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Afghanistan has just concluded its candidate nomination period for the presidential election, which has been moved from the initial date, 20 April, to 20 July 2019. The election will now involve four votes at the same time: provincial elections, district council elections, parliamentary elections in Ghazni province, and the presidential poll. With this, the country has been plunged into an important period that will be characterised by demands for electoral reform, as well as uncertainty about the sequencing of elections and peace. AAN’s researcher Ali Yawar Adili (with input by Martine van Bijlert) lays out the background to the delay of the election date, the competing demands of the process and the likely obscurity of the year ahead. He concludes that the calls for reforms, including changing the electoral commissioners, may well turn into a new battlefield between various factions and forces inside and outside of the government. 

Delay of the presidential election until summer

After weeks of speculation, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) has formally delayed the presidential election until 20 July 2019. It has also decided to hold four pending elections at the same time. The new date was announced on 30 December 2018. The elections, which were initially planned for 20 April, were delayed for various reasons. These included: the need for reform, especially after the mismanagement of the 2018 parliamentary elections; the winter weather conditions; and possible pressure in favour of peace talks, or even a negotiated agreement before the poll (even though peace processes tend to be lengthy and unpredictable, whilst the linking of the two could obscure the preparations for the elections in the months ahead). 

In fact, the delay could be seen as a negative spill-over effect of the IEC’s decision to delay last year’s parliamentary election from 7 July to 20 October 2018 (on top of the fact that more than three years were spent on reform, thus missing the constitutional date according to which the parliamentary poll had to have been held by June 2015). As AAN wrote then, the delay meant “that parliamentary and district elections would be held just seven months before the presidential poll is due, risking electoral congestion and political chaos.” Since then, the problems have only been compounded by the cumulative delay of the results of the 2018 parliamentary elections, which have still not been finalised (see here).

The initial announcement of the presidential election date was made well ahead of the legal deadline during a press conference on 1 August 2018 (see AAN’s previous reporting here). (1)  The president had, at the time, asked the IEC to announce the election date early in order to stave off pressure by political parties. (In the run-up to the parliamentary vote, the parties were calling on the government and the IEC to suspend the on-going voter registration and to use biometric technology, calling the manual voter registration “flawed and fraudulent.” After initial resistance by the government and the IEC, they yielded to the pressure by the political parties and introduced biometric voter verification.)

At the time, UNAMA welcomed the announcement of the presidential election date as “an important moment for democracy in Afghanistan,” while some election observers criticised it as “a rush.” For instance, the executive director of Free and Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan (FEFA), Yusuf Rashid, told the media that, either the date would be missed, or the elections would be held on that date, but with a myriad of problems. “We are worried about the consequences of the next election,” he said. 

Candidate nominations for the presidential election had already started on 22 December 2018, but the process was slow and uncertain. Although potential candidates did come to collect information packages, they did not yet register and, on 24 December 2018, the IEC put out a statement saying that a new candidate nomination period would be announced after further consultations. On 26 December, the BBC quoted a source within the IEC saying that, although 50 people had received the nomination information package, none of them had met the conditions yet. A number of the candidates had not been able to introduce their running-mates, or to pay the one million Afs (around USD 13,300) deposit to the bank. A few days later, on 30 December, as mentioned above, a new election date, with a new electoral calendar (annexed to this piece for reference), was announced.

The new candidate nomination period ended on 20 January 2019. According to Etilaat Roz, “credible sources” within the IEC claimed that President Ghani had asked the IEC to further extend the candidate nomination period. An IEC official confirmed to AAN that the president had, indeed, made such a request, but the IEC could not accept it, as the president himself was one of the potential candidates. Both President Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah finally registered on the last day of the nomination period.

According to the IEC, more than 70 people had collected candidate nomination information packages from the IEC. 20 of them came to the IEC for registration, while only 18 of them were able to meet the legal requirements and register their nomination (a separate AAN piece on the candidates and their nomination is forthcoming). 

Reactions to the delay of the electoral date

After the announcement of the new election date, the presidential palace immediately indicated that it respected the IEC’s decision to delay the elections, and promised to cooperate. Other major political forces on the other hand, such as the Grand National Coalition, the coalition of political parties, Mehwar-e Mardom (see AAN’s background here), as well as the Independent Commission for Overseeing the Implementation of the Constitution, called the IEC’s decision a violation of the constitution, given that the presidential term expires on 22 May 2019. (2) At the same time, they called on the IEC to use the opportunity to carry out necessary reforms – in a seeming acknowledgement that an election on a constitutionally mandated date would be neither feasible, nor preferable.

