabad:

I was told about the Afghan Park when I was still in Bulgaria. So when we arrived here, we just sat down and waited. A person came and asked “are you in the group of so-and-so?” We said, yes. Then he called someone and told him “they have arrived.”

Another nearby hub of activity is a telephone shop, or PCO, very much like the ones that used to operate in Pakistani and Afghan cities. The PCO appears to play an important role in the communication between migrants and the original smugglers in Afghanistan, with migrants phoning in to find out whether they are leaving or not. Two restaurants that played an important role in connecting migrants and smugglers have recently been closed (which could explain the high level of ‘open’ activity in the park).

According to a volunteer at Info Park, there has been a noted increase in the presence of smugglers in the parks since March 2016, which coincided with the closure of the Balkan corridor. (For details on the policies that led to the opening and closure of the corridor, see the first dispatch here; for an explanation of how this played out in Serbia see the second dispatch here.) “Afghans have their own networks here,” he said. “They run the smuggling for their compatriots from Belgrade to Hungary.”

Interviews by AAN showed that the networks’ reach was even wider, with most people having had every part of their journey arranged for them by smugglers residing in Afghanistan.

Routes, travels and hardships

Most of the Afghan migrants are young men who often set out alone and who are referred to as mojarad (a word usually used to describe a bachelor). By the time they arrive in Serbia, many of them have teamed up with others and are travelling in pairs or small groups. Some appeared to have been adopted by families, particularly families without young adult men of their own. This may have been for protection, but it is also possible the families meant to help the young men by allowing them to pose as relatives, so they can cross the Hungarian border, where currently only families – and very few – are let through.

Around half of the Afghans AAN spoke to (either in the park, in the adjoining streets or at the Miksalište centre) had left Afghanistan, or one of its neighbouring countries, when the Balkan route was still open, or just opening up. Most of them had taken the Aegean route, by boat from Turkey to one of the Greek islands, counting on the fact that they would be let into Macedonia and then transported by bus and train onwards into the EU. When the Balkan corridor closed in March 2016, they found themselves stranded. Most of them had been travelling for a long time when AAN spoke to them – generally between five to twelve months – and had only just managed to make their way into Serbia.

A young man from Herat who was travelling with his wife (they had lived in Iran for a long time and started their journey from Tehran) recounted:

We paid 2,000 Euros per person to come to Greece and then 2,000 Euros per person to get to Hungary. We have been travelling for eight months. … We arrived in Greece by boat; we were on the boat for seven hours. It was a boat for children to play in, not a proper one. We really gambled with our lives. Later, a boat with 60 people on it was lost. Four relatives of one of my friends died. … Three days before we arrived in Idomeni [on the Greek-Macedonian border] they closed the border to Afghans. For 20 days it was still open for Arabs, but not for us. We stayed in tents on the Greek border before we could travel on.

A couple who said they had travelled directly from Kunduz (but who had also clearly lived in Iran for several years) were similarly unlucky. (1) The young wife told AAN:

Two days after we arrived in Greece, the border with Macedonia was closed. We spent a long time in Greece, but we didn’t want to stay there. The camp was in the ‘jungle’ [ie forest or untended land]. It was in the vicinity of the capital city, but not that close. The children went to school, but there was no work for the adults. So my husband went to the city to find a smuggler. He found a Bangladeshi who spoke English. We walked for four days. We travelled from Salonika [Thessaloniki] to Macedonia, from Macedonia to Preševo [in Serbia, across the Macedonian border]. In Preševo we boarded a bus to Belgrade. We hope to go to Austria or France now.

The other people AAN spoke to had left more recently, after the closure of the Balkan corridor. Almost all of them had taken the “land route” through Bulgaria. This had been a secondary route when the Balkan corridor was still open, used by small groups of Afghans, Pakistanis and Iranians, whose journeys had been organised by compatriots residing in their countries of origin (see here). When the Balkan corridor closed, smuggling networks were already in place and able to accommodate the growing demand for travel through Bulgaria.

One Afghan family that had left from Tehran, where they had lived for the past eleven years, ended up taking both routes after they were separated at the Iranian-Turkish border. The mother, along with her daughter and son, managed to cross the border and travel onwards across the Aegean Sea. Meanwhile the father and another (adolescent) daughter were detained by the Iranian authorities. By the time they were deported back to Afghanistan, the rest of the family had already reached Germany via the Balkan corridor. Many months later, father and daughter had now finally reached Belgrade, via Iran, Turkey and Bulgaria, and were hoping to travel onwards to Germany and to join the others.

Although almost all journeys had been hard, people’s greatest complaints were regarding the behaviour of the Bulgarian police, who were said to beat migrants (2) and to go through their belongings, taking money and other valuables, even when well hidden. The aforementioned father told AAN “The police in Bulgaria were the worst. They took 250 Euros and a bracelet from my daughter. They didn’t find our phones because my daughter hid them [in her bra]. But when the police found my charger, they asked for my phone. So I gave them two very old phones.”

A young man from Herat who had been living in Tehran but had left around three months ago, had tried to get to Bulgaria several times: “Three times I was taken into Bulgaria and three times I was sent back. It’s a business – for the taxis, but also for the [Bulgarian] police. The police take our mobiles and our money. Now I don’t have a mobile anymore. They even took my notebook with all the phone numbers.” (3)

After three attempts at entering Bulgaria and another unsuccessful attempt via Greece, (4) he decided he had had enough:

I said I am not going anymore. But the smuggler persuaded me; he said “I will take you all the way to Germany.” So we went again, by truck, with about 30 people. We were dropped just before the [Bulgarian] border and walked until morning. Then we slept in the forest until night. When it was dark, we started moving again. After two or three hours we arrived at a crossroads. There was a policeman with binoculars and he saw us, he saw 30 people sitting in the forest. So the police came to get us. That night we were taken back to Turkey.

There we walked for five hours. We wanted to get a car back to Istanbul, but the ‘jello-ro’ [smuggler’s helper] said “no, we are trying it again.” We said that we had no food. He said a car would bring some. At around 23:00 a car came and brought some biscuits. We ate everything, because otherwise the [Bulgarian] police would take it. After that we walked for two hours. Then the smuggler called from Istanbul and said that it was now too late. So we walked back for two hours. We slept in the forest until the next night. Then we finally crossed the border.

A few interviewees mentioned that the behaviour of the Bulgarian police was much better in the presence of German or Austrian police officers (who had presumably been seconded to the Bulgarian border patrols). A partially disabled young man from Laghman told AAN, “It took us twelve days to get from Istanbul to Belgrade. We were deported from Bulgaria twice. The Bulgarian police stole our money – but they didn’t do it when the German and Austrian police officers were present.”

Arrangements with smugglers

From the interviews it emerged that most travellers had made all arrangements with a principal smuggler in Afghanistan, either directly while still in Afghanistan or through an intermediary while en route. One of the volunteers at Miksalište commented somewhat sarcastically, “There is an ‘unofficial Afghan Ambassador’ here [in Serbia]. He hangs around at the coffee shop in the park. He introduces people to smugglers.”

The money for the journey was usually paid to the principal smuggler, who then enlisted networks along the route for the actual travel arrangements. These networks included local coordinators who organised the different legs of the journey; local transporters and accommodation providers; local mobile guides (who either travelled with the migrants or met up with them at specific junctions) and local representatives who re-established contact with the migrants once they had arrived at their next destination. Most of these local networks were still made up of Afghans.

The role of the principal smuggler seemed to be quite hands-on. Many interviewees described how they were in regular contact, either directly or through his representatives, at crucial junctions of the journey – to confirm that they had safely arrived, to organise the release of money or to be handed over to the next local network.

From the interviews, different types of arrangements emerged. At the top end is what one of the Afghans described as a ‘guaranteed’ journey. In this arrangement the full price is negotiated and often paid beforehand. The principal smuggler then organises the whole route and guarantees that the traveller will arrive at his or her intended destination. The ‘guaranteed’ trip is the preferred mode for families and for those with more money to spend. It is financially the least risky arrangement, particularly if the payment is conditional and in instalments.

However, those who made arrangements while the Balkan ‘humanitarian corridor’ was still open, and who had counted on only needing to reach the Greek-Macedonian border, suddenly found that the original agreement would no longer get them to Europe as there were now many more illegal border crossings involved than originally envisaged. They found themselves renegotiating the terms of their agreement, paying additional money or looking for a new smuggler.

The young man from Jalalabad, for instance, explained to AAN how his family had found him a good smuggler in Nangarhar. They had paid 8,000 US dollars per person for him and his cousin (his cousin’s two young sons had been half price) for a ‘guaranteed’ trip. The smuggler had organised every leg of their journey, as they were moved from country to country. He said his family had paid the whole amount ahead of time, but that he had been confident the smuggler would not abandon or trick him: “Everyone in Nangarhar knows him, they all know his brother. My family would find him [if he tricked me].” Now he needed to pay more. He estimated that the remaining trip to France would cost him another 4,000 US dollars per person.

Others had opted to pay their trip in instalments. The daughter from the family who had been split at the Iranian-Turkish border, for instance, explained how they had paid after every border that had been crossed: 1,500 US dollars per person from Kabul to Istanbul; 1,400 US dollars from Istanbul to Bulgaria; and 1,100 US dollars from Bulgaria to Serbia. (5) They were now looking for a smuggler in Belgrade who would take them to the Hungarian border.

Another woman, whose family had left recently, said that even though they had made arrangements all the way to Austria, they had now asked the smuggler to only take them to the Hungarian border, where they would try to cross legally at the Horgoš or Kelebija border crossings (currently used as transit zones). “It is just too difficult to go through these illegal routes,” she said.

The most risky option is to ‘pay as you go’ which means that every leg of the journey has to be negotiated anew. This method is often used by young men with limited financial means and with no strong connections in Afghanistan. With nobody who can hold the smuggler to account, they are vulnerable to exploitation and deception.

Take, for instance, Rahman from Badakashan, who was introduced in the first dispatch and who left Afghanistan around a year ago. He travelled to Kabul from Darwaz district to find a smuggler who could help him leave the country. In Turkey he came into contact with a second smuggler in Kabul, who promised to get him to Europe but who didn’t come through. Since then, Rahman has been making his own way through Europe, making large parts of the journey on foot. With no powerful relatives in Kabul, he has no way to confront the smuggler. All he can do is keep trying to get a hold of him, but so far he has not answered his phone.

The young man from Herat (who had been living in Tehran) had a similar story. He paid a smuggler two million toman (around 660 US dollars) to take him to Turkey and 4,000 US dollars to take him from Turkey to Germany:

I found the first smuggler through friends who gave me his number. He arranged the border crossing to Turkey. Then I had to wait for a week until the money was arranged [for the next part of the journey] with the next smuggler. He was an Afghan from Kabul. The Iranian smuggler handed me over to this smuggler. … I finally left Turkey 20 days ago [after many attempts], but now the smuggler has abandoned me here in Serbia. I have no parents, only a brother and sister; nobody who can help me or send me money.

The uncertainty involved in finding a new smuggler (for those having to arrange their trip as they go along) or reconnecting with an existing one (for those who fear they have been abandoned) is illustrated in the following conversation between three young Afghan men overheard by AAN:

“I’m in real trouble, I cannot find my shabaka [network] anymore.”

“Same for me. I’m trying to get in touch with —. They say he is the most powerful one. But I can’t find him.”

“Just hang around in the park, they will find you.”

“I have heard there is also a Pakistani smuggler called ‘—’ They say all Pakistanis are with him.”

“The only one I know how to contact is ‘—’ He is a Kashmiri. But they say he cannot be trusted. He locks people up and beats them and steals everything from them.”

The smuggling networks

Most networks on the ground seemed to be run by Afghans, although there was also mention of Pakistani and Bangladeshi smugglers (particularly along the route from Greece), and Iranians and Iranian Kurds along the Iranian-Turkish border.

The ‘extended family’ who said they had come directly from Kunduz had dealt with Bangladeshi smugglers they had found in Greece: “Our smugglers were from Bangladesh, but there were also a few Afghans; they were Pashtu-speakers. Only one of them spoke Dari.” Another family mentioned that their three Afghan guides had spoken four languages between them: Dari, Urdu, Turkish and Bulgarian.

There seemed to be relatively little overlap, competition or cooperation with the local Serb and other criminal or smuggling networks. Only on a practical level – transport, accommodation, border crossings – was there mention of involvement from locals. As one of the volunteers commented:

Smuggling is organised by Afghans and others. The Serb networks cannot interfere because of the language barrier. The Serbs that are involved are hired. … However they [the smugglers] sometimes use Roma minors with mobile phones and GPS to cross the border. An adult goes to cut the wire first. This is a big offence, so they don’t enter themselves. The minors then take groups of migrants across. According to the law, minors cannot be prosecuted for people smuggling.

Occasionally, local people are enlisted to help with transport or accommodation. See for instance the story of a woman from Kabul, a former NGO worker in her forties, who was travelling with her children:

We travelled to Iran with legal visas and spent two days in Tehran. Then we left with the smugglers, first to Turkey, then to Bulgaria, then to Serbia. We were on the road for a month and crossed all borders without being caught. We travelled in a group of around 40 people: it was our family and the rest were Afghan and Pakistani boys. The smugglers were Afghan. They knew the way, although they did get lost once and we had to turn back. In Bulgaria, we stayed in a guesthouse for a few days. There were two rooms there, one for us and one for the boys. The owner of the house was a Bulgarian woman. When I washed my chador, only once, she told me off for using too much water. And then she completely closed off the water supply. She was very harsh, for no reason.

The mechanics of travel

Travelling was usually done in groups of between 20 to 40 people that were put together by the smugglers. Borders and obstacles, such as rivers, were either crossed in smaller groups or alone. In some cases, smugglers or their helpers accompanied the migrants, while in other cases migrants were sent across with only minimal instructions. Once they arrived, everyone was usually regrouped and transported onwards (or made to walk).

The man and his daughter who had been split from the rest of their family found a new smuggler after they were deported to Afghanistan. They travelled to Iran and tried to cross the border into Turkey again. This is how it went the second time:

There were three small rivers. The first one was less than a kilometre from the border. We had to cross it in a rubber boat; two people crossed first and then they pulled the rest across in the boat. The second river was half in Turkey, half in Iran. We crossed that too. At the third river there was no boat, the water came up to our stomachs.

They had pointed us in which direction to go. We were with 30 people. The young went very quickly. Then the smuggler called one of them and told him not to leave my daughter and I behind. So the boy came back for us. The smuggler had given him a phone and had told him the car would not come if we were not also there.

At some point it was just the three of us walking, the others were already on the other side of the road. They had given us the ‘address:’ they told us to follow a certain star, but we went the wrong way. We ended up close to a Turkish police post. Luckily the police had gone to have dinner, but we had to walk eight extra kilometres to reach the meeting point, because we lost our way. It was just the two of us and the other traveller who had the phone. We finally arrived in the forest and there we heard a “ssst.” The car then came to pick us up, all twenty of us. Within two minutes we were in Turkey. The other men had all changed, we were the only ones still in our wet clothes. But we were so happy we made it.

The young man from Tehran had a similar experience when he tried to cross the border between Iran and Turkey:

I had to go through water, it came up to my neck. I had to cross the river alone. [The smuggler] said there would be a car waiting at the other end. But when I arrived my SIM card didn’t work [so I couldn’t find the car]. I returned to the Iranian side. He fixed the SIM and I had to go through the water again. When I arrived on the other side, I called and waited. A few others also came through the water: six boys, also Afghans. We had to run to the road where the car arrived. I was tired because I had crossed the water twice so I couldn’t keep up with them, but they waited for me.

The interviewees used different words to describe the smugglers and guides who accompanied them, giving them names such as jello-ro (someone one who goes ahead), ham-rah (fellow traveller) and rah-rawan (a runner). The distinction between smugglers and migrants while travelling was not always easy to make. One of the young women who travelled as part of a family talked about “the boys who were given the phone,” which could refer to travellers who had been given a temporary, specific task, but also to the smugglers’ helpers. Several interviewees said they believed that members of the groups they had travelled with pretended to be migrants, when they were, in fact, smugglers.

One interviewee pointed out several young men who had just arrived at the park in Belgrade and were queuing to receive dry clothes and rucksacks; he believed they were smugglers. “There are so many smugglers,” he said. “Sometimes you don’t even meet them. Sometimes they stand 1 to 2 kilometres away, just waving and guiding the way. There are so many of them here [in the park] too. There are almost more smugglers than refugees.”

Hand-overs and internal modes of payment

Travel – whether ‘guaranteed’ or ‘pay-as-you-go’ – involves a large number of transitions and handovers, as travellers cross borders and countries. Sometimes the hand-over is seamless, while in other cases migrants need to re-establish contact with their main smuggler. The man from Tehran who had managed to reach Turkey with his daughter, related how the next part of their journey unfolded:

After we crossed the border into Turkey [after a second, successful attempt], we travelled two to three hours to Dogu Bayezit. There we stayed two nights. The smugglers did their money business and got us tickets for the bus to Istanbul. In Istanbul we stayed at a friend’s house. I didn’t leave the house for a week, until I realised that it was like here in Serbia and that it was no problem that we had no documents. Then I called [the smuggler in] Herat and he said go to this maidan [square] and a man will find you. So I went and someone came to me and said “are you the traveller from Kabul?” Then he took me with him. After that we tried to cross the border into Bulgaria.  

Internally, networks appear to have a staggered payment system in which different legs of the journey are authorised by the principal smuggler beforehand and then paid afterwards. This seems to happen even for local transport, as related by the young man who had travelled from Tehran:

When we got into Bulgaria we had to walk for three nights and four days. We were with 30 Afghans. There were families and also an old man and an old woman. Some boys had to carry the old woman. In Bulgaria the police got us. A car was supposed to pick us up and bring us to Sofia. [The smugglers] said it would take one hour, but in the end we had to sleep in the forest. There the Bulgarian police found us. They brought us back to the Turkish border at around midnight. We tried to make a fire, but it was raining. The police had taken all our food and money, and they beat us before they released us. It rained till morning.

In the morning we got a taxi and drove back to Istanbul; it took six or seven hours. We didn’t have money to pay for the taxi, but we phoned the smuggler and he okayed it. After that we spent two or three nights in Istanbul in our dirty, wet clothes. Then we tried again. Again we walked for two nights to the border. Again the police brought us back. Again a car brought us back to Istanbul. The taxi drivers know, it’s a business for them.

The internal payment system doesn’t always work. There were several stories of principal smugglers not coming through with payments, even though local smugglers had already arranged the trip. This was usually taken out on the migrant in question, as happened to the young man from Tehran, when he finally arrived in Bulgaria:

In Sofia we spent two days in a guesthouse. I was held like a hostage while they waited for the smuggler [from Afghanistan] to give the green light [ie signal that the money had been taken care of]. But he didn’t give the green light. So after two days I was taken to another guesthouse and then another. I was held like this for a week with almost no food. They only brought me a burger every 24 hours.

After a week the Bulgarian police raided the guesthouse where he was being held and gave him a choice: deportation or asylum. He filed a request for asylum and was moved to an open camp. As soon as he was allowed to travel, he returned to Sofia where he re-contacted the smuggler:

I called the smuggler to come and take me; he then called a Bulgarian who took me to a guesthouse where I stayed for two days. Then we went to the Serbian border, which was a five-hour drive away.

He managed to cross the border with half of his group, even though they had been detected by the Bulgarian police (the other half of the group was caught and deported). But his ordeal did not end there:

In Belgrade I was held hostage for another eight days while waiting for the smuggler to give the green light. The men beat me and kept asking me for the money. In the end I escaped. Now I stay in the camp [Krnjača] at night, where they give us tuna fish three times a day. Most of the others I travelled with have left Serbia by now. Their money was released. Mine still isn’t. I sometimes see the men in the street when I am in the city; they threaten me and say they will take me again, and keep me until the money is paid. They are Afghan, but they also seem to know the local language here. (…) If I don’t get the money, I’ll have to try to cross the border on my own. Here in Serbia I have been given shelter, but I am not sure I want to stay.

The man from Herat, who had been living in Tehran and who was travelling with his wife, had a similar story:

We spent five nights in a khabgah [a place to sleep] on the Macedonian border. It was a big tent. They gave us food, but otherwise we were just waiting for the ‘game.’ Every night we tried to cross the border. We couldn’t flee because we were in the mountains, so they could do what they wanted. It’s bad to say it, but they assaulted my wife there. … They also beat a few Somali travellers and they assaulted a Somali woman. The smugglers were Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.

Some of the travellers had been there for ten to twelve days; they were being held as hostages until their money was released. … A husband and wife and two sisters were held there; they had called for the money to be released and it was, but the smuggler had taken it and had fled. Other women arrived yesterday from the same khabgah; they said this family was still being kept there.

Once in Belgrade

In Belgrade, most migrants passed through the ‘Afghan Park.’ One morning we witnessed such an arrival. A family – the mother who used to work for an NGO, three daughters, between the ages of ten to eighteen, a grown son and an unrelated older woman – had just been dropped off. Their shoes and clothes were still wet from a night walking in the rain, while crossing the Bulgarian forests and the border with Serbia. Their group, they told us, had consisted of themselves and a large number of young Afghan and Pakistani men – many of whom had also just been dropped at the park and who greeted the family respectfully.

In the space of an hour, we saw the family slowly gather dry socks and shoes from various distribution points to replace their own wet ones. Later, they collected clothes, biscuits and backpacks. They complained about the harshness of the journey: “We walked for four days in the rain. We slept in the forest, under plastic that we had taken with us. We had to walk through thorns, now our feet and legs are injured.” Their final destination was Germany, while the adolescent daughter had a fiancé in France.

The family was deliberating whether they should go to the Krnjača asylum centre or not. It was clear that they were looking forward to a bed and a shower, but they were afraid to have their fingerprints taken and to potentially jeopardise their future asylum requests elsewhere. A young Afghan man assured them there was no problem:

I have already been in the camp [Krnjača] for ten days and no one took my fingerprints. If they had, I wouldn’t have gone. I didn’t give fingerprints anywhere. When I was caught in Bulgaria, the police asked me: “Money or prints?” That was an easy decision. I gave them 50 euros and they let me go.

