Defence`s Feeds

EDA Chief Executive Jorge Domecq, today attended the inauguration of the Cyber education, training, exercise and evaluation (ETEE) platform at the European Security and Defence College (ESDC), where H.E. Savvas Angelides, Minister of Defence of Cyprus gave a keynote speech. Led by the ESDC, the platform builds on the support already provided by the European Defence Agency (EDA), the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the European Commission.

The main task of the ETEE platform within the ESDC is the coordination of cyber security and defence training and education for EU Member States. The existing training will be harmonised and standardised and new courses will close the gaps between training needs and training activities. These efforts will be jointly undertaken by various stakeholders and partner organisations.

‘Looking at the future, the platform’s success is very much in the hands of the Member States.  There is much to be achieved and the Executive Academic Board on Cyber (EAB.Cyber) under the chair of the ESDC is an excellent forum to manage the future’, Mr Domecq said in his speech.

In response to Member States’ requirement to fill the skills gap in cyber defence, EDA played an important role in developing the design proposal of this platform, following the results of a relevant feasibility study which were properly adapted to the actual Member States’ needs.

The Global Strategy  already referred to cyber attack as a serious threat to be dealt with in order to protect the EU citizens and a threat to national security due to the disruptive potential of these attacks and their high impact on modern societies.

Heads of State and Government identified cyber among the four key capability shortfalls in Europe and Member States in the frame of PESCO already established projects on cyber, where EDA with its role in the PESCO secretariat but also in the frame of its mission for cooperative capability development provides support. 

Member States saw the need for coherence at EU level on cyber education, training and exercises already some 8 years ago, and voiced as such within the Capability Development Plan.  The EDA has worked on this priority with Member States, within the Project Team for Cyber Defence and with colleagues in the European External Action Service and Cyber was reconfirmed as a priority in the revised CDP.

Based on the EDA Cyber Defence Training Needs Analysis and the experiences gained in cyber security training of the ESDC, work was initiated to establish CSDP Training and Education for different audiences, including EEAS, personnel from CSDP missions and operations and Member States' officials.

The integration of ETEE into the existing structures of the ESDC was concluded and has been taken forward by EDA and ESDC throughout the course of this past year, resulting in a vehicle to enable sustained delivery of cyber defence education, training and exercise services and products, while seeking synergies with respective NATO initiatives, also in the frame of the implementation of the EU-NATO Joint Declaration.
 

More information:

• Cyber defence (EDA project page)
• ESDC statement on Cyber Platform

 

 

 

The European Defence Agency’s (EDA) ministerial Steering Board met this Tuesday morning under the chairmanship of the Head of the Agency, Federica Mogherini. Defence ministers notably discussed the CARD Trial Run Report, the implementation of the 11 new EU Capability Development Priorities and the Agency’s 2019 budget.
 

Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD)

Ministers discussed the main findings, recommendations and lessons learned of the CARD Trial Run report and agreed to establish CARD as a standing activity with the first full cycle to be launched in autumn 2019. Some main findings indicate that Member States still carry defence planning and acquisition mostly from a national perspective.

CARD will provide the overview that will allow Member States to better coordinate their defence planning and spending and engage in collaborative projects, improving consistency in Member States defence spending and overall coherence of the European capability landscape. The report also confirmed an upwards trend of defence spending over the 2015-2019 period, even if it also shows that investment in defence research and development has decreased over recent years.

The CARD ‘lessons learned’ for the future will be further explored in a series of workshops organised by EDA in the coming weeks and months.

“CARD is designed to be a ‘pathfinder’ helping Member States to get a better picture of the European capability landscape and identifying new opportunities for cooperation on capability development and procurement, while avoiding duplication of work with NATO”, Jorge Domecq, EDA’s Chief Executive, commented.
 

Implementation of the 2018 EU Capability Development Priorities

Last June, Member States approved 11 new EU Capability Development Priorities, which are the baseline and key reference for CARD, PESCO and the European Defence Fund.

Ministers were updated on their practical implementation which will be pursued through ‘Strategic Context Cases’ for each of the 11 priorities together with Member States, in close coordination with the EU Military Committee (EUMC) and the EU Military Staff (EUMS), also involving the EU defence industry. The first version of the 11 ‘Strategic Context Cases’ will be presented to the steering board in June 2019 for approval.
 

2019 budget

Ministers discussed the Agency’s general budget 2019 on the basis of a proposal (€35 million) made by the Head of the Agency and reflecting the increasing demands on the Agency, including in relation to CARD, PESCO, the European Defence Fund or new activities such as Military Mobility. Ministers were unable to reach a unanimous agreement. Member States will revert to the issue shortly.

 

EDA press contacts

Helmut BRULS
Media & Communications Officer
helmut.bruls@eda.europa.eu
T+32 2 504 28 10

Catherine CIECZKO
Media & Communications Officer
catherine.cieczko@eda.europa.eu
T+32 2 504 28 24

 

 

 

 

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Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

60 experts approximately from 5 nations (Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and Poland) jointly trialed technology demonstrators developed under the EDA IED Detection programme (IEDDET) in October 2018, Austria. The joint trials aimed at data collection for all technology demonstrators developed within the IEDDET three projects VMEWI3, MUSICODE and CONFIDENT under the same operation conditions.
 

Joint test area

The Allentsteig test area for the EDA IEDDET programme joint trials was provided by Austria as contribution to the IEDDET programme. For these trials a special 500m test-lane, free of metal scrap was tailored and built for the MUSICODE field-test programme. For VMEWI3 two test lanes, each of 2000m length, were provided. On each these test lanes 15 georeferenced IEDs were buried. On the VMEWI3 test-lanes the full IED-vignettes were arranged.
 

Initial IEDDET projects observations

The objective of the VMEWI3 technology demonstrator is to provide early warning of indirect IED indicators by using a suite of forward looking camera systems on an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV). Real-time detection and decision fusion is applied to enhance the overall detection performance. The operator of the system is located in a moving manned vehicle following the unmanned detection platform at safe distance with the same speed, and will be able to confirm, reject and manually add detections.

