Afghanistan

  One of the most significant Taliban leaders who was not a comrade of Mullah Omar in the 1980s is the commander of the Tora Bora Front, Anwar-ul-Haq Mujahid, who is reportedly the current military commander for Nangarhar province. He is the son of the late Younis Khalis, head of the Hezb-e-Islami (Khalis) (HiK) party, an Islamist party that was one of the “Peshawar Seven” Sunni Afghan resistance parties supported by Pakistan in 1978–92. Mullah Omar and his inner circle were reportedly nominal HiK members in the late 1980s. Mujahid remains the nominal head of HiK. He has extensive Khogiani Pushtun tribal links in Nangarhar.

  Hekmatyar and Haqqanis

  The Afghan insurgency has attracted few Afghan elites, secular or religious. The senior Afghan Taliban, some Pakistan-based Taliban, Hekmatyar, and Jaluladin Haqqani are veterans of the 1978–92 war against the Soviets and the 1992–2001 civil war. But many of the insurgent leadership come from the new generation, Pushtuns who spent 1978–92 growing up poor in a refugee camp or village in the FATA and attending the local madrassas.

  The Afghan insurgents are strongest in areas where their leaders are already established. For example, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar remains popular among Pushtuns in his home town of Kunduz, even though he himself lacks a strong tribal identity and, as an Islamist and a modernizer, is ideologically opposed to the tribal system, though the Pushtun ethnicity of his supporters means he has had to pay lip service to it in the past. His group is most significant in Kunduz and elsewhere in the north. They are important in Kunar and Nuristan where they can muster a significant number of fighting men. They have also launched suicide attacks in Kabul and other cities. Hekmatyar remains popular among some Afghan Pushtuns. If he chose to run for parliament in Kunduz, he would probably win in a fair election.

  Hekmatyar has been a major figure in Afghanistan’s politics since 1975, when he was one of the leaders of the Pakistan-backed abortive Islamist revolt against the Afghan government of President Prince Mohammed Daoud. Starting in 1978, he led the most radical Islamist of the seven Peshawar-based Sunni resistance parties, his personal faction of Hezb-e-Islami (HiH). This had the highest priority in receiving outside aid through much of the war against the Soviets. Hekmatyar’s group saw much fighting in Afghanistan, but he positioned himself to ultimately seize power in Kabul. This included carrying out an assassination campaign against pro-Western Afghan elites living in Pakistan and fighting against other resistance groups inside Afghanistan, especially those associated with Ahmad Shah Massoud.

  HiH was Pakistan’s chosen policy instrument in Afghanistan from the 1980s to 1996, but his radical politics and lack of a tribal base made him unable to rally Afghan’s Pushtuns and he was displaced from favor with Pakistan by the Taliban. Since then, Hekmatyar has been in exile in Pakistan and Iran. After 2001, Hekmatyar made up with the Taliban, despite their ideological gap. Hekmatyar’s origins were as an Islamist, looking to religion to modernize a backwards Afghanistan, while the Taliban’s ideology is largely fundamentalist. They may use cell phones and laptops but have no use for modernization except to better promulgate Islam. Yet their reconciliation has been to their mutual advantage. Hekmatyar’s years of exile in Iran has given him links to the leadership, especially of the Revolutionary Guards, the bitterly anti-Shia Mullah Omar and the Afghan Taliban lack. Hekmatyar also has long-standing links to Al Qaeda; the “Afghan Arabs” fought on his behalf in 1992, trucked to Kabul by the ISI to try and displace Ahmad Shah Massoud’s Northern Alliance forces.

  By 2008–10, Hekmatyar was said by several Afghan political figures to desire a settlement that would allow HiH to function in Afghanistan much as Hezbollah does in Lebanon, participating in parliament but retaining both an armed militia and criminal-economic networks and strong links with foreign patrons.146 If this is true, it would distinguish his own group from the Afghan Taliban’s insistence on the primacy of an armed struggle to ultimate victory. HiH is likely to demand top-down negotiations to achieve this goal.

  Yet there has been little evidence of Hekmatyar being open to negotiations, despite unconfirmed reports of talks being held with representatives of the Karzai government in Saudi Arabia. Only a few lower-level HiH figures, mainly from Nangarhar, have joined with Kabul. Other former HiH leaders have joined with Wahabi-backed groups in the Kunar valley in a competition dating back to the 1980s. Hekmatyar and his inner circle of “hard men,” despite many rumors to the contrary, remain aloof and intact.

