Afghanistan: anatomy of a failed election

A new UN report prepared by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon shows just how protracted and flawed the Afghan presidential election was. His report released at the end of 2009 for the UN Security Council is couched in diplomatic language but its frustration is obvious between the lines. Entitled “The Situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security”, the document outlines a series of selfish actions in which none of the major Afghan players come out with any credit.

While there were over forty candidates for president, most analysts agreed in the end it would come down to run-off election between incumbent president Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister in the Northern Alliance regime in 1998 when they ruled barely 30 percent of the country. Attacks by the Taliban severely limited the campaigning of candidates while state-run radio and television heavily favoured Karzai. Allegations of fraud, vote buying and armed coercion were rife, even before the election.

And the Taliban were not sitting idly by. On election day 20 August, Afghanistan suffered the highest number of attacks and intimidation since the Taliban took Kabul in 1996. August 2009 would prove the deadliest month for US troops in Afghanistan since the invasion eight years earlier. The violence continued into September.

On 8 September, the foreign-dominated Electoral Complaints Commission ordered a recount of the election after reporting 720 instances of fraud. The Karzai-appointed Independent Electoral Commission which administered the ballot was unhappy with the order but after two weeks of intense negotiation they agreed on a partial recount using a methodology which would audit suspect ballots through statistical sampling. The IEC would administer the audit with oversight from the ECC. Neither Hamid Karzai nor Abdullah Abdullah were happy with the process and both were sceptical of its outcome.

The ECC announced the audit was complete on 19 October. The preliminary results showed Karzai had gotten 49.67 percent and Abdullah had 30.59. Nearly a third of Karzai’s votes had been invalidated by the audit. Because no candidate had received over 50 percent of the vote, a run off was necessary to be held on 7 November. Karzai’s supporters and campaign team immediately protested the revised result claiming it was the result of foreign interference. There was a flurry of diplomatic negotiations led by John Kerry and after 24 hours Karzai agreed to participate in the run-off. In the meantime, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission released their report on the election which spoke of a low turnout due to many attacks and much intimidation, especially of women.

On 26 October, Abdullah announced the conditions under which he would take part in the run-off. These included the sacking of the IEC chair, the removal of election officials and the suspension of three cabinet ministers. He insisted his demands needed to be met by the end of the month. Both Karzai and the IEC rejected the conditions. So on 1 November, Abdullah duly announced he would not be a candidate in the run-off saying the government had not met his demand for a fair vote.

A day later, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon arrived in Afghanistan to negotiate with both parties. On the same the day the IEC announced Karzai the president-elect as the sole candidate in the run-off. They based this decision on the Afghan Constitution which stated the run-off could only be held between the two leading candidates from the first round. The decision immediately sparked celebrations among Karzai’s supporters. Abdullah said the decision had no legal basis but did not challenge it in court.

Afghan donor and troop-contributing countries reluctantly offered Karzai their congratulations on his “victory”. But most statements, including Ban Ki-Moon’s own encouraged Karzai to form a competent Cabinet with reform-minded ministers, to improve governance and to root out corruption. Karzai was re-appointed for a second five year term on 19 November. In his inauguration speech, Karzai reached out to the Taliban as well as Abdullah.

But his re-election honeymoon was short-lived. A new report says that 2009 was the deadliest year yet for Afghan children. Meanwhile, Taliban attacks are getting closer to the capital while there are doubts the international community has the stomach to continue the fight. As the UN report concludes “We are now at a critical juncture. The situation cannot continue as is if we are to succeed in Afghanistan. Unity of effort and greater attention to key priorities are now a sine qua non. There is a need for a change of mindset in the international community as well as in the Government of Afghanistan. Without that change, the prospects of success will diminish further.”

Rasmussen primes the world for Afghanistan military surge

As Afghanistan counts down to its presidential election on Thursday, NATO's new Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has claimed the country could become the “grand central station of international terrorism.” Rasmussen said NATO would support the Afghan people for “as long as it takes” and called on “anyone who believes in basic human rights” to support the mission. While the former Danish right-wing Prime Minister’s terror claim needs to be treated with caution, Taliban forces did their bit to help his cause by ramping up attacks on military and civilian targets in an effort to discredit the election. (photo credit: Soldiers Military Centre)

Eight years after the US invaded Afghanistan, the country is no closer to peace and is instead awash with suicide bombers, AIDS victims and a resurgent Taliban. Drug barons run the country that produces 90 percent of the world’s heroin. There are over 100,000 multinational forces in Afghanistan under NATO and American command. Casualties have increased markedly since February and 75 foreign soldiers have been killed in the month of July alone. Yet General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan is asking member countries for a significant increase in international troop numbers.

