Defence`s Feeds

American F-15 Advanced Eagle Multi-Role Fighter

In April 2016 we visited 14th Flying Training Wing at Columbus AFB, Mississippi. Here’s our report. In an era when unmanned flying is becoming a normality, the U.S. Air Force is expanding its pilot training [...]

EDA’s Steering Board in Research and Technology (R&T) Director’s composition met today at the Agency, for the first time under the chairmanship of Dr Luisa Riccardi. EDA Chief Executive Jorge Domecq thanked her predecessor, Dr Bryan Wells, for his outstanding chairmanship and contribution to the work of the Agency over the past three years.

Directors discussed the updated version of the Overarching Strategic Research Agenda (OSRA) which provides a necessary link between R&T efforts and the military tasks and long-term capability needs of the Capability Development Plan (CDP). 

Combining a top-down approach (from capability needs to technologies) and a bottom-up approach (from new emerging technologies to capabilities), OSRA aims at streamlining Europe’s defence research priorities and informing Member States’ decision-making process on defence research. Practically speaking, OSRA identified a number of R&T areas, the so-called Technology Building Blocks (TBBs), in which a cooperative approach at the European level would bring an added-value to support the development of defence capabilities. In a second step, OSRA will also identify appropriate funding instruments. This information is expected to help Ministries of Defence to decide whether to lead or contribute to cooperative ad-hoc R&T projects and will also inform funding decisions taken in the context of the European Defence Fund (EDF).
 

Updated OSRA validated

At today’s meeting, R&T Directors validated the outcome of the OSRA review (OSRA v2), including the 139 developed TBBs and the results of the application of the approved OSRA prioritisation methodology. They also tasked EDA Captechs and Working Groups to develop TBB roadmaps for the highly prioritized TBBs by June 2019. In close cooperation with the participating Member States, EDA will continue to update the TBBs and to further investigate cooperation opportunities for each of them, including the appropriate funding instruments. EDA will also look into the Lessons Identified during the prioritisation and implementation phases of OSRA v2. These Lessons Identified will be presented for an initial discussion to the R&T Steering Board in 2020 in view of the next OSRA version, and in synchronisation with the next CDP revision.
R&T Directors also approved the systematic engagement of industry in the EDA defence research prioritisation activities, based on the lessons learned from the trial run of OSRA v1 and the implementation of EDA’s upstream role for the Preparatory Action for Defence Research (PA).
 

EDA’s increasing R&T portfolio

Directors also had the opportunity to be updated on and discuss the status of EDA’s R&T AdHoc portfolio which has exponentially increased over recent years, confirming EDA’s role as an enabler of collaborative R&T opportunities.  Between 2016 and 2017, the financial volume of the Agency’s R&T AdHoc portfolio was multiplied by four, and it doubled again in 2018 compared to 2017. In addition, the budgetary value of the 2018 portfolio is almost the highest since 2011 and the predictions for 2019 indicate a further increase by 50% compared to 2018.   

The latest European Defence Matters magazine (N°16) is now available with a special focus on unmanned and autonomous systems in defence. 

They are omnipresent in our daily lives and their potential keeps growing: smart machines and applications able to autonomously carry out tasks hitherto reserved to humans - from cutting grass to cleaning floors and driving cars. Certain autonomous functionalities have already made their way into the military domain where their possibilities are immense. 

The question is thus not IF unmanned and autonomous platforms will become key components of our defence toolboxes, but HOW Member States, armed forces and industry decide to prepare for what could be a technological, potentially disruptive step change for defence. 

In this new edition of European Defence Matters, which also served as a basis for the debate at this year’s EDA Annual Conference (29 November 2018) on “From Unmanned to Autonomous Systems: trends, challenges and opportunities”, we look at the extent to which unmanned and autonomous applications are already used in the various military domains (land, air, maritime, space, cyber) and what their main challenges and opportunities are, now and in the future. 

We also touch upon EDA’s work supporting Member States and industry in this new domain, from research to capability development. 

The industrial, regulatory and military/operational viewpoints are also represented through a series of interviews, notably with Eric Trappier (Dassault Aviation CEO), Patrick Ky (EASA Executive Director) and General Graziano (EUMC Chair).

CARD, Defence Innovation Prize, EMACC

Besides the comprehensive cover story on unmanned and autonomous systems, the magazine also analyses the outcome of the 2017-2018 trial run of the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD), reveals the 2018 winners of the first EDA Defence Innovation Prize, presents the new edition of European Military Airworthiness Certification Criteria Handbook and looks back at last September’s First European Air-to-Air Refuelling Conference held in Brussels. 
Enyoy your reading!

More information:

• European Defence Matters N° 16 (online version)
• European Defence Matters N°16 (printable PDF version)

 

Situational awareness is a prerequisite for good decision-making in any CSDP mission or operation. In order to provide operation commanders with optimal capabilities in this domain, EDA Member States in 2014 launched GISMO, the ‘Geospatial Information to Support decision Making in Operations’ project. Since then and working in partnership with the EU Satellite Centre (EU SatCen), GISMO has produced a first operational output in the form of ‘GeohuB’, a software application which allows for the safe and reliable sharing of geospatial information (GI) within a mission’s operational headquarter. 

After a successful field trial, GeohuB was successfully deployed in November 2017 to the Italian Operation Headquarters, Rome, in support of EU Naval Force Mediterranean (EUNAVFOR MED). In practical terms, this means that operation participants with access to the classified mission network of EUNAVFOR MED’s operational headquarters in Rome can upload, share and manage geospatial data related to the operation (GeohuB is accessible through a normal web browser with a user-friendly interface).

Rear Admiral Enrico Credendino
Commander EUNAVFOR Med Operation Sophia

Last June, GISMO started the transition of the GeohuB application from the current status of Initial Operating Capability (IOC) to Full Operating Capability (FOC) by the summer. A move much welcomed by Rear Admiral Enrico Credendino, the Commander of EUNAVFOR Med Operation Sophia. “Within the operational activity, the GEOHUB system is an effective service to support geospatial information. We aim to increase the use of this tool more and more with the intention of reaching the full operational capability before summer 2019”, he said. 

Last September, a new milestone was reached when the first training session was provided by EU SatCen staff to OHQ Sophia and training tutorials were handed over to GeohuB users on the ground in the framework of EDA project GISMO. 
 

Interview: “A common geospatial solution is paramount”

After the GeohuB training session, we spoke to Italian Lieutenant Colonel Claudio Panizzi who is GEO Officer at operation ‘Sophia’ (EUNAVFOR Med).
 

GISMO GeohuB is a Content Management System that facilitates the access to space-based information integrated with geospatial data in an Operational Headquarters environment. How important is space-based information and its integration into a common geospatial dataset for EUNAVFOR MED?

Lt.Col. Claudio Panizzi:  Almost all of the information that is managed inside an operation has a geospatial component. Reports are linked to locations, ships are located somewhere, the patrolling routes cover a given area, etc. The need to integrate all this information into a common geospatial solution is paramount to ensure that we are all fighting off the same map in this operation. An integrated approach as provided by GeohuB allows us to combine intelligence from different sources including space assets. Space assets are an operational resource able to provide answers worldwide, reliably within strict time margins. Accessing such resources and combining it with other intelligence sources enhance our capacity for decision making.
 

In very practical terms, what are the main operational benefits of the GISMO GeohuB System, even though it is still only at an initial stage of operational capability, and what kind of impact it has on operation SOPHIA?

Lt.Col. Claudio Panizzi: The highest benefit is to allow all branches of the operation to share a common view, empowering the staff to access data generated by other branches on their own, streamlining processes and easing dec

ision making. In addition, having a common pool of information increases the safety and security of decision relying on geospatial data.
 

Would you recommend other CSDP Missions and Operations or even the European External Action Service (EEAS) to use the system? 

Lt.Col. Claudio Panizzi: The use of a system able to operate inside the classified network allows to have an integrated vision. The use of open sources is important, but it is just another source of information. The real benefit for the operation comes from having all the sources in one tool that allows to mix the unclassified layer of geographical information with the classified information generated by the mission. This can only be achieved with operational tools inside the classified network.
 

One of the main objectives of the GISMO GeohuB is to support the decision-making process on the basis of updated situational awareness informed by space-based information. Based on the experience you’ve made so far with the system, would you say that there is room for new technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), to further improve the tool?

Lt.Col. Claudio Panizzi: As said before, the GISMO GehuB is a decision-making process oriented software. It provides, if required, a wide geospatial vision of the Area of Operations related by specific thematic overlapped layers and information.

In addition, to improve the aim of the product, we can suggest to develop remote sensing tools finalized to execute more autonomous analysis, such as change detection (to investigate day by day the development of specific situations) in order to provide more complete answers if specific and more localized crisis situations required it.
 

GISMO GeohuB 

So far, the GISMO GeohuB has been deployed: 

• since November 2017 to the Italian Operation Headquarters, Rome, in support of EU Naval Force Mediterranean (EUNAVFOR MED)
• in support of the MultiLayer 2016 (ML16) exercise as a tool for GI sharing among the different actors in the exercise (Brussels, EU OHQ in Postdam, FHQ in Strasbourg and EU delegation in Kampala)
• in support of the EUMM Georgia where the GeohuB is becoming a fundamental piece of the daily work chain within the monitoring mission
• in support of the MILEX 2017 as a tool to access GI by the EU OHQ in Northwood
• in support of EU Parallel and Coordinated Exercise 2018 (EU PACE 18)

On the initiative of the EUMS, the GISMO GeohuB is also being evaluated as the application to share Geospatial Information within the European External Action Service (EEAS) network users.
 

Background

Commanders of CSDP missions and operations constantly need fast, reliable and updated geospatial information covering land, sea, airspace and cyber. Geospatial information is earth-related factual data referenced by geographic position and arranged in a coherent structure. Such data include topographic, aeronautical, hydrographic or planning information but also mapping, geo-referenced imagery, geophysical products, etc. available in either analogue or digital format. Most pieces of information have a location, and knowing and understanding these locations can be decisive in a mission commanders’ decision-making. Ever improving geospatial information has thus the potential to revolutionise the decision-making process within military missions and operations.  

 

The question of a defence White Book at European level has been under discussion for some time. Many voices, particularly in the European Parliament, are pushing for such an initiative, while others consider that it is not only unnecessary, but could even dangerously divide Europeans. Concretely, the question cannot be tackled separately from that of defence planning and processes which underpin the development of military capabilities, as White Books are often the starting point for these. Within the European Union, however, there is not just one, but three types defence planning: the national planning of each of the Member States; planning within the framework of NATO (the NATO Defence Planning Process) and, finally, the European Union’s planning, which has developed in stages since the Helsinki summit of 1999 and comprises many elements. Its best-known component - but by no means not the only one - is the capability development plan established by the European Defence Agency. How do all these different planning systems coexist? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Answering these preliminary questions is essential in mapping the path to a White Book. This is what this study sets out to do.
Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

The United States intensified its ISR (Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance) presence in the Black Sea after Kerch Strait incident. Here’s an analysis. Following the incident in the Kerch Strait near Crimea in the morning of Nov. [...]

At yesterday’s OCCAR-EDA bilateral in Bonn, OCCAR Director Arturo Alfonso-Meiriño and the Chief Executive of the European Defence Agency, Jorge Domecq, have exchanged letters describing the role of the EDA in support of the ESSOR Programme.

OCCAR manages the ESSOR Programme for Finland, France, Italy, Poland and Spain, whilst Germany is currently an observer to this Programme. The ESSOR Programme launched its Operational Capability 1 phase in November 2017, with an Operational Budget of €50 million.

In 2006, EDA established the Project Team Software Defined Radio (SDR) with the goal to define a common European concept and position on SDR architecture developments, promoting the working relations with the most important SDR stakeholders and coordinating the vision, policies and initiatives for emergence of SDR developments that serve European interest and autonomy. This is in line with EDA’s role as the European forum for joint capability development and the prioritised Capability Development Plan (CDP) scope of Tactical CIS in response to CSDP requirements to greatly enhance the interoperability of communication systems. 

Considering that enhanced cooperation with OCCAR also features among the recommendations endorsed by the Defence Ministers after EDA’s recent Long Term Review (LTR), with this exchange of letters, EDA formally commits to facilitate the coherence between the ESSOR Programme and the activities of EDA in Software Defined Radio (SDR) area, and to promote the ESSOR products, in particular the waveform and architecture of the system. 

 

Some 60 helicopter tactics specialists from 14 EDA Member States as well as representatives of the EDA Helicopter Chief Instructor Team, the Joint Air Power Competence Centre (JAPCC), the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA), the Austrian Air Force Command and the Austrian Defence Industry met early this month in Salzburg for the 9th Helicopter Tactics Symposium, organised under the EDA’s Helicopter Exercise Programme (HEP). It followed the successful completion, end of September in Sweden, of the 6th EDA Helicopter Tactics Instructor Course (HTIC).

This annual event proved once more to be a unique occasion for European helicopter crews to discuss and share expertise and best practices related to helicopter tactics and to learn about training opportunities under EDA’s Helicopter Exercise Programme (HEP).

One part of the symposium was devoted to drawing the lessons learned from recent EDA helicopter exercises, such as ‘Hot Blade 18’ (held at Beja Air Base No 11, Portugal, in May 2018), from the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), where German and Belgian NH90 helicopters were integrated in one detachment, as well as the Czech Republic’s experience in preparing for the EU battle group. 

Symposium attendees also received detailed information on how military helicopter training and simulator training is done in the different Member States with briefings provided by Austria, Belgium, Greece and Germany. 

A new topic on the annual EDA Helicopter Tactics Symposium were the training and use of attack helicopters by different European countries. Briefings were delivered by specialists from Germany (EC665 Tiger), Greece (AH-64 Apache), Hungary (Mi 24) and Italy (A-129 Mangusta). The debate resulted in a concrete proposal to add a completely new chapter on Attack Helicopter Tactics in the HEP Standard Operating Procedures (HEP SOP), the capstone tactics’ manual for multinational European helicopter operations. 

Industry was also present during the symposium by means of a small exhibition including various  new technologies and briefings on spatial disorientation and night vision goggle (NVG) training, as well as mission planning tools. 

Looking ahead, symposium participants were briefed on upcoming HEP exercises, including Dark Blade 2019 (to be held in the Czech Republic) and Swift Blade 2020 (to be held in the BENELUX), which will focus on national and multinational training, including the performance of Joint and Combined Composite Air Operations (COMAO) in demanding environmental conditions and high threat scenarios.

 

Successful 6th EDA Helicopter Tactics Instructor Course (HTIC) 

In the meantime, EDA keeps working on improving European helicopter interoperability through its Helicopter Tactics Instructor Courses (HTIC) the 6th of which was completed on 30 September after eight weeks of intensive training performed in Linton on Ouse RAF base (UK) and in Arvidsjaur Airport in Northern Sweden. With trainees from Sweden, Austria, Norway and the UK (representing both the Support Helicopter and the Attack Helicopter communities), the course offered a unique opportunity to foster operational interoperability and cooperation, whilst conducting advanced tactical flying training.
 

 

Now in its 6th year, the HTIC continues to deliver high-end flying training in Electronic Warfare, Tactical Formation and Evasion Training and other advanced helicopter operations. During the first year, all the tactical skills are taught in the classroom, on the simulator and, eventually, during the live flying phase. During the second year,  Bronze trainees begin a two-year programme to reach Silver and Gold qualifications, confirming their suitability for taking on the role of instructors.

The complexity of the courses increases gradually over time until the final week, when trainees are expected to carry out complex Composite Air Operation (COMAO) tasks against Electronic Warfare Ground-Based Air Defence Systems, Fast-Jet aggressors and a whole range of low-tech weapon systems. 

Five Tactics Instructors graduated from this year’s course whereas seven trainees are now eligible to complete the Silver Level in the coming years. As usually, the HTIC was supported by a range of units including 100 Sqn Hawks from the UK, Gripens from the Swedish Air Force, EW systems from Polygone in Germany, as well as staff from 8 Sqn, 606 Sqn, 600 Sqn, Joint Helicopter Command and the Swedish Air Force,  and Tactics Instructors from Austria, Germany, Sweden and the UK.

The 6th HTIC was particular as the Chief Instructor role is now being ensured by a team of 4 experienced instructors from Austria, Germany, Sweden and the UK, who will continue to support the entire EDA helicopter training programme..

 

Yahyakhel district in Paktika province was once as pro-Taleban as it is now pro-government. The turning point came in 2011/2012, with the formation of a tribal militia, which was soon formalised into an Afghan Local Police (ALP) unit. Unlike many other ALP units, it has enjoyed local popular support and control. It has not abused the population and managed, largely, to protect them from Taleban attack. AAN’s Fazal Muzhary and Kate Clark have been looking at why and how Yahyakhel has bucked the trend and what that says about the community defence force model, even in what many consider the Taleban ‘heartland’.