On the side of the international community, there were the usual cautious statements of support. UNAMA welcomed “the clarity in the electoral calendar,” acknowledging “the IEC’s assessment that additional time is needed in order to learn from the 2018 parliamentary elections and adequately prepare.” UNAMA further called for “a full package of realistic and prioritized reforms,” which would include cleaning the voters’ registry, establishing a clear division of responsibilities between the IEC and its secretariat, ensuring the secretariat was fully staffed and professional, and making changes to its structures.

The various political groups differed over whether or not the current government could continue in its current form after its term expired on 22 May 2019. Some said that a new arrangement should be set up to take over the state’s affairs, some called for curtailing the president’s authorities after the expiry date, and others called for a broader consensus to decide about the issue. 

Opposition group Mehwar-e Mardom-e Afghanistan said the delay was in “clear contravention of article 61 of the constitution and Afghanistan’s election law.” It indicated that only peace could justify a delay, which it considered “an illegal act.” Mehwar called on the government to stop interfering in the IEC’s affairs and to halt all dismissals and appointments of senior government officials. It further stressed that government resources should not be used for election campaigns, necessary reforms should be carried out in the electoral bodies (without specifying what these reforms should look like), and that an online biometric verification system should be implemented in all electoral processes.

The Grand National Coalition, a conglomerate of opposition groups, said it considered the “ambiguous process” of delaying the presidential elections, for whatever reason, unacceptable and concerning. (3) At the same time, it continued to emphasise four principles: full use of technology in the voter registration and on election day; change and reform of the structure of the electoral commissions; a change in the electoral system from SNTV (single non-transferable vote) to MDR (multi-dimensional representation) (see AAN’s background here); and monitoring of the election process by parties and the coalition. The joint committee of political parties issued a similar statement.

Former national security adviser and a presidential candidate Hanif Atmar, who had already been very outspoken in the run-up to the announcement of the delay, called the decision “in contravention of the clarity of the text of the constitution” and said that no “legal and logical justification had been presented for the unexpected delay.” He reiterated his earlier position that holding four elections at the same time was beyond the capacity and capability of the IEC and called on the leadership of the current government to step down after their legal term had expired. (4)

Neither the joint committee of political parties, nor the Grand National Coalition, went as far as Atmar. So far, they have remained silent about the legitimacy of the current government after 22 May. Akhlaqi of Jamiat told AAN on 9 January that, since the constitution does not specify whether the current government can continue after 22 May, – it only stipulates that the government will no longer be legitimate – they would call for a grand political national consensus among the political parties and civil society, supported by the international community, to decide on an alternative. According to him, this could be: 1) continuation of the government, but with a reduction in the president’s authorities, 2) an interim government, or 3) the president stepping down and, for instance, the chief justice taking over the affairs of the state. 

The Independent Commission for Overseeing the Implementation of the Constitution (ICOIC) issued a legal opinion saying that the IEC’s decision was a “clear violation of the constitution” and called on the IEC to “compensate for its inefficiencies in making the necessary arrangements to hold the elections and end the violation of the constitution”  (see here). When asked what the ICOIC wanted the IEC to do, Abdullah Shafayi, a member of the commission, told AAN that the commission had the responsibility to hold those who violate the constitution accountable to the public opinion. Otherwise, he said, “ab rafta ba joy bargardana namesha (what is done cannot be undone).”

In 2009, under former President Hamed Karzai, there had been similar discussions, after the IEC delayed the presidential elections to August of that year, also in contravention of the constitution. At the time, the discussions had included calls for a loya jirga as an alternative to the elections itself; formation of an interim government; and, declaring a state of emergency. The matter was resolved in President Karzai’s favour after the Supreme Court issued an opinion that the continuation of the president’s term was in the interest of the country (see this AAN paper). The issue of delay in this year’s presidential elections may well be settled in a similar fashion, if political forces continue to press for an arrangement for the period between May and July.   

Call for changing the electoral commissioners

In the meantime, elections observers and political parties have been calling for the replacement of the IEC’s commissioners, given the breakdown in management of the 2018 parliamentary elections. FEFA’s Yusuf Rashid told Hasht-e Sobh on 26 December 2018 that, if the members and leadership of the IEC were not changed, the presidential election would be marred by the same problems as the parliamentary election: “The [IEC] is in no way competent [enough] to manage the presidential election” (see here). Similarly, on 7 December, the Alliance of Election Observer Groups for Transparent Elections, a group of six domestic election observer organisations (5), “firmly called on the leadership of the government of Afghanistan to suspend the duty of the [IEC] members and leadership and appoint a special committee of election specialists to supervise the parliamentary elections affairs and put an end to this dilemma, given today’s realities that the [IEC] no longer has the capability to lead and manage an election process” (Dari here and English here). They made the call in the wake of the decision of the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) to completely nullify the Kabul parliamentary vote (see AAN’s reporting here). Although the ECC’s decision was later overturned, the dispute has not gone away, for example, on 22 January, candidates closed the entry gates to Kabul city in protest against the preliminary results of the Kabul vote (media report here).