Yesterday US President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to wind down the US operations in Iraq and to re-focus efforts in Afghanistan. America has 62,000 troops in the country and will deploy another 6,000 by the end of the year. But as Terence O’Brien wrote in the May/June edition of the US Foreign Policy journal, Afghanistan has a host of forbidding problems that make it a challenge that exceeds that of Iraq. These issues include the country’s size, its rugged geography, poverty, ethnic diversity, mistrust of centralised government, cross-border sanctuaries as well as its opium economy, plus the tenacity of the Taliban and other insurgent groups.

In March, Obama admitted America was not winning the war and said dialogue with moderate elements of the Taliban ‘should be explored’. “Part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us,” said Obama at the time. In response President Hamid Karzai appointed his brother Qayim as envoy to the Taliban. The leader of the Taliban Mullah Mohammed Omar reportedly approved entering into peace negotiations but recent activity suggests that positions have hardened. The Guardian reports that overnight a rocket struck the presidential palace in Kabul and a second hit the Afghan capital's police headquarters.

But it is in the south where the Taliban is strongest, particularly in the provinces of Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan (where Australian forces are stationed). The west is not winning the battle of hearts and minds in these areas. Jan Forrester says the Afghan rumour mill tells people of the increasing number of civilians being wrongly targetted and killed. So many locals now believe foreigners are
in Afghanistan just to promote their own interests, she says.

What exactly Australian interests are in Afghanistan have never been properly explained by either the Howard or Rudd Governments other than referring to vague threats of terror. However, Australian Major Mick Bassingthwaighte has given an intriguing insight into operational matters in a recent edition of the Australian Army Journal. Bassingthwaighte commanded a Security Task Group in Afghanistan during 2007 and 2008. In an article called "Taking tactics from the Taliban" he says the fight against the Taliban is run according to the following principles drawn from previous wars in the region:
- Limited and poor condition access roads to narrow valleys make it difficult to use conventional motorised forces
- Afghans are aware of psych op campaigns and are easily alienated if promised action does not arise,
- individual Afghans change sides at whim,
- most ambushes occur on the way back to base camps,
- helicopter support is crucial to preventing such ambushes, and
- it is “a platoon leaders’ war” of engaging small forces which will only fight when the terrain and circumstances are favourable.

While it is difficult to disagree with Major Bassingthwaighte’s military expertise, the worry here is that none of these principles look like changing any time soon. And without an exit strategy, Australia and the other nations of Rasmussen’s coalition could be waiting a long time for a train to get them out of Afghanistan’s “grand central station”.

Peshawar bombing: The Taliban strikes at the place of the frontier

The Pakistani city of Peshawar is on high alert after 13 people died when two bombs exploded in a market and a suicide bomber attacked a police checkpoint. Six people died and another 70 were injured when the bombs exploded in the marketplace and gunmen fired at police when they arrived on the scene. Two gunmen were shot dead. Another five died when a suicide bomber ploughed into a military checkpoint on the city outskirts killing four soldiers. Police have placed restrictions on motorist movements in the capital of North West Frontier Province which has seen a marked increase in violence in the last three weeks in response to the army's anti-Taliban operation in the nearby Swat valley.

The Peshawar attacks came just hours after the Taliban warned of countrywide attacks. The Taliban has also claimed responsibility for Wednesday devastating 500kg suicide bomb strike on the Lahore offices of Pakistan’s intelligence service ISI and the city police that killed at least 26 people and wounded 250 people. A senior police officer has confirmed a main suspect had been arrested who has links to the Taliban. Other attacks may be planned on Multan, Rawalpindi, and the capital, Islamabad. Hakimullah Mehsud, a deputy to Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, said their targets are security forces, “who are killing innocent people in Swat and other adjoining areas.”

Today, Peshawar residents told Al Jazeera people were afraid to leave their houses because of the likelihood of more violence. "Things have come to such a pass that from morning till evening there is a sense of foreboding," Shah Gul, a shopkeeper, said. "When a person leaves his house in the morning, his wife, his sister, and his parents are not sure if he will return in the evening." Others criticised the government for launching its military offensive to drive the Taliban out of the Swat valley and adjoining districts. "Our rulers should get some sense into their heads and change their policies," Mohammad Ishfaq, a local businessman, said.