The young man was right. At the time, in June 2016, Krnjača had opened its doors to undocumented migrants without demanding that they sign an intention to request asylum – apparently in an attempt to keep the parks from becoming permanent camping sites, as they had been the previous year. Shuttle buses ran between Krnjača and the town several times a day, free of charge. This changed in July 2016, however, when Krnjača closed its doors for those not requesting asylum (see here for details in the second dispatch of the series).

Onwards from Serbia

Volunteers in Belgrade estimated that refugees usually spent about a week in Belgrade: to rest, to reconnect with their smuggler’s network (or to try to find a new one), to raise money if they needed to, and wait. See also this article from May 2016:

According to the testimonies of the refugees and Info Park volunteers, the main reason for the daily stay in park is the exchange of information on continuing this journey, as well as the presence of the human traffickers, who offer them illegal entry into Hungary. Every day, in the afternoon and evening hours, approximately the same number of refugees leaves Belgrade, taking buses to Subotica [near the Hungarian border]. It is assessed that at any moment, there are at least 500-600 people in transit in Belgrade.

The onward journey from Serbia to the EU, still runs through Hungary, despite the country’s efforts to close its borders and to discourage and counter the influx of illegal migrants (alternative routes, for instance through Kosovo, have not yet opened up). At the moment there are two ways of entering Hungary: one is legal and regularised, the other is not.

For the legal route, Afghan and Syrian families can present themselves to Serbian guards at either the Horgoš or Kelebija border crossings and camp out on a strip of so-called ‘no-man’s land’ between the two countries, under the shadow of the barbed wire fence Hungary has raised along the whole border. Conditions at these makeshift camps are bad (although they have improved somewhat since migrants have been allowed to set up tents and aid organisations have set up some very basic sanitary services). The Hungarian authorities allow between 15 and 30 people to be interviewed each day, even though the total number waiting is in the hundreds. (For footage of Horgoš and Belgrade see this short video by the German TV news programm Tagesschau).

The various families AAN met planned to take this route, as did the engineer from Iran who was travelling with his daughter. When AAN spoke to him he had just heard from others who had done the same:

The night before last, one family went to the Hungarian border. They told us “you have to take two buses and then walk.” They sent a message just now that they had arrived and that they had had their interview. They think they can maybe leave in 12 days.

To enter illegally, one needs to navigate Hungary’s ever-increasing border control measures, which means relying on the help of smugglers. Although Hungary has erected a four-metre high fence along the full length of its border, migrants and refugees still manage to slip across. Smugglers and their helpers either physically cut through the fence, or take advantage of doors made to allow local people with fields on both sides of the border to pass; smugglers may have access to the keys or they may remove the locks and replace them with their own. Despite the fact that it has become increasingly difficult to cross the borders, prices are said to have gone down. This is a reflection of the fact that most travellers simply do not have much money left. As the young man from Herat who was travelling with his wife told AAN:

They say it costs 20 Euros to be taken to the [Hungarian] border and 500 Euros to cross [illegally], but we don’t even have enough money left to be taken there. I sold everything I had in Afghanistan. Now we are stuck here. How can I tell my parents that all the money has been wasted? They are old and their health is frail. They will worry so much.

Looking ahead

Since AAN visited Serbia in June 2016, the situation has worsened (see the second dispatch for details). Services in Belgrade have been cut, closed or are badly overstretched. The number of people waiting at the Horgoš and Kelebija transit zones is growing, even though still only very few will be allowed in. A new Hungarian law has moreover resulted in an increased number of deportations of migrants who did manage to cross the border illegally.

In reaction to these measures, a large group of Afghan and Pakistani men have marched to the Hungarian border, where they have begun a hunger strike in the hope of ultimately being admitted to Hungary. Serbian authorities, in the meantime, seem worried that the increasingly effective border controls in Hungary will mean their country will now become the final destination for the many Afghans as well as others who find themselves stranded there. (6)

State Secretary for Labour and Social Affairs, Nenad Ivanišević, visited the Horgoš border crossing on 27 July 2016, together with labour minister Aleksandar Vulin, and announced that Serbia would ask the EU for help, given that “the Balkan route is not closed.”

This series of three dispatches stems from research carried out in Belgrade in June 2016 by AAN’s Jelena Bjelica, Martine van Bijlert and Fabrizio Foschini. During the course of their research, they conducted interviews with migrants, aid workers, volunteers and informed observers, visited the main gathering places for Afghan migrants in Belgrade and tried to gain access to the Horgoš and Kelebija transit zones.

(1) The couple belonged to a group that had presented itself as an extended family. Later, it turned out that they were not related. They said they had “become family” in Greece, because they were from the same area and needed to help each other. The group consisted of a young couple with a child (the wife was pregnant with their second child), an unrelated older couple with a teenage son and daughter and an unrelated adult single man (who may have been the helper of one of the smugglers).

(2) These allegations were confirmed by Pro Asyl, a leading German refugee organisation, in a report (in German) published in mid-April 2016. It speaks about “an alarming degree denigrating and inhuman treatment of refugees in Bulgaria – to the point of torture in jails for refugees” and the “refusal of medical help even in emergency cases”. The Bulgarian police is supported by so-called vigilante groups, many of them of extreme rightist persuasion, who patrol the border, ‘hunt’ and ‘arrest’ refugees and hand them over to the police (see for example this BBC report). The largest one claims to have 26,000 members alone, according to a German media report.

(3) Many migrants reported having lost their phones to the police. Although it is clear that this does often happen, some of the reports may have been exaggerated. Aid organisations have in the past distributed smart phones to people who had lost them, so some people may have hoped to receive one by claiming to now be totally without means of communication.

(4) In Greece the police intercepted his group shortly after they arrived:

We were sleeping when the police arrived. The car stopped and then they turned on their lights. They saw 30 people lying by the road. They took us to the police station and kept us there till morning. The Greek police was better than the police in Bulgaria, at least they let us sleep. … They took our mobiles and said they would give them back but they didn’t. They only gave the old ones back.

(5) Payment methods tend to vary, depending on how the smuggler operates and what travellers manage to negotiate. In earlier conversations in Kabul we found that families often deposited money with trusted middlemen, such as a saraf (a money changer) or a hawala dealer, who would then release the money in previously agreed instalments whenever a part of the journey was completed. None of the interviewees in Belgrade mentioned such a specific arrangement. It is unclear whether this means that they had not been made or that the travellers who were interviewed were unaware of the details.

(6) There have been requests to IOM by Afghans to be repatriated to Afghanistan, including by at least one minor. These requests are, however, pending, apparently due to the inability of Afghan embassies in neighbouring countries to decide which of them should issue the required documents.

The unprecedented flow of people through the Western Balkans in late 2015 and early 2016, and the opening of a humanitarian corridor, provided a brief and unique opportunity for people from war-torn countries to reach the European Union. When the corridor closed in March 2016 many people, including many Afghans, found themselves stranded and, again, at the mercy of smuggling networks. In this second dispatch of a three-part series, Jelena Bjelica and Martine van Bijlert discuss how the migration flows have impacted Serbia, a key transit country on the way to Europe, and how the situation for Afghans, and others, is becoming ever more precarious.

Part I: The opening and closing of the Balkan corridor

Part 2: In transit through Serbia

Part 3: The re-emergence of the smugglers along the Balkan route

Serbia’s asylum policy

Until 2008, the Serbian government did not have a clear policy on asylum. In that year it passed an Asylum Act, however its implementation remained ad hoc. The Asylum Office that was envisaged under the new Act was only established at the end of 2014 (until then asylum procedures were conducted by the Asylum Unit within the Aliens Department of the MOI Border Police Directorate).

According to the Asylum Act, a foreigner can express ‘the intention to seek asylum’ in Serbia. The asylum seeker is ‘recorded’ (rather than registered) and given a copy of the certificate of expressed intent. The asylum seeker then needs to report to an asylum official or asylum centre within 72 hours to register the actual request. The expression of intent is not yet considered an asylum request and does not initiate an asylum procedure.

Between 1 April 2008, when the act came into force, and 31 December 2014, a total of 28,285 people signed a form expressing their intention to seek asylum in Serbia (77 in 2008, 275 in 2009, 522 in 2010, 3,132 in 2011, 2,723 in 2012, 5,066 in 2013 and 16,490 in 2014). In all those years, only six people were granted refugee status and twelve were granted subsidiary protection.

Out of the 16,500 people who expressed an intention to seek asylum in Serbia in 2014, 3,071 were Afghan and 9,701 Syrian. Only 1,350 of them actually registered with the Asylum Unit; 388 actually applied for asylum; and only 18 were interviewed. The Asylum Unit upheld six asylum applications, dismissed 12 (but presumably provided subsidiary protection; see above) and discontinued proceedings for 307 applications (for a detailed overview see this Belgrade Centre for Human Rights 2014 report).

The low number of cases processed is a reflection of the fact that Serbia was not a country of destination. Most migrants only transited through in order to continue their journey to the EU. In practice, the policy of the Serbian government was apparently to register people, give them the necessary documents with which they could file their asylum request, and hope they would move on.

Thus, when the refugee crisis broke in 2015, the Commissariat of Refugees, the government agency tasked with housing asylum seekers, was only staffed with 70 employees. According to media reports, there were no translators, social workers or lawyers.

Dealing with rising numbers in 2015

During 2015, numbers rose swiftly. According to figures AAN received from UNHCR Serbia, some 13,000 people expressed their intention to request asylum in the first four months of 2015 (against 16,500 for the whole of 2014). In May 2015 this was over 9,000, in June 2015 over 15,000, in July 2015 almost 30,000; until in October 2015, over 180,000 people were recorded by the Serbian police in a single month. At the end of the year a total of 577,995 people had recorded their intent for asylum with the Serbian authorities. Of these, 160,831 were Afghans.

Very few of them, however, actually initiated the process for asylum. According to Frontex figures, out of the almost 600,000 who recorded their intention to request asylum, 11,000 or so registered at a reception centre but only 583 actually filed an official application (551 of these applications were later rejected, mainly because the migrants in question had left before the procedure was finalised).

The Serbian government continued to opt for a ‘soft’ refugee policy, mainly by turning a blind eye to the flow of people transiting through the country. Serbian politicians reminded the public of refugees’ plight in the former Yugoslavia during the wars in the 1990s and asked for patience and acceptance. (1) At the same time, the authorities were fairly clear that they considered Serbia a transit country and did not intend it to become a “reception centre for refugees” (see for instance this statement by Aleksandar Vulin, the minister of Labour and Social Affairs, in July 2015). Even if the authorities registered people’s intention to request asylum, they counted on the fact that most of them would move on before their 72 hours of legal stay in Serbia expired. (2)

In early July 2015, as the number of people on their way to Europe – via Turkey, Greece and the Western Balkans – grew, the Serbian authorities established a so-called ‘one-stop reception camp’ in Preševo on the border with Macedonia. At first, migrants could check into the camp on a voluntary basis, but later, as the desire to control the flow grew, it was made compulsory. Migrants were guided from the border crossing to the camp, where they were fingerprinted and photographed and made to sign an ‘intention to seek asylum’. Most of them, after that, simply bought a bus or train ticket and continued their journey to the border with Hungary, which they crossed illegally (see pictures here of migrants walking across the green border between Serbia and Hungary in June 2015).

With the border practically open and authorities allowing – even facilitating – travel, the involvement of smugglers greatly decreased. Taxi drivers, however, faired very well, particularly those who overcharged for their services. According to a local journalist, many charged up to 400 Euros per head, in a full minivan, to drive people from Preševo to the Hungarian border (a regular bus ticket from Preševo to Subotica, the main town near the border, is about 25 to 35 Euros). When the flow of people was redirected from the Hungarian to the Croatian border, taxis continued to overcharge people on that route, too. People commented on the number of taxi drivers who had made enough money in that brief period to be able to buy new apartments in Belgrade.

In a bid to curb the growing number of migrants crossing the border illegally, in June 2015 the Hungarian authorities announced a plan to build a four-metre high fence along its 177-kilometre border with Serbia (a media report here). Although the fence was not completed until mid-September 2015, far fewer migrants were able to cross (see for instance this picture, taken on 10 September 2015).  Hungary officially sealed its Horgoš border crossing on 15 September, amid clashes and demonstrations (see here).

Most people immediately began moving westwards towards Croatia and very soon, the Serbian government started transporting people from Preševo (at the Macedonian border) and Dimitrovgrad (at the Bulgarian border) by bus to the Berkasevo/Babska border crossing with Croatia. The Serbian government essentially herded people from one border crossing to another.

 Civil society groups provide support

In the Serbian capital Belgrade, volunteers and civil society activists set up two main initiatives to help migrants and refugees passing through their city: Refugee Aid Miksalište and Info Park. The Miksalište initiative was founded in August 2015 by a group of expatriates based in Belgrade, mainly from Australia and the UK. Originally set up as a social centre, Miksalište functioned as a refugee centre during the day, where refugees could receive aid and socialise, while doubling as a bar at night. The Info Park, a wooden shack based in the park next to the central bus station, opened in September 2015. Run by volunteers, Info Park was an information point for migrants who had just arrived in Belgrade, where they could receive advice, use Wifi and recharge their phone batteries. When the situation near the park deteriorated, the initiative widened its scope and started providing direct aid.

“We opened on 16 September 2015, which was exactly when the Hungarian border closed,” Info Park founder Gordon Paunović told AAN. “At the time all the flow was through Hungary, so we thought we had opened too late. That maybe we would be active for a few weeks only.” Indeed, when the humanitarian corridor through Croatia opened, for a while both numbers and workload were limited. “Buses from the Macedonian border went directly to the Croatian border; Belgrade was bypassed. We only received those who had taken the Bulgaria route or the people who came from Macedonia by train.”

This changed when, in late 2015, authorities from the most affected countries decided to only allow the transit of Syrian, Afghan and Iraqi nationals. Controls were tightened and migrants who were not Syrian, Iraqi or Afghan were stopped at the Croatian border. According to a coordinator at the Miksalište refugee aid centre: “Iraqi, Syrian and Afghan refugees, at the time, were good to go. The rest had to be returned to Belgrade.” In February 2015, a deal between the heads of police from five countries further restricted the list, after which Afghans were also refused entry at the Croatian border (for details, see the first dispatch here).

These measures meant that many people were cast adrift, with most them gravitating towards Belgrade. As they were not considered asylum seekers by Serbia, they were not admitted into Krnjača asylum centre, one of eight government-run centres. (It is also possible that many did not want to go there, for fear that being entered into the electronic registration system might interfere with a future asylum claim elsewhere.) The situation soon became untenable, with large numbers of people camping in two parks next to the bus station (for pictures and the Info Park appeal, see here).

“They were sleeping in the park in freezing weather,” Gordon said. “So we started distributing tea and noodles, even though this was not what we were set up for. We could not provide accommodation, but there was a hostel that could. We tried to help in whatever way we could. One night the situation got so bad that a large group stormed the office of the Asylum Info Centre [an initiative of the Belgrade Human Rights Centre to provide legal advice] so they could take shelter inside.”

The situation changed again in March 2016 when, as a result of the EU-Turkey deal,  the Western Balkan route was officially closed (both the EU and Turkey agreed that people could no longer cross the Aegean sea or continue their journey towards Europe, and all new irregular migrants would be returned to Turkey as of 20 March 2016. In the weeks preceding this date, the Balkan countries closed their borders; for details, see the first dispatch here).

Initially the flow of migrants into Belgrade slackened. “We thought our work was finished. We thought there would be no more refugees coming through Turkey and Greece into Serbia,” Gordon said. “And for a few days there was almost no traffic. But then we realised the Bulgarian border was leaking. The whole smuggling network, that had been dormant for months, was still intact. It had been a bureaucratic decision to try to close it down, but the main mechanisms hadn’t been tackled. We realised this was not the end at all. The flow continued.”

An ambiguous government stance: providing shelter but hampering assistance

As migrants started to reappear on the streets of Belgrade, the authorities adopted a new policy. It was not officially announced but from mid-April 2016, Krnjača, the reception centre in the remote suburbs of Belgrade, started accepting people without the prerequisite signed intention to request asylum. Krnjača had been established as a temporary asylum centre in 2015. At the time, there were five centres for asylum-seekers across the country, which could accommodate up to 780 people. Between January and March 2016, Krnjača and the four other centres were refurbished with EU funds and two new centres were established, providing additional capacity for 700 people.

At around the time that the regime at Krnjača was eased, ICRC was expelled from the park and their container was removed. The next day Miksalište’s building was demolished. “In less than 72 hours, Info Park was the only remaining fixed structure in the park that was helping refugees.” (3) The Serbian authorities, according to Gordon, seemed to have decided to clear Belgrade of migrants, and in particular the area around the two parks. “They did not want to have a camping site like last year.”

The night-time demolition of Miksalište and several other buildings on 27 April 2016 (see here) was part of an effort to make space for the Belgrade Waterfront, an extravagant Abu Dhabi-financed construction project initiated by the Serbian government and the Belgrade Mayor. (4) On 1 June 2016, a month after the demolition of its original venue, Miksalište (2.0) reopened in a new location close to the central bus station. AAN visited the centre several times, as well as the Info Park shack in the park.

Between April and June 2016, Info Park distributed around 800 meals per day. Before its demolition and after it reopened, Miksalište distributed a similar number of meals. It also provided refugees with clothes, shoes, food, medical check-ups and other services as necessary. According to UNHCR, there were over 1,000 refugees/migrants on average in Belgrade throughout June 2016, with another 500 being assisted in the city centre and as many sheltered in Krnjača. 

The situation worsens again

At the time of AAN’s visit in mid-June 2016, the situation seemed manageable. The decision to allow migrants and refugees to stay in Krnjača without registering meant there were no longer people sleeping in the parks or in the city’s alleys. The places where aid was distributed or advice given – Info Park, Miksalište, Asylum Information Centre – were crowded and possibly overstretched, but they were not overwhelmed. This changed over the following weeks, for several reasons.

On 1 July 2016, Miksalište closed again, reportedly due to “a lack of capacity to deal with the large number of people in need.” (5) A week later, on 8 July 2016, after being given the European Citizenship Award 2016, Miksalište announced it had decided to re-open its doors but only for women, families with children and unaccompanied minors. The men would be sent to an – unspecified – alternative location.

Info Park, which had immediately taken over most of the distribution responsibilities, responded with a terse statement on its Facebook page on 6 July 2016:

“During this weekend we had a clear showcase what this lack of responsibility and solidarity means: the park was overcrowded with refugees in an increasing state of anxiety due to a concern for [their] own survival. Every distribution of meals or non-food items was on the edge of a battle, with humanitarian workers put into a very dangerous position to balance between preserving their own safety and providing aid.”

A new Hungarian law, effective as of 5 July 2016, subsequently legitimised pushback into Serbia and resulted in a total closure of the border (for a critique of the law, by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, see here). UNHCR noted that in the first week of July several hundreds migrants left Belgrade and other locations to reach the north of Serbia and enter into Hungary and Croatia. In the transit zones on the Serbian-Hungarian border near Horgoš and Kelebaija, 300 to 500 people had already been stranded in June 2016, hoping to be allowed into Hungary (the country had an unofficial policy to allow around 15 people a day into its territory, almost exclusively families). (6) In the first week of July the number of people in transit zones rose to 920.

Hungary started to return people, apparently at night and through ‘improvised’ border crossings (see here).  On 8 July 2016, Info Park reported that several returnees had been in a bad state and that their volunteers had only barely managed to avert a protest. Numbers continued to grow, with migrants being sent back from the Hungarian border, new migrants arriving from Macedonia and Bulgaria, and a significant number of people still stuck and with no money left to travel onwards (see the upcoming third dispatch in this series for more details).

According to the Commissariat, numbers reached around 1,200 per day in mid-July 2016, well beyond the capacity of Krnjača’s refugee centre. Info Park also reported it was distributing around 1,200 meals per day under conditions that were increasingly difficult to manage, and talked about the “collapsing humanitarian situation in the park.”

On 16 July 2016, Krnjača centre was emptied. Only those who had registered their intent to request asylum were moved to other camps; everyone else was simply turned out. A growing number of people, including minors and families with small children, now had to spend the night outside, in parks and public garages. During the night of 18 July 2016, Info Park counted 600 people sleeping in and around the parks and the next day they distributed 1,800 meals. On 20 July 2016, the City Greenery department started ploughing one of the two small parks where the migrants gathered and the following week it moved to the next one, in what appeared to be an attempt to rid the parks of people and aid distribution.

These measures coincided with a clear change in tone by the Serbian authorities. On 16 July 2016, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić announced the establishment of combined police-military teams tasked with ensuring border security along the borders with Macedonia and Bulgaria. (7) He further singled out Afghans and Pakistanis, saying that a majority of the 2,700 migrants currently in Serbia came from Afghanistan and Pakistan, which according to him meant that their chances for asylum in the European Union were “almost nil.” He added that “Serbia cannot be a parking lot for Afghanis [sic] and Pakistanis whom nobody wants to see, let alone admit into their country.” He was clear on the new lines of the policy: “Whoever asks for asylum in Serbia will be received in a reception centre and whoever does not, will be removed from Serbian soil according to the law.”

On 22 July 2016 around 300 Afghans and Pakistanis, with no place to go, started a march towards the Hungarian border, hoping to force the authorities to let them through. A hunger strike that had started in Belgrade was resumed in Horgoš. According to UNHCR there are currently around 1,400 people camping near the border with little chance of being admitted (for photos of the march and hunger strike, as well as the conditions in Belgrade, see the Facebook page of Info Park).

Hungary’s Prime Minister, Victor Orban, in the meantime, too, had chosen a belligerent stance. During a joint press conference with Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern, he called migration “a poison” and stated that his country does not need a single migrant:

Hungary does not need a single migrant for the economy to work, or for the population to sustain itself, or for the country to have a future.