Fazal Muzhary made five trips to Paktika in June 2016 and 2017 to carry out research for this publication and made follow-up phone calls from Kabul. He interviewed three local journalists, three tribal elders (none directly involved in setting up the ALP), a civil society activist who was involved in setting up the tribal militia, an ALP commander and three businessmen. He also spoke to two of Paktika’s MPs and cross-checked details and information with a UNAMA analyst. Most of the interviews were face-to-face. Not everyone wanted to be named.

This dispatch is published as part of a joint three-year project (funded by the Netherlands Research Organisation) by AAN, the Global Public Policy institute (GPPi) and the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani exploring the role and impact of militias, local or regional defence forces and other quasi-state forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

The surprising turn-about in Yahyakhel

In 2010, “Yahya Khel largely belonged to the insurgents,” wrote an American anthropologist embedded with United States forces. (1) Taleban operated openly and Yahyakhel was a prominent transit point for Taleban weapons and fighters. Locals said security incidents were so routine that shops and businesses remained shut half the day and schools were closed. RAND scholar Linda Robinson noted that fighting in Yahyakhel was “so fierce” that the conventional US military unit stationed there was pulled out in 2011. (2) Then the situation flipped. From being in the top third of the most violent districts in 2012, it is now in the bottom third of the least violent, according to security statistics. (3) Schools and businesses are no longer shuttered. While the Taliban are dominant in much of the rest of Paktika, in Yahyakhel, pro-government forces have managed to protect both population and territory.

Locals point to their ALP unit as the reason for this change of circumstances. This is surprising given the reputation of the ALP as a whole and particularly in Paktika. The Afghan Local Police were borne out of a 2009 US Special Forces initiative to mobilise local community and tribal forces to substitute for what the US military considered were failing government forces and to try and marshal communities against the Taleban. However, as the programme expanded nationwide, ALP units were frequently captured by local powerbrokers and/or local ethnic, tribal or factional interests. Many have had a record of predatory and abusive behaviour against local population. Even internal US Special Forces assessments suggested that, at best, only a third of the ALP units were successful in countering the Taleban, a third were useless or indifferent and a third counter-productive – for instance, where their criminal, factional, or abusive behaviour pushed communities toward rather than against the Taleban (see this backgrounder for a review of research on ALP and similar local defence forces since 2001.

The ALP in Paktika exemplified complaints that the programme empowered unruly militias rather than protective community forces. The man in charge of the ALP at provincial level when the Yahyakhel ALP was set up, Azizullah, had previously commanded one of the most notorious CIA auxiliary forces in Afghanistan, the Afghan Security Guards. He was a committed fighter against the Taleban, but also accused by the United Nations and others of extrajudicial killings, detention abuses, sexual assault and extortion. Robertson reported Azizullah visiting and advising the Yahyakhel ALP in its early days. (4)

The success of the ALP, which was essentially a US-driven local mobilisation programme, is all the more surprising given that the Taleban insurgency in Yahyakhel initially grew out of a community backlash against those very same international forces. A spate of US night raids and detention operations from 2004 to 2006 targeting key religious figures in the community generated the first Taleban recruits and created fallow ground for the movement to galvanise popular support. The fact that the community would then place any trust and community support in an initiative promoted by the same international forces is, at the least, unexpected.

Yahyakhel is one of the few examples of an outstanding ALP unit and, moreover, one that emerged out of less-than-promising circumstances. AAN’s investigation into what happened in Yahyakhel to turn the situation around says much about the nature of Taleban support and control. Even in a region that could be framed as the movement’s natural ‘heartland’, community support proved neither inevitable nor unassailable. However, the Yahyakhel experience also points to particular factors which made ALP success possible there. Those factors do not exist in every district. Nor are they possible to reproduce.

Background to Yahyakhel – a persistently peaceful district, until recently

Yahyakhel is a small district, one of 19 in Paktika, unremarkable except for two factors. First, it sits along what became a major supply route into and out of South Waziristan in Pakistan’s Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan for the mujahedin in the 1980s and then the Taleban in the 2000s. Both have used it to ferry men and materiel in from Pakistan and on to Ghazni and central Afghanistan. Second, unlike much or even most of Afghanistan, it largely escaped conflict for decades – from 1978 until about 2004. During the fight against the Soviet army, mujahedin control of the road to the provincial capital, Sharana, prevented government troops from reaching Yahyakhel. (5) After the Soviets left and intra-mujahedin fighting broke out in many parts of the country, including in other districts of Paktika, Yahyakhel was again spared. Although people in the district are divided into three tribes, the Sultankhel, Yahyakhel and Ghaibikhel, as UNHCR wrote in 1989 it was the “strength of local tribal relations” that prevented internecine bloodshed. According to Paktika MP Nader Khan Katawazi, the two main factions in the district, Mahaz-e Melli led by Pir Gailani and Harakat-e Enqelab-e Islami led by Muhammad Nabi Muhammadi, “lacked active fighters” and co-existed relatively peacefully. This was in contrast with, for example, Hezb-e Islami and Jamiat-e Islami which fought each other in Gomal district to the south. In 1994, the transition to Taleban control was almost bloodless, (6) as was the Taleban’s fall from power in 2001. (7)

This long period of peace left a lasting legacy. Unlike most other areas of Afghanistan where traditional social structures have been changed and damaged by war, displacement, mobilisation and assassination, the tribal structure in Yahyakhel has remained intact and resilient. It still has the capacity to assert itself to protect community interests, and to govern effectively. This would prove an important asset in the later development of the ALP, although it first proved a boon to the Taleban.

The Taleban mobilise in Yahyakhel

Interviewees told AAN it was not until early 2003 that the Afghan government got round to appointing officials to the district. By this time, the Taleban had already started organising, taking advantage of the vacuum in authority. However, local residents said that, while Taleban fighters had free movement in the district, they did not threaten security. US forces arriving in summer 2004, according to a member of that force, Lieutenant Robert Anders, (8) who reported that local people were “excited” about the forthcoming presidential elections and said that security was “very good.” Anders said that American soldiers were deployed to Yahyakhel only “to support the security of the voter registration process” ahead of the elections that autumn. However, they appear to have embraced the much wider mandate of trying to wipe out what they perceived to be the local Taleban network. In what Anders described as “bloody October,” US forces launched night raids and arrests in the district, arresting a prominent mullah and a number of other locals.

The spate of night raids and attacks would continue for two years and dramatically reshape security dynamics in the district (see a list of the major raids between 2004 and 2006 in footnote 9). While Anders argued that the raids left the Taleban in Yahyakhel in “disarray” and “scrambling to reorganise,” locals say this was the point when the Taleban emerged as an active military force in the district. It is possible that the stepped-up US presence and raids simply provided Taleban already present in the district with meaningful targets, motivating more Taleban attacks and activities. However, locals say the night raids and attacks galvanised opposition not only among local people generally, but among religious figures in particular. The attacks, which frequently targeted madrassas and mullahs, spread fear among the religious community that they were under attack. Taleban recruitment was boosted. Locals also said that after the night raids, people in general considered the Americans to be invaders and that this hostility extended to their allies, the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), both police and army.

These comments suggest that a collective sense of being under attack led the population to more fully embrace the Taleban. One civil society activist said people welcomed Taleban fighters into their homes during this period, even slaughtering sheep in their honour – a sign of great respect. “People strongly supported the Taleban,” the civil society activist said. “No one from this district was working in government employment. They had no problem getting locals to host them.”

One of those taking up the Taleban cause, according to multiple sources, was a young man by the name of Qudrat. His story says something about the importance of individuals in Afghanistan’s war. Qudrat was from Yahyakhel, but had been studying in a madrassa in Sharana when the campaign of night raids began in Yahyakhel. Fearing the violence might be extended to all religious figures, he fled to Pakistan. While there, Qudrat came into contact with Taleban fighters and when he returned to his home district, it was as an insurgent. He was briefly arrested and detained at Bagram. When released in approximately 2009, he was given command of his own group because of his reputation as a fierce fighter.

The key to Qudrat’s power lay not only in his fearlessness in the face of foreign soldiers, but also in his respect for the community and the pragmatism with which he dealt with his Afghan enemies. Interviewees mentioned that in his first year as a commander Qudrat was harsh towards Afghan soldiers and policemen, but then changed his mind; he told his fighters not to kill them because their main target should be American soldiers. Interviewees also said he did not kill anyone on suspicion of spying and granted amnesties to those who left the ANSF. When local residents asked him not to stage attacks from civilian houses – which put them at risk of being targeted – he stopped doing so. Community trust in Qudrat was so high that he felt no need to mask his face when moving around the district: he trusted that locals would not report him.

It was this local support that made the Taleban so strong in Yahyakhel. Community backing enabled Taleban fighters to carry out numerous attacks on the convoys of Afghan and American soldiers moving to Yahyakhel or on to neighbouring Khairkot district. The degree of support and cooperation was so high that one local journalist described how Taleban taking part in attacks would park their motorbikes and give the keys to local people asking them to take the bikes home. Taleban could then escape on foot, returning to collect the bikes, sometimes weeks later.

However, the mutual respect between Taleban and the community was not to last. Qudrat was targeted and killed in an airstrike in 2011. Two lower-level commanders named Omar and Qader, who were also both former madrassa students, succeeded him. They showed far less enlightened leadership. They started using civilian houses to attack government and international forces, harassing or showing indifference to locals’ requests to stop this practice, and killed two former policemen whom Qudrat had given amnesties. Locals said that Taleban at this time even engaged in what they described as “immoral activities.” The tipping point came when the insurgent leaders threatened 170 local people, among them 70 tribal elders. They accused them of spying for the government and ordered them out of the district. By expelling these elders, Omar and Qader created the nucleus of a counter-insurgent force.

Counter-insurgency and the rise of the ALP

Locals interviewed said the Taleban were expelled from the entire district on a single day in September 2011 after a small tribal militia was raised and, together with Afghan government and US Special Forces, attacked Taleban positions. The prompt to action had come, MP Nader Khan said, when President Hamid Karzai visited Paktika in summer 2011 and taunted the expelled elders as to why they had taken no action to get their district back. One of them, Nur Muhammad, was spurred to action. He consulted the local Afghan National Army commander and other officials, and US special forces on organising a counter-force against the Taleban and helped organise the recruitment and US training of fifty militiamen. According to local accounts, for an entire night and day, this tribal militia, backed by Afghan and American soldiers and air support, fought the Taleban. By evening, they had cleared the district of insurgents. The militiamen then started setting up posts. The following week, Nur Muhammad and his men went from house to house, asking residents to join and/or support their militia. The community did so. The number of what was officially re-hatted as ALP in late 2011 had swollen to 300 by the spring of 2012. This ALP force was intentionally drawn from all three main tribes in the area equally.

According to residents, security in Yahyakhel improved rapidly thereafter. The bazaar opened fully and government forces were able to drive through Yahyakhel to Khairkot district where American forces had a military base. Local people also started to seek government jobs, including with the Afghan National Police (ANP). Yahyakhel’s high school opened in spring 2012, along with a couple of other schools which had been closed when the Taleban were in control. (All the schools in the district are for boys, then and now.)

Accounts by two US observers (10) put a longer timeline on the establishment of the community defence force and do not mention any tribal militia; indeed, one of them, Linda Robinson, says “…the Afghans were at odds over who should lead [the ALP], with their choices reflecting rivalries among the three subtribes in the area.” (p188) Rather, the US observers suggest a slow build of ALP and popular resistance from November 2011 to May 2012with Robinson suggesting the ultimate catalysis for ‘flipping’ Yahyakhel was a Taleban attack on the bazaar on 10 May 2012, during which, she says, the newly-formed ALP saved local children from harm (p189). Robinson also describes security improving much more slowly. (11) Despite the discrepancies, both local and international accounts offer a similar overarching narrative: that the mobilisation of the ALP secured what would become a decisive and enduring turn against the Taleban. That transformation has held to the present.

Locals argue that, because the Taleban had been beaten so badly and driven from the district, it was difficult for them to re-group and win back territory. The Taleban made some attempts to woo the ALP back over, AAN was told, encouraging them to re-join the jihad against the ‘real enemies’ — the Americans — and then sending letters containing death threats. However, with no territorial control, they could do little more. In a district which no longer had safe houses and where the enemy knew the terrain as intimately as the insurgents, it was immensely difficult for them to ambush convoys or launch operations, let alone to then escape.

Without such community support, Taleban warfare became largely restricted to laying IEDs, launching ‘green-on-green’ insider attacks (as with a March 2012 attack which killed nine ALP), and suicide attacks (including the May 2012 attack on the bazaar and a September 2013 on district headquarters). The most notorious of these attacks came on 23 November 2014 when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a volleyball match in Paraw village in the Ghaibikhel area. Paraw was known as an ALP hub and it could have been assumed that, along with ALP, family members, guests and friends would also have been present. Indeed, the attack not only killed two ALP commanders and ten ALP policemen, but also 53 civilians, including 21 children. A further 85 civilians were wounded, among them 26 children. “Ball bearings,” said UNAMA, “had been attached to the explosives load for the purpose of maximizing harm.” The Taleban officially condemned the attack, but a pro-Taleban website provided an apologist account with a detailed justification.

The prevalence of such indiscriminate targeting in a local, previously Taleban-leaning community illustrates the significance of the changed dynamics in Yahyakhel. First, the use of suicide attacks indicates how seriously the Taliban took the ALP threat. Suicide attacks are relatively costly to carry out because they need specially selected and trained individuals, reconnaissance and other specialist resources. In addition, even if they have military targets, suicide attacks typically kill large numbers of civilians. The Taleban usually deploy them only in large city centres where such ‘spectaculars’ generate terror in the (rarely Taleban-supporting) urban population, putting pressure on the government and gain media coverage. They have been far more unusual in rural communities like Yahyakhel, with the exception of attacks on the ALP, particularly in the first years after they were set up (for detail see AAN’s “Enemy Number One: How the Taleban deal with the ALP and uprising groups”. The fact that the Taleban deployed suicide attacks against the ALP in Yahyakhel and elsewhere is a sign of the bitter enmity they bore this ‘community defence force’ that had mobilised from among people the Taleban considered their own. Second, these attacks were also significant because they tended to reinforce the reversal in community support against the Taleban. For locals, it seemed that the Taleban now considered the whole populationtheir enemy. This may help explain why the transformation of Yahyakhel from pro-Taleban to pro-government has lasted.

An enduring pocket of stability

As a result of the change in dynamics in 2011, Yahyakhel is now an island of relative stability and pro-government control in a province where most of the districts are either in firm Taleban control or are sharply contested. Local businessmen and school-teachers speaking to AAN described life in Yahyakhel as “normal” for daily business. Several residents of Yahyakhel said the situation was very good and residents were happy. The Yahyakhel ALP has reinforced its gains over time. By improving people’s security and respecting local civilians, communal backing has been strengthened further.

One recent measure of security in Yahyakhel is that it was one of the districts in Paktika where parliamentary elections were held and went smoothly. Turn-out was estimated at 17.5 per cent by civil society observers, with women as well as men participating, “in considerable numbers,” one local journalist reported to AAN. Candidates’ observers were also able to monitor the poll in the district. (See AAN analysis.)

The main security force in Yahyakhel is still the ALP – interviewees said it is active all over the district and is the main provider of security. However, the general pro-government tilt of the district has led to a willingness to engage with other parts of the Afghan government and security institutions, at least to a limited degree. The ANP are present in the district headquarters and are involved in civilian policing and some limited resolution of disputes, for example, over business or land. “If people have any problems,” said one businessman Haji Qader, “they go to the district centre and the ANP will resolve their disputes.” Apart from the ALP, the government is not particularly present, but its distance may also suit the people of this independently-minded district, with a preference for local people policing their own territory. The limited government presence also means that opportunities for graft and friction from government officials are minimised.

According to ALP commander Salaam, the insurgents control only a very small piece of territory in the district – two villages, Wrabani and Asghar, in a remote area bordering Omna district. He said the Taleban have no freedom of movement in the district apart from there and in the Atta Khuna desert, which borders the Mutakhel area of the district. From their strongholds, they can still, very occasionally, stage attacks. For example, a rare, recent attack, took place on 25 February 2018 when interviewees reported explosives mounted in a motorbike detonated in the crowded bazaar, killing a policeman and three children and wounding 16 others (no-one claimed responsibility for this attack, although, again, the Taleban seem the most likely perpetrators). Generally, however, the Taleban have had trouble launching operations in Yahyakhel because they have remained almost completely pushed out of the district.