The areas around Peshawar have been overrun with refugees fleeing the offensive. Between two and three million people have been displaced in Swat, Buner and Dir districts in the NWFP. Heavy fighting between Pakistan's military and Taliban insurgents has continued for the last three weeks. Although fighting has intensified in the Swat capital of Mingora, the Taliban resistance is proving resolute. The Taliban have retreated to the mountains but still hold 30 percent of Mingora. There is also concern that many of the refugees fleeing towards Peshawar may be Taliban militants.

Both sides on the war have identified Peshawar’s dominant Pashtuns as a crucial force to win over. The Pashtuns are renowned for their generosity but many are being inundated by refugees from the Swat valley. "We are poor people. Still we have given shelter to six people in my tiny, two-room house," said Farooq Khan, a shopkeeper in Rustam village, Swabi, 140km northwest of Peshawar." I cannot afford them, but it would be against Pakhtun tradition to deny shelter to anyone," he added.

The city of Peshawar was given its name by Moghul rulers in the 16th century. The name means “place of the frontier” in Farsi. It is aptly named and has long been a place that has hovered on the edge of war. It was the centre of Afghan refugees fleeing across the Khyber Pass after the Soviet invasion in 1979 and again after the US invaded in 2001. The danger is that Peshawar will now become a frontier again. The stakes for high for Islamabad. Support for the war in Swat is holding but if Peshawar becomes a regular target, then the Pashtuns may end, or even switch, their support. If that happens, Pakistan's war against the Taliban would quickly collapse with potentially disastrous consequences.

Pakistan's Swat province on the verge of all out war and a humanitarian crisis

Hundreds of thousands of civilians are fleeing the Swat valley as fighting intensifies between Pakistani government troops and the Taliban. On Friday, the UN Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) warned of a humanitarian crisis as large numbers of people arrive in already overcrowded areas of temporary accommodation. The UN agency said about half a million people have been displaced in the last few days bringing the total amount of Swat refugees arriving in safer areas of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) to a million since August 2008. "The new arrivals are going to place huge additional pressure on resources,” said UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond.

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder said many of these people now fleeing Swat are stranded along the jammed highway between Swat’s largest city Mingora and Mardan. Many had to leave suddenly after a government warning on Thursday the fighting was about to intensify. “Many people who are stuck inside Swat are asking the government why there was no plan [and] why they were not given adequate warning to get out,” he said.

The longstanding curfew in the entire Malakand division had added to the misery of the displaced and a large number of people were trapped in their homes in Mingora and other areas of Swat. Today, the Swat administration announced a temporary relaxation of the curfew around Swat from 6am to 1pm to enable civilians to flee the anti-Taliban offensive. Both Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari promised to minimise civilian casualties and look after those displaced by the conflict. Zardari stated from New York that a billion rupee fund would be announced for the rehabilitation of refugees.

The news came as Pakistan's army launched an offensive on Friday after a government order to eliminate militants from the Islamist stronghold. They attacked Taliban positions with warplanes and helicopter gunships. The helicopters targeted militant hideouts in the district's biggest city of Mingora and killed 15 fighters. Meanwhile mortar fire in the city also resulted in an unknown number of civilian casualties. Militants used houses as bunkers to fight back. Troops also engaged militants in a number of other locations in Swat, including Rama Kandhao ridge in Matta, and destroyed an insurgent headquarters in Loenamal. There have been several hundred casualties to date.

Until recently, the government in Islamabad was virtually oblivious to what was going on in Swat, which is just 130km from the capital Islamabad. The former tourist area has become a no-go area after the Taliban took over defacto control of the province. According to the army, Taliban groups have blown up 165 schools for girls, 80 video shops, 22 barber shops and destroyed 20 bridges. One million local children have missed out on Pakistan’s anti-polio vaccinations after the government deemed it too dangerous to implement the immunisation drive there. Haji Adeel, a senator and senior leader of the NWFP’s ruling Awami National Party, concedes the central government has lost control. “Swat is a part of Pakistan but no governor, chief minister or the prime minister can venture to go there," he said.

Swat’s current problems date back to 2007. While then Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf was locked in a struggle to keep the presidency, popular Taliban leader and cleric Maulana Fazalullah (pictured) took advantage to launch a “holy war” to take control of the province with his 10,000 strong private army. Fazalullah collects one-tenth of agricultural income in taxes, uses FM radio to pass on his decrees to the local population, and has his own judiciary to hear cases and hands down verdicts.

Although Islamabad sent in 20,000 troops to oppose the Fazalullah, the capital Mingora was under effective Taliban control by January 2009. The Taliban set a deadline of 15 January to close all schools, especially those of girls. When some schools defied the ban, they were blown up. But with a central government and attendant media still occupied with India and the aftermath of the Mumbai bombing, it seemed that Swat would be left to its own devices.