For the first joint EDA IEDDET trial a demonstrator was developed consisting of a multi-camera head with nine tailormade camera systems each focusing on a specific set of indicators, such as ground signs, man-made objects and markers. The multi-camera head was mounted on a panning unit allowing the head to follow the road curvatures and to be aimed at a suspect object when halted for inspection. The multi-camera head, together with a highly accurate positioning system was mounted on an unmanned ground vehicle to provide stand-off. Both the multi-sensor head and the unmanned ground vehicle could be remotely controlled from a control vehicle. Single sensor detection algorithms were developed and also software to allow the detections of each camera to be registered to the same reference image for fusion. The highly accurate position and pose of the camera system is required to map the detected indicators in world coordinates on a map and decision processing.

During the trial synchronized data acquisition with all nine camera systems and the positioning system was achieved on four kilometers of test lane on which vignettes had been emplaced. Data was primarily collected with a manned UGV, up to speeds of 15km/h, to obtain maximum quality data for offline analysis, detection and fusion algorithm development in the coming year of the programme. Additionally, remote control of the UGV during data acquisition with the multi-sensor platform was demonstrated up to speeds of approximately 20km/h. The images of all nine cameras were remotely (wireless) displayed in the Control Vehicle. Real-time processing and depiction of multi-camera early warnings to an operator was achieved in simulation mode by replaying the recorded data as if in real-time and for live data on a static UGV. The trial results will be used to further develop detection and fusion algorithms and to achieve real-time early warning on a moving UGV. The detected indicators will be exchanged offline with the MUSICODE and CONFIDENT projects in EDA IEDDET Joint Detection Map (JDM).

The aim of the MUSICODE project is to demonstrate an improved Technology Readiness Level 5 multi sensor detection approach compared to available systems. Data from several sources will be used to enhance the capability of IED detection.  Four different on-board sensor systems based on already known technologies, with the addition of existing detections from the VMEWI3 technology demonstrator as well as a priori available intelligence information. The goal is to combine this information to strengthen the confidence in (combined) alarms, and possibly reduce the false alarm rate.

Running several sensor systems on the same platform, with the addition of remote control and data links and high precision GPS positioning is particularly challenging with respect to cross talk and interference between systems.  Preliminary interference anechoic chamber trials were already conducted at an earlier stage, and one of the main goals in Allentsteig was to repeat these trials under field conditions and with the inclusion of mitigation measures pointed out during the first lab experiments. A second goal was to obtain a realistic detection data set for each on-board sensor system. For this purpose, dedicated targets were produced and emplaced by the various teams. The third goal was to run the system with the tactical vignette targets also used by the other projects. This was performed partly on a completely clutter free test lane, and partly on the so-called tactical lane which was shared with the other teams.  The combined IEDDET Programme data set will be used to discuss and implement the EDA IEDDET JDM solution.  Finally, the Allentsteig trials resulted in the first shake-down of technical solutions in general terms, also with respect to mechanical design.
 

Participants to the 1rst joint IEDDET programme trials

The project CONFIDENT has the objective to provide demonstrator platforms of an UGV and an UAV, equipped with suitable sets of sensors for close-in confirmation and identification of IEDs. In addition, CONFIDENT will add airborne early-warning capabilities. These platforms will take action on IEDs already detected by VMEWI3 and MUSICODE, either after excavation in route-clearance scenarios or, if placed above-ground, particularly in urban scenarios including CBRNE-threat.

At the first joint EDA IEDDET trials the focus of the CONFIDENT test programme was on testing three newly developed sensors under field conditions. All sensors were operated mounted on the UGV. The scenario of an excavated IED was simulated by a dummy-IED. The UAV for close-in inspection was tested for the capability of airborne chemical detection. Two types of UAV have been tested with the different scenarios. Regarding airborne early warning capabilities, a software-tool is being developed to detect the defined IED indicators. The photographic material for this development has been collected by flights of the Schibel-Camcopter capturing scenarios provided by role-players. Additionally, airborne early warning capabilities have also been demonstrated with a swarm of drones.

Data and lessons learned from the 2018 trials will be used for information fusion and the next iteration of development towards the final EDA IEDDET trials and demonstration in 2019/2020.

 

The Afghanistan Opium Survey 2018 released today by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) shows decrease of a fifth in the countrywide cultivation of opium compared to the previous years. The 263,000 hectares under the cultivation in Afghanistan this year was still the second largest score for Afghanistan since the UNODC began systematic monitoring in 1994. Also, poppy weeding and harvesting still provided the equivalent of 345,000 full- time jobs into the country’s widely impoverished rural areas. AAN’s Jelena Bjelica looks at where the decrease has taken the place and the main reasons behind it.

In 2018, Afghanistan cultivated 65,000 fewer hectares of opium poppy than in the previous year (see here). The total area under opium poppy cultivation decreased to 263,000 hectares in 2018, from 328,000 hectares in 2017, when more opium was grown and more opium paste produced in Afghanistan than in any year since the UNODC began monitoring in 1994 (see AAN previous analysis here). This year’s decrease, however, was not particularly significant. Moreover, poppy cultivation was as widespread as ever. As in 2017, 24 out of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces grew opium poppy, (1) three up from 2016. The area under poppy cultivation in Afghanistan in 2018 was still the second largest since 1994.

The decline in cultivation was mainly caused by the drought which is severely affecting the west and the north of the country – in the words of locals from the northwest, it is the worst drought they can remember (see previous AAN analysis here). Consequently, opium poppy cultivation decreased by 24,000 hectares in the northern region (or 56 per cent compared to last year’s levels) and by 23,000 hectares (or 43 per cent compared by last year’s levels) in the western region. In Badghis province, which belongs (in UNODC’s categorisation) to the western region and had seen a gradual increase in poppy cultivation in the last several years, cultivation decreased by 30 per cent this year (see this AAN analysis). A small decrease was also recorded in the south of the country where opium poppy was grown on some 15,000 fewer hectares than last year. However, the decrease in the south, the UNODC said, was mainly to do with a decrease in the price of dry opium at last year’s harvest time. David Mansfield, the veteran British expert on Afghanistan’s opium economy, speaking before the release of the UNODC figures:

Helmand was touch and go on levels of cultivation… There were signs of increases in the desert area (and much better yields) but it was not completely clear what would happen in the Canal [the irrigated part of central Helmand]. Ultimately, fighting certainly seemed to lead to some rather large areas of abandoned land.

