Defence`s Feeds

A month ago I remarked on the non-sensical decision by Britain’s parliament to authorise bombing by the RAF in Syria–see Britain’s Stupidest War. My point then, the clincher at any rate, was that I thought we would come to regret how as a society we’d allowed our wars to be so totally hijacked by domestic politics that they now served essentially little more than as props in political theatre. This piece then in today’s Telegraph caught my eye for the obvious reasons: RAF bomb raids in Syria dismissed as ‘non-event’. It turns out that not only are we not really doing much in the way of bombing (we may be doing a bit more on reconnaissance, but we were doing that before the momentous vote too), but actually the target that got all the attention was actually one that had been serviced by the USAF over a month before.

So, what’s up KOW readers? What’s the point of it? Obviously, Shakespeare came to mind first–Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5:

And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

But, honestly, very shortly thereafter I realised the more appropriate metaphor was from the genius pen of Harold Ramis–Caddyshack, scene something or other:

But what does it mean? I hear you say. What’s the strategy? How does action X contribute to the realisation of policy Y? Wrong question, Grasshopper! What’s important is how it makes you feel. Blessedly, we made it through the new year celebrations without a major terror attack on revellers enjoying the peaceful fireworks shows that just lit the skylines of the world’s major cities. There’s going to be one, though, for sure, and another one after that, and another one after that, and so on and so forth, and so far not much sign of a plausible concept of avoiding them either. At which point the government can say ‘we’re doing our best!’ It’s down to you to forget that doing their best consisted of driving the occasional ball 10,000 feet down a crevasse.

Anyway, happy 2016!

 

Developed by a private Russian design bureau, the SR-10 (CP-10) is a single engine, all-composite jet trainer with a (moderate) forward-swept wing. The footage below shows the first flight of SR-10, a Russian subsonic, single engine, all-composite dual-pilot jet trainer aircraft developed by KB SAT. Developed by a private Russian design bureau called KB SAT, […]

B-2 Stealth Bomber at today’s Rose Parade and Rose Bowl Game. On Jan. 1, 2016, a B-2 Spirit with 509th Bomb Wing from Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, opened the Rose Bowl college football bowl game played at the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, California with a flyover that was filmed from a helicopter. Here below […]

 

Dear friends and readers,

Here at the Afghanistan Analysts Network we would like to wish you all a Happy New Year. May it be filled with good surprises and may it bring peace, in Afghanistan and in the wider world, closer.

We will be here, together with you, closely following what is happening and hoping for a good year. The AAN team

RAF Eurofighter Typhoons have joined the service Tornados in air strikes against the Islamic State. Taken on Dec.22, 2015 from the boom position aboard a U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker belonging to 340th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron (EARS), this interesting photo shows a fully armed Royal Air Force Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4 as it receives fuel […]

Israeli Ofek Heavy Armored Personnel Carrier

You don’t happen to see an aircraft carrying two dummy nuclear bombs. As we reported in July 2015, the U.S. Air Force is conducting a series of test drops, in Nevada, of the latest LEP (Life-Extention Program) upgrade to the B61 line of nuclear weapons: the B61-12. These tests involve F-15E Strike Eagles of the […]

Many find the arrival of fall and the beginning of winter depressing, but Landai, a traditional food feast in Afghanistan, makes the season something to look forward to. In certain ways, the anticipation of Landai can be compared to the way people around the world prepare for Christmas, with happiness; with one major difference, that Landai has no narrowly fixed date. AAN’s Fazal Muzhary, looks at how Landai­ – which is both the name for the procedure of drying the sheep and lamb’s meat, and for the meat that results from it – can bring happiness and connect communities.

The preparation for Landai (1) usually begins when the weather starts getting colder, the farming activities have been completed for the year and the preparations for winter have been taken care of. In Andar district, which is the coldest part of southern Afghanistan, this starts around the 15th of the Afghan month of Aqrab, which corresponds to around the first week of November. Depending on the weather, Landai can take place any time until the end of December. This is the time when people are collecting firewood and going to the bazars in the cities to buy what they need to get through the winter. It is also the time when most of the work on the farms and in the fields is finished. Landai then is a time to enjoy a break from the hard work during the past seasons and to celebrate the completion of the farming year. It is festive event in which everyone in the family and the community takes part.