Desperate to save face, the Islamabad government signed a peace accord with the Taliban in February which agreed to the imposition of Sharia Law in the province. While locals were mostly happy the accord would bring peace, US defence officials and NATO were not impressed by what they saw as a surrender to extremists fanning out from the Afghan border. NWFP Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain defended the settlement as necessary to achieve peace. "The need of the hour is to put water on fire, not to fuel it,” he said.

But the ceasefire did not last as mistrust grew on both sides. The agreement began to unravel in April when the Taliban entered the Lower Dir and Buner districts, barely 100 kilometres from Islamabad. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called it an “existentialist threat” to Pakistan’s government. And after President Zardari met Obama in Washington this week there was a swift about turn in the government’s position. His position was suddenly unequivocal. He said there were 3,000 “terrorists” in the Swat and his government was going to eliminate them all. When the White House press corps asked him to clarify what "eliminate" means, Zardari said "eliminate means exactly what it means." When asked does it mean: "killing them all", Zardari replied: "That's what it means."

Durand Line is here to stay, say the Americans

Last month the US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher told a congressional hearing he believes both Afghanistan and Pakistan recognise the Durand line as their de facto border. He was commenting on a report by the Afghanistan Study Group which urged the US to ease tensions between the Asian neighbours by persuading Afghanistan to accept the Durand Line as the official border. “I think both sides do operate with that as the border; they shoot across it to protect it,” he said. “They operate border posts on it, and our goal has been to try to reduce those tensions and get them to work in a cooperative manner across that line.”

The Durand Line is an arbitrary hangover from the age of imperialism. The British demarcated the Line and signed it into an 1893 treaty with the Afghan ruler Amir Abdur Rehman Khan. The treaty demarked the 2,450km border between British India and Afghanistan. It was to stay in force for one hundred years – and therefore should have expired in 1993. The disputed land (Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province) should then have legally returned to Afghanistan in a similar manner to the Hong Kong Accord.

However the treaty was written in English and never signed in Pashto by Rehman Khan. Pakistan was the inheritor state of the British India of the border. The line has always been a source of contention between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 1947 Afghanistan cast a vote in the General Assembly against the admission of Pakistan to the UN. Two years later Afghanistan’s “Loya Jirga” (Grand Council) declared the Durand Line Agreement invalid, but because it was considered a unilateral declaration, it was unenforceable. In any case, the border is immensely porous and an attack by an occupying force against Pashtuns on one side is seen as an attack against the other side as well.

Today, 37 million Pashtun people straddle the border. In 1893, Britain found it convenient to divide the Pashtuns in order to maintain peace and bribed tribal chiefs on the eastern (Pakistani) side of the Durand Line to cooperate with them. Pashtuns on the Afghan side of the border were kept in line with threats of a continual Russian takeover. Afghan Pashtuns came to the aid of their Pakistani brethren who launched an armed revolt in 1957-58 but this was brutally crushed. After the Russians invaded Afghanistan in 1978, Pashtuns on both sides were allowed to co-operate. However the Russians were eventually driven out by CIA supported Mujahideen.

When the Taliban took control, aided by Pakistan, the issue of Pashtun independence sat on the back burner. When they were ousted in 2001, they slipped easily across to Pakistan where they regrouped. Today the Durand Line area is ruled by the gun. The Pashtuns were alienated by the Pakistani ruling class after many of their number were killed in the Islamabad Red Mosque attack by defence forces. While Pakistani troops remain tied down in the disputed Kashmir, the western Pashtun and Waziri provinces have become increasingly lawless.

The area is also desperately poor. Millions have no access to health care, clean water, education or jobs. In Balochistan there is one doctor for every 8,000 people. Foreign journalists are banned from Pashtun lands. These conditions have made the area a fertile ground for Taliban and Al Qaeda recruitment. Ashley Bommer, a former employee of the US mission to the UN during the Clinton administration, says the situation is eroding the stability of both Pakistan and Afghanistan and local population need help to “resist domination by the insurgency”. The real issue, says Bommer, is not an imaginary line on a map but “provision of water, roads, transportation, health care, education, employment opportunities and security to live and work”.

Hazara hazards: Afghanistan's most oppressed people

In a new study, the London-based Minority Rights Group (MRG) have identified those groups most targeted for killing by virtue of their religious or ethnic heritage. Their Peoples Under Threat report lists those peoples or groups that are most under threat of genocide, mass killing or other systematic violent repression in 2008. The worst four countries for minority treatment are Somalia, Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan. While many groups such as Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkomans, and Baluchis all face persecution in Afghanistan, it is the Hazaras which face the most threats.