Opium production, opium yields – also down

The UNODC estimated that the potential opium production would be 6,400 tons in 2018. This is a decrease of 29 per cent from 2017 when Afghanistan produced more opium paste than ever before, an estimated 9,000 metric tons, compared to 4,800 metric tons in 2016 (see here).

According to the UNDOC, the decrease in production was mainly due to decreases in the area under opium poppy cultivation. However, more modest yields also contributed to the general reduction. This year’s average yield was 24.4 kilogrammes per hectare, as compared to 27.3 kg/ha kilogrammes per hectare in 2017. Additionally, the UNODC said, yields in some regions decreased much more substantially than others – by 47 per cent in the central region, 29 per cent in the eastern region and 19 per cent in the northern region. Yields remained relatively stable in the west and the north-east and in the south, which accounts for over two-thirds of the entire national production of opium, yields decreased by just eight per cent and had a relatively minor impact on the harvest there.

Helmand has also seen a continuing trend of farmers investing in advanced agricultural methods, including solar panels for powering irrigation pumps and specific fertilisers and pesticides. These have allowed Helmandi farmers to grow opium profitably, even under unfavourable conditions. This was also shown in two recent Mansfield studies published by AREU (in 2017 and 2018).

Decrease in prices

According to the UNODC, the farm-gate price of dry opium at harvest time fell to 94 US dollars per kilogramme. This, UNODC said, was the lowest price (after adjusting for inflation) of opium at harvest time since 2004. The average price of opium in 2017 at the time of harvest was 131 USD/kg, down by 14 per cent from 152 USD/kg in 2016. This means that, within two years, the price of dry opium has dropped by more than one-third.

The decrease in farm-gate prices resulted in a 56 per cent reduction in the farm-gate value of the total opium harvest in 2018; estimated at 604 million US dollars this year, it equates to only three per cent of the country’s GDP (based on a 2.4 percent growth rate in 2018, the World Bank is projecting an end or 2018 GDP of 1,450 billion Afghanis or 19.93 billion US dollars). The estimated farm-gate value in 2017 was equivalent to roughly seven per cent of Afghanistan’s estimated GDP, or around 1.4 billion USD, (see also this AAN analysis about the opium economy here). That year, the farm-gate value of the crop increased by 55 per cent compared to 2016 values because of the sheer volume of production, ie the unprecedented amount of opium poppy cultivated and subsequently opium paste produced.

What about eradication?

Government-led eradication remains negligible; in 2018 only 406 hectares of opium poppy were eradicated, out of a total of 263,000 hectares in four provinces, compared to 750 hectares in 14 provinces in 2017. (355 hectares of opium poppy were eradicated in seven provinces in 2016.)

Nevertheless, the US air campaign against drug-related targets which began on 19 November 2017 (see AAN analysis here; see also this paper by Mansfield), has continued in 2018. The Wall Street Journal reported in August this year that US airstrikes had hit about 200 drug-related targets, with nearly half of them in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province. “The air campaign,” said the Journal, “has wiped out about 46 million USD in Taleban revenue.” Mansfield, however, challenged this, arguing that “heroin profits and taxes are not as large as U.S. forces estimate and bombing drug labs will have a negligible effect on Taliban revenues.” (See Mansfield’s quote in the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction – SIGAR latest report, p 86 here). Mansfield in his AREU October 2018 paper, “Stirring Up the Hornet’s Nest” wrote:

Farmers in Helmand view this campaign quite differently and see it as further evidence of a campaign of violence waged against them. They do not recognise the claims of “a narco-insurgency,” or the suggestion that the drugs business is somehow the insurgency’s primary objective, as suggested by a US special operations commander in Afghanistan.

According to SIGAR’s latest report, the United States has committed an average of more than 1.5 million USD a day to help the Afghan government combat narcotics between 2002 and September 2018.

As of 30 September 2018, U.S. counternarcotics-related appropriations for that purpose had reached 8.88 billion US Dollars. Despite massive expenditures for programs including poppy-crop eradication, drug seizures and interdictions, alternative-livelihood support, aviation support, and incentives for provincial governments the drug trade remains entrenched in Afghanistan, and is growing.

Conclusion

Although the area under cultivation decreased and Afghanistan produced less opium this year, the 2018 levels it is only a decrease on scores for 2017 which were the highest since 1994. The drought severely affected production and yields in the north and west and in the country’s opium production powerhouse, Helmand, lower prices last year appears to have reduced the incentive for some farmers to sow poppy this year. As to counter-narcotics strategies, those by the government were symbolic only and the US-led counter-narcotics air campaign, according to Mansfield, has not dented production, but has ‘stirred up a hornet’s nest. “Farmers were quick to blame the lab strikes” for the decrease in prices, he said. In reality, there were other factors at work dampening demand and prices, he said, “Continued high levels of production and the devaluation of the [Iranian] tomanis leading to a lot of market uncertainty and a hesitancy amongst cross-border traders.”

The most worrying outcome of this year’s decrease in opium prices for the rest of the world is that it may trigger a decrease in heroin prices on the world’s illegal markets. An abundance of high-quality, low-cost heroin could result in cheap heroin on the streets and, globally, more people using the drug.

 

(1) A province is given a poppy-free status if fewer than 100 hectares of opium are grown there. This year, Nuristan regained its poppy-free status, which it had between 2006 and 2016 and lost in 2017. Takhar lost its previous poppy-free status, which it had held since 2008.

The European Intervention Initiative (Initiative européenne d'intervention, EI2/IEI) was first proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron in his Sorbonne keynote in September 2017 and nine members signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) to begin work on 25 June 2018. France's motivation to establish this, and other European military projects, is to support its operations in the Sahel which it is struggling to maintain alone.

The ultimate aim of the EI2 is a shared strategic culture that would enhance the ability of its members to act together on missions as part of NATO, the EU, UN or other ad-hoc coalitions. The project is intented to be resource neutral and makes use of existing assets and other joint forces available to members. EI2 seeks for enhanced interaction on intelligence sharing, scenario planning, support operations and doctrine.