This is why there is no need for a common European migration policy: whoever needs migrants can take them, but don’t force them on us, we don’t need them … every single migrant poses a public security and terror risk. For us migration is not a solution but a problem… not medicine but a poison, we don’t need it and we won’t swallow it.

With all borders now closed, an increasing number of migrants have found themselves stranded in countries where they did not want to end up. Many of them are still trying to make their way towards the EU, in spite of their depleted resources and the reluctance to be dependent again on the services of indifferent and often abusive smuggling networks.

In the third dispatch, AAN takes a closer look at how the smuggling networks are organised and what this means for the Afghans who depend on them.

This series of three dispatches stems from research done in Belgrade in June 2016 by AAN’s Jelena Bjelica, Martine van Bijlert and Fabrizio Foschini. During the course of their research, they conducted interviews with migrants, aid workers, volunteers and informed observers, visited the main gathering places for Afghan migrants in Belgrade and tried to gain access to the Horgoš and Kelebija transit zones.

(1) “When people speak about refugees from Syria and Afghanistan they speak (about them) as a great problem. We welcomed them in Serbia. We know how our people suffered 20 years ago. I am proud that Serbia is their best refuge and the safest place, on their way to the EU,” the Serbian prime minister for instance said, in August 2015, after he visited the park near the main bus station in Belgrade where many migrants gather. According to the article he told migrants: “We will do everything for you, so you are safe like in your own house, and you’re always welcome in our country.”

(2) On 30 December 2015, according to Frontex, Serbia changed its legislation and started providing documents to migrants from conflict areas (Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq) which allowed them 72 hours’ transit across the country, even if they did not express an intention to apply for asylum.

(3) In the months that followed, Info Park also came under considerable bureaucratic and political pressure to close. There were political complaints, as well as demands for an increasing list of permits (including from the City Greenery department, a cultural heritage permit, a municipal permit, and a sanitary permit). So far, Info Park has managed to fulfil all demands and remains in the park.

(4) An analysis of the power structures within the Serbian government and their relations can be found here. With regard to the demolition process, local media reported that “several people posted testimonies on social media claiming that around 30 masked men armed with sticks, intercepted, searched, tied up and detained them in the area of Savamala during the demolition process.” The Public Prosecutor ordered an investigation into the case in May 2016; so far the city authorities have denied any involvement. The event triggered a series of protests in Belgrade.

(5) The closure happened despite the fact that Miksalište is supported by a large number of agencies and donors. The new centre opened with the help of the Norwegian Refugee Council, CARE Serbia, the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Office (ECHO), NGO Praxis Serbia, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Save the Children, Novosadski humanitarni Centar and Lifegate Novi Sad.

(6) AAN’s researchers visited the border area but were not allowed near the transit zones. AAN, as instructed, then sent an official request to the Serbian Ministry of Interior requesting permission to conduct interviews with Afghans stranded at the border in transit zones. The request was finally refused after several weeks, apparently without having been properly considered. (The ministry wrote: Regarding your request sent to this Ministry, for a permission to visit the transit zones Horgoš and Kelebija, we are informing you that at these locations migrants are assisted by the Red Cross Serbia, IoM, MSF, MDM, UNHCR, HCIT, thus the presence of other organisations is unnecessary.)

(7) Despite the closed borders and the EU and Turkey deal, UNHCR and partners registered an estimated 300 irregular arrivals per day to Serbia near the entry points with Macedonia and Bulgaria, in early July 2016.

Afghanistan’s Olympics team has marched, along with those of 206 countries and territories and an additional refuges team, into the Maracana Stadium for the opening ceremony of the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games (5-21 August 2016). Sprinter Kamia Yusufi carried the Afghan flag, but, in reality, this was the smallest Afghan team since the country returned to the international sports scene after 2001. AAN’s Thomas Ruttig looks at why the Afghan team is so weak this time and finds a mix of causes – infighting among officials, corruption and, in the case of women’s sports, rejection of women competing among conservative circles and shrinking international attention. He also looks at Afghan participation and some of its Olympic heroes over the decades.

Afghanistan‘s Rio delegation includes three athletes only, one woman and two men. Sprinters Kamia Yusufi and Abdul Wahab Zahiri will compete in the 100 meters race each, and judoka Muhammad Tawfiq Bakhshi will participate in the 90kg-plus class (find photos and short bios of them here). In the opening ceremony, they were joined by National Olympic Committee (NOC) official Ghulam Rabbani Rabbani who was also present when the Afghan flag was hoisted in Rio’s Olympic Village on 1 August 2016. A photo published on that occasion showed a delegation more weighted towards officials than athletes.

This photo (via Twitter) shows the Afghan delegation in Rio’s Maracana stadium.

No Afghan athlete has directly qualified for the Rio games; in most sports, there are preparatory tournaments to be passed or individual norms set by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to be met to participate in the games. In order to uphold the principle of participation also for smaller sports nations like Afghanistan, all countries receive a number of special invitations from the IOC. This was the case for Yusufi, Zahiri and Bakhshi.

Afghanistan’s Rio Team: Kamia Yusufi, a sprinter who has already competed in international competitions (Photo Source: Tolonews 2016)

Bakhshi, player and coach of the national judo team, and, to a lesser extent, Yusufi, born to an Afghan refugee family in Iran, have some international experience. They have competed and won medals in several regional competitions. In world championships, Asian and South Asian Games, however, they have remained without medals so far. Zahiri seems to be more of a newcomer.

Afghanistan’s Rio Team: Judoka Muhammad Tawfiq Bakhshi participating in the 90kg-plus class (Photo Source: Tolonews 2016)

Bakhshi will be the first of them to see action; on 10 August, he will meet the Portuguese José Fonseca. (Apart from the national teams, for the first time there is also a team of refugees from several countries. It came on a special invitation “in the context of the worldwide refugee crisis”, as the IOC put it, and was also nominated by the sports world body, based on proposals by the individual National Olympic Committees (NOC). Although Afghans make up one of the largest groups among the worldwide refugee population, there is no Afghan participant in that team – maybe because the IOC insisted that the chosen candidates should be close to the Olympic norm in the particular discipline, a condition no current Afghan athlete fulfils.

Afghanistan’s war-mangled Olympic history

Since a National Olympic Committee (NOC) was founded in Kabul in 1935 and accepted by the IOC in the following year, Afghanistan has competed in most summer Olympics, unless war or politics got in the way. Its first appearance was in the 1936 games in Berlin organised by the Hitler regime. While the Afghan delegation showed the Nazi salute when marching into the Berlin Olympic Stadium for the opening ceremony, then Minister of War, Ghazi Mahmud Khan, who also chaired the Afghan NOC, was officially representing his country (see the official final report, pp 25, 26, 548); a year earlier, he had participated in the Nazi party’s Nuremberg congress that passed the infamous passed anti-Jewish laws that served later to ‘legally’ underpin the Holocaust.

Since then, Afghanistan has competed in most Olympic summer games. It was absent in Helsinki (1952) and Montreal (1976) for unknown reasons and was part of the 1984 Soviet-led boycott of the Los Angeles Olympics – a response to the boycott of the previous games in Moscow by many countries because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (an AAN guest dispatch about this here). Civil war kept Afghan athletes out of the 1992 Barcelona games and lack of recognition of the Taleban’s NOC of those in Sydney in 2000. Two Afghan sportsmen, a boxer and a marathon runner, did make it to the 1996 Atlanta games individually, escaping the country where the capital Kabul had just been taken over by the Taleban. (Full Afghan participation statistics here, some photos here.)

Heroes, underdogs and let-downs

Afghanistan’s biggest Olympic success so far is Taekwondo fighter Rohullah Nekpai and his two bronze medals from Beijing (2008) and London (2012). Those made him the first Afghan Olympic medal winner and the only one so far. Before that, wrestler Muhammad Ibrahimi was the best Afghan participant ever, finishing fifth at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. The first ever women Olympians from Afghanistan were sprinter Robina Muqimyar and judoka Fariba Razayi who competed in Athens in 2004.

It was Marathon runner Abdul Baser Waseqi who, in 1996, wrote one of the many, although often under-reported heroic ‘underdog’ stories that are one of the delights of the Olympic Games. Waseqi had injured himself while training for the competition in Atlanta, but participated nevertheless, limping through most of the 42,195 meters and finishing a far distant last; he did not give up before reaching the finish.

It was also in Atlanta in 1996 that the first ever Afghans – two cyclists, Gul Afzal and Zabet Khan – competed in the Paralympic Games (more detail here). (1)

2008 and 2012 medal winner Nekpai, who was then received by roaring crowds and honoured by the president upon his returns to the country, is also the protagonist of one of the saddest Afghan stories linked to the 2016 Rio games. As a result of two years of infighting in Afghanistan’s National Olympic Committee, the government stopping funds, leaving trainers frequently unpaid and athletes without medical care, Nekpai went into his April 2016 qualification tournament on the Philippines injured and without proper preparation – and failed. He blamed the NOC’s failures and was hoping for a special IOC invitation so that he – with 29 still in best fighting age – could try to add at least a third Olympic participation to his score, the German TV network ARD reported. But this invitation did not come.

Afghan Olympic factionalism

The presidencies of the Afghan NOC and its member associations for individual sports are lucrative posts, as they are ‘sexy’ addresses for donors and bring foreign visas and trips abroad. Several donor countries and international sports federations have poured money into getting Afghan sports, especially women’s, restarted after the decades of war. Different political forces have competed for control over the governing bodies.

Up to 2009, the government appointed the NOC’s chairmen. For a number of years, wrestler-turned-mujahedin commander Anwar Jagdalak held this position. In the first ever election, by the national sport federations, Muhammad Zahir Akbar, a former general, won. He stepped down to become a security advisor to the presidential campaign of Dr Abdullah in 2014 and was succeeded by Fahim Hashemi in April that year, a businessman and owner of the 1TV station. With Sediqa Nuristani, he had the first ever women as one of his deputies. Reportedly, he tried to make the NOC more independent from the government.

As Afghan media reported, Hashemi ’s independent course angered the Directorate for Physical Education and Sports that funnels government money into Afghan sports and which, in turn, is part of the Ministry of Information and Culture (that also covers youth and sports). The directorate stopped the flow of funds and, as a result, Hashemi, financed the participation of an Afghan team in the 2014 Asian Games from his own pocket.

After 17 months, in late 2015, Hashemi threw in the towel. But after his resignation, he put in a protest against General Akbar’s re-election. There were procedural mistakes, he claimed. He himself, although he was still a member of the board, was not invited to participate in the vote. Making things more complicated, Akbar’s election was recognised by the IOC, but not by the Afghan government’s sports directorate. According to the ARD report already cited, it now backs Hashemi.

The split over Afghanistan’s NOC is another reflection of a more general tug-of-war over governmental positions between different factions in the two ‘camps’ of the National Unity Government (AAN analysis here). The Minister of Information and Culture Abdul Bari Jehani was nominated by the camp of President Ghani. The head of the sports directorate’s Humayun Khairi, according to Tolonews, belongs to the same camp, as he is linked to the Jombesh party led by Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum. Dostum was made responsible for Afghan sports by President Ashraf Ghani in early 2015, after he had complained about having been sidelined in the government (see AAN reporting here). Although he reacted with a sneer, saying, according to The New York Times, that he was not “[the Portuguese football star] Ronaldo – you can’t just throw a football at me,” he nominated Khairi to be the sports directorate head. NOC chief Akbar, however, belongs to the competing, Abdullah camp. As another result of the infighting, an up-till-now widely unknown official, Ghulam Rabbani Rabbani, heads the Afghan delegation to Rio.

It is the sportsmen and women, like Nekpai, or like Somaya Ghulami, a female taekwondo fighter living and training in Iran and hoping for a medal who are the victims of this factional infighting, missing out on their chance to compete in Rio. Nekpai told the ARD that it was “a direct consequence of the corruption in [Afghan] sports that Afghanistan does not send any taekwondo fighter to Rio.” The martial art is one of the country’s most popular sports. “I want that politics keeps out of sports. When we do not succeed of keeping politics and sports apart, sports in this country will be ruined.”

No women…

This already happened some time before the Olympic Games to Afghan women’s sports. As The New York Times reported in April 2016, citing examples from the national associations for cycling, football, taekwondo and (non-Olympic) cricket, “Women’s sports programs in Afghanistan, long a favourite of Western donors, have all but collapsed. (…) Some [sports associations] consist of little more than a young woman with a business card and a desk” by now. The women’s cycling team, supported by a US charity, Mountain2Mountain, that until recently had made extremely positive headlines around the world (for example here) and was even nominated for the Nobel Peace Price, has ran into “out of control” corruption under its (meanwhile suspended) Afghan male coach. There were even accusations of sexual misconduct against him by a former member of the team who has requested asylum in Germany. The women’s football team has not competed internationally since 2014. The women’s cricket team had been dissolved by the (male) leadership of the Afghanistan Cricket Board, as its members hold the opinion that women should not be playing sports. The Times reported Shamila Kohestani, former captain of the Afghan women’s football team, saying:

…that Afghan officials never really supported the idea of women in sports, saying they only feigned interest because women’s sports were such grant magnets. “They would say, ‘I would never let my daughter do that,’” she said. “They treated us like sluts or something because we’re running around showing ourselves to men.”

One of the two first ever Afghan women Olympic starters, Robina Muqimyar (now Jalali), also blamed foreign embassies for no longer paying much attention to women’s sports in her country.

As a result of those circumstances, the 2016 Afghan Olympic team has only one woman, and she lives and trains in Iran.

In general, the infighting among the country’s sports officials has not helped to elevate Afghan athletes’ international competitiveness, both on the men’s and the women’s side, and the times are over that the country received special treatment as it had just returned to the international sports scene. There is very little chance that any of the three athletes who made it to Rio can add to Nekpai’s triumphs from Beijing 2008 and London 2012 that, across all social and ethnic backgrounds, had made so many Afghans extremely proud.

(1) There is no information yet available on Afghan participation in the Rio Paralympics. However, there are a number of Afghanistan veterans of several nations’ armed forces who will be competing – see examples from the UK here and Australia here.

In late 2015 and early 2016, the Western Balkans witnessed an unprecedented flow of people through its borders on their way to Europe. For several months a ‘humanitarian corridor’ provided certain nationalities, including Afghans, with transportation to the outer fringes of the European Union. However, Afghans trying to reach Europe once again find themselves at the mercy of smuggling networks. In this first dispatch of a three-part series, Jelena Bjelica and Martine van Bijlert lay out the key events and policies that led to the establishment and subsequent dismantling of the corridor. It also examines how the relatively benign welcome that Afghans travelling through Serbia experienced, is now fading.

Part I: The opening and closing of the Balkan corridor

Part 2: Afghans in transit through Serbia

Part 3: The smugglers’ re-emergence

Prologue: A Badakhshi on the Balkan route

Rahman – a tall lad in his late teens from Darwaz district in Badakhshan province – began his long journey to Europe about a year ago, when the wave of migration to and through Europe was just gathering steam. He travelled first to Pakistan and then to Iran, where he spent a month, then onto Turkey, where he spent two months earning money to continue his journey onwards. He paid a smuggler 3,000 US dollars, but in the end he had to make his own way to Greece. Unfortunately for him, just as he arrived in March 2016, the EU-Turkey deal that effectively closed the Balkan corridor came into force. The flow of people he had hoped to join had been halted. It didn’t mean the end of his journey, but it made things much more complicated.

Rahman spent around two months in Greece and then walked to Macedonia. In Macedonia he was sold a fake bus ticket to Serbia for 100 Euros, so he resumed his journey on foot. When the AAN researchers met him in Belgrade in June 2016, he had only just arrived and was trying (unsuccessfully) to reconnect with his smuggler. Out of money and no longer in touch with his original smuggler, Rahman is one of many who now find themselves stranded halfway.

The Balkan route

Throughout 2015 and the first half of 2016 the Balkan route was the main land gateway to Europe for many Afghans. The route starts in Turkey, heads west into Greece (by boat over the Aegean Sea) and then into the Western Balkans, mainly through the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria and Serbia. Over a million people travelled through the Western Balkans on foot, by bus, by car or by train in 2015 alone, including over 250,000 Afghans.

Before the establishment of the ‘Balkan corridor’ in late 2015 – and following its closure in early 2016 – refugees and migrants had to rely on smugglers to cross borders illegally. These routes in and out of Serbia largely follow old smuggling routes that were used to smuggle oil and other goods during the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, when Yugoslavia was under UN sanctions. These routes were also traditionally used for smuggling people (from Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria through Serbia to Bosnia and further north to Western Europe), drugs and weapons.

Serbia’s current borders with Bulgaria, Macedonia and Croatia (which were the borders of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia between 1992 and 2003) were extremely porous during the Balkan wars of 1990s. At the time the country was undergoing an economic crisis and smuggling provided an important means of survival. This was made easier as the police and customs departments of the states that were established from the ashes of Tito’s Yugoslavia (the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1945–1992) did not cooperate or exchange information with one another. Traffickers and smugglers, on the other hand, generally managed to work closely across ethnic and (new) political lines.

This situation changed following the wars in the Western Balkans. In the early 2000s, new regional forums were established to improve cooperation between the former foes (for instance with the Migration, Asylum, Refugees Regional Initiative (MARRI) that brought together Serbia, Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Albania; see also this LSE paper on the regional initiatives for more details). Such initiatives improved communication, but there was still bitterness resulting from previous conflicts between the different national police and customs forces. These tensions continue to stand in the way of full-scale cooperation.

Although law enforcement improved, former smuggling routes continued to be used for illegal migration towards Europe, including from Afghanistan. According to the Serbian Ministry of Interior’s 2012 annual report – well before the 2015 migration peak – Serbia’s police apprehended 660 Afghans and 396 Pakistanis who had tried to cross its borders illegally (out of a total of 1,560 migrants). In 2013, the Serbian police prevented 340 Afghans and 450 Pakistanis from illegally crossing the country’s borders (out of a total of 1,737 migrants).

Additionally, some of region’s aspiring EU candidates, particularly Kosovo and Albania, were a source of irregular migration themselves, with a peak of outward border crossings into Serbia from these countries in late 2014 and early 2015 (see here). In January and February 2015, tens of thousands of Kosovar Albanians walked through Serbia to the Hungarian border, in an act that may have opened the way for other refugees, particularly the large numbers of Syrian refugees that started arriving a couple of months later.

May to September 2015: Numbers pick up as Hungary closes its borders

In May 2015 when the Syrian refugee crisis broke, people started travelling through the Western Balkans en mass, making it the busiest route in 2015 (see for instance this European Parliamentary report). In 2015, over a million refugees arrived in Europe by sea. Afghans accounted for about 20 per cent of these arrivals, making them the second largest group entering Europe (see previous AAN reporting here). Once people had crossed the sea, many of them travelled from Greece to Macedonia and then onwards, via Serbia, into Hungary.

Significantly, the border between Hungary and Serbia is also the border separating the European Union from its Western Balkan periphery. It was a border that the EU had already been trying to fortify against migrants for many years.

September 2015: Hungary seals its border, migration moves westwards

Between May and August 2015, as migrant numbers picked up, the Serbian authorities registered over 90,000 people who ‘expressed an intention to seek asylum’, but who were, in fact, in transit through Serbia. The real number of people who passed through the country during this period was probably considerably higher.

The high number of arrivals in Serbia and the fact that they were allowed to travel onwards largely undeterred, provoked a harsh response from the Hungarian authorities, who were determined – and obliged – to prevent the flow of migrants entering the EU illegally.

In late June 2015, Hungarian authorities announced a plan to build a four-metre high fence along its 177 kilometre-long border with Serbia.  Construction began almost immediately and, on 15 September 2015, the Hungarian border was closed except for two official border crossings (see here and here for more details).

A growing group of people found themselves stranded near the two official border crossings on the Serbian-Hungarian border, Horgoš and Kelebija. On 16 September 2015, there were approximately 3,000 people stranded at Horgoš alone (according to reporting by REACH at the time), many of whom were forced to sleep in the open air. At the same time, on the southern Serbian border with Macedonia, people were still streaming in.

In October, November and December 2015, over 420,000 people continued to pass through Serbia, according to figures AAN received from UNHCR Serbia.

The opening of the Balkan corridor: channelling the flow of people

After the closure of the Hungarian border in September 2015, migrants immediately started seeking out new routes. The next day, on 16 September 2015, people started arriving in taxis and buses at the Croatian border – an EU member-country that had not fortified its borders – and crossed the border illegally on foot. Initially, Croatia sought to close its border with Serbia (see for instance here and here), which resulted in strained relations between the two countries.

After a month of mounting tensions – with Croatia blocking traffic for Serbian citizens, and Serbia banning the import and transit of Croatian products – the authorities in both countries reached an agreement on 3 November 2015. According to the agreement, Serbia would transport migrants by bus to the railway station in Šid (at the border with Croatia, but still on Serbian territory) and guide them to a train that would take them directly to Slavonski Brod in Croatia, where a winter camp with a capacity for 5,000 people had been set up.

In light of this policy of (relatively) open borders as well as the moderate political discourse and public attitudes in this part of the region, a European Parliamentary report labelled the countries in the Western Balkans “refugee-friendly” (despite reported cases of mistreatment).

The cooperation between the Serbian and Croatian authorities continued throughout February 2016. A former humanitarian worker who had worked with migrants in Preševo (on the Serbian-Macedonian border) at the time, gave AAN a sense of the size of the influx of people. “Between November 2015 and early February 2016, when the humanitarian corridor between Serbia and Croatia was open, between 5,000 and 8,000 people per day passed through Preševo.”

She further described how the humanitarian corridor started in Gjevgjelia at the Macedonian-Greek border, from where people were transported by train to Miratovac on the Macedonian-Serbian border. From there they would walk to the transit camp in Preševo on the Serbian side of the border and be taken by the Serbian authorities in buses and trains to Šid/Odaševci on the Serbian-Croatian border. There they would wait for three to four hours to cross to Slavonski Brod in Croatia and travel on to their final destinations via Slovenia, Austria or Hungary.