The preparation process of the specialty

The tradition of Landai emerged when communities, especially in remote locations, needed meat supplies when there was too much snow in winter for them to reach the bazar and purchase fresh meat and other supplies. It is the name for the special way of slaughtering a big sheep or lamb (and in some areas also a cow) that has been especially fattened and selected for this preparation. After slaughtering the animal, the children and women of the household are tasked with plucking the hair from its skin by hand, so that all hair is completely removed without damaging the skin. Once this step has been completed, the men of the house singe the skin, burning any remaining hairs. In the past, people would do this over an open fire using bushes of twigs, but nowadays the use of gas burners for this task is more common. The reason for the plucking and singeing is to save the skin. Not only does the skin help facilitate the drying of the meat and protect one side of the Landai meat against bacteria, it also makes up several kilograms that because of the special preparation can also be eaten. After the singeing the meat has already become half-cooked and the skin often becomes a crispy layer on top of it.

After the skin of the sheep has been prepared this far, the women and children gather around the workspace, while picking bits and pieces of the crispy roasted skin of the meat to snack on. They cut the meat into smaller pieces and salt them to facilitate the drying process. For the meat to dry quickly and evenly, each family designates a cool and dry space with a small window for ventilation and hangs the meat on wooden bars or ropes. On clear and cold winter days, some members in the communities string ropes across their courtyards and temporarily hang the meat outside. It often takes about a month for the meat strips to dry throughout, but it is not unheard of that some people start eating the meat before it is fully dried. However, it is only once the meat is fully dried, in the middle of winter, usually towards the end of January and the beginning of February, that people start to really appreciate it.

The Landai meat, either on its own or as part of a prepared meal with rice, is known to provide strength, warmth and comfort during the whole winter. Traditionally, it was the favourite food for the men who remove snow with snow shovels; a labour that takes a considerable amount of physical effort, with the people involved needing high-energy food.

While the Landai preparation mostly focuses on the dried meat, the families usually use the other parts of the animal as well. The next step for the women of the house is to cook the fat tail of the sheep in a big pot. This sometimes only takes place on the third day after the slaughtering of the animal and the preparation of the salted meat. The women cut the large fat tail into several pieces and put it in the pot; usually some left over meat pieces are also added and later given to the children of the house. When the fat has rendered and crystallised, the women keep it in a pot to use throughout the winter as cooking oil. The remnants of the sheep tail, known as Spinki or Speedey, are served to the guests who stay for longer after the Landai feast, as an addition to their breakfasts.

Landai – a community celebration

After the killing of the animal, the boys of the house are tasked to go around the village and inform the villagers that they are invited for dinner on the occasion of an animal having been slaughtered for Landai. Among the most important guests would be the imam of the village, who is usually the first to be invited. In the evening when the guests arrive, they are served roasted meat, feasting on those parts of the animal that were not used for the Landai.

A rule for the invitation of the villagers to a Landai feast is that anyone who has slaughtered a sheep has to invite all those who had invited him last year for their feast. Inviting and sharing this event within the community is very important. Therefore when the animal has been slaughtered and the meat is cut into pieces, the head of the family consults with his wife and other family members to draw up the list of guests. During the discussion, the family carefully considers all those who had invited them last year to ensure that nobody is left out.

Landai and its traditions and invitations are common throughout Afghanistan, but each area has its own variations. In Andar district of Ghazni, it has a special significance for newly married couples. The recently married girls receive special invitations from their parents. The invitation is for the girl, her husband and sometimes also her in-laws. A day or sometimes a week before the slaughter of a sheep for Landai, the brother of the recently married girl comes to tell his sister and her in-laws that they are invited to the special Landai event. While normal Landai feasts are already often a big affair, the newly married girl’s arrival at her parents’ house often takes place in the form of a special ceremony. The parents of the girl take one or two cars with female relatives who then accompany the newly married couple to the girl’s home village. Upon arrival, she is welcomed by the whole extended family in her parents’ house. She is expected to bring dry fruit, which is considered to be the first gift after the wedding. Therefore, those girls who got married during the fall and at the beginning of winter are considered particularly lucky, because their first return home as a newly married wife coincides with Landai, which doubles the girl’s joy and happiness and that of her family.