Launch
The starting point of the EI2 is the speech on Europe delivered on September 26, 2017 at the Sorbonne by President Macron during which in the field of defense, he "proposes now to try to build this culture. in common, by proposing a European intervention initiative aimed at developing this shared strategic culture. [...] At the beginning of the next decade, Europe will have to have a common intervention force, a common defense budget and a common doctrine to act ". The French will was to constitute a "hard core" ready to act very quickly in case of need as was the case in Mali where France mounted Operation Serval. in a few days. Not all IEI Member States will necessarily participate in each operation.

It is not a matter of creating a new rapid response force prepositioned as it already exists in the framework of NATO (with the NRF) or the CSDP (with the Battlegroups), or bilaterally for example between France and the United Kingdom (with CJEF (in). The means provided will be composed to specifically meet the needs of a crisis.
According to the LoI, the initiative will focus on enhanced interaction in four key areas: strategic foresight and intelligence sharing, scenario development and planning, operations support, and fourth. feedback and doctrine. To this end, the armed forces of the signatory countries will notably carry out exchanges of officers, joint exercises of anticipation and planning, the sharing of doctrines and the writing of joint scenarios of intervention.

The French Armed Forces Staff is responsible for organizing the effective launch of the IEI by holding the first Military European Strategic Talks (MEST) and developing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) here the end of the year 2018.

Ambitions
France's long-term ambition is to create a "common strategic culture". The French Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, specifies that it is about "developing between countries at the same time militarily capable and politically voluntary" habits "to work together, to be able to prepare, if necessary to be in capacity to intervene, where they decide, at the moment of their decision, on extremely varied scenarios ". German Federal Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen adds that "the aim is to create a forum, with like-minded states, who will analyze situations, who will have discussions early, when crises will manifest themselves in a region, and which, together, will be able to develop a political will".

Participating States
The signatory states on June 25, 2018 of the letter of intent are Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. Germany is initially reluctant for fear that this new initiative will weaken those taken since 2016 under the CSDP (notably the European Defense Action Plan and Permanent Structured Cooperation). The meeting of the Franco-German Council of Ministers on 19 June at Meseberg Castle, near Berlin, offers a positive response.

Italy participated in the preparatory meetings but the new government formed on 1 June 2018 asked for a reflection period. The participation of the United Kingdom, in the process of withdrawal from the European Union, illustrates the willingness of the British to remain leading partners in European security. Their participation, like that of Danes who are not part of the CSDP, is made possible by the fact that the EI2 is outside the institutional framework of the European Union. Finland confirmed, during the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron in Helsinki on 30 August 2018, its decision taken a few days earlier to join the European intervention initiative and its accession was validated on 7 November 2018 by the nine defense ministers of IEI member countries.

Relationship with PeSCo
The EI2 is the creation of a set of European states as prerequisites for joint operational commitments in various predefined military intervention scenarios. EI2 operationally complements Permanent Structured Cooperation (CSP or PeSCo) focused on the capability area. Based on Article 42.6 and Protocol 10 of the Treaty on European Union, PeSCp was introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009, and first initiated in 2017.

EI2 seeks some synergies with the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) that has newly been established within the European Union's (EU) Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), and PESCO projects are intended to be integrated into the EI2 where feasible. France's concern is that developing the EI2 within PESCO would result in lengthy decision times or watered down ambition. This led to some tensions regarding the project between France and Germany, with the latter concerned that it would harm the EU's political cohesion. Including the EI2 within PESCO is also seen as problematic as it prevents the participation of the UK and Denmark.

The minimum number of participating states for cooperation under PESCO, according to the Lisbon Treaty, is nine. As the IEI does not fit within the institutional framework of the CSDP the number of participants is not limited.

Comments
NATO does not need such a structure anymore. Moreover it is very anacronistic at the moment or by the BREXIT one of the most powerful European armies will leave the Union. The participation of states, member of the EU but not member of the CSDP (Denmark) shows how this initiative can be considered serious.
The need for the establishment of the EI2 is highly questionable. One more idea of the political leaders (especially French) who instead of realizing and ensuring the conditions sine qua non of the programs already launched, the strengthening and modernization of the army. Everyone tinkers with his own new initiative, promises roaring never or little done. Why the battle groups do not work have never engaged? Instead of meeting this challenge rather another program with very nebulous goals, confused with lots of bullshits.
"A common doctrine to act" should be preceded by a "common strategy", but that of the EU is far from being a real strategy.

Tag: European Intervention InitiativeEI2Initiative européenne d'interventionIEIMEST

Organising elections in Nuristan, one of the most remote, under-served and unknown provinces, presents a severe challenge. Most villages are far from their nearest district centre and all of the districts are under some degree of Taleban control or influence. In two districts – Mandol and Du-Ab – people were fully deprived of their right to vote. Elections were held in the six others, but even then only in parts of the districts. Contradictions on the number of polling centres reported as having been opened on election day have also raised suspicions that some vote rigging may have taken place. AAN’s Obaid Ali, Jelena Bjelica and Thomas Ruttig scrutinise the context in Nuristan which makes holding free, fair and inclusive elections so very difficult and report on what was a troubling election day where few Nuristanis were able to exercise their franchise.

 Holding elections in Nuristan in 2018 was difficult. Mountainous terrain plus insurgency made logistics, eg getting voting material in and out, tricky. It was then difficult or impossible for many people to get to polling centres, if they had managed to register and if the centres opened. Monitoring the poll was even more difficult. It seems that, in many places, the IEC ‘subcontracted’ security and administration of the elections to local elders. Meanwhile, discrepancies in some of the basic reporting about election day, for example how many polling centres actually opened, flag up concerns about vote-rigging. Before delving into how the 2018 parliamentary elections went in Nuristan, we wanted to give some background and context about a province which is under-reported and seldom visited by outsiders.

The ethno-linguistic and administrative framework

Nuristan is one of the remotest provinces in Afghanistan. Its people, numbering an estimated 158,000 for 2018/19 by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) were, until their forceful conversion to Islam in the mid-1890s, non-Muslim. At that point, the province was renamed from Kafiristan (land of the infidels) to Nuristan (land of light) and the people re-named Nuristanis (read a good overview of this period here). However, locals have preserved elements of their pre-Islamic culture.

