The Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN)

Turning government-run Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA) into a public service broadcaster, a symbol of a democratic state, has been on the agenda of both donors and the Afghan government since 2002. However, only small, cosmetic changes have so far been made. As a result, many argue that this goal is no longer realistic. The overstaffed, cumbersome government institution would require strong political and financial buy-in to change its way of doing business and presenting the news. AAN’s Jelena Bjelica looks into the government’s plans for RTA.

A new attempt at reform?

“I want our national TV [RTA] to be like the BBC. It must be a true national TV, which should reflect the voice of Afghans,” tweeted Ashraf Ghani, during his presidential campaign in August 2014. That day, just before this eager tweet, he had met with a group of journalists and told them that RTA “should become a media station that gives the opportunity for dialogue to all, and it should be under an independent, impartial institution. RTA should not be a microphone for the President and his deputies.”

This aim was also reflected in the National Development Strategy 2010-13, ie for the Ministry of Information and Culture to develop “a truly editorially independent public service broadcasting of a high standard by 2010.”

Since Ghani’s enthusiastic words were spoken and he took office, there seems to have been some movement between the president’s office and RTA about the transformation. Everything, however, is still very hush-hush.

AAN was recently given two confidential documents, which both deal with the future of RTA. The first document is a 2015 confidential feasibility study on the reform of the institution, which was carried out on the president’s request and authored by David Page, a well-known media expert and a former BBC world service staffer. The second document is a lengthy proposal on RTA’s transformation to a public service broadcaster (PSB) developed by the institution’s own Director-General, Zarin Anzor (a well-known writer, Pashtun scholar and journalist), and submitted to the president several months ago. The second document was a direct result of recommendations made in the confidential feasibility study.

RTA: some facts, figures and problems

Currently, RTA has approximately 2,000 staff on its tashkil (the formal staffing spread-sheet). Of this number, 1,050 are in Kabul and the remaining 950 in the provinces. All RTA staff are government employees, and most of them are over the age 35, which makes RTA less competitive on the market, where most privately-owned TVs are run by young professionals who speak to an equally youthful population. (62 per cent of Afghanistan’s population is between the age of 20 and 40, and 75 per cent of the population is under 35 years of age.) According to the people interviewed for the 2012 BBC Media Action Policy Briefing on Afghan media in transition, “RTA has only one shortcoming: it has less young people… If they hire young people as anchors or newscasters, it would attract a younger audience.” However, there is also a beauty in preserving institutional memory with the ‘old-timers’, as captured by this 2002 BBC feature story on a RTA staff member in charge of the pre-computer age tape archive of Afghan radio.

RTA’s operational budget for 1395 (2016/17) is 404 million Afghani, approximately 5.9 million US dollars; the development budget for the same year is around 2.4 million US Dollars. (Afghanistan operates with this kind of split budgeting). This is a rise compared to the previous year, when operational costs of 343 million Afghani (5 million USD) and developmental expenditures of 1.6 million US dollars were allocated to it. At the same time, RTA generates revenue from advertising and other sources that amount to approximately 220 million Afghani (3.2 million USD). This shows that RTA is far from being self-sufficient. However, RTA, although an independent directorate, does not manage its advertising revenue directly; this is handled by the Ministry of Finance. (1)

The proportion allocated for personnel expenses is over 60 per cent of the operational budget (five years average 2008-13), both in its TV and radio sections. As in many other Afghan institutions, this accounts for its largest expenditure – meaning fewer resources for modernisation. Program production costs, for example, account for only 1.3 per cent, while the budget for producing original content is almost zero, as shown by the Japanese development agency, JICA, in December 2013.

However, according to Abdul Rahman Panjshiri, RTA’s director of planning and international relations, the crux of RTA’s problem is not the availability of financial resources, but the management structures of the state-owned broadcaster.

“The money we receive from the government is sufficient, but our management is weak,” Panjshiri told AAN.

Different approaches to transformation

President Ghani appears to have a strong personal vision for RTA. In November 2014 following his inauguration, he repeated his ambition for the broadcaster to become independent and took the conversation one step further in a meeting with a senior BBC manager. “He talked about putting in place a robust enough system to prevent RTA from becoming a ‘political capture’ after it has become independent,” the BBC’s Shirazuddin Siddiqi wrote in a paper presented at the Global Media Freedom Conference (GMFC), held in Copenhagen in April 2015. (2)

A confidential feasibility study authored by David Page also notes that the views of senior official advisors to both the president and the CEO are very similar and favourable for turning RTA into a public service broadcaster.

The confidential feasibility study suggested two models for structural transformation, such as that of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) or the Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC). Both organisations are based on Afghan law (the MEC on a presidential decree, the AIHRC even has constitutional rank), and receive direct funding from it, but in a way that safeguards their independence and their ability to act in the public interest. A similar change for RTA, according to the study, should allow for its transformation into a public corporation with greater autonomy in finances and human resources.

RTA planning director, Mr. Panjshiri, told AAN in 2015 (AAN could not confirm the exact date) that President Ghani met with RTA’s management and asked them to prepare a detailed report and plan for transformation. The RTA’s management probed the president’s resolve regarding the introduction of a licence fee paid by TV viewers. The president, however, advised RTA’s management to first improve its programme quality and increase its reach to its audience, and then “to start thinking about the licence fee.” Following this meeting, RTA organised a committee, which included representatives from UNESCO, the BBC and the Afghan media organisation Nai, which works locally on the empowerment of independent media outlets and organisations.

However, an internal disagreement (between Anzor and Panjshiri) soon surfaced regarding how the PSB should be organised. This disagreement reflects conflicting ideas about the central issue as to whether RTA should become a broadcaster governed by an independent commission or remain a national broadcaster under the control of the government. (3) This inevitably resulted in halting the committee’s work.

Anzor’s proposal, which includes a strategic plan of transformation, a draft PSB law, a proposal for RTA’s reform and three programme documents for 2015/16, is a light take on the reform and does not make significant changes to RTA’s governing structures. For example, according to the draft law the candidate for the post of Director General will still be proposed and appointed by the president, not through public bidding (locally called kankur) and approved by an independent commission (to be formed), as is the case in many other countries. According to international PSB standards, the most important way of securing the independence of the governing board is through appointments of its management governing bodies through a multi-party body, not by an individual minister.

The proposal covers the period from 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2019 and will cost 13.5 million US dollars for the first three years. (The budget for 2019 is not included in the document AAN received.) On a technical level, the proposal includes changes such as a conversion from analogue to digital transmission, the establishment of four TV channels (global and national, entertainment and news) with 33 studios, ie one in all provinces, a correspondent network in Pakistan, India, Russia, Iran, the EU and the US and the incorporation of the Wolesi Jirga channel, currently managed by parliament itself. It also proposes the recruitment of 300 new employees during its structural reform, but omits to mention what would happen to current staff. Additionally, 40 new radio and 15 new TV programmes (including talk shows and entertainment programmes) are to be produced during this period.

The transformation proposal for RTA also suggests an annual licence fee of 100 Afghani (1.5 US dollars), which would be collected from customers along with electricity bills by the state-owned Afghanistan Electricity Company, better known as Breshna. (4) According to the proposal, this would result in annual revenue of 400 million Afghani (5.8 million US dollars). Additional resources would be collected through advertising, on average 200 million Afghani (3 million US dollars) per year.

This all sounds attractive, but it remains technical to a large extent, avoiding changes in the management and the very character of the institution. “A PSB is a system of principles, you can not accept some and reject others,” Panjshiri told AAN, adding, “Anzor’s proposal did not capture the essence of the PSB. It is like a mouth without the teeth.”

Earlier reform attempts

Talks about RTA’s reorganisation and its new role in society started in 2002, on the eve of the interim administration’s general effort to reform everything and to revive old, ‘prestigious’ institutions in the country. The Minister for Information and Culture during Hamed Karzai’s interim administration issued policy directions on Reconstruction and Development of Media in Afghanistan on 6 June 2002. An International Media Conference, which brought together representatives of the Afghan government, local civil society and the international community followed in September 2002. The conference declaration together with the Afghan government policy direction from June 2002, constituted the basic framework for the development of media policy in Afghanistan. The declaration specifically recommended:

… that work begin immediately on transforming Radio-Television Afghanistan into a public service broadcasting system. In recognition of the significant role the media will play in the debate over national reconstruction, a timetable for the conversion should be agreed to by the end of 2002 and a detailed plan initiated with the aim of significant progress towards this goal being achieved by June 2004. This should include early creation of an independent board of governors that reflects Afghanistan’ s diversity.

In 2004, the first comprehensive strategy for the reform of RTA was handed to the government. But reform dragged on, and the target – progress by mid-2004 – was clearly missed. Between 2004 and 2007 yet another set of reform plans was drafted, as “a funding package between 15 and 40 million Euros was potentially on offer from the EU and other donors,” as a recent confidential feasibility study on RTA reform shows. The study further reveals that although “the Parliament voted to make RTA independent by a two-thirds majority, the project was not ultimately approved by the President [Karzai] and the EU withdrew its offer.” (For the 2007 WJ discussion on the media law see here.)

Panjshiri summarised these efforts in one sentence in his interview with AAN: “[S]ince 2002 there has been a lot of talk on transforming RTA into a PSB, but these were just words, nothing materialized in practice.” According to Panjshiri’s observations, then minister of culture and information, Dr Seyyed Makhdum Rahin’s fear of losing control (5) was the main obstacle to serious changes. He said Rahin, who served as the minister twice (2002–05 and 2010–15), never really pushed for transformation.

However, Panjshiri also had some serious disagreements with Rahin’s successor Abdul Karim Khurram, minister from 2005 to 2009. He even resigned in September 2007, directly citing the minister’s efforts to curb the station’s independence as his reason. “During my 29 years of service with RTA I have not seen such an attempt to suppress freedom,” he said in comments published by Radio Netherlands. Since January 2007, following the resignation of RTA’s director Najib Roshan over policy differences with the minister, RTA staff complaints regarding Khurram were numerous. He became well known for his use of threats and violent language against any RTA employee who objected to unqualified or political appointments made at RTA, and was reported by international actors involved in the process. Khurram had RTA employees who voiced objections physically removed from the premises by his fifty armed bodyguards who regularly accompanied him to meetings.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) in its report on media freedom in Afghanistan 2008–11 also named Khurram, who belonged to president Karzai’s inner circle, as a key opponent to the transformation.

It was not until March 2014, as noted in the confidential study on the reform of RTA, that Karzai was finally persuaded to re-designate RTA as an ‘independent directorate’:

…the organisation since incorporated this title into its branding. In effect, this means that the Ministry of Information no longer directly manages the broadcaster, which is a big step forward; previous Ministers of Information had an office on the campus and were involved in most major decisions.

RTA’s new logo (Source: RTA)

Mass Media Law(s): forward into the past?

Four different media laws, from March 2002, April 2004, June 2006 and August 2008 (the latter gazetted July 2009), have been passed in the meantime. But even the last one, that of 2009, still does not make RTA a public service broadcaster. (6)

This was prevented by a long discussion that preceded the 2009 law (currently in force), and during which quite a few articles that dealt with RTA were amended or deleted at the last minute. This was mainly due to President Karzai and Khurram’s opposition to a more independent national broadcaster. The delay of several months in publishing the law led to the belief, “in some circles”, that there had been a deliberate effort to ensure that provisions on the obligations of state-owned media organisations, which would have limited the government’s influence on them, were not made operative before the presidential elections on 20 August 2009, notes the IFJ report.

The 2009 draft of the Media Law stated that the “director of RTA shall be appointed by the President and approved by Lower House of parliament.” The High Council of the Supreme Court, because of the pressure coming from the President’s office, considered this to be “inconsistent with the Afghan Constitution.”

According to the IFJ report, the final compromise on this issue was to split the difference. In the final text of the law (article 13), finally ratified in July 2009 by President Karzai, RTA was described as “a mass media that belongs to the Afghan nation and shall perform, as an independent directorate, within the framework of the Executive Branch.” RTA’s budget, the law stipulated, would “be provided by the Government and through advertisements and provision of services” (see IFJ report Reporting in Times of War: Media Freedom in Afghanistan 2008 – 2011 http://www.ifj.org/uploads/media/2011_Afghanistan.pdf). A second clause of this article, which stated that RTA’s director would be appointed by the president, subject to approval by the lower house of parliament, the Wolesi Jirga, was deleted. With this, RTA remains in the Executive’s control and nothing close to becoming a public service broadcaster.

Its status is laid out in six articles in the electronic mass media chapter, including one that sets up RTA’s commission (heavily controlled by the Ministry of Information and Culture and the de jure and de facto powerless) and constitutes the entire legal regulation on the national broadcaster. (7) However, there is strong ownership of the 2009 Media Law among MPs of the Wolesi Jirga, who approved it by a two-thirds majority vote and worked on the draft. (The IFJ report finds that members of parliament, who themselves had business investments in the media, had allegedly been responsible for writing RTA’s article as a public service trust into the proposed law.) (8)

Nevertheless, according to media experts, the 2009 Media Law was a great success as it set out worthy objectives relating to freedom of thought and speech, the promotion of free, independent and pluralistic mass media and the protection of the rights of journalists. The law is also seen as a new attempt to set in motion the transformation of RTA into a public broadcaster. According to BBC Media Action Policy Briefing, the 2009 law “allows RTA to play a more independent national role, with a governance structure in which government, parliament and civil society organisations are all represented.” However, this is not yet the law needed to set up a public service broadcaster, due to the limitations imposed on RTA and the de facto control of the Ministry of Information and Culture over it that is provided for by the law.

Shirazuddin Siddiqi of BBC Media Action told AAN “the current media legislation is the best Afghanistan ever had.” However, according to Siddiqi, back in 2008 a legal charter on RTA was also given to the parliament with the draft law, but MPs refused to discuss it and said their job was to deal with the laws, not the charters. (9)

What of the RTA commission?

The 2009 Mass Media Law established three commissions under the auspice of the High Media Council, the Mass Media Commission, the Commission of National Radio Television and the Commission for the Bakhtar Information Agency, the state-run Afghan news agency. (10) In the original draft of the law, the High Media Council was an over-arching body with representation by the government, parliament, the judiciary, civil society, the Ulema council and journalists. It was to provide long-term media policy directions, while the Mass Media Commission (which has yet to be appointed) had a supervisory role over the private and public media sector. Among others, its duties was to include a review of complaints, refer mass media violations of a criminal nature to justice institutions and provide technical consultations to mass media officials. However, in the final approved draft, the Ministry of Information and Culture reinstated its control over the Mass Media Commission and the RTA commission, as explained in the confidential study:

Despite the liberal character of the law, the Ministry of Information succeeded by a variety of means in retaining day to day control of RTA: the new governance structures were modified in ways that undermine their original purpose and the entire structure has not been fully implemented to this day […] In the final version, however, the Ministry of Information takes responsibility for paying salaries of the members of the Mass Media Commission, and that Commission’s role is expanded to include supervision of RTA and the scrutiny of its budget. At the same time, the RTA Commission is deprived of the role of appointing the Director General and approving appointments of other directors proposed by DG. Contrary to the original intention, the Ministry of Information managed to re-assert its dominant role in the management of RTA, undermining its national independence and blurring the clear lines of responsibilities set out in the original draft.

The three-year mandate of the last RTA commission expired in May 2015. The new commissioners have not yet been appointed. Furthermore, the last commission was widely seen as the creation of Minister Rahin, who also declined to establish the Mass Media Commission. According to Panjshiri, the last RTA commission used to meet every week, but mainly “to sip tea and coffee.” The RTA Director General is also a member of the commission, leaving no space for it to independently look at RTA’s programming or financing.

Dispatches from the ‘court’: The RTA news programme

After 2001, RTA’s leading bodies faced political interference into their news programming. In a speech held at an international seminar in Kuala Lumpur in May 2006, former director Muhammad Ishaq gave an example of how then-President Karzai was interfering, after RTA broadcast one of his speeches, one and a half hour long, but somehow omitted “about one minute of it.” “The next day, the deputy director of Radio-Television was summoned to the president’s office to explain the omission. […] The mistake was rectified by the re-broadcast of the speech with a note that the re-broadcast was due to ‘the repeated request from viewers’,” Ishaq recalled.

In 2002, Karzai had indirectly accused the former ‘Northern Alliance’ (officially United Front, with Jamiat-e Islami as its strongest component) of turning RTA into its own mouthpiece. RTA’s first two post-Taleban directors, Abdul Hafiz Mansur, now an MP, and Ishaq, are prominent Jamiat members. Mansur was sacked for the alleged politicisation of RTA by then Minister Rahin.

Some ten years later, despite all criticisms, support and training, the quality of RTA programming is still very low and under the government’s influence. Every evening at 8pm, RTA broadcasts its main news bulletin, which mainly showcases the government’s activities of the day. The news sequence is prioritised by the seniority of the person involved, not by its relevance or newsworthiness. According to AAN’s observation, every evening the same schedule applies for the news bulletin: first the news from the president’s office followed by news from the vice-presidents’ offices, the chief executive’s office, the ministers, parliament, and lastly the provincial governors.

The recent confidential feasibility study confirms this impression and notes:

Each of these offices prepares its own news, either with its own staff or with RTA staff, and expects to be put on air by RTA unedited. The News Editor has no idea half an hour before the main 8 pm bulletin what he will receive and how long it will be […]. Frequently, packages prepared by the RTA news teams have to be dropped to make space for government material of less news value.

The study indicates that RTA’s “protocol approach” to the news “has a direct bearing on its credibility with the public” – and very likely to the number of viewers. The study concludes that “[u]nfortunately, RTA is seen very much as a government mouthpiece.”

Viewership on the increase?

After obtaining authorisation for 50 terrestrial TV channels for the whole of Afghanistan, RTA facilities located in 37 places have been transmitting the programme directly to the provinces as of November 2012. Prior to this, videotapes with the programme content were flown from Kabul to provincial centres, often delaying the broadcast.

The current coverage area is about 40 per cent of the entire country. This partial coverage is mainly due to the low transmitting power of RTA stations, often only reaching the outskirts of provincial capitals. RTA also broadcasts via satellite, Insat, but is not connected to the large Galaxy or HotBird satellites.

According to research carried out by Altai Consulting, RTA’s audience declined from 7 per cent in 2010 to 2.9 per cent in 2014. The latest 2015 BBC Afghanistan Country Report, however, shows RTA’s reach as high as 40 per cent, just after Tolo TV with 51 per cent and Ariana TV with 42 per cent.

Panjshiri questioned the BBC’s latest ratings. For a number of years, he said, RTA distributed survey questionnaires to over 6,000 people in 34 provinces and none of those surveyed under the age of 35 ever mentioned RTA as their preferred TV channel. Siddiqi of BBC Media Action, however, thinks that RTA viewership might be on the increase for several reasons. “There is a general lack of trust in the private TV stations, radio listenership has gone down in the past several year, there is a general decrease in interest in soap-operas broadcasted by the private channels, and the quality of the talk shows on the RTA has increased,” he explained.

What comes next?

So far, RTA has not heard back from the president’s office on the submitted proposal. (AAN heard from the presidential palace that several proposals are on the table and the president is still deciding which option to go for.) Neither is the EU, one of the strongest advocates for turning it in to a Public Service Broadcaster, aware of the government’s plans. The EU mission in Afghanistan told AAN in an email correspondence:

We were informed, last year, by BBC Media Action, that the Government had plans to restructure RTA. We are however not aware of any recent development in that direction. Pending a government decision, we have not yet adopted a position on this matter.

For Panjshiri, who has worked with RTA since 1978, turning the government channel into a PSB remains a matter of honour, but he fears that the opportunity might be lost. Whether the opportunity is lost or there is still a chance to reform RTA, the answer is in the president’s hands.

(1) Before the Soviet period, Radio and Television Afghanistan (RTA) was a state broadcaster with a monopoly over the market. Though RTA had a long history dating back to 1925, it was generally perceived as the voice of the government.

RTA is heavily dependent on donor support. The Governments of Japan and India have each invested substantially in rebuilding the infrastructure of the state broadcaster during the 2000s. RTA also received support from a number of other donors over several decades, including UNESCO, Deutsche Welle (the German government broadcaster for abroad), UNDP, the Asian Broadcasting Union and, in the 1960s and 1970s, from the Soviet Union, Germany, the Government of Japan and other countries. (See also BBC Media Action Policy Briefing on Afghan media in transition)

(2) See “Media and its role (in) the development of society in developing and fragile states”; a draft paper by Shirazuddin Siddiqi, a senior Manager at the BBC.

(3) A 2010 study by Altai Consulting found that a national broadcaster is the preferred model by the Afghan government, while a public broadcaster is a model more strongly supported by the international community.

(4) De Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS, Afghanistan Electricity Company) is a state owned but corporate national power utility and the sole producer, transmitter and distributor of electricity throughout the country (see here).

(5) Dr Rahin, a Seyyed from Kabul with a Masters and a Doctorate in Literature from Tehran University, served on the Constitutional Commission under President Muhammad Daud (1973-78) in various culture-related posts in Pakistan and the US and was active in the Rome group that, in the late 1990s, pushed for a return of the former King. Minister of Culture in the transitional authority from 2002 to 2005, he failed to receive parliament’s vote of confidence in the new 2006 cabinet. Later he was Afghan Ambassador to India.

(6) There was an attempt to pass a new media law in 2012, which was effectively an attempt to reinstate state control over the media. However it was struck off the Wolesi Jirga’s agenda after strong criticism from both Nai, a media organisation supporting open media in Afghanistan and Human Rights Watch (here  and here). This draft law did not foresee any change with regards to RTA. In 2015, there was another mass media draft law in circulation, but this too was taken off the agenda “due to some flaws.” According to Afghan media experts, the 2015 draft law also attempted to restore state control over the media.

(7) In line with principles of the Declaration of Sanaa from 1996, (adopted as the Resolution 34 on the 29th UNESCO general conference, held in 1997), “state-owned broadcasting…should be, as a matter of priority, reformed and granted status of journalistic and editorial independence as open public service institutions.”

A separate law regulates public service broadcasting in most countries, see for example the UNESCO’s PSB model law guidelines and the list of international standards for PSB.

(8) The joint commission of the Meshrano and the Wolesi Jirga worked on the Media Law draft. The head of the commission was Muhammad Mohaqqeq, now deputy CEO, which explains provisions that political parties and government organisations may establish media outlets. Mohaqqeq is head of a political party and the owner of several newspapers, radio and TV stations, including Daily Outlook, Daily Afghanistan and Rah-e Farda TV and radio.

(9) The charter was an attempt to regulate RTA in a way similar to the BBC, which is regulated by the so-called BBC Charter, renewable every ten years.

(10) Internal politics in the Ministry of Information and Culture are the reason the Mass Media Commission has not been appointed yet. In short, the politicking boils down to who controls the Media Violation Investigation Commission (MVIC) established in 2005. This was suppose to be dissolved with the passing of the 2009 Mass Media Law and replaced by the three new commissions, however it continues to function (see AAN’s dispatch on the commissions here and the 2015 Freedom House Report). The commission is still controlled by the government as it is part of the High Media Council (the body which proposes National Radio TV’s budget to the government and submits annual activities report to the National Council).

President Ghani’s speech to the Afghan parliament, in an extraordinary joint session on 25 April 2016, was unprecedented. Made in response to demands that he clarify the government’s security policies, the televised speech was sober and dignified, and detailed the government’s hardening stance against Pakistan, the Haqqani network, Daesh and “parts of the Taleban.” Although, according to the president, the door to peace was still ajar, the speech’s main aim was to project an image of resolve and military dominance. It represented a further hardening of the rhetoric and was met by an equally harsh statement by the Taleban. AAN’s Martine van Bijlert takes a closer look (with input from Salima Ahmadi).

The context

It was the first time a post-2001 president called an extraordinary joint session of both houses of the Afghan parliament. (1) Yet, Ghani’s speech was also part of an ongoing conversation between the president and the legislative bodies, which have enjoyed uneasy relations even during the Karzai years. A week earlier, on 18 April 2016, President Ghani called both houses to a large closed-door session at the presidential palace to discuss and consult on the government’s security policies. The meeting, that took place in the presence of the acting Minister of Defence, the new Minister of Interior and the acting head of the National Directorate for Security (NDS), was described by MPs as cordial and constructive.

During the 18 April 2016 meeting, President Ghani asked the MPs to support the government now that the quadrilateral talks – involving Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States and China – had not brought Taleban to the negotiating table and the Taleban had launched their Omari Operation instead. Ghani warned that the nation would have six tough months of war and killing ahead of it and asked them to be united and support the security forces. The MPs, in turn, presented a list of ten demands or issues. (Some MPs said this was in response to the president’s request for a technical security plan, while other described the demands as a list of conditions if they were to support the government, as requested). In the subsequent days, the list grew and by the time the president made his speech, it contained 24 points, many not to do with security.

The president referred to the parliament’s conditions (“I received your list of 24 items”), saying he would address the most important ones in his speech and discuss the remaining in regular meetings with the parliament, that would take place monthly in the Palace from now on.

The demands/issues raised by the parliament include a shift in policy from negotiations to war; fundamental changes to the structure and policies of the High Peace Council; the introduction of the new minister of defence and head of NDS (currently filled by an acting minister and director) and the filling of other vacant governmental positions; a clear definition of the nation’s enemies and friends; presentation of the government’s five-year strategic plan to the Wolesi Jirga; the strengthening of the national security forces; a stronger stance against what they term Pakistan’s ‘double game’; electoral reforms; the parliamentary elections to be held on time; and the presentation of a concrete plan at the Warsaw summit.

Wolesi Jirga speaker Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi, at the beginning of the joint session, also mentioned the implementation of the bilateral security agreement (BSA) with the US, an addressing of the problems of Afghan refugees and migrants in Saudi Arabia and European countries, the strengthening of good governance and the fulfillment of the promises made before and after the establishment of the NUG (see here for more detail).

The session was unusual, but it is not the first time the Afghan government has publicly sought to announce its stance in response to a major security incident. In October 2011, President Hamed Karzai addressed the nation in a televised speech to announce a ‘policy change’ after the assassination of High Peace Council head Burhanuddin Rabbani, who had been killed by a supposed Taleban peace envoy (current acting defence minister Massum Stanakzai, was badly injured in the attack). At that time, Karzai stated that the Afghan government would no longer seek to talk to the Taleban, but would address Pakistan directly instead, arguing that the Taleban did not appear to be in a position to take a decision with regard to peace. Ghani’s speech, now, was the exact opposite and may signal the end of a years-long strategy of demanding Pakistan ‘deliver’ the Taleban leadership.

But given that President Ghani’s speech was not just a reaction to recent events, but also a direct response to issues raised by the parliament, it should be read, not just as an address to the nation, but also as a direct attempt to forge greater unity between the executive and the legislative.

The speech

The president’s speech itself was sober and dignified. Alternating between Dari and Pashto, he made no jokes and displayed no sudden outbursts of emotion. Some of the more emotive sentences – in praise of the security forces, vilifying the Taleban or portraying a strong, bellicose stance – were met with polite rounds of applause. (The full official text in Dari/Pashto can be found here;  a link to a video of the full speech can he found here; and an English translation by BBC Monitoring can be found in the annex below.)

In terms of substance, the speech contained no big surprises. Most of the main themes had already been foreshadowed in comments to the media by the government leadership and their spokespersons. Emerging themes included praise of the Afghan security forces; a clearer ‘definition’ of the enemy; de-prioritisation of the peace process in favour of military operations; a loss of patience with Pakistan’s role; and continued assurances that the National Unity Government would keep its promises. It was, however, the nuance and detail that mattered.

In praise of the security forces

A large section of the early part of the president’s speech was spent in praise of the ANDSF (formerly known as the Afghan National Security Forces, the country’s security forces, under the new government, are now referred to as Afghan National Security and Defence Forces). President Ghani told his audience that the last 13 months had seen more than 40,000 combat missions and 16,000 resolute operations and that at that very moment more than 15,000 “brave troops” in seven provinces were fighting the Haqqani network, Taleban and Daesh. There was a bit of hyperbole when he praised the 50,000 families who had sent their sons and daughters to serve as soldiers over the last year, or the women who were cooking for the combat troops because they remember how they had been whipped [presumably by Taleban Vice and Virtue police] in the past. He listed a large number of units, departments and equipment (with special mention of the helicopters) that had been added to the security forces, based on their needs and experiences of last year.

The general image the president sought to project was that of a nation with security forces that had come to terms with their weaknesses and regained the initiative on the battlefield:

The combat capabilities of your [sic] young security and defence forces have been enhanced in a way that cannot be compared to the past … our Air Force has become so active it can reach the enemy in the country’s roughest terrains and mountainous areas … our army is becoming younger and stronger … reforms are ongoing.

He closed the speech with the wish that, “If God wills it, this year will turn into the last and final year of defeat for the terrorists and the bloodthirsty.”

A matter of definition

A second point the president dealt with in his speech was the prickly question of distinguishing friend from foe. The demand that the nation’s enemies be properly defined is a long-standing one, also often heard under President Karzai. The demand stems from criticism over the government’s confused stance vis-a-vis the Taleban, treating them as a party that needs to be wooed and appeased, even while they continue to launch vicious attacks. In the history of the country’s attempts to start a peace process, there has been a steady concern that concessions to the Taleban would be made before they were earned. Both Karzai and Ghani have been accused of being far too soft on the Taleban, with critics being fearful that in the haste to get something that looks like a peace deal, the Taleban would be allowed to join the government on their own terms and that chances for a more substantive peace negotiation would be squandered.

In his speech, Ghani started off his definitions by stating that all political groups who worked in favour of the national interests were “friends,” including the opposition: “Friends of Afghanistan are all Afghanistan’s citizens – including supporters of the state, those who are impartial and the political opposition with their different political perspectives and positions, who are nevertheless loyal to the national interests and protect and defend them.”

The enemies of Afghanistan were those, “who take advantage of the pure religious emotions of our youth, while they themselves are part of the drug mafia and are gathering wealth and luxury. The enemies of Afghanistan are the hireling groups like Daesh, al-Qaeda and the murderous groups of Haqqani and some Taleban who enjoy shedding the blood of their countrymen.” (emphasis added)

Ghani’s hedging with regard to the Taleban – defining only “some Taleban” as enemies – was explained in the next sentence: “The difference is that there is no way to talk with the foreigners’ hirelings, but we have still left the door of dialogue ajar for reconciliation with those groups of Taleban who are ready to work together for their country to put an end to the bloodshed and restore peace and stability – although this window of opportunity will not remain open for good.”

The reiteration that the door to peace is still open (to those who want to lay down their weapons, accept the constitution and distance themselves from terrorism, as state elsewhere) is much needed. But it is also so obvious – those surrendering will be allowed back – that it is unclear why Ghani felt his definition needed a caveat.

President Ghani also sought to frame the conflict as an “undeclared war,” claiming that he had reached consensus with the international partners that “this war is not a civil war, but a war waged by terrorists and their regional supporters against our country.” The Minister of Defence, while visiting Kunduz on 21 April 2016, referred to the conflict as an “imposed war,” stressing that the Afghan security forces would remain resilient against the conspiracies of the enemies of Afghanistan.

A stern talking to Pakistan

Although there had been commentary about the failed quadrilateral talks, the president’s comments were relatively circumspect – presumably in an attempt not to alienate the allies he still needs (the US and China). He said that the quadrilateral efforts, with all their difficulties, had “created appropriate conditions to better understand the rightfulness of the demands, of our people and our government, to seek a political solution.” He singled out Saudi Arabia and Iran as international partners and made a veiled, but unmistakable swipe at Pakistan: “Those who have failed to implement their commitments within this international framework or have been unwilling to implement them, are isolated more than ever today.”

A day earlier, presidential spokesman Dawa Khan Minapal had been a lot less guarded when discussing Afghanistan’s intentions to review its policy on Pakistan: “Pakistan is in a state of isolation. We want to use diplomatic initiatives to isolate Pakistan at the regional and international levels and to tell the world community where the terrorists are and which country and intelligence (agency) supports them.”

As widely reported, the president made it clear that he no longer expects Pakistan to bring the Taleban to the talks and instead called on Pakistan to either deal militarily with those Taleban who reside on Pakistani soil and refuse to accept the “political road” – based on its written commitment in the framework of the quadrilateral talks – or “surrender them to our sharia-based courts so they can be tried and punished for their actions.” President Ghani stressed that he, and the rest of the world, expected Pakistan to abandon the concept of ‘good terrorists’ and ‘bad terrorists’ and act as a responsible government. Failing to do so, Afghanistan would see no other option than to complain to the United Nations Security Council and other international bodies.

The US has recently also been increasing pressure on Pakistan. A US State Department spokesperson stressed on 22 April 2016 that Pakistan has been told at the highest level that the Taleban and Haqqani network had to be reined in:

We have consistently expressed our concerns at the highest level of the Government of Pakistan about their continued tolerance for Afghan Taliban groups such as the Haqqani Network operating from Pakistani soil. And we did again – after this week’s attack we have pressed the Government of Pakistan to follow up on its expressed commitment not to discriminate between terror groups regardless of their agenda or their affiliation by undertaking concrete action against the Haqqanis.

At about the same time as Ghani’s speech, reports surfaced in the Pakistani press that a delegation from the Taleban office in Doha had arrived in Islamabad and would possibly start face-to-face talks with the Afghan government on 27 April 2016. However, Taleban spokespersons either said they were unaware of the trip or denied the reports.

Pakistan, in the meantime, has yet to show any strong reaction to President Ghani’s speech. A Pakistani foreign affairs official, in a rather bland statement, said that Pakistan denounces terror in all forms, does not differentiate between terrorist groups and considers peace and stability in Afghanistan to be in the best interest of Pakistan.

Sartaj Aziz, the President’s advisor on foreign affairs, said in an interview that Pakistan would deal militarily with the “anti-talks Taleban,” but only after it had consulted with all sides.

A tougher stance on war and peace

In terms of a tougher stance on war and peace, Ghani’s speech was largely a reiteration of an earlier statement  issued on 21 April 2016, indicating that peace through negotiations with the Taleban was no longer a priority for the National Unity Government, as the insurgent group had shown no mercy on the Afghan people. While the stance in his latest speech was not new, the language of resolve when it came to punishing those who continued to choose war, was:

The enemies of Afghanistan should know that if they are caught on the battlefield while committing terrorist acts against the people of Afghanistan, they will be brought to justice and the rule of law will be fully implemented on them. … I will resolutely deal with those who shed the blood of our soldiers and our innocent people and I will not hesitate to punish them. The time for those who enjoyed unjustified amnesty is over. The government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is committed to resolutely implement decisions of the courts and judicial entities, including the rulings of death penalties.

The reference to capital punishment earned him the longest round of applause during the whole speech.

Echoing the same language, President Ghani told provincial NDS heads on the same day  (full palace statement in Dari here):

In the past eighteen months we exerted enough efforts to ensure peace, but they rejected it and last week in Kabul they martyred your colleagues and civilians. Therefore, they are rebels and criminals. Tighten the area around them, raise fear in their heart, block their passage routes, cut their financial resources, destroy their hidden places through air and ground operations and demolish them.

Of course, this tougher stance of the government will only signal actual change if the forces are indeed capable of holding their own and regaining the initiative.

The tougher stance could, incidentally, also usher in a period of increased tolerance for rights abuses on the battlefield and in detention centres – as already indicated, in UNAMA’s 2015 Protection of Civilians report, by the rising portion of civilian casualties caused by the ANDSF and the decision to use detention without trial.

Calls for unity

The speech, finally, was also laced with calls for unity. The president opened with a reference to last week’s meeting in the Palace, saying that “respected MPs had joined their voices with the government,” declaring their support for the government’s war and peace policies. He later spoke out against those who “tarnish this unity while they are within the system and the government, and who utilise the [government’s] resources to keep pouring water into the enemy’s watermill, and consciously or unconsciously, take part in the enemy’s psychological warfare; there will be no compromise regarding them anymore.” He asked the MPs and senators “to define this moral discipline and to enshrine it in law, so that in light of these principles, we can respond to the enemy’s psychological warfare more successfully.” The remark was vaguely phrased, but it sounded like the president was asking the parliament to lay down limitations to free speech and free reporting, along the lines of occasional requests to the media and commentators to refrain from reporting and debates that might threaten the nation’s morale or unity.

On the other hand, the president insisted that although the enemies had wanted to force the government to declare a state of emergency, “they did not know and do not know that Afghans are not a people to be intimidated and coerced. The Afghan soul does not accept coercion. We will never limit the freedoms that our Constitution has granted us.” The two seemingly contradictory statements seem an apt illustration of the competing drivers that the government faces. (Also, the government has already given itself an extra power – to detain without trial – by decree, rather than getting it after declaring a state of emergency, as laid out in the constitution.)

The president further briefly responded to the parliament’s demands for reforms, appointments and other National Unity Government promises still to be fulfilled, but his statements were largely vague reiterations of continued commitments. The two most practical points were a promise to introduce candidates for the ministry of defence and the NDS “in the coming days” (2) and an assurance that the elections “will be held as scheduled” – a position the government continues to repeat despite mounting evidence that the reform process is largely stalled and the elections, practically speaking, will need to be delayed again.

The president, at the same time, used the opportunity to request both houses of parliament to pass two new electoral decrees. An earlier set was voted down in December 2015 (more details here) and the electoral process is stalled until the status of the amended laws has been clarified (AAN dispatch forthcoming). The parliament is expected to discuss the decrees early next week and it is clear that the president hopes that a feeling of unity and urgency will encourage MPs to vote in the law’s favour.

The president’s speech was thus part framing exercise, part presentation of newly defined policy lines. It contained enough strong language to satisfy those who have long hoped for a clearer and more belligerent stance from the government on the Taleban. At the same time, however, it hard to ignore the fact that much of the rhetoric has not yet been backed up by actual significant change, for instance when it comes to the coherence of the security forces at the local level, or the government’s capacity to deal with corruption.

Responses

Responses to the president’s speech, then, were unsurprisingly mixed. Pajhwok ran a headline emphasising positive responses from Kabul residents (although they only quoted only one citizen who was positive, while another resident called the speech “symbolic”). In a second article, the same news agency cited opposition politicians who criticised the speech as containing “nothing new.”

Wahidullah Ghazikhel, the spokesman of the New National Front, led by former finance minister Anwar ul-Haq Ahadi, was quoted as saying “The New National Front and the Afghan people had hoped the president would come up with a clear stance on the peace and war in Afghanistan, but there was nothing.” He called the president’s remarks “ambiguous” and “controversial.” The spokesperson of the Protection and Stability Council, which has Abdul Rabb Sayyaf as one of its leaders, also said the president’s remarks were not very different from his previous remarks, which had also not been able to resolve the current problems. He warned the government not to compromise on the constitution, national sovereignty, the territorial integrity of Afghanistan or the achievements of the past. Only Amrullah Saleh, former NDS head and leader of the Green Trend political group had something positive to say, welcoming the president’s commitment to executing Taleban.

The Taleban responded in kind to Ghani’s speech, with explicitly harsh and mocking rhetoric of their own, first in a sequence of tweets by their spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed and later in a longer piece, that largely mirrored Ghani’s statements. They portrayed the Afghan government as servants to the Americans, comparing them with Shah Shuja and the various communist leaders and saying their fate would be the same. They added that a servant’s choice lay only in death or surrender and announced that this year would be the year of freedom for the whole country and of punishment of the ‘servants.’ The wording, chillingly, appeared to reflect an increased readiness to accept civilian casualties in Taleban bomb attacks in urban areas (compare also the rhetoric in the Taleban’s statement following the massive truck-bomb attack on 19 April 2016 which left more than 400 people killed or wounded). The hardening of positions in the immediate aftermath of the Pol-e Mahmud Khan attack thus seems to be escalating, at the very least in terms of rhetoric.

The implications

Ghani’s speech served several aims. The respectful and earnest address to both Houses was meant both as a rallying call and a basis for improved relations with the legislative. He undoubtedly hoped to ensure the parliament’s cooperation, for instance when voting on the electoral decrees and the government’s candidates for minister of defence and director of NDS.

The president’s messages – of resolve, success and commitment – were aimed at countering the image of a besieged and dysfunctional government that is being deceived and pushed around by Pakistan. The show of a fairly unified response by President Ghani and CEO Abdullah in the aftermath of the 19 April 2016 truck bombing prompted some commentators to wonder whether this could usher in a greater internal unity in the government in the face of mounting security challenges. That however remains to be seen. It is not difficult to be united in the face of such a vicious attack. The first real test will be now that the unity government, with its complicated system of appointments, tries to finalise the candidacies for the ministry of defence and NDS positions. Rumours that Abdullah boycotted the joint session of the houses of parliament, because he felt snubbed that he would not be given the same podium as the president, do not bode well. (3)

(1) According to article 104 of the constitution “Sessions of the two Houses shall be held jointly under the following circumstances: 1. When the legislative term or annual sessions are inaugurated by the President; 2. When deemed necessary by the President.”

(2) The Wolesi Jirga MPs had actually called for the introduction of these candidates before the president’s address; some MPs had even made it a condition for attending the session. In the end it seems only Latif Pedram boycotted the session, claiming that such a meeting where MPs are not allowed to respond or ask questions was a waste of time.

(3) A deputy Spokesperson to the CEO confirmed to AAN that Abdullah had cancelled at the very last moment because all the formalities were for the president and not for him. Also he was told to sit with his deputies and not with the president and the heads of both houses.

Annex: President Ghani’s speech to the Afghan houses of parliament, as broadcast live on state-owned National Afghanistan TV on 25 April 2016 (translated by BBC Monitoring)

In the name of Almighty Allah, the most compassionate, the most merciful.

[President Ghani begins in Pashto] Your Excellences, [Speakers] Mr Ebrahimi, Mr Moslemyar, [Vice-President] Mr Danesh, Mr Chief Justice, respected Pir [Gilani], Mr Khalili [possibly former vice president], esteemed members of the cabinet, the nations’ representatives, members of the senate, journalists, countrymen! Assalamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatolla-he Wa Barakau [greetings].

 [The president switches to Dari] In the past two weeks, our country has gone through some important political and military developments as been the victim of a horrifying terrorist incident. Despite all the efforts made by the people and our government to put an end to the fighting, the rebels of this era, with their foreign supporters, have beaten the drum of battle and insurgency and declared the genocide of our innocent people. But they are not aware that our brave security and defence forces are committed to finding them across the whole country and defending the lives and property of their people by suppressing them. The members of the two esteemed houses of the national council echoed the voice of the government at a meeting at ARG [presidential palace] last week and pledged full political support for the government and national security forces with regards to peace and fighting. Exactly just one day after this consensus, the wicked Taleban committed the most horrifying inhuman crime and left our innocent countrymen killed. I would like to use this opportunity to pray for all the martyred of this land and particularly the victims of the recent terrorist attack and wish a complete recovery for the injured.

 Dear countrymen! The incident in Kabul on Tuesday [massive car bomb] is not the first act by the criminals of this group. Their despicable killing of innocent people, their depriving people of freedom, are just part of their long history of slaughter and mercilessness. They enjoy shedding innocent people’s blood and tearing people’s bodies apart. But, regardless of their blood lust, there is a large number of genuine sons of the nation who rushed to the hospitals and donated millions of litres of their blood to their injured countrymen from across the whole country, demonstrating their unity and solidarity and expressing their loathing for this terrorist group. As you know, the world, including the Islamic countries, and especially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the United Nations, the majority of Asian and European countries, the USA, China, Japan, Australia and Canada have also called this criminal act by terrorists unforgivable.

[President Ghani reverts to Pashto] Sisters and brothers! These criminals are not the seekers of knowledge [literal meaning of “Taleban” is seekers of knowledge]. They are rather rebels and militants who stood against the legitimate government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan [applause]. The real Taleban study in madrasahs. Those who murder people, who are the enemies of education and who destroy mosques have no right to call themselves “Taleban”. Based on the Holy Koran’s explicit instruction, we have the right to defend our people against rebels and militants and to punish them [applause]. This group is led by some of those enemies of our country in Peshawar and Quetta who shed the blood of their countrymen and enjoy destroying the people of Afghanistan. They feel no goodwill towards the people of Afghanistan. They have no respect for the demands and hopes of the people of Afghanistan. In the political arena, they have proved their ignorance and unworthiness. I call upon the religious scholars of Afghanistan to show to these fools and misdirected people what the right direction is.

Esteemed audience! The enemies of our people wanted to force the Afghan government to declare a state of emergency by spreading fear and brutality. But they did not know, and still do not know, that Afghans are not going to join in the unrest soon [applause] The Afghan soul does not accept unrest and we will never impose restrictions on the freedom that the constitution has given to us [applause].

[Dari] Esteemed members of parliament! I have received a list that contains 24 chapters, if I remember correctly. I will refer to part of this list which is of vital importance and I will leave the remaining part for some monthly meetings at the presidential palace in the future.

I have come to parliament today, to the highest tribune of Afghanistan, to share with you and the people that we used all our resources last year to put an end to violence through peaceful manners. We also tried our best to defend our people against the undeclared war and to continue strengthening our defensive and security forces relentlessly. We have also called for a consensus among our international partners that this is not an internal war, but rather a war launched by terrorists and their regional supporters against our country and our people to achieve their unlawful objectives. They will achieve this objective only through barbarity and terrorism.

We have stepped up efforts to put an end to the fighting through non-military means at the national, regional and international level. Meanwhile, we have also used our military channels against terrorist groups. In the last 13 months, the country’s brave security and defence forces have carried out more than 40,000 combat operations and over 16,000 resolute operations in various parts of the country. Currently, as I speak, the brave sons of this land are busy suppressing the terrorists of the Haqqani network, the Taleban and other terrorist groups in seven provinces, as part of 15 ongoing military operations.

The fighting ability of the national security and defence forces has been enhanced significantly compared with the past. Within less than a year, at least 50,000 of our patriotic families have sent their sons and daughters to join the ranks of our security forces. We thank our patriotic families and each and every mother and father who gave birth to such brave children. Our security forces were given a warm welcome all across the country. Some housewives in various parts of the country have even voluntarily provided food to our security forces while they were engaged in military operations. The modest women of this land still remember the oppression of these fools [from when the Taleban were in power] and will never tolerate this group [applause].

Based on the security requirements and in the light of the lessons learnt from previous years, we have established a military unit in Konduz and an army brigade in Badakhshan Provinces [applause]. We have also created a deputy command for special forces in order to enhance coordination among special security units. We are proud of the sacrifices made by this unit.

Among some of the units recently set up within our security forces are: the technical, weaponry and artillery section; the 777 special air force brigade; the coordinating centre for the Kabul Garrison command – led by the chief of army staff and we thank him; the regional hospital of the 215 army corps; directorates for technical affairs and operations and maintenance within the army corps and army brigades; the centre for evaluation of intelligence threats and the radio intelligence centre.

[Speaking in Pashto] Esteemed audience! Last year when we had a limited number of helicopters and planes, we began the renovation of the country’s air force and now our air force is active to the extent that they are able to launch air operations against our enemies in some of the mountainous regions such as Khostak and Kohestani [applause].

The military coordination centre that we established last year has become the most effective centre with regards to coordination and decisions. Our intelligence abilities in various areas have progressed substantially.

More than 80 generals of our country were retired after reaching pension age to make way for our youth and to inject more young blood into our army and make it more powerful. The reform process in this area is ongoing.

Today, our security and defence forces have the support of some Islamic countries, the People’s Republic of China, Russia, Australia, Japan, Canada, India, NATO member states and other international partners. We are pleased to say that a consensus has been established among international donors to support our defence and security forces in the context of a five-year security plan [applause]. This plan will be finalized in the near future at the Warsaw Summit. Before that, we will discuss the plan with you at the palace. This consolidation is the result of the hard work of the National Security Council members and especially esteemed Mr Atmar and esteemed Mr Stanekzai. I thank them very much.

Esteemed MPs and senators! In the next few days, the national defence minister and the heads of the intelligence agency will be presented to you for a vote of confidence. I hope for your cooperation in this regard. This will fill the gap [applause] We will no longer continue with acting ministers. We echo your voice [applause].

Esteemed MPs and senators, we must stand against the Haqqani Network and other Taliban groups as they are serving foreign interests and have formed an alliance with international and regional terrorists and the drugs mafia and are seeking to return our people and country to the dark era of history. History testifies to the fact that whenever we have remained united, the strongest combat armies of the world have knelt down in front of us. In order to defend our religion, country and constitutional values, we must unanimously and practically demonstrate unity. There will be no compromises and we will take action against those who work in this system and government and who harm our national unity by exploiting its resources and knowingly or unknowingly joining the enemy’s psychological warfare. I request that you, the MPs and leaders of this country, introduce this moral discipline and incorporate it into a law, so that we can more successfully respond to the enemy’s psychological warfare. You requested an explanation for friend and foe from me at our meeting in the presidential palace a few days ago. Our friends are the citizens of this country, regardless of whether they support or do not support the system, the political opposition that has a different position and perspective, but is committed to the supreme national interests and protects and guards them as much as they can. However, our enemies are those who exploit the sacred religious emotions of our young people and are part of the drugs mafia and are making their fortune through this. The enemies of Afghanistan are the slaves of foreigners, such as Da’ish, Al-Qa’idah, the Haqqani Network, the Taliban and other savage groups which take pleasure in shedding the blood of their compatriots and continuing war and terrorism. Talks with the slaves of foreigners cannot be held. However, we have opened our doors for reconciliation talks with those Taliban who are willing to cooperate with their country in ending the bloodshed and restoring peace and stability. However, this is not an everlasting opportunity.