On 10 January, the Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan (TEFA), another major election observer organisation, also called for dismissal of “all members of the IEC,” saying that the IEC lacked “the required capacity to bring electoral reforms or to hold the upcoming presidential elections.” (see here). Even IEC members seemed to believe they would be changed soon. Maliha Hassan, an IEC commissioner, recently said that “changes to the leadership of the IEC were likely” and that, with a change of faces in the management of the IEC, the election would be successful. 

On 13 January, Vice-President Sarwar Danesh also seemed to indicate changes were coming when he said in a speech: “The electoral commissions must know that the people are running out of patience, and can no longer tolerate the weaknesses and inefficiencies. It is now the duty of the National Unity Government to initiate comprehensive reforms and prevent a further infringement of people’s rights, otherwise, the presidential elections will meet a destiny [even] worse than that of the parliamentary elections.” (see here) 

This raises new questions about the legal procedure to replace the commissioners. According to article 14 of the electoral law, four members of the IEC are appointed for a period of five years and three for a period of three years. This means the term of three current IEC members will only expire in November of this year and the term of three others in November 2021. (See the annex in this AAN’s report here). However, there is a precedent of terminating electoral commissions after every election and before they complete their terms. For example, the previous commissions that had supervised the 2014 elections also had not completed their term and were replaced after the electoral law was amended (as part of the National Unity Government agreement). (see here).

It seems that both the government and political forces are now converging towards an agreement on the need to replace the commissioners. This may be a matter of principle, but it may also simply be the hope – on all sides – to be able to influence the appointment process.

Political parties have, so far, discussed three main ways in which the commissions could be replaced. First, in accordance with the existing electoral law, a selection committee can call for applications, vet the applicants, and submit a shortlist of candidates to the president, who then appoints IEC and ECC members from among them (see earlier AAN reporting here). But since the president himself is seeking re-election, political parties have their doubts about the transparency and neutrality of the existing process. Muhammad Nateqi, the deputy leader of Hezb-e Wahdat-e Mardom-e Afghanistan, called this option “haman ash wa haman kasa” (meaning: the same old story). The second option would be to appoint new commissioners in consultation with political parties and candidates. A third possible option would be to fully outsource the management of the elections to a private company. According to Nateqi, the German company Dermalog, which had also provided the biometric technology for the parliamentary elections, had expressed its willingness to undertake such a venture. It told the parties that had they implemented the technology during the parliamentary poll, they would not have faced the technology failures observed on election days. The political parties, unsurprisingly, prefer the second option.

The government has now started consultations on how to carry out yet another round of electoral reforms, which include changing the commissioners. Rashid from FEFA told AAN that he had been asked for his views and that FEFA was working on a proposal that would allow political parties and election observers to introduce ten people each to the president, from which he could pick four, and that three others would be appointed by the president in consultation with government officials. Head of TEFA, Naim Ayubzada, reported similar meetings with government leaders, in which they discussed replacing both IEC and ECC commissioners; amending the existing mechanism for appointing new commissioners; and holding the commissions accountable for their work. To introduce a new selection mechanism, the president might envisage issuing a new legislative decree while the parliament is on winter recess. 

Other reforms that have been called for include: filling the vacancies with experienced people, cleaning the voter registry and amending regulations and procedures. While the IEC has specified in its electoral calendar that it plans to do a top-up voter registration exercise, the political parties have called for a complete new biometric voter registration with a scan of all ten fingerprints, an eye scan and photos taken either on the election day or before. This may well become a time-consuming controversy. Last year, the political parties effectively threatened to withdraw their support for the parliamentary election and pressured both the IEC and the government into a last minute decision (see AAN’s analysis here) to use biometric voter verification on election day. (For a first-hand AAN account of the ensuing chaos, see here.)