The Afghan press agency, Tolo, also reported in November 2015 how growing numbers of Afghans had to queue for hours in Preševo to receive registration papers with which they would be able to travel onwards to Croatia.

Croatia’s neighbours reacted uneasily to the agreement. Hungary put up a razor-wire fence on its border with Croatia in mid October 2015, despite both countries being in the EU. In November 2015, Slovenia – another EU member state – did the same, although it claimed it wanted to “direct” rather than reduce the flow of migrants into the country (and, indeed, it did continue to allow the transit of migrants, see here).  Finally, and not unrelated, in early December 2015, Austria began building a fence along its border with Slovenia, the first to be set up between two Schengen countries.

Stopping the flow: the EU-Turkey Joint Action Plan and the Western Balkans deal

As the images of large numbers of migrants making their way through the Balkans towards Western Europe put pressure on politicians throughout Europe, the EU began negotiations with Turkey to reduce the influx. This ‘Joint Action Plan’, as it became known, was first discussed in May 2015, then endorsed  by EU heads of state on 15 October 2015 and signed on 29 November 2015 (see here  and here).

According to the agreement, the two sides would “step up cooperation … to address the crisis created by the situation in Syria” – as well as “step up the active cooperation on migrants who are not in need of international protection and to prevent their travel to Turkey and the EU, to ensure the application of the established bilateral readmission provisions and to swiftly return them to their countries of origin.” The Action Plan effectively sought to push the EU’s borders all the way back to Turkey, which also fit well with Turkey’s aspirations for EU membership.

Initially, the situation along the Balkan route did not change significantly as a result of the Action Plan. In January, February and March of 2016, the numbers crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece were still higher than they had been during the same period in 2015. It was only in April, May and June 2016, after the new EU-Turkey deal was signed and implemented, that numbers started decreasing sharply, compared to the same period in 2015.

In the meantime, two Balkan-born initiatives aimed at reducing and controlling the flow of migrants preceded the EU-Turkey deal of March 2016. At the end of November 2015, authorities in the most affected countries decided to allow only Syrians, Afghans and Iraqi nationals to cross their borders. Nationalities were checked at the Croatian border, including through language checks (although according to Frontex the effect of these checks was limited). As a result of this decision, Serbia started providing registration certificates to migrants from conflict areas (Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq) from 30 December 2015 onwards. This allowed them 72 hours to transit across the country, regardless of whether they expressed an intention to apply for asylum or not.

On 18 February 2016, the national heads of police in Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia signed an agreement to reduce the flow of refugees through the Balkans “to the greatest possible extent.” The agreement introduced a unified registration form as well as additional restrictions (such as requiring that migrants have identity documents and a Greek registration form), and allowed for the possibility of daily transit quotas. It also established common criteria, such as circumstances under which someone fled their country of origin, singling out Syrians and Iraqis as possibly in need of international protection because they came from “war-torn areas,” but surprisingly – as if they were unaffected by conflict – not Afghans. The result was that Afghans were now being turned away from the Balkan border crossings. Macedonia then closed its borders to Afghan refugees trying to enter from Greece.

This left thousands of Afghans stranded at the Gjevgjelia border crossing between Greece and Macedonia, (see for instance here and here).

There was considerable pushback against the deal. On 25 February 2016, Greece recalled its ambassador to Austria in protest, blaming the government in Vienna of undermining efforts towards a joint European response to the refugee crisis. On 26 February 2015, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, expressed “serious concern,” adding that “hundreds of Afghans were reportedly stranded in abject conditions” on the border between Macedonia and Serbia, and many other Afghans had been blocked from entering Macedonia from Greece, “apparently solely on the basis of their nationality.” The spokesperson for UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon also expressed his concern on 28 February 2016, however the policy was not revoked.

The change in policy towards Afghan migrants in the Balkans was matched by increased efforts within the European Union to accelerate the ‘re-admission’ of Afghans to Afghanistan – and the decision by some countries, such as Germany and Finland, to view Afghanistan as a ‘safe country,’ or at least as having ‘safe zones’.

This was illustrated by a (restricted, but leaked) joint ‘non-paper’ from the European Commission and the European External Action Service, dated 3 March 2016, on “migration, mobility and readmission with Afghanistan.” The memo drafted in preparation for the EU-Afghanistan conference in Brussels in October 2016, discussed “possible leverages…to enhance returns and effectively implement readmission commitments.” After the leak, the document was officially withdrawn. Interestingly, the memo acknowledged the “worsening security situation and threats to which people are exposed,” while trying to find ways to make Afghanistan cooperate and accept the ‘readmissions.’

On 4 March 2016, the third progress report on the EU-Turkey Action Plan was released. The report indicated that the total number of irregular arrivals from Turkey to Greece for the months between September 2015 and February 2016 had still been high (with a decrease that seemed at least partially linked to weather conditions at sea): respectively 147,639 (September), 214,792 (October), 154,381 (November), 104,399 (December), 61,602 (January) and 56,335 (February). The top three non-Syrian nationalities requesting international protection had been Iraqis (51 per cent), Afghans (25 per cent) and Iranians (14 per cent).

On 7 March 2016, following the meeting between EU representatives and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, the EU Heads of State addressed the migration situation, in particular with regard to the Western Balkans route, saying that “bold moves were needed to close down people-smuggling routes, to break the business model of the smugglers, to protect our external borders and to end the migration crisis in Europe. We need to break the link between getting in a boat and getting settlement in Europe.”

This was an admission that the November 2015 EU-Turkey Action Plan had not yet borne the desired effect; arrival figures had been reduced, but were still in the tens of thousands.

The end of the Balkan corridor: a new route and the resurgence of smugglers

On 18 March 2016, a new EU-Turkey deal was signed, stipulating that after the 20 March cut-off date all new irregular migrants crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey to the Greek islands would be returned to Turkey. (1) This date is often used to signal the end of the Balkan corridor, but the actual closing started two weeks earlier, when, at the beginning of March 2016, Slovenia and Croatia announced their decision to close the transit corridor and to return to the full implementation of the Schengen Border Code. This had a domino effect among other countries in the region who adopted daily quotas and sought to re-establish greater border control. Thousands of people were stuck in Greece as well as at various other junctions along the route, with many more on the way from Syria and Afghanistan, and other places. In Serbia at the time, there were approximately 800 people in Preševo (near the Serbian-Macedonian border) and 600 people in Šid (near the Serbian-Croatian border).

After the adoption of the new EU-Turkey deal and the closure of the Balkan corridor, the migration flow was reduced, but it did not stop (UNHCR charts showing estimated numbers of arrivals, before and after 20 March 2016, can be found on this webpage).  An alternative, overland route from Turkey to the EU – through Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary, while sidestepping Greece – had already gained importance throughout 2015 (see this Frontex report). It now became the route of choice for many, as AAN discovered during its interviews in June 2016 – despite reports of police brutality and Bulgarian efforts to fence off the border.

Smuggling networks, whose services had become redundant for several months beyond Greece, started up once again as a result. The third dispatch in this series will look at what AAN research in Belgrade found on how these smuggling networks are organised.

But before we turn to this, we take a closer look in the second dispatch at how Serbia, one of the main transit countries along the Balkan route, has been affected by the establishment and closure of the humanitarian corridor, and how authorities and civil society groups have sought to respond.

This series of three dispatches stems from research done in Belgrade in June 2016 by AAN’s Jelena Bjelica, Martine van Bijlert and Fabrizio Foschini. During the course of their research, they conducted interviews with migrants, aid workers, volunteers and informed observers, visited the main gathering places for Afghan migrants in Belgrade and tried to gain access to the Horgoš and Kelebija transit zones.

(1) For the full text of the agreement, see here. The agreement also stipulates, among other things, that for every Syrian returned to Turkey from the Greek islands, another Syrian would be resettled in the EU; that Turkey would take all necessary measures to prevent new sea or land routes for irregular migration to the EU opening from its territory; that once irregular crossings between Turkey and the EU have ended or been substantially reduced, a Voluntary Humanitarian Admission Scheme would be activated; that the fulfilment of a visa liberalisation roadmap would be accelerated; that the EU would speed up disbursement of the initially allocated 3 billion Euros under the Facility for Refugees in Turkey (with up to an additional 3 billion Euros to be mobilised until the end of 2018); that Turkey’s accession process would be re-energised; and that the EU and Turkey would work to improve humanitarian conditions inside Syria.

The Minister for Women’s Affairs, Delbar Nazari, has narrowly survived a vote of no confidence in parliament earlier this month. This is the latest in a long series of such motions against ministers that have become a means of carrying out political confrontations by proxy in parliament since a long time. MPs, however, seem to have become tired of this practice themselves lately. AAN senior analyst Thomas Ruttig summarises these latest events (with contributions by Salima Ahmadi, who witnessed the debate in parliament, and Ehsan Qaane).

A group of MPs from the lower house of the Afghan parliament has failed to oust the Minister for Women’s Affairs, Delbar Nazari. She was accused of corruption and professional ineffectiveness. In the end, only 51 out of 125 MPs present supported the motion when the vote took place on 13 July 2016, while 68 rejected it (there were also three blank votes and three votes were ruled invalid). Almost all MPs present would have had to support the motion in order to have the minister sacked. With currently 234 MPs, (1) 118 MPs constitute the required majority. Minister Nazari is an Uzbek from Balkh province and a nominee of the Chief Executive’s camp for the cabinet of the National Unity Government (NUG). Despite her ethnicity, she has no links to the main Uzbek party, Jombesh. (Read a short biography of the minister in footnote 2.)

The constitution (Article 92) gives parliament the right to summon and potentially oust high-ranking government officials who need a vote of confidence to secure their office (ministers or the heads of institutions equivalent to ministries, such as the heads of the Central Bank and the NDS). This procedure is called estezah in Afghan parliamentary terminology (meaning “interpellation,” sometimes wrongly translated as ‘impeachment’).

According to its internal regulations, the lower house (Wolesi Jirga) requires that at least a fifth of its MPs sign an estezah motion. After that, a question-and-answer session (called estejwab, from the word jawab, for “answer”) must be held, followed by a vote. Should an MP lose this vote, he or she must resign from their post and the president should nominate a new candidate (see this AAN dispatch about how the Wolesi Jirga works). This, however, has not always been the case in practice. Former President Hamed Karzai in particular had a record of repeatedly ignoring such parliamentary votes: then Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta, for example, kept his position until January 2010, in spite of receiving a vote of no confidence in May 2007; see here).

The right to carry out estezah was conferred to parliament by the 2003 Constitutional Loya Jirga (CLJ), during which there was strong disagreement between those who supported a centralised presidential system and those who favoured a parliamentary one. The centralist group constituted a narrow majority while those favouring a stronger parliament represented a strong minority of about 45 per cent of the CLJ delegates (read this AAN dispatch: https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/flash-to-the-past-long-live-consensus-a-look-back-at-the-2003-constitutional-loya-jirga/). The process of estezah, therefore, was granted as a concession to the minority. And it has backfired.

This series of interpellations – for example, parliament went after eleven ministers in early 2013 alone (see AAN analysis here) and sacked Karzai’s defence and interior ministers in one go in 2012 (see AAN’s analysis here) while there had only been two estezah motions during Ghani’s presidency before the one against Nazari (3) – as well as the former president’s reaction (or lack thereof) to this event put considerable strain on the relationship between the Afghan legislative and executive branches (see this AAN dispatch). It has also had repercussions to this day, as the practice has undermined the position of the cabinet and its members in the political system. Presidents have been able to side-step parliament’s powers by establishing internal, opaque decision-making or advisory bodies, usually referred to as ‘the Palace.’ This has often relegated the cabinet ministers, particularly those described as ‘technocrats’ without their own power-base, into a subordinate position where they have to carry out decisions taken above rather than make their own ones.

Nazari was also probably lucky, as this motion came at a time when both houses of parliament, and particularly the lower house, were deciding on the composition of a joint Wolesi Jirga/Meshrano Jirga commission on electoral reform, an issue long overdue (see AAN’s analysis here and here), which they apparently considered to be more important than the motion against Nazari. (4)

What were the accusations against Nazari?

According to the Secretary of the Wolesi Jirga, MP Erfanullah Erfan, four reasons were given for summoning the minister: 1) accusations of fesad, which cover both administrative and moral corruption; 2) nepotism, ie the appointment of relatives to positions in the ministry, 3) weak management, and 4) her inefficiency as a minister. It is unclear, however, who initiated the motion and how many MPs signed it before it reached the Wolesi Jirga. These documents are not publicly available.

As far as AAN was able to ascertain, there were no concrete accusations or even evidence for any of the charges laid against Nazari in the written motion. This led to some finger-pointing and denials. Two female MPs told AAN that three of their female colleagues – Fawzia Kofi, from Badakhshan province and head of the commission for women’s affairs, Razia Sadat Mangal from Paktia province, and Rubaba Parwani from Kabul province – had been behind the estezah motion. Sadat Mangal acknowledged that she had signed the petition, but said she had not initiated it. (She told AAN it was initiated by Kabul MP Kubra Mustafawi.) Parwani refused to comment, and Kufi was unavailable to AAN for comment. The fact remains, however, that only female MPs took the floor when the motion was debated.

Another emotional point raised against the minister in the debate was an alleged case of rape, which had occurred inside the ministry – although actually under the current minister’s predecessor. Some MPs – including Parwani and Mustafawi – reproached Nazari for hiring the father of the alleged perpetrator (the latter had worked in the ministry himself but was fired after the incident) as her adviser. These allegations failed to mobilise a sufficient number of MPs. The parliament’s administrative board apparently also decided not to follow up on the charges made, although MP Parwani claimed she had submitted documents as “evidence” against Nazari (which a member of the board denied when talking to AAN).

Two MPs close to the main Uzbek party Jombesh, Bashir Ahmad Tahienj from Faryab and Qudratullah Zaki from Takhar, rejected another accusation against the minister when talking to AAN, that Nazari had promoted fellow Uzbeks in her ministry in what would amount to ‘ethnic nepotism.’ Quite the contrary, Tahienj alleged, as Jombesh was in fact unhappy that Nazari had not, in their view, appointed enough Afghan Turks to her ministry: “This was the reason we [Uzbeks] spoke to her so many times: why could she not appoint some Turktabar (5)?” The minister’s brother, however, works as an advisor at the ministry; Nazari insists she needs him as a mahram.

The two MPs further noted, when talking to AAN, that Nazari had told them certain female MPs had turned against her after she had refused to give jobs in the ministry to their relatives. According to Tahienj and Zaki, the minister said those MPs had then threatened ‘to take revenge’ by getting her removed from her post. In the debate, Nazari admitted to shortcomings in her ministry’s work and said the next time she is called in, she would present the ministry’s achievements. She claimed that all her recent appointments had been approved by the president’s office.

On another point, Nazari had also been accused by a number of MPs – including Shakeba Hashemi from Kandahar and Rayhana Azad from Uruzgan – of improper behaviour, undermining the constitution and the country’s judiciary and giving legitimacy to the Taleban. During a press conference (reported by Afghan media here), she had urged the Taleban to “punish perpetrators of violence against women” within their own ranks. The minister stood by her statement, arguing that she had aimed at preventing the Taleban from stoning girls and women accused of ‘moral corruption’ and that she, in the holy month of Ramadan, had wanted to contribute to peace building and ending atrocities against women (here).

Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi, the WJ speaker, cut short this debate (as one other MP confirmed to AAN) as the accusation had not been a formal part of the motion against Ms Nazari and urged MPs to vote for the continuation of her term in office.

What was the politicking behind the anti-Nazari motion?

The motion against Minister Nazari had elements both of political infighting between the two camps in the NUG and of longstanding conflicts between different female politicians for influence over the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA). Kufi, Hashemi and Fatima Aziz, who were actively involved in the move against Nazari, belong to the Abdullah camp. Before the NUG was formed, Kufi and Hashimi had apparently harboured aspirations for top MoWA positions themselves, according to some MPs. Furthermore, no male MPs spoke against Nazari in the debate; most votes of no confidence came from female MPs.

The post of Minister for Women’s Affairs (6) has been highly sought by individual female politicians ever since its introduction by the 2001 Bonn conference. This has often caused rifts within the post-Taleban women’s movement and among individual female politicians. This post’s importance is enhanced by the fact that it is seen among Afghan elites as the only clear ‘women’s slot’ in cabinet where, usually, only a small number of women are members (currently four out of 24, far below the 25 per cent quota for women MPs). Starting with the first minister appointed at the Bonn conference, there have been repeated accusations of ethnic or political ‘monopolisation’ of positions in the ministry and/or the exclusion of relevant women’s networks. The current infighting and accusations and counter-accusations among female MPs provide more evidence that there is no unified ‘women’s block’ in parliament pursuing a joint women’s rights agenda.

Nasima Niazi, an MP from Helmand, made another important point. She told AAN that although Minister Nazari was not from her ethnic group and neither did they share the same political views, she had decided not to support the vote to have her ousted, as the estezah sessions had become “subjective“ affairs. She also accused the house of a gender bias, as originally signatures for three estezah motions were collected (the others being against the (male) ministers of trade and commerce and of education), but only the female minister was subjected to it. (Speaker Ibrahimi shifted the blame to the committee of the chairs of the parliamentary commissions (kamita-ye ru’asa) by stating that this is the body responsible for setting the house’s agenda.)

First swallows of spring, or more?

More importantly, Niazi’s complaint against the estezah’s use as a political tool to push parochial (and sometimes unlawful) interests of individual MPs seems to reflect a growing uneasiness about this practice in the Wolesi Jirga. Such complaints, as well as the accusation that the house’s administrative board treats different ministers differently, have been increasing for over a month. In the case of the trade and commerce minister, for example, some MPs who initially signed the motion later withdrew their signatures, one MP told AAN. The plenary also showed no signs, despite repeated demands by some signatories, to start the estezah procedure. Also, the last candidates for the long vacant posts of defence minister and head of the intelligence service (NDS) went though unexpectedly smoothly in parliament in May 2016 (see AAN’s reporting here).

This constitutes a move towards a much-needed ‘normalisation’ and professionalisation of the Afghan parliament’s work. On many occasions, it has acted as a body that is merely a conglomerate of individuals pursuing parochial interests, neglecting to pull together and pass vital legislation for the sake of the nation’s interests (see this AAN analysis). It remains to be seen, however, whether this represents a general shift or, as the Afghan proverb says, is just the arrival of the first swallow before spring has properly sprung.

(1) A group of MPs that were boycotting the WJ sessions (see AAN’s reporting here) since mid-May about the TUTAP controversy had one by one returned by June. MP Shinkai Karokhel, who was appointed ambassador to Canada on 13 May 2016, is still attending parliament as her credentials have not been given yet. Two more MPs appointed to governmental posts (Naqibullah Faiq for head of the Afghanistan National Standards Authority in February 2016 and Shukrai Barakzai, appointed ambassador to Norway in February 2016), have not been replaced as this is legally impossible in the last year of the WJ’s tenure. The quorum has not been lowered, though.

(2) Al-Hajj Delbar Nazari, born in 1958, is an Uzbek from Khulm district in Balkh province (formerly part of Samangan).  Although some sources, such as a NPS Samangan provincial profile (not available online anymore) associate her with Jombesh, she told AAN that her nomination came from the CEO team, in particular from Atta Muhammad Nur, the acting governor of her home province Balkh whose rivalry with Dostum is well known. She obtained a degree from the Teachers Training Centre of Balkh (Dar ul-Mu’alemin Balkh). According to her introduction in parliament, she also holds a degree from Balkh University in Dari and English literature and one from the private Kateb University in International Relations (2011). Her own biography posted on the MoWA website includes stints as both teacher and principal at the Naeem Shahid High School in Samangan (ten years), as well as work with Oxfam (three years), German Agro Action (three years), ZOA (a Dutch NGO) and UNICEF (two years, allegedly as head of educational programs in Samangan) and as civic educator for the joint elections management body (JEMB) for the presidential elections in 2004 (no details or order given). From 2005 to 2010, she served as a member of parliament for Samangan. In 2012 and 2013, she worked as “a legal advisor to the first deputy.” Before her appointment as minister, she worked in the Ministry of the Interior’s department for the development of the electronic national ID card (gender section).

(3) Both happened In the second sitting of the 2015 legislative year (7 September to 20 January 2016): On 2 November 2015, then interior minister Nur-ul-Haq Ulumi survived a no-confidence vote (see here) and as did telecommunication minister Abdul Razaq Wahidi on 4 January 2016 (see here).

(4) At that point, the WJ had not been able to nominate its members for the commission, while the MJ had already named its delegates. The WJ finally followed suit on 18 July 2016.

(5) “Turktabar” is a relatively new term, used by some not only for members of Turkic ethnic groups in Afghanistan, ie Uzbeks, Turkmen and Kyrgyz, but also to include the Hazara, Qizilbash and Bayat, claiming that they all belong to a larger, joint ‘Turco-Mongol’ group.

(6) The first Minister of Women’s Affairs was Sima Samar who served in this post from 2001 to early 2003 in the post-Taleban interim and transitional authorities (before the first regular elections). She was followed by Dr Habiba Surabi (2003-04) – when Samar became the head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) – and, after the 2004 presidential election, Dr Massuda Jalal (October 2004-July 2006). In July 2006, Dr Husn Banu Ghazanfar received the vote of confidence for this position from parliament. She served up to the formation of the NUG cabinet after the 2014 presidential election. The women who served (after 2004) as deputy ministers for policy and vocational affairs were Shafiqa Yarqin, Soraya Sobhrang, Mazari Safa, while Tajwar Kakar, Najiba Sharifi, Maliha Sahak and Muzhgan Mustafawi were deputy ministers for financial and administrative affairs.