Esteemed nation and audience, our efforts to build an effective international mechanism to end war and bring about international consensus, in particular to meet the genuine demands of our people, have proven effective. Despite the problems, the mechanism of quadrilateral talks has prepared the ground for better recognition of the fact that the demands of our people and governance are genuine and that a political solution must be sought [to the current crises]. As a result of these efforts and an active diplomacy, we have extensive relations with our key international partners in the region and the world, including key Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, based on mutual trust. And those who have failed to honour their commitments within this international framework, who did not want to honour them, have been more isolated than ever before.

Pakistan promised to use military force against those Taliban elements who do not renounce violence and reconciliation [with the Afghan government]. Let me clarify this today – we are not expecting Pakistan to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table. We, however, call on Pakistanis to keep the promises they made in the quadrilateral agreement and carry out military operations against those who, according to our intelligence organizations, the intelligence organizations of our international partners and senior Pakistani officials, have centres inside Pakistan and whose leaders are residing inside Pakistan. We also call on Pakistan to hand over these criminals to our courts to be punished unless it is willing to launch an operation against them itself. Our relations with Pakistan are based on mutual obligations and rights. We and the world expect our neighbour, Pakistan, to drop the policy of “good terrorists” and “bad terrorists” and to launch operations against them all, meaning that there is no good terrorist or bad terrorist because a terrorist is a terrorist. Pakistan’s government should act as a responsible government. There is no good terrorism or bad terrorism. And whoever believes in this will in the end themselves be harmed by the terrorists. Our people are expecting us to take the issue of sanctuaries, equipment and resources being provided to terrorist groups on Pakistan’s soil for use against Afghanistan to the UN and several other international institutions as well as international civil society, because this is against the UN charter and international conventions. No country should support terrorists against another country. We believe their expectation is genuine. Despite our efforts and desires to shape regional cooperation, we have no choice but to refer to the UN Security Council and take serious diplomatic steps unless [Pakistan] changes its policy. Furthermore, we will take steps to pursue criminals whose hands are stained with the blood of our people outside Afghanistan with the help of international institutions.

Esteemed MPs, senators, dear audience, sisters and brothers,

The government never halts its peace efforts, in view of the holy verse “peace lies in reconciliation”. However, we will pursue peace only through Afghan channels and the Afghan government will reach peace only with those who do not want war and violence, who accept Afghanistan’s constitution and who completely cut their ties with terrorists. However, I want to make it clear to everyone that if we want peace, it does not mean that criminals will walk freely and a blind eye will be turned to the acts of murderers. Our defence and security forces, who enjoy the backing of their nation, in particular of the religious scholars, have decided and devised a programme to destroy the centres of the Haqqani Network and its friends – militants, Da’ish, Al-Qa’idah and other savage groups and send these rebels to hell. The enemies of Afghanistan must realize that if they are caught during a combat operation or while conducting an act of terrorism against the people of Afghanistan, they will definitely be handed over to the law and will be punished according to the law. I assure our esteemed MPs, senators, elders and the pious people of Afghanistan that as the president and guard and protector of the rights and security of the people of Afghanistan, I will deal severely with those who shed the blood of our innocent people and soldiers and will show no mercy when punishing them. No-one will be pardoned anymore. The Afghan government is committed to executing the rulings of the courts and legal and judicial authorities strictly, including where it concerns capital punishment.

The execution of these orders with strong determination delivers a clear message: our justice system is strong enough to punish criminals and terrorists. But it is clear that our resolve to apply the law must conform to the constitutional injunctions, our commitment to human rights and just policies. You will see how those who have rejected our call for reconciliation will beg us to join the peace process after being defeated on the battlefield. Henceforth, we will achieve lasting and dignified peace through tough military action throughout the country.

Esteemed MPs, senators, sisters and brothers, all of our people stress the need for reform and a fundamental change. We are committed to honouring our promises in this regard. Reform of the electoral bodies has started and elections will be held on time. I request both houses of parliament to pass the [electoral] law submitted to them as soon as possible. One of the weak points in our government, which the enemy is exploiting, is corruption. The perpetrators have weakened the military capabilities of our defence and security forces and are serving the country’s enemies. We will mete out serious punishment through our courts to these perpetrators who commit treason. I request you all to support reforms and the elimination of corruption in every institution, in particular in the security sector, to completely depoliticize our security institutions. And those who exploit their positions should not be supported at all. We can secure victory over the enemy on the battlefield only by introducing reforms and creating cleaner institutions. I request you to support the government in achieving this goal.

In order to fight corruption, the legal and judicial system and the independence of the judiciary must be further strengthened. More attention must be paid to the protection of our esteemed judges and prosecutors against the perpetrators of organized crime. I should thank the lower house of parliament for giving a vote of confidence to Attorney-General Mr Hamidi and for preparing the ground for completion of the High Judicial Council. As part of the reforms in the judicial system, Mr Halim and his friends have transferred, replaced or appointed new judges over the past six months and have launched capacity building programmes for judges. The National Security Council will approve a new regulation for the formation of Afghanistan’s judicial and legal police. This will help judges and prosecutors to fulfil their duties confidently. I thank those judges and prosecutors who have issued death sentences to rebels and assure them that we will protect them. Moreover, the government is making efforts to improve the economic situation and create employment opportunities. The Brussels conference on Afghanistan will be held and will be attended by more than 70 countries and 20 international organizations who will announce their commitment to economic development and the promotion of good governance for the next five years.

Development projects which were launched last year will continue this year and the TAPI [gas pipeline project], the CASA-1000 [project for] electricity supply from Turkmenistan, the Aqina-Turkmenistan railway track and Herat-Khawaf [railway track] are among these projects.

Esteemed MPs and senators, I call on you once again to continue supporting your courageous and brave security and defence forces. Your political support will help our security and defence forces to fight the enemies of Afghanistan more confidently and, God willing, this year will see the last and final defeat of terrorists and murderers.

Long live Afghanistan,

Long live Afghanistan,

Long live Afghanistan.

The springtime migration of birds over Afghanistan is in full swing. The Kol-e Hashmat Khan wetland in south Kabul is an internationally important site for tired waterbirds to stop and rest, and build up their strength. Soon, they’ll be heading north again, crossing the Hindu Kush mountains to reach their summer breeding grounds in Central Asia and western Siberia. In early April, AAN’s Kate Clark joined other birdwatchers at the wetland to take part in the Asian Waterbird Census, a continental count of waterbirds. Here, she brings you some of the photographs of birds and birdwatchers.

For more detail on the birds, the site and the threat Kol-e Hashmat Khan faces, read the accompanying dispatch by Kate, “Kabul Duck Alert: Afghan capital still important stopover for migrating waterbirds”.

For waterbirds flying thousands of kilometres north from southern Pakistan or India to Central Asia or western Siberia, the site of Kol-e Hashmat Khan is a welcome one. It is the equivalent of an oasis in the middle of a largely dry country, on the outskirts of a city of five million people. Every year, thousands of birds stop here on their spring migration. 93 species of birds were identified on the lake in a four year survey by the Wildlife Conservation Society (2007-2010). That is a quarter of the total number of species seen in Afghanistan.

Afghan ornithologists are concerned that water levels are dropping and the number and variety of birds is falling. The Kol-e Hashmat Khan wetland is under threat – because of water taken off for irrigation, land-grabbing of land on the lakeside, encroaching of housing (which did stop in 2012), pollution and global warming. However, plans are afoot to protect the lake.

For now, the birds are still coming and for birdwatchers that is a delight. Do click on the photo gallery to see some of the photographs taken of the lake!

It is springtime which means birds in great numbers are migrating northwards over Afghanistan. The wetland in the south-east of Kabul city, Kol-e Hashmat Khan, is an internationally important place for water birds to rest and recuperate before taking back to the air and resuming their flight over some of the world’s highest mountain ranges. Kol-e Hashmat Khan is a place that successive rulers of Afghanistan have also been drawn to – mainly for hunting. When AAN’s Kate Clark visited the lake one April morning, however, she found birdwatchers only. They were enjoying the birds and the beauty of the site, but were also concerned for the wetland’s survival.

For more on the birds of Afghanistan, see AAN’s “Bird Dossier.”

Kabul at dawn can be a quiet, clear, dreamily beautiful place. At Kol-e Hashmat Khan, where reed-covered water and sky meet, on the day we visited only ducks and waders broke the green mirror of the lake surface as they took off and landed. There were snowy white great egrets, grey herons, a multitude of duck species, moorhens, coots, stints and redshanks, while overhead, swallows wheeled and plunged. The waterfowl are part of the great spring migration of birds crossing Afghanistan, coming from their Indo-Pakistani wintering grounds and heading north to breeding grounds in Central Asia and Western Siberia – a route known as the ‘Central Asia Flyway’.

The lake is what remains of an extensive marsh formed by the Logar River emptying into the broad plain south of Kabul. As late as the first half of the 20th century, that marshland stretched into what is now Kart-e Naw and Chaman-e Huzuri. (1) However, irrigation canals and increased demand for water reduced the water level. The current lake was formed in the 1920s by damming what had been marshland with three barriers. Currently, the lake is fed by an inlet from the Logar River, rain and snowfall and springs from the nearby mountains.

This wetland – whether in its greater or lesser extent – has been at the heart of historic Kabul for centuries. It is overlooked to the northwest by the Bala Hisar, where there has probably been a fortress on this site since at least since the sixth century, although the current structures were developed during the Moghul period (1505-1738), and, to the west, the historic graveyard called Shuhada-ye Salehin. From here, the 1100 year old Kabul Wall climbs up over the Sher Darwaza mountain, eventually ending up at Babur’s Gardens on the other side. The area around the lake itself contains many historical sites, including the shrine of Jabr-e Ansar. (2)

It was Emperor Babur (1483-1530) who first described the Kol-e Hashmat Khan wetlands. (3) Successive latter-day monarchs sought to protect the lake for hunting: Amir Abdul Rahman Khan (1880-1901) hunted here, as did his son, Habibullah (1901-1919); he also built the Qala-ye Hashmat Khan fort as a guesthouse and hunting lodge on the southeast shore of the lake, and an elevated brick road to the fort directly across it. Zaher Shah proclaimed the lake an official hunting reserve and had it protected by Royal Guards. After the 1973 coup, they were replaced by Republican Guards and, in 1978, the Afghan Government gazetted the wetland as a protected area because of the number and variety of waterfowl found here. However, as one set of authors looking at protected areas in Afghanistan noted, “the legal designations did not survive the ensuing conflict.” (4)

Birdwatchers, not hunters

Kol-e Hashmat Khan just after dawn on the day of the Asian Waterbird Census (Photo source: Kate Clark)

Looking out over the lake and recording the birds there, with the historic sites in the background and the snowy peaks of Paghman behind them, was an altogether more positive experience for this author than her last two forays into reporting on avian migration in Afghanistan. One dispatch told the story of a Pallas’ or Great Black-Headed Gull, a migratory giant of the skies with a wingspan of more than a metre, who had been shot dead by hunters in the Shomali and marketed as a “delicious species of duck” in Bagram. Another relayed how a houbara bustard had been killed by Faryab police who feared it was a “Taleban suicide bomber bird.” They had noticed wires on its body which were actually part of a satellite tracking device fixed by an Uzbekistan-based group monitoring the houbara’s migration.

By contrast, at Kol-e Hashmat Khan, it was a pleasure and a delight to be among, not hunters, but birdwatchers. About thirty of us – all but two Afghan – had come together to take part in the Asian Waterbird Census. (5) We gathered around dawn by the lakeside and climbed a tower, part of an educational centre built by the Ministry of Agriculture’s Conservation Corps Programme on the side of the lake. Among our number were many newcomers to birdwatching, but also several highly expert Afghan ornithologists. (6)

They included Sayed Naqibullah Mostafawi, who had been an engineering graduate from Kabul University “looking for a job, any job,” when he happened to find one with the Wildlife Conservation Society. There, he discovered a passion. “I joined as a research assistant,” he said, “and became very interested in all wildlife, especially birds.” He is now the wildlife NGO’s project manager for the Afghan north east and is usually found in the Wakhan. He has recorded 600 species of birds in Afghanistan, including one, the large-billed reed warbler, which had not been seen anywhere for a hundred years.

There were also local experts taking part in the Asian Waterbird Census, including Sayed Massum Barbari, one of seven rangers, all local men, who work at the lake (employed by the Ministry of Agriculture). He was able, not just to identify the birds on the lake, but also name many of them in Dari. Given that Afghans generally use ‘waterfowl’ (murgh-e abi) as a generic term for all ducks, waders and even gulls, it was interesting to find out that names for individual species do exist. (7) They include the visually descriptive ‘water crow’, zagh-e abi (cormorant), as well as turturak (little crake), named onomatopoeically for its cry (listen to it here).

The birds and their habitat

So, how are the wetland and its birds faring post 2001? The government’s “National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan: Framework for Implementation 2014-2017” describes the site in the 1970s, before coup d’état, war and upheaval:

…the lake proper was state property in the 1970s and was administered by the Department of Ceremonies of the President’s Office. The fields to the south of the lake were property of the public baths while the fields on the northern part of the lake were owned by local residents. Ownership of other lands surrounding the lake was not registered. Rahim and Larsson (1978) noted that there were only a dozen houses between the east side of the lake and the Kabul-Gardez highway. Rahim and Larsson (1978) reported the lake as being about 190 hectares in size and that it becomes “nearly dry” during the summer months.

In the intervening years, reports the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, Habibullah’s hunting retreat, Qala-ye Hashmat Khan, was destroyed during factional fighting in Kabul and houses built on what were once fields with just a dozen houses on them. The Plan also describes more recent abuses. “Influential settlers” have illegally built homes and small businesses on government land, “in many cases right to the water’s edge, reducing the size of the lake to about 150 hectares.” Other settlers, it said, have illegally built houses on the hillside above the lake adding to the population expansion in the area and pressure on the water resources. Building near the lake stopped in 2012. Even so, there are other threats:

Tube wells have been drilled along the lake shore to service the needs of the expanding population adding to the depletion of lake waters. Car washers have set up illegal businesses just below the Bala Hissar and are polluting the lake with the run-off. Hospital waste and garbage has been dumped into the lake itself, sometimes by government owned trucks from Kabul municipality. Local people continue to cut reeds and grasses in the lake, and women launder clothes and household goods at the lake shore. Hunting and harassment of birdlife is still common but now is mainly the prerogative of children and teenagers. The historical Qala-i-Hashmat Khan on the southwestern shore of the lake, once used as a guest house by former royalty and earmarked to be developed into reserve education and awareness centre, was been sold and removed.

Compared with before the war, the numbers of bird species staying to breed are down (from ten species before the war to four now), possibly, say Mostafawi and Stephanie Ostrowski in a 2010 report for the Wildlife Conservation Society, due to the “excessive water drainage in summer and the precocious harvesting of reeds when the lake dries.”(8) Even so, writing in 2010 and comparing surveys of birds before the war (the first scientific accounts were made by German zoologists Günther and Jochen Niethammer in 1967), (9) and since 2001 (the Wildlife Conservation Society made 86 visits between March 2007 and April 2010), they reported a slightly greater diversity of birds. The 2007-10 survey identified 93 species – amounting to almost one quarter of the total number of regular bird species reported in Afghanistan. (10) The number and variety of species which rest here during their northern migration makes Kol-e Hashmat Khan still a wetland of international importance. Moreover, the surveyors recorded five species of global conservation concern – the Dalmatian pelican, ferruginous duck, ‘Western’ black-tailed godwit, Eastern imperial eagle and European roller. They concluded:

Given the small size of the area, its relatively high altitude, the harsh weather conditions in winter, and the immediate vicinity of a population of more than 5 million humans, which increases the likelihood of disturbance, the bird diversity of Kol-e Hashmat Khan appears reasonably high.

Are the waters now drying up?

 The wetland may have proved resilient so far, but there is no doubt that it is under severe pressure. Speaking to Naqib Mostafawi from the Wildlife Conservation Society and Ranger Massum Barbari, both were worried that the lake is shrinking and bird numbers appear to be dropping – both numbers of individuals and species. The size of Kol-e Hashmat Khan has always been highly variable. It is never anything but shallow ­– at most only about 1.5 metres deep – and varies in extent, not just from year to year, depending on how much winter snow and spring rain have fallen, but also by season. Unlike before the war, it now always dries up completely over the summer, probably because of water taken out of both it and the Logar River which feeds it. (When dry, Barbari reported, youngsters play football here, appreciating the flat surface.) It is still dry in autumn and in winter, there may or may not be water, depending on precipitation, and it may or may not be frozen, depending on temperatures (so the lake is really only useful for birds in their spring migration). The other factor looming over the lake is climate change which is already making the air in Afghanistan warmer and reducing precipitation.(11) Even taking into account the lake’s normal yearly and seasonal variations, the lake appears to be in trouble, as Mostafawi explained:

Today, in total, we identified 17 species and saw around 500 birds, but in 2010, in the same week, I recorded 36 species and more than 2000 water birds. Now, the water is less, there is plastic and solid waste in it – people throw everything in there – and the population is encroaching.

The Kol-e Hashmat Khan wetland is currently managed by the Department of Natural Resource Management in the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock. Fields to the south and north are privately owned, but other claims of ownership of land are not registered and are possibly forged. The wetland is now a listed site in the country’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, but is not yet legally protected. (See AAN’s analysis of two other sites on this list, Band-e Amir and the Shah Fuladi, which got legally protection in 2009 and 2015, respectively and a good summary of the Kol-e Hashmat Khan site, its ornithological importance and the threats it faces here. The National Biodiversity Plan describes “a new government multiagency coalition” which is “spearheaded by the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) and Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock to deal with the most immediate issues that threaten the integrity and survival of the Kol-e-Hashmat Khan wetland.” (12)

Kol-e Hashmat Khan is an important site, and not just for birds. It is one of the few remaining ‘lungs’ in Kabul, a polluted city with a growing population that needs its natural spaces. For this year, the birds on Kol-e Hashmat Khan will soon be moving on. They are there in greatest numbers now, in March and April (Hut and Hamal in the Afghan calendar). In the fourth week of April, their numbers usually drop significantly and, by mid-May, the lake will almost be deserted of water birds. They will be back next year, though, and for as long as there is a wetland to support them.

A gallery of bird pictures taken on the day of the Asian Waterbird Census can be found here: “Kabul Duck Alert 2: Pictures of birds and birdwatchers at the Kol-e Hashmat Khan wetland.”

(1) Chaman-e Huzuri – the Public Lawn – lies at the east end of Jade Maiwand, in front of the Eidgah mosque and just outside the walls of the Bala Hissar. Long a place of public recreation, it was ‘municipalized’ during the reign of Habibullah Khan who held tented iftar ceremonies there for up to 4,000 people. It was also used for sport (golf and tennis for the royals), nawruz celebrations and military parades. There was a small lake, created on the east side.

(2) May Schinasi wrote on Jabr-e Ansar (summary translation):

In 1822-3 a certain Allah Werdi constructed a tomb over a grave that was considered to be that of Jabr-e Ansar, a revered saint for Kabulis. In fact, the building was erected over two unknown graves which have subsequently been known as Ziarat-e Hazrat Tamim wa Jabr-e Ansar. Afghan historians have pointed out that Jabr was probably the son of the [11th Century] poet and mystic Khwaja Abdullah Ansari, while Hazrat Tamim was a companion of the Prophet, said to have been killed in Kabul in around 664 during one of the first campaigns of the Muslim armies against Kabul. This is what gives the cemetery of Shuhada-e Saleheen [the Righteous Martyrs] its name today.

Kabul 1773-1948 Naissance et Croissance d’une Capitale Royale, Universita degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale (2008)

(3) Babur wrote:

Southward from the town, and to the east of Shah-Kabul, there is a lake nearly a farsang in circumference… The citadel is of surprising height, and enjoys an excellent climate, overlooking the large lake and three meadows…which stretch below it…

(4) “Setting priorities for protected area planning in a conflict zone – Afghanistan’s National Protected Area System Plan”, McKenzie F Johnson, Nina Kanderian, Christopher C Shank, Haqiq Rahmani, David Lawson, Peter Smallwood, University of Richmond (2012)

(5) The Asian Waterbird Census is an annual count of waterbirds in Asia (from Afghanistan eastwards to Japan) and Australasia which monitors populations, evaluates sites and aims to encourage interest in waterbirds.

The species recorded as part of the census at Kol-e Hashmat Khan on 6 April 2016 – with common English, Latin and (where known) Dari names – were:

Little Grebe, Tachybaptus ruficollis

Great Egret, Casmerodius alba, sabz-e aqar safid

Grey Heron, Ardea cinerea, sabz-e aqar

Common Teal, Anas crecca

Northern Pintail, Anas acuta

Eurasian Widgeon, Anas penelope

Northern Shoveler, Anas clypeata


Mallard, Anas plathyrhynchos

Tufted duck, Aythya fuligula, kakule-ye gelasi

Moorhen, Gallinula chloropus, suara-ye turturak

Coot, Fulica atra, qushqul

Common Redshank, Tringa totanus


Ruff, Philomachus pugnax

Little Stint, Calidris minuta

Brown-headed Gull, Chroicocephalus brunnicephalus

Barn Swallow, Hirundo rustica, ghachi

White Wagtail, subspecies ‘Masked Wagtail’, Motacilla alba personata

Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Passer montanus

Eurasian Magpie, Pica pica, akak

(6) Birdwatchers had come via the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), BORDA – a German NGO specialising in waste water – the local rangers and the Kabul Birdwatching Club.

(7) See footnote 5 for some of the Dari names reported by Ranger Massum Barbari. Others were: cormorant, zagh-e abi; golden eye, chamach; little crake, turturak; pelican, qutan; teal, chircha and shellduck, surkh ab.

(8) The little grebe (Tachybaptus ruficollis), mallard (Anas plathyrhynchos), coot (Fulica atra), and common moorhen (Gallinula chloropus) were found to be breeding “with certitude” (ie nests, eggs and young seen). In the 1960s, ten species were reported to be breeding at the lake.

(9) Thomas Ruttig writes:

If you can read German, refer to these two pages from an article by Jochen Niethammer about Kol-e Hashmat Khan, under the title “Zwei Jahre Vogelbeobachtungen an stehenden Gewässern bei Kabul in Afghanistan” (“Two Years of Birdwatching at Standing Bodies of Water near Kabul in Afghanistan”) in the Journal für Ornithologie, no 2/1967. (The whole article has a paywall.) Niethammer was a guest lecturer at Kabul University’s Faculty of Sciences from 1964 and 1966. In one to two week intervals, he registered the birds of two lakes – Kol-e Hashmat Khan and Kargha Lake – near Kabul between August 1964 and September 1966 and estimated their numbers. Of the 160 registered species, almost half were waterfowl, six of which bred at the lakes. Two of them, the black-necked grebe (Podiceps nigricollis) and common pochard (Aythya farina), were newly discovered as breeding birds in Afghanistan.

His father, Günther Niethammer, travelled three times to Afghanistan in his position as director of the Department of Ornithology of the Zoological Research Museum Alexander König and chairman of the German Zoological Society in 1965, 1966 and 1972. The father also wrote a 1941 article “Beobachten über die Vogelwelt von Auschwitz” (“Sketches about the Birdlife of Auschwitz”). He was a member of the Waffen-SS, and first a guard, later officially an ornithologist at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Sentenced to a prison term in Poland after the war, he then went back to Germany to become on of its leading zoologists.

(10) The following bird species were recorded by the Wildlife Conservation Society at Kol-e Hashmat Khan Wetland between March 2007 and April 2010. Those in bold are vulnerable (VU) or near threatened (NT), ie of global conservation concern:

1 Black-necked Grebe, 3 (sic) Little Grebe, 4 Great Crested Grebe, 5 Dalmatian Pelican (VU), 6 Great Cormorant, 7 Little Egret, 8 Great Egret, 9 Grey Heron, 10 Indian Pond-heron, 11 Little Bittern, 12 Glossy Ibis, 13 Eurasian Spoonbill, 14 Greylag Goose, 15 Common Shelduck, 16 Ruddy Shelduck, 17 Common Teal, 18 Garganey, 19 Gadwall, 20 Eurasian Wigeon, 21 Northern Shoveler, 22 Northern Pintail, 23 Mallard, 24 Tufted Duck, 25 Ferruginous Duck (NT), 26 Common Pochard, 27 Red-crested Pochard, 28 Cotton Teal, 29 Black Kite, 30 Long-legged Buzzard, 31 Golden Eagle, 32 Western Marsh Harrier, 33 Eastern Imperial Eagle (VU), 34 Common Kestrel, 35 Eastern Baillon’s Crake, 36 European Water Rail, 37 Moorhen, 38 Eurasian Coot, 39 Pied Avocet, 40 Black-winged Stilt, 41 Black-tailed Godwit (NT), 42 Lesser Sand Plover, 43 Little Ringed Plover, 44 Common Greenshank, 45 Wood sandpiper, 46 Green Sandpiper, 47 Common Sandpiper, 48 Common Redshank, 49 Spotted Redshank, 50 Ruff, 51 Dunlin, 52 Little Stint, 53 Common Snipe, 54 Steppe Gull, 55 Great Black-headed Gull, 56 Common Black-headed Gull, 57 Slender-billed Gull, 58 Gull-billed Tern, 59 Common Tern, 60 Whiskered Tern, 61 Laughing Dove, 62 Eurasian Collared-dove, 63 Rose-ringed Parakeet, 64 Common Cuckoo, 65 European Roller (NT), 66 Common Hoopoe, 67 Common Kingfisher, 68 European Bee-eater, 69 Eurasian Crag-martin, 70 Northern House-martin, 71 Barn Swallow, 72 Grey Wagtail, 73 Citrine Wagtail, 74 White Wagtail, 75 Water Pipit, 76 Tree Pipit, 77 Long-tailed Shrike, 78 Shrike, 79 Desert Wheatear, 80 Common Stonechat, 81 Indian Reed-warbler, 82 Blyth’s Reed-warbler, 83 Siberian Chiffchaff, 84 Hume’s Leaf-warbler, 85 House Sparrow, 86 Eurasian Tree Sparrow, 87 Rock Sparrow, 88 Rosy Starling, 89 Common Starling, 90 Common Myna, 91 Hooded Crow, 92 Carrion Crow, 93 Eurasian Magpie.

(11) The government’s “National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan: Framework for Implementation 2014-2017” says:

Mean annual temperatures in Afghanistan have increased by 0.6°C since 1960 or about 0.13°C per decade. Increased temperatures have been most pronounced during the autumn, with increases of 0.29°C per decade. Mean rainfall has decreased slightly at an average rate of 2% per decade, mainly due to decreases in spring precipitation (Savage et al. 2008).

Afghanistan has historically experienced climate cycles of about 15 years, of which 2–3 are generally drought. In recent years, however, there has been a marked tendency for this drought cycle to occur more frequently than the historical model predicts. Since 1960, the country has experienced drought in 1963-64, 1966-67, 1970-72 and 1998-2006. The period 1998 to 2005/6 marked the longest and most severe drought in Afghanistan’s known climatic history (ECHO 2006). This increased frequency of drought in recent years appears to be a consequence of increased temperature coupled with reduced spring precipitation (Savage et al. 2008).

(12) A new project for the lake, funded by the Global Environmental Facility, is being developed by the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) and Ministry of Agriculture with the close coordination and support of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and UNEP.

The explosion which shook Kabul on 19 April 2016 was so large  its reverberation could be felt throughout almost the entire city. All that day, and the next, the death toll continued to rise. Official figures currently stand at 68 killed and 347 injured, but the real numbers are likely to be higher. The scale of the attack, and the complete disregard for civilian life in carrying it out, shocked the population and led to a mix of anger, exhaustion and defiance. There were calls for revenge and acts of courage and resilience. AAN’s Martine van Bijlert takes a closer look.

How it happened

At 8:55 on Tuesday morning, Kabul was shaken by an explosion so loud that many people in different areas of the city thought it was close to them. After some initial confusion, it became clear that the former 10th Directorate of the National Directorate for Security (NDS) had been the target. The building is located just south of the Kabul River, to the southeast of the city centre, next to the large Eidgah mosque and the national stadium. Still mostly known under its old name, D10, it is now a separate entity under the presidential office and responsible for the close protection of senior government officials and other VIPs.

A medium-sized lorry truck, apparently filled with hundreds of kilos of explosives, was driven into a poorly secured parking lot next to D10 (which, it turns out, belonged to the well-known kuchi leader, Naim Kuchi), positioned next to the western wall of the compound, after which the explosives were detonated. (For a picture of the aftermath of the truck bomb, see here). The explosion breached the compound’s wall and, according to this report,  killed 22 inside (fifteen cadets that were immediately behind the wall, two guards in the towers and five others in three separate buildings), after which three gunmen wearing D10 uniforms, entered the compound. They started shooting the staff that had not been killed in the explosion. Those targeted reportedly included a group of new recruits who had been in a training session.

In the reporting on the attack gruesome details emerged, among others the information that several cadets who had managed to find cover, were massacred by the attackers. According to Tolo News, after the initial explosion the gunmen shot at least 20 cadets and staff.  It took the government security forces two hours to regain control of the compound. Two of the attackers were killed in the ensuing gun battle (an alleged picture of one them, clean-shaven and wearing a government uniform, can be found here), while a third, according to Tolo News, removed his uniform and escaped. (1)

As is usual in these kinds of attacks, there are also alternative readings of the events. People have, for instance, questioned where the attackers were supposed to have come from, which in turn has fed theories that they may have already been inside when the truck bomb detonated, and may have even come from among the staff or the recruits. MP Zaher Sadat, for instance, was quoted on One TV on 20 April 2016 accusing “specific people” of masterminding the attack: “It had already been planned. If you look at the dead bodies of martyrs, you notice that the majority of them were killed with gunshots. It means that before the suicide attack, our security soldiers were shot dead with weapons.” (BBC Monitoring Afghanistan News, 20 21 April 2016).

A city badly hit

Throughout the day, and the next, the toll of the dead and injured continued to rise. It currently stands at 68 dead and 347 injured. Initial figures, based on ambulance and hospital records, cited 28 dead, but the next day the deaths of those inside the compound – which was immediately cordoned off, with nobody let in – seemed to have been added. Many believe the actual numbers to be even higher, in particular since the NDS has its own hospital and to a certain extent can keep the total number of its deaths and injured from the public eye (although pictures of what people on social media have been describing as “young martyrs” have been circulating).

Emma Graham-Harrison of the Guardian, a former long-time Kabul correspondent, commented that “while the target was elite [referring to elite security forces] – the victims, as so often in these attacks, appear to have been mostly ordinary civilians. About 30 dead and more than 300 injured were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time – hit by shrapnel at a bus stop on their way to work, flying glass in shops and homes nearby, or stray bullets as they tried to take shelter.”

The strength of the blast meant that the shockwave and debris hit the residential and commercial areas in the vicinity. People were walking alongside the roads and river. Houses, schools and businesses were struck, as well as a crowded bus and taxi stand from where minibuses  to other provinces departed. The blast collapsed houses and shops nearby and shattered windows in a radius of around 1-1.5 km (which accounted for a large number of the injuries). Parents rushed to schools in the area, checking whether their children were safe.

The city’s ambulances frantically ferried the wounded to the city’s hospitals, loading the vehicles beyond capacity, sometimes with ten or twelve injured into cars only made to carry one or two. They were joined by police ambulances. For more vivid detail on how the ambulance service performed, see this New York Times article. Hospitals were overwhelmed with hundreds of wounded people, so much so that they could not allow relatives in to check on their patients.

Improvised blood donation centres  were set up to accommodate the large numbers of people who came forward to donate blood, in a sign of solidarity and defiance, as people were looking for a way to do something practical and constructive. According to this report, up to 3.3 million cc of blood was donated with donation drives launched in 20 provinces (see for instance here). On Twitter, some people said they had to go from hospital to hospital, as many were crowded and capacities were overwhelmed.

The nearby Eidgah mosque sustained considerable damage, as did a large number of warehouses and businesses. (See this video towards the end). The deputy chairman of the Afghan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (ACCI) said it estimated the total cost to businesses of the blast to be at least 10 million US dollars. “On both sides of the [Kabul] river we have one hundred warehouses,” said ACCI deputy Khan Jan Alkozai. “Food, power tools and construction materials and most of the stock has been destroyed.”

UNAMA condemned the attack in a strongly worded statement, saying that  “This attack shows the devastation caused by the use of explosive devices in urban areas and once more demonstrates complete disregard for the lives of Afghan civilians.” According to Tadamichi Yamamoto, the Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan, “[T]he use of high explosives in civilian populated areas, in circumstances almost certain to cause immense suffering to civilians, may amount to war crimes.”

Taleban claim responsibility

The Taleban were swift to claim responsibility, despite the massive harm to civilians. In a statement  posted on the various Taleban-linked websites, they specified the target and the reason for the attack: “The Kabul security apparatus – especially its notoriously brutal intelligence agency – is our prime target after the foreign invaders. Yesterday the Mujahideen managed to eliminate their target rather successfully and handed quite a justifiably warranted punishment to the savage operatives based inside.”

Whereas in the past, the Taleban have often denied their involvement in attacks that affected many civilians, this time, instead, they simply denied the casualties, dubbing the reports “enemy propaganda.”

The Taleban thus claimed that the Directorate 10 building, due to its security importance, was built in an area with no adjacent civilian buildings or movement – which was clearly not the case – and that the attack had only destroyed the targeted building, killing staff members of this department inside their rooms. They did concede that “due to the force of the explosion, windows of buildings at a far distance were also shattered – naturally injuring people albeit lightly, a situation which is unfortunate.” (2)

The attack’s messages

The attack sends several messages. It is, first of all, the first large complex attack of the year in Kabul (there was a smaller complex attack on the Le Jardin restaurant on New Year’s Day, which killed two and injured fifteen neighbours or passers-by). It is also the first major attack since the announcement of the “Omari Operation,” the Taleban’s so-called spring offensive that was announced on 12 April 2016. The attack is thus designed, not only to lash out at one of the country’s security organs, but also to grab headlines and undermine morale, as part of the psychological battle in which both sides – the government and the insurgency – seek to portray the other as an impotent and spent force.

There is also an obvious and significant symbolism in hitting the security department that is tasked with protecting the government’s high officials. Moreover, it is also very personal. As noted by The Guardian, the personal protection of officials in Afghanistan is often organised among relatives or close family friends — people who can be trusted. So by hitting the VIP protection squad, the Taleban did not only target the national security apparatus, but also individuals with close ties to the government’s leadership. This is illustrated by the fact that among the reported victims were a nephew  of Vice President Sarwar Danish, two bodyguards of Minister of Foreign Affairs Salahuddin Rabbani  and bodyguards of CEO Abdullah Abdullah.

The attack also indicates a clear willingness by the Taleban to risk mass civilian casualties. This is not the first time. There have been several attacks before with large numbers of dead and injured – some of them claimed by the Taleban, others not. The bombing that seems to come closest, in terms of magnitude, casualties and method, was the detonation of a massive truck bomb in the Shah Shahid area in the night of 7 August 2015.  That explosion took place shortly after midnight, when a truck laden with explosives hit a speed bump, killing eight to fifteen and injuring between two and four hundred people (estimates varied). The attack looked to have been an unintentional premature detonation – primarily because of the lack of ‘targets’ in the area.

It was already obvious at the time that, had the truck bomb reached whatever its intended target might have been and been detonated during the day, the number of casualties would have been staggering. (For a picture of the massive crater see here. A short video of the aftermath of the explosion can be found here, while this video has footage of the truck’s detonation captured by a security camera.)

The Taleban at the time denied responsibility, claiming the explosion had been caused by “a targeted air or missile attack in which a large bomb was deployed that created a huge crater in the ground.”  That statement on the Shahamat website, at the time, describing the Shah Shahid incident as “perplexing” and having “no semblance with attacks of Mujahideen,” was very different in tone from the one in response to Tuesday’s bomb attack. (3)

Questions on security and government capacity

The attack, so close to the heart of the security and government apparatus, seemingly based on very precise intelligence and possibly aided by inside assistance, has raised questions again as to the government and security forces’ capacity to keep the capital safe. Commentators on social media and MPs in parliament asked how the attackers managed to reach the compound despite the city’s security checks.

Tolo News conducted an experiment to see how hard it is to drive a truck through the city. The video, that was aired one day after the attack, on 20 April 2016, shows the truck being waved through several check posts – reportedly travelling from Pul-e Charkhi to the river, traversing five check posts and a distance of seven kilometres without a single question being asked. Although the truck did appear to be empty, which might explain away some of the police’s laxness, the findings of the program did little to instil confidence in the effectiveness of the police’s ‘Ring of Steel’ security cordon.

On 21 April 2016, two days after the bombing, the Ministry of Interior announced it had fired four – relatively low ranking – police officials in Police District 1, including the district police chief, in connection with the attack. Minister of Interior Taj Muhammad Jahed additionally ordered the police “to hunt down the terrorists” and use all resources available to protect the city from a repeat attack.  It is an admonition that for the moment sounds somewhat hollow.

Other reactions

In the aftermath of the attack, the government sought to regain the initiative by taking a strong and belligerent position. President Ashraf Ghani claimed that this act by the “enemies of the people of Afghanistan” showed their “weakness and defeat in the face of the national defence and security forces.” Later, while visiting the injured in the Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan hospital, he also vowed that the government would “avenge every drop of blood of its people” and repeated that the attack had been “a desperate, un-Islamic and inhumane act that represented a culture of ignorance.” CEO Abdullah said something similar when he stated “this criminal act… shows the depth of wildness and criminality of the enemies of Afghanistan” (shown on Ariana News TV on 19 April 2016).

There was a marked, and unsurprising, change in tone with regard to the prospects of peace talks – possibly in anticipation of a backlash for having been too soft. CEO spokesman Jawed Faisal was quoted by The Guardian as saying; “Before, we had a focus on a peaceful solution, but now there’s been a shift in strategy: to hit [Taleban] where it hurts the most. We’ll be hitting them with full force, with all means available. They did not answer positively to the peace call of the government, they answered with bullets. If they want war, we’ll give them war.”

Wahid Omar, former spokesperson for Karzai and recently appointed as Afghan ambassador to Italy was quoted by a Tolo News journalist as saying that war was the solution.

There were also calls for the immediate execution of Taleban fighters who are in government custody and who have already been sentenced to death. The demand seems to have originated with former NDS head Rahmatullah Nabil on his Facebook page, later followed by Special Representative of the President for Good Governance Zia Massud. There have been the usual calls on social media to retaliate against Pakistan, if there is another such bombing.

First Deputy Speaker of the Meshrano Jirga Farhad Sakhi, blamed Pakistan specifically: “It [Pakistan] sends terrorists from other side and here it sits at the negotiation table with us. We will never compromise with them” (as shown on One TV on 19 April 2016). The Afghan government has not come out directly accusing Pakistan of complicity, although Omar Aziz, the Kabul NDS chief, said at a press conference the attack was “organised outside the country.” CEO Abdullah, moreover, let it be known on the evening of the attack that he had postponed his trip to Pakistan that had been scheduled for early May “after initial evidence of today’s suicide attack” (see his Twitter account here and here).

There were some other voices. In its editorial on 20 April, state-run Anis Daily said that the attack could not undermine peace talks. “The recent aggressive and suicide attack by the Taliban group have made our people disappointed about ensuring peace… But, we must not lose opportunities of peace talks with the Taliban and other terrorist groups, but we must utilize them.” Independent Hasht-e Sobh Daily in its editorial on 19 April, however, called the attack unprecedented and urged the government to admit its “failure in the peace efforts.” (BBC Monitoring Afghanistan News, 21 April 2016)

A hardening of positions

The use by the Taleban of such a huge amount of explosives, in a residential area, and their – almost unprecedented – willingness to claim such an attack (while still denying the scope of the carnage) could signal a hardening of their position vis-à-vis civilians living in government areas. Whereas the Taleban, in their 2015 spring offensive statement still said that “top priority will be given to safeguarding and protecting the lives and properties of the civilian people,” in the 2016 statement the protection seemed more conditional: “During the span of Operation Omari, in areas including villages and cities where the Islamic Emirate has established its rule, the lives and property of the dwellers will be safeguarded as is its duty.”

It will be important in such an atmosphere to keep the hope of peace alive, however small, and to ensure that the desire to avenge will be curtailed. A hardening of positions on both sides will only lead to more suffering and to a greater disregard of rights and protections by all sides.

(1) The Taleban also released a video of supposedly one of the attackers, who claimed that his treatment in captivity (apparently in Bagram) had inspired him to become a “martyrdom seeker:”

I will never forget the scene when I was at the prison, the government people would use severely abusive words against the young Mujahideen. When you would swear to them on the holy Quran, they would tell us that I don’t care about your Quran and your God.

I will never forget these words. The jail term that I passed further strengthened my belief as compared to the past. When I saw their treatment at the jail, it further increased my emotions. When I got released I did not go home directly, I came to the lines of martyrdom seekers.

(2) The statement in response to last Tuesday’s attack also claimed that, “Following the incident, the enemy organs circulated some pictures which were either not of the event or in some cases not even from Afghanistan.” This seems to refer to several pictures that circulated on social media showing a huge fireball above high-rise building, that were indeed clearly neither in Kabul, nor from this incident. (There had been a column of smoke immediately after the explosion but no fireball). Another picture that was apparently taken in the aftermath of a bombing in Pakistan a few years ago, was also fairly widely circulated. This however, is more likely to have been the consequence of the regular mindless sharing of images on social media, than an orchestrated propaganda campaign.

(3) The statement in response to the Shah Shahid explosion said that because the incident was so perplexing they had dispatched an investigation team (as they did not want to lay blame without being sure). The investigation concluded that neither the Emirates leadership, nor the local “Mujahideen leaders” had been involved as “Such bombing campaigns are not the aim of Mujahideen nor is it considered any kind of achievement and most importantly, Islamic principles do not sanction such actions. We strongly condemn this incident and whole heartedly sympathize with our countrymen who were either martyred, injured or lost property in this plot. … The lives of civilians are very precious to us. We will never allow our Mujahideen to ever carry out bombings aimlessly and in crowded areas and will strictly cling onto Islamic rules in this regard.”

Throughout March 2016, Shindand district in Herat province witnessed heavy fighting. Clashes between two rival insurgent groups were followed by a string of ANSF military operations. With substantial help from Quetta, the local pro-Mansur Taleban group has swept away a pro-Rasul outfit that had recently proved less aggressive towards the government. This new outbreak of long-standing tensions in Shindand has thus resulted in a Taleban advance in the strategic Zerkuh area, a large but unknown number of displaced people and higher levels of violence against civilians. AAN’s Fabrizio Foschini examines the complexity of the conflict and its background, the legacy of which still seems to influence the way different actors play it out.

A recent spate of fighting has once again put Herat’s Shindand district in the spotlight (see previous AAN reporting here). Between 7 and 9 of March 2016 infighting between two rival Taleban groups caused massive casualties in the district, which led to the eviction of one faction, that of Mawlawi Rasul’s supporters led by Mullah Nangialay, from their home turf in the Zerkuh area of the district. Successive military operations by the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and, lastly, a limited comeback by Nangialay’s fighters in the area, have not significantly altered the gains made by the pro-Mansur Taleban group, led by Mullah Samad.

The fighting was significant, not only for the number of casualties, but also for the involvement of Taleban fighters sent in from Quetta and for the implications of a shift in the balance of power in the broader western region. Shindand, which borders restive areas of Farah province, has long been one of the most violent, least state-controlled areas in Herat. The causes of its conflict are, however, to be found more in the competition among the local political elites – and the external patronage they were able to secure – than in the infiltration of insurgents from bordering areas.

A background of Shindand conflict

Shindand residents found themselves in an odd situation at the fall of the Taleban in November 2001. As the only district of Herat with an overwhelming Pashtun majority, they had ended up supporting the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan ­– the Taleban regime – during its contested conquest of Herat in 1995 and its subsequent tenure there, and they had reasons to fear reprisals. As soon as it was clear that the Taleban would abandon Herat city, powerbrokers in Shindand made a move to prevent them from using their area as a last stand against Ismail Khan’s troops’ push from the North. Only a few of the Shindandi leaders who had held important ranks within the Taleban regime fled; the rest organised into a local shura and braced themselves for what was to be expected: retaliation for their support of the Taleban.

A few days after he captured Herat on 12 November 2001, Ismail Khan attacked Shindand. The forces that had organised as a local council withdrew to the Zerkuh area immediately to the south of the district centre, a valley thickly dotted with villages where a significant portion of Shindand’s population resides. Zerkuh had been at the core of local politics from the times of the jihad, from where mujahedin fronts operated when the communist government was in control of the district centre and of Shindand’s main strategic asset – the military airbase built by the Soviets in the 1960s. Zerkuh had already resisted Ismail Khan’s attacks in the years between 1993-1995, when relations between the then amir of Herat and the Pashtun mujahedin from Shindand, formerly affiliated with Hezb-e Islami, had deteriorated, until the latter welcomed and assisted the Taleban’s conquest of the city. (1)

The military leader in Zerkuh at the time of the fall of the Taleban was a strongman from Farmakan village, Amanullah. For the next two years, between 2002 and 2004, people in Zerkuh withstood attempts by Ismail Khan to capture the area, as well as a de facto blockade that severed their connection with the provincial capital and forced them to travel to Farah for all their needs. The ethnic polarisation stirred by the confrontation helped them enlist some support from Pashtun politicians, such as then Kandahar governor Gul Agha Sherzai.

No doubt there were several former Taleban among them, and Amanullah himself had in the past cooperated with the regime. However, they managed to avoid becoming a target of NATO operations, insisting on their willingness to accept the new government and establishing links to President Karzai. Instead, when in April 2004 the Kabul government, with US support, orchestrated the removal of Ismail Khan from his position as Herat governor, Amanullah and his men played a pivotal role, attacking Herat from the South and advancing as far as the city airport.

Although Amanullah was not given any official position, he remained highly influential in Shindand. He had a hand in the appointments of successive district governors and enjoyed good relations with the Afghan government and its foreign supporters, as well as the Taleban, who, in the meantime, had started to reorganise and mobilise. In 2006, however, he was killed in a local blood feud. As often in contemporary Afghanistan, there can be several different motives for a political killing, given the numerous actors and competition involved. In the case of Amanullah, the motive was likely revenge in the context of a land dispute that had recently seen Amanullah’s supporters kill a former local ally, Arbab Bashir. And then there was the fact that the latter was a Barakzai, a minority tribe in Nurzai-dominated Zerkuh, but one heavily-patronised by important national politicians. Finally, there was also the long-standing vendetta with Amanullah’s arch-enemy, Ismail Khan, by then a minister in Kabul but never disconnected from the politics of his province of origin.

Whether it was provincial or national powerbrokers, who patronised local appointments, the district leadership posts in Shindand gradually slipped into the hands of Amanullah’s enemies. When in April 2007 a US airstrike killed two of his brothers, along with a number of other civilians, the family’s former ties to the Taleban took over. Raz Muhammad, aka Jawed Nangialay, Amanullah’s son, brought the closest relatives to Quetta and officially joined the Taleban. In the following months, Shindand was the stage of more airstrikes that ended in massive civilian casualties. Zerkuh, in particular, with most of its traditional elite antagonised by the government and on the run, underwent a significant radicalisation and became a bastion of the insurgency. Despite being based mostly in Pakistan, in subsequent years Amanullah’s son, Nangialay, would become the most renowned Taleban commander in the district. Many of Amanullah’s former sub-commanders joined the Taleban as well, either for ideological reasons or for opportunity.

The ANSF were unable to keep the valley under tight control, despite the presence of US army outposts. From 2009 onwards the government started to rely on militias recruited among the local armed groups, first as part of the Local Defense Initiative (LDI) and then under the banner of the Afghan Local Police (ALP). Shindand’s ALP, one of the first in the country, was established almost exclusively in Zerkuh, which accounted for most of the 325 ALP slots allocated to the district. On one hand, the establishment of the ALP managed to decrease anti-government activities of the more opportunistic armed groups. Indeed, many militiamen formerly affiliated with Amanullah and Nangialay, often with links to the Taleban, were recruited into it. One of Nangialay’s cousins, Haji Amir Muhammed, a former Hezb-e Islami commander who had previously been cooperating with the US Special Forces, became an ALP officer. Complaints that the recruiting process had been influenced by powerful individuals and by the foreign troops present in Zerkuh were made by some tribal elders and by local authorities. In particular, vociferous complaints by Lal Muhammad Omarzai, then district governor and long-time rival of Amanullah’s family, show that Amanullah’s Nurzai sub-tribe, the Qulizai, if not the actual fighters now connected to Nangialay, were given a large share of the ALP positions in Zerkuh.