Analysis of the ingredients for success: mobilisation

Framed in the logic of the ALP, Yahyakhel appears a resounding success story for the counter-insurgency – not only an important instance of shutting down Taleban access to a key part of their supply route, but an example of the logic of local force mobilisation working. Looking at the reasons for its success, however, it is clear their absence may also be behind the failure of the ALP elsewhere.

The ALP experience in Yahyakhel (as also in Shajoy in Zabul) and Andar district of Ghazni province) shows, yet again, that community support cannot be assumed by any party, neither the Taleban nor the government. In this case, although the Taleban did not know it (and nor did anyone else), community support was up for grabs, given the right circumstances.

As to what those circumstances were, both international and local accounts recognise that the US Special Forces and the tribes each had a role to play in the creation of the local defence force, but differ in how much weight they give each party and who was the catalyst. The US accounts treat the US Special Forces’ role as decisive and make no mention of the tribal uprising or of any indigenous desire for change. Certainly American and Afghan government support was significant for training and supporting the counter-insurgents. However, the idea that the initiative and drive for this enduring turn to government support could have come from forces whom locals saw as hostile invaders is hard to swallow. It is already difficult to understand how the US association alone did not turn local people against the emerging ALP force.

Instead, the local narrative holds more traction: locals supported the ALP because they had come to fear and dislike the Taleban and despite, not because of American support or government instigation.As one of the local journalists recounted: “People had become fed up with the Taleban. This unhappiness changed their thinking. They started hating the Taleban instead of the Americans.” He said the same cause was behind people’s reassessment of the government, even though its record was also dire: “The Afghan government hadn’t done anything in terms of reconstruction or positively contributing to the lives of local people. Misbehaviour by the Taleban towards local people just resulted in them seeing the government as a better alternative.”The Taleban’s expulsion of 70 tribal leaders does seem significant. This created a coherent, socially powerful group which opposed the Taleban and which was able to organise against the movement.

The key element appears to be that local tribal structures were still relatively intact. Even if, as according to the US Special Forces’ account, the self-defence force was not a local initiative but the result of outside persuasion, the US forces would have found unusually favourable ground; in Yahyakhel, the community, when provoked, was strong enough to mobilise a response. Yahyakhel’s unusual circumstances, its long history of escaping conflict from 1978 to 2004, meant that unlike most other places, the old elites and social structures there had not pushed out of the way by the new commander class. In Yahyakhel, neither the tanzims (political-military, mainly former mujahedin, factions) nor commanders are very important. Another group often significant to current security dynamics because they are more likely to support the Taleban than other Afghans is also comparatively weak in Yahyakhel and for the same reason. Because of the dominant tribal structures, mullahs are comparably weak in this district.

Thus, the strong, relatively healthy (and population-motivated) tribal structure in Yahyakhel as well as the absence of other potentially negative forces created the right ingredients for a community defence force to emerge. In 2011, as the Taleban became abusive and deaf to locals’ complaints, the tribal system in Yahyakhel was still resilient enough to provide a strong framework for organising a community militia. This was particularly so given the arbaki tradition native to this part of Afghanistan (12). When the Taleban expelled the group of 70 plus elders, they created a nucleus of angry opponents who were able to leverage those community structures into meaningful rebellion.

While these structural factors appear most significant, the experience in Yahyakhel also points to the role played by particular leaders or personalities. Even with all the preconditions there, it is unlikely that Yahyakhel would have shifted to the government during the period of Qudrat’s control – he was popular, in tune with local dynamics, and able to win and maintain popular support for the Taleban. Certain individuals also played a role in eventually reversing that support, with tribal leaders like Nur Muhammad demonstrating an ability not only mobilise tribal forces, but to do so in a way that was cohesive and inclusive. This illustrates the key role charismatic individuals often play, on both sides (see for example, Haji Gul Agha in Shajoy district, Zabul province, who turned the ALP round from abusive militia to a force which defended the community).

One other thing to stress is that the Yahyakhel ALP is a genuine community defence force. This differs from the much more common pattern, of ALP units presented as representing ‘the community’ when a little digging revealed this to be false, often egregiously so. Instead, their capture by factional, criminal, ethnic or tribal interests or by strongmen inevitably undermines the prospect for genuine community support and may provoke local conflict and facilitate abuses of the population. Such co-option of the ALP has also undermined the idea of community defence forces and tarnished the reputation of the ALP nationally. (For examples of ALP units presented as representing their communities which were not, see AAN case studies of Shajoy in Zabul, Andar in Ghazni, and Gizab and Khas Uruzgan districts in Uruzgan province (see here and here, especially footnote 3).)

Analysis of the ingredients for success: sustaining a ‘good ALP’

We asked a selection of our interviewees (two of the businessmen, the civil society activist, the three tribal elders, the ALP commander, the three local journalists, MP Katawazi, a Taleban supporter from neighbouring Omna district and a UNAMA analyst) why the ALP had worked in Yahyakhel, in terms of maintaining security for local people and, in contrast to many other ALP units and uprising forces, not abusing or predating upon them (see, for example, Andar district in neighbouring Ghazni province where uprising forces and ALP rapidly drove the Taleban out of much of the district, but then quickly lost what community support they had due to their abusive behaviour). The responses of our interviewees suggest sustained success in Yahyakhel came down to the nature of the community and the way the force emerged out of it in an inclusive, accountable way.

First, they pointed to the local nature of the Yahyakhel ALP. Men are recruited locally and operate in the villages in which they live. There is therefore a strong constraint against them behaving badly towards their own people and a strong urge to protect them. Second, all interviewees pointed to the fact that the ALP has stayed under the control of the tribes. This helped maintain control of the ALP force once it was established and curb unruly behaviour. “All the ALP men,” one of the interviewees told AAN, “are accountable to the elders of the three major tribes. “MP Nader Khan also said that the elders “have considerable control over the ALP men and therefore they cannot do anything wrong.” To give US Special Forces credit, this was how the ALP model was supposed to work – with local ties and loyalties holding forces to account. However, in practice, because of the difficulty of mobilising genuine community forces, together with the pressure to get boots on the ground and the pressure of powerful Afghan politicians keen to subvert the process, this has been the exception rather than the rule with the ALP.

Thirdly, the force was formed in a way that brought all three tribes together equally, working in partnership. A recurrent issue in other districts where ALP have been established is that the force has been monopolised by one ethnic or tribal group, at the expense of others, tending to ignite rather than attenuate local conflicts. In Yahyakhel, however, steps were taken early on – by local actors – to include recruits from each of the three dominant tribes residing in Yahyakhel district, Sultankhel, Ghaibikhel and Yahyakhel. Several tribal elders and those involved in the initial mobilisation described it as a roughly equal split, with each tribe contributing approximately 100 persons to the ALP. One tribal elder said this helped involve all the tribes in the ALP so that no tribe could complain that they were “sidelined.” This approach transformed the situation, he said, because it reduced the risk that inter-tribal rivalries would spur one side to support or join the Taleban.

Conclusion

The ALP in Yahyakhel offers a seductive picture of local force mobilisation. It has been able to hold the district by reducing the Taleban’s ability to move and strike. It also did so quickly – an overnight turnaround by locals’ account – and this transformation has been sustained. From the local perspective it has achieved what has been incredibly rare in a country benighted by violence – dampening the conflict locally, reducing the bloodshed and allowing the population to live in relative peace. The ALP appears to have been able to do this by living up to the model of local self-defence with local buy-in and accountability, marrying security and governance gains.

However, while the Yahyakhel ALP offers a tantalising success story, the explanation of why it has worked also suggests a limited ability to replicate it. Because of its conflict-free history, there was both a strong and coherent community which could organise a local defense force, and an absence of powerful individuals or factions who would seek to co-opt it. While such a social make-up is not unique in Afghanistan, it is in limited supply. The repeated cycles of conflict, factional mobilisation, displacement and the ‘war economy’ have created far more communities dominated by strongmen and tanzimpolitics than by representative community structures.

The ALP also worked in Yahyakhel because the tribal leaders who mobilised the force took a fairly egalitarian and inclusive approach. This may also be more difficult to achieve in the many other communities where a zero sum mentality dominates relations between different tribes, ethnicities, and groups. Lastly, even with all these favourable underlying factors in Yahyakhel, a spark was needed to spur counter-Taleban mobilisation, and that spark came from the Taleban’s misconduct, rather than because of international or Afghan government initiatives. Locals supported the force not because of American or government actions, but because they had come to fear and dislike the Taleban.

The Yahyakhel example stands for the proposition that where community forces work, they can work very, very well. But the reasons why they work and the factors that can lead to their mobilisation lie almost entirely in local structures, politics, and personalities. These local factors are difficult to control or manipulate from the outside. That means that, while a good local force may bring huge counter-insurgency dividends, especially a reduction in violence, international or Afghan actors will be hard-pressed to bring about or spur those gains.

 

 

Edited by Erica Gaston and Sari Kouvo

 

(1) In 2010, Kathleen Reedy, an anthropologist working for the US military’s Human Terrain System (which sought to understand the local population – the ‘human terrain’ – in areas of Afghanistan where the US military was deployed) visited the district and reported that “Yahya Khel largely belonged to the insurgents.” Kathleen Reedy blamed failures in the Afghan government for pushing people into the arms of the Taleban (she did not mention any actions of the US military):

…there were schools and public clinics in the main village, but these were poorly stocked, poorly staffed and closed whenever the insurgents said to close them. Development projects were few and far between. There were regular attacks on the District Centre and most of the population were scared to be seen talking to any American or Afghan officials.

She reported that when locals ‘opened up’ to her, it was not to complain about insurgent intimidation, but the problematic “local politicians.” Talking to the district governor, they said, was as effective as “‘writing their concerns on ice on a hot day.’” Most of the time, she said, he stayed in his compound, rather than going out and interacting with the people he governed. “While he would go out into the bazaar surrounding the District Centre, he only did so when his Coalition Forces counterparts strongly urged him to do so and provided him an escort, nor would he go farther than that.” “[He] did nothing to improve their lot in life, so they had no reason to support him or the government he presented.” Indeed, [the] people of Yahya Khel tacitly offered their support to a political-judicial alternative, namely, the insurgency.”

(2) Linda Robinson, “One Hundred Victories: Special Ops and the Future of American Warfare”, Public Affairs New York, 2013.

(3) We wanted to see if local people’s sense that Yahyakhel had become more peaceful could be backed up statistically and consulted a data base of security incidents (the compilers asked for it not to be named). The ‘security incidents’ here could be could be ground fighting, IEDs detonating or being discovered, targeted killings and ANSF or international military operations, but not criminal activity unless conflict-related. The ‘author’ of the incident, whether insurgent, international military or ANSF is not differentiated. The data base only goes back to 2012, the first year of the ALP, but even so, the trends are interesting. They say something both about improving absolute security in Yahyakhel and its relative security compared to the other 18 districts in Paktika.

Between 2012 and 2017, the number of security incidents in Yahyakhel fell by more than four-fifths, while the number of security incidents for the province as a whole fell by only three-tenths. The trend towards security improving over these years can also be seen by ranking Yahyakhel and looking at the proportion of provincial-wide security incidents it suffered:

2012 Yahyakhel was sixth most violent district (out of 19), with 5.9% of the security incidents recorded in Paktika province as a whole

2013 Eighth most violent district; 4.4% of security incidents

2014 15th most violent district; 3.3% of security incidents

2015 13th most violent district; 2.7% of security incidents

2016 12th most violent district; 3% of security incidents

2017 17th most violent district; 1.6% of security incidents

2018 13th most violent district (along with two others); 1.4% of security incidents

Another way to look at the situation would be to imagine if security incidents were distributed equitably across the province; each district would then receive 3.7% of the attacks. Looked at this way, Yahyakhel went from having more attacks than the mean in the years up to 2013, to fewer since 2014

(4) Since the earliest days of the US intervention, Azizullah had been in charge of one of the so-called ‘campaign forces’ in Paktika – covert CIA or US Special Forces-run auxiliary forces that generally enjoyed a reputation for unaccountable behaviour. He was accused of carrying out or having command responsibility for extrajudicial killings and detentions, sexually assaulting young boys, looting and extortion. (For detail, see Julius Cavendish, “Afghanistan’s Dirty War: Why the Most Feared Man in Bermal District Is a US Ally,” TIME, 4 October 2010, and Human Rights Watch, “‘Today We Shall All Die’: Afghanistan’s Strongmen and the Legacy of Impunity,” 3 March 2015, at pp31-39.)

Robinson (see footnote 2) who visited Yahyakhel in March 2012, the month the ALP was hit by an insider attack, reported Azizullah coming to the district: “At the provincial police chief’s request, Aziz stayed on for several days [after the insider attack] to provide additional security and participate in meetings with the elders. Aziz left behind a squad of his own men to work with the team as they sought to find a new commander and shore up the shaky morale.” (p189) Robertson refers to Azizullah as a commander with “the campaign forces.” According to AAN reporting, at the time, however, he had “recently” been appointed head of the provincial ALP (See Kate Clark, “CIA-proxy militias, CIA-drones in Afghanistan: “Hunt and kill” déjà vu”, 26 October 2017. It is possible he may have been wearing two ‘hats’.

Azizullah was killed by the Taleban on 28 June 2018.

(5) Government forces were not able to reach the district, said UNHCR, as the road to Sharana, the provincial capital, was blocked by the forces of Qasim Akhundzada, an Ettehad-e Islami (Sayyaf) commander. Mostly, the district was used by the mujahedin as a supply route, leading it to develop into a thriving commercial centre and staging post

(6) A local journalist described how the Taleban, then a relatively-unknown, new armed group, came to the district in 1994, saying they had come in the name of Islam. They first introduced themselves to the elders and influential religious leaders who welcomed them, and that stopped others resisting. The fact that two of the most influential factions in Paktika, Harakat-e Enqelab (the Nasrullah Mansur wing) and Hezb-e Islami Khales (and its regionally influential commander, Jalaluddin Haqqani) had both received the Taleban movement favourably – and joined their forces to it – also helped win over the residents of the province to the new group. Only one Hezb-e Islami commander in the province, Khaled Faruqi, a brother-in-law of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, in the Charbaran area of neighbouring Omna district, opposed the Taleban takeover, but he was defeated in a day’s fighting.

(7) In 2001, the transition was without bloodshed. Tribal elders told AAN that when the Taleban left the area after their government was toppled, they themselves took control of the district centre. This was the pattern for all of Loya Paktia. (See author’s previous analysis.)

(8) Robert S Anders “Winning Paktika Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan”, Author House, 2013.

(9) Locals named the major raids during this time, as follows. (Their accounts agree on what happened, but are often hazy as to the exact dates of incidents. The authors have added exact dates where the media reported them):

• Around 2004: The first major, well-known raid was on the home of a mullah in Khadala village, Muhammad Yaqub. One local journalist said Yaqub had worked in the Taleban government, although at the time of the raid, he was not an active member of the resurgent Taleban and only joined the insurgency after the raid.
• Around 2005, US soldiers also raided Yaqub’s madrasa, also in Khadala village, with no major casualties reported. A little later, they arrested him and detained him in Bagram for three years. According to a second local journalist, by this stage, Yaqub was still not involved in actual fighting, but was recruiting others to Taleban ranks using his madrassa. Some of Yaqub’s students would go on to become important commanders. They included Omari from Mutakhel village of Yahyakhel, Qader from Ghaibikhel and Asadullah Khanjari from the Segana area of Khairkot district. Yaqub is currently living in Quetta and is one of the key Taleban members from Yahyakhel.
• Around 2005, US soldiers raided the home of another mullah, Asadullah Khadalai, also in Khadala village. He was a respected intellectual and religious figure with many followers in the community. Asadullah had also worked in the Taleban regime, although not in a major position. Many people saw the raid on the house of a respected local figure as a major insult and this considerably magnified the fear among religious people, such as mullahs and madrasa students, that they were being targeted. After the night raid on his house, he joined the Taleban insurgency, becoming shadow provincial governor and later deputy shadow governor for Paktika province.
• Late 2006, US soldiers attacked Asadullah’s madrassa and, AAN was told, killed some pupils, mostly small boys in the lower grades (casualty figures could not be confirmed). The US military told media outlets that al Qaeda members had been visiting the madrasa that day.