Not only newlyweds can look forward to an invitation, also women who married long ago receive special invitations from their parents. When they receive the invitation, they quickly try to finish all the house work of the next few days before their departure. This might include washing all the dirty clothes, bathing the children and getting them ready for the trip, but there is also another ritual that needs to be competed. The night before the invitation, women preparing to travel to Landai mix water with henna powder and decorate their hands, as well as those of their daughters, symbolising that the invitation is as happy an occasion as the day of Eid. The women also get the children excited about the visit to their grandparents; they share stories of happiness with their children, preparing them to meet their relatives from other villages, and tell them they will enjoy the days in the house of their mother’s parents. There, the children will have a chance to play with their cousins and other children from the village, allowing the parents some time to catch up on news and gossip.

Landai is also a special time for the men of the household, especially if they are the son-in-law of someone; the parents-in-laws, concerned that their son-in-law be happy with their daughter, will usually treat him very well. Landai invitations are not one-sided and there is an understanding that the families will visit each other. When men take their wives to her parental house, they are equally welcomed by their in-laws, sometimes even more happily, as it is an occasion for all to hear new stories from the more distant family members and to share new ones with them. The women that visit their home village usually stay for a week, or even two, after the Landai feast is finished to enjoy time with her parents, siblings and children.

Change in trends of Landai compared to the past

Landai still presents one of the highlights during the fall and winter season, but there have been several changes over the past decades. For example, in the past the Landai would take place in early December, but now it is moving more and more to late December. This might be because of the recent changes in the climate, as the Landai meat needs continuous cold and dry weather conditions, which seem to arrive later and later. This has also affected the time when the Landai meat is ready; in the past if an animal was slaughtered in November, the dried meat would be available in or around the end of December. Now it is usually available in January, or even February. Also, in the past when a sheep was slaughtered, the women would clean the lungs of the sheep, cook them and serve them at the dinner to all the guests, but now people usually forgo this, maybe as it is no longer seen as an “acceptable” dish. They also now serve a variety of other food, such as rice, vegetables and fresh fruit, which can be more easily purchased in the bazar, on the Landai feast table.

Landai is still an occasion for people to come together; greetings are exchanged and the hosts and other guests inquire about everyone’s health and exchange good wishes. The conversation is of course often about current affairs. In the past, this often focused on the harvest or on local issues. In the 1990s, when the drought had hit Andar district, as well as other parts of the country, many of the discussions were about the benefits of digging wells and installing water pumps. Nowadays conversations are often about the fighting between the Taleban and the government and about national-level political developments, which tends to result in lively discussions among the guests.

The feast also travels abroad

While families, especially in remote areas, often still need the Landai meat to survive the winter, its reputation as an Afghan speciality and delicacy has caused it to be used more widely. Often the joy over Landai is shared with close relatives living in the cities inside Afghanistan or, further away, abroad. Whenever the people living away from home call their relatives, they ask about the Landai and often hope to receive some. Over time a trend has developed that anytime someone travels during winter, either to the Gulf countries or Europe and the US, villagers will provide them with pieces of dried Landai meat to deliver to relatives living abroad.

Landai thus has a special place in the heart of many rural Afghans; because it is a delicacy, but also because of the memories it brings back. While most Afghans of course look forward to joyful weddings, the two Eid festivals in the Islamic calendar, the ceremonies of giving names to newly born babies, engagements, graduations of students, the return from Hajj and many other festive occasions, the occasion of Landai is also a major highlight of the year. As with every tradition, it has undergone changes and it has adjusted to the declining security situation and the political changes, but it continues to bring joy and happiness, bringing families and communities together.

 

(1) In Pashto the tradition is referred to as Landai, while in Dari it is pronounced Landi. As this dispatch focuses on the particular traditions in Andar district of Ghazni province, it has followed the pronunciation as used in this location.