Livelihoods are based on subsistence farming, animal husbandryand forestry and people typically live in wooden houses on Nuristan’s mountainous slopes in order not to use up scarce agricultural land. Individual settlements are often isolated both from each other and from those in other valleys, as well as from the often token government presence in the district centres. Mohebullah Hamdard, a local journalist, told AAN it still takes days to travel from one valley to another. Various local sources told AAN that most Nuristanis have no interaction even with their district centres. Most decisions are taken by community elders and police are only present in the district centres. (This pattern was the same during Taleban rule when the ‘Islamic Emirate’ also had only a token presence in the province.)

This mountainous province, which borders Laghman and Kunar to the south and the southeast, Panjshir to the west and Badakhshan to the north, consists of three thinly-populated valleys largely isolated from one another. (See a population distribution map here, p 48).

In western Nuristan, in the upper reaches of the Alingar River valley (a tributary of the Kabul River), there are three districts, Mandol, Du-Ab, and Nurgram (also known as Nangarage).

In Central Nuristan, in the Pech River valley (a tributary of the Kunar River) there are two districts: Parun (also known as Prasun), with the eponymous provincial centre, bordering Badahshan to the north, and Wama, bordering Kunar to the east.

Eastern Nuristan, which lies along the Durand line and has Pakistan’s Chitral district to the east, has the Landay Sin River valley (also known Bashgal River), another tributary of the Kunar River and of the Kunar River itself. There are three districts here: Waigal, Kamdesh, and Barg-e Matal (Bargromatal).

Both eastern and central Nuristan share a border with Badakhshan to the north and Kunar to the south. The province’s eastern and central valleys are accessible through Kunar and the western valley through Laghman. The provincial capital, Parun, is hardly accessible from anywhere in the winter months due to heavy snowfall and poor roads. (1)

Districts of Nuristan, by Rarelibra, MTWT2012, CC BY-SA 3.0, Commons. Wikimedia.

Nuristanis are widely considered to be a single ethnic group and are mentioned as such in the Afghan national anthem. However, they, in fact, are comprised of various ethnic and sub-ethnic groups, many of them speaking distinct, Indo-European languages, sometimes summarily called Dardic (see a detailed description here). Even specialists disagree on how many there are, counting up to fifteen ethnicities and between five to ten languages. The main ethnic groups are the Kata (speaking Kati) in the mountainous north of both eastern and western Nuristan; the Vasi (also known as Paruni) and the Kalasha in central Nuristan; the Ashkun in the southern, lower part of western Nuristan; and the Kom (speaking Kamviri) in the southern, lower part of eastern Nuristan. There are also non-Nuristani minority populations, Pashai (around 15 per cent of the population), Pashtuns of the Safi tribe and Gujar (see here).

Languages of Nuristan, from https://nuristan.info

Salafis and insurgents

The mass, forced conversion of Nuristanis in the nineteenth century went along with an influx of particularly conservative religious groups, with ‘Wahhabi’ groups reported at that time and later, Salafis (Ahl-e Hadith) proselytising in the 1960s. This led to the emergence of indigenous Salafi groups in parts of the province and they participated in the province’s uprising against the pro-Soviet PDPA regime after it tried to assert its authority there in 1978. In 1982, a Salafist statelet, mainly covering Barg-e Matal and parts of Kamdesh in upper eastern Nuristan, emerged, called Daulat-e Inqilabi-ye Islami-ye Nuristan (the Islamic Revolutionary State of Nuristan) and led by a religious scholar, Mawlawi Muhammad Afzal. (2) His state had rudimentary government structures and received money from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Pakistan. In the late 1980s, reported Daan Van Der Schriek, “Saudi Arabia recognised [Afzal’s] government, helping it to establish independent consulates in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.” The statelet,, he said “subsisted by raising revenue from mujahedin supply convoys,” whose entry was regulated through an office in neighbouring Chitral.

According to various sources, Afzal’s group was closely linked to the extremist group Lashkar-e Taiba (LeT). According to one source (see here), LeT might have even been formed as an Afghan anti-government group in neighbouring Kunar in 1990 (another Salafi statelet had emerged there in the late 1980s). Only after the fall of the Afghan communist regime in 1992 did the LeT turn its attention to Kashmir and became known as a Pakistani group. (The Kunar Salafis had a leadership distinct from Afzal’s and there are no reports about any possible collaboration.) (3)

When Afzal supported the expanding Taleban movement in the 1990s, it gave him a free hand to rule the province (see here). This incurred the hostility of Hezb-e Islami and Jamiat-e Islami and Jamiat attacked Afzal’s forces in 1997. He was wounded and fled and the daulat folded (see this AAN analysis and more background here).

Although Nuristan is extremely remote with roads mainly serviceable only by pack animals, it did became a key supply route from Pakistan both for the mujahedin who fought the Soviets in the 1980s, and remains so for the various insurgent groups currently active in the area. Onwards through Laghman and Kapisa, Nuristan also provides access to and from the central region around Kabul and to the Panjshir valley.

Hezb-e Islami had a strong presence in the lower areas of the province during the anti-Soviet war, and its insurgent ‘wing’ after 2001. This year, Zia al-Rahman Kashmir Khan, son of the most influential insurgent Hezb commander in Kunar and Nuristan, the late Kashmir Khan, was running in the election in Kunar province (see here). Hezb concluded a peace deal with the Afghan government in 2016, see AAN’s analysis here.

After 2001, insurgency

Given its strategic position as an infiltration route from Pakistan, Nuristan quickly came into the sights of the United States military in the years after it ousted the Taleban from power. In late 2003, 1,000 US troops were sent there in a limited operation, apparently trying to find Hezb leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who was believed to be shuttling between Chitral and eastern Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden.

Between 2003 and 2006, coalition forces based at the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) bases in neighbouring Nangrahar, Kunar and Laghman were active in the province. They pushed forward road building and improvements, mainly to create access for a US PRT planned for Nuristan. According to a 2006 provincial survey by the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA), roads in Nuristan had already been improved by the mujahedin, although they were still not good enough for motorised vehicles. By 2005, the PRTs completed some 40 kilometres of road and some 30 kilometres more were under construction, all financed by USAID. They included those in Parun, Wama, Waigal and Du Ab districts. The construction of these roads remains incomplete.