The Hazaras are a three million strong Shia Muslim ethnic minority concentrated in Afghanistan's central highlands. As Asiatic looking Shias in a mostly Sunni country, the Hazaras are the most oppressed minority in Afghanistan. Hazaras speak Farsi (Persian) and claim descent from Genghis Khan. The name derives from the Persian word hazār, which means "thousand". The term originally referred to the Mongol military unit of one thousand which was later applied to distinct groups of people.

Hazaras have faced persecution at the hands of the ruling Pashtun since the 18th century. Under the brutal rule of the Emir Abdur Rahman Khan in the mid 19th century, the highland Hazaras were subjugated under his central authority in Kabul. After an unsuccessful revolt, many Hazaras fled to Quetta in Balochistan and to Mashhed in north-eastern Iran. Rahman forced those that stayed to attend Sunni mosques and abandon Shiism. He also imposed tougher regulations and heavy taxes. In 1901, his successor Habibullah Khan granted amnesty to the Hazaras but the seeds of distrust were already laid too deep. As a result Hazaras continued to face severe social, economic and political discrimination through most of the 20th century.

The majority of the Afghan boat people who arrived in Australia in the last ten years are Hazaras. They were particularly targeted by the Taliban government who considered them as “infidels”. It didn't help that most Hazaras united with the Northern Alliance against the Taliban regime. In 1998, Amnesty International reported killings, village burnings and confiscation of lands from Hazaras, as well as a major massacre of thousands of Hazaras at the city of Mazar e-Sharif in August that year.

The two monumental Buddhas of Bamyan, destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, were in Hazara heartland. The statues were built by Kushan and Indo-Hephthalite peoples in the 6th century and these people are believed to be the ancestors of the Hazaras. Physical features of the frescoes found in the relics and nearby caves greatly resemble the features of modern Hazaras. In order to destroy the monuments, Taliban militiamen tied ropes around local Hazara men before lowering them down the cliff face. Once in place, the men were forced to put the explosives into holes in the Buddhas. Locals described the thunderous boom and the cloud of dust that erupted from the alcoves when the Buddhas were destroyed.

Nine months later, the Taliban were defeated by the American-led alliance. The situation has improved greatly for the Hazaras since then. Hazaras are allowed to enter universities, can work as public officials and are able to fulfil successful careers. Dutch group blog Poligazette says 9/11 was a lifesaver for Hazaras and Hamid Karzai’s government lets them participate in public life. “One of Afghanistan’s Vice Presidents is a Hazara, as is the most popular member of Afghanistan’s Parliament,” they say. “The country’s only female Governor is a Hazara. This was impossible only 6 years ago.”

Yet the new MRG report suggests there is still a long way to go before they are fully accepted into Afghan society. Hazaras continue to have grievances, including desiring greater political control in their region, greater economic opportunities, freedom of religion, freedom to promote their culture, and protection from other communal groups. The renaissance of the Taliban is another concern. In 2004, 16 Hazaras were pulled from their vehicle by Taliban forces in south-central Afghanistan and executed. There remains a long way to go before Hazaras can lively safely without the tag of “infidels”.

Pakistan cracks down on Waziristan

Pakistan killed four foreign nationals when it raided a military camp in North Waziristan. Army troops backed up by helicopter gunships stormed a suspected Al-Qaeda training camp. Pakistan ordered the raid on the compound at Zargarkhel village after militants holed up at the camp opened fire on a peace delegation flown in by helicopter. Locals saw US-built Cobra gunships flying repeated sorties toward the village over a number of hours until the compound was destroyed. The four dead are believed to be Uzbek nationals.

North Waziristan is a troubled tribal area bordering Afghanistan. Hundreds of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters fled across the border after the US-led invasion ended the Taliban regime in 2001. Military operations by Pakistani forces in the rugged tribal belt have left 700 soldiers and more than 1,000 insurgents dead since 2003, according to Pakistani officials. Pakistan has been taking tougher action since the February visit of Dick Cheney to General Musharraf. US commanders say radical fighters are training in the Waziristan area. There has been conflict in the area since 2004 when local tribesmen objected to Pakistani forces searching for al-Qaeda operatives in the area.

In September 2006 Pakistan agreed to withdraw its forces from North Waziristan tribal areas in return for a pledge from tribal leaders to stop attacks by Pakistani Taliban across the border. The agreement ensured Pakistan would not arrest members of banned militant organizations connected with al-Qaeda. This included the two Pakistanis on the US’s most wanted list, Saud Memon and Ibrahim Choto. Memon was the owner of the property where US journalist Daniel Pearl was killed. The list of untouchables also includes Ghulam Mustafa, believed to be Al Qaeda chief in Pakistan.