IEC member Rafiullah Bidar had earlier already listed most of these issues, or similar versions of them, as major lessons that the IEC had learned and that, he said, needed to be taken into consideration before conducting the presidential elections. These issues included: the voter list should be reformed, completed and published; new software and programmes should be installed into the biometric devices; IEC offices in the centre and provinces run by acting heads should be reformed [staffed]; polling staff should be trained; and more and better public outreach should be conducted. However, what is important is whether or not the IEC, the government and other political parties will be able to agree on the nuances of the necessary changes. While it is not clear if the parties will stick together on their reform proposals, the way voters should be registered ahead of the next election may well turn into a new point of dispute with consequences for the preparations.

Four elections together or not?

The IEC is currently planning to hold four elections at the same time. It had earlier decided to only hold the presidential elections and the delayed parliamentary election for Ghazni province on 20 April, while holding the provincial and district council elections later in the summer. (6) At the time, Zabihullah Sadat, a deputy spokesman for the IEC, told the media that the IEC, due to low capacity, time constraints and lack of financial resources, would not be able to hold four elections together. The government, however, did not seem to agree. On 21 December 2018, second Vice-President Sarwar Danesh wrote a Facebook post titled “Unknown fate of provincial and district councils, incomplete structure of the Meshrano Jirga and unclear status of the Loya Jirga.” In this piece, Danesh criticised the fact that the dates for the district council or provincial council elections had not been published, adding that the government “had announced to the IEC very clearly that the electoral calendar should be set in a way to complete the government structures after years” and had, therefore, asked the IEC to hold all four elections simultaneously. (7)

Danesh provided the following arguments for the decision to hold all the elections together: it would meet the constitutional provision and complete the national structure of elected bodies, as well as the composition of the Loya Jirga. It would, moreover, decrease the sacrifices of the security forces, lower the election costs, increase both the turnout and the legitimacy of the elected bodies, and make voting easier for the voters, who would only have to come once, instead of every few months.   

Danesh’s post was a bit of a surprise given that, during an earlier event in August 2017, he had openly said he saw no need for district council elections (or village council or municipal council elections), and had argued that four elected institutions (the presidency, Wolesi Jirga, mayoral and provincial councils) were enough. He also said that Afghanistan did not have the money to hold so many elections, the expertise to manage the various elected bodies, or any need for them in terms of democracy and popular will. (See AAN’s previous reporting here)

Although the district councils have no clear function in Afghanistan’s day-to-day government system, they are needed to complete two important institutions: a Constitutional Loya Jirga and the upper house of the parliament – and are, thus, a prerequisite to be able to change the constitution. Not having elected district councils, therefore, could be used as an excuse to reject demands for a Loya Jirga. So, when it was revealed that the IEC, in late July 2018, was proposing a delay in the district council elections, critics like Mohiuddin Mahdi, an MP from Baghlan and a member of Jamiat-e Islami, called this “an antidemocratic decision” of a government taking “pre-emptive action” against the convening of a Loya Jirga to amend and reform the constitution. Some of the presidential candidates, including President Ghani himself and Hanif Atmar, in the meantime, have picked a third, informal (ethnic Uzbek) running-mate (Yusuf Ghazanfar for Ghani and former Jawzjan governor, Alem Sa’i, for Atmar), in addition to the first and second (respectively Tajik and Hazara) vice-presidential candidates. The idea is, presumably at some point, to amend the constitution to create a third vice-presidential post. The move seems motivated by the wish to expand their appeal by including representatives from, in the case of both Ghani and Atmar, the Turk-tabaran (Turkic) community – with the Uzbeks and Turkmens as their largest groups – to join their tickets. 

In practice, a lot remains to be done to ensure inclusive district council elections. SIGAR’s latest quarterly report, published on 30 October 2018, shows that out of Afghanistan’s 407 districts, only 226 districts are under government control (75) or government influence (151); 49 districts are under insurgent control (10) or influence (39). The remaining 132 districts (32.4 per cent of Afghanistan’s districts) are contested. The IEC was not able to register voters in most of the districts controlled by the insurgents and will struggle to hold elections there. 

Peace or elections?

‌Recent United States initiatives to seek a negotiated end to the Afghan war and a withdrawal of its troops from the country, has lent new urgency to the Afghan government’s peace efforts (see AAN’s analysis here). It has also led to discussions in public and private circles as to whether or not the elections should be postponed in favour of peace talks, or how the two processes may help or harm each other. According to media reports, the US administration had wanted to press the Afghan government to postpone the presidential elections, so that peace talks with Taleban could take place first. For instance, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, had raised the idea to push back the poll in talks with “various stakeholders and intermediaries.” On 18 December 2018, the media quoted Taleban officials saying that the US delegation, led by Khalilzad, had pressed “for a six-month truce as well as an agreement to name Taliban representatives to a future caretaker government” during their meetings in Abu Dhabi.