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Helmand, in southern Afghanistan, is a strategic goal for the Taleban, who have launched more attacks there than in any other province of Afghanistan this year, making a slow pincer movement towards the provincial capital, Lashkargah. The lure of Helmand goes beyond its opium economy, with the Taleban pursuing a long-term strategy to expand their reach into the south, writes AAN’s Borhan Osman in this op-ed published on the British Guardian’s website on 26 December 2015. We republish this here with the kind permission of the Guardian.

The Taleban have launched more attacks in Helmand than in any other province of Afghanistan this year, defending their territory in remote districts and ferociously pushing the war into government enclaves.

Control of Helmand was won over the past decade by thousands of British and American troops, and with their departure in 2014 the government’s hold began to slip. Insurgents were quick to take advantage.

They spent the year making a slow pincer movement, closing in from north and south towards the provincial capital, Lashkargah. Over the past seven months, Taleban forces overran some of the most hard-won rural bases in southern Afghanistan, losses that went almost unnoticed in the media.

The battles have occasionally stirred up a flurry of media interest when the names resonate with bereaved families and veterans, places like Musa Qala and Sangin. But the overall shift has been little noticed or discussed. Kabul can only claim full control of three of Helmand’s 14 districts, including the provincial capital. One district – Nad Ali – is split between government and insurgent control, and the remaining ten are either completely lost to the Taleban, or heavily contested, even if they still boast a nominal government presence.

The losses are due as much to poor leadership of the Afghan army and police as to Taleban strengths. Corruption, desertion, “ghost soldiers” whose salaries are claimed by fraudulent commanders, and other problems have hampered efforts to stem the Taliban advance. But there is no question that the insurgent movement has poured resources into Helmand.

Their focus can be explained partly in economic terms. Afghanistan produces most of the world’s opium, and Helmand is the biggest single centre for production in the country, so whoever calls the shots in the province can get a sizeable share of drug business.

The drug business was always an important source of funding for the insurgents, but it has become more so as opportunities for extortion and skimming from foreign forces started drying up, and wealthy Gulf donors began redirecting their cash to militant groups fighting closer to home.

But the lure of Helmand goes beyond its opium economy. The Taliban have put it at the centre of a long-term strategy to expand their reach in the south. They see it as a stepping stone to other areas and hope to make Helmand the first province they “liberate”, Taliban sources say. They even dream of turning it into a safe haven for leaders based in Pakistan. That would make their insistence that the whole leadership is on Afghan soil a reality.

To move top commanders, the Taliban would need to feel confident about holding core territory while driving Afghan security forces from the province and protecting their leaders from any raids. That would have been almost impossible when 60 Nato spy blimps were scattered across the province, watching fighters from the sky. There is now only one, Reuters recently reported.

It would still be difficult, but Helmand boasts good exit routes across the border to Pakistan or through neighbouring Nimruz province to Iran, and strong supply lines to other parts of Afghanistan. All the provinces surrounding Helmand have a strong Taliban footprint, with most of the adjacent districts already under insurgent control. That makes it easy for them to move in reinforcements, and difficult for government forces to besiege all of Helmand.

The Taliban can also count on the sympathy of the Ishaqzai tribe, who constitute a sizeable part of the province’s population.

The current Taliban leader, Akhtar Mansour, and many in his close circle, are Ishaqzais and the tribe was alienated by the US forces and their Afghan allies in the early years after the fall of the Taliban regime.

The Taliban’s hopes of securing full control of Helmand may be overly optimistic for now, because the loss of Lashkar Gah would be such a devastating blow to morale and confidence that US and UK forces are likely to provide considerable support for some time to come.

The Taliban are also struggling with internal splits about leadership and whether to undertake peace talks, which could undermine their focus on the fighting in Helmand.

But if the government forces cannot rein in their own problems with corruption and attrition, it will still be hard to stop – much less reverse – the Taliban momentum in Helmand, and possibly beyond. And if the insurgents can consolidate even the advances they have made so far, it will be enough to make the province an important base for them and a heavy drain on government troops and resources for Kabul for many years to come.

Find the original article here.

 

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Happy New Year!