(10) The first mention of the creation of an ALP from an American ‘author’ comes from C Lowell Lofdahl, who described himself as working for BAE Systems on information technology, COIN and ‘irregular warfare’ and said he went to a ‘shura’ in November 2011 made up of government officials, ISAF officers from Kabul and local leaders, “who were being asked to support VSO/ALP.” VSO or Village Stability Operations was the name given by the US military to community defence forces which it had stood up; this project turned out to be the pilot for the ALP. The shura involved, he said, “having [sic] the local leaders… stand up and say they were ready to support VSO/ALP by identifying and vouching for local military age males who would be trained to be ALP, with the idea being that even though they wouldn’t be able to fight as well, they could tell who belonged from who didn’t belong, something with which international forces had a tougher time.”

A few months later, in March 2012, RAND scholar Linda Robinson, visited Yahyakhel with a US Special Forces team which, she said, had been the first such team to arrive there in about mid-February 2012. She also describes attending a shura of elders, ANP and the district governor (who did not live in the district but came to work when he thought it was safe enough) which was led by Nur Muhammad. That shura, she said, voted to set up an ALP unit. Three weeks later, in early March, she writes that 174 recruits were chosen, vetted, trained by the US special forces team and graduated in a ceremony in front of senior US commanders and Afghan officials. In mid-March, she said, in a “regular meeting” between US special forces team and Yahyakhel shura, they nominated representatives to deal with government departments and discussed who should command the ALP. By the end of 2012, ‘Western Paktika’, as Robinson described it (it would include Khairkut and Yusufkhel as well) had a total of 511 ALP “which provided an indigenous line of defence separating the bad lands of the border with Pakistan from Highway One [the Kabul to Kandahar highway].” (See “One Hundred Victories”, cited in footnote 2, pp 188-190).

(11) Robinson dates the opening of the bazaar to the coming of the US Special Forces team and their work on setting up the ALP. A sergeant, she wrote “marvelled at how much had changed since the team first visited in Yahya Khel a month before [ie February 2011]. The bazaar had been closed, but now that local police had been nominated and trained, the shops lining the main street were open and bustling…” She also describes Yahyakhel district centre as still coming under fierce insurgent assault in early 2012 – with attacks from four routes – and said the US Special Forces headquarters building in the district centre was attacked repeatedly by Taleban with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms. Her account of the continuing menace of IEDs does tally with local memories, however. When she arrived in Yahyakhel in March 2011, she describes the Special Forces driving over fields and irrigation channels – destroying them in the process – rather than use the main road. “[T]he main east-west road,” she wrote, “was a notorious road, seeded with mines that had killed and maimed coalition troops and civilians.”

(12) Historically, arbaki are a Loya Paktian institution, a force that is local, tribal, unpaid, voluntary, non-state and temporary. It is established to help implement the decisions of a jirga, secure the territory of the tribe or community and maintain law and order (see Osman Tariq’s paper “Tribal Security System”. Since locally recruited defence forces were raised outside Loya Paktia, the term has generally become an insult, now generally used by Afghans to refer to undisciplined, abusive, pro-government militias.

 

 

 

 

 

The matter of who governs the district of Obeh in the east of Herat province is complicated: control of the district is divided between the Afghan government and the Taleban, and shifts in unpredictable ways. The inhabitants of the district, usually via the mediation of elders, have had to learn how to deal with both sides. The dual nature of authority in Obeh is exemplified by public service delivery; it is always financed through and administered by the Afghan state but, in areas under Taleban control, it is the insurgents who supervise and monitor delivery. In this, the first of a series of case studies looking at the delivery of services in districts over which the Taleban have control or influence, AAN researcher Said Reza Kazemi investigates the provision of governance and security, education, health, electricity, telecommunications and development projects, and unpacks a dual form of governance.

Service Delivery in Insurgent-Affected Areas is a joint research project by the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) and the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).

For the methodology and literature review, see here.

Obeh district: the context

• Approximately 100 km to the east of Herat city, linked by mainly non-asphalted roads; mountainous, cut through by fertile Harirud River valley
• Population 90,000-180,000 people based on available data; mixed Pashtun and Tajik
• Control of district split and influence of government and Taleban not well demarcated; not actively contested; surrounded by insurgency-plagued districts

Obeh: Service delivery

• Education: boys and girls schools, including high schools, open; no taxation by Taleban, but strict supervision, including of staff hiring, curriculum and girls’ education
• Health: no interference, but medical workers forced to prioritise Taleban sick and wounded, no female doctor working in district
• Electricity, media and telecommunications: no public electricity; no mobile phone coverage at night; mobile phone companies taxed; social networking and Turkish soap operas popular (for those with smartphones, dish antennas and electricity)
• Other services: Taleban courts open and busy; development projects need to be authorised by the Taleban who also ‘tax’ them

Introducing Obeh district 

Obeh’s name says much about its geography and the impact this has had on life there. Obeh means ‘water’ in Pashto and through this mountainous district, with an area of about 2,600 km2, flows and meanders the Harirud – one of the main rivers in Afghanistan, which feeds the gigantic Salma hydropower dam to the east in neighbouring Chesht-e Sharif district. The river is obviously agriculturally significant for cultivated lands and orchards that, in turn, produce gorgeous scenery on both banks and neighbouring areas across Obeh district. (For a map of the district, see page 15 of this atlas). Most of the habitable areas of Obeh are thus in the Harirud valley.

In terms of human geography, the available information on the population of Obeh district is starkly contradictory. According to the Independent Directorate of Local Governance (IDLG) profile of Obeh, the district has an estimated population of 180,000 people (110,000 men and 70,000 women). A recent report by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) puts the population at almost half of that: 94,805 people (see page 223 here). As elsewhere in the country, young people comprise a major segment of the district population – about 70 per cent are under 18. The population live in about 230 villages, mostly near the river, but also in scattered settlements in the more mountainous parts of the district.

The major ethnic groups in Obeh are Pashtuns and Tajiks. The IDLG profile says Pashtuns constitute about 60 per cent of the district population and Tajiks the remaining 40 per cent. However, this is disputed by some Tajiks, at least the ones who spoke to AAN, who claim they make up a larger proportion of the district population. The figures obviously have implications for the ethnic balance of power in the district.

On a provincial level, the population living in Obeh comprise 4.5 per cent of the total population of Herat (this excludes the three districts of Gulran, Shindand and Farsi where Afghanistan’s Central Statistics Organisation (CSO) was not able to conduct its Socio-Demographic and Economic Survey (SDES) due to what it called “security problems”) (see pages 1 and 7 of this report).) Using Afghanistan’s national average household size of 7.7 persons (see page 22 of this survey), Obeh would have 23,377 households (according to IDLG data) and 12,338 households (based on SIGAR information).

Obeh is a centre of Sufism in Afghanistan. The three Sufi tariqas(orders) in the district are Naqshbandiya, Qadiriya and Cheshtiya – the latter because of its adjacency to the epicentre of the Cheshtiya Sufi order in Chesht-e Sharif district. There are families and individuals who are the followers (murids) of Sufi leaders (pirsor murshids). The Sufi leaders are usually large landowners and thus well-off. A famous example is Agha Saheb Mohiuddin who,  following his death, was replaced by his sons, the best-known being Agha Saheb Nuruddin. Sufi get-togethers are held in mosques, including the Grand Mosque in the district centre. In addition, Sufi spiritual retreats have continued taking place in khanqahs (places for Sufi gathering and worship) in the district. They are on good terms both with the government and Taleban.

Obeh is nearly 100 kilometres east of the provincial capital, Herat city. It is bordered by restive districts on all sides but one (for a map of Obeh district neighbourhood, see page 2 of this atlas): Qades district of Badghis province to the north, Chesht-e Sharif district of Herat to the east (currently a safer neighbouring side due to a heavy presence of Afghan government security forces), Farsi district to the south and Pashtun Zarghun and Karukh districts to the west. Given the difficult travelling conditions – not just insurgency but a lack of asphalted roads – Obeh can be described as an ‘outlying district’ of Herat province. A local merchant who runs a business transporting passengers and goods between Obeh and Herat city through Injil and Karukh districts told AAN that vehicles are only able to travel between 14 and 30 kilometres an hour:

The road is in a very poor condition and very uncomfortable. It takes three hours to get to Obeh from Herat city by saracha [a Toyota Corolla-type vehicle], three and a half hours by falankoch[a Toyota HiAce Van-type vehicle] and six to seven hours by freight lorry.

The road leading to Obeh through Karukh continues eastwards on to Ghor province, Hazarajat (the central highlands region) and then on to the capital Kabul. A second road links Obeh to Herat city through Pashtun Zarghun, Guzara and Injil districts. About 130 kilometres long, this road is not asphalted from Obeh to the centre of Pashtun Zarghun district, but its remainder is asphalted. It takes almost the same amount of time travelling on this road between Obeh and Herat city, but it is currently safer than the route through Karukh district, so an increasing number of people are travelling this road, even though parts of it are bumpy.

These factors – rugged terrain, mixed population, far-flung location with low connectivity to the provincial centre and troubled neighbourhood – have contributed, in varying degrees, to growing insecurity in Obeh over the years. Afghan government forces and Taleban insurgents tussle for control, inflicting costs on each other and civilians and hampering the delivery of public services.

Conflict and security

Taleban in Obeh are not a new phenomenon. Their presence dates back to 1995 when the movement took Herat. As elsewhere across the province that year, officials from the mujahedin government fled the approaching Taleban – some to the mountainous parts of the district – and Obeh fell with little to no resistance. A then low-ranking government employee, now in his seventies, told AAN what happened when the Taleban came to power in his district:

The Taleban announced they would be coming to Obeh a day before [they arrived]. Local figures of influence and, of course, government employees like me were afraid of what they would do to us upon their arrival. We took refuge in the khanqahof Agha Saheb Mohiuddin, the pirof Obeh. The Taleban did not ill-treat us. They just came and took control of the government by introducing their district governor and police chief and dismissing the previous government’s employees like me.

Some of the Taleban who ruled Obeh for the next five years or so were locals. However, many, especially the influential ones, hailed from other districts of Herat such as Pashtun Zarghun and Shindand, neighbouring provinces such as Farah, and from further afield, for example, Helmand province. According to a long-time Obeh resident, who is in his sixties and has lived through the past several decades in the district, the key Taleban figures were Mullah Khodadad (their first district governor), Mullah Nik Muhammad (their first police chief), Mullah Esmat and Mullah Qaffar.

The 2001 US military intervention brought the mujahedin back to power in Obeh. The major local Taleban figures in Obeh did not surrender in 2001 and, as a result, several were killed by the mujahedin on the road from Obeh to Pashtun Zarghun district. Their corpses lay on the ground for a couple of days until some local elders stepped in to mediate and arranged for the handover of the bodies for burial to members of the Taleban who came from Shindand. Other local Taleban did surrender and returned to normal civilian life and integrated back into local life in Obeh where they remain till this very day. Others retreated to the mountainous sections of the district.

So, those mujahedin who had sought refuge from the Taleban in the mountains in 1995 suddenly re-gained power in Obeh with the help of the US military. According to the same long-term Obeh resident quoted above, the key local mujahedin figures were: Haji Muhammad Askar (killed in conflict), Mullah Sarwar (worked as a security official for the Afghan government in Badghis province in the post-2001 period, now retired) and Haji Gulbuddin Khan (now retired). They played an important role in picking the first district governor and police chief in post-2001 Obeh, Haji Muhammad Khan (father to the current Obeh police chief, Sher Agha Alokozay) and Haji Muhammad Ghaus (brother to Haji Gulbuddin Khan). These local mujahedin leaders were initially linked to the self-declared ‘amirof the south-western region,’ Ismail Khan, (1) and later to Mawlawi Khodadad Saleh, the local strongman in Obeh. Mawlawi Saleh is currently the influential head of the council of ulama(religious scholars/leaders) in the western region of Afghanistan and leader of the Ghiasiya Seminary – the most important centre of Sunni Islam in Herat and the broader western region. Mawlawi Saleh has been affiliated to and enjoyed the support of both Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani in post-2001 Afghanistan.

The number and activities of the Taleban in Obeh went down significantly for a few years after 2001 only to rise again, particularly during the later years of the second Karzai government and the current National Unity Government. In some isolated, mountainous areas in Obeh, the post-2001 government never had a presence, which left a vacuum for the Taleban to exploit. Those Taleban who took refuge in the mountains began regrouping, initially from their family, kinship and affinity ties and later reconnecting to old and new Taleban allies in other districts of Herat, neighbouring provinces, further away in southern Afghanistan and even beyond, in Pakistan (see the literature review for this research series here). Led especially by Mullah Esmat, they began winning some support among the disgruntled, retaking some areas and challenging the Afghan government. The sentiment of some Obeh residents’ dissatisfaction and disillusionment with the Afghan government is echoed by this respondent:

People are not happy with the government because the government failed to deliver the promises it made to the people. The government promised to disarm irresponsible armed groups, build Herat-Obeh-Chesht-e Sharif road, supply electricity and end corruption. None of these things happened. People are really angry about the unfulfilled promises made by both the Karzai and Ghani governments. So people were and are attracted to the messages sent by the Taleban. The Taleban tell the people that our country has been occupied and colonised by foreign invaders… They tell the people about divisions inside the government and rampant corruption within it.

As the Taleban expanded their presence and influence beyond the mountains into villages and to roads within the district by establishing temporary and even more permanent checkpoints particularly since 2014, they clashed with Afghan government forces  (for example, in May 2018; see also here). The overall result has been mounting insecurity for civilians living in the district and using the roads, especially the two linking Obeh and Herat city, although the district is not actively contested in terms of there being active fronts or ground fighting, as least for the time being. Nevertheless, control is divided and influence not well demarcated. (2)

The Taleban strategy is aimed at expanding their control as close as they can to the district centre. They try to do this by incapacitating the Afghan government through targeting senior district officials such as a former police chief (see here) and shutting down roads with the ultimate aim of capturing the district centre. They have launched an increasing number of attacks on government checkpoints. The last major attack they carried out was on a government checkpoint in Karashk village near Obeh’s border with Pashtun Zarghun district during the night of 9 October 2018. In this attack, the Taleban killed seven police officers, injured three others and captured another four; they also burned down the checkpoint. Attacks that have ended up killing ‘ordinary people’ have provoked some Obeh residents to protest against the Taleban perpetrators. In August 2011, for instance, some Obeh elders demanded the Taleban to hand over their members alleged of conducting two deadly mine attacks that led to the killing and injuring of dozens of civilians (see here and here).

The growing insecurity in Obeh finally made Herat provincial governor, Muhammad Asif Rahimi, visit the district in September 2018; it was his first visit since getting appointed as governor in late 2014. Accompanied by provincial and regional civilian and military authorities including General Nurullah Qaderi, the top government military official for the western region, he flew to Obeh by helicopter, voiced his concern about the district security and listened to demands for boosting Afghan security forces to prevent further Taleban attacks and the fall of the district. Earlier, Obeh district governor, Rahmuddin Sarwarzai, had even called for aerial operations against the Taleban in ‘their’ areas in the district (watch his interview with Ariana TV here).

Governance and security provision

At present, the exercise of control over Obeh district is not static. It changes daily. According to all respondents except one, who is a current Afghan government employee based in Herat city, the Taleban insurgents govern more territory and wield more influence in the district than the Afghan government does. This evaluation somewhat differs from Resolute Support’s most recent assessment, as published by SIGAR. It described Obeh as being under ‘government influence’ (see page 223 here) (one of five categories: under insurgent control, under insurgent influence, neutral/at risk, under government influence and under government control. (3) Although the Afghan state has an administration including a district governor in the centre of Obeh, its adjacent villages and villages in which the state has checkpoints, the rest of the district is either contested by or under the influence or even the control of the insurgents, putting the district somewhere in-between ‘under government influence’ and ‘neutral/at risk’ categories. This indicates some deterioration in governance and security conditions in the district. One interviewee described the fluid, precarious state of who governs Obeh in words that represent the overwhelming majority of respondents:

I cannot definitively say how much of the district is controlled by the government and how much by the Taleban. At night, I can say that 80-90 per cent of the district is in the hands of the Taleban, not the district bazaar or government checkpoints. During the day, it is 50-50, half controlled by the government and half by the Taleban as they move away from the valley to the mountains.

In a very practical sense, there are thus two governments in Obeh district, one representing the de jure Afghan government and the other a de facto administration made up of the Taleban insurgents. For a list of Afghan government and Taleban officials, see footnote 2.

On the side of the Afghan government, all current major district officials such as the governor, police chief, mayor, education director and public health director are ethnic Pashtuns and linked by patron-client ties to Mawlawi Saleh, who himself has enjoyed good relations with both Karzai and Ghani, as referred to above.