The establishment of the ALP thus created a rift within the district’s security forces, with splits and often conflicting loyalties between the Afghan National Police and the ALP or among the latter’s ranks. This state of affairs resulted in a steady trickle of assassinations and retaliations, with abuses often carried out against civilians. This stood in the way of a normalisation of life and society in Zerkuh and kept local tensions alive among the different communities inhabiting the valley (as many as eight Nurzai sub-tribes, plus some Barakzais and Tajiks). Anti-government propaganda continued to find fertile ground among the population, and the more ideological Taleban groups soon started to target the ALP with a deadly campaign of attacks on check posts and the assassination of commanders. By late 2014, most of the ALP commanders that were still alive had relocated to Herat and their militiamen had either defected or been cowed into inaction. The Taleban were increasingly putting pressure on Shindand district centre.

It is at this stage that, in late 2014 or early 2015, Nangialay decided to move back to Zerkuh and to reside there permanently, even bringing back his family from Pakistan.

Climax, stall and new fault lines of conflict

Despite initial reports that his return to Shindand had bolstered Taleban activities there, Nangialay’s anti-government activities gradually lost momentum – at least in comparison to the other main Taleban leader in Zerkuh area, Mullah Samad. The latter, an ideological Taleb who had previously run a madrassa in Farmakan village, was in charge of the Taleban front controlling the southern part of Zerkuh valley, which is less populated, more rugged and further away from the district centre. Samad had proven to be the most active insurgent leader during Nangialay’s absence, and even after the latter’s return he turned out to be the more aggressive of the two.

Nangialay’s sudden departure from Pakistan may have been linked to differences within the Quetta leadership. His family background justified the assumption that his main aim was to re-gain his father’s role in Shindand by all means, and this could have raised doubts about his ideological commitment among Taleban leaders. It is possible that he had developed concerns for his safety, prompting his return – or flight – to Shindand. His abandoning Quetta and distancing himself from the Taleban leadership also meant relinquishing economic benefits. He was clearly on the lookout for new patronage when, shortly after his homecoming, rumours started to circulate that he was about to join Daesh. (2) It is hard to say whether it was lack of material resources that led to his quiet behaviour, or rather paved the way for a preparatory phase to establish a tacit pact of non-belligerence with the local authorities. Looking at the spatial distribution of forces in Zerkuh, however, it is apparent how the northern area that Nangialay controlled in 2015, approximately one-third of Zerkuh, largely coincided with the extension of the previous ALP program (which had bases in Bakhtabad, Urayen, Sonuwghan and Farmakan). This area represents the most strategic part of the valley, a sort of buffer that partially shields the relevant government assets of the district centre and the airbase from the more remote areas to the south adjoining Farah province. Nangialay’s inactivity enabled the beleaguered government forces to have some much needed respite. Indeed, problems started to arise between Nangialay and Mullah Samad’s groups, including armed clashes in September 2015. A Taleban commission sent there to adjudicate the dispute reportedly ruled that Nangialay had to leave and hand over command to Mullah Samad.

In early November 2015, Mawlawi Rasul and his deputy Abdul Manan Niazi visited Shindand to lobby Nangialay for his support (for background and bios, see a previous AAN dispatch here). Given the challenges to his leadership by Mullah Samad and the pressure he was subjected to by the mainstream Taleban, either to fight the government or leave, the adhesion Nangialay offered to Rasul was probably more strategic than ideological. Nangialay was appointed military commander for the Western region by the pro-Rasul faction. Heavy clashes occurred between Nangialay’s men and Mullah Samad’s forces on 10 and 11 December 2015, with the latter taking more casualties. No side managed to make a breakthrough, though, and a standstill ensued.

The stalemate lasted for a few months, until one side was able to receive significant reinforcements. These came in the form of a mobile column of Taleban fighters sent in by Quetta in the early days of March 2016 to help Mullah Samad mount a major attack on Nangialay’s territory. Reported numbers of these reinforcements vary, with figures as high as 1000 quoted by some local sources interviewed by AAN, consisting of a majority of pro-Mansur fighters originally from Shindand or from neighboring Farah and Helmand provinces, and including a certain proportion of Pakistani (as well as Panjabi) fighters. What everybody agreed on was that these were part of the shock troops used as ‘troubleshooters’ by Akhtar Muhammad Mansur, that had until then largely been employed to fight the Daesh threat in Nangarhar or the dissident Mansur Dadullah/IMU front in Zabul. Locals from Shindand claim they recognised the leader of this contingent as Pir Agha, the by now notorious commander of the Taleban ‘Rapid Reaction Force’ for the southern region.

Their arrival bolstered Mullah Samad’s faction, which had likely hitherto enjoyed a larger following. In a determined sweep, they managed to completely evict Nangialay’s fighters in just two days, on 7 and 8 March 2016. Fighting was brief but vicious: the first day saw the most casualties with Nangialay’s men falling back on a defensive line at Chahar Qala, within sight of his headquarters in Farmakan, which he had to abandon. By the end of the second day, with his troops demoralised, outgunned and outnumbered, and after having lost many vehicles in the fighting, he was forced to leave Zerkuh altogether to Mullah Samad. His fighters, together with their allies from Abdul Manan Niazi’s group, dispersed to other districts of Herat and Farah provinces, some reportedly travelling as far as Gulestan district of Farah where another prominent pro-Rasul commander, Baz Muhammad, gave them shelter.

A number of Nangialay’s supporters who had previously been part of the ALP program sought shelter in the ANSF base in Shindand district centre with Nangialay’s cousin, Haji Amir. Whether it was because Haji Amir managed to procure not only shelter, but also to lobby for pro-active support from the ANSF for his kinsfolks, or because the ANSF command in Herat had grown reasonably concerned about the shift in the balance of forces in Zerkuh, the ANSF reaction to these developments was unusually swift. Reinforcements were moved in and less than a week later, from 13 to 15 March 2016, military operations, including significant airstrikes, took place within Zerkuh, targeting the victorious Mullah Samad’s faction. The ANSF however did not seem to be interested in holding ground as much as limiting the extent of the Taleban victory and now unified control of the valley. Mullah Samad’s insurgents seemed committed to consolidating their gains in northern Zerkuh, despite the fact that Pir Agha’s contingent had reportedly left immediately after the battle against Nangialay. An incident occurred in Azizabad on 11 March 2016, where a mixed ANA/ANP convoy coming from Herat to the Shindand district centre was ambushed by insurgents coming from Farsi district (the Taleban shadow governor of Farsi was killed in the encounter). This showed that the Taleban acted coordinately to try and stop reinforcements getting through by seeking support from neighboring districts. In the following days, hit and run attacks on ANSF checkpoints were carried out by insurgents, some up to the gates of the district governor’s compound.

The ANSF military operations took a second, more vigorous turn around the end of March. On 27 March 2016, a commando raid penetrated deep into Zerkuh, hitting Nangialay’s former base in Farmakan during the nighttime and killing a number of Mullah Samad’s fighters there. In the following days clashes between the ANSF and the Taleban continued in the Shahrabad and Bakhtabad areas, that is, at the entry of Zerkuh valley. Yet again, despite increased government focus on Shindand – on 29 March, Herat governor Muhammed Asef Rahimi visited the district centre – and claimed that as many as 30 villages in the district had been cleared of insurgents (Herat TV News, 27 March and 2 April 2016). Local reporting suggests that no real attempts were made to establish stable government positions in Zerkuh; at least not directly.

In the meantime, Nangialay was reported to either have surrendered to the government or to have travelled to Herat to seek government support. Besides these unconfirmed reports, it is remarkable how the second ANSF offensive resembled a preparatory operation to weaken Mullah Samad’s grip on his newly conquered areas and possibly allow Nangialay to stage a comeback. This is exactly what happened in the first week of April. According to locals and security analysts in Herat, some of Nangialay’s fighters reorganised and established three checkposts in the Chahar Mahal area in the northernmost tip of Zerkuh, a few kilometres south of the district centre.

Pro-Mansur Taleban have long accused their rivals of being on the government’s side. At the onset of the attack on Nangialay led by Mullah Samad and Pir Agha, Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, one of the Taleban’s spokesmen, released a statement to the effect that the operation had been aimed against “local bandits and Arbaki militiamen” who were “being backed by Kabul administration troops and aircraft.”

Too close an association with the government can, quite understandably in a place with a history of conflict and radicalisation like Shindand, lead to a loss of prestige. If Nangialay had indeed sought government support, he must have resented this being made public. In fact, one of the Shindandi elders interviewed by AAN hinted that one of the reasons for Haji Amir to facilitate the extension of ANSF support to his cousin was to weaken Nangialay’s position inside their Qulizai clan, so he could enhance his own chances at leadership, or at least to make the former Taleban commander look less charismatic and more dependent on the state. Peshawar-based Afghan Islamic Press reported that Nangialay released a video clip in which he denied surrendering to the government and that a spokesperson for Rasul’s Taleban faction had instead accused local supporters of Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansur, that is Mullah Samad, to have handed over the Zerkuh areas under their control to the government forces based on a deal (Islamic Press News Agency, 27 March 2016).

It seems plausible that since late-2015, Nangialay had started to try to fit into his father’s shoes, that is: to keep one foot in the Taleban camp, in particular in the faction allowing him more room for manoeuvre in his relations with the state, and one foot in the (local) government. Given his charisma, family renown, and the strategic location of Shindand for all Taleban operations in the north-west, the pro-Mansur Taleban faction could not tolerate such a state of affairs in view of their announced spring offensive. (3)

Another reason for the timing of the decisive Taleban military operation in early March 2016 is probably related to the area’s poppy cultivation. Taleban spring offensives in areas like Shindand or Farah, where opium production is extremely widespread, usually take place after the harvesting in late April. The earlier attack on Nangialay in Shindand can also have been motivated by the will to expand their territory in order to increase the share in the taxation of opium, the Taleban’s ushr, which is collected right before the harvest. The present state of affairs would mean an increased revenue for Mullah Samad, unless the viciousness of the fighting in March, that must have kept many locals away from their fields at the critical time of saw, ‘weeding’ in the local parlance, had spoilt Zerkuh’s production this year.

Shindand crisis: what are the short and long-term consequences?

When reports about the scale of the fighting in Shindand first made it to Herat at the beginning of March 2016, the humanitarian community grew concerned about the possibility of a major crisis in a non-accessible area. There were reports of retaliatory violence and looting against communities that had supported Nangialay (including gruesome tales of mass beheadings. The local authorities from Shindand claimed that as many as 2000 families of internally displaced persons (IDPs) had left Zerkuh. In this scenario, OCHA took the somewhat bold step of deploying a mission to the conflict area. This mission reached Shindand district centre by 17 March 2016, but could not find evidence of a large number of IDPs having taken shelter there. Allowing for exaggerated figures provided by local authorities, it seems likely that a number of displacements indeed took place. Those among Zerkuh’s residents who could afford it, members of the elite or people with some previous connection there, probably moved to Herat city, while the rest went to neighboring districts of Farah or temporarily left their homes but not Zerkuh altogether. It is quite possible that the majority of them did not choose the district centre as a destination due to the mistrust that many residents felt towards the government given almost a decade where the valley had been out of the control of the government. Perhaps, more simply, it was because the district centre itself, almost on the frontline, offers little protection for those whom Mullah Samad’s Taleban would want to target.

The extent to which Samad’s winning faction affected reprisals on Nangialay’s supporters is, however, unclear. Tales of ferocity surrounding, in particular, Pir Agha’s troops could have spurred families with ties to Nangialay to move out. But attempts on the part of Mullah Samad to bring the situation back to ‘normality’ came soon afterwards. He reportedly allowed the only clinic in the valley, which had been shut during the fighting and which is located in Nangialay’s former territory, to re-open. In gatherings on 21 March 2016, he assured relatives of the losing side “that the Islamic Emirate does not hold personal animosity towards anyone.”

Even if there was no mass retaliation in the conquered areas, levels of violence against Shindandis living in and out of the district have increased as a result of the conflict between the Taleban factions, putting additional pressure on a population already traumatised by years of conflict. There have been incidents that can be understood as reprisal killings for the support given to one faction – or efforts to intimidate potential supporters of the other side. On 8 April 2016, gunmen attacked a house in Chahar Mahal, the same village in northern Zerkuh where Nangialay’s fighters have been able to re-deploy, and killed two of the residents. One of them, Suleiman, was reportedly the father of one of Nangialay’s lieutenants.

A few days earlier, on 4 April 2016, Haji Aref Godandar, the recently elected head of the Shindand Qaumi Shura (People’s Council), was killed in broad daylight in a central area of Herat city, while his teenager son was injured. The Taleban claimed to have ambushed a “hireling commander” at dawn. Haji Godandar was in fact, as his takhallus (‘nickname’) implies, no more than a trader and tribal elder. He wielded influence in Shindand, however, and the Taleban may have thought it better to eliminate a potential catalyst of support in the district.

The extension of violence to the far away provincial capital may be an isolated occurrence, but recent developments in Shindand, which constituted a significant victory for the pro-Mansur Taleban, mean a further deterioration of security there. In the best case scenario, a string of attacks, assassinations and retaliations (commonly seen during the 2009-14 ALP experience) might repeat itself, only, this time, much closer to the district centre. At worst, the Taleban will be able to mount more ambitious operations from their redoubt of Zerkuh as part of their Operation Omari. Despite the government reaction and the re-establishment of some degree of control for Nangialay at the entrance of Zerkuh valley, his is not a buffer that guarantees to hold anymore.

Shindand is a strategic area not only for Taleban movements and operation planning in the northwestern region, but also for the government and allied western troops. Shindand airbase, although currently mostly reduced to the role of training ground for Afghan pilots, remains one of the largest military airfields in the country suited to host air forces. Shindand also has a long and chequered history of US Special Operations Forces’ activities. Furthermore, given that much of the current involvement of allied western troops in the Afghan conflict consists of air support and special forces operations, recent tactical decisions in Shindand appear to bear the imprint of previous militia experiments. Perhaps this is with the aim of defending a long-term strategic asset – the airbase – at minimum cost: with the lives of militiamen who do not even belong to the ALP, but rather to a different insurgent outfit rival to the mainstream Taleban.

However, past experience should have proved to the Afghan and NATO commands that playing up rival militias in a fragmented environment like Shindand, no matter how remote the link of patronage is, only makes the game there tougher and eventually helps the roughest players to emerge, to the detriment of the long-term security situation.

(1) Ismail Khan himself hails originally from Shindand district, although the district never constituted a power base for him, and in fact was often outside of his grip. Strikingly, this populous but peripheral district is the birthplace of many important political leaders, both among the local Farsiwans (now mostly referred to as Tajiks) and the Pashtuns, for example Alauddin Khan, late deputy of Ismail Khan and one of Herat’s most respected mujahedin, and Humayun Azizi, former minister and current governor of Kandahar.

(2) According to some locals interviewed by AAN, these rumours were circulated by Nangialay’s rivals inside the Taleban, in order to create concern among the Iranian security forces about the possible presence of an ISIS group on their borders and to limit Nangialay’s potential for movement in that direction.

(3) There are, of course, other additional layers of conflict brought up by local analysts, which connect the recent developments to the political landscape of Herat and involve other players as well. The past connection between a lesser Taleban commander from Zerkuh’s small Tajik community living in the Emarat area, Kamran, who sides with Mullah Samad, and the former amir of Herat Ismail Khan was mentioned as a sign of the continuing enmity of the latter towards Amanullah’s family and the role he could be playing in Shindand’s conflict.

A new UN report highlights how access to healthcare and education in Afghanistan, particularly for children, is being increasingly compromised by violence, threats, intimidation and abuse of facilities. The number of verified incidents over the last three years (2013-2015) in particular shows an increase in recorded incidents of threats and intimidation, as well as a continued considerable number of deaths, injuries and abductions. The violations, to a differing extent carried out by all parties to the conflict, directly harmed or impacted health and education personnel, reduced the availability of healthcare and limited children’s access to education and medical facilities. AAN highlights the UN report’s main findings.

The year 2015 was the bloodiest year in Afghanistan yet. And children were particularly hard hit: one in four documented casualties was a child. (1) UNAMA’s data on civilian casualties for the first quarter of 2016, released on 17 April 2016, shows a continued increase in the numbers of civilian casualties, including an increase in child casualties:

The Mission has documented a five per cent increase in women casualties (195 women casualties – 52 deaths and 143 injured) and a 29 per cent increase in child casualties (610 children casualties – 161 deaths and 449 injured) compared to the first three months of 2015. Ground engagements caused the highest number of women casualties, followed by suicide and complex attacks, and IEDs. For children, ground engagements killed and maimed the most, followed by unexploded ordinance and IEDs. (1)

A new UN report now shows how children are additionally affected by the on-going conflict through incidents that affect their access to health care and education across Afghanistan.

The report, which is based on data collected over the last three years (from 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2015) by the Human Rights Unit of UNAMA and UNICEF focuses on conflict-related attacks and incidents on education and health care facilities. It paints a grim picture of post-transition Afghanistan, showing how the number of incidents involving education and health care facilities and providers sharply increased in the last three years. (2) The conflict-related incidents had the effect that children were either denied access to education or missed their immunisations due to limited access to the health facilities and providers in 2015. Hospitals were damaged or destroyed by targeted attacks and crossfire, and many schools and health facilities were closed – and often remained closed – due to insecurity, threats or military use.

Nicholas Haysom, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan called the findings of the report “deeply troubling” and emphasised that it was “simply unacceptable for teachers, doctors and nurses to be subjected to violence or threats, and for schools and medical facilities to be misused or attacked.”

Infographic from UNAMA Report published on 18 April 2016

Schools under attack

Afghanistan has made significant progress in terms of primary and secondary education enrolments rates since 2001. In 2014 more than 8 million pupils were reported to be enrolled in schools, 39 per cent of them girls. The average annual growth rate, from 2001 to 2012, was said to have been nine per cent (according to a 2015 Ministry of Education review report). The conflict has, however, had a dampening effect in terms of access to education. As noted by the Education Ministry in the same report: “insecurity often include[s] attacks on schools resulting in closure of schools for long periods of time, shortage[s] result in long walking distance to schools, – all these factors negatively affect enrollment and retention rates and ultimately students’ learning.”

In 2015, the UN documented 132 conflict-related incidents affecting education facilities and education personnel (as compared to 63 incidents in 2013 and 71 in 2014). Of the 132 incidents affecting access to education, the UN report documented the highest number of cases (38) in the eastern region (23 in Nangarhar province, nine in Kunar, five in Laghman and one in Nuristan). An additional 27 incidents were recorded in the western region (12 in Farah province, seven in Herat, six in Ghor and two in Badghis), and 26 incidents in the northeastern region (16 in Kunduz province, seven in Badakhshan and three in Baghlan).

According to the Ministry of Education, as reported by AP recently 615 schools in the country’s 11 most volatile provinces had to close because of violence in 2015. For example, in Helmand alone as reported by Pajhwok more than 50 schools had been closed in the provincial capital and three nearby districts of southern Helmand province, as of November 2015, due to clashes between security forces and insurgents. (See also previous AAN reporting on the situation in Helmand here  and here). The UN report, which only counted conflict-related incidents that constituted a violation of applicable national and international laws and that could be verified by multiple sources, (3) had the following figures:

More than 369 schools closed partially or completely, affecting at least 139,048 students (65,057 boys and 73,991 girls) and 600 teachers.

According to the report, 75 educational personnel or students were killed, injured or abducted during 2015 (11 deaths, 15 injured, 49 abducted); all but one of the cases were perpetrated by anti-government elements. There were 29 direct attacks on schools (a decrease from 2014 and 2013 when respectively 34 and 30 direct attacks were recorded).

In cases where schools were used for military purposes (a total of 35 incidents), the government forces were at fault in two-thirds of the cases:

In 2015, 35 schools (compared to 12 schools in 2014 and ten schools in 2013) were used for military purposes for a cumulative total of 1,311 days, the majority (24) by Pro-Government Forces. Military use of schools varied from a few days to months, and impeded access to education for at least 8,905 students (5,614 boys and 3,291 girls). Anti- Government Elements used at least 11 schools in Nangarhar, Nuristan, Logar and Kunduz provinces for military purposes.

The highest number of incidents of schools being used for military purposes during 2015 was documented in Kunduz province, where 15 schools were used by the pro- government forces, affecting 6,680 students (3,980 boys and 2,700 girls).

Girls most affected

The UN report documented 19 incidents in 2015 where anti-government elements directly 
or indirectly limited girls’ access to education, including direct restrictions such as: complete bans on education for girls, restrictions on girls’ attendance beyond 4th or 6th grade, or explicit prohibitions on girls attending school without a female teacher. The 19 incidents also included “other forms 
of violence, which impeded girls’ access to education such as: threats and intimidations, two school-burnings, two improvised explosive device attacks
and one incident of abduction.”

Of the 14 recorded incidents 
of threats and intimidation against teachers and students, nine incidents led to the closure or partial closure of a total of 213 schools (including 94 mixed schools that were closed to girls only), affecting at least 50,683 girls. In Shindand district of Herat province alone, between June and December 2015, threats and intimidation carried out by anti-government elements led to the closure of five girl schools and the suspension of female classes in 94 mixed schools, affecting at least 27,103 girls.

The report notes that “The increase in attacks impacting education attributed to the Taliban – 82 incidents compared to 29 in 2014 – contradicts a decree issued by Mullah Mohammad Omar in 2011 instructing his followers not to attack schools or intimidate school children,” as well as a 2012 declaration by the Taliban that they were not against the education of girls.” (For more details on the Taleban’s education policies see these two AAN reports, here and here).

Increased number of incidents on health care

As reported earlier by AAN in March 2016, health workers have been coming under increasing pressure from all sides in the war. This is confirmed by the newly released UN report.

The UN report documents an increase in the number of incidents affecting access to health care, with 125 incidents reported in 2015, compared to 59 in 2014 and 33 in 2013. In 2015 20 health workers were reported killed, 43 injured and 66 abducted. Overall, anti-government elements perpetrated 109 of all verified cases affecting access to health services in 2015 (the UN report attributes 15 incidents to pro-government forces and one remains unknown).

Similar to the findings in the education sector, threats and intimidation of health personnel constituted the majority of the cases – with 64 incidents making up 52 per cent of all verified cases. Approximately one third of all health-related incidents took place in the eastern region which experienced 40 incidents: 23 in Nangarhar, ten in Kunar, six in Laghman and one in Nuristan (all attributed to Anti-Government Elements). In the northeast, UN documented 21 incidents, attributing eight incidents to Pro-Government Forces (five in Kunduz and three in Badakhshan) and 13 incidents to Anti-Government Elements (nine in Kunduz and four in Badakhshan). Additionally, 18 incidents were documented in the northern region, all perpetrated by Anti-Government Elements (seven in Balkh, three in Faryab, three in Samangan, three in Sar-e Pul and two in Jawzjan).

Of the ten recorded cases where medical facilities were used for military purposes, the perpetrators were anti-government elements in 80 per cent of the cases (8 incidents); in the remaining two cases pro-government forces used the facilities for the military purposes.

Compared to
 23 in 2014 and 15 incidents in 2013, the UN documented 64 incidents of threats and intimidation in 2015. Threats and intimidation targeting health personnel led to the closure of at least 19 clinics, including 12
in the eastern region (11 in Nangarhar, all attributed to ISIL-Khorasan Province and one in Kunar attributed to anti-government elements).

The violence also affected the vaccination campaigns:

A total of 89,873 children could not be vaccinated during the December 2015 Sub-National Immunization days. These children are mostly from Kunar (12,638), Nangarhar (59,650) and Helmand (13,493) provinces.

UN calls for greater responsibility

The UN called for the immediate cessation of indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks that target or affect civilians and civilian objects, including schools and hospitals, and calls on all parties to the conflict to ensure that perpetrators of attacks on education and health institutions, personnel and beneficiaries are held accountable. Such attacks – except in highly exceptional cases – amount to violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law 
(for more details on the rules of war, see here).

(1) In total the UN report documented 1,943 civilian casualties (600 deaths and 1,343 injured) in the period between 1 January and 31 March 2016. This represented a 13 per cent decrease in deaths and an 11 per cent increase in injuries, compared to the same period in 2015.

(2) The UN report notes that due to on going insecurity and access constraints “figures provided may underrepresent the number of incidents attributed to the parties to the conflict and the severity of the impact of conflict on children.” The methodology used for monitoring and verifying the incidents is the same as used for the regular reports by UNAMA on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, with all reported incidents having been verified by three sources.

(3) The UN counted only those cases that constituted a violation of the applicable international humanitarian law, international human rights law, international criminal law and national legislation. In particular, UN applied the international legal framework that Afghanistan is a party to, such as the four 1949 Geneva protocols and the second protocol of 1977, which relates to the protection of civilians in a non-international armed conflict. Under international humanitarian law, attacks against civilians and civilian objects, including schools and hospitals, are generally prohibited. Additional Protocol II prohibits acts or threats of violence when the primary purpose is to spread fear among the civilian population.

The country is also the signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which establishes as a war crime “intentionally [directing] attacks against buildings dedicated to […] education […], hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives.

When collecting the data, the UN applied Security Council Resolution 1998 (Monitoring and reporting attacks on schools and/or hospitals and related protected personnel), which highlights the impact of armed conflict on the safety, education and healthcare of children, and calls for greater action to ensure that schools and hospitals are protected. The resolution refers to “attacks on schools and hospitals” as an umbrella formula both for attacks directed against schools and hospitals, as well as indirect harm resulting from conflict-related violence. This definition includes all acts that lead to the total destruction, compromised functioning or partial damage of educational and health institutions, as well as harm to protected persons, including killing, injuring, abduction and use of civilians as human shields.

The Taleban made their yearly spring offensive announcement on 12 April 2016. The statement attributed to Taleban leadership council (Rahbari Shura) named the offensive “Operation Omari,” in honour of the movement’s late leader and provides clues with regard to both the Taleban’s plans and the way they wish to present themselves. Of particular note are the instructions to fighters on how to behave in “villages and cities where the Islamic Emirate has established its rule.” Two days into the ‘offensive’ several dozen Taleban attacks have taken place across the country, indicating a wish to back up the announcement with a portrayal of presence and strength at the local level. So far there have been no large-scale or complex attacks. AAN’s Borhan Osman and the rest of the AAN team examine the spring offensive announcement, looking at how this year’s statement differs from past ones and what it might indicate for the 2016 fighting season.

The Taleban launched their 2016 ‘spring offensive’ with an announcement on their website on 12 April 2016. This announcement was followed by reports of dozens of attacks for which the Taleban claimed responsibility, including in Baghlan, Badghis, Faryab, Ghazni, Helmand, Kandahar, Kunar, Laghman, Logar, Nangarhar, Parwan, Sar-e Pul and Zabul within the first 48 hours. Although the Taleban initiated armed clashes in more than 10 provinces, and in same cases in several districts per province, they did not yet orchestrate any major attack. The majority of attacks during the first two days of Operation Omari, based on the Taleban’s own reporting, appear to have focused mostly on ANSF, pro-government militias and foreign forces, district administrative centres and the “clearing of villages” in districts where the Taleban were already active, such as in Badakhshan’s Tagab district. Casualties reported by the Taleban (who are known to inflate the numbers of those they claim to have killed and injured), ranged from two to fifteen “enemies” killed per attack. The numbers of injured reported were in a similar range.

The announcement’s content

The announcement starts off by saying that “with the advent of spring it is again time to renew our Jihadi determination and operations.” In fact, Taleban operations did not stop over winter and the term “spring offensive” as well as the notion of a winter stop or lull in fighting has become increasingly meaningless. In this reading, this announcement is thus not so much about practical fighting, but rather a propagandistic instrument.

The statement remembers the late Amir ul Mu’mineen Mullah Muhammad Omar Mujahed under whose reign the Islamic Emirate “pacified 95 percent of our nation’s territory from wickedness, corruption and oppression, and vanquished the maligned and wicked.”

The stated aim of Operation Omari is ambitious and focuses on “clearing the remaining areas from enemy control and presence,” which is to be achieved by

large scale attacks on enemy positions across the country, martyrdom-seeking and tactical attacks against enemy strongholds, and assassination of enemy commanders in urban centers. The present Operation will also employ all means at our disposal to bog the enemy down in a war of attrition that lowers the morale of the foreign invaders and their internal armed militias. By employing such a multifaceted strategy it is hoped that the foreign enemy will be demoralized and forced to evict our nation. In areas under the control of Mujahideen, mechanisms for good governance will be established so that our people can live a life of security and normalcy.

Although announcements in previous years also focused on the capture of territory, they tended to mention simey (Pashto for: areas), which usually refers to swathes of rural areas. Although last year’s statement did also refer to urban centres, it was mentioned only as a target for guerrilla warfare. This year, however, it seems the Taleban have set their sights on capturing both urban population centres and larger territory.

As part of this stated confidence – whether genuine or portrayed for propaganda purposes – with regard to expanding their realm of control, the Taleban for the first time in their spring offensive announcement also talk about post-conquest situations:

During the span of Operation Omari, in areas including villages and cities where the Islamic Emirate has established its rule, the lives and property of the dwellers will be safeguarded as is its duty. Therefore we call upon the dwellers of these areas, be they the professional classes or businessmen, not to fall prey to enemy propaganda and not to feel threatened by the Mujahideen. As it is our duty to protect and assist the wronged and helpless, so we will pay particular attention to the freedom of prisoners.

The 2016 spring offensive statement gave specific instructions to the fighters “to implement their operations in such a manner that takes pains to protect civilians and civil infrastructure” and described how the Taleban intended to make conquests easier by encouraging Afghan forces to defect and abandon the ANSF/NUG ranks:

Simultaneously with the present Operation the scholars, elders and leaders of the Islamic Emirate will open a dialogue with our countrymen in the enemy ranks to give up their opposition to the establishment of an Islamic government and join the ranks of the Mujahideen so as to safeguard them from the shame and failure of this World and the Hereafter.

The commission for outreach activities has indeed been gaining prominence within the Taleban structure and there have been repeated claims by the Taleban that the commission has been instrumental in causing large-scale defections by government forces (for instance in Helmand, Sar-e Pul, Uruzgan and Nuristan). During the past year, in addition to threats and violence, the Taleban appeared to have focused on trying to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of ANSF members, often by establishing channels of communication through their families or other social networks. In order to persuade ANSF members to quit fighting, the Taleban in several cases seem to have released ANSF soldiers they had captured on the battlefield and in some cases even paid them the needed transport fare to return to their home province – in exchange for the promise not to return to the ANSF. (There have however also been very different experiences, as illustrated by the gruesome killing of ANSF soldiers after the fall of the Jurm military base.)

The announcement’s vision

The statement’s vision of conquest, its instructions to protect civilians and infrastructure, and the emphasis on persuading government forces to defect were reportedly also part of the annual religious-ideological course for Taleban commanders and sub-commanders that was recently held in Pakistan. According to Taleban sources from Helmand, fighters who participated in the course received instructions to be prepared to rule the conquered lands. Reportedly, this was the first time that topics such as explicit instructions on how to treat the local population, public service providers and humanitarian organisations made up an extensive part of the three-month course that ended around mid-March this year. Instructions on how to persuade their enemies to surrender or join their ranks also constituted a significant part of the lectures and training.

Unlike the spring offensive announcements from previous years, the announcement for 2016 withheld details about specific targets of the Operation Omari. The targets were described in rather general terms, with reference only to “large scale attacks on enemy positions across the country, martyrdom-seeking and tactical attacks against enemy strongholds, and assassination of enemy commanders in urban centers.”

In contrast, in the 2015 statement ahead of Operation Azm, the following categories of people were specified as targets:

…the foreign occupiers especially their permanent military bases, their intelligence and diplomatic centers, officials of the stooge regime, their military constellations, especially their intelligence, interior ministry and defense ministry officials and other pernicious individuals.

…top priority will be given to safeguarding and protecting the lives and properties of the civilian people, ” and “the Islamic Emirate has never and will never target religious and other educational institutions like mosques, madrassas, schools, universities, health centers like clinics and hospitals, public buildings and other projects of public welfare.

The instructions to avoid harming civilians and their property are not new; they have been issued many times before and have not significantly altered the fact that civilians are regularly harmed, and sometimes targeted, during Taleban operations. According to UNAMA – that continues to remind the Taleban that aid workers, civilian government officials, journalists, human rights defenders, judges and prosecutors are all to be considered civilians –  the Taleban was still responsible for more than 62% of the civilian casualties in 2015. With the lack of detail in their statement this year, the Taleban have avoided providing explicit rules as to who can be targeted in the new operation. There are so far no indications that the Taleban have actually adjusted their definition to ensure a greater protection of civilians in practice.

While proclaiming a stronger ambition than before to rule large parts of the population, the Taleban also seem determined to enhance their political image as potential benign rulers. They did not only repeat the explicit instructions to the fighters to protect public infrastructure and properties already included last year, but also claimed that “in areas under the control of Mujahideen, mechanisms for good governance will be established so that our people can live a life of security and normalcy.” (It is not completely clear what mechanisms the statement referes to, as structures already exist, such as the Taleban shadow judicial system and commissions that can be reached by petitioners and, occasionally, travel through Taleban-controlled areas to query the local population about commanders’ and fighters’ bevahiour.)

The overall spirit and tone of the Taleban’s propaganda to motivate its fighters seem more than ever couched in a vision of imminent victory. This seems to mirror the optimism that was found among Taleban foot soldiers after the short-lived capture of Kunduz in September 2015 and that to some extent has prevailed since then. While it will take some time to discern and understand the patterns of tactics employed by Taleban this year, sources within the movement indicate this may include trying to close in on provincial capitals and obstructing ANSF access to its major bases by blocking or threatening major logistics routes. This seems to match the Taleban’s build up of forces along key highways and supply routes over the past year, in particular in both the southwest (Helmand, Farah, Uruzgan) and the northeast (Kunduz, Badakshan, Baghlan and Sar-e Pul), and the warnings from Uruzgan, Helmand and other provinces about the possible imminent fall of districts through which major transport routes run.

Recent rumours within the Taleban movement moreover suggest, that in order to boost the morale of fighters, Taleban leader Akhtar Mansur may have travelled to Afghanistan. At the closing of the earlier-mentioned winter training course in Pakistan, Mansur delivered his speech on 18 March 2016 through a messenger, rather than attending the ceremony in person. Whether Akhtar Mansur is indeed in Afghanistan, or not, the rumours seem intended to portray confidence by suggesting that Taleban fighters believe they have made Afghanistan ‘safe’ enough for their leaders to return. It is perhaps also meant as a signal to Pakistan that it may no longer be in a unique position to manipulate the Taleban leadership by exploiting its need of Pakistan as an exclusive sanctuary.

The announcement’s impact on peace talks

The announcement of the spring offensive, finally, throws cold water on the hopes that the efforts towards peace talks, notably through the Quadrilateral Cooperation Group (QCG) platform, would lead to a drastic reduction of violence in the short run. The Afghan government, when initiating the QCG, had hoped the talks could at least prevent or postpone the 2016 spring offensive. The QCG process, however, has direly suffered from the choice to deliberately bypass the Taleban in favour of relying on Pakistan to bring the movement’s representatives to the table. (See also the latest postponement of the next round of quadrilateral talk and the strong criticism of Pakistan by the Afghan government.)

For those who wonder whether the spring offensive announcement was delayed because of efforts to bring the Taleban to the negotiation table, this does not appear to be the case. For the third year in a row, the announcement was made on or around the 5th of Rajab (based on the Islamic Hijri calendar, a lunar calendar, that falls behind the Gregorian calendar by about 10 days each year). In 2015, the spring offensive was on 22 April (5 Rajab was on 24 April), in 2014 it was on 12 May (5 Rajab was on 5 May). Next year, if the Taleban stick to the pattern, the announcement can be expected to be around 2 April 2017. The choice of this date was explained again in this year’s announcement, referring to “The fact that the 5th of Rajab ul Murajab year 15 (Hijri Lunar) was the day on which – under the leadership of Khalif Omar al Farooq – the Muslim armies fought and annihilated the vast infidel western army in the Battle of Yarmouk,” while adding the hope that the current operation would, in a similar fashion, result in “strategic victories and cleanse our beloved country from the presence of the remaining foreign invaders and their malignant and corrupt rebel servants.”

The Afghan government, in the meantime, responded in kind, calling the Taleban announcement “a hollow attempt to hide the consecutive defeats and setbacks they sustained during the last year” and “a bid to avenge the losses they suffered on the battlefield.” Ministry of Interior spokesperson Sediqi announced the governments counter-operation: Operation Shafaq, which he said would focus on the leaders of the group and would be one of the largest operations during the year.

The allegation that a British civilian policing body, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), helped draw up lists of Afghans for targeted killings in ISAF’s ‘kill or capture’ strategy in Afghanistan has re-surfaced. Two years ago, SOCA denied to a London court that it had supplied such intelligence for targeted killings in a case brought by an Afghan man, Habib Rahman. He had lost two brothers, two uncles and his father-in-law – all civilians – in a targeted killing in 2010. AAN’s Kate Clark has been examining the new evidence against SOCA and looking at what it might mean for the family members of those killed in the 2010 attack.

In November 2013, a judge in London decided Habib Rahman’s case would not go forward to judicial review – the procedure when a court judges the legality of a particular action or policy by the British state as it affects an individual claimant. The case had focussed on whether the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) was supporting targeted killing. SOCA had been named in a United States Senate report as one of the agencies contributing information to the list of individuals whom the military deem can be subject to targeted killing. This is the ‘Joint Prioritised Effects List’, commonly known as the JPEL. (1)

SOCA, it is alleged, had been drawn into supplying intelligence after drug traffickers began to be added to the JPEL in late 2008: the rationale for killing drug traffickers was that they were funding the insurgency. Financiers of wars are usually considered civilians so this was, in itself, a controversial and possibly illegal move (more of which later). Moreover, only the military enjoys ‘combatant privilege’; members of the armed forces can kill during wartime without it being considered murder. Civilian police cannot. The allegation that SOCA was involved in helping to compile the JPEL was, therefore, extremely serious, as one of Habib Rahman’s British lawyers, Rosa Curling explained, in July 2013 (see AAN reporting here and Leigh Day’s press release here):

As a civilian policing organisation SOCA has no legitimate or lawful role to play in the compilation or administration of this Kill List – it has no authority to be involved in military operations and the killing of individuals. The courts must urgently review whether SOCA’s and indeed the UK’s role in the compilation, review and execution of this list if unlawful.

Rahman’s lawyers accepted that they did not know if information from the UK had contributed to the attack on Rahman’s father-in-law and the other election campaigners in 2010. However, they hoped the challenge would force a more open examination of how Britain was allegedly contributing to drawing up and executing the JPEL, and whether guidance existed to ensure actions were within the law.

When the case came to court in November 2013, SOCA admitted it did pass on information to the military, but said it did so solely for legal, civilian, and policing purposes. (2) It said it was not involved in compiling or managing the JPEL kill or capture list and took no part in hostilities. The judge accepted the denial and ruled there was insufficient evidence for the case to go forward to judicial review.

Fresh evidence against British police

In a new report on the UK’s alleged involvement in targeted killing, the anti-death penalty, campaigning organisation, Reprieve, has gone back through various, mainly leaked documents and published what it says is new evidence of British involvement in targeted killings. One of the documents leaked by Edward Snowdon, it says, points to the British military both nominating targets for the JPEL and executing the targeted killings. (3) Reprieve also presents new evidence of the involvement of SOCA (which is now called the National Crime Agency or NCA) in drawing up the list of targets. It cites another leaked document, an article from an in-house newsletter from the National Security Agency (NSA), the US agency which compiles and analyses signals intelligence or SIGINT. The article was classified as top secret and published for an internal readership by the National Security Agency’s Southwest Asia Narcotics Division, known as ‘FGS2F’. It is titled: “SIGINT Helps Hobble the Taleban by Cutting off Their Livelihood”.

The article described how, from May 2008, FGS2F agents had been providing “real time support to counter-narcotics operations, targeting processing laboratories, traffickers’ compounds and the traffickers themselves as they were on the move.” (4) FGS2F agents, it said, were among those working at the counter-narcotics Interagency Operations Coordination Centre (IOCC) in Kabul. Where this gets closer to SOCA and its alleged involvement in the JPEL ‘kill list’, says Reprieve, comes in the management of the IOCC:

In terms of understanding the critical role played by the UK in all this, it is important to understand that the IOCC is led by both a director and a deputy director. Those positions are rotated between senior managers of the American DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] and the British SOCA/NSA [Serious Organised Crime Agency/National Crime Agency], with no other country providing candidates. For example, from January 2008, the director was a “British LE [Law Enforcement] agent of the Serious Organized Crime Agency.” (quotes in original) (5)

The fact that there was inter-agency cooperation on counter-narcotics is, of course, not controversial. However, in October 2008, NATO defence ministers introduced a new policy: ISAF would start targeting drug traffickers and they would be added to the JPEL for killing or capture. (6) Two months later, in December 2008, said the article by the FSG2F (the American National Security Agency’s Southwest Asia Narcotics Division), the deputy commander of ISAF Regional Command South declared that narcotics trafficking was now his number one priority. The piece said that by this time, 80 per cent of all counter-narcotics operations in Afghanistan were being driven by SIGINT (signals intelligence), whereas a year previously, almost all had been driven by HUMINT (human intelligence). This was thanks, “in large part,” said the self-promotional piece, “to the efforts of an FSG2F analyst embedded with IOOC in Kabul.”

The article gives an example of a success in the fight “against the narco-insurgency,” a strike against “primary target” Mullah Multan who had “made a rare entry from Pakistan into Afghanistan” (date not given). It said Multan’s drug convoy had been targeted by an air strike within hours of him crossing the border and although he survived, he lost “over three tons of opium along with 6 of his cohorts.”

More detail on the nature of the work being carried out by the IOCC emerged in an 11 May 2009 interview with a former director, Selby Smith (January 2006 to December 2008); he was an American from the Drug Enforcement Administration who had been seconded to the IOCC. Smith said that, in Afghanistan, the military were necessary for carrying out counter-narcotics operations because “law enforcements units cannot handle the complexity and size of the drug problem by themselves. The military is needed to knock the problem down to a manageable level.”

Since December 2008, Smith said, “Law Enforcement” (not specified, but it seems to refer to international law enforcement agents probably/possibly working in conjunction with Afghan police) had asked the military for and received approval for the following assistance: helicopter lift, intelligence, cordon security, medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) and Close Air Support (CAS), ie action against hostile targets that are in close proximity to friendly forces. Smith said the US and UK were providing “most of the Special Forces” and NATO/ISAF the Close Air Support. He continued:

The [Department of Defence] policy mentions the need for a more non-traditional approach. Military involvement in [counter-narcotics] is a way to do this. The change in policy says US troops are authorized to conduct military operations against drug trafficking targets when those military operations support the stability missions in Afghanistan.

 When asked whether, if the military did get involved, there would be “any negative consequences, i.e. 2nd and 3rd order effects?” the former director of the IOCC said, “Just more civilian casualties due to an errant bomb. The people shouldn’t be negatively affected because we’re there to help the Afghans under their law.”

Legal qualms from some in the military

Smith admitted there was some “reluctance from the military to get involved.” This reluctance was reported when ISAF first decided that drug traffickers could be targeted (see here, here and here). Possibly it came because, in Smith’s words, there was no longer “a need for there to be a nexus. All that’s required is a request from the Afghan law enforcement unit.” A nexus here would refer to a trafficker having to be also a belligerent in the conflict and under Taleban or al Qaeda command to be legally subject to a targeted killing. Under International Humanitarian Law, civilians, including drug traffickers, have to be “directly participating in hostilities” to lose their protected status and be legally targeted. Guidance by the International Committee of the Red Cross looking at what this phrase does and does not cover says: 

… recruiters, trainers, financiers and propagandists may continuously contribute to the general war effort of a non-state party, but they are not members of an organized armed group belonging to that party unless their function additionally includes activities amounting to direct participation in hostilities.

The same conclusion was reached in 2009 by two judges in Washington DC both of whom had to decide whether the US could detain alleged financiers of the Taleban or al Qaeda in Guantanamo Bay. Judge Walton ruled that, if financial support was sufficient to make one a member of an armed force, then:

“Americans during World War II who specifically contributed to war bonds, knowing that those funds were going to be used for the military to fight the battle, could have been treated as enemy combatants.” (7)

It is argued that drug smugglers who are not also combatants must be dealt with as a civilian policing matter, ie with arrest and trial, and with evidence of their wrong-doing presented before a court of law. The matter would be governed by International Human Rights Law which only allows the use of lethal force when it is strictly and directly necessary to save human life. Targeted killings of suspected criminals is generally held to be a violation of the ‘right to life’. (See a discussion here).

Habib Rahman’s Case

Habib Rahman, who brought and lost the 2013 request for a judicial review into the alleged role of SOCA in targeted killings in Afghanistan, lost five relatives in an air strike in 2010. Five other civilians were also killed in the attack, all campaigners in the parliamentary elections. The US claimed they had killed a Taleban commander, Mullah Amin, but an AAN investigation, which brought together interviews with US Special Operations Forces commanders, witnesses, survivors and Mullah Amin himself, revealed how intelligence had mixed up SIM phone numbers. A phone number belonging to Habib Rahman’s father-in-law, Zabet Amanullah, an agent in the elections, had been mistakenly attributed to a provincial Taleban commander, Mullah Amin. The military had then assumed everyone in the election campaign convoy were ‘Mullah Amin’s’ fighters. Zabet Amanullah was a famous figure provincially, well known in the presidential palace in Kabul and had appeared in local media during the election campaign. Yet, there had not been even the most basic background checks on him ahead of the attack to verify that he was the intended target. In other words, the misinterpretation of SIGINT (signals intelligence) had led to the killing of the wrong man and nine of his companions, all civilians, a mistake that would have been revealed by the most precursory HUMINT, (intelligence based on information from human sources).

As mentioned before, whether or not information from the UK had contributed to the attack on Rahman’s father-in-law and the other election campaigners in 2010 is not known, but it was a clear case of civilians being killed after intelligence had placed the wrong man on the JPEL for targeted killing. Rahman’s lawyers hoped the challenge would lead to the courts examining what Britain’s role was in drawing up that list.

The aftermath – still ­­– of the 2010 killings

Speaking after the new evidence against SOCA came to light, Habib Rahman described the continuing consequences of the 2010 air attack. It had left him looking after five households: his own, his widowed mother, his father-in-law’s and a brother’s (the other brother had been unmarried). Six years on, life remains a financial struggle, he said, and recently, the raw memories of the strike also re-surfaced:

Zabet Amanullah (his father-in-law) stood like a big mountain behind us, but now all the responsibility is on my shoulders. From every side there is pressure. After his death, his wife gave birth to a baby boy, Muhammad, and he had his six year birthday recently. But then he got ill in Takhar and we brought him to Kabul for treatment at the children’s hospital and then to Pakistan, but we failed. We lost him. If his father had been alive… he could have acted more swiftly. He could have done a lot more for his son.

The emotional impact of the deaths in 2010 had lessened over the years, but “the death of … Muhammad, 15 days ago,” he said, “somehow refreshed all the memories and feelings. It brought it all back.” As to the new evidence strengthening the case that UK police had been involved in targeted killing in Afghanistan, he said:

From the beginning until now, we’ve been asking for them to look at the evidence but no-one has listened to us. From the beginning until now, we have been running after this case and hoping those who were accused of this crime would be prosecuted. Instead, we have just faced more losses.

He had learned a lesson from the dismissal of the 2013 case, he said: “Only those who have power can get justice.”

Will the new evidence lead to fresh legal action?

If a civilian policing body like SOCA had been giving information that led to a person being identified for targeted killing, that would be a grave breach of British domestic law and International Humanitarian Law. Misleading a court of law would, in itself, also be a serious offense – if that, indeed, is what happened in 2013. Reprieve’s new report provides some additional evidence that British police were involved in drawing up the targeted killing list. It fleshes out the possible link between SOCA and the compiling of the kill list: SOCA was providing directors and deputy directors to the IOCC in Kabul at a time when it was allegedly providing intelligence for drawing up the ‘kill list’. Whether or not the new evidence will be enough to re-open Habib Rahman’s request for a judicial review is not yet clear. It appears not yet to amount to a ‘smoking gun’. However, it does strengthen the case for more investigation, and for more openness from the British government.

(1) The author of the US Senate report, Afghanistan’s Narco War: Breaking the Link Between Drug Traffickers and Insurgents, Douglas Frantz, had been working for the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator John Kerry (now US Secretary of State), when, he said, during a formal briefing, an officer explained, “We have a list of 367 ‘kill or capture’ targets, including 50 nexus targets who link drugs and insurgency,” in other words, drug smugglers believed to be funding the insurgency have been put on the list of ‘insurgent leaders and facilitators’ for targeted killing or capture. Later, the US would come to consider drug traffickers’ financing so fundamental to the insurgency that they could be targeted.