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American M11 Semi-Automatic Pistol

Rahmatullah Nabil, the chief of the country’s intelligence service, submitted his resignation on 10 December 2015. This now leaves two of the Afghan government’s four major security positions filled by acting officials (the second vacancy, for more than a year, is the defence minister’s position). Nabil’s position had presumably become untenable, after he publicly criticised president Ghani’s efforts to re-engage Pakistan and relaunch peace talks with the Taleban during his trip to Pakistan. The resignation highlights the political cleavages in Afghanistan’s political elite about the approach to peace talks and Pakistan’s role in them. AAN’s co-director Thomas Ruttig takes a closer look.

Afghanistan’s latest appointment problem has been lingering for almost two weeks. On 9 December 2015, the chief of the National Directorate for Security (NDS), Rahmatullah Nabil, who had not accompanied President Ashraf Ghani on his trip to Pakistan, went public with a scathing head-on criticism of Pakistan. In a Facebook post, Nabil implied the neighbouring country’s continuing support for Taleban insurgents had played a crucial role in the Taleban’s latest battlefield victories in his country. He did so while his boss, the president, was at that very moment trying to secure Pakistani buy-in for a new round of direct talks with the Taleban. The publicity that has surrounded the resignation amounted to a direct criticism of the president’s course on ‘reconciliation’ with the Taleban through Pakistan – an approach that is also being encouraged by the US and China.

Ghani’s previous attempt towards talks with the Taleban, in late July 2015, had broken down after the leak of their founder-leader Mullah Muhammad Omar’s death, which the Taleban leadership had kept secret for several years. As a result of the leak, the Taleban had pulled out of the talks (more detail in this AAN analysis).

Road to peace through Pakistan?

Nabil, apparently angered by the Taleban attack on Kandahar airfield early on 10 December 2015 that resulted in a many civilian casualties, wrote on his Facebook page that “at the very same moment that [Pakistan’s Prime Minister] Nawaz Sharif repeated how Afghanistan’s enemies are also Pakistan’s enemies, our innocent compatriots were killed at Kandahar airport, in Khaneshin [a southern Helmand district that was temporarily taken over by the Taleban], Takhar and Badakhshan.” (The original post in Dari can be found here; a partial English translation is quoted here). He likened the “1000 litres of blood” of “innocent compatriots” spilled in the recent fighting to the colour of the red carpet that had been laid out for the Afghan delegation in Pakistan and slammed approaching Islamabad for support for talks with the Taleban as “kneeling down” in front of the neighbouring country. He ended his diatribe with the remark: “Gratefully, I wasn’t in this.”

The next day his letter of resignation was not only on the president’s desk, but also on those of various Afghan media organisations, where it was widely quoted. A copy was also, again, posted on his Facebook page (see here; a partial translation can be found here). In the letter, Nabil refers to the history of “open intervention by hostile states, particularly Pakistan, in Afghanistan’s internal affairs that have led to an upsurge in security threats.” He further thanked President Ghani for the trust he had placed in him. Citing the reasons for his resignation, he said there had been “a lack of agreement on some policy matters” in recent months and that the president had imposed unacceptable conditions on the way he did his job, which put him under impossible pressure and forced his resignation.

Nabil’s track record

Nabil, a Pashtun from Wardak (see AAN bio here), was originally appointed by President Karzai in July 2010. As the first non-Panjshiri to head the agency, he was initially seen as a transition candidate but his professionalism and reform-mindedness won him some acclaim under both governments (read our previous analysis here). After his reappointment in the NUG, he had, because of this background, been widely considered a Ghani ally. However, he was, in fact, the only member of the cabinet nominated as a consensus candidate of both Ghani and CEO Abdullah.