According to the IDLG profile of Obeh district and AAN’s interview with the district governor, the Afghan government security forces are about 310-strong and most are Afghan Local Police (ALP):

• Afghan National Army (ANA): 40
• Afghan National Police (ANP): 50
• ALP: 220
• Number of security checkpoints in which they are deployed: 40

Several respondents said there is currently the same number of Taleban operatives in the district (about 300 members). About one-sixth (50 Taleban or so) are from Obeh, with the famous ones being Mullah Esmat (with roots in Gulran district), Mullah Hassan (with roots in Pashtun Zarghun district) and Mullah Zar Alam. The latter two are Eshaqzai Pashtuns who have lived in Obeh for about two and a half decades and are linked by kinship ties to Mullah Nik Muhammad, another Eshaqzai Pashtun, who was the first Taleban district police chief in Obeh in the mid-1990s and has also served as a member of Herat Provincial Council in the post-2001 period.

Most Taleban insurgents operating in Obeh, however, are from outside the district: from Farsi, Pashtun Zarghun and Shindand districts of Herat, neighbouring Badghis province (eg Qades district), Ghor (Chaghcharan) and Farah and even further afield such as Helmand and Kandahar provinces. There is also an estimated 100-strong Taleban ‘Red Unit’ in the district – distinguished, said a respondent, by their red caps (kolah surkha). As for ethnicity, there are more Pashtuns than Tajiks among the Taleban presently operating in the district. In terms of their structure, several respondents said they appear highly disciplined and under hierarchical control. This is how one interviewee described them:

The Taleban members have their own organisational structure. They report to their superiors in the Taleban provincial administration in Shindand district where their provincial governor is based, further up to Helmand and even further up to the Quetta Shura in Pakistan. They report their activities to them and receive instructions, salaries and weapons from there.

The Taleban in Obeh also draw on local financial sources to sustain their operations. They levy ushr (a ten per cent) tax on productive land, commercial activities such as telecommunications, trade in marble and other types of stone in Obeh and Chesht-e Sharif and development projects such as the construction of roads, bridges and so on. They also collect zakat tax – an obligatory tax required of Muslims on a yearly basis (for details, read here). Another important revenue-generating activity is taxing poppy farmers and traders in areas ruled by the Taleban such as Haftkala and Tagabyari villages, according to a long-time and informed resident of Obeh who spoke to AAN. (4) The Taleban also prevent locals from paying tax to the Afghan government and sending their adult sons to join its security forces. Some respondents – among them provincial and district government officials – also alleged that the Iranian government is supporting the Taleban in Obeh and other districts to undermine the Salma hydroelectric dam in Chesht-e Sharif district, which captures some of the water from the River Harirud which would flow downstream into Iran. Although some hostile Iranian interference cannot be ruled out, some scepticism is merited given the overall tendency, especially among Afghan government officials, to put the blame for worsening governance and security on neighbouring countries rather than to shoulder responsibility for failures themselves.

In areas under their control, the Taleban are in daily contact with the local population, especially the arbabs (local representatives that deal with the authorities whoever they are) and other elders. Their key meeting place is the mosque where the Taleban lead daily prayers and deliver speeches about what one interviewee described as “their jihad against a puppet government.” They also hold meetings to discuss local issues such as water-sharing from the Harirud and local conflicts with a view to finding solutions for them. Several interviewees spoke about the speed at which the Taleban address legal cases such as land disputes, as well as about the good security in areas under their control.

Few, however, went into detail about how fair the Taleban verdicts were or how free individuals felt, deep-down, in Taleban-secured areas. One said, “People refer to the Taleban because they are disillusioned with the government,” suggesting that the Afghan government could improve its legitimacy by reforming the way it administers the district, the broader province and the country. Another stated, “People are afraid that, if and when the Taleban come to power again, they will again meddle in [people’s] private affairs such as growing beards and moustaches and using smartphones and the internet.” The Taleban are already dictating how people, especially women, dress in public such as on the roads between Obeh and Herat city and what they should follow on the TV and internet.

Providing security for the two key roads interconnecting the district and provincial centre is also contested by the Afghan government and Taleban insurgents. On the road from Obeh to Herat city through Karukh and Injil districts, the Taleban regularly set up checkpoints where they control the movement of people and goods. Government officials such as the district governor and police chief have to be escorted by heavily armed military convoys while going on this way. The second route – from Obeh to Pashtun Zarghun district and then on to Guzara and Injil districts and ultimately Herat city – is also insecure to a lesser extent, although it is partly asphalted and thus easier to travel. One interviewee reported that, on the road between Obeh and Herat city through Karukh and Injil, “The Taleban stopped a saracha car, opened the door and machine-gunned a man who was an army soldier.” Another interviewee also described Taleban activity at their checkpoints:

“They search [male] passengers and check passengers’ IDs and luggage including those of women passengers…. [T]hey stop women passengers who are not clad in a burqaand beat their men for failing to veil their women properly. So they are punished for not respecting hijab. They also check the mobile phones of passengers to see if there are any photos showing they work for the government, particularly the security forces. They do whatever they decide to do with these people. They even kill. If a man is not dressed in traditional piran tomban[shalwar kameez] and is shaved, they will make it plain that he should get dressed in proper clothes and let his moustache and beard grow. A recent group of Taleban who have come to Obeh from Helmand province even interfere with people’s moustaches and beards and hair. They are stricter than the previous ones.”

The elders and other figures of influence in the district often mediate between the Afghan government and Taleban in various areas of life. In several cases, for example, their mediation has led to the release of people such as ordinary government employees taken by the Taleban.

The conflict between the Afghan government and Taleban over control of the district also hinders the delivery of public services such as education, health, electricity supply, telecommunications and development projects. These are discussed, one by one, below.

Education

According to the IDLG profile of Obeh district, there are 42 schools in the district: 17 primary (grades 1-6), 14 intermediate (grades 7-9) and 11 high schools (grades 10-12). 501 male and 139 female teachers teach some 26,000 pupils, including both boys and girls in these schools. There are also two teacher training institutes, one public and one private.

Additionally, there are many religious schools or madrasas. The major one is Imam Muhammad Ghazali Madrasa located in the district centre and opened about five years ago. This madrasa is affiliated to and acts as the district branch of the Ghiasiya Seminary.

The provision of education is focused on the district centre and adjacent villages. Services diminish the further one goes from these areas, with many schools lacking textbooks, chairs and tables, teaching materials and even compounds. Many also lack good teachers. In remote areas of the district, pupils study in dilapidated tents even in the heat of summer. The richer a family is, the greater the likelihood they send their children, both boys and girls, for education to the district centre, Herat city or even abroad, especially to neighbouring Iran. In particular, those that can afford it send their children to study in Herat city to prepare for the nationwide university entrance test known as Kankur (from the French word concours, meaning contest).

Officials at the Directorate of Education based in Herat city have been frank about their inability to supervise and monitor schools in areas controlled or contested by the Taleban including in Obeh district (see here). They said that of all 969 schools in the province, 750 are supervised by the government and the remaining 219 by the Taliban, meaning that around 23 per cent of all schools are monitored by the Taleban.

Local observers told AAN that the work of the provincial-level Directorate of Education, based in Herat city, has been undermined by heated tensions between its Tajik director, Abdul Razaq Ahmadi, and the Pashtun head of Herat Provincial Council, Haji Kamran Alizai. A previous manager of the Ahmad Shah Massud Foundation in Herat, Ahmadi is a Jamiat party member with ties to Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah while Alizai is seen as affiliated to the Pashtun circle around President Ashraf Ghani. Problems between the two government leaders have been reproduced at the provincial level. Tensions have apparently now been reduced after Ahmadi was replaced by Rohullah Azhad in September 2018. Although also Jamiati and linked to Abdullah, Azhad is regarded by local observers as more pliable and workable than his predecessor.

According to several respondents, the Afghan government’s delivery of education to the district’s children is highly corrupt and therefore weak, low-quality or even non-existent in parts of Obeh district. School materials are often sold while they should be free for the pupils, they said. Even worse, the proliferation of ghost schools and ghost teachers in Obeh has allowed, as one interviewee bluntly put it, resources and salaries to be “plundered by corrupt government officials, local arbabs and elders, and the Taleban.” A provincial IDLG official who goes on monitoring visits to the districts of Herat described his experience of coming across one ghost school in Obeh:

In an official visit to Obeh, we noticed there was no school and no teachers in an area, but on paper there was a school and a number of teachers there. We sat down for a while and the local arbabtold us that the teacher would come after some time. A person came who was introduced as a teacher by the arbaband they showed us a place without any building or even a tent as the school. They also gathered some children without any textbooks as the pupils. They also brought a blackboard to show us that this was a school.

To overcome the key corruption challenge of ghost teachers and through it ghost schools, the Afghan government began paying teacher salaries through the banking system about a year ago, changing over from the previous system which transferred salaries via mutameds or trusted persons. Although the new procedure has prevented the embezzlement of millions of Afghanis every month by provincial and district kleptocrats and other figures of influence, including the Taleban insurgents, local teachers and non-teaching school staff are still facing a huge headache because there is no bank in Obeh capable of issuing their salaries:

For a year or so, teacher salaries have been paid via the bank. This is a major problem for teachers. The road is not good or safe. It takes time. The monthly salary is about Afs 6,300-7,000 [US$ 84-93.33, if Afs 75 is exchanged for US$ 1] and a teacher spends about Afs 500 [US$ 6.66] to get their salary from the bank in Herat city on transport alone… [And] the teacher has to leave their job for some days [to do this].

As for the Taleban, most respondents said they do not levy a tax on teachers’ salaries. However, they have been engaged in supervising the delivery of education services in parts of Obeh district as far back as the second Karzai administration (2009 to 2014) and particularly during the current National Unity Government. Given the vast areas physically under Taleban rule or contested between state and insurgents, contacts have grown up between the Taleban and government officials, often mediated by local elders, over education service delivery, including staffing and planning.

In specific terms, several respondents including a high school teacher told AAN, that the Afghan government has often agreed to the appointment of those district education officials and teachers who are from Obeh and who, more importantly, can work with the Taleban insurgents in one way or another, according to several respondents including a high school teacher in Obeh. Before appointing teachers, the Afghan government ascertains whether they would be able to work with the Taleban, especially in areas governed by them. There are also Taleban members such as their mawlawis who work as Afghan government-paid teachers in parts of Obeh district, especially in areas fully governed by them. They are usually tasked with teaching religious subjects in schools.

The key Afghan government education official in the district, Abdul Malek Heidari, is widely seen as the man able to work and deal with the Taleban in order to keep schools open and education continued in the district. According to several interviewees, he was sacked by the provincial Directorate of Education for alleged involvement in massive corruption in the district education sector. Not only was he not prosecuted but he was, in fact, reappointed as the district education director because of his ability to work with the Taleban and keep schools running.

The Taleban also monitor education service delivery in other ways. A key concern for them has been the education of girls, which they do allow, but about which they have set strict requirements. A major condition is that only women teachers are allowed to work and teach in girls’ schools. In various parts of Obeh, “many girls schools,” AAN was told (without an exact figure given) lacked women teachers and the Taleban closed these down a couple of years ago. However, they were reopened after local elders intervened and solved the problem by recruiting recent female high school graduates to teach.

In spite of this, as a local teacher from Obeh said, “There are still areas that do not have women teachers, and girls are deprived of education for this reason.” Even in areas in which there are women teachers, they might not be able to work because, as another interviewee stated, “Their men do not often allow them to work [fearing they might] socialise with other men outside the home.” In some places, it is insecurity that makes it impossible for both boys and girls to attend school. Additionally, there are some families, regarded by some as traditional and conservative, which do not want their girls to study beyond primary school. There are also areas in the district in which the Taleban have allowed old men, often religious scholars, to teach at girls’ schools. However, as a long-time resident of Obeh said light-heartedly, but with all seriousness, “Old men can be as lustful as younger ones!”

A second requirement set by the Taleban is that girls and women as students, teachers and non-teaching staff should strictly follow the Islamic hijab (veil) at school. Schoolgirls are therefore dressed in manto (long-sleeved, long-bodied coats) and maqnaa (headscarves). For women, hijab generally means wearing the burqa (a long, loose garment covering the whole body from head to feet) or the chador (a large piece of cloth that is wrapped around the head and upper body leaving only the face exposed). For schoolboys, it is piran tomban, the usual Afghan dress for boys and men. This requirement on clothing has been easy to fulfil because it is a generally-accepted local practice for girls and women to observe hijab in the public domain (including at school) and for boys and men to wear the traditional piran tomban.

Another key Taleban interest in the education sphere is the teaching of religious subjects and their scheduling at school. Although they are generally fine in Obeh district with the school curriculum as prepared by the Ministry of Education, which includes studying the Quran, there are some areas in the district particularly those falling under their full control where they have introduced new subjects such as talim ul-islam (Islamic education), hadith (the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), tafsir (exegesis) and fiqh (jurisprudence). They also emphasise the teaching of religious subjects at the beginning of the school day before subjects like mathematics, physics, chemistry and English that they view as “the current sciences of the day.” In some places, they have banned the teaching of English at school and instead insisted on the study of Arabic and more Pashto.

To exercise their supervision of the district education sector, the Taleban have formed a specific education department or office led by a specific person (mirroring the government structure). It seems the Taleban are more active than the Afghan government in monitoring the delivery of education services such as the operation of schools, attendance by pupils as well as teaching and non-teaching school staff, types of subjects in the school curriculum, as well as learning. They do have a greater access to more parts of the district. They are also stricter and harder-line in implementing their educational instructions.

Health

The Afghan government is operating several health facilities in Obeh district through a non-governmental organisation (Bakhtar Development Network) contracted by the Ministry of Public Health. There is a Comprehensive Health Centre (CHC) in the district centre that receives clients not only from Obeh but also from Chesht-e Sharif further to the east. The Directorate of Public Health, based in Herat, plans to develop the CHC in Obeh into a District Hospital. In addition, there are also Basic Health Centres (BHCs) in some villages such as Sirwan and Tagabyari. The Directorate of Public Health also plans to increase the number of BHCs in Obeh district. There are also several health posts across the district. (For details on the health system up to the district level including health posts, basic health centres, comprehensive health centres and district hospitals, see Afghanistan’s Basic Package of Health Services (BPHS) here; see also here). Furthermore, there are a number of private health facilities mostly in the district centre.

The delivery of health services in general in the district suffers from serious shortcomings. Most current health personnel in the district are not well-trained or professional. Besides, the health facilities, at least the government-run ones, are not adequately or timely equipped and supplied. As for the privately-administered health facilities, the services they provide are better, but too costly for many inhabitants in Obeh. The good thing about the public health facilities is, as one interviewee said, “They work 24/7 while private clinics work like shops, from 8 am to 4 pm.”

A major part of the inadequacies in health service delivery arise from the growing insecurity in most parts of Obeh district. Insecurity has particularly affected female health workers. The CHC in Obeh used to have a female doctor (an obstetrician-gynaecologist), about two years ago, but currently lacks such a physician. In fact, presently there is no female doctor throughout the whole district. This does not mean that Obeh has produced no women doctors but, as a respondent whose father has worked in the medical field in Obeh for the past several decades said, “They prefer to work outside Obeh such as in Herat city or abroad such as in neighbouring Iran.” This is because, as one respondent bluntly put it, “The area is insecure and the salary is not attractive.”

There are, however, some other female health personnel. There are midwives and nurses in the CHC, BHCs and health posts in many parts of the district. However, they have faced greater problems carrying out their work as the security situation deteriorated in the district. Many dare not go and work in areas under Taleban rule or influence. There is also less communication between them and the better-trained male and female health personnel who are based in the provincial centre. One doctor from Obeh said:

In the past, health personnel, especially female ones, used to go from the city of Herat to provide nursing and midwifery training in far-flung villages in Obeh, but this has decreased significantly during the past several years because of the worsening security situation. They no longer dare go and do this work in those areas.

The Taleban insurgents have not directly stymied the delivery of health services in Obeh. One reason is that they too need these services and for this, they have in fact made life for many of the district health personnel hectic. They use the Afghan government-run health services for their own ends as illustrated by the doctor from Obeh who was interviewed for this research:

The Taleban do not interfere in health services. My friends who work as health personnel in Obeh tell me they are very busy and have lots of things to do at night. The Taleban come to them on their motorbikes at night. They make them go with them to treat their injured and sick members. They have to go and fulfil their requests. The Taleban can come anytime at night. So they go, do their work and come back. They cannot say no to the Taleban. They cannot continue their work if they say no to these requests.