 The Senate report said SOCA, along with the US and UK military, the US Drug Enforcement Agency and police and intelligence agencies from other countries had set up a group called the Joint Inter-Agency Afghanistan Task Force (JIATF). In a witness statement to the court, Frantz said:

… military and civilian officials had provided information about the effort to combine law enforcement and military authorities in a program to identify drug traffickers who were involved with financing the insurgency. People who met the specific criteria would be placed on the Joint Prioritized Effect List (JPEL), which would subject them to arrest and possible killing. My understanding was and remains that the JIATF was linked to the effort to identify people who qualified for inclusion on the JPEL. The briefing on the JIATF was conducted at the US military compound and it was attended by senior military and civilian law enforcement officers from the United States, Britain and Australia. The meeting was unclassified and not recorded, but the clear understanding was the information would be used in a subsequent public report.

In the Senate report, Frantz quotes an investigator with SOCA who was involved in the JIATF:

… [he] described the approach as a critical opportunity to blend military and law enforcement expertise. ‘In the past, the military would have hit and evidence would not have been collected,’ he explained. ‘Now, with law enforcement present, we are seizing the ledgers and other information to develop an intelligence profile of the networks and the drug kingpins.’ An American military officer with the project was blunter, telling the committee staff, ‘Our long-term approach is to identify the regional drug figures and corrupt government officials and persuade them to choose legitimacy or remove them from the battlefield.’

(2) SOCA told the court the Senate committee report had misunderstood its role. It did interact with the military and pass on intelligence, as legally allowed under the UK Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, 2005, and only for the purposes of “the prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of criminal offences whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.” Such information, it said, would be given to ISAF to help it assist local law enforcement to make an arrest or prevent criminal offenses:

SOCA places restrictions on the dissemination of intelligence to the ISAF. Intelligence which is disseminated by SOCA is required to include handling conditions which require the express approval of the originator if it is proposed to use the material for military targeting purposes. If the mission is to arrest, with a view to criminal investigation and potential prosecution, SOCA would ordinarily be prepared to provide and/or allow the use of its intelligence. On the other hand, if the primary option for a mission is to use lethal force SOCA would not provide intelligence or allow the use of its intelligence in support of such a mission, save potentially where the individual who is the target of the operation poses a significant and immediate threat to the lives of others (and so such disclosure would be for the purpose of preventing a criminal offence).

(3) The leaked document is the JPEL list from August 2010 and has 699 targets. It lists the agency which nominated each target and the one responsible for executing the kill or capture operation. British involvement is inferred by ISAF Regional Command (then under British command) listed as one of the nominating bodies and a unit named as TF-42 being named as one the agencies due to carry out operations. Wikileaks had earlier revealed the existence of TF-42 as a UK Special Forces unit.

(4) The article named the following agencies: NSAW (Naval Support Activity Washington), FSU (Field Station Utah) and GCHQ, the British signals intelligence centre in Cheltenham, England. 

(5) Reprieve cites a 2014 presentation on counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan by the US Drug Enforcement Administration to a US Senate Caucus.

(6) Reprieve says it was Britain that first wanted to target heroin processing laboratories and drug stores, in 2001, quoting a report by Gretchen Peters for the United States Institute of Peace, How Opium Profits the Taliban (August 2009),

“The drug targets were big places, like small towns that did nothing but produce heroin,” a CIA official said. “The British were screaming for us to bomb those targets because most of the heroin in Britain comes from Afghanistan, but they [the US National Security Council] refused.” Afghanistan was and is the main source of heroin in Britain. In 2001, said Peters, it was the US which held back fearing collateral damage, ie harm to civilians and damage to civilian property.

(7) Walton ruled that the US president only has the authority to detain “persons who were part of, or substantially supported, the Taliban or al-Qaeda forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, provided that the terms “substantially supported” and “part of” are interpreted to encompass only individuals who were members of the enemy organization’s armed forces, as that term is intended under the laws of war, at the time of their capture.” Gheriby v Obama, Memorandum Opinion, Reggie B Walton (2009)

The other ruling against the US government came from Judge Bates in Hamily v Obama (2009).

On the one year anniversary of a major attack in Jurm in April 2015, and not long before the Taleban are expected to announce their new spring offensive, Badakhshis are nervously anticipating the year ahead. AAN guest author Bethany Matta revisits the attack, detailing how it happened and showing how the attack and its aftermath illustrate many of the security challenges Badakhshan still faces today. These include an expected persistent level of violence, a significant role played by foreign fighters and a continuing sense by the local population and security officials that the province is being overlooked.

The attack on the Dahan Ab-e Khostak base in April 2015

On Friday 10 April 2015, several hundred Taleban fighters launched a large-scale attack in Jurm. According to a local resident, it all started when an estimated 250-400 Taleban fighters from Khostak valley crossed the river sometime before midnight and made their way to the nearby ANA base at Dahan Ab-e Khostak in the village of Mail Astia. (1)  At around 2 am they launched a large-scale attack on the base and the surrounding outposts. Several Afghan unit commanders described receiving urgent text messages and phone calls from soldiers* under attack in outposts asking for help.

While the exact numbers of besieged ANSF are not entirely clear, the author was told that at the time of the attack about 70-120 security forces were present at the main base. Commander Muhammad, who was not present at the time (and who asked to remain anonymous), left immediately for the Dahan Ab-e Khostak base after receiving news of the attack. When he reached the main base at around 5 am, clashes had already been underway for several hours. The base had come under heavy fire that seemed to come from all sides and the soldiers’ ammunition was running low.

The clashes continued and by noon on Saturday 11 April 2015, the Taleban had captured the main base and all surrounding outposts. By that time, the soldiers had run out of ammunition – the main weapons caches had either been captured by the Taleban or spent by the Afghan forces. Despite repeated phone calls from soldiers to commanders and Badakhshan officials as well as to officials in Kabul throughout the late night and early morning, pleading for reinforcements, ammunition and air support, none had arrived.

It was only after the bases had fallen ­­– more than 10 hours after the onset of the attack ­­– that two helicopters carrying 50-60 ANA Special Forces finally arrived and started a counterattack against the Taleban in an attempt to push back the front line and reclaim the lost base and outposts. The Taleban managed to hold on to their gains for a while, and only retreated when they had emptied the base of everything they wanted to take with them. When the Afghan forces finally managed to break the frontline and recapture the lost check posts and the main base, the militants had disappeared into the Khostak valley, taking with them not only weapons and equipment, but also a large number of captured ANA soldiers. The Afghan forces did not pursue them.

In the aftermath of the attack, columns of smoke rose across the valley from the smoldering outposts. The remnants of the destroyed steel walls from the main base lay strewn about and several military vehicles jutting out of the river – perhaps signs of failed looting attempts, but according to soldiers and locals, these were vehicles that had run out of fuel when ANSF soldiers tried to escape the attack. The bodies of three dead soldiers were said to have been thrown in the river but were never found. The village of Mail Astia was deserted except for a few elders and local residents who collected the dead.

Impact of the Jurm attack

According to the Ministry of Defense (MoD), a total of 33 ANSF soldiers were killed, wounded or had gone missing; the ANSF claimed to have killed 20 Taleban and injured 17. The Taleban claimed to have killed 49 ANA soldiers. But according to the unofficial version of events – as told by Jurm elders, provincial council members and officials that spoke to the author after the attack – the number of casualties had been far higher. According to a commander who was present during the attack “69 ANA and police were killed, out of which 28 were beheaded.” This figure has since then been, unofficially, corroborated by other (government and civilian) sources.

The attack in Jurm district was certainly not the first large-scale attack in Badakhshan, but it stood out as it highlighted the growing insecurity in a province that was once considered one of the safest in the country. Moreover, the brutality of the attack shocked the nation (see reporting at the time here, here and here) and seemed to point towards an increased ruthlessness of the insurgency in Afghanistan’s north. What was particularly distressing to the local population was that most of the soldiers that were captured by the Taleban were subsequently killed, and that most of the killed soldiers were beheaded, despite the fact that local elders had been sent into the Khostak valley to negotiate their release.

The Taleban had reportedly placed the decapitated heads of the soldiers on rocks alongside of the road in Khostak valley. After a few days, village mullahs, imams and elders asked the Taleban to remove the heads, telling them it was “not good” and “un-Islamic.” The sight, a village doctor told the author, was making locals mentally ill. The Taleban, however, seemed to have deliberately tried to horrify the population, as in one case, a captured solider was forced to call his mother with the militants beheading him mid-conversation. (2)  In their defense, the Taleban argued that although beheadings were normally “contradictory to rules of engagement,” they were in this case justified in retaliation for the behaviour of the Afghan security forces during a clash in neighboring Warduj district on 20 March 2015. The Taleban claimed that during this clash, the Afghan soldiers  had violated Islam and the rules of engagement by shooting “martyrs in the face to the point that they were unrecognisable.”

What was particularly uncomfortable to admit for the local population was that the vast majority – and possibly all – of the security forces who were killed or beheaded were not from Badakhshan province. This sparked rumours that local soldiers had either been spared for some reason or had received advance warning about the planned attack. The idea that local security forces, aware of the threat, had possibly deliberately not informed their fellow soldiers of an imminent attack – thereby contributing to their deaths – added to the embarrassment.

Several Jurm residents remarked that some local community members had been so upset and embarrassed that they were ready to start an uprising against the Taleban, but had found little to no government support for this idea. “They [the government] were inactive,” a local elder said, a statement echoed by many others. This, in turn, affected the communities’ support for and their attitudes towards the government. Locals commented that the lack of a government response had driven some people to be more inclined towards the Taleban in the aftermath of the Jurm attack.

The incident, in general, was seen as showcasing the failure of the Afghan government to adequately deal with the growing challenges that the insurgency presents in the north. Media and parliament reacted strongly, accusing both the National Unity Government and the ANSF of negligence. Commander Muhammad summarised what the soldiers wanted to know: why the vehicles had had no fuel, why had the reinforcements not arrived on time, why had the government not compensated families whose sons were killed, and why had the government been so indifferent to the forces’ safety and the overall security situation in the area. Moreover, military and government officials told the author that although there are large stocks of ammunition across Afghanistan, these often do not reach the relevant ANA units in time because of poor lines of communication and lack of logistics, like in the case of the Jurm attack. This failure of the government to provide support to a base in need, but also to commit sufficient forces over a longer period of time, even after the attack, earned the government a lot of criticism.

The president, in response to the upheaval, flew to Faizabad on 16 April 2015, four days after the attack, to meet with security officials and representatives of the province’s districts.  At a press conference, the day after his arrival, he discussed the challenges facing the nation and praised the security forces, stressing that their sacrifices would not go to waste. The ministry of defense ordered an investigation, partly in response to allegations of negligence and complicity in the attack by the local security forces.

One year after the attack, there has still been no release of any official findings.

Accusations of complicity

Immediately after the attack, rumours and reports of complicity of locals and ANSF in the Taleban attack surfaced. One man in particular was singled out: Azizullah Raufi, the ANA commander in charge, who seems to have been the only official who was arrested immediately following the attack. A few more arrests were made after the prelimary MoD investigation, but a final report of the investigation was never issued and according to the district governor of Jurm, Abdul Wadood Sayedi, no one in Badakhshan has been charged so far.

Raufi, who was apparently arrested (but whose current whereabouts are unknown), was not at the Dahan-e Ab-e Khostak base at the time of the attack. General Sher Muhammad Karimi, then Chief of Army Staff, confirmed this when questioned by a parliamentary committee. Several Afghan officials said they thought Raufi might have received information about the imminent attack, after which he left for Kabul without permission and without informing his superiors.

According to Deputy Governor Bedar, it is not uncommon for families in districts such as Jurm, where insecurity is on the rise, to have members working with both the Taleban and the police, who may then exchange information and warn each other of impending attacks. “They are like partners-in-crime,” Bedar said. “When we start an operation, a security official may call a relative who is with the Taleban and warn him.” Parliamentarians from Badakhshan that the author spoke to agreed with this assessment.

Another important factor seems to have been the occurrence of pre-attack negotiations. According to residents, including District Governor Sayedi, several elders were asked to negotiate with local soldiers on behalf of the Taleban. The elders told the soldiers that if they left their weapons and walked away from the base, they would be left alone; if not, they would risk being captured, killed and possibly beheaded. The elders were left with little choice in the matter but to conduct these negotiations. The soldiers seemed to be willing to comply with the Taleban’s demands; indeed, as an elder reported, “They [the soldiers] did not fight or fire, they simply left the post and left all the arms, Humvees and ammunition to the Taleban.”

It seems, however, that it was mainly the local police, who laid down their weapons and fled the scene, leaving behind a sizable number of – largely ANA – forces not from the area. The fact that not all government security forces left explains the continued heavy fighting that took place throughout the night of the Jurm attack.

According to a ministry of interior official, the pre-attack negotiations are a cause for concern because they are used quite often by the Taleban, and quite effectively. Multiple incidents, similar in nature, were reported around Badakhshan and in other northern provinces before and after the Jurm attack (see for instance here and here). Deputy Governor Bedar also described how the five bases in Baharak and Zebak districts (to the east of Jurm), had been taken in a similar manner, despite each base having more than 200 ALP and ANP. As a result, large amounts of ammunition, weapons, and vehicles (including police Rangers and military Humvees) had been seized and are now used by the insurgents to fight against the Afghan government. (3)

According to several residents, the complicity in the Jurm attack may have gone even further. They related how the Afghan Local Police (ALP) commander Abdul Mulik, who commands a large militia, supposedly paid ANA commander Raufi millions of Afghani to let the bases fall to the Taleban (one million Afghani is almost 20,000 US dollar). Others said Mulik paid the Taleban who then bought the bases from Raufi and other check post commanders. Some argued that the deal – if there indeed had been one – was related to Abdul Mulik’s involvement in the illegal mining business (as a former district police commander he had in fact fought the Taleban in the past). Ahmad Javid Mujahiddi, the deputy head of the provincial council, said that the ANA base had probably been impeding Mulik’s illegal mining business, as its location was hampering access to the mine.

Role of foreign fighters

The attack in Jurm also illustrates the increased impact of foreign fighters on both the composition and strategies of the insurgency in northern Afghanistan after the military operation in Pakistan’s North Waziristan, which started in June 2014. Seasoned foreign militants were pushed out of Pakistan and entered Afghanistan – across its eastern borders via Nuristan, and in the north via the Shah-e Salim and Topkhana passes of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province – and the local Afghan Taleban helped them find places to settle, including in Afghanistan’s northern provinces. Government officials and residents of Badakhshan said the foreign fighters initially behaved as guests and their presence in the communities was not immediately noticeable. Many of them were Tajik and Uzbek by nationality (with a smattering of Chechens, Pakistanis, Uighurs and Arabs) – sharing similar physical features, language and customs allowed them to easily blend in with the local population.

At the same time even Badakhshis were taken by surprise by how quickly the numbers grew and by the impact the new arrivals started to have on the security situation. For example, in the summer of 2014, the Taleban took Azizurahman, a former border police officer, as a prisoner after they attacked a local police check post in Bashan, an area of Waduj district. He and 23 others were taken to Jurm district and held there for 47 days. As there was no jail to keep them, they moved along with the militants wherever they went. He estimated that during this time he had seen more than 500 Taleban in Jurm, most of them Afghans, but with a significant number of foreign fighters present as well. He could not recognise the languages the foreign fighters spoke. Other locals, who spoke to the author, also remarked that they often had difficulties discerning where the foreign fighters were from.

With the influx of foreign militants, brutal tactics, particularly beheadings, seemed to become increasingly common. Civilians reported that because the fighters were not from Afghanistan, they appeared to care less about the locals, which reportedly made it easier for them to commit atrocious acts, compared to local Taleban, who would presumably be more susceptible to local pushback. Beheadings, as seen in the Jurm attack, have thus far been used mostly as an intimidation tactic. According to local sources, it was militants from Tajikistan who carried out the beheadings during and after the Jurm attack.

Taleban strength since the 2015 Jurm attack

At the beginning of the 2015 fighting season, it became apparent that the militants had used the deep rifts and unlikely alliances between local players such as government officials, power brokers and militias to carve out safe havens for themselves in Jurm’s Khostak valley and neighboring Warduj district (see previous AAN report here). At the same time, the plethora of superficial attacks in quick succession across Afghanistan allowed the insurgents to divert the attention of the ANSF and to fatigue government resources. As a result, the Taleban was able to expand their influence and control, not only in Badakhshan, but also in other parts of the north, such as Takhar’s Darqad district. (4)

Since the Jurm attack in April 2015, the Afghan government launched a few operations to counter the insurgency’s expansion in Badakhshan, but the network of mountain passes, valleys and rivers that connects the districts of Yamgan, Jurm and Warduj makes decisive military operations difficult. Although a large security force can succeed in pushing back the militants into neighboring districts, the insurgents are able to return again as soon as the government forces retreat to their bases. This was the case, for instance, during the government operations that started on 22 January 2016 in Tagab district, which borders Yamgan district to the west. The operation involved a large force of 600-700 ANSF troops. According to a western security analyst, the Taleban initially held their ground but were soon pushed back. When the ANSF conducted a village-by-village clearance operation, a large number of Taleban escaped to the Teshkan area in the northern part of the district, while others made it over the mountain passes that lead into Jurm and Yamgan district in the east.

Following the operation in Tagab, there was a lull until 15 February 2016 when the Afghan government announced another operation, which began the following morning in Argo. Officials told the author that the Afghan forces would make their way into Khash district, and then Jurm and Warduj, in order to try to entrap the Taleban in the notorious Khostak valley (which they did not end up doing). (5) The operation started in Spin Gul Valley, about 25 kilometres southeast of the provincial capital Faizabad – one of three areas (the others being Kohestan and Yaftal, sub-districts of the provincial capital) where militants maintain a close enough reach to be able to enter Faizabad city. Security analysts claim that the operation in Argo did manage to cut off the militants’ escape routes, but based on previous experience in the area and the overall effectiveness of operations across the country, there is little reason to believe that the operation will have a long-term effect. Moreover, on the eve of 16 February 2016, after the morning’s operations in Argo district, an overwhelming force of militants launched attacks on Afghan security forces in the Amb-e Ardar area of Baharak and Sar-e Pol-e Sooch in Jurm. (7)  On 5 March 2016, seemingly in response, the ANSF launched an airstrike on Baharak district, Dashtuk and Amb-e Ardar area followed by a clearance operation.

Since then all operations in Badakhshan seem to have come to a halt, much to the concern of Badakhshan provincial council members and civil society activists. According to a military officer, future operations in Badakhshan are likely to merely consist of operations by police forces with some air support, as seen in the 5 March 2016 attack in Baharak. This will not significantly change the security situation in Badakhshan. According to a western official familiar with the security developments in the province, “Retaking ground is not part of the discussion. The focus is on the fragmentation and disruption of the Taleban.” For Badakhshan, this means those areas under Taleban control will most likely remain that way.

Afghan officials, reluctant to speak on record about the issue, have indicated that this may be part of a larger strategy. They said that deals are currently being struck in Warduj and Jurm between the Taleban and government district chiefs in order to prevent more bloodshed. One mentioned the example of such a deal in Sofian village of Warduj. According to a Ministry of Interior official, part of the Ghani administration’s approach was to cede territory to the Taleban in order to lure them to the negotiating table. A High Peace Council official said the main objective was to ensure that the Taleban is “no longer a brand” and that by supporting local Taleban groups across the country, the movement could be fragmented.

Whatever the case, the latest developments seems to have caused the government to not only shelve the operations it had planned to counter the growing militancy in Badakhshan, but also to halt its attempts to set up a permanent base in Faizabad. The base was meant to house the new 4th brigade and was supposed to have been completed before the last winter set in.

It seems fair to say that what appeared to be one of the insurgency’s main objectives of 2015 – creating unchallenged safe havens in Badakhshan – has indeed been achieved. Out of Badakhshan’s 28 districts, three are more or less under Taleban control as of early April 2016 – Jurm, Yamgan and Warduj – with some areas being contested due to the presence of ANSF bases, which the Taleban are trying to attack and overrun. Looking at the military’s plans or lack thereof for Badakhshan at the moment; it seems unlikely this situation will change.

Declining Resources

The mass attacks on government forces across Afghanistan in 2015 and early 2016 have had substantial effects on the morale and motivation of the Afghan forces. This comes on top of existing complaints that eat at the soldiers’ morale, ranging from wearing old, holey shoes and clothes, being fed bad food, and not getting paid; to commanders not responding to phone calls from their subordinates in emergency situations, and reinforcements arriving late, or not at all, when troops are under attack. These grievances, in turn, feed into the high rates of attrition and desertion, which have left Afghanistan with a shrinking ANSF. (6)  And then there are of course also the direct threats by the Taleban.

It is not clear how many security forces in Badakhshan have left their posts due to Taleban threats. Some of the soldiers who were given ultimatums to “leave or be killed,” eventually returned to their checkpoints, according to provincial council members. Some left Badakhshan to serve in the ANSF in other provinces, while others decided to leave the country altogether to find other work in Iran or Pakistan.

The international military forces also did not seem to have shown much interest in Badakhshan. Although at NATO operational meetings in 2015, it was frequently stated that Badakhshan was high on the agenda, the topic of conversation tended to consistently centre on Helmand. At one meeting, an official told the author that the Americans did not want to be fighting on behalf of local powerbrokers, suggesting that the Americans still believe the conflict in Badakhshan to be mainly a local one. ANA Chief of Staff, General Qadam Shah also said he thought the US was still operating on old intelligence, in particular from the Germans (who were stationed in northern Afghanistan from 2006 to 2013). He thought the Germans “told the US that the war in Badakhshan was a criminal war, a war over mines, between commanders, a narcotics war. This is outdated. Things have changed. The insurgents are active and are conducting their operations. Unfortunately NATO and the US do not believe this.”

Badakhshan, moreover, suffers from the ongoing competition for military material and capabilities – in the face of dwindling resources and a growing war: if a Humvee is sent to Helmand, it often means the force brigade in Badakhshan does not get one. Afghanistan also, to some extent, needs to compete with Iraq and Syria, particularly in the area of surveillance equipment. (7) And there seems to be a clear reluctance on the part of the foreign forces and donors to provide large amounts of military equipment, given the Afghan forces’ track record in terms of poor maintenance, theft and endemic corruption. The large amounts of equipment and weapons captured by the Taleban (or surrendered to them) often without a fight, only add to the picture.

Changes in the International Field

While Badakhshan is not seen as a priority by the US, and by extension NATO, Russia and Tajikistan have expressed increasing concern over the growing destabilisation in northern Afghanistan. In mid-January 2016, Tajikistan closed its consulates in both Faizabad and Kunduz, due to the increased insecurity. In March 2016, while the Afghan government carried out operations against the Taleban in Badakhshan, Tajik and Russian forces conducted joint operations on the Afghan/Tajik border. Assistance to the Afghan government currently consists of providing equipment, training and reinforcing the security infrastructure on the border, most notably with Tajikistan. It remains to be seen whether this will be expanded. According to sources close to the Taleban, the insurgents are likely to continue their push to control the border areas with Central Asian countries throughout 2016, possibly in an attempt to be seen as a legitimate or least ascendant power by Russia and the neighboring Central Asian countries.

In the meantime, there have also been reports that the shared concern over a growing IS threat have brought the Taleban, Russia and Iran closer together. The growing threat of IS in Afghanistan is also NATO’s main concern in Badakhshan, according to security officials. At the beginning of March 2016, the local Taleban reportedly arrested a number of suspected Daesh affiliates trying to recruit people in Jurm district, although whether this is true or not is unclear. The threat of IS in Afghanistan has often been used as a tool throughout the country by Afghan officials to try to attract western attention and support. Yet, according to a western military official, the announcement of active IS recruitment in Jurm may be premature; as Daesh is at the moment more likely to just be gathering intelligence on the dynamics in the north, than intending to start operations there.

What does the year ahead hold for Badakhshan?

Over the past year, little has changed in the province, other than a renewed commitment from the Taleban (including their foreign fighters) to continue their push for control. The ANSF have barely managed to keep the Taleban from spreading beyond Jurm, Yamgan and Warduj and have even struggled to achieve that. Local security forces, elders and powerbrokers are often caught between the two sides and continue to try to eke out the best deal for themselves, which sometimes is not much more than mere survival. The year ahead will thus be telling on many fronts: The effects of last year’s large scale attacks, like the one in Jurm, will become more evident, as will the government’s capacity and above all willingness to counter them. The security developments will not only be closely watched by the Badakhshis but also by the neighboring Central Asian countries, such as Tajikistan. Others such as Russia and Iran will keep Badakhshan on their radar, while watching for signs of the emerging of Daesh in the province. So one year after the Jurm attack and not long before the Taleban are expected to announce, and start, the 2016 spring offensive, Badakhshis have all reason to be nervously anticipating the year ahead.

* In the context of this dispatch, the term soldiers will be used to refer to any member for the ANSF, including ANA, ANP, Afghan Special Forces and ALP, unless otherwise specified as it was often not possible to discern which members of the ANSF respondents referred to.

Edited by Lenny Linke and Martine van Bijlert

Bethany Matta is a reporter and videographer based in Kabul, whose focus is mainly on northern Afghanistan.

(1) Khostak valley, still the main base of the Taleban in Jurm district today, consists of around 30 villages scattered throughout the main valley and the five sub-valleys that encircle it. The valley connects four Badakhshan districts: Zebak and Keran Wa Munjan in the south, Warduj in the east and Yamgan in the west.

(2) To add to an already troubling narrative, due to the lack of helicopters to transport the dead soldiers out of the district after they had been retrieved, their bodies sat outside for days. In some cases, it took ten days to return a body of a dead soldier to his family, the Deputy Governor Bedar told the author. Bedar, himself a physician by training, had been tasked, together with three other doctors, with reconnecting the heads of the decapitated soldiers to the bodies. Two heads were mistakenly attached to the wrong bodies, creating more agitation and adding to the already very palpable tension at the governor’s compound in the days following the attack.

(3) Military sources, intelligence and Afghan officials say that while the amount of military government equipment seized by militants certainly has added to their supplies, the real value of the seized ANSF vehicles is that they can be used as decoys in order to get close to or gain access to ANSF bases. Recently, stolen Humvees were used to attack a check post in Helmand, killing six security forces.

(4) Badakhshan was the only province in Afghanistan to firmly resist Taleban control when they ruled from 1996-2001. Locals used to point to this history to explain why there was no groundswell of support for the Taleban in the province, like in some other areas of the north, for example Kunduz. 2008 is considered the inception point of the insurgency in Badakhshan when residents first noticed a change in Warduj district. Residents recalled seeing only small groups of militants arrive at first, but then their numbers doubled, tripled, quadrupled, and by 2010 the district had been largely ‘overrun’ by the Taleban and fighting became constant. Several officials noted that Tiragon village in the south of Warduj had been particularly susceptible to extremist ideology because many children from that area had been sent across the border to Pakistan to study in madrasas. (Many Uzbek and Tajik families in northern Afghanistan send their children for madrassa education to Pakistan, mainly due to lack of development and poverty. Incentives include free room and board and often food with a small stipend.)

(5) The 16 February 2016 operations in Argo were said to also have included local militia groups (outside of the ALP framework) and what the government calls ‘uprising forces’ from Argo, Faizabad, Baharak, Warduj, Jurm, Khash, and Darayem. After the fall of Kunduz in September 2015 the government announced plans to expand the ALP program in the north and in October 2015, six months after the Jurm attack, Badakhshan received a big tashkil for “uprising forces,” a term essentially used in place of militia or armed men. However, there is little reason to believe the installment of these militias will result in anything other than short-term stability, if that.

(6) In August 2015, General John F. Campbell, the US Forces commander in Afghanistan, said that at least 4,000 Afghan security force members were deserting their posts every month due to mismanagement of staff, equipment and weapons. The ministry of interior denied this. A ministry of interior official, however, told the author that over a six-month period in 2015 more than 4,000 security force members had been killed and 6,000-7,000 wounded across all regions of Afghanistan.

(7) The US Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) system in Afghanistan is multi-layered, consisting of permanent air surveillance via security blimps attached to essential military installations, a variety of drones for specialized reconnaissance, satellite observation and high-flying surveillance planes. For non-priority areas, such as Badakhshan, the US relies on satellite observation and high-flying planes for surveillance only.

During the last fighting season, which started in April 2015, there were only 2 MI 35 (certified) assault helicopters for the whole country. Due to their frequent use and extensive maintenance needs, often only one was operational. Since then India has provided Afghanistan with an additional four MI 25 attack helicopters in November 2015.

The Afghan forces do have other helicopters, but they tend to be unfit for Badakhshan’s mountainous terrain and high altitudes, or are unable to deliver the precision targeting necessary to avoid the risk of mass civilian casualties. The military, for instance, has MI17s transport helicopters that have been retrofitted so they can also fire rockets, but they have a very limited precision and firing range. The two-dozen ND 530s aircraft that were provided by the US cannot operate in Badakhshan, because their engines do support high altitudes.

Throughout the last couple of centuries, the way foreign authors, both novelists and scholars, have portrayed Afghans has had an impact on how Afghanistan itself is perceived. One such writer, a bestseller in his day, although now less well known, is the 1920s-30s fantasy and adventure writer, Robert E Howard. His novels stand out, says Fabrizio Foschini, for the author’s fascination with Afghans and their land as the embodiment of “a harsh, violent and forbidding environment which shaped true men.”

All foreigners remember the literature that influenced them when they were first becoming acquainted with Afghanistan, from Kipling’s Arithmetic on the Frontier – the “ten-rupee jezail” poem – and his novel Kim to some more or less recent travelogues and scholarly monographs. For those outside Europe, there have been other literary works as well (see our previous dispatch here). Since 1979 when Afghanistan hit the headlines, and during subsequent foreign military interventions, ‘Afghan literature’ has largely been standardised throughout the world. For today’s would-be specialists, virtually every single piece of colonial literature on Afghanistan has been reprinted and published.

How about those who had the good fortune of visiting Afghanistan when it was at peace, between the 1950s and 1970s – the many Americans who happened to come, whether they were expat engineers and teachers or simply travellers? What were they likely to have read about the country they were visiting? The usual staple of Victorian officers’ tales and diplomats’ accounts, which were the average European visitor’s introduction to the country? Possibly, but other reads were also available, including Afghan stories by one of the foremost contributors to the best-selling, American, pulp fiction magazine, Weird Tales – Robert E Howard. (1) The creator of famous standards of fantasy fiction and horror stories, such as Conan the Barbarian and Solomon Kane, Howard frequently used Middle Eastern and Central Asian settings for his short stories. From these stories, his predilection for Afghanistan and the Afghans is quite apparent. (2)

The perfect cradle for heroes

So why Afghanistan? Howard was a keen reader of historical novels and geographic explorations. What probably got him interested in what he termed the “outlands of the world”, stretching between Central Asia and India, was their seclusion, and preservation from the type of civilisation –modern, 20th century Western – he despised the most. According to Howard, the world could best be understood by a notion of: ‘the more civilised, the more dull’. He considered the ‘savage Afghan highlanders’ natural born heroes. For him, Afghans as a race were, by birth, endowed with all those qualities that Howard’s Americans – or, less frequently, British – heroes had only acquired because they were outstanding individuals, either through the resurgence of some ancient blood flowing through their veins or through painstaking exercise and experience of life in the wild. (3)

Let us take Francis Xavier Gordon, alias El Borak, the most famous and frequent protagonist of Howard’s tales set between Constantinople and Benares. When not riding across hills on the trail of some villain, he lived in Kabul with his ‘family’ of trusted Afghan helpers. This stern and upright Texan adventurer simply could not feel at home anywhere other than Afghanistan. According to Howard, Afghanistan was a blank spot on the world map, a non-colonised space constantly at the centre of intrigues between international powers and mysterious sects, where an oriental despot ruled freely, far from the tight grasp and stultifying rules of democracy and where fierce tribes roamed and feuded among themselves, free from the control of that very despot. The country provided a Howardian hero a real and contemporary environment in which to exist and act. Early 20th century Afghanistan was, for Howard, a country for real men and real adventure. Its idealised Afghan type satisfied Howard’s need for reckless yet honour-bound characters.

In fact, if Howard’s El Borak stories (and those centred around a few other protagonists) read like a catwalk of eastern nationalities – especially those with exotic resonance and potential for stereotyped rendering, thus featuring Sikhs, Mongols, Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Druze, Yezidis, Turkmen, Kirghiz, Uzbeks and Persians, often appearing all together on stage – Afghans seemed to hold a special place in the heart of the writer and that of his heroes, appearing regularly as the latters’ sidekicks.

Without delving too deeply into Howard’s racial (and often borderline racist) categorisations that seem to have led him to think of Indo-European Afghans as the most natural allies for his white heroes, it is safer to interpret his choice as based on the ‘heroic’ nature of Afghanistan and its inhabitants. In many ways, the everlasting ‘Frontier in the East’ seems to have made up for the loss of Howard’s own frontier, America’s Old West, with its inhabitants being ascribed all the manly virtues and values that he believed characterised the American frontiersmen, pioneers and Indians alike, values that Howard considered forsaken, much to his chagrin, by 20th century Americans. As Howard would have it: “Man’s treachery is balanced by man’s loyalty, at least in the barbaric hills where civilised sophistry has not crept in with its cult of time-serving.”

The characters: heroes, sidekicks and villains

Howard’s white heroes in Afghanistan do not just go native. Rather, in Howard’s world they are already ‘native’ on the inside, through some pristine genetic heritage. Once in their new setting they become almost more native than the locals themselves. They are often characterised as being close to the landscape in which they live, with actions that are driven by a vital force derived in part from their essence, in part from the environment they inhabit. Indeed, adjectives like “primordial,” “instinctive” and “elemental” are among the most recurrent in Howard’s writing.

What of the real ‘natives,’ then? Allies or opponents as ascribed by circumstance or opportunity: sometimes sworn friends, occasionally cruel foes, one feels that the Afghans are inherently close to Howard’s Yankee heroes – whose physical qualities and mindsets were often likened to those of the Afghans, especially in the case of El Borak Gordon. The only major difference that Gordon displays, in comparison to his Afghan friends, is that they are sometimes affected by that “invincible Oriental characteristic” – fatalism – while he is always in control of what happens.

Although treated sympathetically, most Afghan characters in El Borak’s adventures are stereotyped to the point of being dull masks. That is at least true for his followers: his right hand, a burly and redoubtable Afridi warrior named Yar Ali Shah, hides behind grumpy remarks his almost motherly concern for Gordon’s welfare; the other members of the retinue just display their lethal efficiency and pride in serving their legendary chief and are for the rest mainly concerned with their family feuds and honour. Only a few are given some individual characterisation, like one Khoda Khan, who would even become the hero of a separate adventure by Howard, Names in the Black Book, an unlikely detective story set in San Francisco’s Chinatown, where the Afghan warrior annihilates a sect of Mongolian gangsters led by a diabolical super-villain very much like Fu Manchu.

Occasionally, it is the unlikely allies that El Borak makes along the path of Howard’s short but convoluted plots that offer more complex psychological portraits. Such is the case of Alafdal, a portly Waziri outlaw who idly dreams of becoming the ruler of Rub el Harami, a bandit town somewhere in the middle of the wasteland between Kabul and Herat, but lacks the determination to live his ambition – until he meets El Borak and becomes involved in his plans. This makes his dream come true, albeit only fleetingly, but ultimately causes his downfall and death. When El Borak admits feeling regret for the trouble he caused, Alafdal remarks, with dignity, that this single moment of glory has been worth all the rest.

As for the foes, they are mostly foreigners: satanic European adventurers with dreams of empire-building who, for their own purposes, stir the locals’ religious fanaticism and lust for plunder. They, in fact, tend to typically be eastern Europeans: a Magyar called Hunyadi, ironically bearing the name of the saviour of Vienna from the Ottoman siege of 1683, appears as a renegade leading an army of Turkish criminals; Konaszevski, a Cossack, is acting as the mastermind of the revival of the Assassins’ sect with a view to influencing the Great Game. When Afghans are the foes, their motives are generally more reasonable: tribal feuds or personal revenge and hatred of El Borak or the other Howardian heroes.

This second type of opponent is featured in the plot that underlies one of Howard’s best El Borak stories: Hawk of the Hills. No sectarian thugs or spies here; rather, two conflicting Afghan tribes resorting to an array of tactics, alliances and levers to get the best of their opponents. The result is a gritty, convincingly modern rendering of an Afghan armed dispute, craftily narrated through the eyes of an external observer, a British political agent sent to mediate, who instead ends up caught in the machinations of rival factions.

The geographical and historical setting

Where did Howard get his knowledge of the region? He did not go to Afghanistan. His readings surely went beyond King of the Khyber Rifles by fellow adventure writer Talbot Mundy, though this was certainly one of his chief sources of inspiration. His reliance on British colonial sources is apparent by his familiarity with the names of the Pashtun tribes living just beyond the Durand Line; he is much less precise or varied when it comes to groups living inside Afghanistan itself.

References to the Great Game’s canons are inevitable throughout Howard’s vast production of Afghan stories. With a (most likely) unintended ironic twist, Kipling’s (and long before him, Elphinstone’s) comparison of the Afghan tribesmen with the Scottish Highlanders is repeated, only this time it is said by a British observer about the ‘Afghanised Yankee’ El Borak. Typical plot situations, like that of the intercepting of documents aimed at stirring a tribal revolt against the British (reminding one of the Silk Letter Conspiracy of 1916) or of rendezvous and duels in the middle of nowhere between western and eastern European rival agents (à la Burnes vs Vitkevic), are often reproduced.

Descriptions of the Afghan landscape tend to be instrumental in explaining how its harshness affects the minds and bodies of its inhabitants. These descriptions tend to be incredibly detailed, almost verbose. The rocks, boulders, defiles, caverns, crags and cracks of the Afghan Frontier are spatially positioned in the writing with such precision, as was often the case with Howard, that his aim seems to be to project his readers inside a three-dimensional reality, or to pave the way for future generations of role-players.

Recognisable historical characters are few. One is the Afghan amir to whom El Borak is said to act “as unofficial advisor, counsel, ambassador and secret service department.” As mentioned, Gordon’s adventures are set in the years immediately preceding the First World War, corresponding with the middle of the reign of Amir Habibullah (1901-1919). That the amir of El Borak’s stories is modelled on Habibullah can also be assumed by Howard’s statement that El Borak’s character was first developed when he was only ten years old, which would be around 1916. (4) As an informed reader, he will probably not have missed the demise of the Afghan king a few years later, and the suspicion that his murder had been caused by his pro-British stance. The amir in the story Three-Bladed Doom is qualified as a “friend of the English” and is further described (in Sons of the Hawk) as “wearing his European garments as if born to them, but with the sharp, restless eyes of a man who knows he is a pawn between powerful rivals.”

Howard’s Afghanistan of today

How should we read Howard’s stories now, against the background of an Afghanistan that different generations of more recent readers have got to know – that is, the post-1979, post-1992 and post-2001 country?

Of course, one can indulge in finding parallels between Howard’s mysterious sects of fanatics hidden in the no-man’s land between the territories of the amir and the British and the similarly international and secret organisations that found shelter and established their bases there in more recent times.

But more subtle and striking are hints, which Howard may have taken from British reports on the Frontier, of some age-old characteristics of conflict. He describes how ambitious leaders and feuding clans tried to inveigle the ruler of Kabul or even foreign powers into their petty conflicts; at the same time, the leaders and clans were being inflamed by the delivery of weapons by agents of those same foreign powers who were always interested in disrupting trade and tranquillity in each other’s realms. That sounds still – or, better, once again – a rather realistic sketch of actual events.

Finally, Howard’s idealisation of Afghanistan as a lawless land where everything is possible and where “Western warriors settle the destiny of the East between them” has taken a grim turn in the re-enactment made by a new class of adventurers. Arms and drugs smuggling, private militias loyal to foreign money and to their own list of scores to be settled, plenty of occasions to raise oneself above the crowd in murky ways and many more to suddenly fall and be trampled on – all could feature in a Howard tale as in nowadays Afghanistan. Maybe quite a few contemporaries – from the obscurest private contractor to Major Jim Gant – would fit the early twentieth century author’s stories, each living his own weird tale in an imagined, or just misrepresented, frontier.

(1) Weird Tales was America’s most influential pulp fiction magazine, active mainly between the 1920s and 1950s (with later incarnations). It has hosted – and frequently launched – authors of the calibre of HP Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch and even Tennessee Williams. Its influence on the development of genres such as horror or ghost stories, ‘swords and sorcery’ fantasy and science fiction in the 20th century has been considerable.

(2) Despite his short life (1906-1936) and writing span, Howard was a prolific writer. He wrote more than 400 stories of various lengths on subjects ranging from horrors close to his friend Lovecraft’s material, to vivid accounts of boxing matches. A recent anthology of Howard’s stories set in Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Middle East is now available: El Borak and other desert adventures (Del Rey, 2010). Containing a valuable essay about the “Gunslingers of the Wild East,” it offers some of Howard’s best ‘Eastern’ stories (others are available online). There are also dramatic black and white drawings – albeit with a lack of precision from the illustrator, who has portrayed all characters in Bedouin or Kurdish dress.

(3) Howard was strongly influenced by the racial theories developing in his time. He was always very specific about the racial roots and phenotypes of his main characters – usually portraying his protagonists as self-conscious breeds of ‘Black Irish’ (a term current at the time) and Scottish descent, not unlike the descent he claimed for himself.

(4) Howard probably started to develop the character of El Borak after reading King of the Khyber Rifles by Mundy, first published in 1916.

Those providing health care in contested areas in Afghanistan say they are feeling under increasing pressure from all sides in the war. There have been two egregious attacks on medical facilities in the last six months: the summary execution of two patients and a carer taken from a clinic in Wardak by Afghan special forces in mid-February – a clear war crime – and the United States bombing of the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz in October 2015, which left dozens dead and injured – an alleged war crime. Health professionals have told AAN of other violations, by both pro and anti-government forces. Perhaps most worryingly, reports AAN Country Director Kate Clark, have been comments by government officials, backing or defending the attacks on the MSF hospital and Wardak clinic.

Summary Executions in Wardak

The clinic in Wardak that was targeted in February 2016 was run by the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan. It was founded in 1980s, one of the NGOs that emerged in response to the Soviet invasion. It currently has more than 5000 staff, almost all Afghan, and works in 14 provinces, running large education and health programmes. It has run this clinic in Tangi Sayedan in Daimirdad district of Wardak province for more than fifteen years. The clinic has 10 beds and 23 staff, including a doctor and a midwife. It is the only medical institution in the area: the nearest hospital is a one and a half to two hours drive away.

According to the Swedish Committee (with many details also confirmed by UNAMA), at about two in the morning on 18 February 2015, staff at the clinic found themselves in the middle of an operation by Afghan government and international forces to clear Taleban from the area which included the use of air strikes. Afghan special forces raided several homes, including two belonging to clinic staff – an ambulance driver and a cook. Members of their families were tied up.

After that, Afghan forces, including Afghan women soldiers, entered the clinic itself where they beat staff, accusing them of “treating Taleban.” They searched the various buildings on the compound, including the specially built quarters of the midwife and her husband. When they entered the men’s ward, they dragged out two of the patients – one, staff said, who was under 18 – and a boy who was looking after them. They took them to a nearby shop. Twenty minutes later, staff said, they heard gunshots. The three had been killed. (1)

Staff also reported that when the special forces had finished searching the clinic, they forcibly took the doctor from the clinic to use as a shield when they searched nearby buildings.

As the military operation came to an end, the various forces on the ground gathered together and a helicopter landed and picked them up. Both the Swedish Committee and UNAMA reported witnesses saying the foreign forces were involved in the wider operation, but did not enter the clinic. These witnesses included two medical staff who said English was spoken and that some of the soldiers had been wearing ‘foreign’ uniforms. The US military is the only international force with a combat operation in Afghanistan. It seems most likely the foreign soldiers were American Special Operations Forces, who have previously been known to conduct operations in the area. However, this has not been confirmed.

The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan has reported a drop in the numbers of patients coming to the clinic since the raid. People “dare not seek medical care,” said Country Director Jorgen Holmstrom.

NATO told AAN the Afghan government was conducting an investigation (although the deputy presidential spokesman could not confirm this). NATO also said it was conducting a “preliminary inquiry.” It is not clear why NATO, which has a non-combat mission, Resolute Support, would be answering for or indeed investigating what would appear to have been an operation involving the US military in its ‘can be combat’ Freedom Sentinel Mission, but such fudging of the two missions has been apparent from January 2015 when they were launched (see AAN analysis here).

Government reactions

Afghan government reactions to the news of the Wardak killings came largely at the provincial level, from officials who saw no problem in those they believed were Taleban – wounded or otherwise – being taken from a clinic and summarily executed. Head of the provincial council, Akhtar Muhammad Tahiri, was widely quoted (for example here), saying: “The Afghan security forces raided the hospital as the members of the Taliban group were being treated there.” Spokesperson for the provincial governor, Toryalay Hemat, said, “They were not patients, but Taliban,” and “The main target of the special forces was the Taliban fighters, not the hospital.” Spokesman for Wardak’s police chief, Abdul Wali Noorzai, said “Those killed in the hospital were all terrorists,” adding he was “happy that they were killed.”

Yet, the killings were a clear war crime. The Laws of Armed Conflict, also known as International Humanitarian Law, give special protection to medical facilities, staff and patients during war time – indeed, this is the oldest part of the Geneva Conventions. The Afghan special forces’ actions in Wardak involved numerous breaches: forcibly entering a medical clinic, harming and detaining staff and killing patients. (2) The two boys and the man who were summarily executed were, in any case, protected either as civilians (the caretaker clearly, the two patients possibly – they had claimed to have been injured in a motorbike accident) or as fighters who were hors d’combat (literally ‘out of the fight’) because they were wounded and also then detained. (3) Anyone who is hors d’combat is a protected person under International Humanitarian Law and cannot be harmed, the rationale being that they can no longer defend themselves. It is worth noting that, for the staff at the clinic to have refused to treat wounded Taleban would also have been a breach of medical neutrality: International Humanitarian Law demands that medical staff treat everyone according to medical need only. (4)

That the Wardak provincial officials endorsed a war crime is worrying enough, but their words echoed reactions from more senior government officials to the US military’s airstrikes on a hospital belonging to the NGO Médecins Sans Frontières on 3 October 2015. Then, ministers and other officials appeared to defend the attack by saying it had targeted Taleban whom they said were in the hospital (conveniently forgetting that, until the fall of Kunduz city became imminent when the government evacuated all of its wounded from the hospital except the critically ill, the hospital had largely treated government soldiers). The Ministry of Interior spokesman, for example, said, “10 to 15 terrorists were hiding in the hospital last night and it came under attack. Well, they are all killed. All of the terrorists were killed. But we also lost doctors. We will do everything we can to ensure doctors are safe and they can do their jobs.” (5)

MSF denied there were any armed men in the hospital. However, even if there had been, International Humanitarian Law would still have protected patients and medical staff: they would still have had to have been evacuated and warnings given before the hospital could have been legally attacked (for more on this, see AAN analysis here).

Earlier this month there was another government raid on an NGO medical clinic, this time by the NDS in Baghlan province on 6 March. Members of the NDS questioned staff as to why they were operating in ‘Taleban territory’ and confiscated several items of medical equipment and material. The NGO, which has permission from the Ministry of Public Health to operate the clinic, spoke to ministry officials and others and succeeded in getting an assurance from the NDS that they would be allowed to continue operating. As of now, however, the confiscated medical equipment has still not been returned.

What the health providers say

AAN has spoken to a number of heads of agencies who provide health care in contested areas to try to gauge how the situation on the ground was (they spoke on condition of anonymity). All said it was worsening. “General abuses against medical staff and facilities are on the rise from all parties to the conflict,” said one head of agency, while another said, “We have a good reputation with all sides, but we have still had threats from police, army and insurgents.” The head of a medical NGO described the situation as “messy, really difficult”:

All health facilities are under pressure. We have had some unpleasant experiences, The ALP [Afghan Local Police] are not professional, not disciplined. If the ALP or Taleban take over a clinic, we rely on local elders [to try to sort out the situation]. We are between the two parties.

He described the behaviour of overstretched Afghan special forces as “quite desperate,” adding, “They are struggling, trying to be everywhere and get very excited when there’s fighting.” Most of them, he said, were northerners speaking little or no Pashto, which can make things “difficult for our clinics in the south.”

The head of another agency listed the problems his staff are facing:

We have seen the presence of armed men in medical facilities, turning them into targets. We have seen violations by the ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces], damage done to health facilities that were taken over as bases to conceal themselves and fight [the insurgents] from. We have seen checkpoints located close to health centres. Why? So that in case of hostilities, forces can take shelter in the concrete building. We have seen looting. We have seen ANSF at checkpoints deliberately causing delays, especially in the south, including blocking patients desperately needing to get to a health facility. We can never be certain that [such a delay] was the cause of death, but we believe it has been.

He said his medical staff had been threatened by “ANSF intervening in medical facilities at the triage stage, forcing doctors to stop the care of other patients and treat their own soldiers, in disregard of medical priorities.” Less commonly, but more dangerously for the doctors themselves, he said, was the threat of Taleban abduction. He described a gathering of surgeons in which all reported having been abducted from their homes at least once and brought to the field to attend wounded fighters “with all the dangers you can imagine along the road.” He said the surgeons were “forced to operate without proper equipment and forced to abandon their own patients in clinics because the abduction would last days.”