The Islamic State’s local franchise in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP), has claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on the TUTAP protests in Kabul on 23 July 2016. The attack killed more than 80 people and injured over 230 others in Deh Mazang Square in western Kabul. The target of the attack [on 23 July], a peaceful, civilian protest of Shia Hazaras unrelated to the war and of no military importance, would seem to suggest that this was indeed an IS attack. AAN’s Borhan Osman looks at the emergence and subsequent development of ISKP and its relationship to the Taleban and the Afghan government. Judging by the group’s turbulent past, which saw it cornered in Nangarhar (in contrast to its ambitions of a nationwide expansion), it seems ISKP is now possibly more bent on striking in places like Kabul for the sake of gaining attention and boosting its fighters’ morale.

As of July 2016, the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) group has established a secure footing in four districts of Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan. Elsewhere in the country, it has failed (read an analysis of the country-wide situation in November 2015 here). In Nangarhar, over a year ago, the vanguard of the movement was a group of Pakistani militants who had lived there for years as ‘guests’ of the Afghan government and local people. While initially avoiding attacks on Afghan forces, they made their new allegiances known by attacking the Taleban and taking their territory. Since its emergence in Nangarhar, the group has made many enemies and has seen its sphere of dominance shrink considerably.

The vanguards

In late January 2015, the Islamic State announced its expansion into Khorasan province. The elements of what would become IS Khorasan Province’s (ISKP) main contingent had, however, long existed on the Afghan battlefield. Although the first case of an ISKP presence that grabbed public attention took place in Helmand that January (as discussed below), the actual IS vanguards emerged from Nangarhar province. The IS fighters who pioneered the Khorasan franchise of the IS were Pakistani militants who had long been settled in the southeastern districts of Nangarhar, in the Spin Ghar mountains or its foothills, bordering the tribal agencies on the Pakistani side of the Durand Line.

Before choosing to join ISKP, these militants operated under different brands, mainly under the umbrella of the ever-loosening Tehrik-e Taleban Pakistan (TTP). The bulk of these militants had been arriving in Nangarhar since 2010 mainly from the Orakzai, North Waziristan and Khyber tribal agencies. According to local residents, the first groups of Pakistani militants arrived in Nangarhar from Orakzai following an operation by the Pakistani army that year. They moved into Afghanistan, often with their families, apparently to flee military operations by the Pakistani army. They settled in Achin, Nazian, Kot, Deh Bala, Rodat and Ghanikhel districts, among others. Calling themselves muhajerin (refugees) in search of shelter, they invoked support from the local communities in Nangarhar who deemed it their moral obligation to extend a helping hand to their Pashtun brothers escaping violence in their hometowns. The ‘refugees’ also opened madrasas and schools for their children in Achin and Nazian.

Gradually, the muhajerin turned out to be more than solely oppressed civilians in pursuit of humanitarian assistance. They carried weapons and displayed allegiance to Pakistani militant groups. Hoping to use them against Pakistan, the Afghan government started to woo some of these fighters, according to influential tribal elders involved in helping relation-building from the districts that sheltered the guest militants. Tribal elders feuding against their rivals over land or power also sought to get the support of one group or another. The most well-known case of these militants finding a welcoming home in Nangarhar is that of the Lashkar-e Islam group led by Mangal Bagh. (1) Local residents put the number of this group from the Khyber Agency differently, but a general estimation puts them at no fewer than 500 in the past three years.

The Afghan government’s support to Mangal Bagh’s men is an open secret among residents of the Spin Ghar districts near the Durand Line. Residents from Achin recall the generous hosting of groups of long-haired Lashkar-e Islam fighters at the houses of Shinwari tribal elders, such as Malek Usman and Malek Niaz, in Achin. They had introduced their black flag to the area long before ISKP hoisted a flag of the same colour with different symbols and slogans. According to residents, Lashkar-e Islam’s flags were flying over many houses in the Mamand valley in Achin in the summer of 2014. Today, Lashkar-e Islam remains an implementing partner of ISKP in Nangarhar. Mangal Bagh’s fighters, mainly from the Afridi tribe, who predominantly come from Khyber Agency, have not actually merged with ISKP, but they act in such close coordination with it that many locals perceive them as having morphed into a wing of ISKP. In an apparent power-sharing deal, Mangal Bagh’s fighters have obtained control over Nazian district, which looks like a delegation from ISKP. Lashkar-e Islam has long made up the bulk of Pakistani militants in Nazian.

However, efforts by the Afghan intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), to woo Pakistani militants in Nangarhar have not been confined to Lashkar-e Islam or to militants from Khyber. Tribal elders and ordinary residents of Achin, Nazian and Kot testify that fighters from Orakzai and Mohmand agencies belonging to different factions of the TTP have been allowed free movement across the province, as well as treatment in government hospitals. When moving outside their hub in Nangarhar’s southern districts, they would go unarmed. In off-the-record conversations with AAN, government officials have verified this type of relationship between segments of the Pakistani militants and the NDS, as have pro-government tribal elders and politicians in Jalalabad. They described this state of affairs as a small-scale tit-for-tat reaction to Pakistan’s broader and longer-ranging, institutionalised support to the Afghan Taleban in their fight against the Afghan government.

In late 2015, Afghan government sources estimated the number of muhajer families in Nangarhar at over 2,000. Apparently, not all of the men from these families engaged in armed activities. Therefore, the exact number of active ‘guest’ militants at any given point is difficult to quantify. However, in early 2015, their number seems to have been well over 1,000.

The NDS, these sources claim, expected their protégés to fight against the Pakistani government. It also saw a role for them to fight, or at least stand, as a bulwark against the Afghan Taleban in the areas where they were hosted, something only few of them actually did. While Mangal Bagh’s men would engage casually in not-so-bloody confrontations with the Afghan Taleban, other militants under the TTP umbrella initially avoided confronting their Afghan counterparts at all, keeping, at times, rather cordial relations with them. 

The break with the Afghan Taleban

While, since as early as 2010, the mainly TTP militants from various tribal districts on the Pakistani side of the Durand Line existed in Nangarhar’s Spin Ghar districts, their attitudes mirrored the overall lack of cohesiveness within the TTP, which usually had little control and command over the fighters, including those scattered across Nangarhar. As wider splits within the TTP ranks emerged following the death of the group’s leader Hakimullah Mehsud in November 2013, militants in Nangarhar also turned into autonomous, often ruthless factions, further divided in smaller groups. That was the pattern throughout 2014. The chain of command with the TTP centre, as well as relations with the local Afghan Taleban, were stained by the increasingly predatory behaviour of these militants, who started to regularly engage in money extortion, kidnappings and ransom-taking, targeting both Afghans and Pakistanis. They would send messages to actual or presumed rich sympathisers of the Afghan Taleban and of the TTP in Pakistani and Afghan towns, asking them for huge amounts of money. If the recipients failed to heed the request, they would be threatened.

It was from these ‘guests’ that the bulk of the Nangarhar-based ISKP foot soldiers emerged, following the official announcement of IS’s expansion to ‘Khorasan Province.’ (2) Before they openly changed their allegiance (or sympathy) to IS, they exhibited other signs of regrouping under a new modus operandi. From the autumn of 2014, they started to act more autonomously of the TTP and as if trying to establish some sort of control over the areas they lived in, for instance by casually setting up checkpoints. They also appeared to be preparing for a major battle, transporting huge shipments of weapons from Tirah valley in Khyber Agency with unprecedented quantity and frequency. This coincided with a new wave of muhajer families arriving from Khyber Agency and North Waziristan. In part, this was triggered by the Pakistani army’s Operation Khyber 1, which started in October 2014, and the subsequent Operation Khyber 2, which started in March 2015. According to Pakistani officials, the two-phased Khyber operations, which targeted Khyber and parts of Orakzai agencies, were aimed at repelling militants who had fled there from the Zarb-e Azb operation in North Waziristan. This increased relocation was concentrated in Achin, Nazian and, to a lesser extent, Deh Bala and Kot districts. The weapons were transported by mules and spread in the above-mentioned districts, but also ferried as far as into Azra district in Logar. Huge amounts of these weapons were cached in Achin’s Mamand valley. According to the estimate of local residents, more than 30 mule loads of weapons arrived in Nangarhar from or through Tirah to Mamand alone, from (late) summer 2014 to June 2015. They cited the militants as stating that the weapons had been confiscated from the Pakistani army and would be used against it in future operations.

It took the local population several months to understand what their muhajer ‘guests’ were actually up to. In May 2015, they woke up to the fact that the guests had changed their own flags to those of the IS. The militants then turned Mamand, which had been the centre of the increased migration, into ISKP’s headquarters. The highly mountainous terrain, hard to conquer for outsiders but providing easy supply and exit routes to Tirah, was the perfect choice for the command centre of the new group, which had previously cached huge amounts of weapons transported from Tirah in Mamand’s Takhta and Kharawy areas. The castle of a tribal elder, Malek Niaz, who had long fed and sheltered some of these militants, virtually turned into ISKP’s command centre. The group’s leaders were widely reported to be staying in the valley, at least during the initial two months when they oversaw ISKP’s expansion into several districts. However, after the group’s meetings were targeted by drone strikes in early July 2015, they seem to have chosen a more mobile approach.

Mamandis (residents of the valley) remember ISKP’s initial rule from mid-May until early July 2015 as a period of great relief. They initially thought that ISKP was a pro-government force in a new garb and cited the group’s commanders as stating that “we are here to fight the ISI Emirate,” referring to the Afghan Taleban and their link to the Pakistani intelligence service. Their reaction to the ANSF made the new group of old fighters look even more benign to the residents who also cited the ISKP fighters as saying “we have nothing against government forces.” Members of the ANSF who had earlier gone home stealthily and fearing interception from the Taleban, started to roam freely in the area. Government schools remained open and their employees enjoyed free movement. Adding to ISKP’s perception as less troubling than the Taleban was the fact that it provided its own food and shelter. The Taleban, in contrast, would request – or take – it from the residents. The only major policy change that affected people’s lives was the ban on poppy cultivation and drug sales. An Afghan National Army soldier from Mamand told AAN: “We celebrated the coming of Daesh and the disappearance of the Taleban. We could come home and roam around without any fear of being stopped by Taleban.”

In early July 2015, however, things changed drastically and rapidly when a series of popular ‘uprisings’ against ISKP kicked off with the support of the Taleban, marking a shift in the Taleban’s approach towards its rival group, from passive resistance to head-on confrontation.

Facing the Taleban 

In the wake of open TTP factionalism following Hakimullah Mehsud’s death, the Afghan Taleban lost control over most of the Pakistani fighters who would make up the ISKP group. In 2013 and 2014, the Afghan Taleban had expelled, disarmed and banned some of the commanders and groups engaged in extortion (using the Afghan Taleban’s name) and other criminal activities. Despite these measures, the Afghan Taleban were not fully in control of the militant landscape in Nangarhar.

In addition, due to ideological and political differences, the Afghan Taleban had also earned the wrath of another segment of Pakistani militants, according to communiqués obtained from some of these militants as well as from Taleban sources. The Pakistanis would usually criticise the Afghans’ friendly relations with the Pakistani government, as well as their failure to declare the Afghan government (and its employees) apostates. At times, these differences turned violent. Objectors to the Afghan Taleban were not only found in Nangarhar. Sa’id Khan, (3) the TTP commander for Orakzai agency, who would later lead ISKP, was described by Afghan Taleban sources as being at odds with the movement based on what he considered to be the Taleban’s impure creed and lenient attitude towards the Afghan government. According to these sources, Sa’id Khan is a Salafi (trained in a local Salafi madrassa founded in the 1940s with Saudi support). They described him as having a past characterised by virulent sectarianism, as someone who, they said, was involved in attacks on Hanafi ulama in Orakzai when he was the TTP emir for that tribal agency. (4)

When IS in Syria and Iraq announced its caliphate in June 2014, followed by suspicious moves by the Pakistani militants in Nangarhar, the Afghan Taleban began watching them with added concern. The movement was aware that disgruntled militants, should they align themselves with the newly announced IS, could pose a threat to their dominance in the insurgency.

First clashes

Tensions between the ‘guest’ militants and the Afghan Taleban started in December 2014. The Taleban asked the guests to leave the area and close the madrassas where the muhajer children were being trained. They also confiscated a shipment of weapons in Mamand, consisting of six mules and reportedly worth five million Pakistani rupees (50,000 US dollars). A series of negotiations between the two sides kicked off, apparently from March to May 2015. The settlers refused to leave and, when fighting erupted in early 2015, the two sides irreversibly entered into open hostilities. At the same time, the Pakistani militants based in Nangarhar publicised their allegiance to IS.

The first clashes took place in Nazian district, triggered by an ambush by the guests-turned-ISKP fighters against the Afghan Taleban, killing two of their district chiefs. This incident was followed by Taleban attacks on ISKP in Kot and later in the Mamand valley. By mid-May 2015, the Afghan Taleban, being a minority in all three districts, quickly withdrew. ISKP forces went after the Taleban in Bati Kot, Chaparhar, Deh Bala, Khogyani, Sherzad, Pachir wa Agam, Rodat and Ghanikhel districts, capturing or heavily contesting most of their territory in the first five districts. By the end of June, ISKP was in a comfortable position in eight districts – and this represented the peak of the group’s territorial control.

Before the guest militants turned against the Taleban, the latter had kept a more balanced and optimistic outlook about global IS, with many Taleban seeing it as a defender of the Sunnis in Iraq and Syria. After the May encroachment by ISKP fighters on Taleban territory, the movement’s leadership opened communication channels with both the IS leadership in Syria and with ISKP leaders in the Afghan-Pakistani tribal belt. A number of messages were exchanged between the Taleban leadership and the IS centre in Raqqa through personal channels. At the local level, negotiations that had already started in early 2015 between the Taleban governor for Nangarhar, Mir Gul Ahmad Hashemi, and the ISKP governor, Sa’id Khan, resumed. The Taleban tried to convince IS to stay away from Afghanistan and leave it to lead the jihad in this country. Sa’id Khan, on the contrary, demanded that the Taleban movement disband itself and pledge allegiance to the caliphate. The negotiations failed.

On 11 June 2015, Hashemi was assassinated by ISKP in Peshawar. Four days later, the Taleban’s then-acting leader Akhtar Muhammad Mansur sent out a long, impassioned public letter to the IS Caliph Abu Bakr Baghdadi, asking him to either disown those fighting under the IS flag in Afghanistan or to join forces with the Taleban. The IS response came a week later, when its spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani referred to the Taleban as allies of the Pakistani intelligence agencies and asked the movement to repent or face the wrath of the IS mujahedin. Subsequently, the Afghan Taleban’s ulama in Pakistan issued a fatwa allowing the movement’s fighters to act in self-defence against IS, according to Taleban sources. After securing agreements with local ulama and tribal elders, who vowed to support the Taleban’s drive and contribute fighting men if needed, the Taleban started their ‘defensive’ campaign against ISKP in the last week of June.

The Taleban’s counter-attack

The local Taleban fighters were joined by some of the movement’s new elite forces under brutal commanders from Loya Paktia and Loy Kandahar. Within two weeks, ISKP had lost most of its territory to the Taleban in the southwestern districts, such as Pachir wa Agam, Khogyani and Deh Bala as well as in Chaparhar, on the outskirts of Jalalabad. The Taleban also seized a huge ISKP cache of weapons in Deh Bala. The movement’s campaign in the southeastern districts, such as Achin, Kot, Bati Kot and Nazian, however, was less successful. While they managed to mobilise popular support in Achin and reportedly in Kot, and tried to clear these districts of ISKP, only limited or no gains were achieved. This proved disastrous for the population who had supported the Taleban, or were suspected by ISKP of having done so, at least in Achin and Kot. Mamandis recall how their cooperation with the Taleban against ISKP ended the one and a half month-long period of calm under the caliphate.

In early July 2015, Taleban fighters sneaked into Mamand and, during the night of 2 July, talked to their sympathisers about staging a coordinated attack against the ISKP fighters. They managed to secure the help of various tribal elders. One morning during Ramadan, on 3 July 2015, local men (including those not usually sympathetic to the Taleban) and Taleban rose up together against ISKP, with calls by the Taleban via the mosque’s loud-speakers for all men of fighting age to come out and participate, or face seeing their homes burnt down. Taken by surprise, the ISKP fighters retreated from most of Mamand valley by the end of that day.

However, less than a week after being evicted from Mamand, they struck back, suppressing the local population and forcing the Taleban to hide among the people. The ISKP fighters, having broken the Ramadan fast in the middle of the day, were at their cruellest, according to local residents. According to various residents AAN talked to, ISKP gave them ten minutes to leave their houses without taking anything with them. They killed around a dozen Taleban on the spot and detained 80 local men, both young and old. Eleven of the detained were blown up in a field by explosives planted underneath the blindfolded hostages. The scenes of the brutal killings, released in a propaganda film on 10 August (the killing actually happened on the eve of Eid, 16 July), was widely reported in the Afghan and international media and has since become the brand image of the ISKP.

Following the return of ISKP, according to a local Mamand resident, the majority of the villagers from the targeted upper parts of the valley left their homes, cattle and farms and relocated to Jalalabad or other safer areas. The militants confiscated vacant properties as ghanimat (bounty), and new fighters, arriving from Orakzai and Bajaur agencies, settled in these houses along with their families. It became impossible for pro-government people or ANSF members to return to the area. Schools were subsequently closed. ISKP’s previously tolerant stance towards the government was replaced by open hostility to anyone or anything representing the government.

In the following months (and until recently), clashes between the Taleban and the ISKP took up most of the energy that the two groups would otherwise have directed against the Afghan government. In the intense turf war, districts such as Pachir wa Agam, Chaparhar, Bati Kot and Deh Bala, changed hands three to four times. In captured territory, each of the parties resorted to diverse tactics of brutality and purges against their opponents. These included the burning of houses of people allegedly linked to the rival group, public executions of alleged enemy fighters and forcing sympathisers of the rival party to flee their homes.

However, the purging of conquered lands did not always result in the immediate control of those areas. In one instance, in Chaparhar, ISKP fighters, having masked their affiliations and hidden their weapons, remained under the Taleban’s control for months. They suddenly rose up and expelled the movement from most of the district in early December 2015. This coordinated move resembled a counter-uprising. The Taleban suffered a high number of casualties as they tried twice, in vain, to take back lost territory. Only when the movement mobilised elite forces from several provinces in early January 2016, did it manage to recapture Chaparhar.

The fight over Chaparhar reminded the Taleban of ISKP’s resilience and effective fighting ability and prompted it to take its rival more seriously. On 4 January 2016, after receiving a fatwa from the pro-Taleban Afghan ulama in favour of an offensive ‘jihad’ against ISKP, the Taleban mounted a large-scale operation, which involved units of the Taleban ‘elite forces’ dispatched from ten provinces plus Nangarhar, totalling over 3000 fighters. Within three days, they had routed the ISKP from Chaparhar and Bati Kot, restricting the group’s control to Achin, Deh Bala, Kot and the tiny district of Nazian.

ANSF join the fight against ISKP

While the fight over territory pitted ISKP against the Taleban, who had traditionally claimed control in the countryside (the government had long ceased to hold much sway beyond the district centres in the south of Nangarhar), skirmishes also took place between ISKP and the ANSF. However, two months elapsed after the ISKP had established dominance over large swaths of territory before the two sides started to engage in fighting on a regular basis. An exception to this virtual ceasefire was an attack by the police at a Kot checkpoint in early June 2015, which was reportedly unprompted by ISKP. The group lost two of its fighters in the clash, one of them reportedly executed by the police after being wounded. Later, when the two sides started to engage each other, ISKP was able to overrun the ANSF, but also Afghan Local Police and so-called uprising militias’ checkpoints in about 12 cases, killing at least four dozen members of pro-government forces, including a district police chief for Deh Bala in June 2016.

In all these cases, however, ISKP occupation of ANSF positions has been short-lived, serving only as immediate morale boosts. In the largest of ISKP´s efforts aimed at ANSF, the overrunning of about a half dozen posts in Kot in late June 2016, the group suffered a devastatingly high number of casualties resulting from US air strikes and face-to-face fighting. ISKP seems to have lost more than 50 of its fighters (although government sources claim five times that number).

More recently, Afghan government forces seem to have been engaged in their fiercest fighting against ISKP so far, again supported by US forces in Kot district and parts of Achin. This followed President Ghani ordering a decisive operation against the group to eliminate its threat and a visit of the defence minister to Nangarhar province in mid-July. The ANSF operations have, for the first time, overtaken ISKP’s fighting focus from the Taleban to the Afghan government.

The ANSF had been engaged in offensive operations against ISKP several times in Achin, Kot, Nazian and Bati Kot prior to these current operations. In the first two districts, previous operations have, a number of times, led to territory being retaken from ISKP. However, in other cases, the offensives have made no lasting gains, as some retaken territory was again recaptured by ISKP. The government has increasingly relied on so-called popular forces, ie militias raised by local power-brokers and run by the NDS. These forces have proved to be effective, at least in stopping ISKP from further advances. Lately, these local militias have become the prime targets of ISKP’s major attacks. In June 2016, ISKP and its ally Lashkar-e Islam carried out three suicide attacks against these militia commanders, corresponding to one third of all the suicide attacks that ISKP has carried out so far.

No ANSF intervention during ISKP’s formative months

The Pakistani militants did not start fighting the Afghan government immediately after changing their flag. Neither did the ANSF engage in any planned operations against ISKP for two months after its public presence. ANSF and government employees seem to have initially been well tolerated by ISKP, until early July 2015; the fighting in Kot in early June 2015, which killed two ISKP members, one of them after being detained, was reportedly prompted by the police but does not seem to have represented a broader pattern of response on the ANSF’s part. Indeed, in late June 2015, local government and ANSF officials admitted that they were not targeting ISKP fighters. At that time, it seemed as if government officials saw ISKP as a useful tool to undermine the government’s traditional and more powerful enemy, the Taleban.