  Jaluladin and Sirajjuddin Haqqani can claim a block of support from their Jadrani Pushtun tribe. They also controlled, in 2008–10, a sizable area of Pakistan’s North Waziristan. They also have access to funding from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf and strong links to both Pakistani radical parties and Al Qaeda, as Osama bin Laden himself fought alongside the older Haqqani against the Soviets. Siraj also has close ties to Pakistan’s ISI.147 David Rohde, a New York Times reporter held prisoner in the FATA in 2009, has written: “My suspicions about the relationship between the Haqqanis and the Pakistani military proved to be true. Some American officials told my colleagues at The Times that Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, turns a blind eye to the Haqqanis’ activities. Others went further and said the ISI provided money, supplies and strategic planning to the Haqqanis and other Taliban groups.”148

  “Siraj is part of a younger, more aggressive generation of Taliban senior leadership that is pushing aside the formerly respected elders,” said Army LTC Dave Anders, former director of operations for Combined Joint Task Force-82 in 2007. “Now, the Haqqani network is clearly in the hands of Siraj, and the face of it is evolving, becoming more violent and self serving.” MAJ Chris Belcher, then spokesman for CJTF-82, added that Sirajjudin’s links have increased his capabilities and Sirajjudin’s “extended reach brings foreign fighters from places like Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Chechnya, Turkey and Middle Eastern countries into Afghanistan.”149

  The Haqqanis gained prominence in January-February 2002 as they were able to organize, secure, and feed many of the Al Qaeda and Taliban “bitter enders” that retreated into the FATA from Tora Bora in Afghanistan following Operation Anaconda, the ultimately unsuccessful US military operation to cut them off. Once they were in the sanctuary of the FATA, Sirajjuddin Haqqani was able to resolve tensions between these groups and their hosts, the local Pushtuns. In 2008–10 he has been involved with organizing attacks against Kabul itself. “Most suicide bombs here [Kabul] are Haqqani. Haqqani is most responsible for suicide bombings. He is the closest to Al Qaeda of any insurgent [leader],” according to COL Patrick McNiece, ISAF deputy director of intelligence in 2008.150

  A Diverse Insurgency

  The insurgency is limited on an ethnic (almost purely Pushtun or foreign) basis. While most terrorist/insurgent action has cross-border roots, from Pakistan, internal insurgency has been increasing, especially in five key southern and eastern provinces. The insurgency is heavily cross-border. In 2008, the amount of cross-border activity increased 28 percent, and previous years had seen increases of ten to twenty percent.151 In 2008 “72 percent of the incidents happened in ten percent of the territory and [directly] involved six percent of the population,” according to BG Richard Blanchette, Canadian Armed Forces, the ISAF spokesman.152 Polling shows that the impact of the insurgency on Afghans is also concentrated; in 2009, while only 14 and 23 percent of Afghans in war-torn Helmand and Kandahar provinces respectively have a positive view of local security, 75 percent of those in Kunduz (which has some ongoing insurgent activity) and 76 percent of those in secure Balkh province did.153 The insurgency has been growing. GEN David Petraeus said: “2009 showed a sixty percent increase in security incidents above 2008, which in turn was an increase over 2007. . . . The total spiked at 900 in July 2009. In 2009 Badghis and Kunduz provinces [in the north] included a district in red [indicating 51–100 security incidents] which were not there before.”154

  Only Pushtuns were fighting Kabul and the coalition, with the exception o
f a relatively few individuals from other groups. The Afghan insurgents are generally unwilling to accept a major Western role or presence in Afghanistan. They include Pakistani radicals, many of them focusing on Afghanistan rather than Pakistan, reflecting, among other influences, the direction of their Pakistani patrons, including the military. Former pre-2001 Afghan Taliban members are one of the largest insurgent groups along with former Khalqis (who largely found their Pushtun ethnicity and anti-urban mindset suited them to cooperation with the Taliban) and those linked to them by religious practice.