Locally, medical staff often try to mitigate threats from both government forces and insurgents by seeking protection first from the local community. One head of agency described their strategy:

When we open a clinic, our first interlocutors are the elders. Everyone wants a clinic in their area, but we decide the location and make the elders responsible for the clinic… They have to give us a building – three to four rooms. All those who work in the clinic – the ambulance driver, the owner of the vehicle, everyone – come from the area. We also need the elders to deal with the parties… If the ALP or Taleban take over clinic, we always start with the elders [who negotiate with whoever has taken over the clinic].

However, this tactic puts a burden on community elders who may not be able to negotiate if the ANSF, ALP or insurgents are also threatening them.

Dealing with the government…

In terms of threats from the ANSF, agencies also lobby in Kabul to try to ensure forces in the field respect their medical neutrality. Results are mixed. One field coordinator said everyone at the higher levels talks nicely about International Humanitarian Law, but the “fine words” do not translate into respect for medical facilities by the ANSF in the field. Another reported improvements in getting the wounded through checkposts – where there had previously been long delays – after the Ministry of Interior issued a letter to police and ALP to respect the wounded and not block or delay medical transports. The head of a health NGO, however, said the ANSF were still blocking the movement of patients and medical supplies and detaining medical staff at checkposts. Another country director said, “Lots of support from provincial police commanders has led to a decrease in incidents” in one province they worked in, while in another, the problems continued.

Getting clear top level support for medical staff working in areas of conflict should not be too difficult, given that three of the four ministries and agencies are led, or have been led until recently, by former humanitarians. Massum Stanakzai, acting minister of defence, used to run one of the largest Afghan NGOs, AREA; it was the first agency to start mapping civilian casualties, in early 2002. National Security Advisor Hanif Atmar was with Norwegian Church Aid and the International Rescue Committee. Both men were also members of the steering committee of ACBAR, the body which brings together and represents NGOs working in Afghanistan. Former NDS chief, Rahmatullah Nabil (who stood down in December 2015) used to work with the UN’s refugee agency, the UNHCR. It is scarcely imaginable these men would not know about the ANSF’s legal duty to protect medical facilities and respect medical neutrality.

Yet, there was a general feeling among the health providers AAN spoke to that some members of the government and ANSF do actually believe wounded Taleban in clinics are lawful targets and that clinics and doctors should not be treating them – and if they are, these are good places to find Taleban. One provider said government officials had discussed with them the possibility of “locating two people in emergency places and triage areas to check and control the identities of patients and arrest armed opposition.” The consequences of such a move would, he said, be to “deter patients from coming for treatment or [encourage them] to leave at the ‘stabilisation stage’ [rather than wait for a medical discharge].” He also said it would increase the likelihood of surgeons being abducted to treat wounded fighters.

Having soldiers or police posted inside clinics – like putting checkposts near them – would inevitably taint the perception of a medical provider’s neutrality; it is this neutrality that forms the basic protection for health workers, allowing them to work in the most contested areas because they are known to accept wounded members of any armed force or group. Members of the general population might also be deterred from seeking treatment if they fear being mistaken for a Taleb or being detained in order to put pressure on a relative who is identified with the Taleban. A drop in general patient numbers, for example, was seen in the aftermath of the Wardak killings.

… and international forces

All of those who spoke to AAN said they had also been deeply alarmed by the US airforce’s bombing of the MSF hospital in Kunduz in October 2015, which killed 42 and injured 43 people at the hospital – staff, patients and caretakers. The US has claimed the attack was a mistake, but health providers said they found the US explanation – a long series of human and technical errors – “unbelievable.” They wondered if a ‘real’ explanation of the attack would ever be forthcoming. The US has still not released a promised redacted version of its internal investigation which was completed in November 2015. Both MSF and UNAMA continue to call for an independent, transparent investigation. AAN has also questioned  the US explanation and pointed out that, even though the US denied the air strike on the hospital was intentional, its account still points to breaches of International Humanitarian Law.

The health providers found two aspects of US strike on the hospital particularly alarming. Firstly, the US had targeted the hospital despite having its GPS coordinates. Secondly, the point of contact the military had given MSF proved useless in stopping the air strikes when they were underway. Not surprisingly, they feared more bombings of medical facilities. Some were now working harder to try to find the right contact within the US military, but reported difficulties. They explained that what used to be a fairly transparent system – under ISAF and the US military’s counter-terrorism Enduring Freedom mission – now feels opaque and obstructive.

The statistics

The experiences of health providers – clinics overrun and used as military bases, clinics raided, ambulances delayed, doctors abducted and staff threatened – are backed up by the gathered data. UNAMA tracked an increase in attacks and other “conflict-related incidents” deliberately targeting medical facilities and staff in 2015 – from both pro-government and opposition forces. There was an increase in searches, threats and intimidations against health workers by pro-government forces in 2015 compared to 2014. Those searches included ones by Afghan special forces supported by international military forces on clinics in Helmand and Logar provinces.

Incidents in 2015 perpetrated by what UNAMA calls ‘anti-government elements’ saw a 47 per cent increase compared to 2014, 31 incidents compared to 14. Helping push the numbers up on the ‘anti-government’ side were the actions of Daesh, which has pursued a campaign against clinics and medical workers in areas under its control in Nangarhar (over the past 10 months, these have included parts of Kot, Achin, Nazian, Deh Bala and Bati Kot districts). The number of incidents in Nangarhar, most of them perpetrated by Daesh, represented nearly one third of all attacks and threats against health and health-related personnel in 2015 by all parties to the conflict. In November of that year, Daesh ordered the closing of public health clinics and schools and, according to David Mansfield, told healthcare professionals and teachers that, although they could work privately, they would be punished if they accepted a government salary. UNAMA reported 11 clinics having to close after threats and intimidation of staff, looting of medical equipment (seven incidents) and the extortion of a month’s salary (three incidents).

As Mansfield put it, Daesh has breached the normal Afghan ‘rules of war’:

… Daesh are understood [by Nangarharis] to have broken local mores with their brutality and their failure to recognise the needs of the local population, including with the closure of schools and clinics, and their prohibition of the production and trade of opium and marijuana.

In response to Daesh, the Taleban in Nangarhar have reacted with a pragmatic attempt to distance themselves from the new group, trying to portray themselves as ‘community minded’ by supporting clinics, schools, NGOs and opium production, building roads and even, says Mansfield (AAN has reporting of this in Khogiani district following the recapture of areas by the Taleban from Daesh), easing off their usual threats against families with members in the ANSF. Generally, although the Taleban have targeted other government workers, especially those in the justice sector and sometimes also the education sector, clinics and medical staff have been exempted from their range of targets.

The long view 

Afghans have seen a great deal of brutality since 1978, but generally the parties to the various phases of the conflict have respected health professionals and recognised that targeting them is self-defeating – because their fighters or soldiers or the civilians they claim to represent also need treatment. The deliberate, systematic targeting of health professionals and facilities has only really been seen by Soviet and PDPA government forces in the 1980s. They targeted those giving health-care in mujahedin-controlled areas, in the belief that anyone treating ‘the enemy’ was also the enemy. At the time, the ICRC was forbidden from treating victims of the conflict in Afghanistan and had to establish surgical hospitals in Peshawar and Quetta with facilities at the border that they transported patients from. As the United Nations Mapping Report, which brings together all published war crimes reporting on the Afghan conflict before 2002, said, “Many victims, of course, never reached those border posts [and] died or were permanently disabled due to the lack of swift, on-the-spot treatment.” Afghan doctors and foreign NGOs did establish clinics in rural areas held by the mujahedin, but state and Soviet forces sought to arrest doctors and destroy health facilities: the UN Mapping Report describes the destruction of eleven clinics and hospitals in a series of largely air attacks in 1980, 1981 and 1982. (6)

Speaking to those who worked in the humanitarian sector in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s, all said that, apart from the Soviet occupation, incidents against health workers and facilities had been surprisingly rare. A former director of the Swedish Committee, Anders Fange, who worked in Afghanistan from the 1980s to the 2000s, remembers staff at clinics which his NGO supported being killed and detained by government and Soviet forces. “We had no such problems with the mujahedin,” he said. In the 1990s during the civil war and what he called “the Commanders’ Rule,” he said clinics were largely undisturbed. He remembered a few occasions when Hezb-e Islami tried to take over clinics – mainly in Wardak and Ghazni provinces – and a few hijackings by rogue commanders of cars carrying medicine and equipment for clinics. Given that this was a particularly brutal period with fragmented commands and territories, the list of incidents is remarkably short.

During the late 1990s and before 2001, Fange said there were some problems in Northern Alliance areas with corruption and theft – mostly sorted out, he said, after appeals to Ahmad Shah Massud. “We never had problems with the Taleban – over girl schools sometimes, but not clinics. They even allowed female doctors, providing ‘Islamic principles’ were followed.”

There were always events outside the norm. The Taleban air-force, (7) for example, bombed the hospital in Yakowlang, Bamyan province, on 6 June 2001, the start of their ‘scorched earth’ campaign against Hezb-e Wahdat and civilians who were assumed to support them because of a shared ethnic or sectarian identity (Hazaras and Shia Sayeds). There was also Hezb-e Wahdat’s takeover of ICRC buildings in Mazar-e Sharif to fire at Jombesh positions in adjacent buildings; this was during intra-factional fighting in Mazar in 1998 (involving Wahdat, Jombesh and Jamiat-e Islami). (8) However, such incidents have been relatively rare. (9)

How bad is it today?

Afghanistan is not at the point where health facilities are being systematically and deliberately targeted. This is not Syria or Yemen where hospitals have been bombed and medical neutrality trampled – what MSF has called fighting wars as in “barbarian times.” (It has reported 14 attacks on medical facilities in Syria since the start of 2016 and 94 airstrikes and shelling on facilities it backs in 2015; in Yemen, in the past five months, MSF has had two hospitals, a mobile clinic and an ambulance attacked.)

Yet, for those on the ground in Afghanistan, the situation is already alarming enough. Moreover, as Swedish Committee Country Director Jorgen Holmstrom explained, finding an effective, appropriate response to an atrocity like the killing of the patients and carer in Wardak is difficult, throwing up ethical dilemmas for a health provider:

We are different from other sectors. [The Swedish Committee] is the sole provider of health services in many districts and, with this, we give the right to life. There are other rights, like the right to education, but if we have threats to our schools, we can negotiate and live with lengthy waits [keeping schools closed until the threat is sorted out]. However, we can’t threaten to shut down our clinics.

Because of what they do, health workers feel they have little to no leverage over those with weapons; they are reliant on the ANSF, international military and insurgents to let them get on with their work and respect their humanitarian neutrality. They would like clear statements from the government that medical staff and clinics are protected and clear orders to ANSF field commanders to do this. They would like an end to the taking over of clinics by both government forces and the Taleban. They would also like to see accountability for those violating International Humanitarian Law. At the moment, said one provider, “We see that [violations] are not seriously addressed and are recurring too frequently for the satisfaction of anyone providing or seeking medical attention in this country.”

(1) A fourth person was killed in an air strike that night, hence the confusion over numbers in some of the news reports (some had reported four people summarily executed).

(2) The ICRC’s  database of customary international humanitarian law is “a set of unwritten rules derived from a general, or common, practice which is acknowledged as law.” All of the rules below apply in international and (as the war in Afghanistan is classified) non-international conflicts. The original legal sourcing can be found on the website. The rules applicable to medical personnel and facilities include:

Medical personnel (Rule 25), medical units (Rule 28) and medical transports (Rule 29) “exclusively assigned to medical duties must be respected and protected in all circumstances. They lose their protection if they commit, outside their humanitarian function, acts harmful to the enemy.”

ICRC also gives these rules for the protection of the “wounded, sick and shipwrecked”:

“Whenever circumstances permit, and particularly after an engagement, each party to the conflict must, without delay, take all possible measures to search for, collect and evacuate the wounded, sick and shipwrecked without adverse distinction.” (Rule 109). The wounded, sick and shipwrecked must “receive, to the fullest extent practicable and with the least possible delay, the medical care and attention required by their condition” and with “no distinction… made among them founded on any grounds other than medical ones” (Rule 110). Each party to the conflict must also take “all possible measures to them against ill-treatment and against pillage of their personal property.”

(3) Rule 47 of the ICRC database of customary international humanitarian law says:

Attacking persons who are recognized as hors de combat is prohibited. A person hors de combat is:

(a) anyone who is in the power of an adverse party;

(b) anyone who is defenceless because of unconsciousness, shipwreck, wounds or sickness; or

(c) anyone who clearly expresses an intention to surrender;

provided he or she abstains from any hostile act and does not attempt to escape.

(4) Rule 110 from the ICRC Customary Law data base says: “No distinction may be made” when treating the wounded “on any grounds other than medical ones.” Rule 26  also says that “Punishing a person for performing medical duties compatible with medical ethics or compelling a person engaged in medical activities to perform acts contrary to medical ethics is prohibited.”

(5) Far from condemning the attack, several senior officials explained the strike in ways that sounded like justifications. Acting Defence Minister Massum Stanakzai, for example, told Pajhwok there had been “armed Taleban” in the hospital, “who used it and civilians as a shield so that they could attack the civilians and security forces.” He told the Associated Press:

“That was a place they wanted to use as a safe place because everybody knows that our security forces and international security forces were very careful not to do anything with a hospital,” …adding that a Taliban flag had been mounted on one of the hospital’s walls.… Stanekzai insisted that “the compound was being used by people who were fighting there, whether it was Taliban or ISI or whoever they were,” referring to Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency, long accused by Kabul of supporting the Taliban. “If the fighting was not coming from there, that kind of a mistake will never happen.”

National Security Advisor Hanif Atmar sidestepped a question as to whether the strike on the MSF hospital had been intentional or a mistake. Instead, he placed blame for the attack on Taleban whom he claimed were in the hospital. He also, somewhat bizarrely given that MSF had given their coordinates to the US military and the hospital was a well-established landmark in Kunduz, said the hospital was not well-known (AAN translation –the minister’s comments on MSF come at about 7 minutes in:

It’s not fair to say that they have intentionally bombed civilians or a hospital or a school. Both they and our soldiers are united in our complete commitment to humanitarian law. According to humanitarian law, it’s a war crime. Definitely, it was not intentional. If anyone was intentionally involved in this, it was the terrorists who used the hospital as a base [to fight from] or as a human shield. Unfortunately, at that time there was not complete awareness that it was a hospital.

(6) The UN Mapping Report lists the following attacks by Afghan government or Soviet forces:

– September 1980, an MSF hospital in the “particularly deprived region” of Yakowlang, Bamyan, was looted and destroyed by Soviet troops in September 1980. MSF reported: “There is not a single usable capsule or pill. All that remain, scattered all over the floor, are the medical records, with a file on each patient”;

– Autumn 1980, a small hospital in Laleng west of Kabul was attacked;

– Early 1980, three small hospitals operated by Médecins du Monde were bombed

– 5 November 1981, MiG-27s and armored helicopters bombed the hospital of Aide Médicale Internationale in the Panjshir valley, razing the stone building to the ground;

– 5 November 1981, MI-24 helicopters razed the hospital of MSF in Jaghori, Ghazni;

– November 6 1981, three helicopters destroyed a dispensary of Aide Médicale Internationale in Nangarhar province;

– November 1981, the MSF dispensary in Waras in Hazarajat was attacked;

– 14 March 14, 1982, a new hospital established by MSF in Jaghori, Ghazni was bombed.

One of the doctors working in the Panjshir, Dr Laurence Laumonier of Aide Médicale Internationale, told Human Rights Watch (quoted in the UN Mapping Report): 

“After the first time they bombed our hospital in Panjshir,” “I went to see (Panjshir Valley resistance Commander Ahmad Shah) Massoud. I told him we were going to make another hospital and put a red cross on the roof, so they would be sure to know it was a hospital. He told me I was crazy, it would just make it easier for the Russians to bomb it. But I did it anyway, and then the helicopters came and bombed it.”

(7) After the fall of Kabul to the Taleban in 1996 and up till the fall of the Taleban in 2001, both Ahmad Shah Massud and the Taleban had remnants of the old PDPA air force.

(8) Both incidents are described in “Casting Shadows: War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity: 1978-2001 Documentation and analysis of major patterns of abuse in the war in Afghanistan 2005” by the Afghanistan Justice Project. The ICRC incident is on page 108, the Yakowlang bombing on page 150.

(9) The words of one of the health providers AAN spoke to whose agency is working in the east today spoke about possibly changing mores. He said his agency had been working in Afghanistan for 30 years and, during that time, NGOs had become “part of the landscape.” Afghans, generally “know NGOs very well,” he said, but his agency was now “facing a new generation of those claiming to be commanders who don’t know about humanitarian principles.” He was particularly worried about the Tahrik-e Taleban-e Pakistan (TTP), the Pakistani Taleban who were driven over the border after the Pakistani operation in North Waziristan in the summer 2014. “These guys are not so likely to speak to us,” he said. “Every time, there’s an abduction of one of our staff, we hope it’s not the TTP.”

In Helmand in the second half of 2015, the ‘dominos’ started to fall, with successive areas of the province coming under Taleban control. During the United States surge, a line of ‘chiefdoms’ was created, where Afghan National Police (ANP), Afghan Local Police (ALP) and militia commanders managed to consolidate control of local areas. In 2015, these came under pressure and were overrun by the Taleban one by one. Ghost soldiers in the Afghan National Army (ANA) and some disastrous redeployments of key ANP and ALP commanders have weakened government defences while, at the same time, the Taleban have introduced a new military formation, well-equipped and mobile commando-like ‘qet’a’ units. AAN guest author, Rahmatullah Amiri* examines why so much of Helmand has fallen to the Taleban in the last year.

AAN’s first dispatch on Helmand looked at the background to the current crisis, focussing on provincial power dynamics on the government side, the rise of the ALP and militias in key districts and the British deployment, US surge (when 11,000 US troops were sent to Helmand to crush the insurgency – half of all the extra troops) and withdrawal.

The Taleban counter-attack

The Taleban’s post-surge return started in Helmand’s northern areas: in Kajaki, the Qala-ye Gaz area of Gereshk (where the Taleban had had a stronghold for years due to support from the local Ishaqzai tribe), the Malmand area of Sangin (which the Taleban never lost control of, even during the surge), and some areas of northern Musa Qala.

From the north, they targeted Musa Qala’s district centre, which they considered the main threat to them and an important prize to be won. Their first success came in April 2012 when a group of suicide bombers attacked the formidable district police chief, Kumandan Koka, inside the main police station, injuring him seriously and forcing him to leave his post. At the time, local communities did not see any immediate impact on security. In particular, the presence of foreign troops and their role in planning and executing attacks on the Taleban masked the impact of Koka’s absence. His brother, Haji Dost Muhammad, took over his position as police chief. In 2013 and 2014, the Taleban were able to make gains in some areas of the district, but the ANA and ANP’s strong presence across northern Helmand still kept them in check.

It was in mid-2014 that the Taleban carried out their first major attacks against key bases in Musa Qala district. They were unable to capture any. They used up the ammunition for the larger weapons they had captured during those attacks and were running low on supplies and this forced them to change their approach; they started to concentrate on smaller government outposts. They also set their eyes on Nowzad, located to the west of Musa Qala, as it appeared to be an easier target, with the ANP and ANA less strongly entrenched there. The Taleban captured a few key check posts in the Muzrabad area connecting Musa Qala with Sangin district. The Taleban were able to move freely in most of the areas of Musa Qala and could easily advance into other parts of Sangin. In late 2014/early 2015, the Taleban, approaching from Zamindawar in northern Kajaki, crossed the Helmand River and captured the small sliver of southern Kajaki district that was still under the control of the government – with the exception of the district centre. The Taleban used this area south of the Helmand River to connect its fighters with other areas they already held in Musa Qala and Sangin. This led to their first consolidation of territorial control in that part of the province. Now in the north, only Nowzad was still under government control, but small-scale attacks continued in April and May 2015 across the district.

In summer 2015, the Taleban managed for the first time to come dangerously close to taking the district centre of Sangin, which lies to the south of Musa Qala and Kajaki in the north-east of Helmand province. However, their first major victory came on 28 July 2015 when Nowzad’s administrative centre fell to them. In this attack, the Taleban captured an enormous amount of weapons, ammunition cache and vehicles. Word of mouth spread across many areas of northern Helmand about this victory, and within days, the Taleban were gathering in the desert to prepare for a major offensive against Musa Qala centre.

First, in mid-June 2015, the Taleban attacked one of the key bases of the Afghan National Army (ANA) in the district, which is located only one mile away from the district centre. During this attack, the Taleban managed to kill 19 soldiers. This attack, along with the capture of the Nowzad weapons cache, drained ANSF morale, especially the ANA’s.

On the night of 18 June 2015, the Taleban attacked Musa Qala district centre. Most of the troops involved in its defence were ANP. According to a policeman who survived, an ANA commander had suggested a tactical retreat to police chief Dost Muhammad when the Taleban closed in on the main bazaar. He rejected this and accused the ANA commander of not wanting to fight the Taleban. During the attack, the police chief and his deputy Khaksar were shot and injured and had to retreat to Lashkargah. Troops however remained in the ANA main base, known as ‘Roshan Tower’ (it has since been given up, on 21 February 2016, as part of what was called a tactical retreat). The rest of the ANP then retreated so quickly that some policemen were left behind and were either captured or killed by Taleban.

Lack of coordination on the government side and a failure to recognise the significance of previous minor Taleban successes or prepare for a larger onslaught had contributed to the Taleban being able to capture Musa Qala district centre. (See AAN’s then first analysis of this event here.) Haji Dost Muhammad and Khaksar were removed from their positions by Kabul due to their retreat. Their homes were searched after an accusation that they had collaborated with the Taleban and enabled the fall of the district. The Taleban’s capture of Musa Qala also meant they captured more weapons, equipment and ammunition. They thereby replenished their resources.

An attempt by ANA and ALP to recapture the district centre within a week of its fall was unsuccessful and they had to retreat into the main ANA base, which is separated from the district centre by the bed of the Musa Qala River. The riverbed was slowly filling with water after heavy rains in the mountains, which meant another attempt to recapture the district centre became far trickier. The danger was that, if the Taleban counter-attacked, the only way back would be through the now dangerous river. The ANSF advanced from their base, but in order to avoid being trapped on the district centre side of the river left the bazaar area even before the Taleban could try to repel them. Afghan special forces, who arrived a few days after the initial attempt by the ANA and ALP to retake the district centre, had to face an intense two-day fight with the Taleban forces. After the arrival of reinforcements for the Taleban, they were able to force the Afghan special forces out of the bazaar area of Musa Qala.

The patchwork of small chiefdoms controlled by ALP and militia commanders who might each only control a small pockets of population in a manteqa (a small area within a district), where they had recruited and lead local fighters against the Taleban during the surge were coming under threat. The chiefdoms were like dots along a line, from Musa Qala in the north to Gereshk on the ring road and onwards to Marja, forming a more or less continuous corridor of territory that was mostly under pro-government forces’ control. However, in the second half of 2015, these small chiefdoms were overrun one by one.

There were weaknesses on the government side; estimates that 40 per cent or more of the official number of soldiers and police only existed on paper have been made (see here  and here). ‘Ghost soldiers’ were no defence against the Taleban. One US general described the 215 Maiwand Corp as displaying “a combination of incompetence, corruption and ineffectiveness.”

The weakness – and in many places, effective absence – of the ANA was not the only problem. After the surge and particularly after the security transition and withdrawal of foreign forces, the Taleban enjoyed greater freedom to rebuild and expand their networks. Without the threat of air attack, they could now mass in ways that had been perilous before. The insurgents became increasingly able to carry out quick, decisive strikes in strategic areas, intimidating the ALP and small militia commanders who often saw their fighters fleeing their check posts when the Taleban advanced. However, another new strategy introduced by the Taleban in mid-2015, a way of organising their fighting men, also seems to have made a crucial difference on the battlefield.

From mahaz to qet’a: the Taleban’s new strategy

Right after Akhtar Muhammad Mansur took over as the de facto leader of the Taleban following Mullah Muhammad Omar’s secret death in April 2013, he started looking at ways to restructure the Taleban’s military organisation. Up until then, the movement’s forces had mainly been based on the mahaz (front) system. Each mahaz was locally mobilised by a commander and was part of a multi-level hierarchy of district and provincial commanders, ultimately falling under the movement’s military commission. A mahaz in Musa Qala could have about five commanders, with 10 to 30 fighters each. So, a mahaz could have anywhere between 200 and 1000 men in one area. Not all of these would go to the frontline to fight at the same time. For any major Taleban offensive, each mahaz would be asked to contribute men. After the operation, the fighters would go home to their own areas. This approach was often not very effective and was rather expensive to equip and maintain. It meant that there were more men equipped to fight than were participating in the fighting at any one time. It has some advantages in the long run, for example being able to get fresh fighters in rotation. Overall, however, it is costly and inefficient.

The fronts have now been supplemented with a new, more permanent, military-like structure – the qet’a (unit in Dari, Pashto and originally in Arabic). The mahaz system was not entirely dismantled, but it has become less influential as qet’as were assigned to critical districts and areas in addition to the mahaz fighters already present. The long-term plan appears to be to roll the qet’a system out across the entire country. However, right now, only provinces with contested districts seem to have qet’as already in place.

The qet’a system is based on groups of up to 220 fighters with sub-groups of 20 men who operate together. Unlike the mahaz fighters, those in the qet’a are more mobile, often better trained and equipped, and are shifted around within a province or even between provinces to wherever they are most needed. The training is organised on a rotating basis, with 20 fighters at a time receiving a few weeks’ instruction on military strategy and the use of arms, so that when the Taleban capture ANSF weapons or equipment, they are familiar with their use.  The training camps are reportedly mostly around an area called Qala-ye Gaz, an Ishaqzai stronghold in Gereshk district. The current deputy shadow provincial governor, Muzamil, an Ishaqzai from the area is actively supervising operations and training.

Qet’as had been seen even before Nowzad was captured in June 2015 – six to seven qet’a came from other districts of Helmand fought alongside the local mahaz there. According to local sources in Musa Qala, it took the Taleban three days and 800 fighters to capture Nowzad. The Taleban were able to gather a lot of weapons and other equipment, which allowed them to continue fighting in other areas. Members of local ANP forces interviewed for this report mentioned that the Taleban now have ‘Darazkof’ guns – a type of Russian-made sniper rifle officially known as Dragunov, which, along with RPGs and other weapons, they had captured from the ANA. According to the source, the Taleban had not only captured these weapons, but also trained some of their fighters to use them well. With sniper rifles in their arsenals, the Taleban have been able to target ANA bases at long-range by taking out the guard posts on the towers. News of this new tactic by the well-trained qet’as spread quickly among the local population and the ANSF. Famous as ‘sra qet’a’ (Pashto for ‘red unit’), these special sniper groups have had a huge impact on the morale of the ANSF as they feel more vulnerable. Another sign that the qet’as are more organized are that some wear uniform-like outfits, as opposed to traditional local clothing.

Furthermore, in some areas, after the capturing ANA and ANP bases and check posts, the qet’a have been asking locals to dismantle these bases, for example in Marja, as seen here. This systematic dismantling (which the mahaz did not do) prevents the ANSF from being able to quickly re-establish themselves in an area after an initial defeat; the option of quickly re-taking a post is no longer available to them.

The qet’a played a major role in the capture of Musa Qala on 26 August 2015. The fighting brought in units not just from this district, but also from across the province and even from neighbouring Kandahar. Overall, a local source told AAN, at least 2000 fighters from Baghran, Marja, Nadali, Sangin and Gereshk and from outside the province participated in the fight. After they captured Musa Qala, and as the Taliban were advancing on Gereshk and Lashkargah, the stories of the powerful qet’as spread. While many of the tales were exaggerations, they were very effective in dampening the morale of the ANSF fighters.

Given their success in Helmand, the qet’as are now spreading and the Taleban is using them strategically in Kandahar, Zabul and Kunduz – or at least these are the provinces were their presence could be confirmed through interviews with the local population. The Mansur group is behind the qet’a system, thereby, also using this new strategy to prove themselves on the battlefield.

The introduction of the qet’a system in Helmand has not gone completely smoothly, though. The Ishaqzai tribe, that was the leading force in planning the capture of Nowzad in 29 July 2015, captured many items, including weapons, which were collected and brought to the local Taleban leadership. There, these items would be ‘sold’ by the fighters to the leadership. The money received in exchange would then be distributed among the fighters who had participated in the attack. The qet’a fighters from Musa Qala, who had come to support the local mahaz, felt they did not get their fair share. (In the Taleban’s Code of Conduct, or Layha, the section on distributing ‘booty’ is long and complex, suggesting how important and divisive this can be.)

The problems over booty may be a sign of an emerging rivalry between mahaz and qet’a groups. The switch to the new system has upset most of the mahaz leaders who feel bypassed because now almost all the power is concentrated within the new groups – from the qet’a commander down to its fighters. While the new system has proven effective for capturing territory, it marginalises and antagonises the traditional mahaz leaders. Switching to this more conventional military system also runs the risk of defeat by more conventional warfare tactics. The mahaz system was far less vulnerable to air strikes, for example, as only a few fighters from each mahaz would go to the front lines at any one time.

Without US close air support, the ANSF have been more vulnerable to the qet’as. However, air support available to the ANSF is growing again, both from Afghanistan’s own fledgling air force and from the US. This may make it more difficult for the Taleban qet’as to remain successful in the long run.

Counterstrategy: Organising local ‘uprisings’ – ALP commanders

As a reaction to so much of Helmand falling to the Taleban, members of parliament from the province devised a new plan to try to hold back the tide. The new plan looks very much like an old one: arm local communities so that they can become able to defend themselves and their homes. Only the name changes, from ALP to patsunian (uprising forces). With this, Helmand has followed in the footsteps of Ghazni and Kandahar where similar engagements with local communities in critical districts have taken place since 2012 (see AAN reports on Ghazni and Kandahar).

The initiative started in November 2015 in Nawa district in central Helmand. The majority of the local population there are from the Barakzai tribe and have traditionally backed the government. Hundreds of weapons were distributed to newly-hired civilian ‘community forces’, with around 400 men joining the new force. The aim was that they would protect their district, given the inability of the ANSF to do so. Abdul Wadud Popal, a member of parliament from Helmand, appeared to support the initiative, which might also have been, in effect, an attempt to protect Lashkargar.

The government soon expanded this new initiative into Musa Qala. There, the plan was to re-arm the former police commander Haji Dost Muhammad and his former deputy Khaksar who had lost their jobs after the fall of Musa Qala in June 2015. Despite the earlier mistrust of them, Musa Qala presented too much of a challenge to find other leaders, from within or outside the district, to take over the position. Haji Dost Muhammad and Khaksar remained the only key actors who were perceived as being able to operate in the area and effectively stand against the Taleban.

A blow by blow account of how areas and districts came to fall in late 2015 and early 2016

What follows is a detailed account of the ‘dominos’ falling to the Taleban largely since the summer of 2015, taking into account the new Taleban qet’a tactic and the formation of uprising groups. In some cases, we start telling the story a little earlier so that the narrative locally makes sense.

Closing in on Gereshk

Gereshk, the second most populous district in the province, had been relatively secure, but the Taleban had a lucky break there in spring 2015. At the time, they were still ramping up their campaign for control of Nowzad and Musa Qala to the north when, on 1 April, an IED hit the local Greseshk strongman, Commander Hekmatullah, as he drove to a check post. Hekmatullah had often been referred to as the ‘Razeq of Gereshk,’ an allusion to the powerful police chief of Kandahar province who, with ruthless means, had established some sense of security in the city and surrounding areas. Hekmatullah was known for frequently leaving his headquarters in order to go out to fight the Taleban along with his troops. This was also the case on the fateful day in April: he had been on his way to the Zanbuli area (more on this below) to avert a possible Taleban tunnel attack against a post. The ALP later discovered that preparation had indeed been made for such an attack.

Hekmatullah (or Hekmat as he was commonly known) was a Barakzai from the Malgir area of Gereshk and the son of one of the four original strongmen of Helmand, the former army chief turned MP, Ma’alim Mir Wali. Similar to Razeq in Kandahar, Hekmat was known to have complete authority over his men and knew Gereshk like the back of his hand.

In his five years as Gereshk police chief, Hekmat had been able to set up a well-established security cordon around Gereshk’s district centre. He was a graduate of the police academy,but this was not the key to his success, which lay partly in that he was allowed to make decisions with regards to security on his own; he had the political support of his father and had gained the trust of the Ministry of Interior.

According to local interviewees, Hekmat understood that effective leadership of troops is the most important factor in keeping the Taleban out. He preferred to work with local troops and sub-commanders and even ALP commanders, as he knew that they would be dedicated to the protection of the district and treat the local population well. Gereshk became one of the few districts in Helmand where the government actually controlled areas outside the district centre. This included densely populated areas such as the Deh Adam Khan and Malgir manteqas, in the irrigated ‘green zone’ along Helmand River. The ability to control the district was due to Hekmat having set up a network of sub-commanders on the manteqa level. Most notably, Hekmat could rely on Muhammad Wali in Malgir, some 15 kilometres to the southwest of the district centre, and Kamal Aka in Deh Adam Khan, only a few kilometres from Gereshk centre to the east. Kamal Aka had taken up arms against the Taleban after they first threatened him and later kidnapped his son. He kept security well, people said, and did not interfere in their business.

The Taleban tried to capture Malgir four times in 2015. This densely populated agricultural area is strategically important, not only for Gereshk, but for the entire province. It lies on the major southern access road to Gereshk district centre and is also connected to the Babaji area, which is part of Lashkargah district. It is also close to Nadali district. Full control over Gereshk district would give the Taleban access to Kandahar’s Maiwand district (opening up a continuous route between northern Helmand via Maiwand that would allow access to Pakistan. However, the immediate priority for the Taleban appears to have been to get into a position to threaten Lashkargah from the Babaji area.

Hekmat’s local man, Muhammad Wali, had been able to keep the Taleban out of the entire Malgir area. After Hekmat’s death, however, Gereshk’s new police chief, Ismail (by tribe, a Seryani, and from Malgir), switched Muhammad Wali from his post in Malgir to Gereshk district centre. Ismail is the cousin of Ma’alem Mir Wali: Hekmat had been Ma’alem Mir Wali’s son (see our first dispatch on Helmand for details of the strongmen), so Ismail had, in effect, ‘inherited’ the district police chief post when Hekmat was killed.

Muhammad Wali, who was known for his charismatic leadership, was reluctant to leave Malgir where he had been head of the police for almost five years. Local people reported Ma’alem Mir Wali deliberately removed him from Malgir to help his cousin, Ismail, the new district police commander, because he thought some of the ANP and ALP commanders might not listen to Ismail in the same way as they had listened to Hekmat because he was new to the position.

So, at a critical time, Malgir got a new police commander, a man by the name of Naser. Before being assigned to Malgir, Naser had been serving as commander of Spina Posta (Spina check post) on the ring road. He had been appointed to this lucrative position because Hekmat was his relative. After 2009, all the trucks that used to take workers and supplies to the international military Shorabak Base were taxed at this check post. Some say that Naser would make thousands of Afghanis (hundreds of dollars) everyday from illegally taxing the trucks.

The Taleban had failed to take Malgir repeatedly in 2015, but within one day of Naser’s arrival in Malgir, they attacked, and within two days, in mid-October 2015, the Taleban had captured all the posts in the Malgir area. Naser and his men fled to check posts along the main Boghra Wiala (irrigation canal). Even these, they subsequently lost.Today, about 99 per cent of Malgir is under Taleban control; the exceptions are the few check posts between Spin Masjad and Gereshk Bazaar (a distance of roughly 10 kilometres).

One reason for the swift fall was that the new commander, Naser, was not as close to his men as Muhammad Wali had been. Muhammad Wali had supported the checkposts under his command with anything they needed and there was efficient coordination in the defence of the area. The morale of the police was high. While Naser knew the terrain, he was not prepared on day one to lead his men as Muhammad Wali had done. Secondly, and more importantly, Naser came to the job just when the Taleban had probably become too strong for the government to deal with it because of the new qet’a system. It may be that even if Muhammad Wali had not been replaced, Malgir would have fallen.

The next area to come into the sights of the Taleban was Kamal Aka’s ‘chiefdom’ in Deh Adam Khan. Kamal, a local Barakzai, used to be the mirab (water manager, a well-respected job) of the Deh Adam wiala (irrigation canal). One of Kamal’s sons was a Taleban group commander, so many in the area had thought Kamal to be pro-Taleban, but apparently he had no direct connection with them. However, in 2012, for unknown reasons, his son came into a conflict with his fellow Taleban who beat him up. Kamal went after his son’s enemies, detained a couple of them and tied them to a tree, publicly shaming them. The Taleban moved to take revenge, attempted to detain Kamal and attacked his house, but his large family was able to defend the compound. From there on, Kamal launched a private campaign against the Taleban. The community approved of it, as it was a matter of personal honour, not a fight for political or ideological reasons.

During those events, Commander Hekmat (then still alive) repeatedly approached Kamal Aka with an offer to join the ALP. A similar offer came from the Taleban. But a reconciliation attempt with the Taleban failed, and when Kamal lost a brother in renewed fighting, he finally gave in to Hekmat. In 2013, Kamal was appointed head of ALP in the Deh Adam Khan area where he enjoyed the full support of the local communities who had asked him to secure the area.

Closing in on Lashkargah

In the third week of October 2015, right after the Taleban’s capture of large areas of Malgir, the area of Babaji, considered a suburb of Lashkargah city, was successfully attacked by the Taleban. The fall of Babaji was a direct consequence of the fall of Malgir as the two areas share a border – once Malgir had been taken, the Taleban were able to move on Babaji. As Kamal had proven himself a skilled commander, he was ordered by the provincial chief of police of Helmand to go to Babaji to help recapture the area from the Taleban. After initially blocking further Taleban advances and helping secure safe passage for dozens of ANSF under siege, Kamal made a tactical retreat from the area and returned to Deh Adam Khan in late November 2015; in the meantime, in his home area, the Taleban had received enforcements in the form of more qet’as. As of early March 2016, when this dispatch was posted, Babaji was heavily contested. ANSF has been making continuous attempts to retake the area, as the Taleban still appeared to be in control of significant parts of the area.

On 19 December 2015, Kamal Aka had still been able to repel a large Taleban attack on Deh Adam Khan, but his forces suffered many casualties. The situation deteriorated. Kamal Aka had to send his family to Gereshk centre and finally he also had to give in. Kamal Aka knew he would not get any support from Gereshk centre, as he had already experienced this during the first Taleban attack in October. Furthermore, he knew that the few good men he had left would not be able to stand against the Taleban and he was not able to sacrifice any more men – especially if there was no support from the government. Rather than being defeated in battle, he and his men chose to retreat and give up the area – after they were able to evacuate anyone who wanted to flee from the approaching Taleban. Deh Adam Khan fell to the Taleban on 15 January 2016. With Deh Adam Khan under Taleban control, the Afghan government lost an important rural area of Gereshk under the control of their forces. In order to prevent the Taleban to encroach further in the direction of Gereshk district centre from the Deh Adam Khan area, the ANSF established a chain of check posts. On 10 March 2016, the Taleban attacked this chain of check posts know as the Deh Adam Khan front and captured at least one of these key check posts. Some Taleban forces were able to advance to the outskirts of the Gereskh district centre. This has already caused hundreds of families to flee the area, fearing that the ANSF are not able to fight back the Taleban anymore.

The Taleban in Zanbuli

Zanbulai is an area that has never been completely under government or international military control and, since 2006, has seen some of the most intense fighting in Gereshk district. One of the main reasons for this is that it borders Mirmandaw, which is only separated from the Qala-ye Gaz area by the Helmand River and is one of the main insecure areas of Gereshk, never having fully come under government control. Similarly, Qala-ye Gaz , despite numerous operations by international forces in the area, has always remained a Taleban stronghold. The majority of residents of Qala-ye Gaz are Ishaqzai and well-connected with their fellow tribesmen across the district border in Sangin. Since the emergence of the qet’a system, Qala-ye Gaz has become the location of one of the Taleban training camps.

Zanbulai is an area that has never been completely under government or international military control and, since 2006, has seen some of the most intense fighting in Gereshk district. One of the main reasons for this is that it borders Mirmandaw, which is only separated from the Qala-ye Gaz area by the Helmand River and is one of the main insecure areas of Gereshk, never having fully come under government control. Similarly, Qala-ye Gaz , despite numerous operations by international forces in the area, has always remained a Taleban stronghold. The majority of residents of Qala-ye Gaz are Ishaqzai and well-connected with their fellow tribesmen across the district border in Sangin. Since the emergence of the qet’a system, Qala-ye Gaz has become the location of one of the Taleban training camps.

Two villages in Zanbulai, which had ALP units, established with the help of foreign forces, did continue to fight alongside the ANSF in the area. Two commanders, Khalifa and Baqi Mama, were in charge of these villages. The Taleban began their offensive against the two villages on 17 December 2015. During this attack, the Taleban did not only target the ALP fighters, but reportedly deliberately aimed munitions at the local population – inflicting significant civilian causalities. According to local interviewees, the Taleban killed many children, women and elderly men as well as the ALP fighters. Local interviewees believed the Taleban wanted to ‘teach the community a lesson’ to show other communities what happens when they collectively join the ALP. Right before and during the attack, some families fled the Makatab area of Gereshk city, where they are still staying.

Commander Khalifa was killed during the initial attack, but Baqi Mama managed to hide when Taleban captured the villages on 18 December 2015. The following day, according to local interviewees, foreign special forces (reportedly American) carried out a night raid in the area and managed to rescue him and other ALP soldiers who were hiding. Zanbulai is still very much under Taleban control. Together with the attack from the Deh Adam Khan area (see above), the Taleban also advanced towards Gereshk district center from the Zanbulai. However, as of 11 March 2016, the Taleban forces are still fighting to break through to Gereshk centre from the direction of Zanbulai.

When this dispatch was published, ANSF were trying to defend Gereshk on several fronts: Deh Adam Khan and Zanbulai, but also from the direction of Spinmasjid (where the last few checkpost under ANSF were also lost to the Taleban in the beginning of March). Gereshk district center, the second largest populated area in Helmand, is now under greater threat than ever before.

Marja

Marja district also in central Helmand came under pressure after the collapse of Malgir in mid-October 2016, one of the key areas of Gereshk, which neighbours Marja to the north-east. The Taleban had initially planned to take Nadali district first, however, when one of the key commanders from Marja was killed (see below), the Taleban used this opportunity to focus on the presumably now less well-defended Marja district first.

Marja is one of the areas of Helmand, which foreign forces lost many lives and spent millions of dollars regaining control of from the Taleban. It was chosen as the first operation of the surge, in February 2010 and was supposed to be a model for other contested areas in the battle to win communities’ ‘hearts and minds’.

The key local figure in charge of Marja’s defence was Haji Muhammad Asef, from the local Wardak tribe and a former mujahed. He also was active in the District Development Assembly, in which the various elected Community Development Councils come together. When the surge started in late 2009, US forces tried very hard to convince Haji Asef to join the ALP. He refused – until his relationship with Taleban turned sour. In 2011, armed Taleban came to Haji Asef’s area and, by chance, encountered a group of US soldiers. The insurgents asked Haji Asef to hide their weapons, but he refused as he assumed the US soldiers had observed his interaction with the insurgents from afar. Indeed, shortly after the Taleban left the area, the US soldiers retrieved the weapons that the Taleban had dumped, leading to Taleban accusations that Haji Asef had informed on them.

A few weeks later, the insurgents kidnapped Haji Asef’s son. After an attempt to release him through local leaders failed, Haji Asef gathered his relatives, armed them, went to a village where a few Taleban families lived and took some of them hostage himself. When his son managed to escape from the Taleban, Haji Asef also released his hostages, but he eventually also joined the ALP.

Due to his leadership skills, Haji Asef then became head of all ALP units in the district. But as Marja is the home of many different Pashtun tribal groups, naqelin settled there decades ago as a result of the HAVA irrigation scheme, the units were more difficult to unite under a single tribal elder than those in the more homogenous communities in other areas of Helmand. Hence, local ALP commanders under Haji Asef’s command were in charge of the various areas with their distinct communities. The ALP commanders managed to keep the Taleban out of the densely populated areas, but never managed to completely defeat them in the Sistani desert to the west of the population centre. Despite the millions of dollars invested in projects and one of the biggest military operations since the invasion of US forces. Throughout 2013 and 2014, the Taleban initiated many attacks from the desert areas, but failed to make significant gains.

After government officials observed that the ALP in Marja were able to keep the Taleban at bay over a long period of time, they became overconfident and assumed that the local fighters could continue the defence without their commander. In a move similar to the disastrous redeployment of Kamal Aka from Deh Adam Khan to Gereshk, Haji Asef was called, in mid-August 2015, to help fight the Taleban in Nadali district in order to prevent an attack on the direction of Lashkargah. He then came under Taleban attack. During this fighting, his vehicle was shot at and he was injured and died on the way to the hospital. His son was appointed in his place, but did not have the same authority over his fighters.

One week after Asef’s death, the Taleban launched a major attack on the Sistani area of Marja, which is located at the edge of the Sistani desert to the west of the populated areas of the district. Commander Firoza was in charge of this area but, without Asef’s support, had to retreat. The Taleban captured the area and burnt her house. Another part of Sistani, known as Block 9, which was under the authority of another commander, Moto Khan, also fell within days.

After Haji Asef’s death, coordination between the various ALP sub-commanders in Marja broke down and the Taleban met no further significant resistance. ALP members from the area told AAN that the ANP and ANA did put up any fight – many of then offered no resistance and simply retreated. Some interviewees said they believed the ANA had not been able to intervene to fight alongside the ANP and ALP because they were waiting for orders. In the end, the majority of the fighting was done by the ALP units, which had been set up by the foreign forces. Once these ALP units had to face the Taleban attacks alone, they crumbled one by one. It seems the majority of the communities in Marja had only sided with the government or joined the ALP because, during times when there was no fighting, it looked a reasonable economic bet: they would receive development projects and also a salary from the foreign troops. However, the men enrolled in the ALP program had never been tested before in fighting the Taleban.

Another reason why some areas of Marja fell without a fight was the success of Taleban propaganda in promoting the ferocity of the ‘Sra Qet’a’ (the ‘red unit’) who fight under the threatening slogan: “Be captured or die!” Apart from spreading propaganda by word of month, the Taleban used mosque loudspeakers to urge ANSF members to desert their units. According to local interviewees, this propaganda has been particularly strong in Nadali, Sangin and Marja, where the announcements included the following: “Leave your weapons and your positions and come to us and we will forgive you.” This propaganda was in some areas underscored by Taleban snipers reportedly shooting at ANP watch towers with precision weapons – killing several ANP with shots to the head from a distance. Apparently, the sniper rifles had been captured during the takeover of ANA bases in Helmand and the qet’a members had received training on how to use them. ALP members, presumably in the greatest danger, were also encouraged to desert their units with the promise of safe passage. Many of the ALP foot soldiers were told by the Taleban to disappear from their ALP units without saying a word, turn off their phones and either leave the area or return to their homes.

Since November/December 2015, the Taleban have gained significant influence in Marja, in particular, in terms of moving through the district and attacking ANSF positions in most areas, the exception being the few kilometres of road connecting the district centre with Lashkargah (from the Bolan area to the Kemp area), the district centre and some other areas. Since the beginning of February 2016, the Taleban have also been able to tax local communities. Although many locals had already left the district, Taleban have been able to collect 30 to 40 million Pakistani rupees (about 281,000 to 381,000 US dollars) from local residents as tax of their lands (estimate published on Salam Watandar website no longer accessible). These funds support the insurgency fighters in Marja and the rest of the province, allowing the Taleban to continue to try to chip away at the last areas of the district still held by the government.

Nadali

Whereas lack of coordination and cooperation between the various ANSF troops, the ALP, the local community and the government led to the fall of Marja, in Nadali, which came under attack first, the situation has been different. The network of commanders and elders collaborated with the ANSF to ensure that the little chiefdoms in Nadali remained intact and could therefore contribute effectively to the defence of the district as a whole. After the fall of Marja, the Taleban wanted to storm Nadali district centre, but since the Nadali chief of police coordinated with all the local commanders ahead of the Taleban attack, government forces were able to withstand the attacks (coming from two directions, from Marja in the north and from desert areas to the west). However, the Taleban have managed to menace government-controlled areas.

It was in late October 2015 that the Taleban turned their attention to Nadali for the first time. At this point, they were not trying to capture Marja, because they knew communities there would not offer any support, while, they believed, a few villages in Nadali were sympathetic. In late October 2015, they planned an attack on the Loya Manda area of Nadali. Overnight, they sent fighters from several different directions and in the morning, launched attacks on ANP, ALP and ANA check posts in a coordinated effort. They were able to capture this area. The ANSF left in a tactical retreat – after experiencing heavy casualties with 17 men dead.