Nabil, on the other hand, had come under massive criticism from the public and in parliament when his agency seemed unable to handle the growing security challenges, in particular during the Taleban’s latest wave of attacks. The final report of the Fact Finding Delegation – tasked by the president to assess the reasons behind the temporary fall of Kunduz into Taleban hands in late September 2015 – identified intelligence failures as a major cause (more background here). Ironically, the commission was led by Nabil’s predecessor Amrullah Saleh, who had been sacked together with the current head of the National Security Council (NSC) Hanif Atmar (then interior minister), by President Karzai after Taleban were able to fire a few rockets near the assembly place of the 2010 Peace Jirga (see here and here). (1)

The fall of Kunduz was followed by several other events: the successful penetration of Kandahar airport on 9 December 2015 by Taleban commandos disguised in Afghan army uniforms; the fall of another district centre in Helmand, Khaneshin, on the same day, and the immediate threat to other district centres, including Sangin and Marja and to some extent Washer and Gereshk. (In Marja, Taleban are currently reported to be only half a kilometre from the district governor’s compound, while government troops are holed up in a compound outside the town. In Sangin, Taleban have laid siege to the district administration, while some areas of Washer and Gereshk are under immediate threat.)

Nabil’s NDS was also held responsible for recent misinformation claiming that the new Taleban leader Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansur had been killed in a shootout in a meeting in Pakistan – which Ghani then personally chose to refute.

Inner-elite conflicts

Nabil’s double barrage was a direct affront to the president. If he had not resigned, Ghani probably would have had little other option than to fire him. As the head of state, constitutionally empowered to set the country’s foreign policy, he would have found it difficult to maintain a key official who publicly was contradicting him on a key strategy towards one of his main policy goals: ending the war in order to allow the growth of Afghanistan’s economy and the reduction of the country’s dependence on external resources. The palace statement, however, said the president had not considered “changes in the leadership of the security institution at this time”.

But although few will argue with the president’s wish and the country’s need for peace, doubt is widespread about whether the ‘road through Pakistan’ is the one that will lead to peace in Afghanistan, given the continued involvement of at least parts of Pakistan’s security establishment with the Afghan Taleban insurgents. Ghani, during this Islamabad visit, did not come up with many new ideas for the peace process. In his speech, he instead reiterated an appeal to “all movements that resort to arms [to] convert themselves into political parties and to legitimately participate in the political process” and to “reduce and renounce violence”. (The use of the verb “to reduce” appears to be new, and seems to point to the possibility of a gradual process.) New was Ghani’s suggestion of “a mechanism of verification” on how “the networks of terror coordinate” in the region through “the Istanbul Process in association with regional mechanisms of security cooperation” (full speech transcript here) – but this would require, among other factors, that the Pakistani government was keen on disclosing its intelligence service’s links with the Taleban.

Why now?

Nabil’s criticism did not entirely come out of the blue. In his resignation letter, he claimed that “over recent months” the working environment had become difficult for him, as he disagreed with a number of policies which undermined the environment of trust and that the pressure on him had mounted.

The NDS chief had earlier this year objected to a memorandum of understanding on intelligence sharing between his NDS and Pakistan’s intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The MoU had been agreed during a meeting in Kabul between Ghani and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz in May 2015. Nabil had, reportedly, refused to sign the MoU, after which a deputy had to step in. The signing of the MoU caused massive opposition, including from allies of former president Karzai (his former spokesman called it “sleeping with the enemy” in a contribution for al-Jazeera), but also within the Abdullah part of the NUG. The MoU had to be retracted, officially for “revision.” The reports about the Afghan government’s disunity over the MoU have now come up in Pakistani media again.

Rumours that Nabil’s resignation had been orchestrated at the behest of Pakistan (sources claimed to have seen a letter indicating a Pakistani request that the NDS be “cleaned”) were rejected by Kabul officials. Pakistan had however reportedly objected to the NDS running “operations into Pakistan, targeting Taliban leaders and cultivating contacts among militants opposed to the government in Islamabad,” as an American newspaper put it.

The more surprising is Nabil’s choice of timing for his public criticism and subsequent resignation. He might have seen the writing on the wall and chosen to pre-empt any actions from the government – but, as he admitted in his resignation letter, policy disagreements and, as a result, pressure on him to resign had been building over a longer period. He almost appeared to want to inflict maximum damage on Ghani – and on a policy strongly backed by the US.