  In 2008–10, the insurgency had evolved into several different areas, each with different insurgent (and counter-insurgent) groups. The south is the heart of the insurgency, in Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan, and Zabul provinces, corresponding to the coalition Regional Command South (RC-S).155 It extends also up the main road to the west, to Herat and in pockets beyond, almost to Turkmenistan. This insurgency is rooted in the infrastructure and networks created in Pakistan’s Baluchistan. The insurgents are primarily those identified as Afghan Taliban, but with many foreigners based in Pakistan. The number of foreign fighters has increased in 2008–10, reflecting the heavy losses to local Taliban in 2005–07. Supposedly, the Afghan Taliban’s Quetta shura and Mullah Omar have the closest links and most direction over this area. It is also the area where the Pushtun tribal system is still the strongest, although the realities of how it interacts with the conflict differs from place to place. But all politics is local, and in these provinces, local politics are Pushtun tribal politics. These provinces are also the heart of Afghanistan’s poppy production, and this is the area where the insurgency is closely linked to it.

  The east is where the insurgency has been less successful but the proximity of Pakistan has ensured that this remains an area of bitter fighting, although in 2007–08 only one of the top five provinces for insurgency action—Paktika—was in the east. The areas in the east suffered some of the most intense devastation and depopulation during the war against the Soviets. Tribal structures differ between the provinces, with Khost having the most intact and functional tribal system. The east corresponds largely to part of the coalition Regional Command—East (RC-E), but effectively is divided into divergent southeast and northeast insurgencies.

  The southeast insurgency focuses on Paktia, Paktika, and Khost provinces. The insurgency there is rooted in Pakistan’s FATA. The insurgents are primarily but not exclusively Afghan Taliban (which still includes increasing numbers of foreigners and especially Pakistanis in their ranks). Pakistan’s TTP operates across the border there. This is the area where the Haqqani network is strongest, drawing on its pre-2001 base among Afghanistan’s Jadrani Pushtuns and its external links to the “Afghan Arabs” with a logistics base in Parachinar. While the tribal authority remains significant here, the traditional leadership structures were damaged by the 1978–92 war which included widespread depopulation and devastation of this area by the Soviets. Opium cultivation has been greatly reduced in this area, but drug laboratories and trafficking routes are in this area. Much cross-border trade is in the hands of Taliban-aligned “mafias,” which have links to Pakistan’s security services dating back to the 1980s.

  The northeast insurgency is most active in Nangarhar, Kunar, Kapitsa, and Nuristan provinces, using bases in the FATA (especially the Bajaur Agency), NWFP, and other areas as far north as Chitral. This is the area where, in addition to the Afghan Taliban, HiH, TNSM, and, in the Kunar, Wahabi groups are strongest. The tribal system is important, but less cohesive than that farther south. The Afridis and Shinwaris are made up of independent khels, committed to cross-border trade. The Mohmands retain a strong cross-border structure. The Kunar’s tribal structure has been fractured ever since the former king cleansed the valley of its Safi Pushtun inhabitants in 1944, replacing them with loyalists from elsewhere in Afghanistan. The Nuristanis are divided by clan, tribe, and dialect. This remote province, poor and undeveloped even by Afghan standards, has seen much violence. This area, especially Nangarhar, was previously the site of intensive opium cultivation, but by 2008–09 this had been greatly reduced. By 2009, Nangarhar had been poppy-free for two consecutive years, a remarkable achievement in a province where, after 2001, poppy fields were visible from the main highway to Kabul. This achievement reflects not only the actions of Afghan and coalition Counter Narcotics programs but also that Nangarhar has greater access to development, markets, labor (in Kabul or Pakistan), and other sources of incomes than the insurgency-plagued provinces in the south where poppy cultivation has been concentrated. It also reflects the commitment to narcotics eradication of the Nangarhar provincial governor, Gul Agha Sherzai. Even his critics concede his effectiveness, although they argue his motivation was increasing the market share of his own investments in Kandahar-grown opium. Kunar and Laghman provinces also saw poppy cultivation drop to insignificant levels by 2008.156 The northeast area has seen company-size coalition operations defeated either in forward operating bases or in the field and forced to withdraw, such as the US in the Pech Valley of Kunar and the French at Sarobi Gorge in 2008 or the joint US-ANA outpost overrun at Komdesh in Nuristan in October 2009.