The Pakistan army was roundly defeated in Waziristan. The terms of the truce were humiliating to Islamabad. It saw the Pakistani army abandon its garrisons in North and South Waziristan, cease all monitoring in the area and turn over weapons seized during Army operations to what is called “the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan”. Pakistan also paid an unknown amount of money in ‘tribute’ or ransom to end the fighting.

The deal with North Waziristan follows the controversial peace deal with pro-Taliban tribes in South Waziristan in 2005. Both pacts have alarmed NATO and US forces in Afghanistan, who said that rebels based in the region were launching cross-border attacks on their troops and on Afghan forces and civilian targets. A report in the New York Times earlier this week described Northern Waziristan as a Taliban mini-state. The story quoted an arrested attempted suicide bomber in Afghanistan as saying that the former head of Pakistani intelligence, General Hamid Gul, “was financing and supporting the project (of producing suicide bombers)”.

Both areas of Waziristan have becoming a magnet for foreign fighters, who challenge government authority and in some cases wrest control from local tribes. Pakistani intelligence officials said there may be up to 2,000 foreigners including Afghans, Uzbeks and other Central Asians. Among them may be al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and his second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri who are believed to be hiding in South Waziristan. Sympathetic Pashtun tribesmen in the area are providing fugitives with shelter and support.

While Waziristan is one geographical unit with a common spoken Waziri language, it has been broken up in the two agencies of North and South Waziristan. Britain created South Waziristan in 1895 and the North Waziri agency was set up in 1910 with its headquarters at Miran Shah. But British rule was nominal. Neither North nor South Waziri tribesmen were loyal subjects and they killed over 10,000 British or Indian troops from 1849 to 1947. After independence the tribesmen acceded to newly created Pakistan out of their free will. Prime Minister Mohammed Jinnah made a solemn promise to the tribespeople that their customs and their Pathan way of life would not be interfered with.

They remain an independent thorn in the side of Jinnah’s successors.

Taliban eyes on the Pakistani prize

Afghanistan’s foreign minister accused Pakistan on Friday of not doing enough to fight the Taliban and “using terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy”. Rangeen Dadfar Spanta said “Pakistan doesn’t do enough” to combat terrorism and “from our point of view [are] part of the problem — they have to stop interference ... in Afghanistan”. His exasperated call comes as the Taliban shore up support in the border regions of Pakistan ready for a renewed assault on Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has been long prized through history due to its strategic position on the caravan routes between the Mediterranean and India to the south and China to the north. The Achaemenids of Persia ruled the area in the 6th c BC. Cyrus II the Great established satrapies in Herat, Kandahar and Bactria. Alexander the Great overthrew the Persians on his way to India in 327BC. The Seleucids ruled after he died before being overwhelmed by Parthian invaders. A transplanted Buddhist culture thrived leaving many stupas and monasteries. Finally Islamic armies arrived in 642AD leading to a long line of various dynasties. Genghis Khan and Tamerlane both conquered the country on their long way west. Tamerlane’s descendents ruled Kabul and Kandahar before conquering India to give rise to the Moghul empire.

Afghanistan was united in its modern form in 1747 when a group of regional rulers appointed a shah over the entire country. Britain, worried about Russian encroachment of India, brought pressure to bear on Afghanistan which resulted in the Anglo-Afghan wars of 1839-1842 and 1878-1880. In the first war, British troops occupied Kabul before withdrawing. The second war was costly and inconclusive. Finally Russia and Britain concluded a treaty in 1907 that recognised Afghanistan as a buffer state. Britain retained de facto foreign control. They would fight one more war there in 1919 after the shah attempted complete independence but that too was inconclusive. Afghanistan was allowed to go its own way after this time. It remained neutral in World War II and the regime lasted until 1973 when it was overthrown by the Soviet-trained Afghan army.

The Great Saur Revolution of 1978 saw a soviet-style government imposed as the only legal political party with the support of the USSR. This new Marxist state was immediately opposed by Muslim tribal communities. When the government could not quell the rebellion, the Soviets sent in an invasion force of 30,000 troops, executed the president and installed a new man, Babrak Karmal, at the helm. The force was increased to 115,000 as opposition grew. The rebels were known as the “Mujahideen” (holy warriors) but were far from united. Their strength lay in the remote mountainous regions near the Pakistani border and they were supplied by US and Chinese arms through Pakistan.