Throughout May and June 2015, in some areas such as Mamand, ISKP went as far as to openly commend the ANSF, as recalled by residents and members of the ANSF from the area. The first clue that ISKP was about to shift its attitude towards the ANSF, if not the government as a whole, appeared in a propaganda film released on 12 June 2015. The film featured the execution of two alleged ANSF members detained after the Kot battle and provided some insight into the group’s growing grievances against the Afghan government. The film delivered a message, the bottom line of which indicated that the Afghan government had to pay for its initiation of acts of hostility against Pakistani militants with the aim to appease Islamabad. A man overseeing the executions talked about the killing of 17 “mujahedin brothers” instigated by Pakistan’s intelligence agency, ISI. He also talked about the Afghan government handing over Pakistani militants to the ISI.

Some background information on Afghanistan-Pakistan cooperation aiming at curbing the militancy in the two countries at this time could shed some light on what may have been, at least in part, behind the decision by ISKP to make a U-turn in its relations with the Afghan government.

ISKP emerged at a time when President Ghani had just signalled an unprecedented level of cooperation with the Pakistani army in apprehending Pakistani militants on Afghan soil. After his visit to the Pakistan army headquarters in November 2014, only a few weeks after he had taken office, and subsequent visit in December that year by the Pakistani army and intelligence chiefs, Ghani vowed to deploy Afghan forces to fight the TTP. (See for background and links, this Wikipedia article) During the following weeks, reports pointed to practical actions taken by the Afghan government in this regard. For example, in December 2014, the ANSF launched military operations that targeted TTP fighters in Kunar province. According to some reports, which the government rejected, these operations on Afghan soil were conducted jointly by Afghan and Pakistani forces. In one reported instance such an operation led to the killing of an unknown number of Pakistani militants (in addition to Afghan Taleban). Also in December, a senior figure of the TTP, Latifullah Mehsud, who had been arrested in Afghanistan by US forces in 2013, was handed over to the Pakistani government along with three other militants from Afghanistan. Although the hand-over was presented as having been conducted by the US, the timing of the move suggested that it could have very much been part of Ghani’s declared increased cooperation with Pakistan. This U-turn by the Afghan government vis-à-vis the TTP militants seems to have contributed to the resentment of their Pakistani brethren affiliated to ISKP. In this reading of events, Kabul was first to breach the ‘friendship,’ in December 2014.

Afghan government responds after US starts bombing campaign  

However, the absence of any attacks by ISKP against ANSF and government employees during May and June 2015 begs an important question: if the Afghan government had already irked a segment of the Pakistani militants in December 2014, why did ISKP not show any signs of opposition to the government during the initial one and half months of its public presence?

While the Afghan government’s (casual) moves against the Pakistani militants apparently sowed the seeds of a divorce from December 2014, they did not seem to amount to a full unravelling of relations. What looks to have upped the ante came months later. Two developments in the first week of July 2015 seem to have been instrumental in triggering an all-out confrontation between ISKP and the Afghan government. The first was the unleashing of a series of deadly strikes by planes or drones by the US from 6 July 2015 onwards; the US air attacks coincided with security agencies in Kabul talking, for the first time, about the need to stop ISKP. On 6 and 7 July, three air strikes targeting ISKP in Achin killed dozens of the group’s members, including three of the most important leaders after Sa’id Khan. They were Gul Zaman Fatih, the second in command to Sa’id Khan, the ISKP military Jihadyar and the former TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid, who had been instrumental in liaising between the ISKP and the IS centre when the provincial franchise was launched.

Simultaneously with what quickly became the US’s air campaign (5) against ISKP, government officials from the Ministries of Interior and Defence announced that they were joining forces with the US in order to combat ISKP. The NDS also claimed credit for providing intelligence for the strike that led to the killing of the ISKP leaders. In the meantime, NDS announced the formation of a special unit made up of elements from all three security agencies (MoI, MoD, NDS) with the task of fighting ISKP.

The second development that unfolded in conjunction with the air strike campaign was a series of joint initiatives (if not outright uprisings) by the local population with the Taleban’s offensives against ISKP. In the offensives for retaking territory lost to ISKP in the southwestern districts in late June and the southeastern districts in early July, the Taleban managed to secure support from the local population. The support came from local political elites (including tribal elders), both those already sympathetic to the Taleban and those usually seen as pro-government. According to local journalists, some government officials did indeed incite (and possibly support) the local people to take on ISKP. True or not, ISKP, as inferred from its propaganda later, saw an active government hand behind the popular ‘uprisings’. The fact that ISKP was bloodied by the air strikes on one hand, and by popularly supported Taleban offensives on the other – both happening against a backdrop of the government’s security agencies talking of ANSF’s plans to fight ISKP – led to a turning point in ISKP’s attitudes towards the government.

Today, one year later, the US has stepped up its air campaign, especially after its designation, in mid-January 2016, of ISKP as a global terrorist organisation. The ANSF, together with local militias, have engaged more actively, at least in a number of instances, in ground offensives against the group. US and Afghan forces conduct joint night raids against alleged members of the group, and the Afghan air force has entered into regular ‘pounding’ of ISKP positions in Nangarhar. These developments, together with the Taleban’s unceasing and highly sophisticated campaigns against ISKP, have reversed the group’s initial momentum in Nangarhar. In more than one case, the fight against ISKP has even brought traditional enemies, the Taleban and the ANSF, together in Nangarhar. All this has enhanced the effectiveness of the battle against ISKP.

ISKP’s botched attempts outside Nangarhar

Before the Pakistani militants started operating as a franchise in Nangarhar, local groups elsewhere in Afghanistan also affiliated themselves with the IS in an attempt to be its flag-bearers.

The first verifiable news of an IS emergence in Afghanistan came from Helmand in January 2015, right in the centre of the Taleban’s heartland. The group suffered a first setback when their leader Abdul Rauf Khadem, once the second-most important Taleban commander from that province, was killed in a drone attack on 9 February 2015, less than a month after he announced his affiliation with the IS. It entered a pre-emptive ceasefire with the Taleban and ceased to grow. Fighting erupted again in late September 2015 between the two sides in northern Helmand, in Kajaki district, where the IS cell was based, and the 60-strong group was almost routed in two days of fighting. One sub-commander managed to escape to remote mountains further north in Baghran district. Since then, only one incident involving this IS cell has been recorded (for more background, see this AAN dispatch).

After Helmand, a group of self-proclaimed IS fighters emerged in Farah under the leadership of two disgruntled mid-level Taleban commanders. The Farah group, with over 60 people, was widely reported to be well-equipped and well-funded (while, as in other instances, the source of this funding remains an area of speculation). When the group was trying to expand its presence from Khak-e Safid district to other areas in late May 2015, the Taleban led an offensive against it, putting an end to the Farah cell as well. According to ISKP sources talking to AAN, the surviving commander, Abdul Raziq (aka Mehdi), later re-emerged in Nangarhar as a deputy to Sa’id Khan.

The third failed attempt outside Nangarhar was the closest to Kabul, in Logar province, with a mobile base in Khoshi and Azra districts. It was led by yet another disgruntled Taleban commander, Abdul Hadi aka Saad Emarati, who was officially ousted by the Taleban in 2013 but continued armed activities into 2014 in the Pakistani tribal agencies, as well as amid the Pakistani militants in Nangarhar. His men were reportedly involved in a few cases of sectarian targeting of the local Shia population in Khoshi between April and June 2015. This cell was eliminated in July 2015 by the Taleban, who laid siege to it. In the last moment before the Taleban attacked, Emarati slipped through the siege and fled to Nangarhar.

The fourth attempt took place in Zabul, and saw a bloodier end than the previous three attempts. The Zabul ISKP cell was made up of approximately 200 Central Asian (and perhaps North Caucasian) militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) who had been driven out of their decade-long shelter in North Waziristan by Pakistani army operations in the summer of 2014. From spring 2015, they rebelled against their Afghan Taleban patrons who had helped them to settle among the Zabul population, and rebranded themselves as IS. In the summer of 2015, some of these militants left Zabul to join ISKP in Nangarhar, increasing the number of Central Asians there to more than 100; others left to northern Afghanistan and continued living with the Taleban. The remaining militants, including their leader Usman Ghazi, pledged allegiance to IS. In November 2015, the Taleban brutally crushed this group in clashes that lasted for a week (more background here; for an account by colleague, Kate Clark, of her probably encounter with Ghazi, see here). A small number of fighters who managed to escape the kill-capture fate fled to the ISKP’s headquarters in Nangarhar.

These four events either preceded ISKP’s establishment in Nangarhar or were unrelated to it, calling into question the Nangarhar-based ISKP’s claim that they represent all IS sympathisers in Afghanistan. When, however, the group in Nangarhar remained as the only surviving IS base in the country, it became an area of retreat for survivors from other provinces and later turned out to be the group’s only active stronghold.

ISKP has yet to see whether it can make a comeback in at least one additional province. At least two groups based in Kunar, one that belonged to a district governor of the Afghan Taleban and the other to the Pakistani Taleban originally from Bajaur, have defected to the IS. Most members of these two groups have been fighting in Nangarhar, but their influence back in Kunar seems to have allowed ISKP to establish some sort of a base, albeit not yet an area of expanding influence or control, in that province. Various sources have talked about ISKP training ‘camps’ in Kunar, but there have been no reports of any military activity in that province. So far, it looks as if ISKP might have deliberately avoided raising its profile in Kunar in order to keep it as both a rear area inside Afghanistan and as a ‘human resources’ centre for training, harbouring reserve forces and as a retreat. AAN has been told of Salafi fighters from Kunar leaving for Syria, as well as commanders sent to Nangarhar (where they have subsequently been killed). Indeed, Kunaris make up the third largest contribution to ISKP, after Orakzais (and their Afridi partners) and Bajauris. Further north, Nuristan province is another area of possible ISKP expansion. AAN has heard rumours of ISKP activity there, but has not been able to verify any of these.

From the northeast of the country, reports of ISKP sightings have occasionally been made from various provinces, most notably Kunduz and Badakhshan. However, there are no signs yet of any open ISKP activities in the north. Should ISKP have managed to establish a significant toehold in the north, this would not have gone unseen, especially after the Taleban adopted their approach of zero-tolerance towards the group.

What can, however, lead to mistaken sightings of IS in the north is the relatively abundant presence of foreign fighters and an array of smaller splinter groups, with local members and sympathisers, from or outside the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), like Jundullah, all of which fly black flags. They range from close allies of the Taleban (politically and ideologically) to those who have changed their minds and joined IS, but have yet not openly rebranded. This latter category seems to be waiting for an opportunity to slip away from Taleban control, in order to openly emerge as an ISKP northern branch. The only verifiable example of open ISKP presence has been two short-lived attempts by a single group in Eshkashem district of Takhar and Borka district of Baghlan last year (for more background see this recent AAN dispatch).

Another case of misreading is the mistaking of a non-jihadist Islamist group, Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), for ISKP. HT flies a black flag closely resembling that of the IS and calls for a global caliphate, but it was present mostly in urban centres in Afghanistan long before the appearance of ISKP. Officials and local (as well as international) media misreported HT appearances in Taloqan and Jalalabad last year as examples of IS infiltration of urban centres.

In terms of taking over territory, ISKP’s attempts to expand beyond Nangarhar have failed miserably. However, it does seem to enjoy an appeal much beyond Nangarhar and as far as Kabul in part due to the defection of militants who were previously Taleban, as well as to the presence of a more radical Salafi-jihadist cell in the largest urban centre in Afghanistan. There, it seems to be capable of planning and executing occasional operations against not so-fortified targets, with the help of local recruits, that can cause mass casualties, such as the 23 July 2016 attack. The prospect of ISKP establishing a territorial foothold in Kabul is, however, a distant one.

(1) Mangal Bagh was reported dead as a result of a US drone strike on 24 July 2016, but there has been no confirmation of the news from independent sources.

(2) Khorasan is a historical term for areas populated by peoples speaking Iranian languages in northeastern Iran, the Transoxania part of Central Asia (Mawr-un-Nahr) and Afghanistan, mainly north of the Hindu Kush Mountains. In IS propaganda, it now comprises all of Afghanistan, most of Pakistan as well as Central Asia. Its reaches are felt as north as Kazakhstan and in eastern Turkistan. (For the Indian subcontinent, IS has been talking of creating its own chapter, but has not done so yet.)

(3) He is spelled Saeed Khan in many Pakistani and other English-language media.

(4) The Hanafi fiqh (school of thought; sect) is one of four major schools within Sunni Islam. Most Afghans and Central Asians (and Pakistanis) belong to it. Modern Salafism tries to go back to what it sees as the ‘fundamentals’ of Islam and interpretation of its laws from the early centuries of Islam; it does not accept the different schools of fiqh, and is highly hostile to Shiism.

(5) The US air and drone strikes in early July in Nangarhar were not the first targetings of IS in Afghanistan. Indeed, the deputy governor for ISKP, Abdul Rauf Khadem, was killed in February 2015 in the first drone strike in Helmand.

Between 2014 and mid-2016, thousands of people left Herat – a major urban centre in western Afghanistan – for various European countries. Since August 2014, Said Reza Kazemi (*) has been tracking Maruf and 24 of his friends and acquaintances, who have made the trip. The case of this young Afghan and his network shows the importance of friends’ influence on each other to migrate, in addition to major security and economic considerations. It highlights how the risks they take – both physical and financial – determine their resolve not to return. More importantly, it reveals the formation of a burgeoning and socioeconomically significant transnational community, even at a local level, that not only travels but also lives between Herat and Europe. This dispatch follows previous fieldwork and AAN publications by Said Reza Kazemi from the western Afghan city of Herat – it is the part of the ‘Afghan Exodus’ series of dispatches. The names of people and places in this dispatch have been changed or withheld to protect their confidentiality.

On 19 August 2014, Zaker, one of 25-year-old Maruf’s close friends, had returned to Herat (Afghanistan) from the Austrian capital of Vienna. Zaker had left his hometown of Herat in early 2012 to Austria, and was smuggled out of the country.

Maruf told three of his friends, including Mahdi, Rahim and the author, about Zaker’s return and we decided to visit him at home one evening. Maruf was on leave from the Afghan National Police (ANP), and both Mahdi, who worked at a local dressmaking business, and Rahim, who owned a photography shop in downtown Herat, came after work and we all set out for Zaker’s house.

We knocked on the door and were welcomed into the guestroom. Zaker came in and warm greetings followed. Zaker had returned home after over two and a half years. He and his younger brother brought us tea and, since it was a special occasion, cookies. Zaker’s father also came in and this immediately formalised the atmosphere. We took note of Zaker’s father’s complaints about security and work in Afghanistan, in justification as to why two of his two eldest sons had smuggled themselves out of the country to go abroad. (1) His other son and his wife had lived in Iran for many years before they had moved to Italy in 2005.

As soon as Zaker’s father left to say his evening prayers in a nearby mosque, we felt relaxed and started chatting more openly. We talked about a diverse range of topics, from religion to social relations in Austria and girl-boy relations in Western Europe (a topic which provoked much laughter). However, Maruf, Mahdi and Rahim were keen to know the particularities of Zaker’s journey to Vienna from this shahrak (in Dari this means ‘little city’), an informal settlement of around 8,000 Shia Sayyeds and Hazaras, the construction of which began in the early 1990s in the suburbs of the western Afghan city. (AAN readers are familiar with the shahrak from the author’s previous dispatches; see here , here , here and here.) They asked many questions about the journey, from the cost of being smuggled and the various routes taken to the rules and regulations on asylum-seeking, life and work in Europe and so on.

Zaker had not returned empty-handed – far from it. He had obtained refugee status. However, in order to return, he had told the Austrian immigration authorities that he was only travelling to Iran. He had then crossed back illegally into Afghanistan in order to return to the shahrak, bribing Afghan border guards not to stamp his passport with entry and exit stamps so as not to risk his refugee status. He had become fluent in German. He had begun working in the construction sector and was earning money. And he had returned, as the author later found out through female relatives, to get engaged to a girl from the shahrak.

They were so impressed with Zaker’s story that as soon as we left his house, Maruf and Mahdi started talking about it as a great success:

I wish I could return home from abroad one day [like Zaker], so people would come to visit me and I could tell them about my experiences and answer their questions. It would be cool. – Mahdi

You would not see me tomorrow if I had the money to make it there. – Maruf

Their dreams of leaving the shahrak soon materialised and none of the three friends have been seen in the shahrak since October 2015. Rahim left for the Afghan capital of Kabul to find work there in a telecommunications company. (2) His photography shop had gone bankrupt in downtown Herat. Mahdi ended up in the Swiss capital of Bern and Maruf in Vienna, having been smuggled there.

Maruf’s life

By November 2015 when Maruf left for Europe, he was already effectively the main provider for his family. His father had died a natural death several years earlier in Iran before the family was repatriated to Afghanistan in 2003. His two elder sisters had married and gone to live with their husbands and their husbands’ families in the cities of Kabul and Ghazni. His elder brother had married, moved out of the parental home to a different part of Herat city and generally tended to his own family after marriage. Therefore, Maruf was left with his ageing and ailing mother, one younger sister and two younger brothers.

This situation meant that Maruf had to drop out of school to find work in order to support his family. First, he rented and opened a small mobile phone shop in the shahrak – indicating his interest in communications equipment, particularly smartphones, and the connectivity and mobility it can bring to young people like Maruf (read the author’s recent research on how smartphones have contributed to the participation of young Afghans in the Syrian war here). The shop soon closed, though. He then found piecemeal work on construction sites. The plastering injured one of his wrists, preventing him from working for several months.

Finally, he volunteered to join the ANP in 2010. After a couple of years of training, he became a police officer, earning a monthly salary of 15,000 Afghanis (approximately 230 US dollars). In 2013 and 2014, he was dispatched to the frontline to fight the growing insurgency both in Herat’s restive district of Shindand and in neighbouring Farah province (read AAN’s research on insecurity in Shindand here and Farah here). It was in Farah that Maruf almost got killed when the Taleban ambushed his convoy on the way to Farah city, the provincial centre. The Taleban retreated under heavy gunfire and Maruf said he did not know how he survived that day.

More than anyone else, it was Maruf’s friends, both in the military and elsewhere, who made him getting himself smuggled to Europe. In early 2014, Maruf told the author that there were around 200 young people from the shahrak in the Afghan security forces – 20 in the police and 180 in the army – and that he saw more and more fellow police officers dying on the battlefield or their dead bodies returning to their families in the city. Some of his friends deserted their posts and went abroad, which clearly affected Maruf. Moreover, friends such as Zaker had already been smuggled to Austria.

The network

The author has identified 24 of Maruf’s friends and acquaintances who left the shahrak for Europe and Australia before, during or after Maruf’s own departure overseas between 2012 and 2016:

Friends 1, 2, 3 and 4: Zaker, Habib, Ezzat and Mojtaba, all friends of Maruf: They left in 2012-2013, around three years before Maruf. They have established themselves in Austria and made major contributions to the socioeconomic strengthening of their families back in Herat. For instance, their families have been able to buy plots of land, on which they have built two to three-storey houses. They have become examples of successful migrants, in whom their families take pride.

5. Mahdi, one of the friends who visited Zaker in August 2014, left Herat in October 2015: He worked in a local dressmaking shop after he dropped out of school, because, in his words, he “didn’t like studying.” Before he ended up in Bern in Switzerland, he had worked long and hard to raise the money to travel. Having obtained permission from his family, his father and elder brothers also helped raise the necessary money. He spent around 400,000 Afghanis (approximately 6,000 US dollars) on the journey. He left in October 2015 (around one month before Maruf did, as he was able to raise the money sooner). After around nine months in Switzerland, he started to miss his family and the shahrak; however, his family cautioned him against returning, given how much money it cost him to get there.

6. Hamid, a friend of Maruf’s: He left in 2014, a year before Maruf. He had been a university student and had come from a relatively well-off family that financed his departure. He is currently in Sweden.

7. Ali, a friend of Maruf’s: He left in 2014, a year before Maruf. He was around 15 years old when he left. His father is a landowner and businessman who financed his departure.

8 and 9. Rohullah and Hossain, two brothers and friends of Maruf: Rohullah was in the 7th grade and Hossain in the 10th grade at school when they left. They went in 2014, a year before Maruf. Their father sold his house and car to finance his sons’ departure, spending around 800,000 Afghanis (approximately 12,000 US dollars). Rohullah is disappointed and told one of his friends that it was not worth it at all and that Europe was not the place he had imagined before he left. He wants to return but his family don’t want him to, considering the exorbitant amount of money spent on sending him overseas. The two brothers are currently in Germany.

10. Najib, a friend of Maruf’s: He travelled with Maruf. He was a student of computer science at Herat University before he left. He lives with Maruf in Vienna.

11. Mohsen, a friend of Maruf’s: He also travelled with Maruf, but they went their separate ways in Tehran, the Iranian capital. He was a university student before he left. His family is well-to-do as his father is a major landowner. He joined Maruf in 2015 in Vienna and lives with him.

12. Jawad, a friend of Maruf’s: He was a police officer like Maruf and they travelled to Europe together. He was the only son of a relatively rich family that financed his smuggling trip. He lives with Maruf in Vienna.

13. Jalil, also a friend of Maruf: He went in December 2015, a month after Maruf. He was in the 12th grade at school when he left.

14. Jamal, another friend of Maruf’s: He left at around the same time as Maruf. He was a student of chemistry at Herat University before he left. His father is a local shopkeeper who spent almost all his savings to finance his son’s trip to Europe.

15. Abed, a friend of Maruf’s: He was around 14 years old and in the 7th grade at school when he left in 2014. He comes from a middle-class family.

16. Enayat, an acquaintance of Maruf’s: He was a student of medicine at a private university in Herat when he left in 2014.

17. Ramazan, an acquaintance of Maruf’s: Ramazan’s brother Hamid had migrated to Finland in late 2010 and encouraged him to follow suit. He arrived in Finland in 2014, but the Finnish immigration authorities deported him to Germany where his fingerprints had been taken on his journey. (According to an EU law called the Dublin Regulation, the EU member country in which a migrant first sets foot – or where he or she was first registered is responsible for processing their asylum application.) He was a skilled construction worker in the shahrak and later on in Iran. He was making around 50,000 Afghanis per month (approximately 770 US dollars) when he left for Europe.