Nabil’s resignation further points to systemic problems in the Afghan political set-up. First, it reflects how difficult it is for the president to navigate between the need to end the war with the Taleban and the deep-seated mistrust among Afghanistan’s elites, and population, towards Pakistan – regardless of whether the ‘road through Pakistan’ approach is promising or not. Second, it shows that Ghani has not managed to convince even key players within his government about his approach towards Pakistan and the peace process with the Taleban. This is at least partly due to a pervading lack of transparency on key policy decisions (already flagged in this March 2015 AAN analysis) and the tendency to continue Karzai’s ‘kitchen cabinet’ style, although largely with new personnel.

Although Karzai, Ghani’s predecessor, had also unsuccessfully tried to travel down this road (AAN analysis here and here), he and his current political allies argue that Ghani’s course risks bringing Afghanistan’s foreign policy “under the thumb” of Pakistan. However, it cannot be denied that in the quest to end the Afghan war, despite all the risks and misgivings, it is not a matter of “whether” to involve Pakistan, but rather of “how much” and “how.”

Third, beyond the Pakistan-related controversy, Nabil’s resignation shows how fragmented Afghanistan’s ruling elites are and how difficult for them it is to unite behind a single political approach. This makes institutions, even the NDS, vulnerable to ethno-political manipulation, another point raised by Nabil in his resignation letter (the original letter is here). (2)

Finally, Nabil’s resignation adds to the shakiness of the leadership of the Afghan security apparatus while, at least indirectly, strengthening the role of the one security institution that still has an unchallenged boss, the National Security Council (NSC) under Hanif Atmar (as opposed to the NDS and the two other security ministries). The head of the NDS must be approved by parliament, as he is a member of cabinet, but this is not the case with the head of the NSC.

A haemorrhaging government?

The position of permanent defence minister approved by parliament is vacant; (3) the interior minister (according to some) may be on his way out; (4) and an attorney general has been neither appointed nor approved. Apart from all this, the head of the Independent Directorate for Local Governance (IDLG) may also have resigned. The IDLG, as the policy-making institution for the sub-national levels and with its influence on appointments in provinces and districts as well as on related legislation, is extremely powerful in centralised Afghanistan.

Pajhwok news agency quoted a palace source on 13 December 2015 who claimed that IDLG head Ghulam Jilani Popal had resigned and had left for the United States “after developing differences with the unity government.” The report was swiftly rejected by the president’s office. An IDLG spokesperson confirmed that Popal had indeed left for the US, but said he was on an official holiday that had been approved by the president. (A formal letter describing his approved leave has since been circulated on social media.) It is thus unclear whether Nabil’s resignation may have been the beginning of the haemorrhaging of the national unity government – which the government denies – or whether certain circles in and around the government are trying to make the situation look worse than it is.

Meanwhile, Ghani – in coordination with CEO Abdullah – appointed the NDS’ deputy chief for operations, Massud Andarabi, a northern Tajik, as acting head. Andarabi has the rank of major general and comes from the district of Andarab in Baghlan. It will be interesting to see whether the interim solution might, again, turn into a permanent one. The Abdullah camp, that has long complained that all security agencies are currently led by Pashtuns (even though Interior Minister Ulumi is an Abdullah nominee), may well be in favour of keeping him. Whether that happens or not, the national unity government so far fails to speak one language when it comes to key policies like peace talks and relations with Pakistan. This will make a breakthrough – with Pakistan’s help, through the revived Qatar office (where a new chief mediator has been appointed in November) or UN or third-party mediation – even more difficult to achieve.

 

(1) Both subsequently claimed they had resigned; see for example here.

(2) The quote, in its English translation reads, “I also struggled to keep the NDS away from politics and ethnic orientation . . ..”

(3) After the first two candidates for the position of defence minister had withdrawn, parliament rejected the next two choices of the national unity government. The last rejected candidate, Massum Stanakzai, has since continued as acting interim minister, even though he has long overstayed the legal period allowed.

(4) The interior minister, Nur-ul-Haq Ulumi, survived a vote of no confidence by parliament in early November after the Taleban victory in Kunduz. But, as a former communist general, he continues to be disliked even among those who nominated him for the position, the Abdullah camp. (Ulumi has distanced himself from his political past and joined Abdullah’s coalition-building efforts early on, in 2007, while he was an outspoken member of parliament between 2005 and 2010.)

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