During the day, as needs arise, the Taleban members call health centre directors, asking them to send physicians and other health staff to treat their injured and sick. The health personnel have to take all available, necessary medical equipment with them. They also approach the health centres in person and are usually given priority treatment. The Taleban generally behave well with the medical staff and pay the fees of private health providers. In serious cases, the Taleban in Obeh reportedly transfer their injured members to Pakistan.

The Taleban’s privileged use of health personnel does have knock-on effects, not only on health personnel, but also on ‘ordinary’ patients. Many health personnel struggle to work efficiently and effectively during the day as they have been up all night. In many cases, the civilian sick and injured have to wait for long periods of time for health personnel to come back from Taleban areas, or they return home having had no access to health services on particular days.

As for the use of health services by women residents in areas under Taleban control in Obeh, the Taleban seem to be fine with women being treated by male physicians, given that there is currently no female doctor in the district. However, female clients of health services need to be accompanied by a relative, either a male or an old female.

Similarly, the Taleban have not undermined the implementation of vaccination campaigns in Obeh. However, any vaccination campaign needs to be coordinated with the Taleban leaders in advance through the mediation of local elders. The last polio and measles vaccination campaigns were carried out around half a year ago in Obeh district. The vaccinators were able to move around freely and conduct their business.

However, in some remote parts of the district, some people hold negative views about vaccination, seeing it, in the words of a Herat Directorate of Public Health staff member who is from Obeh, as “part of a foreign agenda to do certain bad things to the Muslims,” for example, make them infertile. These views often arise from local beliefs, but could also be politically motivated. One respondent was also worried that the Taleban who have recently come to Obeh from Helmand province could make problems for the implementation of vaccination campaigns in the time to come.

Electricity, media and telecommunication

In August 2017, Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS), the country’s power utility, signed contracts with three companies (two Iranian and one Afghan-Indian firm) for extending the Herat electricity grid to the four eastern districts of the province – Karukh, Pashtun Zarghun, Obeh, and Chesht-e Sharif (see here). DABS said it was a 16 million USD power supply project that would take 18 months to complete and would benefit some 16,000 families in the four districts. 15 months later (as of November 2018), there has been no implementation at all.

Many cite insecurity as the reason why the DABS project has failed to take off. This is largely true. However, a provincial IDLG official also said those involved in the project wanted “to get more lucrative contracts by presenting security, especially threats from the Taleban as a pretext.” This is because, at least in Obeh district, from where the quoted IDLG official comes, the Taleban have thus far allowed the implementation of publicly-useful projects such as road-building and bridge construction, after their agreement has been secured and, of course, their ‘tax’ paid. Some sample projects will be discussed in the next section, Other Services Available.

Consequently, there is no public power supply in Obeh district. As an alternative, many people have installed equipment to use solar power to at least light their homes at night, charge batteries and mobile phones, watch TV and listen to the radio. Another alternative for some is to generate hydropower. Overall, more residents have access to solar than hydropower. There are also some people, especially the well-off, who have diesel generators to ensure their access to electricity when needed. Others, especially the socioeconomically poor and those residing in faraway mountainous parts of the district, cannot afford to access electricity on a regular, stable basis.

Many Obeh residents who do have access to electricity have TVs at home that are connected to dish antennas on their rooftops. Normal antennas do not work in the district, given its mountainous nature. This means there are no local TV stations in Obeh, and TV stations based in Herat city but not broadcasting through satellites cannot be received in this district. People usually watch countrywide TV stations such as Tolo and Ariana, following the news, roundtable discussions on current affairs in Afghanistan and beyond, as well as soap operas, especially the Turkish ones.

As for the radio, there are no local radio stations in Obeh either. In fact, fewer people listen to the radio nowadays, compared to TV watchers. Those who do generally listen to foreign radio stations such as the American Radio Azadi (the Afghan branch of the US government’s Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, RFE/RL), the British BBC and the Iranian Radio Dari.

Since there are no local TV or radio stations, there is a jarchi (town crier) in the district centre who moves from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, informing people about developments in the district, such as visits of provincial officials from Herat city or the initiation of public projects. Mosque loudspeakers are also used to inform people of public events throughout Obeh.

Many people continue to have access to TV and radio in at least some areas under Taleban rule. In fact, many Taleban members, themselves, watch TV and listen to the radio. However, they tell people not to watch TV programmes particularly soap operas which they regard as immoral and promiscuous and therefore contrary to what they see as ‘authentic’ Afghan religion and culture. They also tell people not to listen to music on the radio. However, as a journalist from Obeh said, “It is difficult to enforce these orders in practice because it is mostly a private affair taking place at people’s homes.” Some respondents said that in some areas of the district the Taleban have banned watching TV and listening to the music on radio and in other ways such as on the phone. They have instead exhorted the local population to read the Quran and listen to its recitation.

This brings us to a discussion of the state of telecommunications in Obeh district. There are presently three active mobile network operators in the district – the Afghan Roshan, the Emirati Etisalat and the South African MTN. The Afghan public Salaam Network and the private Afghan Wireless Communication Company (AWCC) do not operate in the district, despite requests by some Obeh activists for Salaam to begin offering services, given the cheapness and (perceived) speed of its services. One reason why Salaam has not entered Obeh might be a greater fear of the Taleban, for it is a public mobile phone company with links to the Afghan government.

Many residents in Obeh have smartphones, through which they are connected to the internet. Although the internet is slow and weak across the district, especially the farther you go from the district centre, a large number of people particularly the youth are busy communicating and sharing news, information, opinions and pictures on social networking sites, primarily Facebook. Being connected to the internet is also a necessity for those residents of Obeh that have family members and friends in neighbouring Iran and further afield in Turkey and Europe. They keep in touch with their relatives abroad through a variety of applications including Viber, WhatsApp, Imo, Line, Telegram and, of course, Facebook.

Obeh inhabitants also have to live with no mobile phone coverage during the night from about 5 pm to around 5 am the following day. For the last five years, these have been cut throughout the district at the behest of the Taleban insurgents. Only on two most important Islamic festivals of the year, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, do the Taleban let mobile network operators deliver their services during the night as well. The Taleban also sometimes order the mobile phone companies to turn on their services for a specific duration on a specific night.

The mobile network operators rigorously comply with the Taleban orders because otherwise, as one respondent said, “The Taleban will destroy their antennas, hit them or set them on fire.” It seems telecommunication services are severed centrally, for an interviewee knew from a relative of his who worked for a mobile phone company in Obeh that the companies do not turn off their equipment at night; it is only that reception in the district is stopped.

For the Taleban, it is safer not to have night-time mobile coverage. Most Taleban attacks on Afghan government checkpoints in Obeh are carried out at night. It is at night also that the insurgents often coordinate their forces, take care of logistics and move freely not just in the mountainous areas under their rule but also in the main inhabited valley in the district.  With the mobile coverage off, they can do this without the risk of residents reporting them to the government especially the security authorities. On the side of the Afghan government, it usually retreats to the district centre and its checkpoints at night, keeping hold of these positions. Both the Afghan government and Taleban insurgents have provided walkie-talkies for some of their forces to communicate at night.

Additionally, the Taleban insurgents have been taxing mobile network operators for the past several years. None of the respondents knew how much the mobile phone companies are paying the Taleban to have their telecommunication services running at least during the daylight. However, all agreed that the companies and Taleban were in touch bilaterally for the security and continuation of their telecommunication services in Obeh. The Taleban have not yet taxed the local population for using telecommunication services.

The Taleban insurgents and mobile network operators are collaborating in other ways, too. According to one respondent, at least one mobile phone company has paid money to the Taleban to guard its staff, antennas and stations against extortion and threats by (other) malicious elements such as armed criminal groups. Also, some companies have been hit by a ‘protection racket’ by some Taleban; the companies provide them with electricity from thermal or solar power from their local stations at night in return for the Taleban ‘ensuring’ the security of their staff, antennas and stations in areas under their control.

Other services available

Two types of other services available in the district stand out. First are the justice services offered by the Taleban in areas under their domination. Several people said the Taleban out-govern the Afghan administration in addressing disputes among the local people. As elsewhere across the country, many Obeh inhabitants have become disillusioned with the rampant corruption in the official district justice system. So they take many of their cases to the Taleban courts where they are adjudicated much faster. This has made some residents happy with the justice services provided by the Taleban.

At the same time, there are many residents who are forced to approach the Taleban courts to get their cases dealt with because the Taleban are, in practice, the only authority in their area. They have no other option.

In either case, verdicts issued by the Taleban courts are enforced much more effectively than those issued by the government courts. The key reason is the fear of Taleban retribution not just for non-enforcement of their court rulings but for all their orders and instructions. The severity of Taleban punishment depends on the ‘offence’ committed. For instance, AAN was told, adultery allegations, at least in some cases, have resulted in the stoning of the alleged perpetrators to death. Teachers and doctors who say ‘no’ to Taleban requests are beaten or dismissed. Mobile network operators have to comply with Taleban restrictions for the very safety of their employees, antennas and stations. So Taleban orders are respected, for everyone knows the harsh consequences of non-compliance.

The second type of other services available in Obeh district are the development projects that have been implemented or are being implemented under the government’s National Solidarity Programme (NSP) and its successor the Citizens’ Charter as well as by other development agencies. According to all respondents, for any of these public projects to take off, it is imperative to meet two key criteria: (1) the project should be publicly useful and (2) the Taleban need to agree to it and their tax (in most cases, ushr or ten per cent) paid in advance. This is normally taken care of by local elders who mediate between the Taleban and the government, and the NGOs.

The most famous post-2001 development project: a 150 metres long, seven metres wide, 200,000 USD costing bridge connects Murqcha and Musaferan villages to the north and south of the River Harirud. It was only built after the Taleban authorised it, following mediation by elders, and the payment of a ten per cent ‘tax’. One user said he thanks God every time he crosses the bridge, “It is such a comfort for the local people.” Photo: Pajhwok, 2017

 

In Obeh district, there are a number of noteworthy projects. First is the flagship development project in the post 2001-era, a bridge, about 150 metres long and seven metres wide, which has been built at a cost of about 200,000 USD and connects Murqcha and Musaferan villages in the north and south of the district over the River Harirud. The construction of this bridge was only made possible after local elders pleaded with the Taleban and managed to win their go-ahead. The Taleban’s tax was also paid. This has been the most publicly-beneficial project carried out in Obeh in the post-2001 period, as a trader from the district described:

It has ended the cut-off of any link between people on the two sides of the river especially in the wet season when the river is flooded. For instance, people can take sick relatives to the clinic in the district centre. And people can take fruit from their orchards to sell in the district centre and from there to Herat city. I myself own an orchard, and this bridge has helped me a lot. Each time I cross the bridge in my car I say, ‘In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful’ and feel very happy. It is such a comfort for the local people.

A second notable project is a road, about 17 kilometres long, that is being built linking Bidak and Sirwan villages on the southern bank of the River Harirud, not far from Obeh district centre. The contract for constructing the road has been awarded to the family of Rahima Jami, a sitting parliamentarian from Herat province who ran for another term in the recent elections. This project could also only take off after the local elders mediated and bargained with the Taleban to let it go ahead. The Taleban gave their approval, again after their tax was paid.

Another important project that is under way is the construction of a canal, around 10 kilometres long, from Bagal to Deh Daraz villages also on the southern bank of the river in the west of the district. The canal will be made of concrete with paved roads on either side. For this project too, the Taleban consent was won after the elders mediated and their tax was paid.

Currently, there are also various Citizens’ Charter projects that are due to be implemented in different parts of Obeh district. These projects will make specific sums of money available to the local population and mainly focus on the provision of amenities such as water and power supply. In some villages, for instance, the village elders have decided to spend the Citizens’ Charter money on digging deep wells, piping water to their villages and providing safe potable water for the residents. Others want to pave roads in their villages. There are also projects focused on the development of local agriculture such as grapes and pistachios, livestock and small-scale fisheries. For most of these projects too, it has been imperative to get Taleban approval and pay their tax.

Conclusion

The Taleban interfere directly in most of services. In education, they are directly engaged in a supervisory role, keeping an eye on teacher appointments, having some of their members employed as teachers especially for teaching religious subjects, dictating the conditions of girls’ education (although this is allowed) and organising the curriculum so that there is a greater emphasis on some subjects, especially religious ones, and less or no emphasis on other subjects they see as ‘foreign’ or ‘secular.’ They have imposed strict restrictions on telecommunication services, enforcing a cut-off of coverage during the night and taxing the mobile phone companies. The Taleban have also indirectly obstructed the electrification of four eastern districts of Herat including Obeh. As for other projects of a public utility nature, Taleban approval has to be sought and their ten per cent tax paid for these projects to take off. Their orders and criteria are generally met, either just to get things done or to avoid harsh retribution.

It is only with respect to health services that the Taleban do not interfere directly. Both men and women are free to work and seek health care. This is partly because the Taleban need these services, too. However, they do insist on getting priority care for themselves, keeping district health personnel busy both during the day and at night by bringing in sick and injured Taleban or forcibly taking the medical personnel off to treat Taleban patients. This privileged use by the Taleban of health facilities has had knock-on effects on ordinary people who have to wait to see medical personnel and many medical workers themselves who struggle to work effectively during the day as they have been up all night.

The district of Obeh faces uncertain, unpredictable times. Security-wise, the Afghan government and Taleban forces are in a mutually-hurting stalemate, though the district is not actively contested, at least for now. In terms of public service delivery, what has emerged in Obeh in recent years is an unstable, hybrid form of governance. The two parties are rivals, but also, out of necessity, in contact: the government administers and finances services, while the Taleban control and monitor some of them, in areas under their domination.

Both parties extract ‘rent’ from public services. Respondents spoke about some government officials skimming off money intended for education, for example, or from project contracts, something that results in inefficiency and low-quality or no services. The insurgents also take ‘rent’ out of some services such as telecommunications and development projects, insisting on being given a ten per cent tax of project costs. Despite this corruption by both sides and the fact that the Taleban do not fund anything, they still pose a formidable challenge to the authority of the Afghan government in Obeh. The Taleban, largely disciplined and obeying orders, for the moment at least, seem to be ‘out-governing’ the Afghan government in several areas in many parts of the district. Their control is more effective and their monitoring more active.

For the local population, options are limited. They have had no alternative but to learn how to work and deal with both parties, usually via the mediation of elders and other figures of influence. It is risky and difficult navigating the complex, fluid governance and security environment of Obeh.

 

 

Edited by Sari Kouvo, Thomas Ruttig, Kate Clark and Jelena Bjelica

 

 

(1) Ismael Khan rose from a captain in the government army (from which he defected in 1979 to join an anti-communist uprising) to mujahedin commander to governor of Herat and self-declared ‘amir’ of what historically was called the south-western region (1992 to 1994 and again, 2002 to 2004) to the Minister of Energy and Water to a vice-presidential candidate in the hugely disputed 2014 presidential elections. He continues to be an influential member of the Jamiat party.

(2) The following are the key governance figures in Obeh district:

Afghan government

• District governor: Rahmuddin Sarwarzai (aka Rahmuddin Khan), from Obeh
• District police chief: Sher Agha Alokozay (aka Sher Agha Khan), from Obeh, said to be severely anti-Taleban and widely regarded locally as the pillar of state security in the district
• District mayor: Najibullah Ahmadi, from Obeh
• District education director: Abdul Malek Heidari, from Obeh, was replaced for a while by Juma Gul Khan Ayoubi, has been re-appointed in the district education director position
• District public health director: Nazir Ahmad Tukhi, from Obeh, son to Abdul Malek Heidari

Taleban

• District governor: reportedly Mullah Hamidullah Mubarez (aka Mubarez Helmandi)
• District commander: Mullah Esmatullah (aka Mullah Esmat), from Obeh and with roots in Gulran district of Herat province
• District education director: Mullah Wazir, replaced Agha Abdul Wali (aka Agha Wali)
• No district public health director on the Taleban side
• Influential members in Obeh: Mullah Hassan Marabadi (aka Mullah Hassan) who is from Obeh with roots in Pashtun Zarghun district and served as a former Taleban district governor, Mullah Zar Alam and Mullah Amir Jan. The latter (Mullah Amir Jan) was reportedly killed by the Afghan government security forces around mid-October 2018.
• Deputy provincial governor operating in/from Obeh: reportedly Mullah Abdul Manan Liwanai (‘liwanai’ is a Pashto word, meaning ‘crazy’) whom the Afghan government reported as dead after he was injured in a clash with its security forces in Obeh around mid-October 2018

(3) Resolute Support’s method considers such issues as who governs, who gets taxes, who controls infrastructure and who controls ‘messaging’ in a district (see page 5 of this report for further explanation).

(4) Our information contradicts the assessment of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Its 2017 Opium Survey (see page 66 here) said there has been no poppy cultivation in Obeh since 2005.