The war meandered on through the 1980s with the Russians gradually losing the will to fight. Meanwhile Karmal was overthrown by General Najibullah who tried unsuccessfully to negotiate with the Mujahideen. The UN brokered a Soviet withdrawal in 1988-89. But the fighting continued until the Mujahideen took Kabul in 1992. They proclaimed an Islamic state but remained fractionalised and sporadic fighting continued. By 1994, the peace accord had collapsed and fighting between rival Mujahideen forces escalated. Around this time the Taliban emerged, quickly capturing Kandahar and Charasiab in the south. They eventually took Kabul in 1996 to take de facto control of the country.

The word Mujahideen means 'strugglers' and is derived from jihad, a Quranic term denoting the battle against Allah’s enemies. The Russian invasion of Afghanistan was preceded by a cultural Islamic revivalism in the 1970s. Muslim intellectuals saw Marxism and secularism in general as a threat to traditional values. The Afghan Mujahideen had between eight to ten factions who fought with each other as much as they fought the alien infidels. The Taliban movement was a new demonstration of the Islamic faith. They announced their task was to purify the country from the stains of hypocrisy due to Mujahideen internal conflicts.

Their religious theology ultimately derives from the Hanafite school of Islam. The 8th century theologian and jurist Imam Abu Hanifah acknowledged the primacy of the Koran and the Hadith but crucially allowed for personal opinion to prevail in the absence of precedence. Hanifah’s school was a breakaway from tradition, was linked with Shi’ite theology and most importantly in the Taliban context, he was Persian with cultural links to Afghanistan.

The word Taliban is Arabic for “students”. They studied not only the works of the Hanafites but were also strongly influenced by Wahhabism, a highly puritanical and orthodox Islamic strain. Wahhabism emerged from Arabia in the mid 18th century and its basis was a condemnation of what were considered polytheistic practices such as praying to saints, making pilgrimages to tombs and mosques, venerating tombs and sacrificial offerings. It promoted the oneness of God and purifying religion. The movement revived in the newly independent Saudi Arabia of the 1920s and earned the sobriquet of “Muslim Calvinists”. Wine and tobacco were forbidden, modest dress was prescribed for men and women and music, dancing, loud laughter and excessive weeping were all condemned.

When the Taliban took Kabul they took little time to institutionalise their own form of Wahhabism in Afghanistan. Even with civil issues such as the economy, they handled them within an Islamic framework. The US claimed poppy cultivation for opium and heroin skyrocketed under Taliban rule, though this was denied by Taliban leaders who maintained they would eradicate the crop once they brought the entire country under their rule. And their prediction was borne out. By 2001, UN drug control officers said the Taliban had nearly wiped out opium production in Afghanistan since banning poppy cultivation the previous summer.

But it was their treatment of women which attracted most attention. When they took Kabul, they shut down all girls schools claiming the curriculum was against the tenets of Islam. They claimed the move was temporary until they found an appropriate system to replace it. Women in Mazar-e-Sharif and elsewhere were ordered through loudspeakers to stay indoors and only be allowed out in the company of a close male relative and wearing the all-over burqa. According to the Attorney-General’s office “the face of a woman is a source of corruption for men who are not related to them”. In Kabul 225 women who defied Taliban edicts on clothing were punished by being lashed on the back and legs. Another woman was stoned to death for adultery in Laghman province in 1997.

Along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Pakistan was the only country in the world to recognise the Taliban administration as the government of Afghanistan. Russia accused Pakistan of sending troops to fight with the Taliban militia. Many Pakistani politicians called for the introduction of Taliban style rapid justice in their own country. The Pakistani government were happy to see a stable administration next door. But all that changed with Osama Bin Laden.

Bin Laden had called for a holy war against the Americans "who are occupying the land of the two shrines.” The shrines were Mecca and Medina in his own native land, Saudi Arabia. Throughout the eighties he was a major financier of the Afghan Mujahideen and he participated in the battles for Jalalabad in 1986. The Saudis cancelled his passport in 1991 when he left the country for good. He moved to Afghanistan where he declared a fatwa against the US. He was alleged to be behind the attacks of US military personnel in Riyadh, the USS Cole, and the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The Taliban refused to hand Osama over to the Clinton administration after the US uncovered evidence he had acquired WMDs and chemical weapons. The Taliban defended Osama saying the US charges were unfounded.