  In 2008–10, a central front in the insurgency emerged near Kabul, including Wardak, Logar, and Laghman provinces, some within an hour’s drive of the city. HiH groups have returned to areas where they were strong in 1992–96. Some of the strongest groups, especially in Wardak, were pre-2001 Afghan Taliban returned from exile in Pakistan to reawaken old alliances with local and tribal leaders. Cross-border Pakistani groups have also been operating in this area, as have a large number of criminal groups using insurgent cover.

  In 2009–10, the north, relatively quiet in previous years, emerged as a front in the insurgency.157 Provinces such as Kunduz and Badghis have sizable ethnic Pushtun populations dating back to the nineteenth century, when King Abdur Rahman resettled them there. These populations were reduced in size during the 1978–2001 conflicts, many fleeing to exile in Pakistan or southern Afghanistan. Tensions with their Dari or Turkic-speaking neighbors have been high. The northern insurgency has diverse roots, with many of those near Kunduz receiving support from HiH groups in the east and those in Badghis receiving support from the Taliban in Helmand (where many local internal refugees fled). Operating in the north also allows insurgents to help secure some of the narcotics trafficking routes running through the former Soviet Union.

  The insurgency is not a mass movement of the people of Afghanistan or the Pushtun world. It is not popular with grassroots Afghan opinion, unlike the 1978–92 mujahideen. Multiple polls taken with a range of methodologies in Afghanistan suggest that support for the insurgents does not exceed 10–18 percent nationally; consistent with the type of support a fringe party would receive even in a developed country. GEN McChrystal’s report in August 2009 was basically accurate when he said “popular enthusiasm for them appears limited.”158

  Even in the Pushtun heartland of the south, there were originally few areas where a majority supported the insurgents. These increased by 2008–10, with many of the districts in Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan, and other provinces being someplace where no one is likely to ask polling questions and where intimidation and kinship and local loyalties can compensate for limitations in support for the insurgent cause. Among the Pushtuns of eastern and central Afghanistan there is generally less support for the insurgents than in the south. 2009 polling suggests that nationwide support for the Taliban is only seven percent, with 25 percent in the Pushtun southeast and 17 percent in central Afghanistan; only eight percent nationwide believe the insurgents are likely to win the conflict.159 “Insurgents need 30 percent to sustain a political program or seize power” is the view of MG Mark Milley.160 He added: “The insurgents are popular with ten percent of the people; in no country have they taken power with that.”161 Even if these figures are optimistic and the polling methodologies limited, it shows that by 2008–10 the insurgents did not have the active support of anything appro
aching a majority of Afghanistan’s Pushtuns.

  The widely differing attitudes identified by polling in early 2009 about the insurgents in Wardak and Laghman provinces reflects that in the former they are perceived as follow-ons to the guerrillas of 1978–92 and the Taliban of 1996–2001, while in the later they are seen as alien invaders.162 When asked whether the insurgents had become more moderate in 2009, 58 percent of the Afghans in Wardak agreed, but only 14 percent of those in Laghman.163 This may reflect the Taliban’s massacre of a bus full of Afghans from Laghman in October 2008. This was followed by three to four days of province-wide protests. In the words of Massoud Farivar, Afghan journalist, “Laghman is a conservative province. It has lots of Taliban sympathizers. But the people rose up and said that was savagery.”164

  In 2008–10, a majority (albeit diminishing) of Afghans supported the foreign military presence, as an ABC news poll showed. Afghans remain painfully aware that, in the absence of the foreign presence, polarized Afghan factions and, most importantly, their cross-border supporters would plunge the country back into civil war.165

  With the continued lack of a functioning civil economy in much of Afghanistan, especially with the 2008 rise in energy and fuel costs, this has created many desperate people in Afghanistan. Such people have a willingness to accept desperate solutions despite limitations as long as they can cross the threshold of legitimacy in Islamic and national terms. When ethnicity is added to the mix, as in the Pushtun areas, it has contributed to the strength of the insurgency. Outside pressures such as effective Al Qaeda-inspired propaganda, US and coalition policy failures, Pakistan policy, and foreign money would have been hard-pressed to fuel an insurgency in Afghanistan post-2001 without it having a degree of legitimacy—even if not support—in Pushtun Afghanistan. Much of this was provided by Al Qaeda, injecting the widespread perception that the Muslims have been subject to repeated invasion by non-Muslims, and repeated by the media in both Pakistan and Afghanistan until it is widely believed even among the majorities in both countries that do not support insurgents or radicalization.