After Loya Manda, the Taleban also managed to capture Kofaka, which borders the, by then, already Taleban-controlled Babaji suburb of Lashkargah. In addition, Taleban captured the nearby villages of 31 Gharbi (where Haji Mohammad Asef from Marja was killed) and 31 Sharqi (these names make reference to the block set up of the area), located eight kilometres to the northeast of Nadali district centre. Next, the Taleban attacked the Changir area to the north of 31 Gharbi and 31 Sharqi. Then, after first capturing the Domandi area they reached Shawal to the northwest of Nadali district centre. They were able to consolidate their control in Shawal. By the beginning of November 2015, the Shawal and Changir area represented the new front line.

One of the key commanders of Shawal is Muhammad Sadiq (an Ishaqzai from Nadali) who is in charge of two out of the three sub-divisions in the area. Despite only being 28 years old, Muhammad Sadiq is recognized as a great fighter, as he has been fighting the Taleban almost every night for the last four months. The person controlling the third area is Nasim, a Nurzai from Nadali. He has approximately 15 men under his command. He has also been fighting the Taleban for the past three months. His brother was Hayat Khan, who had six ANP check posts in another area in Nadali, but was killed in an IED attack six months ago. Muhammad Sadiq and Nasim worked closely with the local head of the district council, Nabi Khan (a Sulaimankhail from Zarghoun Kalay). In addition, Nabi Khan also supported these two commanders. They are considered the heroes of Nadali for their efforts in pushing back against the Taleban front line because although both commanders are from the district, their home villages are not in the areas where they have been fighting so successfully. The local populations in Shawal and Changir (known locally as the north front), but also in the other areas listed below, are reportedly very concerned about what would happen if any of the commanders get killed. This would certainly mean that the areas would then fall to the Taleban, a local respondent stated, as there would not be enough time to find another commander to take over the defense.

To the west of the Nadali district centre, the ANSF have been fighting to keep the Taleban out for the last four months. This fighting has taken place along a 72 kilometre long front line, which has been a focus of the Taleban offensive. The main areas under attack have been Nurzai Kalay, Cha Mirza, Shin Kalay, Khoshal Kalay, and Sayed Abad Kalay along the western edge of the populated area of the district. The following militia commanders have been fighting to keep the Taleban at bay:

–  Nurzai Kalay’s defence is lead by Commander Wakil Bor Muhammad, a Nurzai from Cha Mirza with ALP and ANP under his command.

– The large area of Shin Kalay has two famous commanders, Jamal and Nisar, both Khorati, who coordinate with the ALP and ANP.

– In Khoshal Kalay, Shakir, a Nurzai is the commander of ANP and ALP.

– In Sayedabad, Waikil Ghulam Shakhi, a Hazara, is in charge of protecting the area with his own men.

So far, these commanders have tried to do their best to ensure they can hold the entire 72-kilometre front, while also protecting the district on the Marja side. However given that fighting has been going on for more than three months now, there is concern that a decisive push from the Taleban might be able to take down the government’s fatigued lines of defence. According to the head of the Nadali shura, Nabi Khan, if these commanders do not receive some support, there is a very strong likelihood that the district will fall into the hands of Taleban. Nabi Khan said that, officially, the battalion of ANA soldiers in his area should number 772, but currently there are no more than 274 soldiers. The ANA also has approval for 59 tanks or armoured vehicles; now, the locals think there are no more than 11. The ANA is operating mostly independently of the local commanders, local people said, and does not coordinate with the ALP and ANP. This has also led to the fear that, if there is a serious attack, the ANA will not support local fighters on the ground.

Sangin 

Sangin is home to two main tribes, the Ishaqzai and Alekozai. The Ishaqzai has never been part of the post-2001 government because Amir Dado immediately took control of the entire district. The Ishaqzai, feeling completely marginalized by this exclusion from politics and by extension access to resources (including the drugs trade), hence stood against the government. At the same time, very few development projects have been completed in Sangin district compared to the other districts further south – in part, because Taleban have been in control in the areas around Sangin since 2006.

According to local interviewees, Sangin has never had an important pro-government strongman other than Amir Dado. Since he was assassinated in 2009, there has been nobody to take his position – as Sangin’s local Ishaqzai are not pro-government at the best of times. Even during the surge, but afterwards as well, Sangin (like Musa Qala) faced a lot of resistance from pockets of Taleban, especially in the Sarwan Qala area, due to its proximity to Kajaki district. It is an Alekozai area in the north of the district and saw fighting between 2012 and 2014. Sarwan Qala borders Musa Qala to the west, Sangin to the south (1) and the Zamindawar area, of Kajaki district (only separated by the Helmand River) to the north. During the surge, US forces never cleared Zamindawar. So the Taleban – crossing the river in boats – could use the area to attack Sarwan Qala from. By 2013, the Taleban were slowly advancing on Sarwan Qala. The ANA and ALP (mostly Alkozai) were fighting back hard, but the Taleban were continuously trying to take the area. In late 2013, they were able to capture some of the checkpoints in Sarwan Qala and, at the beginning of 2014, the area was captured by the Taleban. (2) This area, along with the Malmand area (about 10 kilometres to the southeast of the Sangin district centre) been one of the most insecure in the district. In Malmand area, the mostly Ishaqzai population, marginalised early on after 2001, have been belligerently anti-government since.

The main road connecting Sangin with the southern areas of Helmand is now the dividing line between the Taleban and the ANSF forces. On the road, between the areas of Haji Fateh Muhammad to Shakar Shela in northeastern Sangin, there are ANA checkposts. These checkposts are mostly on the desert side to the west and are therefore more difficult to attack undetected. On the other side of the road, to the east, the Taleban control the villages.

While strategic in a sense that taking Sangin would create a connection to southern Helmand, for the Taleban it has more of a symbolic value, as it is one of the districts where foreign forces lost a lot of lives. While the Taleban already have large parts of the district under their control, they want to push government forces out the rest and add Sangin to ‘their’ districts. This would provide them with much more coherent territory, which might be easier to hold. Sangin’s opium harvest could also be taxed and control taken over other aspects of the drug trade.

Other areas in central and southern Helmand

Nawa is very populous and green in terms of orchards and fields – they can provide cover for Taleban fighters, especially as the spring and summer seasons are approaching. As the area is densely populated, the ANSF also finds it difficult to use air support or heavy artillery to recapture the areas already under Taleban control and keep the remainder of the district under their control.

At the moment, the Taleban are mainly focusing on consolidating their grip on the districts in the centre of Helmand, in particular those needed to launch a possible attack on Lashkargah.

Further south there is Gramsir, which presents an easier terrain for manoeuvre for the ANSF when compared to Nadali, Marja and Nawa. It is a flat, desert district, without a sizable population, presenting few places for insurgents to hide. According to a recent New York Times article focusing on the district, Gramsir is peaceful and government-controlled; it seems the huge benefits of the drug trade accruing to local officials there means the Taleban know they would face fierce resistance if they attacked. On the other hand, southern Dishu has been in the hands of the Taleban since early 2015. The district of Khanashin, north of Dishu district in the southwest of Helmand province, was reclaimed from the Taleban in the second half of December 2015.

Lashkargah under siege

When the Taleban took control of most of Gereshk and parts of Nadali, they also partly surrounded Lashkargah, the provincial capital of Helmand. With Babaji, they actually already have a foot in the city, as it is part of Lashkargah’s fourth nahiya (precinct), in other words, a suburb. According to reporting from locals, the residents of the provincial capital are able to hear the fighting in Babaji at night. So far, though, the government holds Lashkargah, which means supply routes between it and Kandahar are still open. Local interviewees have commented that, as long as the Kandahar-Lashkargah road is open and there is an ‘escape route’, residents will still be willing to stay put. However, their concerns are mounting. While many families from the districts around Lashkargah have moved into the city to take refuge from fighting, so far, few families have left Helmand completely, although some have parts of their extended families to live with relatives in Kandahar as a pre-caution. People still believe, or more accurately hope, that the government will not let Lashkargah fall into the hand of Taleban.

The Taleban’s extensive control over central Helmand has not only given them freedom of movement – although the recent redeployment of American and a handful of British forces might limit this to some extent – but also opened up supply routes for them to and from Pakistan. The main route connects the Taleban in northern Helmand with the Band-e Timur area of Maywand in Kandahar province and then south to Pakistan. (The specific route from Maywand district of Kandahar into northern Helmand would be as follows: from Maywand to Khoshkawa of Lashkar Gah, Gereshk, crossing the Helmand River, then to Malgir area, to Shroaw Dasht (still in Gereshk) and then on to Musa Qala, Nowzad, Kajaki or Baghran.)

What has saved Lashkargah from falling so far is that the ANSF are still able to hold crucial parts of Nadali and Nawa. However, the increased recent fighting in Nadali is already an indication that the Taleban are trying to extend their influence to this area as well. If Nadali fell, it would be difficult for Nawa to withstand a strong Taleban attack, even though the local Barakzai tribe is pro-government and had additional police forces sent to defend it in November 2015.

For the government, Lashkargah’s Achilles’ heel remains its supply route. The road connecting Lashkargar to the ring road at Gereshk is the only major lifeline for the provincial capital. If the Taleban were able to cut off the ring road or just the road connecting it to Lashkargah, this could seal the fate for the provincial capital. Furthermore, the ring road is also used to supply the Shorabak Airbase (the old Camp Bastion), where the 215 Maywand Corps is stationed. However, one needs to consider that taking all of Gereshk, in particular the main roads would be difficult as these areas are flat, with little cover, so that Taleban would have to make themselves visible and vulnerable to air attacks if they were to launch any sort of strong ground attack.

Conclusion: Summary of the main points

– The drug economy in Helmand continues to be a basic driver of conflict.

– The harsh and exclusionary way provincial elites governed after 2001 stoked resentment among parts of the population, helping the Taleban re-emerge in the mid-2000s. That re-emergence coincided with the removal of those elites, which created a power vacuum and helped the insurgency gather strength.

– The Afghan government, the British and, later, during the surge, US forces attempted to clear areas of Helmand from the Taleban. In part, this was done by establishing ‘community defence mechanisms’ – militias in the early days and later ALP. The Taleban were pushed back during the US surge, but retained a presence in the north of the province, including Baghran, most of Kajaki and Musa Qala.

– In the wake of the withdrawal of international forces in late 2014, the Taleban have managed to advance into northern and central Helmand.

– With the Taleban sending in new commando-like qet’as, local ALP forces and the ANSF have crumbled in many places. The government saw several severe setbacks and losses of districts in the second half of 2015.

– The lack of coordination between the various ANSF, ALP and those in charge of the ‘chiefdoms’, ill-fated strategic decisions to re-deploy successful local ALP commanders to other areas and a weak ANA corps has undermined the defence.

– With the ‘strategic retreat’ of ANSF troops from Musa Qala and Nowzad on 21 February 2016 and the loss of the suburb of Babaji of Lashkargah to the Taleban in October 2015, the situation on the ground for Afghan government forces became problematic, even with the deployment of fresh foreign forces supporting them.

– In the meantime, the Taleban have been able to hold and even expand their level of control in various districts across Helmand, aided by the effective use of the qet’as and of weapons, ammunition and equipment looted from captured ANSF bases. Land and drug trade taxation in areas under their control has ensured full coffers.

– As of March 2016, the stakes are high both for the ANSF and the Taleban: the Taleban, especially its qet’as, are vulnerable to the increased international military presence and an increased government focus on Helmand in terms of troops and resources.

– The insurgency needs to be able to advance in Nawa and Nadali if it is to have an opportunity to make a decisive strike against Lashkargah. The ANSF, however, having retreated from Musa Qala and Nowzad, need to focus on securing central Helmand in order to not lose Lashkargah. While international forces might bolster the ANSF in the short-term, the questions will be whether they will coordinate effectively with the ANSF to leverage their mutual strength, whether the ANA will coordinate with the ALP and ANP, and whether remaining ALP commanders can remain strong in their areas. There is also the question of whether the 215 Maiwand corps, now under new leadership, can actually be revived so it becomes a decent fighting force. The political will of the government to ensure that the ANSF can push back in Helmand, even at a high cost, will also be a key factor to watch.

Edited by Lenny Linke, Kate Clark and Thomas Ruttig 

*Rahmatullah Amiri is a researcher and freelance journalist based in Kabul, focusing on security and humanitarian issues.

(1) The geography of Sangin district has also contributed to its never having been fully controlled by the government. It is surrounded by three districts of Helmand province and Ghorak district of Kandahar province (which had also been under Taleban control for many years and which the Taleban said it had retaken again in 2015. Sangin borders the Zamindawar area of Kajaki, which has also never been fully cleared of Taleban. In addition, fighters from Kajaki were mostly fighting in Sangin, because there has been little fighting in Kajaki district – because Zamindawar has only one major fighting front, the district centre of Kajaki. Therefore, Taleban fighters from Kajaki cross – with ease – into Sarwan Qala of Sangin to support the local Taleban there. To the south, Sangin also borders the two most insecure areas of Gereshk district, Qala-ye Gaz and Mirmandaw area. These are strongholds for the Taleban and local Taleban from there can also easily come and attack Sangin district centre.

(2) Local interviewees told AAN that, in Sangin, even those fighting for or supporting the government have never actually received the support they needed, not only in terms of financial support, but also extra troops. Sometimes, they said, the Taleban would outnumber the security forces, but there were no reinforcements for days, or even weeks. People said they felt abandoned by the central and provincial government.

The rapid fall of entire areas of Helmand to the Taleban during the second half of 2015 and early 2016 has left the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) scrambling to hold the line and try to push back, and led to international forces deploying troops to the province. Guest author Rahmatullah Amiri* brings a special two-part look at Helmand. In part 1, he maps out which areas government and Taleban forces are holding, before looking at the background to the crisis, mapping out the demographics and economies of the districts and key players in the province. In this dispatch, he takes the Helmand story to the end of 2014 and the handover of security to Afghan forces, assessing the impact of predatory elites, British deployment, the United State’s surge aimed at ‘degrading’ the Taleban, and the creation of Afghan Local Police (ALP).

In AAN’s second dispatch on Helmand, Rahmatullah Amiri will track how and why areas and districts have fallen to the Taleban. He will assess a new Taleban military tactic – the use of commando-like units called qet’a ­– and look at some disastrous tactics on the government’s side and its eventual return to an old strategy – setting up new ‘community defence forces’ in the small chiefdoms.

Control over the districts in Helmand is currently as follows, moving from north to south:

Schematic map of Helmand’s districts (Marja is still part of Nadali) (Source: Wikipedia) – Click on the map to enlarge

– Baghran in the far north is completely under Taleban control and has been so for the past ten years;

– Only small parts of Musa Qala are under government control. Although, on 26 August 2015, it was captured entirely by the Taleban, the ANSF was able to take some areas back in December 2015. The district centre has been under Taleban control since 20 February 2016 when ANSF withdrew from it;

– In Kajaki in the northeast, only the district centre and the dam located close to the district centre are still somewhat under the control of the ANSF; their elevated location has made it difficult for the Taleban to gain ground in the area, despite many attempts.

– Nowzad in the northwest is completely under Taleban control. The government did control the district centre (1) until 20 February when ANSF forces withdrew from the district completely;

– The district centre of Washir in the northwest is still somewhat under government control as well as parts of the ring road crossing the district. The ANSF is able to control this part of the ring road (as well as its connection to the district centre) during the day, but at night, the Taleban are mostly in control of the area;

– Only some parts of Sangin district are under government control. The areas to the north, northeast and west of the district centre are held by the Taleban control. While the district centre and the bazaar area are still held by the government, they are highly contested. Recent clearance operations around the Sangin part of the ring road have, at least for now, marginally improved access to the district centre.

– Nadali in central western Helmand is about 80 per cent under government control;

– In Gereshk, also known as Nahr-e Seraj district, in central Helmand, government control is limited to some parts of the district, including the district centre, the ring road, the bazaar and the main ANA base. (Read an earlier AAN analysis of the area here). Some of the remaining areas are loosely under Taleban control and are being used to stage operations. Some areas, which have little value for the Taleban or the government, are not controlled by either side. Troops withdrawn from Musa Qala have been ordered to reinforce Gereshk. This month (March 2016), the Taleban have made progress in controlling the Baloch area in southern Gereshk, which is only about four kilometres from the provincial capital;

– Parts of Marja, in central Helmand, are under government control, most notably the district centre and areas around it. The Taleban are in control of the southern areas of the district, but are also operating in many of the remaining areas of the district, especially those close to Nadali. Overall, this district remains highly contested in many areas, with the Taleban attempting to wear down the ANSF, without holding fixed positions themselves.

– In Nawa (also known as Nawa-ye Barakzai), also in central Helmand, the government controls the majority of the district. The Taleban are mostly in control of the southern areas along the border with Marja, but have also been attacking check posts in other areas. The strong ANP and ALP presence, along with little support for the Taleban from the local population, has made it difficult for the insurgents to gain more control of this district.

– Lashkargah, comprising the city, which is also the provincial capital, as well as surrounding rural areas, is still more or less controlled by the government. A notable exception is the Babaji suburb in the north of Lashkargar in the direction of Gereshk, which was taken by the Taleban on 20 October 2015. It has since become heavily contested in recent weeks;

– The southeast – comprising Gramsir district – is mostly under government control;

– In the southwest of Helmand, only the district centre of Khaneshin, also known as Reg, is under government control, while Dishu district is completely under Taleban control, except for the check posts along the border with Pakistan.

An overview

The continuous fighting in Helmand has taken a significant toll on the ANSF. Hundreds of causalities, among them one high ranking ANSF commander and several international troops, have been reported, as well as significant losses also from soldiers deserting their posts or surrendering to the Taleban. Losses to the Taleban are unknown.

Just over one year after security for the province was handed over by ISAF to the Afghan government and the last British troops left Helmand, US and British special forces were again deployed there (10 British and several hundred American troops). The media have read it as a significant move: “It will be the largest deployment of American troops outside major bases in Afghanistan since the end of the NATO combat mission in 2014,” reported The New York Times. Resolute Support spokesman US Army Colonel Michael Lawhorn did not want to discuss whether troop numbers were up or down:, for security reasons, he said “specific troop levels cannot be discussed.” He said the deployment was part of “a regularly scheduled rotation to replace another unit” and that “RS [Resolute Support] are conducting a train/advise/assist mission in Helmand, just as throughout Afghanistan.” However, US forces, which can take a combat role under the US military’s counter-terrorism mission, Freedom’s Sentinel, have found themselves increasingly drawn into combat in Helmand as ANSF forces have crumbled. There have been air strikes and US Special Operations Forces on the ground, in support of the ANSF. The deployment of several hundred foreign forces, however, cannot turn the clock back: the fight in Helmand is now almost completely Afghan versus Afghan.

Underlining the seriousness of the situation for the ANSF, Kabul has replaced several leading ANA commanders. The Afghan army’s 215 Maiwand Corps had been found to be very short on men – possibly only 40 per cent of their stated number (see here and here). Its problems went even deeper than ‘just’ ghost soldiers. US Army Brigadier General Wilson Shoffner, head of public affairs for the U.S.-NATO mission has spoken of “a combination of incompetence, corruption and ineffectiveness.” AAN was also told that some soldiers in the ANA had been deployed to Helmand for eight years: it is a place that the better connected in the army are keen to avoid. Shoffner said the corps commander had been replaced, along with “some brigade commanders and some key corps staff up to full colonel level.” Abdul Jabbar Qahraman was appointed as ‘operational commander’ of all Afghan forces in Helmand on 27 January 2016.

Afghan national police have also been fighting on the multiple frontlines in the province – and, less well-equipped and more exposed as they often stay at checkposts, rather than being in their barracks when not fighting – have been taking higher casualties than the army. General Abdul Rahman Sarjang, the Helmand provincial police chief, told the Associated Press the Afghan security forces were “exhausted” and in dire need of reinforcements, and that a lack of coordination between the army and police was hampering their ability to fight.

At the same time, an increasingly better equipped Taleban have been stepping up their game. The capture of a dozen or more check posts and bases belonging to the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP), as well as Afghan Local Police (ALP) strongholds in the last six months has also meant the capture of significant amounts of weapons, ammunition and other equipment, including an estimated 50 to 100 US-made armoured ‘Humvee’ vehicles. The Taleban are reportedly using them in their current operations.

Before looking at the background at to how this crisis emerged in more detail, we thought it useful to have some information on the demographics, geography and economies of Helmand’s districts.

Short districts profiles

Helmand’s northernmost districts – Baghran, Kajaki and Musa Qala – share similar demographics. 98 per cent of their population belongs to one tribe, the Alizai. The populations of Marja and Nadali further south, however, consist of a mix of tribes, including Nurzai, Ishaqzai, Alizai, Alekozai and several other smaller ones. The mix is the result of a large-scale irrigation and agriculture project of the 1940-70s, mainly funded by USAID, the Helmand and Arghandab Valley Authority (HAVA), which created new arable land to which Pashtuns from other regions of the country were brought and settled on. (2)

From a strategic point of view, Musa Qala, with its relatively large population and large bazaar, is the heart of northern Helmand. It is one of the major hubs of the opium trade with the harvest from Baghran and Kajaki sold there. The Musa Qala bazaar is one of the biggest drug markets nationwide and attracts key drug traders and smugglers. Many of the main leaders in northern Helmand for the last forty years have come from Musa Qala, in particular, from the Alizai tribe. They include the Akhundzada family who controlled the bazaar before the Taleban and again, after 2001.

Sangin, which borders Musa Qala to the southeast, is the other large centre for drug trade and smuggling. This place has been home to the majority of drug traders and smugglers dealing with the harvest of the farmers from Kandahar and Uruzgan provinces. From Sangin, the harvest would be taken to Iran and Pakistan. This practice continued during the Taleban government and also after 2001. Since the insurgency began, this district has been of strategic importance for the Taleban, not only because of drug smuggling routes, but also because it is considered a crucial part of a corridor connecting the Alizai dominated districts in the north with the rest of the province. The road connecting the Kajaki Dam in the north and the provincial capital Lashkargah in the south also runs through Sangin. Furthermore, it has a significant population of Ishaqzai, who are considered one of the most religiously conservative tribes across Afghanistan. (The new Taleban leader Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansur belongs to it.) During the Taleban era, the Ishaqzai tribe was mostly in control of Sangin, but post-2001, the Alekozai, the other large tribe in the district, have dominated again.

Nowzad is also home to a large Ishaqzai population, making up almost 50 per cent of the entire district’s inhabitants. It borders Farah province to the west and Washer district of Helmand to the north, which, together with its isolated location and lack of security force presence has made it an ideal transit point for drug smugglers for the past 10 years.

Kajaki has a relatively small population compared to most other districts in the province. However, it is strategically and economically important because of its hydro-electric power station, which was built in the 1950s with US support as part of the HAVA project (see a short history here). Since 2004, the Taleban have had a strong grip on the Zamindawar area north of Helmand River, which covers approximately 90 per cent of the district. This area has been used as a launching pad for operations south of the river, which comprises the small area held by the government, which includes the district centre as well as the Kajaki dam. (3)

Gereshk district is the second most populated area in Helmand after Lashkargah, and its district centre is the second biggest city after the provincial capital. Gereshk is in a highly strategic location; it connects northern and central Helmand and is also on the main route through Helmand in the east-west direction. The ring road passes through this district, coming from Kandahar in the east and passing on to Herat in the northwest. Whoever controls this district, and this part of the ring road, controls the trade route between Kandahar and Herat.

Unlike most other districts in the province, Marja, together with Nadali (which it used to be part of) is mostly inhabited by naqileen, Pashtun migrants who settled in the area from other parts of Afghanistan after the Kajaki dam project was built. Maintaining security in Marja has special significance due to its proximity to Lashkargah. However, it also became iconic when, in February 2010, it was selected by the US military to become a ‘poster boy’ for counter-insurgency and the surge (the deployment of tens of thousands of extra US soldiers sent to defeat the Taleban). After US soldiers seized Marja, it was to become a model of good governance. Currently, only small parts of the district are under government control.

The roots of the crisis

Like almost everywhere in Afghanistan, a brief look at past events is crucial to understanding why the current situation looks as it does.

Helmand after the fall of the Taleban government

As in neighbouring Kandahar and indeed, most of the rest of the country, Helmand saw a return to local strongmen rule after the collapse of the Taleban regime in 2001. Some of those strongmen had earlier ruled the area, commanding mujahedin fronts during the fight against the Soviet occupation (1979-89), while others were relative newcomers. Their apologists claim they had led the ‘resistance’ to the Taleban. In reality, none was present in Helmand at the time of the fall of the Taleban, but rather drove across the border from Pakistan once the Taleban had gone. Then the mujahedin commanders and prominent elders with roots in the province split up Helmand amongst themselves. In the days after the installation of the new government in Kabul in late 2001, the strongmen went to the capital to lobby the newly appointed Hamid Karzai and then returned with appointment letters.

The four strongest among them, who were also from the four most important tribes in the province, divided the key posts – governor, police chief, army chief and NDS boss – among themselves, as well as control over the various districts of the province. This included control over patronage and associated resources, most notably the drug trade, but also ‘local security,’ meaning areas where militiamen employed by each of the powerbrokers had control. This provincial balance of power lasted until about 2005.

The four strongmen were: Abdul Rahman Jan, a Nurzai from Marja who became the province’s police chief, Dad Muhammad (better known as Amer Dado), an Alekozai from Sangin district, who became head of NDS, Ma’alem Mir Wali, a Barakzai from Gereshk who became the commander of the local army division and, most importantly, Sher Muhammad Akhundzada from the Alizai tribe, subtribe Hasanzai, who got the provincial governorship. (4)

Sher Muhammad’s father, Muhammad Rasul Akhundzada, had been the patriarch of the Akhundzadas. Before his assassination in in 1990, he had been the single strongest mujahedin commander in Helmand, fighting with Harakat-e Inqilab-e Islami. Under his reign, Helmand became the most prolific poppy growing area on earth. Another son, Amir Muhammad Akhundzada, was ‘appointed’ district governor for Musa Qala, the family’s old heartland and opium trading hub, in 2001 (he became deputy governor of Helmand in 2006).

In contrast, post-2001 police chief Abdul Rahman Jan emerged as a strongman without a prominent family background. A Nurzai originally from Nowzad, he gained prominence in Helmand as a commander of a tribal militia recruited from his Nurzai tribe during the mujahedin government of the mid-1990s (first fighting for Jamiat-e Islami and later switching to another faction). After the Taleban lost power in Helmand in 2001, local militias and their commanders tried to divide up the areas of control – Abdul Rahman Jan was able to claim Marja (then still the district capital area of Nadali).

Ma’alem Mir Wali, a Barakzai from Gereshk, started out as a student at Kandahar University before joining Hezb-e Islami, when the Soviets invaded, and becoming one of its main commanders in Helmand. After briefly joining Najibullah’s National Reconciliation Program, he returned to Hezb-e Islami in 1992 and was the provincial governor of Helmand until 1993. When Lashkargah fell to the Taleban, he had to flee the province and fell in with the patronage network of Ahmad Shah Massud. After his return post-2001, he became commander of the 93rd Division, which was dismantled in 2003 – with some of the militias that were part of that division joining the then re-emerging Taleban.

Amer Dado, an Alekozai from Sangin district affiliated with Jamiat-e Islami, became the head of NDS in Helmand after the fall of the Taleban. His brother Juma Gul was appointed Chief of Police of Sangin.

Allegations of abuses by these strongmen were legion and included illegal arrests and torture, all aggravated by the marginalization of ‘out’ tribes who saw their poppy crops selectively eradicated and government ranks packed out by their rivals. “Karzai’s cronies were antagonising many communities,” wrote Antonio Giustozzi. (5) “People were driven into the arms of the Taleban. The insurgents did not have to do much, except approach the victims of the pro-Karzai strongmen and promise them protection and support.” Fundamental to much of the violence also was – and still is – the drug economy. Its importance is “hard to overstate,” wrote Tom Coglan, “as a driver for rampant corruption, instability, and violent competition within Helmand Province and the south as a whole.” (6)

All three of the remaining four strongmen lost their posts ahead of the British deployment in 2006, part of Phase 3 of ISAF expansion. The UK had made ‘cleaning up’ the leaders of the provincial administration a precondition of their deployment because of the allegations of their involvement in the drug trade and other wrongdoings. President Karzai gave in to these demands, albeit only very reluctantly, particularly to losing Akhundzada whom he considered a key ally (he was only finally removed after nine tons of opium were discovered in his office). After this removal from the post of provincial governor, Karzai appointed him a senator and made his younger brother Amir Muhammad the deputy governor of the province. However, Sher Muhammad’s move to Kabul resulted in the family losing a lot of their control in Helmand. He reacted recklessly to his demotion, reportedly sending about 3000 of his men over to the Taleban. Amer Dado and Mir Wali both became MPs in the 2005 elections. Amer Dado was killed in an IED attack in 2009.

Changing tides – the British deployment and the US surge

The British did not realise when they deployed to Helmand in 2006 that they were taking over a province where trouble had long been brewing. Removing the strongmen also eliminated the source of much of the resentment, which was driving the province towards insurgency, but also the means of containing it. Until Sher Muhammad’s removal, the security in the province had mostly been based on agreements with the various local militia commanders and their men.

Once the British had taken full command over Helmand in March 2007, the security situation started to unwind rapidly. Militia commanders – allies of the former governor – stayed at home. The newly arrived British troops were unable to fill the power vacuum, which opened up opportunities for the Taleban to start testing the British by launching attacks in various districts. Often they found little resistance.

In fact, the Taleban had already slowly started bolstering their position before the British arrived. In early 2006, the Taleban solidified their control of the northernmost district of the province, Baghran, where they had remained unbothered since 2004 and launched a series of offensives on Musa Qala district centre throughout the summer 2006. This siege of Musa Qala ended on 13 October 2006 with a deal that ceded the district to the Taleban and allowed the besieged foreign troops to evacuate the area. (7)

The new provincial governor, Muhammad Daud, fearing these initial attacks were a sign of more to come, immediately requested that the foreign forces spread out across the districts under threat. With Karzai’s backing, he proposed that the troops should engage the Taleban in Nowzad, Sangin, Musa Qala and Kajaki. These demands were partially met, but despite an increase in British troops from 3,300 to 7,000 in 2007, they soon proved overstretched (as repeatedly lamented in the British press, unable to contain the Taleban’s slow but steady progress.)

In order to stem the Taleban tide, a US battalion was transferred to Helmand in spring 2008. Within one year, another 11,000 US troops had come to Helmand as part of the surge, President Obama’s attempt to smash or at least ‘decapitate’ and weaken the insurgency before the withdrawal already scheduled for the end of 2014. Those troops represented more than half of the overall 21,000 surge troops, indicating how important a focus Helmand was in the Afghanistan-wide fight. Surge troops were also involved in a new strategy of ‘kill/capture’, where insurgent leaders were targeted for assassination or detention (see AAN assessments of this strategy here and here).

The increased presence of US and British forces, as well as of Afghan National Police (ANP), was used to launch a series of large-scale operations to secure the province ahead of the presidential election in the summer of 2009. As a result, the Taleban were pushed back from many areas, most notably from Marja (some of these areas were later re-taken by the Taleban, including parts of Marja). Given its relatively central location and its population of naqelin, the town was not at the centre of Helmand’s tribal politics or one of the major strongholds of the Taleban. In 2012, many Taleban commanders in Helmand who had gone to Pakistan for the winter, decided to not even come for the summer ‘fighting season’ because of the risk of being killed or captured by international or Afghan government forces.

Alternative approaches to reducing the conflict in Sangin by local people (and involving the British to some extent), failed, largely because of US suspicions and intent to pursue a ‘kinetic’ approach to the insurgency. As AAN reported (for a detailed look at this, see here), ISAF “repeatedly squandered the chance to build a durable political settlement in the district, including bombing a meeting of Taleban [in 2010] while they were discussing going over to the government” and the US’s detention of a key religious figure in 2011 who had also been trying to persuade Taleban to come over. The ‘what might have beens’ following on from a political settlement in Sangin, one of the most difficult and significant districts in Helmand, are many.

As it was, the last and most significant push north of the surge was made into Musa Qala where the Taleban still controlled small parts of the district, mostly desert. Baghran district, and the Zamindawar area of Kajaki remained beyond the reach of the surge. It could be judged that the Taleban were cornered in these areas – or that they provided a safe haven for displaced Taleban and enabled their rise after the surge troops left. While the surge had succeeded in securing the western part of central Helmand, it had done little to eliminate the Taleban from the far north of the province.

New approaches to local security: the chiefdoms

Apart from fighting and pushing back the Taleban, the surge also brought a new approach to local security – the US military, especially Special Operations Forces, focussed on setting up small units of ALP or supporting local militias in areas perceived to be most vulnerable to Taleban attacks. In the areas from where Taleban had recently been ousted, a variety of young ANP and ALP commanders established patchworks of small chiefdoms – controlling small pockets of populations, often only at manteqa level (a small area within a district, usually within a valley, along a major irrigation canal or encompassing a particular ethnic group, tribe or sub-tribe). Those commanders were tasked with recruiting and leading fighters in local communities against the Taleban.

These chiefdoms were like dots along a line – from Musa Qala in the north to Gereshk on the ring road and onwards to Marja – and formed a more or less continuous corridor of territory that was mostly under pro-government forces’ control. In effect, they created a barrier to prevent the Taleban from pushing further south. This more systematic setting up and engaging of small local commanders in specific areas signified a final break from the rule of the former strongmen, who no longer had enough control of critical areas for the Afghan government to be able to rely on them.

One example of a significant commander coming to prominence in these years was a man called Abdul Wali – usually known as Kumandan (commander) Koka. He already had a militia background in Musa Qala and had been the district chief of police (2001-2002), before being detained by US forces and spending 14 months in Bagram. Once out, he returned to the fight and by 2006, although on paper only an ordinary policeman was, in effect, the man whom the Taleban had to beat in Musa Qala. Several times that year, they tried to capture the district from him, but failed to do so. In recognition of his fighting ability, in December 2007, he was appointed chief of police of Musa Qala district. Koka, an Alizai like the Akhundzadas, had strong support from local communities due to his ability to fend off the Taleban. At the same time, he also enjoyed political support from the Akhundzadas who made sure he was able to operate as he wanted and was not threatened by local power politics, including attempts to replace him. Sources close to the Taleban interviewed by the author considered Koka a formidable opponent and developed a significant respect for him. They were keen to kill him as they saw him as the primary obstacle to capturing the district. In April 2012, Koka suffered grievous injuries and was no longer able to go onto the battlefield.

Apart from Koka, at least five other commanders emerged in the various districts during the surge years: Hekmatullah, the son of Ma’alem Mir Wali, the Barakzai from Geresh who had become chief of the provincial army division in 2001, (ANP district commander, Gereshk) with his sub-commanders, Abdul Wali (ANP) and Kamal Aka (ALP); Haji Muhammad Asef (ALP) with his sub-commanders in the various areas of Marja, including Haji Baz Gul, from the Dawtani tribe, a famous female commander, Firoza, also known as Haji Nanai (from Sistani in Marja) and Haji Moto Khan (Nurzai from Sistani area).

Towards the end of the surge and as international ‘boots on the ground’ support for the ANSF started to draw down, this initially rather solid arrangement began to crumble. Funds started to run out for the economic incentives such as projects, which were meant to keep these areas’ populations standing against the Taleban. (8) People also started to slowly realise that the ALP were actually meant to fight the Taleban – and often without government troops’ back-up. In Marja where the US forces had set up militias between 2010 and 2012, many community members joined because they were poor or for other incentives. (9) When the US forces left, half of the 800 militia members were disarmed, the remaining integrated into the ALP.

The last of the US surge troops left Afghanistan in September 2012 and the US military and ISAF strategy turned to building up the ANSF as they prepared to hand over responsibility for security to Afghan forces. The last British and US troops left Helmand on 27 October 2014. General Sher Muhammed Karimi, speaking at the handover ceremony, called Helmand “the toughest province in Afghanistan.” More than 350 Marines and 400 British troops had been killed in the province, he said, and 700 members of the Afghan forces had already been killed in Helmand that year.

By the end of 2014, the bulk of foreign forces had left Afghanistan. ISAF became RS – Resolute Support – a strictly non-combat ‘train, assist and advise’ mission. The US kept its options more open, with troops both in Resolute Support and the new US counter-terrorism mission, Freedom’s Sentinel (which replaced Enduring Freedom), but its footprint was tiny compared to earlier years (10). Practically speaking, responsibility for security in Helmand and in the country as a whole was in Afghan hands.

The questions now would be: how would the Taleban be able to rebound after the surge, how strong was the Afghan state and its forces after the handover of security, and were the local security structures – the ALP and local militias – prepared to shoulder the bulk of the job of defending the population? These questions will be looked at in part 2 of AAN’s special reporting on Helmand “The chain of chiefdoms unravels.”

Edited by Lenny Linke, Kate Clark and Thomas Ruttig

 *Rahmatullah Amiri is a researcher and freelance journalist based in Kabul, focusing on security and humanitarian issues.

(1) The district centre of Nowzad was moved because it was in a location that made it difficult to defend. The new location of the district centre has been moved closer to Camp Bastian and Lashkargah.

(2) The project was started by the Japanese in the 1930s, although on a much smaller scale, with the restoring and expanding of the old irrigation system around the Boghra Canal. The US efforts are well documented in Mike Martin’s An Intimate War: An Oral History Of The Helmand Conflict 1978-2012 and in Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s Little America.

(3) Afghan, British and American troops have all tried to regain control over the area but failed to do so. This included, in the summer of 2008, what was described as the biggest British-led ‘route clearance operation’ since World War II, with nearly 5000 ISAF and Afghan troops trying to transport components for a new turbine to the dam. The mission was touted as a plan to provide an estimated 1.7 million people with electricity, fuel local agriculture and industry. However, mending the turbines was never going to be enough by itself to bring the electricity. The project was a known failure from the start. (See previous AAN dispatch here).

(4) The Akhundzadas had been ruling Musa Qala, the heart of northern Helmand, since the coup in 1978. They were pushed out by the Taleban in the 1995. The killing of Akhundzada‘s father and a brother in an ambush in Pakistan in 1990 is often attributed to his main rival party in the area, Hezb-e Islami.

(5) Antonio Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop: the Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan, Hurst 2007, p 60.

(6) Tom Coghlan, “The Taliban in Helmand: An Oral History”, in Antonio Giustozzi (ed.), Decoding the New Taliban, Oxford University Press, 2012 p 149.

(7) The ‘Musa Qala agreement’ – an attempt by the British to pacify the district, but undermined by the US – was, as described by AAN in an earlier dispatch “a local peace agreement with the Taleban to stop the fighting (or end the practical siege the British troops were facing in Musa Qala) and open it up for development activities that would also include the Taleban. Such a ‘protocol’ was proposed and then mediated by Musa Qala tribal elders. This came finally into force on 7 September 2006. It held for 142 days [and broke down] because the British, the provincial and the Kabul government and the Taleban were not the only actors in that area. US troops were also operating in Helmand, and the government in Washington at the time still rejected all political dealings with the Taleban; this only changed at the very end of the Bush administration. There were also opponents of the agreement in the Afghan administration.”

(8) The British, Americans and others, both military and civilian, were involved in a variety of projects of all sizes to boost local development and incentivise an economy independent of the poppy cultivation. The most prominent projects were the Helmand Food Zone and the upgrade of the Kajaki Dam.

(9) Some of those who joined the ALP later reported they had felt coerced, as a refusal risked making them suspect in the foreigners’ eyes as possible Taleban supporters.

(10) There are 13,195 Resolute Support NATO troops deployed in Afghanistan, of which 6,839 are American. In total, the US has deployed 9800 troops which would suggest 2761 of those belong to the ‘can be combat’ Freedom’s Sentinel mission. However, some US forces also appear to switch back and forth between commands.

In early January 2016, an Afghan National Security Force (ANSF) operation in Zurmat, a southern district of Paktia province, resulted in civilian casualties. According to local residents, the Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers’ heavy shelling of villages they suspected to be Taleban hideouts caused the most harm. Abuses, such as beatings and the use of schools and civilian houses for military purposes, were also reported. AAN’s Fazal Muzhary looks into reports of abuses – both by the ANSF and the Taleban – during the January operation as a case study of the increased threat to civilians during military operations, and also of how difficult it can be to ascertain what happened. 

The operation

Afghan security forces began their operation in Zurmat on 2 January 2016, ending it ten days later, on 12 January. (1) According to Colonel Fazle Khuda, a Public Relations officer at 203 Thunder Military Corps in the provincial capital Gardez, the joint operation (codenamed Khyber) was carried out by the Afghan National Army (ANA), the Afghan National Police (ANP), the Afghan Local Police (ALP) and the Afghan National Civil Order Police (ANCOP). Afghan Special Forces were also told to stand by in case government forces faced strong resistance, however they were never called in, he said.

The aim of the operation was to repel insurgents from one of their strongholds, Sahak, an area north of the district mainly inhabited by the Sahak tribe. Ultimately, the operation aimed to undermine the Taleban’s ability to mount attacks from the area. Although it was declared a success by Afghan government forces, it does not seem to have changed anything for the better. Local officials talking to AAN have expressed doubt that the Taleban were ever cleared from the area. It seems that the insurgents did not engage the ANSF in a serious manner, but rather left the area on motorbikes when security forces approached and returned after the operation came to an end.

According to local respondents, there wasn’t any large-scale ground engagement between Afghan soldiers and the Taleban fighters during the operation. According to a local who works as a teacher in Gardez, when government forces arrived in the area, the Taleban only fought back on the first day, but the fighting was not intense. One Taleban fighter and two soldiers were killed during those skirmishes, according to residents.

Fighting continued over the next ten days. Most of the Taleban fighters moved to the Daulatzai area, from where they could fire at the ANA and then retreat. The soldiers then responded by shooting in the direction from where they came under fire, often causing local casualties.

On the last day of the operation, on 12 January 2016, both the Afghan government and the Taleban claimed victory in Sahak, quoting inflated casualty figures. According to the 203 Thunder Military Corps Commander General, Asrar Aqdas, who was quoted in a statement sent to media outlets by the governor’s office in Gardez, 61 militants were killed, 21 wounded and another eight arrested (see Khama press report here). The statement said two vehicles, two motorbikes, 510 kg of explosives and 32 mines were also found and then destroyed. The figures were double-checked with Fazle Khuda of the 203 corps in a recent AAN interview and he confirmed these were indeed the official figures.

The Taleban fighters, in a report on their website (see here) on 12 January 2016, also talked up their ‘successes.’ As a result of “strong resistance by the Taleban fighters,” the report claimed the government soldiers who had used heavy weapons and military vehicles had “faced a severe reaction” and “left the area shamefully.” Their report claimed 25 commandos had been killed, 14 wounded, five ‘tanks’ (usually referring to armored vehicles) destroyed and weapons and ammunition seized, while only one of their fighters was supposedly killed and another three wounded.

However, tribal elders and other sources from the area who talked to AAN did not confirm the high figures given by either side. According to a tribal elder who did not want to be named, one Taleban fighter and two ANA soldiers were killed as a result of the operation. Figures given by local officials were also much lower, and probably more realistic. Zurmat district governor, Kiftan Ekhlas, told AAN that only three Taleban fighters were killed during this operation, an account categorically rejected by Fazle Khuda.

Background on Zurmat: Loya Paktia’s meeting point for two Taleban networks

With its centre located 26 kilometres to the west of the provincial capital Gardez on the main Gardez to Ghazni highway, Zurmat is the largest district in Paktia. It has played a central role, during both the 1990s’ Emirate and the post-2001 insurgency, in terms of its representation of senior Taleban military and civil leadership (more background here). It was the centre stage for one of the largest American-led operations to topple the Taleban, Operation Anaconda, in the Shahi Kot mountains in the southern half of the district from 2 to 16 March 2002, although the Taleban fighters were not completely pushed out. Over the last 15 years it has never come under complete government control. Zurmat was difficult for the international forces as well. The densely populated district with its flat plains connects Paktia to three provinces (Paktika to the south, Ghazni to the west and Logar to the north) making it a crossroads for Taleban fighters who use it to freely move between these three provinces.

Most of the Taleban fighters who fight in Zurmat belong to both the Haqqani network as well as Abdul Latif Mansur’s, nephew of Nasrullah Mansur, the leader of a splintered faction of Harakat-e Nawin-e Inqilab-e Islami (New Islamic Revolution Moment). The focus of the operation, Sahak, is also where Latif Mansur’s wider family residence is. Mansur’s fighters are in the majority in the district, while Haqqani fighters are smaller in number.

The January 2016 operation was preceded by several small attacks by Taleban fighters in different areas of the district, mostly targeting Afghan National Army (ANA) check-posts as well as government convoys passing through Zurmat district on the Ghazni to Gardez highway.

The January 2016 operation itself was mostly centered on the relatively quiet area to the north of Tamir, the main district town, where the district governor’s compound is located. As Sahak has long been almost fully under Taleban control, it had not seen much fighting between Taleban fighters and government forces that tended to avoid the area in the past.

Civilian casualties and abuses

When government soldiers were preparing to leave Sahak on the evening of 11 January 2016 at the end of the operation, Taleban fighters attacked their convoy in the Ibrahimkhel area. This triggered indiscriminate shelling by government forces, which wounded one person at a nearby filling station, according to local residents. The wounded civilian was first taken to the hospital in Gardez, but when family members complained, security forces helped to send the wounded man to Kabul for further treatment.

According to several inhabitants of Zurmat who talked to AAN, Afghan security forces had often fired mortar rounds during the operation into nearby villages, whenever they came under attack from mobile Taleban teams. The shelling, according to their reports, hit several villages, among them Pan, Tarakai, Mangalkhel, Haideri Qala, Pakikhel, Mado Qala, Abdul Rahimkhel, Daulatzai, Sheikhan, Sangikhel and Liwan. The locals described the shelling as ruthless and indiscriminate. They said heavy shelling would follow only a few shots fired by the Taleban. Afghan security forces also set up a temporary base close to the main clinic, as well as in a high school in Sahak.

Taleban fighters were also ruthless, attacking the Afghan forces from within villages and areas close to local houses, which made those inhabited areas into military targets.

According to local residents, four civilians including two women were killed and another six wounded as a result of the ten-day operation. Moreover, residents in a few villages were beaten up when government soldiers checked their houses. The local people AAN spoke with claimed that none of those killed, wounded or beaten were Taleban or had links to them.

Local residents brought up several specific cases of civilian casualties. One girl, who had recently got engaged and was soon to be married, was killed in the village of Pan when a mortar shell landed in front of her house. In the village of Tarakai, a man and a woman from the Kotikhel area were riding on a motorbike when ANA soldiers shot at the couple, killing the man on the spot. Local residents claim the woman died later due to the shock from the death of her husband. Fazle Khuda, the army PR officer, claimed in an interview with AAN that the man had been a Taleb. Lastly, one man was killed and another wounded when a mortar shell hit a house in Mado Qala.

In addition to civilian deaths, locals were wounded in the villages of Pakikhel, Daulatzai, Sheikhan, Haidari Qala and Mado Qala as a result of ANA shelling, according to local sources. For instance, in Haidari Qala, the son of a madrassa teacher, Mullah Jasim, was seriously wounded when an ANA mortar hit his house. In Neknam, ANA soldiers set up a temporary base in the area’s main high school. According to a local resident who spoke to AAN by phone and did not want to be named, ANA soldiers stole lab equipment and computers and made a mess of the school’s classrooms, using them “as bathrooms.” Fazle Khuda rejected this claim. In the houses where the Afghan soldiers set up temporary posts, they reportedly used the firewood locals had collected for the winter. Such incidents happened in Shamulzi, Ibrahimkhel, Khadarkhel and Sangikhel villages.

In the early days of the operation in Neknam, ANA soldiers did not allow residents from nearby villages to go out and purchase food for days, creating a food shortage. When villagers asked the soldiers for permission, they were told to borrow food and other items from neighbours and help each other until the operation had ended.

Another local source said that on the first day of the operation, ANA soldiers beat people while searching their houses. Two young men in Taraki village, the son of Karim and the son of Mohammad Yar, were said to have been injured, incurring broken bones and head injuries. A tribal elder from Sahak said Afghan security forces had beaten people in Sangikhel, Mangalkhel, Taraki, Kotkai, Pan and Samandarkhel.

Although the exact dates of these incidents could not be ascertained, other sources, such as the spokesman for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) in Paktia, Adel Azizi, and Zurmat’s district governor Kiftan Ekhlas, confirmed the killing, wounding and mistreatment of a number of local residents, although they did not provide details. Ekhlas said it was difficult to identify who had killed the civilians because both warring parties shot at each other, while the AIHRC spokesman said it was difficult for them to identify individual cases because of security reasons. But the 203 Army Corps Public Relations officer, Fazle Khuda, did confirm such incidents in general terms, when he said that “of course people are killed and wounded, because there is fighting ongoing and rockets are fired.” However, he rejected the specific accounts and said that Taleban fighters had forced civilians to speak out against Afghan security forces.