The 9/11 attacks gave the new Bush administration the chance to take out Osama and remove the Taliban in the process. By December, Kabul was in the hands of the old Northern Alliance, backed by the power of the US. They retreated to the inhospitable hilly wildernesses of the Pakistan border where they regrouped as a guerrilla fighting force. While the US lost interest in the attempt to unseat Saddam’s regime in Iraq, the Taliban began to mount a revival boosted by Afghan corruption, US interference and an influx of Pakistani volunteers. Sheltered by tribal leaders in Pakistani border enclaves, they are now the defacto ruling group in many parts of Waziristan and threatening the North West Frontier Province capital of Peshawar.

Afghan foreign minister Spanta is right to be concerned by Islamabad’s inaction. However Pakistan’s President Musharraf may find his own regime’s understated tolerance of the Taliban backfires if they take a major prize such as Peshawar. It could unleash demons in the country that would be difficult to put back into the bottle.

Taliban Resurrection

The commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan has told UK Channel 4 he expects the military campaign there to last another three to five years. British Lieutenant-General David Richards took command of the 8,000-strong NATO force last month and is talking up NATO’s role in the troubled country. However he refused to speculate on whether British troops would remain in Afghanistan for the duration of the campaign.

Richards’ pessimistic outlook comes almost five years after the US launched what they called “Operation Enduring Freedom” to oust the Taliban government. That operation was a direct result of the 9/11 attacks. A shell-shocked America needed to respond quickly. Afghan based Al-Qaeda was identified as the culprits and American troops were deployed to countries surrounding Afghanistan within days of the attacks. President Bush outlined their objective “the destruction of terrorist training camps and infrastructure within Afghanistan, the capture of al Qaeda leaders, and the cessation of terrorist activities’. Britain also called for the same ends but added “the removal of Mullah Omar and the Taliban Regime”. By late October the US-led Coalition had destroyed virtually all Taliban air defences and raided the residence of Mullah Omar in the Taliban stronghold, Kandahar. The Taliban fled from the capital Kabul in November that year ending their five year rule.

In the 90s, many people were astonished by the rapid success of the Taliban. Taliban is the Persian word for “students”. These students were Afghan refugees and former mujahadeen studying Shari’ah law in the madaris (religious colleges) of Pakistan. They took on and beat the Northern Alliance. Their conquest began in October 1994, when 200 Taliban seized the Afghan border post of Spin Baldak. Less than a month later the Taliban attacked Kandahar, the second-largest city in Afghanistan. Within 48 hours, the city was theirs. They maintained momentum and ruled all of Afghanistan from 1996 to 9/11. The Taliban banned all forms of television, imagery, music and sports. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) suspended Afghanistan from the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Men had to wear beards at a specified length while women were obliged to wear the burqa in public. In March 2001, the Taliban attracted the ire of UNESCO when they ordered the demolition of two statues of Buddha carved into cliff sides at Bamiyan one 1800 years old and the other a mere 1500.

However not all of the Taliban’s impact was negative. Afghanistan is the world’s leading supplier of opium and produces more of the stuff than all other countries combined. Almost one third of its GDP is from the opium crop. In 2001 U.N. drug control officers said the Taliban religious militia had almost completely wiped out opium production in since banning poppy cultivation in 2000. That year Afghanistan produced nearly 4,000 tons of opium, about 75 percent of the world's supply. Opium is the milky substance drained from the poppy plant and is then is converted into heroin and sold in Europe and North America. But the fall of the Taliban allowed the old warlords to make enormous profits in the poppy crop. Opium production has now risen to pre-Taliban levels.

But just like Afghan heroin, the Taliban itself is now making a comeback. In May, over 200 people were killed in fierce fighting in southern Afghanistan. It was the worst bout of violence since the defeat of the Taliban and the opening shots in a promised Taliban Summer offensive to deter the promised additional NATO troops from deploying in southern Afghanistan. The additional troops are required because the US is withdrawing 3,000 troops before the November congressional elections. The Hamed Karzai government in Kabul is angry with Washington, and also frustrated at the US attitude toward Pakistan. Senior Nato officials believe that Pakistan’s military regime is turning a blind eye to Taliban recruitment and control taking place in Baluchistan province. Pakistan is insisting it is doing what it can to reign in the Taliban but is concerned that the US and Afghanistan are allowing traditional enemy India to launch insurgencies to destabilise Pakistan. Although this sounds far-fetched, Pakistani President Musharraf will use this excuse to forge alliances with pro-Taliban forces in Afghanistan and some of the lawless areas of his own country such as Baluchistan and Waziristan. With the US distracted by events in Iraq and Iran, and a European Nato unwilling or unable to deploy sufficient forces to address the issues, it is likely that the Taliban will regain de facto control of southern Afghanistan and probably regain Kabul sometime in the next ten years.