The next attempt to stem the rising insurgency in the province came in February 2006, when the US’s 10th Mountain Division pushed into Nuristan. Over three months, units spread out through the narrow valleys and high altitudes of Kunar and Nuristan in ‘Operation Mountain Lion’. In August 2006, US forces established the first Forward Operating Base (FOB) in Kamdesh district and several other outposts, although they did not last very long. The New York Times reported that, in 2007 and 2008, two posts and a smaller satellite base were closed in the Waigal Valley and in 2009 two more were closed in Kamdesh (see here and here). American soldiers withdrew from Nuristan after around 300 insurgents overran an isolated combat outpost near Kamdesh village in October 2009, killing eight soldiers and wounding 22.  This military defeat was preceded by another battle in Waigal district in July 2008 in which nine US troops were killed when insurgents breached the security perimeter of a US Combat Outpost in this remote mountainous area.

By 2011, media were reporting that the Taleban again controlled large swathes of Nuristan, with Waigal the first district to fall (temporarily) to the Taleban in the spring of 2011. Pajhwok quoted then-newly appointed governor Tamim Nuristani as saying the Taleban held sway in five districts, Barg-e Matal, Kamdesh, Waigal, Mandol, Du-Ab and some parts of Nurgram. In 2011, US forces tried to recapture Du-Ab district, where, in the words of the US reservists from the Iowa National Guard, the “most significant” firefight their unit had been in since World War II took place.

An AAN dispatch in 2012 described how a Hezb-e Islami commander, Mawlawi Sadeq, himself a former insurgent, exercised control on behalf of the Afghan government in and around Kamdesh’s district centre. AAN also reported that in Mandol district:

On paper everything is correct: 85 teachers work in the district under the vigilant eye of 240 security personnel. But the reality, the delegation describes, is that the district – which has a population of 60,000 (official estimates allow for 20,000) – do not receive the money for a single functioning school. Meanwhile, the security commander, who was appointed three months ago, has been the first to set foot in the district in years, even though he receives salaries for only 70 men.

This neglect of the province by the government and its handover of authority to a local, self-imposed ruler resulted, as the BBC reported in 2013, in the province being “at mercy of the Taliban”. In 2014, The New York Times reported that “the provincial capital, Parun, has a government presence, but is disconnected from six of its seven districts,” while the district of Barg-e Matal “has remained under Taliban siege for years now.” Furthermore, the newspaper reported, Lashkar-e-Taiba’s flag “flew over buildings in districts here and dozens of men from Parun fought on its behalf in Kashmir.”

The Taleban continued to launch frequent attacks and seize district centres, such as Waigal in June 2015 and June 2016 and Du-Ab in March 2016, killing the local police chief. In December 2015, the Taleban claimed that nearly 200 security personnel and 140 government officials – practically the entire government presence there – had defected to their side in Waigal district. In October 2015, they attacked Barg-e Matal.

According to SIGAR’s latest quarterly report, not a single district in Nuristan is fully under the government’s control. Barg-e Matal, Kamdesh, Mandol, Nurgram and Parun are labelled as being ‘under government influence’, while Du-Ab, Wama and Waigal are ‘contested’. This is a surprisingly rosy picture of the situation, however. Mandol’s district authorities, for example, have been working from the administration centre of neighbouring Du-Ab district for at least the last two years.

A new element on Nuristan’s insurgency map is the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP). In April 2016, after ISKP lost large parts of its territories in the eastern province of Nangrahar, there were reports that many of its fighters fled to Nuristan. In June 2017, provincial governor Hafiz Abdul Qayum and Nuristani MP, Maulawi Ahmadullah Muhid claimed there was an ISKP presence in five out of eight Nuristan districts, namely Mandol, Du-Ab, Nurgram, Waigal and Wama. They also reported fighting in Waigal between the Taleban and one of the movement’s former commanders who had joined the ISKP. On 10 November 2018, Afghan media reported an airstrike against ISKP positions in Kamdesh district.

Socio-economic situation

The population of the province is extremely poor. Apart from subsistence agriculture and forestry it relies on wage labour outside the province, while, according to a 2006 provincial survey by the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, government figures, local strongmen and insurgents exploit the province’s cedar, oak and pine forests, as well as marble (in Waigal) and precious stone mines (in Kantiwa and Wama districts). Much of the latter is smuggled directly out to Pakistan.

There has also been some opium poppy cultivation. Between 2006 and 2016 Nuristan was considered opium free, but in 2017 UNODC recorded a minor opium cultivation, some 120 hectares in total in Mandol and Nurgram districts (see here).

Services and social infrastructure are patchy and low-level. According to a 2014 government health profile, Nuristan had three district hospitals, which should more properly be called clinics, three ‘comprehensive’ and eight ‘basic’ health stations. Its adult literacy rate then stood at 21.1 per cent. Almost half of Nuristan’s population was categorised as “people in need” in a January 2015 humanitarian profile of the province.  It said 13,700 children required treatment for malnutrition and catogorised 11 per cent of under-fives as having “severe acute malnutrition” and 19 per cent with “global acute malnutrition.”

Any improvement of basic health and education services has mainly been carried out by a few international NGOs and Nuristanis residing outside the country, for example in the US and Sweden. However, as the insurgency picked up again, this province, which had never appeared on any government’s agenda, lost most of the NGOs working there. Already in early 2005, UN news agency IRIN reported:

When you finally reach the tiny provincial capital [then Barg-e Matal], close to the Pakistani frontier, the vista is bleak. Local authority offices are closed and there is no sign of any aid agencies. There are gutted houses and bombed bridges everywhere. An empty health clinic is serving as winter quarters for someone’s private militia. The people look exhausted with thin, colourless faces.

In Barg-e-Matal and Kamdish, the two most troubled eastern districts of Nurestan, there is no sign of any government activity anywhere. In central Barg-e-Matal, Karim, a 40-year-old aid worker, stood behind the closed door of the Afghan Aid NGO’s office that was recently burned down by insurgents.