Reactions to the operation

In the midst of the operation, on 8 January 2016, a number of Zurmat residents, provincial council members and the AIHRC spokesman held a gathering in Gardez during which they protested against the mistreatment of civilians by government forces (see one media report here). During the gathering, the AIHRC spokesman said that certain non-Pashtun soldiers did not care about Pashtun locals during the operation. When asked for more details by AAN in a phone interview, he declined to elaborate further on the behaviour of government forces.

ANSF’s pursuit of short-term goals at heavy cost in the battle for hearts and minds

Operation Khyber, which aimed to clear the insurgents’ operational bases from Sahak, seems to have achieved little. The ANSF entered an area that had long been run by the Taleban, but were not able to hold for long. This is a pattern seen in many other places. The heavy cost of alienating the local population, who may be more familiar with and supportive of the Taleban, seems to override the short-term benefits of winning a battle against insurgents in their local heartlands.

It is difficult to establish exactly what happened in Sahak. As in many other areas, reports of civilian casualties are often ignored, while government officials tend to rely on what local officials report. It is clear, however, that both sides endangered local civilians: the Taleban, with their use of guerrilla tactics, including using civilian areas as staging grounds for attacks; and the Afghan government forces that, as highlighted in a recent UNAMA report on the protection of civilians, do not take sufficient care of the population’s safety, even while trying to win the battle for hearts and minds.

(1) More recently, and seemingly unrelated to Operation Khyber, another newsworthy military development in Zurmat was one in which the Afghan National Army (ANA), on 25 February 2016, abandoned a military base in the Kulalgo area of Zurmat. Local officials called it a tactical retreat (read this Pajhwok report), while military officials said it was due to an order from the Ministry of Defense (MoD) to abandon unnecessary bases. The base, which was on the main Ghazni-Ghardez Highway near the Kulalgo bazaar, had been set up by US soldiers in the past and had been handed over to the Afghan army after the US military left. Last autumn, Taleban fighters attacked the base and fighting lasted for one and a half weeks. Now MoD officials appear to believe its presence is unnecessary in the area.

Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the US – the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) – are pushing to open a new chapter in the ongoing search for a peace process for Afghanistan. The group has now met for the fourth time, although direct talks with the Taleban have yet to begin. Earlier this week, it issued an ultimatum to the Taleban to come to the negotiating table with the Afghan government by early March 2016, or face the military heat. At the same time, the Afghan High Peace Council (HPC) was revamped so that it could “more effectively” support the envisaged process. This approach, however, risks once again derailing talks before they have even begun. AAN co-director Thomas Ruttig takes a closer look.

For the past months, Afghanistan and its three partners in the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) – US, China and Pakistan – have been trying to force a breakthrough by creating a viable Afghan peace process. The current drive is partly fuelled by a desire within the US administration to gain as much ground before the next US elections, and partly by the recurring hope that Pakistan may now be more amenable to peace between the Taleban and the Afghan government. The initial drive for renewed talks came from the new Afghan government. The current focus in the process is, in the first instance, to bring the Taleban to the negotiating table and get them to agree to direct talks with the government in Kabul – without which a genuine peace process would be difficult to imagine.

An invitation-cum-ultimatum and a ‘road map’

Following the fourth meeting of the QCG, which took place on Tuesday (23 February) in Kabul, the four participants issued an “invitation” to “all Taliban and other [armed] groups to participate through their authorized representatives in the first round of direct peace talks with the Afghan government expected to take place by the first week of March 2016.” (The emphasis on “authorised representatives” is meant to ensure that the insurgent delegation does not permanently need to go back to consult its leadership for decisions, which also can be a delaying tactic.) Pakistan has agreed to host these talks in Islamabad.

This ‘invitation,’ which bears all the hallmarks of an ultimatum given the very short deadline, was part of a stern five-paragraph joint press release (the statement of President Ghani is here) published by the Afghan foreign ministry after the QCG meeting. It was preceded by some posturing in the meeting’s opening statement by Afghan foreign minister Salahuddin Rabbani, in which he said that his government would welcome any group joining the process, but that

…those elements of the armed groups who continue to refuse to join the peace talks, and continue the path of violence must realize that our message to them is clear: our brave security forces will not hesitate in their resolve to fight them resolutely, wherever they are, to stop them from committing terror, violence and bloodshed.

Kabul’s approach seems to be based on the – unpublished – roadmap for the envisaged peace process (see press release here) agreed upon by the QCG’s members during their previous meeting in Islamabad in early February, which, according to participants, determines “parameters of shared responsibilities.” It tries to capitalise on the split in the Taleban insurgency that showed when Mullah Muhammad Mansur officially took over as new leader following last year’s announcement of the death of the movement’s founder-leader Mullah Muhammad Omar and a dissident faction emerged under Mullah Muhammad Rassul. (See AAN’s analysis of these developments here.) Currently, it tries to drive the wedge even deeper, using the emergence of further, smaller splinter group, related or unrelated to the dissidents. (See for instance the media reporting on Taleban infighting in Paktika here and in Faryab here.)

Analytically and practically, the roadmap envisages that the Taleban be divided into those considered to be ‘conciliatory’ and ‘irreconcilable.’ President Ghani, in a press conference on 31 December 2015, had already set the tone for this (quoted here) when he said: “It is obvious that there are groups of Taliban, not a unified movement. The fundamental issue here is the choice: choose peace or terrorism. There will be no tolerance for terrorism.” (1) Abdul Hakim Mujahed, a former Taleban diplomat now on the Afghan High Peace Council (HPC), made this approach even clearer in an interview, where he said that those deemed irreconcilable will be fought. As he put it:

The road map is being prepared to combat the Afghan insurgency and bring peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan. Certainly all four countries [on the QCG] will cooperate with each other to combat the insurgency.

The strategy of seeking to widen the split among the Taleban is apparently based on two hopes. Firstly, that either Pakistan, with China’s prompting, will succeed in bringing the Taleban mainstream faction of Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansur to the Islamabad talks or, alternatively, persuade other groups (for example Rassul’s faction or Hezb-e Islami) to join the talks. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s faction, Hezb-e Islami, has been holding direct talks with the Afghan government for years (AAN’s analysis here) in an attempt to increase its political standing and might take up the QCG’s offer. (Many other Hezbis joined the post-2001 political system either individually or in groups, registered a political party, secured several cabinet positions and one of their leaders is deputy to the CEO. Its armed wing, however, has failed so far to come to an agreement to end its armed campaign.) If some groups joined the talks, it could prompt some of the more mainstream Taleban to join the bandwagon of peace talks.

Mullah Muhammad Rassul’s dissident Taleban faction, though, has also adopted the position that it would be ready to engage in peace talks only after the departure of all foreign troops (here in Dari).

Secondly, the strategy seems based on the premise that Pakistan would start clamping down on ‘irreconcilable’ Taleban even if hitherto it had considered many of them allies or assets. According to the New York Times earlier this week, “officials close to the talks process” (it is unclear of which government) said “Pakistan’s representatives had earlier given assurances that violence will be noticeably reduced in coming weeks” and that the Taleban might even refrain from announcing their ‘spring offensive’ this year. (That being said, there has been virtually no lull in fighting over the winter. Many Taleban fighters were ordered to stay in their province and not to retreat to their shelters in Pakistan.) This aim – the reduction of violence in Afghanistan – had been established at the QCG’s second meeting in Kabul in January 2016 (see statement here).

The question remains, however, as to whether such a shift in behaviour would fit into Pakistan’s long-term regional strategy. Until now, the Taleban have been seen as its strongest card in the regional power play with regard to securing influence in post-withdrawal Afghanistan. It seems unlikely that Pakistan would discard the Taleban while bilateral relations remain dominated by mutual mistrust and accusations of supporting or harbouring each other’s armed insurgents. There are also unsolved issues, such as the open border question.

The Afghan government used the opportunity to restate its main red lines for the envisaged peace talks. In his speech introducing the revamped High Peace Council on the day of the QCG meeting, President Ashraf Ghani urged the Taleban to end their armed campaign, to “join the caravan of peace” and to choose “political participation” under “our constitution.” (2)

The second decision of the fourth QCG meeting was to set up a joint Afghan-Pakistani working group to mobilise support of ulema (religious scholars) from both countries for the “peace and reconciliation process, including through Fatwas against the ongoing senseless violence.” In this way, the Afghan government is trying to flank the talks with activities that aim to build a constituency for peace. It is also trying to take the moral high ground, presenting itself as the party that pushes for an end to the conflict, giving the other side the choice of whether to join or be sent to the warmonger’s corner.

The Taleban reaction

The Taleban, in their first response to the QCG statement issued by the spokesman of their political office in Qatar to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, said they were “unaware of plans for talks.” The Taleban spokesman, Muhammad Naim Wardak, added that they had not changed their position regarding the conditions under which they would be ready to join a peace process, as announced at the second Pugwash meeting in Doha on 23 January 2016 (see the organisation’s rendering of the results here; the Taleban’s version is here). The conditions include the withdrawal of all foreign troops, official recognition of the Qatar office, the removal of the Taleban from the UN sanctions list, a halt to the “arrest and elimination” of Taleban fighters, the release of Taleban inmates from prisons, and a stop to what they call “anti-Taleban propaganda,” including labelling them as “terrorists.” (The Qatar office has been tasked both by the old and the new Taleban leadership to act as the movement’s sole intermediary.) Diplomats in Kabul have interpreted this list of Taleban demands as a hardening of their position in comparison to what they said at the first Pugwash meeting in May 2015 (see AAN’s take on this meeting here).

To date, the insurgents have officially rejected engaging in direct talks with the Afghan government, as they first insist on holding negotiations with the US regarding the full withdrawal of all foreign military forces. Their official position is that ‘intra-Afghan talks’ would only be possible following this withdrawal (the date of which has now been postponed due to the extension of Mission Resolute Support beyond the end of 2016).

There has been one major exception, though. In the Murree talks in July 2015, Taleban representatives did in fact sit down for talks with officials from Kabul for the first time. These talks were quickly abandoned, however, mainly due to the news of Mullah Omar’s death which came out in the middle of the sessions and the break of confidentiality about the talks (read AAN analysis here). The Taleban also sat in the same room with Afghan government representatives in lower key events not directly related to Afghanistan, such as in a March 2015 peace seminar in Oslo. This might serve as some indication that there may be some political posturing involved and that the ‘preconditions’ could become negotiable once a degree of trust has been established, after the many failed attempts at getting talks underway.

There are two elements in the invitation issued by the QCG that may well be off-putting to the Taleban. First, there is the tone, which is one of an ultimatum, when in fact the Taleban are making steady territorial gains in parts of the country where the most intensive fighting is taking place. In the strategically important province of Helmand, for example, the Taleban have recently forced the ANSF to beat a ‘tactical’ retreat from at least one district (see a media report here; an AAN analysis of the Helmand situation is forthcoming). Furthermore, they are still capitalising on their temporary takeover of Kunduz, where a dangerous situation continues (see AAN’s analysis here). Sources from various provinces told AAN how this victory has boosted the local Taleban’s morale. Secondly, they might be suspicious – given the experience of the Murree talks – that Pakistan’s role as host for the newly envisaged talks would once again mean that Pakistan will determine who should sit at the table on the Taleban’s behalf.

Finally, the early March deadline for talks seems unrealistic. The QCG Four might well end up talking with only a few marginal groups (or delaying the timeline).

It is unlikely that the short deadline set by the QCG will in the short run bring about the longed-for reduction of violence in Afghanistan, as expressed by the officials quoted above. It therefore remains to be seen whether, if the talks do not commence by early March, the ANSF can make good on Kabul’s strong rhetoric and significantly increase their pressure on the Taleban in the spring, thereby turning the military tide and re-taking the initiative in the war. In all probability, this is doubtful, according both to the US special inspector’s latest assessments (highlighting the ANSF’s five main challenges including “questionable force strength numbers” and ”uncertain long-term sustainability”) and to what Nur ul-Haq Ulumi, interior minister until recently, said about the Afghan police – that there were “imaginary units,” “networks of financial and political corruption“ and “large quantities of untraceable ammunition” undermining its fighting capability. The alternative would be to extend the deadline of the ‘invitation’ for talks and in the meantime keep the QCG’s member-states’ political pressure on the Taleban up.

President Ghani and CEO Abdullah present the revamped HPC. Photo: Presidential website.

A reformed High Peace Council?

The QCG’s statement and the Taleban’s reaction almost overshadowed the fact that, after months of deliberations, a new composition for the High Peace Council (HPC) was announced (see the composition of its leadership bodies in the annex). Former HPC foreign affairs representative, Ismail Qasemyar, who continues to speak for the council, confirmed to AAN that the number of its members has been reduced from 70 to 50. A full list of those members, however, was not available at the time of writing.

The first mention of how the HPC had been revamped came late on 21 February 2016 via a post on Twitter by the deputy spokesman of the CEO, somewhat prematurely it seemed. The Palace took its time and only confirmed the news two days later in a press conference (statement in Pashto here; as yet unavailable in English), on the day of the QCG meeting.

The HPC top post went, as the Kabul rumour mill had indicated for a long time, to veteran mujahedin leader Pir Seyyed Ahmad Gailani. (3) The Pir still commands a lot of respect, also as the leader of an important Sufi order that includes the Taleban among its followers. He is, however, ageing and it is expected that his role will mainly be a symbolical one. His son, Seyyed Hamed Gailani – who also runs the Gailanis’ political party, Mahaz-e Melli Islami (English: NIFA) – may end up running the everyday work of the council on his father’s behalf, although his name has not yet been mentioned for any official role within the council.

The HPC also has six new deputy heads. There is Haji Din Muhammad, a key Ghani supporter and eastern Pashtun. As head of the 2009 presidential campaign for then president Hamed Karzai and with a key role in the current president’s 2014 campaign, he helped establish contacts that kept the insurgency relatively quiet on those elections days in parts of the country. The other five deputies are former Vice President Abdul Karim Khalili (a Hazara, currently without a government position); three religious scholars, respectively Mawlawis Abdul Khabir Uchqul (an Uzbek), Abdul Karim Khuddam (a Turkmen) and Atta ur-Rahman Salim (a Tajik) and Habiba Sarabi, the former Women’s Affairs minister and first female provincial governor (for Bamian, 2005-13; she is also a Hazara). Khuddam and Salim represent Jamiat-e Islami, Khabir was deputy chairman of the Jombesh party and Khalili leads his own wing of the Hezb-e Wahdat-e Islami.

There are two women on the new HPC Executive Board of Advisors: Sadeqa Balkhi, a former minister and serving member of the Afghan Senate, and Hasina Safi, director of the Afghan Women’s network. Both women participated in a landmark meeting in Norway in the middle of 2015 – the first where Afghan women activists and Taleban representatives directly exchanged views (see here and here). The other four advisors are Mawlawi Abdul Hakim Mujahed, a former Taleban diplomat and deputy HPC head; Mawlawi Attaullah Ludin, former governor of Nangarhar and member of Hezb-e Islami’s legal wing; and two of the council’s spokesmen, Ismail Qasemyar and Farhadullah Farhad.

Much like the old council, the focus in appointing the HPC’s new leadership and advisory board seems to have been more on balancing the major ethnic groups and political factions, than on gathering a strong team of negotiators. (Read AAN’s take on the initial HPC in 2010 here.)

The CEO’s spokesman who initially broke the news told AAN “these appointments will help [the] competence [and] effectiveness of the HPC at a time when we are preparing the [first] round of direct peace talks.“ President Ghani later said the council’s task was “to meet soon to set out a priority framework” according to which the government “will take action.” Given these comments and the fact that the Taleban never recognised the council (which they deem to be too close to the government to be a viable partner in negotiations), (4) and taking into account how the HPC has functioned in the past, it does not seem likely that it will play a central role in peace talks, should they take place. The way the quadrilateral negotiations have been conducted until now also points to the fact that the ultimate negotiation team will very likely not come from the HPC, or would only include a few individual members.

If indeed the HPC remains a side-show in the peace process, its re-launching was probably mainly designed to serve as another symbol that a peace process is finally taking off, and also to tick a box on the list of benchmarks agreed upon between the Afghan government and the international community (see here, in the annex). It also ensures that a number of influential figures are kept on board in well-remunerated positions. This in turn implies there is a danger that, with its still large membership, the HPC will continue to be used as a cash cow. Qasemyar was recently quoted in a government-run newspaper as saying that he expected the impending changes within the HPC to bring with them a resumption of international funding.

On a more positive note, ethnic and social groups that suffered the most at the hands of the Taleban regime are now better represented in the various HPC’s leadership bodies: there are two Hazaras (one is a woman) and three women. This seems to be a direct response to demands from civil society as well as segments of the international community. These groups harbour the most fears about repercussions of a possible return of the Taleban to power as a result of the envisaged negotiated settlement. Even if the council is no more active than its predecessor, with its new members, and particularly the women, it could potentially serve as a warning bell in case the government negotiators threaten to compromise too much  – provided, of course, they are listened to.

The NUG’s attempt to take the moral high ground in the peace talks would have been more convincing had it managed to end its quarrels over cabinet and provincial governor posts, or been more transparent regarding its progress on fighting corruption, improving the country’s socio-economic situation and creating jobs – not least as it needs to stem the continuing flow of refugees from the country.

(1) Former Taleban diplomat Abdul Hakim Mujahed, who remains a key member on the new HPC, expressed a somewhat different notion when speaking to web-based magazine The Diplomat in February:

First of all, we hope that all the factions of the Taliban will come under one leader. If this can’t be, we hope that the four countries [in the QCG] will call all of them to the negotiations. They will try not to exclude anyone and to avoid the mistake that was committed in 2001, when the Taliban movement was excluded from the peace process. We have to learn from the failures of the past and understand why the earlier efforts could not yield any results.

(2) A Pashto transcript of the president’s speech can be found here. No English translation is yet available. The text of this dispatch quotes a short English version of the speech that was diffused from the Palace’s twitter account.

(3) Gailani’s main competitor for the top HPC post was former interim president Hazrat Sebghatullah Mojaddedi, who led the first, heavily funded but largely ineffective and corrupt ‘reconciliation and reintegration’ programme, known by its Dari abbreviation PTS (Program-e Tahkim-e Solh/Programme for Strengthening Peace). The PTS was established by President Karzai in 2005 and replaced by the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Programme (APRP). The HPC was set up as part of the APRP. Details on the APRP’s donors here.

(4) The Taleban even considered the HPC members ‘legitimate targets’ in their fight. The council’s first chairman, Ustad Borhanuddin Rabbani, was killed by a Taleban assassin in 2011 (the first of a series of five AAN dispatches on this topic here). Rabbani’s successor (as acting HPC head), Arsala Rahmani, a former Taleban minister, was also assassinated a year later (AAN analysis here). President Ghani mentioned in his inauguration speech for the council’s new set-up that also at least 40 of its provincial officials have been murdered.

Annex: The new HPC leadership:

Chairman:

Pir Sayyed Ahmad Gailani

Deputy chairs:

Abdul Karim Khalili (Senior Deputy Chairman)

Habiba Sorabi

Haji Din Muhammad

Mawlawi Abdul Karim Khuddam

Mawlawi Abdul Khabir Ushqul

Mawlawi Atta ur-Rahman Salim

Executive Board of Advisors:  

Abdul Hakim Mujahed

Mawlawi Attaullah Ludin

Sediqa Balkhi

Hasina Safi

Ismail Qasemyar

Farhadullah Farhad

HPC Secretariat:

Muhammad Ayub Rafiqi (head, based in Kandahar)

Farhadullah Farhad (deputy head)

Dr. Faruq Bashir (deputy head)

The lower house of the Afghan parliament, the Wolesi Jirga, will end its winter recess and begin its next sitting on 6 March 2015. With elections delayed, the current group of MPs is likely to be in place for some time. This seemed like a good time, then, to review the lower house’s performance in 2015. AAN’s parliamentary reporter, Salima Ahmadi, reveals issues such as low attendance, a preoccupation with presidential decrees and only a nominal oversight of the executive. MPs’ most interesting work, she noted, usually occurred during the hour-long open discussions when constituents’ concerns were raised.

(This dispatch is AAN’s second look at parliament. The first, published on 4 February 2016, looked at how the upper and lower house are set up and function.)

What are MPs supposed to do?

The Afghan constitution (article 81) stipulates that the Wolesi Jirga, “as the highest legislative organ, shall manifest the will of its people as well as represent the entire nation.” Like parliaments throughout the world, it has three principle roles: law making, overseeing the government’s actions and activities, and representing the people. (1)

By way of example, the tenth sitting (from 6 September 2015 to 20 January 2016) provides a useful insight into the workings of the parliament. 51 sessions were held, including two interpellations (in Dari and Pashto, isteza), when a minister is summoned for questioning, after which MPs can dismiss him or her, in a vote of no confidence. There were also 15 questioning sessions (istejwab) when ministers and other senior officials, such as the directors of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) and the Central Bank, are summoned for questioning (but without the threat of a no-confidence vote) and three presentations of reports (istema), when ministers are asked to tell the house about their ministries’ activities. (2) The house also held 30 plenary sessions, which are the general sessions, which all MPs should attend where there is a set agenda followed by an hour-long open discussion. A closed session was also held in which the devaluation of the Afghani compared to the US dollar and other foreign currencies was discussed.

During this tenth sitting, MPs approved a total of 39 pieces of legislation, including ten laws, nine international agreements, six presidential legislative decrees, the annual national budget for the fiscal year 1395 (20 December 2015 to 20 December 2016) and amendments to the Internal Rules of Procedures of the Wolesi Jirga. (3) MPs also rejected six presidential decrees. Several were left pending when MPs went into their winter recess and are due to be considered in March, when the lower house reconvenes.

At first glance, it may look as if the parliament worked hard throughout 2015. Whether any of it amounted to much, though, is open to debate. There were serious flaws in the carrying out of MPs’ legislative and oversight roles. Moreover, one major underlying problem must be highlighted: the low attendance rate. For the most part, there was no quorum of MPs, which meant that issues could not be voted on and the work of the house frequently ground to a halt.

Where were the MPs?

There are currently 240 MPs. (4) The required minimum number of MPs for a quorum to vote on legislation is a simple majority, in other words 121. On most days, however, this reporter noted attendances as low as 68 and 76. In October 2015, for example, out of 14 sessions, a quorum was scraped together on only six occasions. The best attendance that month was 131. (5) In the last three months of 2015, the house was relatively full on only three occasions, with the best turnout 184. Generally, more MPs showed up for the ‘big occasions’, such as when a minister was summoned or the votes on candidate ministers (although far fewer turned up for the earlier sessions when MPs grilled the candidates), or when the budget was discussed. “The reason for MPs’ low attendance,” a member of the parliamentary affairs office, an employee of the parliament, told AAN, “is that most of the current MPs have businesses and therefore they attend to their own matters, rather than focusing on the national issues.”

This failure to reach a quorum sabotaged important work. Voting and discussions had to be postponed on issues such as the proposed amendments to the Rules of Procedures of the Wolesi Jirga (4 November 2015), the SAARC agreement for the prevention of natural disasters and the Convention of Islamic Organizations on Food Security (both on 18 November 2015), as well as on presidential decrees pertaining to nuclear energy and agricultural pesticides (11 January 2016). The persistent low attendance of MPs also slowed down the overall performance of the Wolesi Jirga, as MPs were unable to deliver what had been planned in the legislative calendar. On occasions when there was a quorum, there would often be rushed, mass voting. On 13 January 2016, for instance, the Wolesi Jirga discussed and voted on five pieces of legislation in less than two hours. (6) MPs have occasionally been known to work harder. They extended parliament’s eighth sitting (July 2014-January 2015) by a week (under government pressure), delaying the winter recess so that they could vote on candidates for the cabinet and on the budget. Likewise in January 2016, some MPs wanted to extend the tenth sitting saying they were needed to closely monitor the quadrilateral meetings trying to start a peace process. However, they were unable to collect enough signatures for this motion.

The same pattern of poor attendance was noted in the meetings of the dozen or so specialised commissions (such as for security, development, complaints and the budget) and joint commissions that review draft legislation before it goes to the house. According to the Free and Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan (FEFA), most of the commissions’ decisions were taken without the necessary quorum, sometimes with as few as two or three members. (7) However, for a commission decision to be valid, a majority of its members have to be present (article 28 of the Wolesi Jirga Rules of Procedure). The attendance rate of the administrative board of the Wolesi Jirga (MPs who are elected to organise the business of the house) was no better. On 28 January, for example, MP Abdul Rahim Ayubi was scheduled to reveal to the administrative board a list of MPs whom he claimed had received bribes. On the scheduled day, the administrative board members did not show up and no session was held (see the report here).

No serious measures have been taken against MPs who are constantly absent from the plenary and commissions sessions. Articles 111, 112 and 113 of the Rules of Procedures of the Wolesi Jirga prescribe a range of measures depending on the number of days (or months) of unexcused absence, from salary reduction, withholding salary to the suspension of privileges. (8) These rules have never been enforced. From the pattern of (non-)attendance, it would appear that many MPs show up to parliament only in order to collect their wages or to question ministers.

What did MPs actually achieve?

Representing their constituents

Starting with the function of the house where MPs seemed to perform best – representing their constituents’ views – it appeared that the one-hour open discussion in every plenary session is the most relevant forum for MPs to air and debate citizens’ current concerns. For example, during the tenth sitting (September 2015 to January 2016), MPs discussed the alarming security developments in various provinces, the targeted killings of journalists and analysts, the critical situation of the economy, the date for the upcoming parliamentary elections, the presence of Islamic State (Daesh) fighters in Zabul and Nangrahar provinces, human rights issues, the peace process, the security of roads and various important infrastructure works. Unlike the time allocated for issues on the agenda, MPs frequently use more than the designated one-hour slot for the open discussion. Often, so many MPs put their names on the Speaker’s list for the open discussion that their time has to be limited to three minutes in order to accommodate all those who want to raise an issue.

Such issues have a real impact on constituents’ lives and are discussed on a regular basis, but rarely find their way into the legislative agenda. When it comes to law-making, MPs are reactive. They also appear to be overwhelmed by having to review and vote on the plethora of presidential degrees issued from the Palace.

Law-making

Members of the Wolesi Jirga have the authority to propose legislation (a privilege they rarely exercise) and to consider and endorse or reject legislation from government ministries or in the form of presidential legislative decrees. It was the decrees that were most commonly discussed and voted on. According to the constitution, these need Wolesi Jirga endorsement to become law.

During the tenth sitting, for example, the lower house received approximately two dozen presidential decrees for consideration. It approved six, rejected six and the remaining ones were left pending for after the winter recess. (9) Those rejected included two decrees, in November 2015, relating to electoral reforms. According to article 109 of the constitution, the Wolesi Jirga should not be deliberating on issues related to elections in the last year of its term. The lower house is, however, already outside of its constitutionally mandated term, so there was already a prior constitutional violation.

Oversight role

The other core duty of the Wolesi Jirga is to oversee the executive branch of government. It has to give a vote of confidence to government nominees for cabinet ministers and several other senior offices of state, as well as approve the budget. It also has the power to summon ministers to present an account of what they have done (hearings or istema in Dari and Pashto), for questioning (istejwab) and, most seriously, interpellation (isteza) when MPs can dismiss ministers for poor performance. However, in 2015 there was little sign of MPs investigating candidate ministers’ backgrounds or ministers’ performances or, indeed, of calling the government to account much at all. Voting on serious matters often appeared to have taken place along party or ethnic lines. Not every MP is swayed by such factors, of course, but the actual matter at hand frequently appears to be less important than group solidarity – or not – with the minister concerned. There are also frequent accusations of money changing hands ahead of major votes, something that is difficult to prove, although AAN did uncover evidence of this in 2010.

Endorsing and rejecting candidates

In 2015, parliament questioned and then approved or rejected two groups of candidates for cabinet minister posts, in January (at the end of parliament’s eighth sitting) and then in April (during its ninth sitting). AAN’s reporting noted the candidates’ extremely weak presentations and, in turn, weak questioning by MPs, few of whom had actually turned up to the chamber. Among those rejected were some very feeble candidates. However, the overall pattern – the rejection of all the women, Hazaras and Uzbeks – gave the appearance of party, ethnic or tanzim politics at play. (In the vote on the second group of candidates, MPs accepted all of them.)

After the summer recess, the Wolesi Jirga approved six nominees, including one woman (Ghezal Hares), for the Independent Commission for Overseeing the Implementation of the Constitution, but rejected a nominee who would have become the first female member of Afghanistan’s Supreme Court, Anisa Rasuli. President Ghani was criticised by conservatives for putting forward a woman for this position:

Menstruating women were considered unclean in Islam and were not allowed to touch the Quran, Qazi Nazir Hanafi [an MP for Herat] said. As judges put their hands on the holy book every day, and it was unfeasible for a Supreme Court judge to take a week off every month, ran his logic, Rasuli’s appointment should be opposed.

(For additional media reporting on this matter, see here.)

Rasuli narrowly missed out on the vote (she received 88 of the 94 votes needed). Ghani then put forward a male judge, Abdul Hasib Ahadi, whose nomination was approved (see here).

Calling ministers to account

The Wolesi Jirga summoned two ministers for interpellation sessions: Interior Minister Nur ul-Haq Ulumi and Minister of Communications and Information Technology Abdul Razaq Wahidi. Ulumi was summoned on 2 November 2015 and ordered to answer questions on the deteriorating security in the country and, in particular, how Kunduz had come to fall to the Taleban at the end of September. MPs accused the leaders of the National Unity Government of being “incompetent” as they had failed to protect people’s lives or the national interest. Ulumi was asked to explain the reasons behind the fall of several districts to insurgents. He blamed “countries in our neighbourhood,” singling out Pakistan, saying they did not want a sovereign Afghanistan. He attributed the fall of Kunduz to the Taleban as “a failure of government leadership.” Ulumi further noted “the withdrawal of international troops and a poorly equipped air force as being factors in the country’s deteriorating security situation.”  He retained his position after MPs were apparently satisfied with his explanations and received 131 out of 151 votes.

Some ministers alleged that this support was not due to the fact that MPs had been convinced by his answers. MP Qais Hassan claimed, “A third hand is behind the 180 degrees change in lawmakers’ view,” adding, “Ulumi was not a good minister and did not properly manage his ministry.” In a Pajhwok article, MP Aziza Jales referred to “a door-to-door campaign in favour of the minister” and claimed that appointments based on “nepotism and misuse of tribal rivalries” had saved Ulumi from a vote of no confidence. “The same MPs who collected signatures to impeach the Interior Minister,” MP Rahman Rahmani from Balkh afterwards told AAN, “then became his defence lawyers during the interpellation session.”

On 4 January 2016 the Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Abdul Razaq Wahidi, was also summoned to give answers on alleged corruption charges and illegal appointments within the ministry, as well as a ten per cent tax collection on mobile phone credit. The presidential decree ushering in the ten per cent tax had been endorsed by the Council of Ministers while the Wolesi Jirga was in its summer recess. When they returned, MPs said it contravened article 79 of the constitution and, on 14 October 2015, voted it down. MP Ghulam Hussain Nasiri from Maidan Wardak said, “We must not discuss unlawful decrees.” “In the devastating economic situation of Afghanistan,” MP Ghulam Faruq Majruh from Herat told AAN, “imposing a ten per cent tax on telecom companies would be another burden on the nation.” There was no transparency in the tax collection process, he claimed, or where the money would be spent. Despite its rejection, telecom companies obeyed the decree and continued to enforce the ten per cent tax.

During his interpellation Wahidi rejected these allegations, calling them baseless. As for the tax, he said it “goes to the finance ministry budget and this ministry should be interrogated on how and where the budget is spent.” Wahidi added that in the first ten days of the decree being enforced, approximately 80 million Afghanis had been collected. Wahidi survived his vote of no confidence by a wide margin. (10)

On 13 January 2016, less than two weeks later, on their first day back in session and after the interpellation of Wahidi took place (see AAN analysis here), MPs inexplicably approved the tax in spite of their initial outcry. One MP, Shahidzada from Herat, said during the hour-long open discussion following the vote, that the sudden approval of the same decree (without any amendments) “shows the double standards of the Wolesi Jirga.”

While it may be that MPs were either satisfied with Ulumi and Wahidi’s explanations or had simply wanted to make their concerns known (and were never intent on sacking either minister), it should be noted that these same MPs, on 9 November 2013, endorsed the (now former) Minister of Refugees and Repatriation Affairs, Jamahir Anwari, who was publically accused of being involved in administrative corruption, fraud and land grabbing. Investigative reporting by the Independent Media Consortium on 28 September 2013 revealed detailed accusations that Anwari had UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, transfer tens of thousands of dollars into the personal accounts of family members and others (see reporting here, here in Dari and here). A month later, in October 2013, the Independent Joint Anti-Corruption and Evaluation Committee, a leading anti-corruption monitoring and evaluation body in Afghanistan, released its ‘vulnerability to corruption’ assessment on the process of land distribution for repatriations and displaced people led by the Ministry for Refugees (available here). The report detailed widespread administrative corruption, bribery, forgery, nepotism, embezzlement and poor customer service in the ministry. (11)

On 10 October 2013, 57 MPs requested that Anwari come forward to explain these allegations in an interpellation hearing. On 9 November 2013, the minister was subjected to a rigorous cross-examination (see here and here). He survived a vote of no confidence.

Approving the budget

As with the mobile phone tax vote in the autumn, MPs’ reluctance to endorse the budget dissipated eventually for no apparent reason. The Minister of Finance, Eklil Hakimi, had submitted the national annual budget on 25 November 2015 after it was approved by the Council of Ministers and discussed by the upper house, the Meshrano Jirga, which had made certain recommendations. The draft was then reviewed by the standing commissions and discussed in joint commission meetings, in accordance with the law. On 21 December 2015 (within the month allowed for by law, but already into the new fiscal year), the draft was presented to the lower house, which rejected it by a majority vote. The Wolesi Jirga members of the finance commission said both the budget and the proposed allocation of the budget for the provinces were unacceptable. MPs said the budget was “unbalanced” and accused the government of considering their own priorities and not the national interest (see here). The draft was sent back with comments and proposed amendments to the Ministry of Finance. The budget is one way MPs can put pressure on the government, which is has done in the past. In 2013 the Wolesi Jirga sent the 2014 budget back to the Ministry of Finance twice (see here and here).

With the Wolesi Jirga’s winter recess fast approaching, the government needed to react and press MPs to approve the budget. The initial draft budget had been 461.8 billion Afghanis (6.70 billion USD): 283.3 billion for ordinary expenditure and 178.5 billion for development (see here). During its second review of the budget, the Finance Ministry added just over 2.5 per cent to the budget (12 billion Afghanis – 17.4 million USD – of which 1.8 billion was allocated for ordinary expenditure and 10 billion for development). The head of the Wolesi Jirga Budget and Finance Commission, MP Ahmadyar Khan, who briefed MPs, claimed the new budget was more balanced because “18 different parts have been amended.” This time, MPs gave an overwhelming majority, with only six out of 146 members voting against the virtually unchanged budget.

MPs not going anywhere fast

In 2015, the Wolesi Jirga struggled to fulfil its constitutional function. Its current legality is also questionable, as it continues to sit beyond the constitutionally mandated end date of June 2015 (as analysed in the first part of this dispatch). The Independent Election Commission may have announced that parliamentary elections will take place on 15 October 2016, but that has not been generally endorsed. However, this batch of MPs will be with us for some – as yet unspecified – time to come. It is hard to see where an improvement on the 2015 performance could come from.

Edited by Lenny Linke

(1) In particular, the National Assembly holds the powers to: ratify, modify, or abrogate laws and/or legislative decrees; approve plans for economic, social, cultural, and technological development; approve the state budget, give or withhold permission for obtaining and granting loans; create and modify administrative units; ratify international treaties and agreements, or abrogate the membership of Afghanistan to them (see article 90, clause 1 of the Afghan Constitution). Based on the provisions of the Afghan Constitution, the Wolesi Jirga has some additional authorities compared to the upper house (Meshrano Jirga): deciding on the interpellation of each of the ministers; taking the final decision on the state’s development programs and state budget if there is a disagreement between the Wolesi Jirga and the Meshrano Jirga; approving the appointments according to the provisions of the constitution.

(2) Presentation of report (istema): listening to the report presented by the government to the plenary or commissions upon the request of the Wolesi Jirga;

Questioning session (istejwab): oral or written questions which are asked by the members of parliament in the commissions or in the plenary, which require responses from government officials during the session;

Interpellation sessions (isteza): the process of requiring a minister to provide an explanation for their actions in accordance with article 92 of the constitution, which can lead in the dismissal of a minister (see here).

(3) The 39 pieces of legislature approved during the tenth session included decrees related to electoral reform (two), the ten per cent tax on mobile users, agricultural pesticides, nuclear energy, procurement and transportation tolls, as well as decrees on amendments to the civil service law, the law on service management of electricity and amendments to the income tax law. See report “Wolesi Jirga performance in the tenth sitting” (6 September 2015 to 20 January 2016) by the Directorate of Legislative Affairs of Parliament, Kabul: 2016 (no web link).

(4) During the 2010 elections, 249 MPs were elected (according to the Afghan Constitution, there should not be more than 250 MPs in the Wolesi Jirga) for a period of four and a half years, or nine parliamentary sittings. This number of MPs has dwindled over the years to 240. In the last two sittings (January 2015 to January 2016), five MPs died (three in an explosion and one by natural causes). However, one of them, who died in a car accident, was replaced. Other MPs resigned from the Wolesi Jirga in order to take up positions in the government. Those MPs who died or resigned in the final year of the parliament, as per the rulebook, were not replaced.

Apart from the individuals officially recognised as no longer part of the Wolesi Jirga, there are also several MPs who are nominally still holding their mandates as MPs but who have refused to attend the Wolesi Jirga sessions due to their objection to the extension of the parliament’s terms beyond 22 June 2015. Despite their absence from the plenary sessions for the tenth sitting, they are still considered part of the Wolesi Jirga for the purpose of determining the quorum. During the last session of the tenth sitting, the Speaker of the House, Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi, singled out the following MPs, Ramadan Bashardost, Bakhtash Siawash and Farkhunda Zahra Naderi, as not having officially resigned from their positions. Therefore they need to be included in the number of active MPs. This means the total of 240 MPs in a plenary session can never been reached, hence the quorum technically should be adjusted to account for these ‘ghost’ MPs. However, given that parliament never comes near to being full, it is less significant than it might be.

(5) The Institute for Women, Peace and Security, a parliamentary oversight organisation, found that, on average, 57 per cent of parliamentarians were absent in the plenary sessions during the ninth sitting in 2015. In 2014, two out of three plenary sessions lacked a quorum (see Dari report here).

(6) When there is no quorum to vote on the draft laws then the scheduled draft laws and decrees are postponed until the next session. On some occasions there was mass voting. For example, on 13 January 2016, MPs voted and approved the following presidential decrees and laws in under two hours:

1. The law of regulating the telecommunications services charge

2. The legislative decree on agricultural pesticides

3. The legislative decree on nuclear energy

4. The toll taxes on gas and fuel law

5. Amendments regarding the procurement law

(7) “Wolesi Jirga Monitoring of Ninth Session of 16th Legislative Term: 16 Hut 1393 – 31 Saratan 1394,” Fair and Free Election Forum of Afghanistan (FEFA), Kabul: 2015 (see page 61).

(8) Rules of Procedures of the Wolesi Jirga

Rule 111

In case of a member’s absence in the plenary session or committee session, for each day of absence his or her monthly salary shall be deducted.

Rule 112

If a member cannot attend the sessions due to business related to his/her post [as MP] or because of lawful leave, his/her salary shall not be deducted.

This includes trips inside and outside the country relevant to the member’s job and the duties that are assigned to him/her at the time of conducting the sessions in the capital.

Rule 113

1. If a member is absent for one consecutive month, his/her main salary shall not be paid.

2. If a member is absent for two consecutive months, his case, based on the report of the administrative board, shall be investigated by the committee on rights, privileges and immunity of Jirga members. The committee shall put forward its opinion to the plenary session and in line with the article 108 of the constitution, the Jirga shall make the appropriate decision.

(9) Approved decrees:

1. 60th Presidential decree about telecommunication tax

2. 67th legislative decree about the ratification of law on service management of electricity

3. 82nd legislative decree about the ratification of some amendments in services of civil servants

4. 80th legislative decree about the rights of academic cadre for the institute of legislative affairs and academic research by imposing some amendments in this regard.

5. 71st presidential decree about agricultural pesticides

6. 69th presidential decree regarding nuclear energy

Rejected decrees:

1. 58th presidential decree about some amendments in the income tax

2. 75th presidential decree about the amendment regarding transportation tolls

3. 70th presidential decree about the addition of a second annex regarding a draft law on acting ministers or other officials.

4. 75th presidential decree regarding Structure, Authorities and Duties of Electoral bodies at the Independent Election Commission.

5. 74th presidential decree about the ratification of some amendments and the addition of some materials to the election law.

6. 70th presidential decree on the addition of a 2nd annex to the fifth article of the law on acting ministers

(10) Out of a total of 184 MPs present at Wahidi’s interpellation session, 104 MPs voted against his dismissal, 71 MPs voted in favour and nine votes were annulled (see here). Wahidi’s survival of the vote of no confidence was not without controversy, Kamal Nasir Osuli, an MP from Khost during the interpellation session for Abdul Razaq Wahidi, claimed that Wahidi had promised him 100,000 US dollars not to dismiss him. He also said that Wahidi had bribed another sixty MPs with 2,000 US dollars in order to also secure their support (see Dari report here).

(11) Earlier, UNHCR’s own evaluation of its Shelter Assistance Program conducted in the autumn of 2012, had also found the ministry to be an ‘unreliable partner’ due to corruption, inefficiency, mishandling of funds, lack of human resources, and an inability to demonstrate technical or thematic knowledge of the people under the ministry’s responsibility. In 2014, it was also revealed that a 2013 investigation by the United Nations Inspector General’s Office had found the ministry had misappropriated approximately 117,000 US dollars of UNHCR funds for staff bonuses, reimbursements to officials supported by forged documents and property rentals. Finally, the allegations were backed up by a report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) in August 2015.

The increased refugee influx into Europe is testing cooperation within the European Union, has led to attempts to close borders and is affecting domestic politics. AAN advisory board member Ann Wilkens looks at the Swedish example. Sweden has seen more asylum seekers per head of population than any other European country and liberal asylum policies have come under great pressure. During the last six months there has been a dramatic increase in migrants in general and unaccompanied minors in particular. Two thirds of them are Afghan boys. Travelling alone, she says, they have been exposed to the dangers of a long and perilous journey and are now facing the challenge of adapting to vastly different cultures.

During the last two years, Sweden received an unprecedented number of asylum-seekers – around 250,000. Out of these, around 163,000 arrived during the course of 2015, with numbers peaking during the autumn months of October and November. More specifically, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of unaccompanied minors arriving in Sweden. By the end of 2015, a total of 35,369 had sought asylum, as compared to 1,501 during 2014. Out of those who arrived last year, 66 per cent (23,480 individuals) were Afghan teenage boys. (1)

Unlike some other European countries, unaccompanied minors have generally been granted asylum in Sweden. Moreover, in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, in Sweden, they have had an automatic right to family reunification – to bring younger siblings and parents to the country. These policies seem to be having an impact on the demographics of asylum-seekers. A spike is evident in the number of Afghans who say they are 16 years old on arrival – 10,000 in 2015, compared with 1,400 18 year olds. Comparing these numbers with Syrians who generally get asylum in Sweden whatever their age, there were also 1,400 Syrian 18 year olds, but only 1,300 Syrian 16 year olds.

The reception system for unaccompanied minors is elaborate, especially for the younger age groups. Unlike adult asylum-seekers or families (whose arrival and integration are administered by the central migration authority), minors are distributed among local authorities for care. The municipalities are responsible for lodging them in homes or home-like reception centres and placing them in schools. Swedish adults are appointed as proxies, to ensure that their judicial, economic and social rights are met. However, with the recent influx, this system has been crumbling and so have Sweden´s hitherto liberal migration policies. Young Afghans in Sweden already have to cope with a number of difficulties and for those who arrive this year, the transition is likely to be even tougher.

The influx into Sweden and the political U-turn

Initially, on 16 August 2014, Fredrik Reinfeldt, then Swedish prime minister, urged Swedes to “open their hearts” in response to the growing, global refugee crisis (see here). Although the appeal resonated with many, in the following election on 14 September 2014, Reinfeldt´s government lost power and the socialist bloc took over. More specifically, his conservative party lost around 10 per cent of its voters to the Swedish Democrats (SD), an upcoming populist party with an anti-Muslim edge, which thrives on anti-immigration feelings. With the continuing increase of immigrants coming to Sweden from various war zones, the Swedish Democrats has kept growing and is now the third biggest political party in Sweden, after the conservatives (Moderaterna) and the Social Democrats, which are more or less equally strong.

While the established parties strived to keep the Swedish Democrats from wielding political influence in the parliament, their positions on the migration issue have also radically shifted from welcoming refugees to, in practice, seeking to close the borders to anyone without an official identity document. The objective is to discourage potential asylum-seekers from choosing Sweden as a destination, and thereby create a ‘breathing space’ in which the whole reception system can be revised, integration measures improved and policies realigned to cope with the continuing, global migration flows.

From having been one of the most open European countries, with a proportion of immigrants (understood as individuals born outside Sweden) of over 15 per cent, Sweden seems to have joined the ‘race to the bottom’ which is turning Europe into a well-guarded fortress in a surrounding world engulfed in bloody conflict. Under its new party leader, Anna Kinberg Batra, the conservative party, is now at the forefront of those pushing for tough measures to curb the flow of asylum-seekers. The party appears to have been rewarded for its U-turn by voters who seem to be returning to the fold, while defections to the radical right seem to have stalled.

However, the core reasons for the policy changes in Sweden go beyond domestic politicking. Most importantly, the European Union has, so far, failed to live up to any kind of unified response to the migration challenge. Only a handful of member states, led by Germany, have stuck to international asylum rules. The outward boundaries of the Schengen area are not controlled, the ‘Dublin regulation’ which establishes EU rules for the processing of asylum applications (for an explanation, see here), has broken down and the decision, in September 2015, to relocate 160,000 people in need of international protection from Greece and Italy to other member states has had very little effect. (According to a press release from the European Commission on 10 February 2016, only 497 of the envisaged 160,000 asylum-seekers had, by then, been relocated.) In October and November 2015, Sweden, with a population of 9.8 million, received well over half of all the asylum-seekers reaching the EU. According to a calculation by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Swedish public expenses for asylum-seekers, as a proportion of the GDP, will be almost double those of any other EU member state during the period 2014-2016. (2)

An overburdened system

For Sweden, the influx of unaccompanied minors is an important factor behind the rising costs and has also had dramatic, demographic effects: around 20 per cent of Swedish 16 year old boys are now refugees who have arrived without their families, most of them Afghan. The current gender ratio for 16 year olds is 123 boys to 100 girls, significantly more than even in countries where boys are systematically favoured (as described here).

While the official position of welcoming all asylum-seekers was long upheld, political panic was spreading behind the scene. Sweden, it was felt by a growing number of Swedes, could not alone cope with the refugee crisis in Europe. While the right to asylum should be upheld, many Swedes reasoned, this did not necessarily imply the right to seek asylum in an EU country of choice. However, Swedish calls for European burden-sharing went largely unheeded and a number of member states continued to flatly refuse to receive any refugees at all.

Another important reason for the political U-turn was the fact that the Swedish reception system gradually became so over-burdened that it could no longer meet the standards set for it. Reception centres were overflowing and, in a few instances, asylum-seekers were literally left out in the cold. Civil society stepped in to fill the gaps; a movement calling itself “Refugees, Welcome!” formed and offered food, blankets, emergency medical care, etc at the main points of arrival in Sweden. But volunteers cannot deal with the administrative side of the reception system, which has been overstretched to the point where it can take six months before an application for asylum is even looked at and two years before a decision is reached (see here). In the meantime, asylum-seekers are left in limbo, with no possibility to either work or learn Swedish in any organised way.

The frustration created by imposed passivity during a long wait combines with the generally difficult integration process which has long characterised Sweden; the language is hard to learn for most foreigners, the system to validate foreign academic qualifications has been slow, and relatively high entry salaries discourage employers from hiring. Around 20 per cent of the population born outside Sweden remains unemployed, as compared to an overall ratio of six to seven per cent.

For unaccompanied minors, the reception crisis has had the effect that municipalities, where places in homes and schools are scarce, sometimes refuse to take on allotted minors, who are then left in provisional centres for a longer period than the system envisaged, and in greater numbers. While homes for newly arrived minors are created at a rate of 50 per week, with the number rising from 525 to 1,209 a week during the past year, the authorities have difficulties supervising them and ensuring they meet the standards set for them. During a public session in the Swedish parliament on 9 February 2016, several officials testified that they were deeply worried and lacked control over the situation. Additionally, high demand and scarce supply have forced local authorities to pay more and more to people who are running the homes and there are signs that some of them are run for profit, rather than care. For instance, on 17 February 2016, it was reported that a man with a serious criminal record and links to a band of hooligans had received large sums of public money to run a home for unaccompanied minors in southern Sweden.