18. Khalil, an aacquaintance of Maruf’s: He left his wife and his only child in the shahrak and went to Germany through a smuggling network in 2015. Having become tremendously disappointed, he voluntarily returned home to his family in the shahrak in July 2016. He keeps telling the local people that Europe was not the place he had imagined before he left.

19 and 20. Elaha and Mahrokh, sisters of Maruf’s friend Rahim who visited Zaker in August 2014: Elaha’s husband was relatively well-off and went with his wife and three-year-old son to Austria through a smuggling network in 2013. Elaha’s younger sister, Mahrokh’s fiancé, was a police officer like Maruf. He was killed in action in Herat. Mahrokh became overwhelmingly depressed after her fiancé’s death. Her family agreed to send her along with Elaha and her husband and their child abroad. Elaha was a nurse at a local clinic and Mahrokh was a student of fine arts at Herat University when they left.

21 and 22. Aqela and her friend Shaziya, acquaintances of Maruf and his mother: Aqela’s husband was a drug addict and she divorced him. Afterwards, she joined the ANP. Aqela’s friend Shaziya is a widow. They travelled together to Austria via the smuggling network in 2013. Like men, women such as Aqela and Shaziya take the usual long and risky smuggling routes. However, female asylum-seekers, particularly those travelling alone or without their close male relatives, are poorly regarded back home, more so than their male asylum-seeking counterparts.

23 and 24. Maisam and Hadi, friends of Maruf: They went to Australia through the smuggling network in 2011. They have established themselves in Australia and financially support their families back in Herat.

Maruf made his decision to go in that context: dozens of his friends and acquaintances had apparently successfully established themselves in Europe and Australia. He was in frequent contact with several of them via the Internet, particularly on Facebook. His friends shared their pictures from Europe and Australia that vividly contrasted the life Maruf was living in the underdeveloped shahrak where many inhabitants are daily-wage labourers. (3) On a broader level, the atmosphere of “raftan, raftan” (“going, going”), as people say here in Herat, had had an impact on Maruf.

Obtaining the green light

In practical terms, the opportunity for Maruf to migrate arose in October 2015. The degree of Maruf’s commitment to provide for his mother and younger siblings began to change around that time. His younger sister got engaged to a relative who had obtained asylum in the US due to his work for the US military in southern Afghanistan. This paved the way for a new source of financial support for the family. His two younger brothers also grew up and were in the 9th and 11th grades at school in 2015. However, Maruf needed to act responsibly and prudently if he wanted to gain his mother’s permission.

Crucially, Maruf saved his earnings and borrowed from friends and relatives to ultimately raise 250,000 Afghanis (approximately USD 3,850) – barely enough to finance a basic journey, compared to the more comfortable and more expensive smuggling trips the rich can afford that include hiring more experienced and better-tempered smugglers, taking shorter routes, using better and more spacious transportation such as faster cars and stronger boats. Only once the money was raised did he finally inform his mother about his intention to go. He justified his departure as seeking the opportunity to continue his education and build a better life. He mentioned nothing to his mother (who suffers from hypertension) about the risks the journey might involve. His mother agreed, albeit reluctantly, as she told the author:

What could I do but to say yes and give him my blessing? He wanted to go. If I had prevented him from going and if something had happened to him in his police work, I would have blamed myself my whole life. So, I gave him my consent. He left.

The odyssey

Maruf and three of his friends – Najib, Mohsen and Jawad – left the shahrak for Europe one midnight in November 2015. It is around that time that buses leave Herat for Kabul and the destinations in-between. Before leaving home, Maruf’s tearful mother held up the Quran and Maruf passed under it, invoking God’s protection for the uncertain journey ahead. He and his companions began an odyssey, a chequered and risky journey from Herat to Vienna through Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia.

Maruf and his friends left Herat for Zaranj, the centre of Afghanistan’s southwestern-most province of Nimruz, by bus. They spent the night there, arranging to be smuggled across the Afghan-Pakistani border. The Baloch smugglers they found put them and around 35 other people on a fast vehicle – a Toyota Pickup truck – and took them through Pakistan to the Pakistani-Iranian border. Maruf and his companions then walked hungry and thirsty for many hours to cross the border on foot. On the Iranian side, the next group of smugglers loaded Maruf, his companions and 11 other people into a small vehicle – a Peugeot Pars. There was another Peugeot Pars car carrying 15 other people who were also being smuggled to Iran. In Maruf’s words:

The smugglers used very bad language. They beat us if we didn’t listen to them. We were in their hands (4)… On our way to Zahedan [centre of Sistan and Balochistan province in southeast Iran], the Iranian police opened fire on the vehicles, stopping the other vehicle but not ours… It was extremely hot and they had thrown the four of us [Maruf and his three friends] in the trunk of the Pride car [indicating the similarity in shape and size of the Kia Pride car, which is widely used in Herat, with the Peugeot Pars car that is commonly used in Iran]. The smugglers then closed the boot by force since it could not close due to its excessive overload. Our legs and all our bodies became numb. Worse, we were suffocating and almost dying.

Maruf and his companions arrived in Tehran six days later. They spent two days in the Iranian capital, staying with one of their friends who had been given a room on a construction site where he was working. Maruf seized the opportunity to visit his father’s grave on the outskirts of Tehran city, praying for him and seeking his blessing for the rest of his voyage. One of Maruf’s three companions, Mohsen, went his separate way in Tehran in order to visit his relatives there. Maruf, Najib and Jawad, with the help of their friends and other contacts such as relatives in Tehran, continued to search for Kurdish smugglers to take them across the Iranian border into Turkey. Just across the Turkish border, Turkish police fired into the air to make them stop, but Maruf, his two friends and most of the other fellow travellers kept going. They and the other travellers crossed the border on foot. The smugglers then took Maruf and his friends to Izmir, a city on Turkey’s Aegean Sea coast. It took them a week to get from Tehran to the Aegean coast.

Maruf and his companions continued their journey by boat:

We began moving around midnight when the sea was calm. There were 65 of us from various countries on a rubber boat that was 3 metres wide and 9 metres long. The boat was close to capsizing because of the overload. Thank God, it didn’t. It was dangerous. We were praying to God for our safety from the deepest parts of our hearts in the middle of a vast and strange sea.

Maruf and his friends then managed to get themselves from the island were they docked to the Greek capital of Athens. They found Athens to be like Afghanistan, for many Afghans had gathered and were living in downtown Victoria Square. (5) The rest of the journey from Athens to Vienna went safely, smoothly and quickly – as they were at the height of last year’s migration flows, when several countries briefly opened their borders (AAN reporting on the Balkan route is forthcoming). Maruf said they generally followed other asylum-seekers from Afghanistan and elsewhere, walked on foot, jumped on trains and buses, hitchhiked and finally ended up in Vienna:

The other European countries on the way [Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia] weren’t very interesting. We decided to end our journey in Austria. Firstly, we were exhausted. Secondly, many people were continuing their journey on to Germany and further to Scandinavia. We thought it was better to stay in Austria where fewer asylum-seekers might stay. Initially, we planned to go and join Mahdi in Switzerland, but we ended up here in Vienna.

Throughout Maruf’s journey from Herat to Vienna, his mother included her son in all her daily prayers. She was giving alms for Maruf’s protection and inviting neighbours and other women she knew in the shahrak to serve them food, so they might also pray for her son. However, she was tremendously anxious deep down and only felt calm once Maruf finally called her from Vienna to let her know that he was safe and sound, and would stay in the Austrian capital.

Between Herat and Europe: Shahrak’s nascent transnational community

The fact that Afghans, like many other people, have been a transnational people is not new. (6) However, transnational migration from this recently-build and tiny shahrak to places as far away as Vienna in Austria or Helsinki, the capital of Finland, is a new phenomenon. (7) As transnational migrants, Maruf and his friends and acquaintances such as Najib, Jawad and Zaker in Vienna, Mahdi in Bern and Hamid in Helsinki are contributing to the emergence of a slowly deepening transnational community originating in the shahrak. This community not only travels but also lives between Herat and Europe. As the three cases of Maruf, Zaker and Hamid show, they keep regular and almost daily contact with their families back in the shahrak; they are sending money and gifts; and they are making investments in the form of buying plots of land and constructing houses in the shahrak. These are indications of a new transnational network emerging between tiny Herat’s shahrak and Europe.

Given the context and the way he and his two friends Najib and Jawad migrated to Europe, they intend to stay and get established in Vienna at any cost. Maruf is trying hard to learn German, which he finds “an extremely tough language.” He lives in a two-storey building in downtown Vienna. The first floor is occupied by around ten Arabs and the second by Afghans, including Maruf, his two companions, as well as seven others. The ten Afghans have become friends and take turns doing household chores, from cooking to cleaning.

At the same time, they are struggling to cope with a different European environment, administratively, socially, culturally and weather-wise. Maruf is furious with the Afghan government, particularly President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, who has said that he had “no sympathy” for Afghan migrants, such as Maruf. He also thinks the Afghan government has told European states to return “Afghan migrants.” He blames the Afghan president for failing to understand the situation of Afghan asylum-seekers as “he himself sits on a well-secured and well-paid position.” (8) Maruf and his friends keep in regular touch with their families back in the shahrak. However, Maruf does not tell his ailing mother about his real situation or his struggle to be accepted in Austria. Back home in the shahrak, Maruf’s mother and younger siblings get on with their normal life. His younger sister’s husband, who is currently in the US state of Texas, has been supporting the family financially. The two younger brothers keep attending the local school. Maruf has yet to send money home. Certainly, Maruf needs time (at least a couple of years) to become familiar with his new environment, to settle in Vienna and to find work, before he can start supporting his Herat-based family.

Maruf still hopes to be as successful as Zaker, who left Afghanistan in 2012 and settled in Vienna. Zaker is now planning to come back to the shahrak for a second time. He will be back with even more to show for himself. He supported his father in completing the construction of his house in the shahrak and also will be holding his wedding ceremony soon. Zaker will then return to Vienna, probably with his wife. Nevertheless, Maruf is planning a little surprise for his family; Zaker will bring a gift from Maruf on his next visit to Afghanistan – a laptop for his two younger brothers, so they can do better at school.

Helsinki-based Hamid, the brother of Maruf’s acquaintance Ramazan, is even better established after around six years in the Finnish capital. He works in a supermarket in downtown Helsinki. He has married a Finnish woman and they have two children. He returned to visit his family in the shahrak in 2013. He came back alone, leaving his wife and children in Helsinki. He bought a laptop, too, and taught his shahrak-based family to use the Internet, particularly Skype, so they could stay in regular communication. He has helped his father and brothers in buying land, on which they have so far built a two-storey building. They plan to build the third floor in the near future. He regularly sends money back home to his family in the shahrak.

The tale of Maruf and his friends and acquaintances could be replicated to other parts of Afghanistan. It is friends who influence young Afghans to leave their country, as much as it is serious security or economic considerations. Although Maruf justified his departure overseas as seeking the opportunity to continue his education and build a better life, he was close to getting killed as a police officer fighting the insurgency. He was increasingly worried about what would happen to him and his family if the armed opposition happened to capture parts of Herat province, including the shahrak, even briefly, particularly after the temporary fall of Kunduz to the Taleban in 2015. Yet, Maruf’s case clearly shows that the recent migration of Afghans, at least from 2014 to early 2016, is network oriented (it involves people from all walks of life, including men and women, boys and girls, school and university students and graduates, the skilled and the unskilled, the rich and the poor) and to some extent depends on peer-to-peer relations and pressures rising from them. (9)

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, young Afghan migrants have been contributing to the formation of a transnational network that is providing important socioeconomic support for communities back home. (10) This support has played a major role in driving construction and socioeconomic development in the shahrak and potentially elsewhere in Afghanistan. In the particular shahrak on which this research is based, this support is vital to people’s socioeconomic well-being, because since around 2013, the land and housing market has stagnated, construction work has largely come to a halt and employment for both the educated and uneducated has declined considerably (read the author’s research in early 2014 here). This aspect of transnational networks and their usefulness should not be sidelined or overshadowed by discourses of migration-induced threats or the often empty statements of tackling ‘local causes’ of migration such as poverty rather they should be recognised by all those concerned on all levels from the local to the global.

* Said Reza Kazemi is an associated member of the University of Heidelberg’s Cluster “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” (http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/) and a former AAN researcher. His research focuses on culture, society and politics in local and transnational contexts.

(1) Security and economic causes have historically interplayed in Afghan migration. See Alessandro Monsutti, War and Migration: Social Networks and Economic Strategies of the Hazaras of Afghanistan, New York and London: Routledge, 2005; and Kristian Berg Harpviken, Social Networks and Migration in Wartime Afghanistan, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

(2) After the public service sector, the telecommunications sector is the second largest source of employment and has reportedly created 200,000 jobs in the country.

(3) There are also the kalanha (elders with influence), Community Development Council (CDC) members, so-called white-beards, mullahs, businesspeople and landowners. In a way, they comprise the aristocracy or elite of the shahrak with a far better socioeconomic status. For more on elite behaviour at the village level, see Adam Pain and Georgina Sturge, “Taking village context into account in Afghanistan,” Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), 2015.

(4) See here for the migration story of another young Afghan – a former employee of Tolo TV – who was smuggled to Germany. This migrant has similar descriptions about the behaviour of the smugglers. For another fascinating Afghan migrant tale, see Jere Van Dyk, “On the Black Way: Traveling the World’s Largest Underground Railroad for Afghan Refugees,” Foreign Affairs, 20 May 2013.

(5) Having become destitute, some young Afghan men are reportedly ‘selling their bodies’ to gay men in Athens.

(6) For example, Sikhs, most likely including Sikhs from Afghanistan, have been transnational migrants for over 100 years. See Katy Gardner and Ralph Grillo, “Transnational households and ritual: an overview,” Global Networks 2 (3): 179-190, 2002, 18. On Afghans, see Robert D. Crews, Afghan Modern: The History of a Global Nation, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015; and Paulien Muller, Scattered Families: Transnational Family Life of Afghan Refugees in the Netherlands in the Light of Human Rights-Based Protection of the Family, Antwerp and Cambridge: Intersentia, 2010. Download Muller’s PhD thesis, on which the book is based, from the Netherlands’ Utrecht University Repository here.

(7) For more on transnational migration as a concept, see Nina Glick Schiller, Linda Basch and Cristina Blanc-Szanton (eds), Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Reconsidered, New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1992; and Steven Vertovec, Transnationalism, London and New York: Routledge, 2009.

(8) The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has recently urged the international community to pay more attention to Afghan asylum-seekers.

(9) As of mid-2016, fewer people (both as individuals and families) are leaving Herat for Europe through smuggling networks. In the shahrak, fewer people are talking about the migration of friends, neighbours or acquaintances. In downtown Herat, this is seen in the decreasing activity of shops that mushroomed all over the city, selling household items of families who left or planned to leave. Such shops also sprung up in the capital Kabul.

(10) See also Elca Stigter and Alessandro Monsutti, “Transnational Networks: Recognising a Regional Reality,” Kabul: AREU, 2005.

The flag of the Islamic State (IS, or Daesh) has been flown twice in the last year in Takhar and Baghlan provinces by a group of ethnic Uzbek Afghans who had set up their own insurgent group, Jundullah, in 2009. It had enjoyed an uneasy alliance with the Taleban, but tried to use the turmoil of the Taleban’s takeover of Kunduz in September 2015 to establish itself as an independent, Daesh-allied group. The Taleban moved swiftly to crush the dissidents. However, it is still engaged in lower-level, clandestine activity – recruiting and spreading propaganda. Given how magnified any Daesh flag raising becomes in media and local government reporting, AAN’s Obaid Ali thought it useful to look into the origins of the Jundullah group, its shifting relationship with the Taleban and why it went over to Daesh.

It was mainly local Uzbek militants from the Jundullah group who, in September 2015, attempted to establish a base in the name of the Islamic State in north eastern Afghanistan in the Eshkamesh district of Takhar, around 60 kilometres south of the provincial capital Taloqan. The group, which had been fighting as ‘Jundullah’ (Army of God) (1) in alliance with the Taleban, had gone over to Daesh. They flew the Islamic State group’s flags over Koka Bulaq village, less than ten kilometres south of the district centre – but only for a few hours on 29 September 2015. The local Taleban immediately reacted to the challenge and, as they approached Koka Bulaq from Kandahari and Now Abad villages (both villages Pashtun and Taleban-controlled), the Daeshis retreated. Taleban commanders in north eastern Afghanistan, in October 2015, subsequently issued an order to kill or capture any Daesh fighters and supporters in Takhar, Kunduz and Baghlan provinces – a clear indication that they see anyone joining the ranks of the transnational Islamic State organisation as an enemy.

The Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) also responded, with a clearance operations against the insurgents in Eshkamesh in the last week of April 2016. The Daesh-affiliated, Uzbek fighters had long fled and it was the Taleban who found themselves pushed back from around the district centre to remote areas.

The emergence of Jundullah in the northeast

In order to understand how this group emerged and why it came to be allying itself with Daesh, one needs to look at the evolution of north eastern, Afghan, Uzbek, anti-government fighters in a context where the Taleban remains the strongest, anti-government group in the region, but the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) still has influence.

Jundullah is an indigenous, non-Pashtun, armed group in north eastern Afghanistan made up of radical Uzbeks and Tajiks, with some Arabs and Aimaq. It was initially formed by commanders who, in 2009, had split off (for unknown reasons) from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).Since its establishment in 2009, Jundullah has fought alongside the Taleban against the Afghan government in several districts of the northeast. Jundullah had separate and independent fronts, with command structures separate from the Taleban, in Chahr Dara and Dasht-e Archi districts of Kunduz.

The IMU, itself, had started off as a militant group trying to overthrow the Islam Karimov government in Uzbekistan, then played a role in the Tajik civil war in the 1990s, before retreating to Afghanistan where it pledged allegiance to and became an ally of the Taleban regime (1996-2001). It also followed the defeated Taleban into exile in Pakistan (in its case to a new base in Waziristan) in 2001. (For previous AAN reporting on the presence of IMU in the Afghan north, see this paper.

In September 2014, the first reports emerged that the IMU under its now late leader Osman Ghazi (aka Odil Osman) had switched allegiance from the Taleban to Daesh (For an account of AAN’s earlier reports on central Asian fighters in Afghanistan read here and here). In November 2014, Ghazi released a statement on the IMU’s official website questioning Afghan Taleban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar’s failure to address his followers and raising doubts as to whether he was still alive. In March 2015, Ghazi called IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi “the caliph,” indicating he considered him his leader. Other IMU groups followed suit; for example, one in Faryab province in March 2015 announced its support for IS. In November 2015, the then leader of the Taleban, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansur ordered his fighters to crush a group of Taleban dissidents in Zabul and their allies, the newly Daesh-allied, IMU. That Osman Ghazi was killed in or after the fighting has finally, officially, just been announced.(For a detailed report on the IMU-Taleban split, see this AAN dispatch.

The IMU’s break with the Taleban had a major impact on Jundullah. After this, the group started to criticize the Taleban’s behaviour towards IMU fighters. Jundullah accused the Taleban of fighting against muhajirin (emigrants), ie the Uzbekistani members of the IMU, who had left their homes and come to sacrifice their lives to protect Islam. It also carried out several offensives against the ANSF independently of the dominant insurgent group. Although it did not formally break off its alliance with the Taleban, there were repercussions on the ground, in both Baghlan and Takhar.

Jundullah moves into Borka in Baghlan

Jundullah had already moved into Borka district,a predominantly Uzbek district located about 150 kilometres to the northeast of Pul-e Khumri, the provincial capital of Baghlan in 2014 and established a relatively strong footprint there. It has a remote, yet strategic location as it offers a swift and convenient route for insurgents to shift between Baghlan, the Khanabad and Aliabad districts of Kunduz to the northeast, and Eshkamesh in Takhar to the northwest.

According to local elders, the Baghlan group was established by a young, local, Uzbek, religious scholar called Qari Yaser Waseq. Local elders remembered that Jundullah’s first military attack in the area took place in mid-2014 – against a security post in the Baytop area of Borka’s district centre. In early 2015, Qari Yaser, along with ten fighters, was killed in an airstrike in Hesarak (not to confuse with the eponymous district in Nangrahar province), an area about 18 kilometres away from Borka district centre. After Qari Yaser’s death, a young, local, religiously-educated Uzbek, Khairullah, took over the leadership of the group. Khairullah was a relative of Mullah Muhammad Ali, who had been a prominent Taleban commander in Baghlan during Taleban regime. Later, for reasons unknown to the local elders who spoke to AAN, Khairullah disappeared and another man, Qari Salahuddin, who had just arrived from Takhar, took over the Jundullah front in Baghlan.

Qari Salahuddin was an ethnic Uzbek originally from Borka district from a religious family–his father and grandfather had served as preachers in a mosque in Makhdom village in the Folul area of Borka. He himself was serving as the shadow Taleban district governor of neighbouring Eshkamesh at the time. The local Uzbek elders in Borka, who saw themselves as having been cornered into accepting Taleban leadership in the area, wanted to ensure the commander would at least be from their own ethnic group. According to a source close to the Taleban, the Uzbek elders had recommended Salahuddin to the Taleban, vowing to support him financially. Furthermore, the source told AAN, Qari Salahuddin, who already had a reputation for being affiliated with Jundullah, brought along 35 loyal fighters from his native Folul area of Borka, which immediately boosted the numbers of Taleban in Eshkashem. The Taleban were happy with the arrangement, wanting to keep the Jundullah group within their fold.

The appointment of an Uzbek as the shadow district governor was also a strategic move by the Taleban, an attempt to secure the Uzbek community’s support (for a more detailed background material on the Taleban’s engagement with the Uzbek communities, see this AAN paper).

In August 2015,Jundullah’s overall head for Kunduz province, Qari Bashir Madani, was killed in a United States airstrike in Chahr Dara district of Kunduz along with some of his most prominent commanders and many fighters (see an earlier AAN dispatch on this here). Their overall number after this is unclear, but the group’s numbers are believed to have fallen to no more than 500.