There is currently some new activity by Afghan and international NGOs, including under the Citizen’s Charter, the government development framework (more info here). The UN has no permanent presence in the province, but several of its agencies carry out ad hoc projects.

Nuristan is mainly covered by media outlets in Nangrahar and Kunar. There is no television station in the province. The state broadcaster Radio & Television Afghanistan (RTA) installed a special transmitter, which is switched on only for two hours every evening and broadcasts only to Parun, the provincial capital. In many districts, where they can afford it, people rely on satellite antennas. There are three radio stations: state-run RTA in Parun and two private radio stations run by local journalists, Radio Kalagush and Radio Alina in Nurgram. There are no local newspapers and one of the province’s two magazines, “The Nur,” has been discontinued due to lack of funding, while “Nuristan Hendara” is irregularly published from Jalalabad.

Election day in Nuristan, past and present

As can be expected from these circumstances, elections in remote and isolated Nuristan is a big challenge. Due to the strained security situation and the lack of infrastructure, the Afghan government faced enormous challenges in even supplying election material to Nuristan. The journalist, Hamdard, said election material was sent either by helicopter or transported via road from neighbouring Nangrahar, Laghman and Kunar provinces.

During previous elections, Nuristan’s remoteness and limited access to the province provided opportunities for electoral fraud. In the first presidential election of October 2004, the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan survey quoted above reported suspicious data. The total population – men, women and children – was estimated then at 125,700. Yet, there were 124,500 registered voters. Almost 40 per cent of the registered voters (46,857), half of them reportedly women, were deemed to have case ‘valid votes’. One year later at the Wolesi Jirga elections, with the same number of registered voters, a female turnout of 52.8 per cent and a male turnout of 47.2 per cent was reported, even though election authorities had “found it troublesome to recruit adequate numbers of female election workers in Nuristan to staff women’s polling sites.”

In the 2010 Wolesi Jirga elections, of 130 polling stations scheduled to open, only 99 did so and, of these, the votes from 44 were later disqualified by the IEC and 17 more by the ECC. This finally left 14,449 votes rendered valid, 63 per cent of the 23,981 votes originally counted in the preliminary result. One polling station in Barg-e Matal had returned a total of 751 votes – a clear sign of ballot stuffing, as only 600 ballot papers had been delivered to each polling station (see this AAN analysis).

In 2018, according to Hamdard, the IEC was unable to hold the election itself in a number of districts but outsourced it to local elders who also took care of election security. The police only secured polling sites in certain district centres. In two districts, Wama and Waigal, Hamdard said local elders provided security for IEC workers against possible Taleban attack and to ensure the delivery of election material. The elders took the materials to their villages, looked after them on election day and facilitated their return back to the district centre.Local journalists told AAN that in Waigal, some ballot boxes were taken away by a parliamentary candidate’s agents. They added it is still unclear where the boxes are, but if true, it must be assumed that there was ballot stuffing.

In three other districts, Nurgram, Barg-e Matal and Kamdesh, IEC workers handed over ballot papers and boxes to elders who held the elections and returned the ballot boxes within 24 hours, according to Hamdard. He said that only in Parun, the provincial capital, where almost all polling centres were located in villages close to the provincial centre, did IEC personnel carry out the election.

Sadullah Payendazai, speaker for the provincial council, told AAN he had not heard of such proceedings. He did though indirectly confirm that turnout had been limited to the district centres.

As for women voters, there was, as in previous elections, according to Muhammad Shah Rahimi, a school teacher in Nurgram district, a shortage of female agents for parliamentary candidates. “There were very limited numbers of female agents in a few polling centres.” Payendazai also said it was difficult for women actually to get to polling stations to cast their votes. “It was almost impossible for families to walk for an hour and half along with their female to get to a poling centre,” he said. “Therefore, most women who live far away from the poling centres remained without casting votes.”

Taleban violence

Like many other parts of the country, the Taleban attempted to disrupt the elections by attacking polling centres. According to local sources, including local journalists and the acting provincial police chief, the Taleban fired mortars at polling centres in order to scare people away from taking part in the elections. Ghulam Rabbani, the acting police chief for Nuristan, confirmed that there had been Taleban mortar attacks against the polling centres in Wama, Barg-e Matal, Kamdesh and Nurgram districts. He said four civilians including two IEC workers were wounded in an attack on a polling centre in Barg-e Matal. According to journalist Hamdard, the head of the IEC for Barg-e Matal district, Elyas Khan, was among those wounded. Payendazai, the speaker for Nuristan’s provincial council, said that, because of the insecurity in these four districts, local observers had not been able to get to polling centres.

Rabbani also said that five Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers were killed a day after the election. Their convoy, which had been carrying ballot boxes from Nurgram district to the provincial centre, was hit by a roadside mine. The ballot boxes were also reportedly destroyed in this incident. He said air support was called in and 13 Taleban killed.

In Kamdesh, local journalists told AAN that two out of the four planned polling centres remained closed as a result of Taleban attacks against the district centre. They also said that in Parun and Nurgram the polling “largely took place in the district centres only.” Saadullah, the speaker of the provincial council, confirmed that polling centres were only open in the district centres. He said, “Most of the PCs outside of Kamdesh, Barg-e Matal, Waigal, and Nurgram’s district centres either remained close or operated for a couple of hours in the morning of polling day.”

Who voted and where? Contradictory figures

The first unexplained contradictions in election data in Nuristan was between IEC records and Central Statistics Organisation’s (CSO) figures. In some districts, the number of registered voters was close to or even higher than that of the total population estimated by the CSO. Wama district, for example has an estimated total population of 12,061, while the IEC data showed that 12,578 people had registered to vote. Similarly, Parun and Du-Ab registered voters in numbers close to the total population figures: 10,838 voters among a population of 14,755 and 6,612 voters among 8,598 people, respectively. No voter registration took place in Mandol district. All the other seven saw some registration.

As to polling centres, during the voter registration period, the IEC had foreseen 73 polling centres opening on election day. (See IEC details on voter registration in Nuristan here). 32 centres (44 per cent) had already been dropped from the list before 20 October for security reasons (see AAN reporting here). That left a potential 41 to open.