There is also suspicion that quite a few of the unaccompanied minors are, in fact, older than their registered age and should not be mixing with children. These problems appear at a time when a particularly worrying trend is that those arriving tend to be younger than before. While the average age remains around 16, the proportion of 14 and 15 year olds among arriving unaccompanied asylum-seekers has been on the increase (see here).

Tougher rules

As a consequence of the overloaded system, tougher policies were gradually – and reluctantly – introduced. While Sweden still wanted to be, as often expressed by various politicians, a “great power” in the humanitarian arena, it also had to submit to its limitations. Local authorities in municipalities, where the influx had been particularly large, were crumbling under the pressure and public support for the government´s open-armed policy was dwindling.

In October 2015, an agreement was reached across political bloc lines that will make it possible for the government to issue temporary residence permits for refugees, valid for three years at a time. According to the plan, the decision will take effect from 1 May 2016 and will apply to everyone except families with children and unaccompanied minors, who have, by then, not been granted asylum. The rules for family reunification will also become more restrictive.

On 12 November 2015, border controls were tightened in order to stop refugees who do not want to seek asylum in Sweden from entering the country. Furthermore, since 4 January 2016, companies selling tickets for trains, buses and ferries heading for Sweden are required to check that all passengers (except children travelling with parents) have valid passports or ID documents, before issuing tickets. This law is valid for three years and every six months the measures will be reviewed and possibly revised.

At the moment, these policy changes have indeed curbed the influx of asylum-seekers. In December 2015, the number of those registered as seeking asylum in Sweden fell by two thirds compared to the previous month (13,872 in December 2015 compared to 36,726 in November 2015 ) and in January 2016 the number was 4,172 (out of which 1,838 – or 44 per cent – were unaccompanied minors). This reduction goes well beyond the seasonal variation expected during the winter.

Those who still manage to get to Sweden may be affected by proposals to limit welfare services for asylum-seekers that are now circulating in the political debate. If the recent past is anything to go by, there will initially be considerable reluctance to introduce such measures, but resistance is likely to melt away if the influx of asylum-seekers takes another upturn. At the same time, more effective measures to establish the actual age of unaccompanied minors are demanded and, in the government´s directive to the migration authority for 2016, the Minister for Migration has called for a “higher level of ambition” regarding this sensitive issue. It is something which divides physicians; some refuse to carry out such investigations, seeing them as either too unreliable or too invasive.

Criminal incidents

The discussion was further complicated by a few high profile incidents involving asylum-seekers. On 25 January 2016, a 22 year old woman working in a home for unaccompanied minors outside Gothenburg, Sweden´s second biggest city, was attacked with a knife. The perpetrator was stopped by other youngsters living in the home, but the woman later died from her wounds. One of the inhabitants of the home, an Afghan asylum-seeker, was charged with the murder, as well as an earlier attempted murder. It was later reported, based on interviews by the Migration Authority, that he was, in fact, over 18 years old and should never have been housed at this home.

The killing came at a time when the debate over sexual harassment in public libraries and swimming pools was already running high in Sweden. In a particular twist of this debate, right-wing media speculated that Swedish authorities were playing down criminal incidents involving asylum-seekers in order not to feed the radical right represented by the Swedish Democrats. They pointed to the fact that, in the aftermath of the publicity on sexual harassment on New Year´s Eve in Cologne, Germany, it was revealed that similar incidents had taken place during music festivals organised by the city of Stockholm where many young teenagers had gathered before the start of the autumn school semester. Gangs hiding in the crowd had organised attacks on young girls that roughly followed the pattern reported from Cologne, ie suddenly surrounding girls and separating them from their friends in order to attack them. While the Stockholm police had initially reported that all went well during these festivals, in January 2016 it was forced to go public with all its information, including a number of incident reports it had not acted upon (see here ). AAN talked to a police officer involved in both the 2015 Stockholm festival and the reception of unaccompanied minors who confirmed the rumours already circulating that the perpetrators had been young, Afghan asylum-seekers. He said they had organised themselves via Facebook groups.

Subsequently, reports on sexual and other violence in homes for unaccompanied minors started emerging. On 20 January 2015, media reports revealed  that the police authority had classified the fact that disturbances involving asylum-seekers – in homes for minors, as well as in reception centres for families and adults – had required an unprecedented number of police interventions during the preceding months. On 4 February 2016, the rape of a 15 year old Afghan boy by three 16 year old compatriots was given a great deal of coverage in Sweden´s largest morning daily, Dagens Nyheter.

For those who continue to fight for a generous asylum policy, making their case is becoming an increasingly uphill battle. For instance, on 4 February 2016, local authorities in a Stockholm suburb, had to call in the police to handle the uproar in the audience during a meeting to inform citizens about a new home for unaccompanied minors in their area. (3)

There is still considerable understanding for the hardship suffered by minors who have been forced to fend for themselves during an utterly dangerous and complicated journey. However, this is unlikely to stop the reports of violent incidents from transforming the public mood, still divided between those who want to welcome refugees and those who want to stop them from coming, into more clear-cut support for a tough, perhaps even tougher migration policy. Moreover, the radical right is jumping onto the bandwagon, sometimes in what looks like collusion with criminal elements and hooligans. On 29 January 2016, a band of masked young men started a hunt for young, non-European immigrants in central Stockholm, causing authorities to advise unaccompanied minors to stay at home. On the following day, the polarising effect of the migration issue on Swedish society was graphically illustrated  when Stockholm police had to separate a demonstration against the government´s immigration policy from a counter-demonstration wanting to “crush racism.”

As part of this development, calls for more effective deportation of rejected asylum-seekers and convicted criminals without Swedish citizenship, who are staying illegally in the country, have become part of the Swedish debate. One stumbling block for deportations, however, has been the reluctance of countries of origin to take back rejected asylum-seekers. This issue was thus high on the agenda when President Ashraf Ghani met with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven in Stockholm on 4 December 2015, even if the communiqué issued after the meeting did not go beyond a general commitment:

It was agreed to improve cooperation and to enter into negotiations on an agreement on re-admission in accordance with Swedish and international law, including the right of asylum within the established due processes.

(For the entire communiqué, see here)

Subsequently, on 28 January 2016, Swedish Minister of Interior Anders Ygeman declared that efforts to expel rejected asylum-seekers who are unwilling to leave the country on a voluntary basis would be stepped up. The potential overall number of rejected asylum-seekers to be returned was estimated at somewhere between 60,000 and 80,000 and the declaration made headlines around the world (see for instance here, and here).

A difficult transition after a hazardous journey

For this dispatch, AAN interviewed two young Afghan men who arrived in Sweden over five years ago as unaccompanied minors. They spoke about what happened during their journey from central Afghanistan to northern Europe and how they felt about living in Sweden. Here is, in summary, what they said (the names of the two interviewees have been changed for privacy reasons):

Jawad

Jawad arrived in Sweden in the autumn of 2010, after a journey that took a year or more; the period remains blurred in his mind. He said he was uncertain of his real age, but estimates he was 15 years old when he started out from Wardak province, after his father had been killed in clashes between Hazaras and Kuchis (for background, see here). He said his mother had died when he was born and his step-mother had abandoned the home. He left together with his older brother (and only sibling) but they were separated at an early stage, so he continued by himself. He had no plan to go to Europe then: “It was like being inside a river that could take you anywhere.”

Via Iran, he eventually worked his way to Turkey where a group of twelve Afghans bought a rubber boat, with the intention of paddling across the sea to Greece. “If you paddled at night,” he explains, “you could see the lights on the other side.” The boat was not sea-worthy and sank, fortunately still close enough to the shore that nobody drowned. The same thing happened with a second boat, but for the third attempt, the group invested more money, got a better boat and managed to get across the strait. The following period in Greece stands out as the most difficult part of the journey. There were many migrants but hardly any provisions. Jawad stayed in a tent or lived under the skies, doing what it took to survive: “The person who did the things that I did then was not the real me.”

After a great many attempts to hide inside trucks heading for Germany, he finally succeeded. The hiding space was extremely cramped and the air inside the truck was stuffy and hot. The group of five did not have enough water to last them through the long trip. Finally, Jawad and one of his companions passed out. In panic, the other three banged the walls of the truck, until they were discovered. Jawad and his companion were taken to a hospital. Because they did not know where they were, they fled the hospital as soon as possible. Later they found out the truck had, indeed, reached Germany. Following the advice of an Afghan compatriot, Jawad continued to Sweden, mostly hiding in trains. He ended up in a wealthy Stockholm suburb, where reception facilities were, at that time, trying their best to help migrants like him.

In Sweden, Jawad has done exceptionally well: he has learned the language and graduated from high school with good marks. But he still thinks his life is tough, albeit in a manner different from before. He misses his country, its nature and his home. He has not applied for his brother to join him in Sweden, assuming that it would not work – his brother is too old. He is not used to living alone and feels psychologically vulnerable: “In Afghanistan we had no money but we were together and we were happy inside. Here it is the other way around: we have money, but inside we are alone.”

Jawad wants to be an engineer but, due to what he defines as “psychological weakness,” was unable to finish a preparatory course and has now taken on a job in a reception centre for more recently arrived, unaccompanied minors. Having lived with fear for so long, he says, it is now everywhere inside his body. He wants to return to Afghanistan as soon as possible, saying again: “In Afghanistan, we were free inside.”

Massud

Massud, now 20 years old, arrived in Sweden in August 2010. He tells AAN that his father was killed by a car bomb and his uncle, who had returned to their village to take care of the family, was murdered by the Taleban for having worked as an interpreter with United States troops. The family was then told they had better leave the area. As the eldest of six siblings he was sent to Ghazni city, around the time of Nowruz in 2009, to prepare for his family´s relocation there. But instead of having his family join him, he found himself in the hands of a smuggler and, together with three other boys, he was taken to Iran and later, by car and on foot, to Turkey. Here he spent several months locked up in a basement with a group of other youngsters, mostly Afghan but also Pakistanis and Iranians. There were no windows, the group received very little food and there was a lot of fighting, sometimes violent, among them.

Subsequently, handed over from one smuggler/guide to another, the group was taken to Istanbul, again partly by car, partly on foot, and again, found themselves locked up in a basement. When one of them tried to look out of the window by removing its cover, he was badly beaten. For several months, they waited for favourable weather conditions. When the right time came, they were taken to a forest and on the following day, Massud saw the sea for the first time in his life. “I was shocked,” he said. The smuggler pointed out the direction towards Greece and left them on the shore with a deflated rubber boat.

The boat´s engine did not last long – the propeller was stuck in a net – and no one in the group knew how to use the oars, so during the night they were drifting at sea. Some boys were crying, others praying, no telephones worked. By morning, one of them managed to get the engine started again and the Greek cliffs came into sight. Greek fishermen, who wanted to take the boat and engine, dropped them on the shore. Massud and two companions continued walking until they had to give up and were ultimately detained by the police. As he was a minor, he was released after a couple of weeks and managed to get on a boat to Athens. Sleeping in a park or in a tent, sometimes receiving food from a church, he got by for a couple of months.

Around a year after his departure from Ghazni, after many unsuccessful attempts, he finally managed to hide underneath a truck, in the narrow space between the coach and the wheels. In this manner he managed to reach Italy. He still remembers the stunned faces of those who saw the youngsters crawl out from underneath the truck. From then on, it was a tale of hiding in trains, being thrown off and hiding again in the next one, getting help from kind people and being abused by others. After some 18 months, the journey ended in a home for unaccompanied minors in central Stockholm and now, Massud lives in the same suburb as Jawad.

Unlike Jawad, Massud has been reunited with his family. After a couple of years, his mother and five siblings arrived in Sweden, but it was not a happy day for him. Massud felt overwhelmed by his feeling of responsibility for them all: “I cried and cried so much, I had to leave the house. My mother seemed so much older, and was no longer the competent person I thought she was.” He has not told his mother, or anyone else in his family, about his experiences on his way to Sweden: “They would never understand how difficult it was.” For his family, his journey was a big investment – they told Massud they had to sell a motorbike, a cow, some sheep and some land, and add cash on top of it to get him as far as Greece. His family estimates the corresponding sum to have been around 10,000 euros.

Massud says he has lost himself: “I miss myself and will never be able to find myself again.” He has seen a couple of therapists, but it has not helped him. As he sees it, he has sacrificed himself for his family: “It was not the intention but this is how it turned out.” He can see that, in theory, this could be a great thing, but normally he cannot feel that satisfaction inside, even though he does feel proud when he sees his siblings do well in Sweden. While he would like to return to Afghanistan, he thinks his three little sisters will stay and that they will find a better life in Sweden than would have been possible in Afghanistan. Under no circumstances would he submit himself to the same journey again. The worst parts of it keep coming back to him, in flashbacks.

Trying to cope in a heavily polarised country 

Many unaccompanied Afghan minors who have made the strenuous and hazardous journey from Afghanistan to Sweden, in the hands of unreliable smugglers or left to their own devices, carry a heavy baggage in terms of traumatic experiences. One former employee at a reception centre told AAN that, according to his rough estimation, two or three out of every ten Afghan minors would need special psychiatric attention in order to deal with post-traumatic stress. Such care is only exceptionally available; therapists with the linguistic and cultural knowledge to deal with Afghans recently arrived in Sweden are rare.

While the others may not need such specialised care, the transition from a collective environment to an individualistic society, after a long journey involving extreme hardship, is wrought with difficulties for them as well. Every story is unique but one common denominator that stands out revolves around losing one´s bearings. The weight of this experience adds to the difficulties normally involved in any successful resettlement and integration into a society as different from Afghanistan as Sweden, which is deemed the world´s most secular country and in the forefront also when it comes to gender equality.

At the same time, the influx of asylum-seekers during the last couple of years has turned Sweden into a heavily polarised country. While many Swedes keep standing up for a liberal and generous immigration policy, a political movement working against immigrants, particularly from non-European countries, has gathered strength. Somewhere in between are a great number of Swedes, including the Swedish government, who fear that the overload caused by the recent influx could erode the welfare system and who feel that a ‘breathing space’ is needed. Unaccompanied minors, most of them Afghan boys, often find themselves at the centre of the ongoing debate and are likely to be negatively affected by the change that is taking place in the political landscape. For those who continue to arrive, the challenge is likely to be even greater.

(1) For relevant statistics, see here. The second largest group came from Syria – but was much smaller, around 3 000 arrivals during the period January-October 2015 – followed by Eritreans and Somalis.

(2) The IMF chart was presented at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 20-23 January 2016 at Davos, Switzerland. The figure for Sweden was 1.0 per cent, followed by Denmark, with 0.57 per cent. See this report, p 12.

(3) The uproar was in spite of the fact that three well-functioning homes had already been established in this municipality. The local authorities had to change their plans after the upheaval at the information meeting and are now looking for a new location.

2015 was the worst year for civilians in the Afghan conflict since UNAMA started systematically documenting casualties in 2009. Its annual report looking at the protection of civilians in 2015 found the trend towards more casualties in 2015 particularly marked for women and children. For women, IEDs are now the second biggest killer, with increased fighting in and around populated centres and a growing number of women trying to escape the conflict or get back home. As AAN Country Director Kate Clark reports, there were only a few bright spots in this report.

The statistics of war in 2015

How many killed and injured

• 11,002 civilian casualties (3,545 civilian deaths; 7,457 injured), a rise of four per cent compared to 2014 (deaths down by 4%; injured up by 9%)

• of these, 1,246 (11%) were women (333 deaths; 913 injured), an increase of 37 per cent compared to 2014;
• 2,829 (26%) were child casualties (733 deaths; 2,096 injured), an increase of 14 per cent compared to 2014.

How they were killed and injured

• ground engagements: 37% of the total
• IEDs: 21%
• suicide and complex attacks: 17%
• targeted killings: 13%
• explosive remnants of war: 4%
• aerial operations: 3%
• abductions 2% (1)

Who was killing and injuring

Anti-Government Elements (covering all insurgent groups, including the Taleban, the Islamic State aka Daesh, Hezb-e Islami, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Lashkar-e Tayeba) caused 6,859 casualties (2,315 deaths; 4,544 injured), comprising 62 per cent of total civilian casualties, a 10 per cent decrease from 2014.

Pro-Government Forces caused 1,854 civilian casualties (621 deaths; 1,233 injured), comprising 17 per cent of total casualties (14% Afghan National Security Forces/ANSF, 2% international military forces, 1% pro-government armed groups), a 28 per cent increase compared to 2014.

Casualties attributed to neither party during ground engagements: 4,137 casualties (1,116 deaths; 3,021 injured), comprising 17 per cent of the total, a rise of 85 per cent compared to 2014.

Unattributed explosive remnants of war: 431 civilian casualties (127 deaths; 304 injured), a one per cent increase compared with 2014 and 17 per cent of all casualties.

Go to the full UNAMA report here.

Civilian deaths and injuries by regions, Jan-Dec 2009-15. Screenshot from the UNAMA report.

Trends in the conflict

The single biggest factor affecting the Afghan conflict in 2015 was the almost complete absence of international forces on the battlefield. The Taleban have felt confident enough to mass fighters and menace urban centres in ways not seen for a decade. They captured 24 district centres during 2015 (and are still holding four) (2) and one provincial centre, Kunduz; in 2014, they captured just four. Compared to the previously most violent year in the recent conflict (in terms of security incidents, rather than civilian casualties), 2011, when tens of thousands of extra US ‘surge’ troops ‘took the battle to the Taleban,’ in 2015, it was the Taleban driving the conflict, with the ANSF largely trying to defend territory.

Other trends have also become more apparent. It was difficult to discern much of a lull in Taleban operations during the 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 winters. Talk of ‘spring offensives’ and ‘fighting seasons’ now seem largely redundant. The Taleban also continued to push out of their traditional heartlands into the north-east, parts of which had been bastions of anti-Taleban resistance during the group’s season in power in the 1990s and early 2000s (also see AAN’s 2010 report, “The Northern Front”.)

The increase in civilian casualties in 2015 was driven by conflict in two regions, north-eastern and central Afghanistan. The north-east saw a doubling of civilian casualties compared to 2014, as, particularly in Kunduz city, civilians had to endure heavy fighting in September and October 2015. The central region also saw an 18 per cent increase in civilian deaths and injuries, there caused by suicide and complex attacks, particularly in Kabul. In a very real sense, the battle for Kunduz and the suicide attacks in the capital skewed the national figures because, elsewhere, civilian casualties were lower than in 2014. That included the south where they fell by six per cent – although it still saw the highest total number of civilian deaths and injuries. Some trends, such as increased civilian casualties from targeted killings and air strikes, were, said UNAMA, “consistent across the country.” Yet, a 20% decrease in deaths and injuries from IEDs did pull the overall figures down.

Responses to the Taleban onslaught

In 2015, Afghan government forces often found themselves having to fight on multiple fronts. They have taken record casualties, with an average of more than one thousand soldiers or police killed or injured each month for the first ten months of the year for which figures have been released (12,000 in total from January to October). (Casualty figures on the Taleban side are not known.) “The losses of Afghan regular forces,” said UNAMA, “weakened their ability to protect the civilian population, leading to a loss in public confidence in the Government.” For civilians, living in contested territory is usually the worst fate. One impact of the intensified fighting was a sharp rise in those trying to flee conflict. By the end of 2015, conflict had displaced more than one million Afghans (1.17 million) within the country’s borders, with 335,400 individuals having been displaced in 2015, an increase of 78 per cent compared to 2014.

One response to the Taleban onslaught from the Afghan government was to roll out more unofficial local militia forces – ie beyond the Afghan Local Police (ALP) to firm up its defensive line. Such militias have no standing in Afghan law and are frequently linked to abuses of the civilian population (more of which later). Also, as the year wore on, the US air force and special forces have also increasingly been drawn into fighting to shore up Afghan government forces, especially at critical moments, such as the Taleban’s capture of Kunduz in September 2015. Although the US air force and special operations forces had actually never ceased combat operations by the end of the year, President Obama’s assertion that America’s war in Afghanistan was over was looking increasingly threadbare.

Another new actor in the war, Daesh, also presented, said UNAMA, a “dangerous and new, though geographically limited, threat to the population.” The report documents its abuses of the civilians, particularly in certain districts of Nangrahar, which include targeting schools and even health clinics on the grounds they are ‘government’.

After a year in which the Taleban captured areas and government forces regained them, UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General Nicholas Haysom in the report’s press release pointed to the danger of concentrating on who was up and who down in the war:

As parties to the conflict seek continued political and military gains, they must not forget that Afghanistan is not territory alone, but the place so many people call home. Claims of advances on the battlefield, heard over and over again from parties to the conflict mean little if parties fail to protect the population they wish to govern – the women, children and men of Afghanistan. The obligations of the parties to the conflict are binding, and should be the milestone by which parties judge their success.

Ground engagements

With fighting intensifying in and around urban centres, it was unsurprising that ground engagements were the leading cause of deaths and injuries among Afghan civilians in 2015. Pro-government forces caused 30 per cent of all civilian casualties from ground engagements and insurgents 25 per cent, while 44 per cent were unattributable.

Casualties resulting from government and international forces saw an increase of just over a quarter compared to 2014. This is “likely a result of the significant growth of security operations,” says UNAMA, although it also “notes concern that Afghan security forces often relied on heavy or explosive weapons defensively or as weapons of first resort.” 85 per cent of casualties from pro-government forces during ground engagement, it said, were caused by such weapons (artillery, mortars, rockets, recoilless rifles and grenades), an increase of 60% compared to 2014.

These findings underscore the critical need for the Government of Afghanistan to put in place robust, practical measures to reduce civilian casualties from the use of explosive weapons by Afghan security forces, and ensure accountability for those personnel responsible for negligent or intentional harm caused to civilians.

Casualties attributed to the Taleban in ground operations fell by 38 per cent in 2015. However, given that the number which UNAMA could not attribute to either party rose sharply – by 85 per cent – it is likely those caused by the Taleban were masked to a greater or lesser extent.

Both sides used weapons such as mortars, rockets, grenades and other explosive weapons in populated environments in some instances indiscriminately. This had “a severe humanitarian impact on civilians.” Accountability on both sides for what may amount to war crimes, was, said UNAMA, entirely lacking.

Neither Afghan national security forces nor any Anti-Government Element groups, including Taliban, have demonstrated a single instance of accountability for incidents where civilians appeared to have been directly targeted, harmed by an indiscriminate attack, or where forces had failed to take sufficient precautions to prevent harm to civilians by the use of explosive weapons or indirect fire.

IEDs

Improvised Explosive Devices were the second most common way for civilians to die or be injured in the conflict, although the numbers did fall, by a fifth, in 2015. UNAMA believes the drop was due to better counter-IED measures by Afghan forces and possibly better targeting by the insurgents – civilian casualties from remote-controlled IEDs did fall by 30 per cent in 2015. However, insurgents’ use of the worst type of IED – the pressure plate model, which detonates indiscriminately regardless of whether military or civilian treads or drives over it – increased in 2015. 35 per cent more civilians were killed or injured by pressure plate IEDs, considered illegal because they are inherently indiscriminate.

UNAMA said insurgents were increasingly planting this type of IED as a defensive weapon to slow or prevent ANSF advancing before, during and after ground engagements and that it had documented “multiple incidents of pressure plate IED detonations in civilian agricultural areas, footpaths, public roads and other public areas frequented by civilians” where civilians were killed or maimed “as they went about their daily lives, traveling between villages and grazing livestock.” For women, IEDs are now the second biggest killer, with increased fighting near civilian populated-areas and a growing number of women trying escape fighting or return home.

Suicide attacks and targeted killings

Other trends in the fighting in 2015 included marked increases in civilians being killed and injured in complex and suicide attacks (a rise of 16 per cent compared to 2014) and targeted killings (up 27 per cent).

Suicide and complex attacks said UNAMA “caused extreme harm” particularly when carried out in urban areas. Kabul city, Lashkargah and Jalalabad all saw bloody attacks in 2015. The Taleban claimed just over half of the year’s complex and suicide attacks which killed or injured civilians. However, as AAN has reported before, Taleban denials of responsibility or silences in the face of particularly horrific attacks with no obvious military gain need to be taken with some scepticism. This was the case, for example, in the triple attacks in Kabul on 7 August 2015 when Kabul saw its worst bloodshed since the 1990s; the Taleban claimed two of the attacks, but was at first silent about and then denied responsibility for the other, the bombing of the residential neighbourhood of Shah Shahid which killed 15 civilians and injured 283 others (there were also suicide attacks on the police academy, which killed 27 and injured 30 civilians, and on the US Special Operations Forces’ Camp Integrity and caused no civilian casualties). (See AAN analysis here.)

In 2015, targeted killings became the second leading cause of civilian deaths.

Insurgents targeted civilian government officials (962 civilian casualties – 156 killed and 806 injured, a doubling of the numbers for 2014), justice officials (188 civilian casualties – 46 killed and 142 injured, a 109 per cent increase compared to 2014), prominent women or women with male relatives in the ANSF, and tribal elders and mullahs considered to be pro-government. There were also some targeted killings by pro-government forces, amounting to five per cent of all civilian casualties by these forces.

Aerial and joint operations

Reversing declines in civilian casualties from air operations in recent years, 2015 saw a rise of 83 per cent in those killed (149) and injured (147) by both the US and Afghan air-forces. Offensive air-to-ground strikes carried out by Afghan security forces, said UNAMA, caused nearly half (43%) of all civilian casualties from aerial operations and that trend was upwards – civilian casualties from Afghan security forces’ aerial operations tripled in the second half of 2015, said UNAMA compared to the first, as it acquired more air operational ability.

The new report does not spend much time on the single worst aerial attack of 2015, the US bombing of the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz on 3 October which caused 85 casualties (42 deaths and 43 injured), including 49 medical personnel. Detail on this can be found in UNAMA’s special report on the protection of civilians in the Kunduz conflict which was published in December 2015. However, like many, (see AAN’s reporting here) UNAMA was clearly not satisfied with the US and NATO investigations into the strike and made a particularly strong recommendation for an independent investigation, saying international forces should:

Conduct an independent, impartial, transparent and effective investigation of the airstrike on the MSF hospital and make the findings public. Ensure accountability for those responsible. States with jurisdiction over personnel involved in this incident must ensure that individuals responsible for authorizing and carrying out this attack are investigated subject to a prompt, effective, independent, impartial and transparent process. Individuals reasonably suspected to have engaged in war crimes with the requisite intent should be prosecuted by a legally constituted tribunal, with due regard for the rights of the accused. Appropriate steps should be taken to ensure compensation.

As AAN has previously discussed, targeting criteria appeared to have been loosened during the battle to re-take Kunduz in October 2015, possibly to the point where the Laws of War were breached. It was interesting therefore that one of UNAMA’s recommendations to the international military (here the US as the only combat force on the ground) appeared to refer to this:

Review current targeting protocols, operational policies and pre-engagement targeting criteria to prevent attacks against civilian locations, including hospitals.

UNAMA also points up problems in joint operations by US and Afghan forces. Although overall civilian casualties during joint operations fell in 2015, it noted an increase in the second half of 2015 in Kunduz, Logar and Helmand provinces. It said it had documented 30 civilian casualties (23 deaths and seven injured) that occurred during nine joint search operations and one joint ground engagement. In two joint search operations, despite legal requirements to respect medical neutrality, NGO-run health facilities run in Charkh district in Logar and Sangin district in Helmand in December 2015 were targeted; health staff were arrested and clinic equipment destroyed. One of UNAMA’s recommendations points to the involvement of the CIA (see previous AAN reporting here) as well as military forces in these joint operations:

Ensure transparent post-operation reviews and investigations following allegations of civilian casualties on operations involving international security or intelligence forces, especially regarding UAV [drone] strikes and search operations; take appropriate steps to ensure accountability, compensation and better operational practice.

Some nasty aspects of the war: abductions, attacks on health care and education

2015 saw a sharp rise in abductions, with an increase of 39 per cent in the number of such incidents (410 in total, 400 by insurgents, the rest by pro-government forces) and more than a doubling (by 112%) in casualties (145 deaths and 27 injured), compared with 2015. These were the highest casualty figures since UNAMA started documenting such incidents in 2009, and represented two per cent of all civilian casualties in 2015. Motives included money, intimidation of the civilian population, extraction of concessions from other parties to the conflict and getting bargaining chips to exchange for hostages. Often, said UNAMA, victims said their former captors continued to demand money or other means of support from them even after their release, so that the “ordeal did not end with their release from captivity.” It is worth pointing out that the Taleban specifically ban kidnap for money in their Code of Conduct (see AAN analysis here). UNAMA also noted an increased targeting of Hazaras for abduction.

2015 saw attacks on schools and teachers and on health personnel and facilities. The total number of conflict-related incidents affecting education rose by 56 per cent (111 incidents, in 2015, compared to 71 incidents in 2014), although civilian casualties from these incidents did fall (by 32 per cent, with 25 civilian casualties, 11 deaths and 14 injured). Even so, intimidation and threats led to 222 schools closing during 2015 in seven out of Afghanistan’s eight regions. UNAMA also found parties to the conflict using schools as bases for fighting – fifteen incidents by the ANSF, three by the Taleban, two by Daesh and one by a pro-government militia.

UNAMA also charted an increase in the deliberate targeting of health personnel and facilities, with attacks on clinics and vaccination workers and the use of clinics by parties to the conflict. There were 63 incidents targeting hospitals and health personnel by insurgents (including 36 by Taleban and 12 by Daesh), a 47 per cent increase compared to 2014. In Nangrahar province, said UNAMA, one third of all attacks by Daesh fighters targeted health facilities and their personnel.

More militias

The Afghan government is increasingly using pro-government militia groups in the face of the Taleban onslaught. UNAMA has documented the government’s decision to roll out a new tranche of unofficial local militia forces, separate to the Afghan Local Police (ALP) in what the government calls the ‘National Uprising Support Strategy’. The aim is to create pro-government armed groups in 25 provinces in places where the ANSF presence is limited. Such groups have no basis in Afghan law and are not accountable to local populations.

UNAMA said that by the end of 2015, it had documented the formation of such militia groups in 23 districts of ten provinces. (3) The National Directorate of Security (NDS), it was told, hires village or tribal elders to propose members whom NDS vets, while the Independent Directorate for Local Governance (IDLG) provides financial support and the Ministry of Interior arms. It found groups numbering between 22 to 500 personnel operating under the operational command of NDS and ANP. Members included local civilians and former insurgents. UNAMA said government officials assured it that ‘national uprising’ groups were “not militia tied to powerful individuals or warlords, but a temporary initiative that would be absorbed by the Afghan Local Police programme after three months.” However, it is clearly not convinced:

UNAMA has consistently documented the misuse of weapons by pro-Government armed groups and their reliance on personal connections with Government authorities to perpetrate human rights abuses with impunity. The creation of additional armed groups outside the regular Afghan security forces chain of command will likely lead to an increase in such incidents.

Meanwhile, the last tranche of local ‘defence forces’ to be set up, the ALP, which the government said it is hoping will absorb the new ‘national uprising’ groups, again features heavily in UNAMA’s report. As of 16 January 2016, UNAMA says, the total number of ALP members stood at 28,231, covering 175 districts in 28 provinces. Civilian casualties caused by ALP have decreased, by nine per cent. This may be due to better accountability says UNAMA, or to the fact so many ALP are being killed or injured in the conflict or are deserting – 500 each month. It said the most common human rights violations attributed to ALP included “severe beatings, property destruction, theft, threats, intimidation and harassment.” It also documented targeted killings and the illegal detention of civilians.

The outlook for 2016

It is difficult to see how UNAMA could be charting a ‘better’ war by the end of this year. January and February are usually relatively quiet months, but 2016 has already begun in bloodshed, with heavy fighting in Baghlan and Helmand. No reprieve from the Taleban looks likely. Nor does it look, at the moment, that the ANSF will be able more adequately to protect the Afghan population.

(1) Other causes of casualties included parallel justice structure punishments, physical injuries inflicted to civilians during threat, intimidation and harassment incidents and cross border shelling from Pakistan. The latter fell by 61 per cent in 2015, compared to 2014 and contributed less than one half of one per cent to the total number of civilian casualties.

(2) District centres captured by the Taleban in 2015, according to the UN Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) were: Jawand, Yamgan, Chahardara, Dasht-e Archi, Waygal, Kohistanat, Nawzad, Musa Qala, Raghistan, Warduj, Baharak, Khak-e Safed, Khwaja Ghar, Imam Sahib, Qala-ye Zal, Kunduz district (comprising the city and nearby villages), Tala wa Barfak, Khamab, Gurziwan, Ghorak, Bala Baluk, Ghormach, Darqad and Reg. UNAMA compares this to 2014 when the Taliban captured four district centres – Yamgan, Du Ab, Charsada, and Kuran wa Munjan districts.

There are some more district centres that the Taleban have held since before 2015, and some additional district centres continue to be heavily contested, with only some symbolic presence of government troops. See for example, these AAN analyses here and here.

(3) Authorities confirmed to UNAMA the creation of ‘national uprising’ groups in: Jalrez district, Wardak; Kot district, Nangarhar; Daulat Shah district, Laghman; Raghistan, Arghanjkhwah, Baharak, Shuhada, Zebak and Tagab districts, Badakhshan province; Borka district, Baghlan; Almar and Qaisar districts, Faryab; Kohestanat and Suzmi Qala districts of Sar-e Pul; Khamab, Aqcha, Mingajik, Fayzabad, and Qarqin districts, Jawzjan province; Aybak district, Samangan; and Chemtal and Chahar Bolak districts of Balkh.

Reports of the alleged killing of new Taleban leader Akhtar Mansur in December 2015 as well as his subsequent disappearance from public view have raised the question as to who might be next-in-line and whether there exists an internal, legitimate mechanism for succession. This question is all the more pressing given the continuing, albeit dwindling, challenge to Mansur as the replacement of the late Taleban founder, Mullah Muhammad Omar, a move that has generated unprecedented rifts within the movement. AAN’s co-director Thomas Ruttig (with contributions from researcher Borhan Osman) comes to the conclusion that such a succession mechanism exists, as we see from the appointment of two new deputy leaders of the Taleban movement, who are briefly portrayed here.

Reports that new Taleban leader Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansur was killed in a shootout in early December 2015, appear to have been incorrect. The Taleban spokesman denied the report immediately (as mentioned here), however it was an audio recording of Mansur, released on 5 December 2015 (quoted here; direct link here), with references to recent events, that was meant to defused the rumours. The recording does not, however, disprove the reported occurrence of a shootout, nor the fact that Mansur may have been wounded. Even Afghan president Ashraf Ghani weighed in on the issue when, on 7 December 2015, he stated at a press conference in Kabul, that “There is no evidence that Mullah Mansur might have been killed.”

The media reports were based on information provided by Afghan government sources, who had initially claimed that Mullah Muhammad Omar’s successor was wounded during a leadership meeting on 2 December 2015 in the Kuchlak area near Quetta (Pakistan). Later, a government spokesman claimed on social media that Mansur succumbed to his injuries on the way to hospital. Several Taleban ‘sources’ (both Afghan and Pakistani) reportedly confirmed the report of his death to a number of media (see for example here and here), (1) while the Taleban dissident faction led by Mullah Muhammad Rassul (2) even communicated a claim to several Afghan media that it had carried out the attack (see for example here).

All these sources later proved to be unreliable. The fact remains, however, that Mullah Mansur has not been seen since, neither has he made any public announcements. Taleban sources told AAN that security for their leader had been tightened. This followed a period in which Mansur had been much more present in the movement’s media.

Taleban deputy leaders – past and present

Whether true or not, the reports of Mullah Mansur’s death raise the question as to who might be a legitimate heir for the current the Taleban amir ul-mumenin in case of his death or resignation and what that would mean for the cohesion or integration within the Taleban movement. It has already been argued (including by this author) that Mansur would not be able to maintain the same degree of cohesion or integration within the movement as achieved by Mullah Omar. The struggle over the movement’s leadership since Omar’s death, as well as the emergence of distinct political factions within the Taleban movement itself, have indicated this to be the case. Mansur has, however, managed to gain a swift and effective grip on most of the Taleban structure and their fighters (3) (as AAN previously wrote):

The scale of open factionalism in the wake of Mullah Omar’s announced death is unprecedented in Taleban history [and has] irreversibly broken the historic image of the Taleban as a unified group. […] However, the rifts are not large enough to amount to a serious threat to the overall operational capabilities and organisational structure of the Taleban movement. […] They are, so far, a long way from posing an existential threat to the movement.

The question of leadership succession appears to have been addressed in the same declaration, published on 31 July 2015, which declared Mansur to be the new leader and in which his deputies were appointed:

Similarly, after due consultation and approval in this meeting, each one, the former judiciary chief of the Islamic Emirate, religious scholar, Moulavi Haibatullah Akhun[d]zada, and the son of the renowned Jihadi and scholarly figure Moulavi Jala[l]uddin Haqqani (may Allah safeguard him), a well-known Jihadi commander, Mullah Sirajuddin Haqqani, were appointed as the deputy heads of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

In the post-2001 period when the Taleban re-grouped as an insurgent movement, Mullah Omar also had two deputies initially: Mullah Abdul Ghani (better known as Mullah Baradar) and Mullah Obaidullah, the Taleban regime’s former defence minister. Obaidullah was arrested by the Pakistani government in 2007, after which Mansur was appointed as second deputy, with Mullah Baradar as first deputy (this, according to Mansur’s official biography). The appointment having taken place that year has not been confirmed by other sources. Mansur had, however, been a member of the leadership council since 2003.

After Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar also was arrested by the ISI in Pakistan in February 2010, Mansur formally remained as the only deputy. (4) There was a period of uncertainty during which rumours circulated that Mansur would share his deputy duties with Qayum Zaker (with Mansur being in charge of civilian affairs and Zaker taking responsibility for military matters). It was only after September that same year (the exact date is unknown) that, according to Taleban sources, an audio tape emerged in which Mullah Omar confirmed Mansur’s status as deputy, while Zaker would head the military commission. At that time, the Taleban were fighting a major coalition force operation in Helmand’s Marja district. During this battle, Mansur was able to demonstrate his ability to lead the movement with the help of his own supporters, thereby outsmarting other contenders for the position of deputy, including Zaker.

The fact that Mansur remained as the movement’s only deputy leader following Mullah Baradar’s arrest in 2010 may have reflected a wish by Mullah Omar (who, at that point, had been in hiding and isolated from most of the movement) to have a single strong successor. This view of Mansur was reinforced by his own increasing ability to impose himself as the new de facto leader, even if only unofficially and in Omar’s name.

The situation after Mullah Omar: Mansur’s two new deputies

Of the two newly introduced deputies, Haibatullah Akhundzada appears to be Mansur’s natural successor, should the need for one arise. Although he was not officially named as the first deputy in the Taleban’s declaration on the issue of succession, his is the first name mentioned, and this may indicate that indeed he is. (It should be noted that the author here is employing practices used for reading Polit Bureau communiqués of the similarly secretive Soviet Communist Party.) He is reportedly also perceived among the Taleban as such.

Haibatullah’s main credentials are that he is a respected religious cleric (alem) who is also known as a sheikh ul-hadith, ie a specialist on interpreting the sayings of the Prophet. He was formerly also a leading member of the Taleban judiciary. He was among the few ulema who gained Mullah Omar’s esteem and trust and to whom the late Taleban leader would turn in order to have a final say on important and potentially sensitive edicts and fatwas. (5) Aside from these, Haibatullah’s available biographical details are few and contradictory. Some sources, including a UN report, call him “the Taliban’s former Chief Justice“, while others refer to him as “deputy to [the Taleban] Chief Justice“ and “former head of the Taliban courts“ (here and here).

According to Taleban sources, Haibatullah is from the Sperwan area in Panjwayi district, Kandahar province. It is not clear whether Haibatullah was a mujahedin commander during the 1980’s struggle against the Soviets, as Mullah Omar and many others had been, and therefore whether he has any military clout. This, however, may not be the main criterion, as Omar himself was never a major commander during the 1980s struggle against the Soviets; he was only locally renowned around Kandahar before the Taleban movement emerged in 1994.

Serajuddin Haqqani is also well-known. Initially he was only known as the son of the “renowned Jihadi and scholarly figure Moulavi Jala[l]uddin Haqqani,“ as it was put in the Taleban statement announcing the appointment of the new deputy leaders. Jalaluddin Haqqani founded what is now generally referred to as the Haqqani network (often described as being a separate insurgent organisation, even though it has long been an integral part of the Taleban movement). Serajuddin Haqqani replaced his father at its helm around 2005 (for more background, see here) after the latter became too old and ill to lead the struggle. (Jalaluddin Haqqani has also been reported to have died several times already.)

The Haqqani network dates back to the 1970s (6) and is therefore much older than the Taleban movement. In the 1980s, it became part of Hezb-e Islami (Khales), one of the seven main mujahedin parties based in Pakistan that fought the Soviets. In 1992, Haqqani served as justice minister in the early years of the mujahedin government under Borhanuddin Rabbani. The Taleban’s relationship with the Haqqanis started in earnest in 1995 when the Taleban entered the Haqqani’s area of operation during their successful military campaign towards the north which had begun in Kandahar a year earlier. Jalaluddin Haqqani, who at the time was the quasi ruler of Khost province, was initially reported to have been preparing to resist the Taleban, but local tribal leaders persuaded him to join them instead.

The Taleban-Haqqani alliance served both sides well: the Taleban gained legitimacy in southeastern Afghanistan, with its distinct tribal patterns, outside their southern (‘Kandahari’) stronghold, as well as the support of a famous mujahedin commander. The Haqqanis, for their part, remained in power in their region and became part of a country-wide movement. In 1998, Haqqani was appointed minister for tribal and frontier affairs in the Taleban government, although his influence remained limited within the Taleban movement.

With Serajuddin Haqqani (son of Jalaluddin Haqqani and a Gulf Arab wife) as one of Akhtar Mansur’s current deputies, the Haqqanis have reached a level of seniority within the Taleban’s ranks they have never had before. Both Serajuddin and his father were thought to be members of the Taleban Leadership Council (the so-called Quetta shura). Serajuddin Haqqani’s promotion was likely driven by Mansur’s wish to ensure the sustained allegiance of what is probably the most important Taleban network outside of his Kandahari sphere of influence during this critical time of succession. But as Haqqani does not exert any influence among the insurgents in southern Afghanistan, the appointment is more of a symbolic one.

If it came to appointing a new successor within the Taleban, Haibatullah would likely be the more obvious choice. His religious background would complement the Taleban’s self-proclamation as a religious movement. He hails from the Taleban heartlands of the ‘Kandahari’ south. Finally, but of significance, he has already proven to be more active in the day-to-day running of the movement and has been the more visible of the two deputies since their appointment. This was seen, for example, in the negotiation of a ceasefire between his mainstream Taleban and Mullah Rassul’s dissident faction in late December and early January this year.

As the struggle for succession following the announcement of Mullah Omar’s death has shown, Haibatullah’s succession would not be a solution by default. He would have to gain the support of the important sub-networks’ military leaders, in both his own Kandahari region and elsewhere, as Mansur had to.

Haqqani, in contrast, as a non-Kandahari and as someone who is unfamiliar with the insurgency landscape beyond Loya Paktia, would likely struggle to gain the support of the powerful southern Taleban commanders who still dominate the movement. If Haqqani were ever to assume the Afghan Taleban’s leadership, the movement could face the same fate as their Pakistani counterpart, the Tehrik-e Taleban-e Pakistan (TTP), whose fragmentation deepened after US drone strikes killed several of their leaders in their Waziristan heartland in 2012 and 2013 (see here and here) and as, with Mawlana Fazlullah (the “Radio Mullah“), a non-Waziristani took over who was not accepted by parts of the TTP mainstream. (7)

It should be noted that Pakistan’s security establishment, which has groomed the Taleban over decades, might have some say should the question of succession arise. However it would likely be unable to impose anyone against the will of large parts of the movement.

Other new Taleban appointments

Since the deputies were chosen, there have been other senior appointments. In late November 2015, prior to the rumours of Mullah Mansur’s death, the Taleban leadership appointed Sher Muhammad Abbas Stanakzai as the new head of their political office in Qatar. He replaced Mullah Omar’s former close confidant, Tayyeb Agha, who resigned in protest after Mansur took over, but refused to join any of the dissident groups.

Stanakzai’s appointment indicates that the Taleban leadership would like to strengthen their Qatar office and prefer not to hold talks via Pakistan. The movement still refuses to hold direct talks with the Afghan government, insisting that talks first be held with the US about troop withdrawal. (8) The Taleban have also raised doubts regarding talks between Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and the US in an article on its website (in Pashto only), entitled “Will peace be achieved by the Kabul quadrilateral meeting?” (“no” being the article’s conclusion).

In January, the Pakistani media reported a reshuffle among the Taleban Leadership Council, also known as the Quetta Shura, which was said to have included the sacking of two senior long-time members of the council, Mullah Abdul Razzaq and Mullah Hassan Rahmani. (9) The two, a former Taleban interior minister and former governor of Kandahar respectively, had reportedly refused to swear allegiance to Mansur and had participated in conversations between the Taleban leadership and the Afghan government, both in China in late 2014 and in Murree (Pakistan) in July 2015. According to the same report, Mullah Omar’s son Mullah Muhammad Yaqub was promoted to the Taleban’s Political Commission (AAN sources confirmed the promotion into one of the commissions but did not specify which). (10)

Additionally, and according to this report, a Tajik (Sheikh Sharif), an Uzbek (Mawlawi Abdul Rahman) and a Turkmen (no name given), were made members of the council in an apparent attempt to increase high-level representation of non-Pashtun ethnic groups. Sharif and Rahman are both said to be ulema. The inclusion of a few ethnic minority representatives is a symbolic acknowledgment of non-Pashtun fighters’ increasing importance in Afghanistan’s northern provinces. However this will not alter the dominance of the Taleban movement’s ‘Kandahari’ core.

(1) One Afghan news agency even had a source saying the Taleban had appointed Mansur’s deputy Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada as ‘acting leader.’

(2) He is sometimes mentioned with the takhallus “Nawruzi,” a tribal name, although he does not use it himself. His supporters have now coined the takhallus“Mujahed” for him – the same title Mullah Omar used in official statements. This points to their participation in the anti-Soviet jihad.

For an overview of Taleban factions and dissidents, see these AAN dispatches, here and here.

(3) The most recent example being former Taleban governor of Kandahar Mullah Hassan Rahmani – although reportedly expelled from the Quetta shura – who urged the dissident faction (reported by Afghan Islamic Press on 4 February 2016) to support Mullah Mansur a few days before his death. On other Taleban dissidents “reluctantly returning” to the mainstream, see this AP report.

(4) This is reminiscent of the situation under the Taleban regime, when the leader of the Taleban’s cabinet-like Kabul shura, Mullah Muhammad Rabbani, was considered to be Mullah Omar’s only deputy. As a source, see for example the book The Taliban Phenomenon: Afghanistan 1994-1997 by Pakistani author Kamal Matinuddin (Oxford Pakistan Paperbacks, 1999), p 44. There, Mullah Rabbani is called “naeb amir [ul-momenin]”, ie “deputy of the amir.” Mullah Rabbani died in 2000 from an illness and was not replaced in his capacity as deputy leader. In his position as leader of the Taleban’s Kabul shura, the quasi cabinet, he was succeeded by Muhammad Kabir, who served in an acting capacity.

(5) Mullah Omar would not unilaterally issue religious edicts. He usually consulted the ulema. Following their approval, Mullah Omar would issue them.

(6) The Haqqani network is much older than the Taleban movement and has been closely linked to Pakistan for many decades. According to Jihadi publications, written much later, Haqqani had declared jihad against the Daud government as soon as it took over in 1973 (See Vahid Brown and Don Rassler, in their book Fountainhead of Jihad: The Haqqani Nexus, 1973-2012 (Columbia University Press, New York, 2013), p 45.) In 1975, Jalaluddin Haqqani fled to Pakistan, where he received the protection of the Pakistani military after his fighters had carried out what was probably the first ever armed operation of Afghan Islamists, an attack on a district governor in Paktia who was a member of the PDPA. But Haqqani had been to Pakistan much earlier, starting in 1964, to carry on his religious education at the Haqqania madrassa of Akora Khattak (Brown and Rassler, 38).

(7) Certain TTP splinter groups re-joined the TTP in 2015.

(8) See the Taleban’s statement issued following the second Pugwash meeting in Doha (Qatar) that took place in late January 2016 (for details on the first meeting in May 2015, see this AAN analysis):

The Political Office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is the only authorized and responsible entity assigned by the Islamic Emirate to carry out talks. Issues pertaining foreigners, particularly USA, should be directly discussed between the Islamic Emirate and USA but as to issues pertaining the Afghans, the Islamic Emirate believes, the Afghans have preparedness and capability to resolve these issues themselves. (…) Our Jihad is focused on ending the occupation…

(9) This has, in Mullah Hassan’s case, been denied by a Taleban spokesman (quoted here).

(10) The reported promotion into the Leadership Council of Mullah Omar’s eldest brother, Mullah Abdul Manan, is incorrect. He was already serving as a member of the body.