Defence`s Feeds

In this second Long Post in a five-part series on defence and the EU Global Strategy, Bastian Giegerich looks at European military capability development and future conflict.

The post European military capabilities and future conflict appeared first on European Geostrategy.

The Centre for Security Governance has just published its latest CSG Paper, “Non-State Security Providers and Political Formation in Afghanistan” written by Deedee Derksen.This is the first of four papers produced as part of the CSG’s project on Non-State Security Providers and Political Formation in Conflict-Affected States. The project was made possible by generous financial support

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.

Speaking before the European Parliament’s security and defence subcommittee (SEDE) on Thursday March 3rd, EDA Chief Executive Jorge Domecq stressed the need for a more coordinated European approach to effectively tackle hybrid threats. At a time when hybrid warfare tactics - a combination of conventional and unconventional, military and non-military, overt and covert actions - are increasingly employed by state- and non-state actors in conflicts close to the EU’s southern and eastern borders (Ukraine, Syria, Libya), “it is essential to focus on the ability and agility of Member States and the EU to anticipate and react in a swift and coordinated manner” to these threats, Mr Domecq said.  Most individual Member States have adequate capabilities in place to counter hybrid threats, “but they must learn to deploy those resources in a more coherent, comprehensive way”, he stressed. The European External Action Service (EEAS), supported by EDA and the Commission, is currently preparing a joint framework on hybrid warfare which will form the basis of the future work in this field. In the meantime, the EDA continues its work of assessing the extent to which hybrid threats will affect capability development in Europe in the broadest possible context, Mr Domecq told MEPs. To this end, EDA will conduct a table top exercise from 9-11 March which will involve relevant actors, such as the EEAS, the European Commission, NATO, Member States and academics. The results will be presented to Ministers of Defence in April.

Enhanced EU-NATO cooperation

Referring to the potential of enhanced EU-NATO cooperation in countering hybrid threats, Mr Domecq expressed the view that progress in this particular field could take EU-NATO relations “to a new level”. In the current context of rapidly spreading hybrid warfare, to intensify cooperation with NATO “is not an option, but an absolute necessity”, the EDA Chief Executive stated in the presence of NATO Assistant Secretary General Heinrich Brauss who also attended the SEDE meeting. “Our collective reply to hybrid is a major opportunity (…) The comparative advantages of the EU and NATO should be used to the maximum extent. The deterrence effect of NATO and the complementarity of our (EU) tools and instruments, are more than enough reason to enhance our cooperation”, he said. 

Global Strategy, R&T

In his speech, Mr Domecq also touched upon the upcoming EU Global Strategy telling MEPs that the EDA would use its full expertise to help translate the Global Strategy into EU military capabilities required to deal with current and future security risks, including hybrid threats. He also highlighted the need for increased investments in defence-related research and technologies (R&T) with a particular focus on dual-use technologies and civilian-military synergies. By pushing forward the Preparatory Action on CSDP-related research project which is scheduled to be launched in 2017, the EDA and the European Commission “recognise that investing today in future-oriented defence research programmes is crucial to developing the capabilities that are required tomorrow”, Mr Domecq stated. 

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Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Upcoming presidential elections in Philippines and a 9.2% increase in the country's defence budget sees National Coast Watch Council Secretariat, Office Of The President partnering with IQPC Asia to host the inaugural Maritime Security & Coastal Surveillance Philippines in

“Malta needs to have an enhanced presence in the European Defence Agency,” said Minister for Home Affairs and National Security, Carmelo Abela, during a meeting with Mr Jorge Domecq, Chief Executive of the EDA which discussed ways to enhance defence cooperation on a European level.

Malta’s involvement in EDA projects and activities, the upcoming EU Global Strategy and preparations for next year’s Maltese Presidency of the Council of the European Union were discussed during this meeting. 

EDA Chief Executive Jorge Domecq very much welcomed  the Minister’s commitment and underlined the Agency’s flexible, à la carte, approach. Member States can choose areas of interest according to national defence priorities. Mr Domecq encouraged Minister Abela to actively consider participation in EDA’s projects according to Malta’s areas of interest and participation. He also assured Minister Abela of the Agency’s support in preparation of and during the Maltese Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2017.

Minister Abela reiterated Malta’s commitment to actively contribute to European defence while taking into account its limited resources - Malta’s defence budget amounts to €53 million or 0.6% of the GDP. The Armed Forces of Malta will also continue strengthening their capabilities in both air and maritime surveillance to protect Malta and EU’s borders through EU funds.

The Minister for Home Affairs pointed out that the issue of the Mediterranean will be on top of the agenda during Malta’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union next year. This will be in line with its established priorities, which include the migration and maritime aspects. He also expressed his hope for a functional unity government to be established in Libya, as this will have a direct impact on the stability of the whole region.

Minister Abela noted positively Mr Domecq’s remarks that for the EDA, all Member States have the same weight as stakeholders, irrespective of their size.

The meeting in Valletta was part of a series of visits by Mr Domecq to all EDA Member States, underlining the Agency’s commitment to work closely with and support all Member States.

In this first Long Post of a five-part series on defence and the EU Global Strategy, Jolyon Howorth makes the case for a more realistic strategic review based on clarity and simplicity.

The post For a big picture strategic review: simplicity and realism appeared first on European Geostrategy.

Image: forsvaret.dk Lars Hedemark has recently been appointed Head of t

Chinese Taian HTF5680 12x12 Special Wheeled Chassis

Want to keep up to date on the SSR field? Once a week, the CSG’s Security Sector Reform Resource Centre project posts pertinent news articles, reports, projects, and event updates on SSR over the past week. Click here to sign-up and have the SSR Weekly News Roundup delivered straight to your inbox every week!   SSR Resource Centre

The first European Advanced Airlift Tactics Training Course (EATTC) of 2016 drew to a close on 25 February with the graduation of both day and night qualified aircrews from Belgium, Spain, Germany and Poland. 

The new dual track course was hailed as a complete success, with all training objectives achieved to reach the graduation standard but, perhaps more importantly, by the crews themselves who had found the course both challenging and enjoyable. The opportunity to mix with crews of different nationalities, operating different aircraft in the same role offered an additional dimension to the event and added greatly to improved interoperability envisaged in the sponsoring 20-nation European Air Transport Fleet (EATF) programme.

The next course will run in Orléans in France over the period 22 May - 3 June 2016.

More information:

• News "Airlift tactics training with focus on night flying" (16 Feb 2016)
• EAATTC16-1 factsheet 
• Flickr album with pictures from the event

Read the Restricted report about EUNAVFOR MED (Wikileaks), Brussels, 28 January 2016
>>>
Dear Dr. Turke good morning,
according to your request I need to underlined that the number are not fixed but changeable due to the situation. We can normally count on around 160 people in the Operational Headquarters (OHQ) in Rome and around 60 personnel acting for the staff of the Force Commander on board ITS CAVOUR (the flagship).
The total of EUNAVFOR MED personnel is around 1460, depending on the assets involved.
On the occasion I invite you to follow us on our website (www.eeas.europa.eu/eunavfor-med)and the related social media.
Regards.

Antonello de Renzis Sonnino

(EUNAVFOR Med logo)
CAPTAIN Antonello de Renzis Sonnino
Spokesperson and Chief of Media Cell

Tag: EUNAVFOR MED

American M240 General Purpose Machine Gun

As the introduction to a five-part series on what the EU Global Strategy should say on defence, this article outlines the major issues and sets the context for the EU's level of ambition.

The post European strategy, European defence and the CSDP: food for thought appeared first on European Geostrategy.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

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)

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