 

Planes from eight different squadrons based out of Oceana, Virginia, deployed to Naval Air Station Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base to take part in the historic 21-jet Bush Memorial Flyover. The U.S. Navy paid tribute [...]

Bizarre Photo Shows What Appears To Be A Model Of An Advanced Chinese Stealth Jet Allegedly at Georgia Airfield. File this under, “Too Weird to Believe, Too Bizarre Not to Report”. Late Wednesday, December 5, [...]

The Taleban today control or influence whole swathes of Afghanistan. Estimates of exactly how much vary, but in the vast majority of Afghanistan’s provinces, control is split between government and insurgency. What that means for local people in terms of services usually provided by a state is the subject of a new research project by AAN. It looks at the delivery of education, health, electricity and telecommunications in six insurgency-affected districts. In this first dispatch, Jelena Bjelica and Kate Clark introduce the series, reviewing previous research, explaining our research methodology and discussing what AAN expects the six case studies will reveal about life under the Taleban.

Service delivery in insurgent-affected areas is a joint research project by the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) and the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).

The first part of this dispatch focuses on the re-emergence and growth of the Taleban from 2001 onwards. This is followed by an overview of existing research on the Taleban’s delivery of services. Finally, we explain our methodology of research and look ahead to the six case studies.

1. Gradual emergence of parallel systems of governance

The Taleban transition to an ‘insurgent parallel government’

After being ousted from power in 2001, it was only very slowly and locally that the Taleban re-emerged. Their main mission was and still is military – expanding (or re-expanding) territorial control, harrying and trying to push back foreign troops and government forces and using assassinations, bomb attacks and other means to pressure civilians into compliance. At the same time, the Taleban movement has sought to present itself as a government – unfairly ousted from power, but a government nonetheless, one “in absentia,” as Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn in An Enemy We Created(p308) put it. This stance is reflected in the Taleban’s own way of referring to their administration; ever since 1996 when the movement captured Kabul, and up to the present, it calls itself the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA).

The Taleban do not consider themselves a political party and have never provided a ‘policy agenda’, beyond that painted with the roughest of brush strokes, promising a ‘broad-based Islamic government’ (prakh-benseta Islami hukumat) (see AAN analysis here). Indeed, one of the ironies of the movement presenting itself as a government is that its political project is so thinly thought-out, in terms for example, of how the Taleban envisage the relationship between citizen and state, or their policies on education, the economy, the status of women etc. Nevertheless, the fact that the Taleban have come to control territory in recent years has meant that, as in the pre-2001 era, they have had to address some of these ‘policy issues’, in practice. That includes the delivery of services normally associated with a state and the development ‘civilian’ structures dealing with governance.

In the early years of the international military intervention in Afghanistan, the ousted Taleban government “had no real structures or hierarchies, with which to regroup and revive,” commented Strick van Linschoten and Kuehn (An Enemy We Created, p244). According to these authors, in the period between December 2001 and June 2003, the Taleban leadership had not “even a firm position on whether to start an insurgency or to try to have a voice in the new political realities within Afghanistan.” They describe how the structure of and recruitment for the Taleban movement’s military force based on andiwali, a Dari and Pashto word for friendship or comradeship, the ties of mutual loyalty and solidarity forged “through long-standing relations built on family, clan, tribal affiliations, friendship” during the war (andiwali is not restricted to Taleban, of course) (pp246-54 for). AAN’s Thomas Ruttig in his 2010 paper on the Taleban also offers the following insight into the structure of the movement, not limited to their (dominating) military structure:

Today’s Taleban movement is dualistic in nature, both structurally and ideologically. The aspects are interdependent: A vertical organisational structure, in the form of a centralised ‘shadow state’, reflects its supra-tribal and supra-ethnic Islamist ideology, which appears to be ‘nationalistic’ – i.e., it refers to Afghanistan as a nation – at times. At the same time, the movement is characterised by horizontal, network- like structures that reflect its strong roots in the segmented Pashtun tribal society. The movement is a ‘network of networks’.

The first post-2001 Taleban shura, formed in June 2003, that oversaw the launch of the Taleban insurgency under Mullah Omar’s leadership (see AAN reporting here), was “made up of ten members and was responsible for the Taleban political and military’s strategy” (An Enemy We Created, p253). In the period that followed (2003 to 2005), available research shows that the Taleban consolidated and set up structures “to mobilise support in order to expand and popularise an insurgency throughout the Afghanistan” (An Enemy We Created, pp261-3). The one quasi-state service provided by the Taleban from the beginning of the insurgency – and indeed from the earliest days of ‘taleban fronts’ during the anti-Soviet resistance of the 1980s were courts. Post-2001, whenever Taleban insurgents sought to move into an area, they “prioritize[d] setting up alternatives to the state’s judicial system” wrote Carter and Clark in “No Shortcut to Stability: Justice, Politics and Insurgency in Afghanistan”, 2010, pp21-22). Because of the corruption and inefficiency in the government’s judicial system, these became one of the insurgency’s main strengths: “Through their control of the justice systems,” wrote Frazer Hirst (2009), who worked with the British PRT in Helmand and wrote an internal report for DFID, “Support to the Informal Justice Sector in Helmand”, “the Taleban gain a level of control, influence and support which tends to undermine the links between communities and government.” (See also Tariq Osman, “The Resurgence of the Taliban in Kabul, Logar and Wardak”, in Giustozzi (ed), Decoding the New Taliban, pp43–56 and also this 2012 Integrity Watch Afghanistan paper).

In 2006, the Taleban issued their first layha or code of conduct. It laid out “a vision of guerrilla warfare that is not just a fight between armed forces, but a struggle to separate the population from the state and create ‘social’  frontlines” as AAN’s Kate Clark wrote in her 2011 paper, “The Layha: Holding the Taleban to Account”. She described the particularly harsh policies on schools and NGOs:

In the 2006 Code, teaching in government schools was deemed illegal and punishments were harsh. Teachers were to be warned and if necessary beaten: ‘. . . if a teacher or mullah continues to instruct contrary to the principles of Islam, the district commander or group leader must kill him’ (2006:25). Education was allowed, but only in a mosque or similar institution, using jihad or Emirate-era textbooks and by someone with religious training. Schools were to be closed and if necessary burned (2006:25). Any contract with an NGO, in exchange for money or materials, had to be authorised at the highest level, by the leadership shura (2006:8).

In terms of structures, the layha of 2006 mentions only a military commission, and unspecified provincial, district and regional officials. Strick van Linschoten and Kuehn pointed out that, even though the Taleban had been engaged in a campaign to “win over rural Afghans since 2005-2006,” it was not until 2008-2009 “that the provision of services and accountability became more widespread” (p285). They also noted that the system of courts, which had been operational since 2001, “albeit in highly reduced form,” spread from 2007 onwards “to different locations and met more regularly.” This, the authors said, happened parallel to the rolling out of a more responsive complaints system, “whereby inhabitants of rural areas could request investigations into corrupt Taliban commanders or members.” Two new committees, one to handle complaints from commanders and fighters, and another to deal with villagers’ grievances, were set up in 2008 (see here; see also AAN reporting here and here).

However, the real change in governance structure was indicated in the 2009 layha. It laid out a more complex governance structure which, next to military commissions, now included provincial and district commissions, as well as education and trade commissions. The 2009 code (see Clark’s paper for translation of all three layhas) said:

Provincial officials are obliged to establish a commission at the provincial level with no fewer than five members, all of whom should be competent. This commission, with the agreement of the provincial official, should establish similar commissions, also at the district level. Some of the members of both commissions should [usually] be present in their area of work.

In several places in the 2009 layha, provincial and district governors are mentioned in relation to various tasks. The 2009 code does not specify how these governors were to be appointed, or by whom, although it does lay out detailed reporting lines.

The third – and still most recent – layha was published in 2010. It further expanded the quasi-state bodies, adding Commissions for Health, (art 61), Education (art  59) and Companies and NGOs (art 60). Clark writes: “[T]he minimal nature of this will be no surprise to anyone familiar with the Islamic Emirate pre-2001 when, for example, ministers would frequently be away from their desks fighting at the various frontlines.” (See here).

During the same period, the Taleban also changed their already evolving attitude towards education. After they removed an order to attack schools and teachers from their code of conduct in 2009, they also engaged with the Ministry of Education, which decided to re-start negotiations with the Taleban (For more detail on this, see AAN papers here and here).

Jamila Nuri still teaching as the Taleban are losing power in  November 2001. Girls’ education had been banned by the Taleban in power, but in many places teaching carried on ‘illegally’. Here a basement in Herat city was the classroom. Photo BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP.

After 2014, ie in the post-ISAF period, the Taleban have not only expanded their territorial control and dominance (more on which below), they also seem to have consolidated their ‘service delivery’ provisions and system of ‘taxation’.

Most of the various Taleban commissions – on education, health, agriculture, trade and commerce, financial affairs and NGOs – do not themselves provide services. Instead they seek to co-opt the services of government, NGOs and private companies at the local level, by controlling and influencing them. In some cases, they use government money transferred to local Taleban officials and themselves ‘pay’ workers providing services, eg school teachers. (1)

Reports of Taleban parallel governmental structures have come up in the Afghan and international media occasionally, but consistently in recent years. Afghan media, for example, reported in 2017 that Taleban all over Ghazni province were systematically taxing “media outlets, businessmen and common people” and even “Provincial Council members [and] governor house officials,” that the Taleban send electricity bills to customers in Kunduz and extort road tolls from truckers in Zabul. The Taleban were also reported to be building up networks of privately-financed madrassas and mosques in Helmand and Badakhshan. Their courts continue to operate, mediating in land and other conflicts (for example, in Jawzjan). They are also reported as maintaining prisons, for example, in Helmand, imposing changes on the school curriculum (for example, in Logar) and having a say in the hiring and firing of teachers. In Taleban-held areas, the Taleban have been reported using government funding sent to schools operated by the Ministry of Education (see this BBC reportage from Helmand). They also ‘regulate’ mobile network providers and determine at what time of the day they can operate (see this report from Helmand here and from Ghazni here). While the Taleban used the mobile networks in early 2010s to spread propaganda (see this BBC report), there are reports suggesting there a formal policy of taxing mobile service providers has been in place since late 2015 (see this Tolo news). In January 2016, the AFP wrote: “At a secret meeting last month [December 2015] near Quetta, the Taliban’s central leadership formally demanded the tax from representatives of four cellular companies in exchange for not damaging their sites or harming their employees”. The news agency’s sources reported that this “edict was motivated by an Afghan government announcement… that it had amassed a windfall of 78 million Afghani (1.14 USD) within days of imposing an additional ten per cent tax on operators.” The Taleban have started posting videos and statements in which they claim to have organised road building and other infrastructure projects. Another indication of the insurgent group’s reach was a BBC report from January 2018 reporting that Taleban rule in parts of some provinces like Uruzgan was so unchallenged, they could “focus on health, safety and trading standards.” (2)

How many people get Taleban controlled or influenced services?

Defining how much of Afghanistan’s population, territory and districts are under the control or influence of the Afghan government and Taleban is subject to debate (see this AAN analysis of how to measure insecurity and control). Assessments vary, although it is clear that, at the very least, the Taleban influence many people’s lives. Both recent Resolute Support data (published by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s, SIGAR in October 2018) and the BBC in January 2018, using different assessment methods, (3) found that, although many more districts were under full government control (18 per cent and 30 per cent respectively) than full Taleban control (2.5 per cent and 4 per cent), the Taleban had a presence in a large number of districts, albeit to varying degrees. Resolute Support found that, in addition to those districts under full insurgent control, 78 per cent more were ‘influenced’ by the government, or were ‘neutral’ or ‘influenced’ by the Taleban. As for the BBC, it found that, again, aside from those where the Taleban were in full control, 66 per cent of other districts had an ‘open Taleban presence’. Note that some analysts feel the US gives too rosy a picture of government control (see this New York Times article quoting data from the FDD’s The Long War Journal. According to SIGAR reports, most Taleban expansion came between November 2015 and November 2016 when the government lost about 15 per cent of the districts it had controlled or influenced.

The Resolute Support metrics quoted by SIGAR which assess governance and taxation give a little more sense of the number of districts where, in at least some areas, the Taleban are likely involved in service delivery. For example, Resolute Support’s categorisation of districts uses the following metric on governance:

1. 1. Under insurgent control: No district governor or meaningful presence. Insurgents responsible for governance
2. 2. Under insurgent influence: No district governor and limited governance. insurgents active and well supported
3. 3. Neutral: No district governor present and limited presence
4. 4. Under government influence: District governor present and governance active. Insurgents active but have limited influence
5. 5. Under government control: District governor and government control all aspects of governance. Limited insurgent presence.

The Resolute Support data on control of Afghanistan’s districts, published by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s, SIGAR in October 2018.

The Resolute Support, in October 2018, put about 45 per cent of all districts into categories one to three and in those places, one could expect the Taleban to have control or influence over service delivery in at least some areas of the district. Even in category four districts this might be the case. The Resolute Support metric on taxation also suggests that at least some people living in districts categorised one to four will be paying a Taleban ‘tax’. It says “a shadow system” of Taleban taxation is “present in some areas” of category 4 districts; is “effective” and “commonplace” in category 3 districts and; is “dominant” in category 2 districts. In category 1 districts, the local economy is “controlled” by the insurgents. The mirror image of this, of course, and it is worth stressing, is that the government has some influence and control over governance and taxation in districts categorised 2-5.

Many Afghans then, will be having to deal with the Taleban when it comes to services normally provided or regulated by a state and the Taleban will have to be dealing with people’s expectations and demands when it comes to these services. How this works out in practice is the subject of this research. We have chosen six districts as case studies (more on which later) and each will be the subject of a separate dispatch. In this piece, we want to look at what has already been written on this subject and present our methodology for research.

2. Previous research

Insurgent-run service-delivery: a literature review

There are a limited number of publicly available studies that deal with Taleban service delivery provisions and administration. There is a much bigger literature on public service delivery in Afghanistan, generally, and this context is important for understanding what the Taleban do. The Afghan public service sector – especially education and health care – has greatly expanded and improved since 2001, in terms of schools and health services becoming more widespread and available. However, both sectors remain heavily dependent on development aid and aid agencies. For example, health services in Afghanistan are outsourced to 40 national and international NGOs that are mandated with delivering basic health provisions in 31 provinces (in the remaining three provinces, the Ministry of Public Health directly delivers). For an overview of health service delivery in Afghanistan see here. Apart from security, the area that has received most financial support is what could be called ‘social infrastructure’ (ie building schools, roads and hospitals) and accompanying services, primarily education and health care.

As to paying for these services, in 2016, the World Bank described Afghanistan (page, 3) as “unique worldwide in its extraordinary dependence on foreign aid.” Aid, said the Bank “is critical to financing growth, service delivery, and security.” Aid to Afghanistan amounted to around 75 per cent of GDP between 2005 and 2011 and, even though government revenues have increased since then and aid fallen, in 2017, aid still stood at around 45 per cent of GDP. The Washington-based Institute for State Effectiveness suggests a rule of thumb for a functioning, sovereign state that aid should amount to a maximum of 20 per cent of GDP. More than that – and Afghanistan has received far more than the optimum over many years – risks corruption and government mismanagement, says the Institute. (For more analysis of aid, see this AAN reporting from earlier this year)

Public services in Afghanistan have, indeed, been riven with corruption. For example, the 2017 Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee’s (MEC) report showed that in the education sector corruption has become endemic in the last 10 to 15 years and that malpractice is systemic within the ministry (see AAN reporting here). Another MEC report about corruption in the Ministry of Public Health from June 2016 showed that the Afghanistan’s public health sector also suffers from “deep and endemic corruption problems.” (See also this SIGAR report on corruption in the health sector). This is one aspect of the context within which the Taleban have co-opted government-funded services.

Another contextual issue worth stressing is that, as the two AAN publications on education cited in the last section pointed out, (non-madrassa) education, particularly but not exclusively of girls and women, has been a political football for decades in Afghanistan, used and occasionally enforced by various governments and their backers as a marker of ‘progress’ (eg the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan’s regime between 1978 and 1992, and post-2001 administrations) or attacked by opposition groups and governments and their backers for being a conduit of foreign influence (eg the mujahedin in the 1980s and the Taleban in and outside government). Parallel dynamics have also applied in attitudes towards madrassas and the religious education sector. Attitudes among the general population have also varied, but, particularly after the refugee experience for millions of Afghans in Pakistan and Iran, more people have welcomed or indeed demanded the education of their children than in previous decades. That has included the education of girls, although to a lesser extent. Taleban attitudes towards government schools and the curriculum since they lost power need to be seen in this context.