The group was weakened and left even more subordinated to Taleban orders. In late September 2015 when Kunduz city was captured by the Taleban, the Taleban threatened to disarm the remaining Jundullah fighters in Kunduz if they ignored an order to obey them(see short report on Jundullah moving towards Eshkamesh here and here). Most Jundullah fighters chose, instead, to flee either to Eshkamesh, Qari Salahuddin’s stronghold in Takhar, or to the neighbouring district of Borka in Baghlan.

By the end of 2014 and going into 2015, there were Jundullah fighters in both Borka and Eshkamesh, still fighting alongside the Taleban. After that, in late 2015 and early 2016,both districts experienced intensive fighting between the ANSF and the Taleban (read short reports here and here). By this time, Jundullah fighters in the area were hostile to the Taleban.

Why did Jundullah flee to Eshkamesh, as well as Borka?

Eshkamesh has a long history of instability with local commanders and criminals using it as an area to retreat to ever since the Najibullah government of the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, according to locals, the security in this remote district of Takhar started to deteriorate even further about six years ago when Taleban from outside the district, taking advantage of the perceived lack of rule of law, started to strategically engage Pashtun and other minority communities. The district also has a history of non-Taleban insurgency groups (IMU and Jundullah), which were to establish a footprint there in 2011. However, so far, those groups have hardly presented a threat to the Taleban in the region, as their number and capacity are far too limited.

Jamroz Khan, a tribal elder from the area, confirmed that since 2011 the Taleban and non-Pashtun insurgents started to become very active in their recruitment and on-the-ground presence. Over the past two years, he said, the Taleban and Jundullah have emerged in parallel in different areas of the district to an extent that most of the district has come under the control of one of other of the groups.

The emergence of Jundullah in Eshkamesh, which, like Borka, is predominantly Uzbek-populated, was facilitated by the local communities always having had a strong connection with the IMU and with Jundullah groups in neighbouring Baghlan and Kunduz. (Read a short report on Jundullah fighters killed in Eshkamesh here). Aware of this dynamic, the Taleban had sought to capitalise on this connection by attempting to appoint Uzbek commanders supported by their communities in order consolidate their hold on the area.

However, in the case of Eshkamesh, this strategy backfired. Although Qari Salahuddin’s Uzbek fighters and local Taleban fighters of various ethnic backgrounds initially manned the Taleban front in Eshkamesh together, during his time as the Taleban shadow governor, Salahuddin arranged for Jundullah fighters from Kunduz, who had no intention of supporting the Taleban, to move into Eshkamesh district and strengthen his personal position. According to local sources, in September 2015, before the Taleban attack on Kunduz, more than a hundred mainly Jundullah-affiliated fighters from Kunduz had arrived in Eshkamesh district.

The coming of the Jundullah fighters from Kunduz was said by elders to have been linked to the increasing efforts by Jundullah to slowly establish an independent and separate insurgency front led by non-Pashtuns in the area that would ultimately operate in competition with the Taleban. However, this kind of mobilisation and the formation of a movement, parallel to the Taleban, yet undetected by them, proved to be too big a project for Qari Salahuddin to pull off. It was difficult for the young shadow governor to handle such a large group of men. The newcomers not only had limited military experience, but also lacked awareness of the local power dynamics. The large influx of fighters soon presented challenges Salahuddin, especially as he and his supporters were being closely monitored by two prominent, local, Pashtun, Taleban commanders, Mullah Jano and Mullah Saifullah, also from Eshkamesh district. Both were wary of him and his supporters.

The influx of fighters also presented a challenge for the local (predominately Uzbek) elders as they were expected to provide accommodation and financial support to them. Furthermore, the elders became increasingly concerned about the direction the local insurgency started taking. After the arrival of the fighters from Kunduz, local elders explained, the “Khelafat [Caliphate] wave spread across the district,” meaning that the more radical fighters were not only promoting Jundullah, but, in fact, were also sympathisers of Daesh, or the Khelafat idea now mainly associated with Daesh.

Jundullah goes over to Daesh

On 29 September 2015 (although independent of the attack on Kunduz and not endorsed by the Taleban leadership of the northeast), Qari Salahuddin’s fighters, mainly those allied to Jundullah, but also some of the other local Taleban under his command (he was still the official Taleban shadow district governor), launched an attack on Eshkamesh district centre. The clashes lasted for several hours and eventually most parts of the district centre came under the insurgents’ control. While the local district police chief, Abdul Rahman, confirmed the presence of Jundullah fighters during these attacks, (in addition to local Taleban), he denied the fighters had taken over the district, saying, “The enemy was pushed back and they failed to overrun the district centre.” However, locals told AAN that Afghan government security forces had only managed to defend the district governor’s office and the district police chief’s compound, but lost control of the other parts of the district centre.

Qari Salahuddin claimed to have conducted these operations for the Taleban. However, speaking to AAN, Jamroz Khan, a tribal elder from the area, said that it was after this attack that Qari Salahuddin’s fighters (mainly those newly arrived from Kunduz and his own men from Borka) raised the Daesh flag in Koka Bulaq village of Eshkamesh. Jundullah had gone over to the Islamic State. They had chosen Koka Bulaq due to a large presence of Jundullah fighters there. A source close to the Taleban told AAN that, because the Taleban were engaged in controlling the Kunduz city at the time, the Jundullah fighters seized the opportunity to make their own mark under the Daesh flag. Although the flag was not up for even half a day, this incident caused a new confrontation between Jundullah and the Taleban, this time in Takhar.

The Taleban respond

Sources report that, within hours, Mullah Jano, the head of the Taleban’s judicial commission for Eshkamesh, had replaced Qari Salahuddin as Eshkamesh district governor with the Pashtun commander, Mullah Saifullah, who had until then served as the district head of the military commission. Mullah Saifullah immediately issued a decree to kill or capture the former shadow governor and his men, who were also presumed to have switched sides to Daesh. The Taleban, the source said, also dispatched reinforcements from other parts of Takhar to Eshkamesh to confront the Daesh-affiliated fighters in the area. In the meantime, local Uzbek elders also reacted. They warned Qari Salahuddin that if he continued to confront the Taleban, the chances for his survival would be slim. The elders also approached the local Taleban leadership and promised them not to shelter Qari Salahuddin’s group any longer and to expel any Jundullah fighters from their villages.

Despite an initial threat to kill Qari Salahuddin, the Taleban also needed to act cautiously, as they did not want to target an Uzbek shadow district governor who had gained the elders’ backing and who had allowed the Taleban to be able to ‘claim’ this district. In fact, if the Taleban had killed Qari Salahuddin, ethnic tensions (already simmering below the surface) would undoubtedly have intensified and possibly escalated. It would have further damaged, if not destroyed, the Taleban’s relationship with the Uzbek community locally. This relationship was important for the Taleban, as it was their main anchor in the district.

Elders from Pashtun and Uzbek communities interviewed stated that they had been willing to tolerate the Taleban (and in fact any insurgency presence) in their area, but only as long as they did not target people from their communities. Influential local Uzbek elders in Eshkamesh were in particular protective of their own communities – for them, the collaboration with the Taleban had been one coping mechanism to ensure that their Uzbek communities would not be sidelined. Without an Uzbek commander in charge of the insurgency in Eshkamesh, the elders also saw their status threatened. Cognisant of this sentiment, the Taleban also did not want to have an open confrontation over this issue. They would prefer to handle the challenge at a local level, said local elders.

Escape to Borka

Expelled from Eshkamesh, Qari Salahuddin fled to his home district of Borka. The presence of a number of religiously educated, radical youth who were sympathetic to Jundullah gave him the opportunity to recruit and expand his front’s local influence there. Within one month of his arrival in Borka, Qari Salahuddin and his fighters, all non-Pashtun and all Daesh supporters, again raised the IS flag –this time in Sai-ye Hazaraha [Hazara valley], an area around 25 km east of Borka district centre. This Daesh flag was also not up for long either.

Similar to the scenario in Eshkamesh, the local Taleban reacted swiftly and the Pashtun shadow district governor of Borka, Mullah Wakil, called on Uzbek elders to disarm the ‘radical youths’, who seemed to be promoting Daesh in Baghlan. The shadow governor also warned that he would capture or kill any Jundullah fighters (who were seen as primarily acting as supporters of Daesh) if they ignored the Taleban’s order to stand down. As a result of the intervention of local Uzbek elders, Qari Salahuddin and his fighters were also forced out of their home district, as they were seen to have motivated the local youth to come over to Daesh. Without any other possible safe haven in the northeast and with Taleban looking for them, in December 2015, Qari Salahuddin and his fighters went to Nangrahar province in order to join the Daesh front there. This province in the east of the country is the only remaining Daesh stronghold in Afghanistan (see here). (AAN will be reporting more fully on Daesh in Nangrahar in the future.)

According to a local source close to Jundullah in the north, at least five of the group’s fighters have since been killed in Nangrahar during the on-going confrontations between the IS and the Taleban there. By around 10 May 2016, some of the Jundullah/Daesh fighters were back in Burka. There, they remained in hiding, trying to mobilise fighters but refraining from taking up arms openly again. By late May, there were only reports of sporadic fighting between government forces and Taleban from Eshkamesh and Burka districts (read here)

How much support does Daesh have in the northeast?

Looking at these events, the threat of Daesh in the northeast – through Jundullah affiliating itself to IS – is neither widespread, nor immediate. The ‘flag raisings’ were limited to a few areas of two districts and did not last long. The pro-Daesh fighters were chased from district to district, not unlike what happened in Farah in early 2015 (see here),and finally had to retreat to Daesh’s only remaining stronghold in the country, in Nangrahar. The Daesh sympathisers in the north eastern region were unable to expand not only because of strong local Taleban resistance – they did not want to tolerate the slightest insurgent action independent of them, but also the intervention of local Uzbek elders once they saw their relationship with the (stronger) Taleban strained due to the pro-Daesh activities in their midst. As a result, local Uzbek communities do not seem willing to host local Daesh groups.

There are still some Daesh sympathisers and supporters for in the northeast. They appear to be from among the religiously educated, radicalised youth and to be working underground. Currently, they seem to be limiting their activities mostly to translating Daesh statements and video messages into Dari (the common language, locally, so also attracts non-Uzbek speakers)and circulating them on social media. In May 2016, for example they released a video of the alleged killings of supporters of Haji Zaher’s militia in Nangrahar by local Daesh fighters. Some local sources told AAN that a small number of radical young people from Baghlan and Kunduz provinces – mainly from Uzbeks and Tajiks – were fighting for Daesh in Nangrahar, but that there is no visible Daesh front in the northeast anymore.

It is difficult to determine the exact number of Daesh supporters in the northeast region or of north eastern fighters from the old Jundullah group in Nangrahar. In social media, however, there have been reports of casualties among them. In March 2016, a list with the names of nine men from Qala-ye Zal district of Kunduz alone who had been killed in Nangrahar were published on a Facebook account (the face book page named them as Mujahedin-e Qala-ye Zal, seen by AAN, but later deleted).

Far from the flag raising signalling a success for Daesh, the switch of allegiance by a local group of Uzbek fighters in the Baghlan-Takhar-Kunduz triangle actually represented another failed attempt to establish the Islamic State in Afghanistan. It showed again that IS mainly attracts splinter groups of insurgent groups, and that attempts to establish it mainly represent a re-arrangement of existing forces rather than a new, additional phenomenon. It also showed that IS-affiliated groups will immediately be confronted by the ‘owners of the insurgency space,’ the Taleban, who remain, by far, the dominant, anti-government grouping in Afghanistan.

Edited by Lenny Linke, Thomas Ruttig and Kate Clark

(1) There are a number of militant groups that call themselves Jundullah (Army of God) in the world, including in Pakistan and Iranian Balochistan. But the shared name does not suggest any organisational links. Like Hezbollah (Party of God, in Lebanon but also as a small registered party in Afghanistan), it is an obvious name for Muslim militants. In northeast Afghanistan, even when Jundullah and the Taleban working together, they largely retained basic separate command structure. Locals in Baghlan, Kunduz and Takhar where both groups operate can differentiate exactly which fighter is primarily affiliated to which group, calling them either Jundullahi, or Emarati.

(2) These fighters had been given an ultimatum by the Taleban to leave Kunduz; for details and background, see previous AAN reporting here.

Following the authoritative account of Chechens – or rather lack of Chechens – in Afghanistan by Christian Bleuer, and how they have frequently been reported on, but rarely encountered, AAN’s Kate Clark here describes her own experiences with Chechens in 2000. In January of that year, she reported on the opening of a Chechen embassy in Kabul and in June went searching for a Chechen training camp in Mazar-e Sharif. There, however, she found herself detained by Uzbeks.

Christian Bleuer has described how foreign soldiers, journalists and Afghans officials and military have commonly relayed stories of that most fearsome and incomparably deadly ally of the Taleban, the Chechen fighter. He has also convincingly shown how such stories evaporate like mist in the morning when scrutinised. Bleuer’s dispatches (here and here) have made sense of two episodes in my earlier reporting career, as the BBC’s Kabul correspondent (1999-2002).

Diplomatic Chechens

The year 2000 began with me witnessing the almost completely unrecognised Taleban state recognising the completely unrecognised Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, which had claimed independence from Russia in 1991 (following which the first Chechen war had been fought, 1994-1996). The call to go to the Foreign Ministry came on a Friday, 21 January 2000, and I and the rest of the Kabul press corps trooped off to the ministry on our day off and were ushered into one of the state rooms. They were then still grand, if a little faded, and had been decorated with flowers and the flags of Chechnya and the Taleban. Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakel introduced a man he described as the Vice President of Chechnya, Salim Khan (as I wrote it at the time, but actually Zalimkhan) Yandarbiyev, who, according to Bleuer, was actually the breakaway republic’s roving envoy to the Muslim world. He had just opened a Chechen embassy in the Afghan capital, we were told. My main memory of Yandarbiyev is of his enormously tall, astrakhan hat.

He told the assembled journalists that only one nation had listened to and understood the Chechen people and that was the Afghans. The ‘Chechen mujahedin,’ he said, had been heartened by the Afghan recognition of Chechnya, especially because of Afghanistan’s famous victory over Soviet forces in the 1980s. Mutawakel responded by saying his government would try to persuade other countries to open diplomatic relations with Chechnya and called on the United Nations and the Organisation of Islamic Conference to put pressure on Russia to negotiate with the breakaway republic. If Moscow refused, he warned, it would have to face the consequences. As to possible Afghan military help, he said the Chechens had no need: they were numerous, experienced and well-armed.

As Bleuer has reported, recent documents show that Yandarbiyev established the Chechen embassy without authorisation or even the knowledge of the official, separatist government in Chechnya (which was itself soon to be in exile). Indeed, his move came at a particularly unwanted time for the separatist government which was then trying to gain diplomatic recognition for their independence from the United States and countries in Europe, an effort hardly helped by publically making friends with the Taleban. Yanderbiyev would remain based in Qatar (where, in 2004, he was assassinated).

Military Chechens?

Five months later, in May 2000, Russia threatened to bomb military camps it claimed the Chechens had set up in Afghanistan. The first response came from the anti-Taleban Northern Alliance (aka the United Front), led by Ahmad Shah Massud. By this point in Afghanistan’s long war, the old enemies, Massud and Moscow, had become allies, brought together by a shared anti-Taleban conviction, and Russia was supplying Massud with arms. Even so, on 31 May 2000, the Northern Alliance warned Moscow against bombing the alleged Chechen camps, saying American attacks on camps belonging to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998, following al Qaeda’s bombings of US embassies in east Africa, had proved ineffective. The US air attacks, it said, had failed to eliminate foreign militant activity in Taleban-controlled areas of Afghanistan.

The Taleban, in turn, soon after also condemned the Russian threat, warning Russia it would “burn” if it launched any attack. Indeed, Mutawakel denied the presence of any Chechen camps or, indeed, any Chechens, including diplomats, in the country at all. He did not explain what had happened to the ‘embassy’. As to other foreign nationals, he repeated the Taleban party line, that any Muslim had a right to ‘join the jihad’ in Afghanistan, even though the Taleban did not need their support. He said as well that their governments had the right to discuss their nationals’ return. He accused the ‘international community’ of hypocrisy; having encouraged Muslims to come to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, it was now condemning those who came to fight in the current ‘jihad.’ However, he also invited foreign observers to check out for themselves if there were Chechen training camps.

So, in June 2000, this author decided to go to Mazar-e Sharif to see what Chechens she might find. She drove north with BBC translator Abdul Sabur Salehzai and the then Reuters bureau chief, Sayed Salahuddin. In those days, it was a day and a half journey from Kabul via Maidan Wardak, Bamyan (then a Taleban garrison town, largely deserted of its civilian population) and Baghlan. (The shorter Salang and Ghorband Valley routes were not passable because of Northern Alliance-held territory in the way.)

We saw no Chechens in Mazar-e Sharif. However, both locals and foreigners working in the aid sector said they had seen Chechens in town. People thought they were based in several places: near Hairaton, the border town at the Amu river (about 45 minutes drive away) and in a village just south of Mazar which used to be populated by Hazaras before the Taleban take-over (my notes do not say which). They also pointed us in the direction of a huge, mud-built fort to the east of the city – Qala-ye Jangi, formerly the headquarters of (now vice president) General Abdul Rashid Dostum and to become famous after the defeat of the Taleban because of the prisoner uprising there in November 2001. We went to the fort, but could not get close enough to see who might be there.

Locals also said Chechens had recently been living in private homes in a district of Mazar called Sayedabad. It had been a Hazara neighbourhood before the Taleban’s recapture of the city in 1998 when they massacred thousands of people, mainly civilians and mainly Hazaras. In 2000, Sayedabad was largely deserted, although there were some Afghan IDPs camping out there. We were pointed in the direction of one block of houses which had razor wire round it and two flags flying – the white flag of the Taleban and, not the green, red and white flag of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, but the black flag of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Neighbours said the people there the people there were Uzbeks from Uzbekistan.

My Afghan colleagues, Sabur and Salahudin, got out of the car and approached the place, speaking to an armed guard who said he was from Uzbekistan. They were then hauled in and interrogated for five hours. I was ordered to stay in the car where I was also questioned. Our recording and camera equipment was confiscated. We each saw about eight or nine armed men, plus some women and children. The men were clearly not Afghan – they spoke Uzbek and Russian, and only poor Persian. A man who appeared to be in charge spoke to Sabur and Salahuddin and wore a scarf over his face.

Another senior figure called ‘Ustad’ (teacher) by the other men, interrogated my colleagues (who reported that he spoke fluent Persian, Russian and Uzbeki, and a little Pashto) and me (in Arabic, with some English). Sabur and Salahuddin both thought he was an Uzbek from Uzbekistan. He hassled me about covering my head properly and criticised Sabur and Salahuddin for working for ‘infidel organisations’.

BBC colleague and IMU expert, Hamid Ismaelov, thought our interrogator was probably Odil Usmon, son-in-law of the then IMU deputy leader, Tahir Yuldash, and a noted linguist. Usmon would himself eventually became amir of the IMU in 2009 after both his predecessors were killed in US air strikes, Juma Namangani in the November 2001 bombing and Yuldash in a drone strike in South Waziristan in August 2009. It has just been confirmed that Usmon himself was killed in November 2015 in Zabul when fighters from the Mansur faction of the Taleban crushed a group of dissident Taleban and their, by that point, Islamic-state aligned IMU allies.

Meanwhile, back in June 2000 in Mazar…

I had a satellite phone with me, fortunately, and managed to speak to the BBC Pashto service. They began to try to raise Taleban ministers in Kandahar to call officials in Mazar to get us released. It was a Friday in summer and it took some time, but eventually we were taken back to our hotel and banned from leaving it. Negotiations between Kandahar and London followed and some very boring and anxious days for us in the hotel, only enlivened by the farcical scene one day of the local Ministry of Foreign Affairs representative insisting I give him my satellite phone and being able to do nothing about it when I refused. How could he physically grapple something from a woman? Eventually, the Taleban gave us permission to return to Kabul.

There, the Taleban Foreign Ministry again denied there were any Chechens in Afghanistan and said the only Uzbeks from Uzbekistan in the country were refugees, not armed fighters. They said they could make no statement on the record concerning the armed men we had encountered until they had finished an investigation – one of the many in Afghanistan, then and now, supposedly launched and never subsequently referred to ever again. I asked Foreign Minister Mutawakel, given that the Uzbeks had detained and questioned Sabur and Salahuddin, what he thought about foreigners having jurisdiction over Afghan citizens on Afghan soil? I never got a convincing answer. However, the threat against Afghan colleagues worked. It was the only time I was threatened into not reporting a story.

Uzbeks, Pakistanis, Arabs, yes… but Chechens?

I did not believe Mutawakel’s denial of a Chechen presence because the official Taleban denials that other foreign military camps existed did not add up. It was difficult to get a clear idea at that time about who might be fighting with the Taleban. I occasionally encountered hostile Arabs living in residential neighbourhoods in Kabul, but the frontlines were off-limits to non-state media. US diplomats in Islamabad made accusations about camps, but refused to share locations, claiming this was classified information. Reports of foreign fighters were largely second-hand. Still, the official denials did not match what I myself had seen. Officially, there were no camps in Mazar. Yet, we had encountered armed men with the IMU flag flying over their compound. When I visited Rishkhor, the old military training academy to the south-west of Kabul also in 2000, locals said there had been Pakistanis and Arabs, along with Taleban, based there until fairly recently. I did not see them, but could read the graffiti calling for the liberation of Kashmir and signs saying welcome in Arabic and Urdu. The camp commander told me it had been written by Afghan recruits who had lived overseas and picked up foreign languages, and were currently “away harvesting.”

The Pakistani, Arab and Uzbek fellow-travellers of the Taleban are now well-attested to. Yet, after reading Bleuer’s account of Chechens being repeatedly reported as present in Afghanistan, but rarely if ever actually encountered, I wonder if Mutawakel had been right. Possibly, the fanfare of the embassy opening in January 2000 had been the full – and only – extent of Chechen presence in Taleban-controlled Afghanistan.