However, the exact number of polling centres that did open on 20 October remains unclear due to contradictory information from various sources. That voting only happened in six districts is agreed upon. Along with the potential, but unregistered voters in Mandol, those living in the other district almost entirely controlled by the Taleban, Du-Ab, were also unable to vote (although 6,612 people had registered) because no polling centre opened there on election day.

In the remaining six districts, some form of election did happen. According to IEC figures published on its website, 41 polling centres opened: nine in Nurgram; seven in Parun, the provincial centre; four in each Barg-e Matal and Wama; four each in Kamdesh and Du-Ab and; three in Waigal (see IEC details here). (That of course only adds up to 35 and also includes the four in Du-Ab which definitely did not open.)

According to Bashir Omar, the provincial head of the IEC for Nuristan, 37 centres opened.

However, journalist Hamdard told AAN that on the morning of election day, the local IEC had said that 20 polling centres were open and 21 closed. Later that day, he said, the commission claimed 26 centres were open, while 15 remained close due to high security threats. This proportion corresponds roughly with information from the spring 2018 voter registration campaign when 20 voter registration centres in Nuristan were reported as facing “high security threats” (see AAN reporting here).

Provincial IEC director Omar also said that in total, around 22,000 people voted in Nuristan. This would still be much lower than the IEC’s number of registered voters of 67,068 people (see here). It would show that only 32.8 per cent of all registered voters had taken part in the election.

However, the discrepancy between the number of polling centres open according to the IEC leadership and that provided by local IEC officials raises suspicions, that votes may have been ‘counted’ in centres that never actually opened. This will be something to watch as more information comes in.

There were other problems with the ballot aside from the contradictory election data. Local journalists, observers and voters told AAN that IEC staff lacked training. Muhammad Shah Rahimi, a school teacher from Nurgram, for example, told AAN that in most of the centres in his district the IEC workers had not been familiar with the biometric voter verification system. The local sources also said that some polling centres in Kamdesh, Wama and Parun districts did not get voter lists at all and others appeared to have received incomplete lists, further reducing the number of people who could vote. Saadullah, the provincial council speaker, told AAN that people were searching at different centres but could not find their names on the voter registration list. “Therefore, many people returned home without casting their votes.”

Provincial council speaker Payendazai told AAN that female participation in the provincial capital Parun had been “good.” He said he had seen queues of female voters at some local polling centres. However, he added that a lack of voter lists in some polling centres in Parun made many female voters leave without being able to cast their vote.

Hamdard and Rahimi said that in Nurgram, female participation had been good at the start of the day. Hamdard told AAN that there were queues of 20 to 30 women at three centres he visited. Later in the morning, he said, after reports emerged about Taleban shelling, only a few more women turned out to vote. He also reported that people in Barg-e Matal district stopped voting after the Taleban began shelling.

Rahimi confirmed Payendazai’s report, that female participation was limited to those living near polling centres. The other issue of concern for women, he said, was the use of biometric devices and the need to have photos taken for voter verification. This further dampened female participation, he thought.

Conclusion: how much of an election was there in Nuristan?

It is hard to judge the credibility of the parliamentary election in Nuristan. However, what can be said is that, because of widespread insecurity and Taleban territorial control, elections outside the immediate district centres were difficult, if not impossible to hold. Electoral observers also found access difficult because of the Taleban presence in most of the districts. It is clear that, in some areas, the election in Nuristan was out of the IEC’s control and it is likely that even the modest IEC figures on open polling centres and turnout have been exaggerated and possibly mask an unknown degree of ballot stuffing outside the district centres. In at least some of the district centres, local sources concur that there was a fair voter turnout, including some female voters. However, it remains unclear how many of the total 22,000 votes supposedly cast were real. That number is already far lower than ballots cast, even before disqualifications, in previous elections. Whatever else can be said, whoever is sent to Kabul to represent Nuristan will not have been sent there by the bulk of the population; most people were simple unable to get out to vote, even if they had wished to do so.

Edited by Kate Clark

 

(1) Nuristan province was created in 1986/7 and then consisted only what is now its northwestern part, ie Mandol and possibly Du-Ab district. The provincial centre was the village of Gadmuk, the birthplace of Muhammad Sarwar, an army officer before the 1978 coup d’étatwho was defence minister of the Salafist daulatbut changed sides and reconciled with the government of President Babrak Karmal. In 1993, when the mujahedin were in power, Sarwar had joined them, and a larger Nuristan province was created. A new capital was gradually built in Pashki (Parun valley), but the Taleban’s arrival in 1996 stopped this work. The province has continued to exist in this form, first under the Taleban and then in the post-2001 order.

(2) According to Daan Van Der Schriek writing for the Jamestown Foundation in 2006:

Afzal was an accomplished Islamic guerrilla as early as the 1970s, fighting the regimes of King Zahir Shah (1933-1973) and President Daoud Khan (1973-78). Afzal’s grandfather was a key figure in the Islamization of Nuristan following the Afghan conquest of the area at the end of the 19th century (for which he was killed by anti-Afghan Nuristanis). (…)

During the regime of President Burhanuddin Rabbani [1992-96] Maulvi Afzal went to Kabul as assistant to the minister for Haj and charity. With the advent of the Taliban he returned to Nuristan (…). A civil war erupted between Maulvi Afzal’s men on one side and (…) supporters of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar on the other. Initially the odds were against Afzal, leading him to enlist the support of the Taliban who sent him soldiers. Taliban assistance proved crucial in Afzal’s victory over (…) Hekmatyar loyalists. However the introduction of Taliban influence in the area inadvertently curtailed Afzal’s influence (…). In fact a combination of Taliban pressure and the worsening of the national civil war forced Afzal to abandon Nuristan and settle in Pakistan where he lived under the protection of the Lashkar-e-Toiba organization.

The 2006 SCA provincial survey mentioned in the text reported Afzal living in Nuristan again, under house arrest in his home village of Nekmok (AAN holds a digitalised version of the survey in its archives).

(3) This group was distinct, including in its leadership, from the Nuristani Salafis, and reportedly joined the Taleban in 2010 (AAN reporting here).