As to healthcare, this has never been a political issue in the way education has been, (4) as the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) wrote in its study, “The Political Economy of Education and Health Service Delivery In Afghanistan”:

The Taliban opposition never objected to the delivery of health services in principle, mainly because they saw health delivery as less “political” than education and clinics as useful to the Taliban themselves, unlike state schools.

In terms of general reporting on Taleban service delivery, Giustozzi’s 2017 report for Landinfo (an independent body within Norway’s immigration authorities), “Afghanistan: Taliban’s organization and structure”, says that it is limited due to financial constraints, with the exception of the courts and, Giustozzi says, some clinics, which are not co-opted government ones, but the Taleban’s own:

Some of the Taliban leaders seem to think that service delivery is a source of political legitimacy. Due to financial limitations, however, the Taliban delivers only very few services, with the exception of justice. The decision by Haibatullah Akhund in 2016 to open up Taliban clinics to the general population was only implemented in a haphazard way for lack of funding. There have been cases of Taliban taxing the local population for specific projects, such as road building. Taliban-provided education is limited to some hundred madrasas.

Giustozzi further asserts that “the Taliban simply highjack government services, as in the case of education”:

The Taliban impose their own curriculum, textbooks and teachers, while the government continues to pay salaries and all other expenses. The Taliban also stamp NGO and humanitarian agency projects with their seal of approval, often even sending their representatives to the inauguration of projects alongside government officials.

Michael Semple in a 2018 article, “Afghanistan’s Islamic Emirate Returns: Life Under a Resurgent Taliban” scrutinises one district under Taleban dominion, Chapa Dara in Kunar, and shows a mixing of military and civilian aspects of Taleban control. The shadow governor Rahm Dil, says Semple, “adjudicates disputes among civilians while commanding a fighting force of about 50 men.” Moreover, “If a Talib in Chapa Dara arrests someone on suspicion of committing some kind of infraction, for instance, he will always quickly refer back to Rahm Dil for guidance on whether to hold, release or kill the person.” There is also a unit of the Amr bin Maroof, or religious police, in the district who ‘police’ moral crimes and behaviour. The Taliban’s main economic function in Chapa Dara, says Semple, is “maintaining security, thereby allowing businesses to operate safely,” businesses which the Taleban then tax (the ten per cent ushr). Semple also found that:

The Taliban actively involve themselves in the provision of public services, but the actual resources for those services come from elsewhere. In the education sector, the government in Kabul funds schools… the Kabul-based government has more of a presence in the health sector.

Some studies offer an in-depth look at certain aspects or sectors of service delivery. A 2016 study, “Enhancing Access to Education: Challenges and Opportunities in Afghanistan” by Barnett Rubin and Clancy Rudeforth from the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) at New York University found (5) that “Taleban policies and practices with respect to education remain inconsistent,” but it pointed out that:

The Taliban have released several statements in support of education in recent years[6], and several teachers working in Taliban-influenced areas have described a relative improvement in education delivery since 2011. This comes partly as a result of Taliban monitoring of teacher attendance. […] And yet, in districts under Taliban control, availability and quality of education remain poor. Restrictions on girls’ education are still widespread. Direct attacks against educators and schools are no longer systematic, but they still happen. The Taliban sometimes use school closures as a bargaining tactic to exert control over the education sector, or as leverage over unrelated issues.

The CIC research also suggested that:

[L]ocal Taliban are more likely to support education if they perceive control of the curriculum, distribution of MoE funds, teacher hiring and placement, monitoring of attendance and performance and health and security arrangements at and around maktabs[non-religious schools] or designated learning spaces. This perceived control is often the result of local political settlements between Taliban and education providers, agreed with dialogue and mediation assistance from elders and ulama.

AREUs’ 2016 study on education and health (quoted earlier) which focused on three provinces, Wardak, Badghis and Balkh, found:

[T]he primary objective of the insurgents is not, however, to close schools, but rather to co-opt them. The Taliban try to assert control over schools through deals with local MoE officials: the schools stay open, but changes are made to the curriculum, with the Taliban being allowed to inspect the schools regularly. The Taliban claim that in Wardak, such deals extend to 17 percent of all schools, while in Badghis, the rate is 13 percent. As of 2013, no such deals had been implemented in Balkh.

As to health services, although the Taleban do not see this sector as politically controversial, AREU says they have

…gradually evolved a policy of asserting control over the sector through their own registration system. NGOs and government clinics have been asked to treat the Taliban and allow facility inspections to ensure that they were not being used for “spying” purposes; in the event of a refusal, violence and bans have sometimes occurred.

The most recent studies, like the 2018 Oversees Development Institute’s study, “Life Under the Taliban Shadow Government” by Ashley Jackson, offer a broad-stroke assessment of service delivery in the Taleban controlled area. The ODI research, which was carried out across a number of districts in Wardak, Kunduz, Laghman, Logar, Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul provinces, concludes that “Taliban governance does not supplant the Afghan government but co-opts and augments it, resulting in a hybrid service delivery arrangement.” On education, the study said that the Taliban “have capitalised on the fact that so many schools suffer from such high levels of corruption and dysfunction (teachers do not show up, textbooks are sold rather than distributed),” and that the majority of interviewees said that they “felt that the Taliban had improved the running of the government education system.” The Taleban are often in direct contact with the NGOs that provide health services, the ODI research found, adding that this contact is “usually initiated by the Taliban when there is a specific issue to discuss.”

The ODI research also offers some insight on mobile service and electricity supply. The research said that “the Taliban claim to exert control over at least a quarter of the mobile grid,” and also that “in at least seven provinces the Taliban are collecting on the vast majority of electricity bills.” This needs to be put into context. Of the 89 per cent of households in Afghanistan who reported to the 2013-2014 Living Conditions Survey that they had some kind of access to electricity, only 29.7 per cent received their power from the grid. It is not clear from the ODI research in which districts the Taleban are collecting these electricity bills. The study also said:

Private cell phone companies appear to routinely pay taxes, which they often negotiate locally and in Dubai. They are also subject to Taliban regulation of their services. This entails dictating when cell phone services should be provided, with the most common stipulation being that they be shut down after dark… The government mobile provider, Salam, is banned in Taliban areas, and the Taliban check mobile phones for Salam sim cards. Being caught with one will likely result in the card being destroyed and the owner being beaten.

All of these studies point out that, although inconsistent and arbitrarily provided, service-delivery is a vital part of Taleban governance in areas under their control. (7) In order to understand how these services are delivered in different parts of country, AAN decided to conduct a series of six case study, informed by the literature reviewed in the previous sections and using a methodology outlined below.

How we did the research: methodology

For this series of case studies, AAN combined two research methods: desk research and semi-structured interviews with key informants.

As samples, AAN chose districts from six provinces that represent five key regions of the country – the northeast, southeast, east, south and west and which and under varying levels of influence by the insurgency. The selection criteria have been further guided by AAN’s in-house resources and access in terms of the contacts and familiarity of AAN researchers with specific districts. That is, AAN sought to identify districts from different parts of Afghanistan in which the insurgency has between some and considerable influence, but that remain accessible enough so that a high standard of qualitative research can be conducted. Based on this, AAN selected the following provinces and districts for this study:

1. In the north: Kunduz province; Dasht-e Archi district
2. In the southeast: Ghazni province; Andar district
3.  In the south: Helmand province; Nad-e Ali district
4. In the west: Herat province; Obeh district
5. In the east: Nangrahar province; Achin district
6. In the central highlands: Maidan Wardak; Jalrez district

From the desk research, AAN developed a profile for each district after consulting various government and non-government sources, including interviewing people working in government line ministries and NGOs providing services. The aim here was to get basic information about the district (size, type of land and agriculture, demographics, transport links senior government and Taleban officials) and service deliveries (such as the number and type of schools and medical facilities, mobile phone providers and sources of electricity, number and level of access of teachers and medical staff, and for public service goods, such as school books and medical supplies).

After drawing up the profiles, AAN conducted 10 in-depth interviewswith key informants in each district, based on a semi-structured questionnaire, itself developed following a review of the relevant literature. To get information that reflects the complexities of governance in Taleban-controlled areas, key informants from communities under study were carefully selected; they included tribal elders, respected individuals in the districts, civil society activists and journalists. They were interviewed either in person or over the phone, using the semi-structured questionnaire, which was divided into five thematic areas:

1.  Basic information about the district
2.  Education services
3.  Health services
4.  Telecommunication and electricity services
5.  Other services available

The aim then was to triangulate the desk-study data (to the best extent possible, given limitations of access and of information) about government services with the qualitative descriptions of perceptions and experiences collected through the semi-structured interviews to produce each case study in this series.

Looking ahead to the case studies

As this dispatch was published, the results of our research were still coming in. Nonetheless, from the first two finalised case studies (Obeh district of Herat province and Dasht-e Archi of Kunduz province), which will be published this month, we are already getting interesting empirical evidence about what AAN’s Said Reza Kazemi describes as an “unstable, hybrid form of governance.” This not only concerns the methods and extent of the Taleban’s co-option of services, but also how local populations negotiate or try to find ways around Taleban requirements. For example, after the Taleban banned men from teaching girls in Obeh, in those areas where there were no women teachers, local people found female high school graduates to teach and so kept girls schools open. AAN research is also pointing to a sort of pragmatism on the part of some government officials in dealing with the Taleban to keep services running. Again, in Obeh, local education officials have sought to place teachers ‘acceptable’ to the Taleban in areas under their control. From the two finalised case studies, a pattern appears to be emerging, as well, of both government officials and Taleban extracting ‘rent’ from some but not all services (in the form of taking bribes, pocketing the bogus salaries of non-existent workers and ‘taxation’).

With so many Afghans now living in areas under Taleban influence or control, the affect of this on the education of children, the health of people and their access to electricity and to social media and national broadcasters or just the phone are all important topics of research. Our six district case studies are aimed at helping understand these dynamics. We hope the granular nature of these studies will clarify how coherent Taleban policy on the various services is. We also hope they will help unpick local particularities, pointing to what drives the differences in how the Taleban control services to those living under their dominion.

Edited by Thomas Ruttig and Sari Kouvo

 

(1) The Taleban’s website has a list of working commissions and their contact details. AAN contacted the Taleban commissions for agriculture, the disabled, power distribution and education using the numbers listed on their website to ask about the policy they are implementing and in how many districts in the country they are implementing this policy. However, most of the phone numbers were not working or were answered by common people. For example, of the two numbers listed for the education commission, one was not working, and the other number was answered by a woman, not related to the Taleban. The agriculture commission’s contact was answered by a person speaking Dari and sitting in a very busy place, judging by the background noise. The person who answered the phone for the department for power distribution told AAN that they help NGOs and the Ministry of Energy and Water to collect taxes.

(2) In Uruzgan, the Taleban were able to temporarily close down 46 of the province’s 49 clinics in summer 2017, reportedly after their demand for special treatment for their wounded fighters was turned down.

(3) SIGAR currently deploys Resolute Support criteria to categorise the ‘stability’ of districts, with five categories: under insurgent control, under insurgent influence, neutral, under government influence and under government control. This method considers such issues as who governs, who gets taxes, who controls infrastructure and who controls ‘messaging’ – see page 5 of this report for further explanation).

The BBC split districts into those where the government at least controlled the district centre (under government control) and those which it did not (under Taleban control). Of those controlled by the government, it split them into three categories: those with a ‘high active and open Taleban presence’ (defined as suffering at least two attacks a week during the research period; a ‘medium open Taleban presence’ (attacked at least three times a month) and; a ‘low open Taleban presence’ (attacked once in three months). (This excluded attacks on urban centres which the BBC dealt with separately.)

(4) This was why, when the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) ordered the closure of government clinics (and schools) in Nangrahar and threatened health workers there in 2015, it was so shocking. As David Mansfield put it in the AREU February 2016 publication, “The Devil is in the Details: Nangarhar’s Continued Decline into Insurgency, Violence and Widespread Drug Production” ISKP breached the normal Afghan ‘rules of war’:

… Daesh are understood [by Nangarharis] to have broken local mores with their brutality and their failure to recognise the needs of the local population, including with the closure of schools and clinics, and their prohibition of the production and trade of opium and marijuana.

See also AAN reporting here.

(5) For the Taleban’s past education policies, see also “Schools on the Frontline: The struggle over education in the Afghan wars” by Thomas Ruttig, a chapter in a forthcoming book: Fereschta Sahrai, Uwe H Bittlingmayer et al (eds) Education and Development in Afghanistan: Challenges & Prospects,Global Studies, Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld:

When the Taleban swept to power in an area, their commanders often used to replicate Bacha-ye Saqao’s approach from 1929: they almost automatically closed down schools, particularly girls’ schools. After they captured Kabul in 1996, they shut down 63 schools within three months there alone, “affecting 103,000 girls, 148,000 boys and 11,200 teachers, of whom 7,800 were women”; they also temporarily shut down Kabul University. In some areas, girl schools were altered into boy schools (Najimi 1997: 6). Even if they did not close the schools, the ban for women teachers to work also affected them, as they had also taught at boy schools. “By December 1998, UNICEF reported that the country’s educational system was in a state of total collapse with nine in ten girls and two in three boys not enrolled in school” (Rashid 2000: 108). It further estimated that at that point “only 4 to 5 per cent of primary aged children g[o]t a broad based schooling, and for secondary and higher education the picture is even bleaker” (Clark 2000).

It is worth pointing out, however, that the Taleban policy on banning girls’ education was never as complete as usually reported. In 2000, AAN’s Kate Clark visited a functioning school in Kabul city, with classrooms and blackboards, run by Afghan women, and one in a village in Kabul province, run by Care International. The Taleban were turning a blind eye to such endeavours, although everyone was aware that they could close down such schools in an instant. Schooling for young girls was – then as now – much more possible than for teenage girls.

(6) The CIC report quotes a statement released by the Taleban’s Commission for Training, Learning and Higher Education on 13 January 2016, saying it “reiterated support for ‘modern education’ [as the Taleban term non-madrassa schooling] based on the following principles”:

• Education, teaching, learning and studying the religion [are] basic human needs.
• The Taliban in accordance with its comprehensive policy has established a Commission [to] … pursue, implement and advance its education policy.
• The Commission seeks growth to all educational sectors inside and outside the country, be they Islamic such as religious Madaris, Dar-ul-Hifaz, village level Madaris, up to legal Islamic expertise; or be they modern primary, intermediate and high schools, universities or specialist and higher education institutions.
• For the development of these institutions, if any countryman seeks to build a private institution, the Commission will welcome their effort and lend all necessary help available.
• To raise the education level and standardize these institutions the Commission will welcome and gladly accept the views, advice and constructive proposals of religious scholars, teachers and specialists in religious and modern sciences.
• The Commission seeks … to encourage and motivate the sons of this nation towards educational institutions and to give special attention to creating opportunities for educational facilities at village level.
• The Commission has provincial level and district level officials who will execute all educational plans and programs in their respected areas. All the respected countrymen will be able to gain access to them regarding affairs of education.

(7) For further reading on the Taleban movement and how it has evolved over time, see:

Willam Maley (ed) Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban, London, C Hurst & Co Publishers 1998

Peter Marsden, The Taliban: War, Religion and the New Order in Afghanistan, London, Zed Books 2002

Antonio Giustozzi (ed) Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field, London, C Hurst Co Publishers 2009

Ahmed Rashid Taliban: The Power of Militant Islam in Afghanistan and Beyond, London, IB Tauris 2010

Alex Strick Van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn (eds) My Life with the Taliban, Abdul Salam Zaeef, London, C Hurst & Co Publishers 2010

Alex Strick Van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn An Enemy We Created. The Myth About the Taliban-Al Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan, Oxford, Oxford University Press 2012

Peter Bergen (ed) Talibanistan: Negotiating the Borders between Terror, Politics, and Religion, Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press 2013

Anand Gopal No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes, New York, Metropolitan Books 2014

Anand Gopal and Alex Strick van Linschoten “Ideology in the Afghan Taliban” Kabul, AAN 2017,

Alex Strick Van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn (eds) The Taliban Reader. War, Islam and PoliticsOxford, Oxford University Press 2018

 

 

Developing Story: Two Aircraft Reported Down, Seven Aircrew Reported Missing. Reports on Twitter indicate that two U.S. military aircraft have crashed during a midair refueling operation off Iwakuni, Japan. Early reports that surfaced on Twitter [...]

Thirty U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets Fly to Texas In Preparation for Unprecedented 21-Jet Missing Man Formation. The U.S. Navy has dispatched thirty F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet jets from various units to participate in [...]