This was later rejected by Khalilzad, who told Ariana News on 20 December 2018: “The question of a plan for the political future of Afghanistan is a question that Afghans should sit together and agree on. We did not say even one or two sentences to them about an interim government or putting off the elections. Some who have negative or vicious goals spread false news to create problems between us and Afghans or the government.” He did, however, say that, in his opinion, it would be better “if an agreement is reached about peace before the elections” – even though he must know how highly unlikely this is. (8)

In a comment issued on 10 January, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs pointed to the US for the delay of the election date, saying: “Everything seems to suggest that the decision to put off the election was made under the United States’ influence, which needs additional time to prepare for holding the upcoming voting in accordance with its patterns and building a peace process in Afghanistan according to its own scenario. … We note that this decision was made despite the repeated assurances by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Afghanistan’s Election Commission concerning the need to strictly adhere to the deadlines for the election announced earlier.” 

Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, however, told the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers on 14 January that the delay had nothing to do with the peace, and that the elections had been postponed due to “technical problems,” which, he said, had been clearly seen in the parliamentary elections, including the fact that the results had not been announced after almost three months. (See media report here). Abdullah further related a funny comment from his friend about the long-drawn-out 2014 presidential elections, who had said: “If Afghanistan had the population of China, the election results would not be announced until doomsday.”

On 20 January, during his registration, President Ghani reacted even more fiercely (see video here), saying “Afghans do not accept an interim government today, tomorrow and a hundred years later. If someone has such stupid ideas, and a few former employees [his deputy spokesperson did not know who he was referring to] whom I refused to accept to be my students have come up with proposal of an interim government, they should think again.” 

Conclusion: will the new election date be met?

With the conclusion of the candidate nomination process for the presidential election, the country has been plunged into a period of excitement and intense activity. The political mobilisation and potential turmoil will last at least until 7 October this year, when, according to the electoral calendar, the final results of the provincial and district elections are scheduled to be announced. 

The responses of political groups and forces, as well as the international community, to the announced delay of the elections illustrate what are to be the likely themes and controversies in the near future. First, the fact that the delay is formally a violation of the constitution – but at the same time, practically inevitable, given the state of the IEC, the chaotic conduct of the last parliamentary election and the fact that they have still not been satisfactorily finalised. Second, the demand that the delay should be used for electoral reform, including the replacement of the electoral commissioners – a demand that has been made after every election, but tends to swiftly get lost in bureaucratic delays and political and legal wrangling. Third, the call by some of the political groups for an interim solution after the constitutional term of the current government expires on 22 May. Where some have called for a limiting of the president’s authorities, others have simply called vaguely for a broad consensus to decide about the matter. 

It is not fully clear what is behind the decision to delay. It does not seem very likely that it was because of the hopes to start peace talks. As Nateqi told AAN, the result of peace talks will probably not be an election, but rather an interim government. Several people have cited practical considerations, such as unfavourable weather conditions that, in some areas, would impede any voter registration exercise ahead of the vote. The need and calls for reforms could be both a reason for the delay, as well as a new battlefield for various factions, candidates and parties inside and outside the government. Experiences from the past have shown there will likely be a tug of war over who controls the appointments to the commissions, especially given that the presidential elections are high-stake. 

The tug-of-war could be between within the government, in particular between President Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah, who are both running, but do not have to resign from their positions (unlike other senior government officials). They may now have an added incentive to want to ensure that ‘their’ people are appointed to key positions (the media have, for instance, already reported that Abdullah and Ghani disagreed over the appointment of the new acting minister of interior, after Amrullah Saleh resigned to join Ghani as his first running-mate). It could also take place between the government and political parties or other candidates. This likely political wrangling may hold back the necessary reforms and, thus, further delay the elections. They could also discredit the elections even before they take place, if reforms are not implemented or implemented half-heartedly. 

Edited by Martine van Bijlert 

(1) The early announcement of the election date on 1 August 2018 was made in response to a call by President Ghani during a meeting in the Palace on 22 July with the IEC, the UN, the EU and a number of ambassadors of countries supporting the elections. The president asked the IEC to “set the presidential election date and share it with the people as soon as possible.” A day before the announcement of the election date, the IEC had held a consultative meeting with the ECC leadership, representatives of political parties, civil society and international organisations, where according to the IEC a “majority” of the participants had agreed with the 20 April 2019 date, but the parties’ agreement with the date might have been an attempt to avoid any blame for a possible delay. 

(2) The presidential term expires on 22 May 2019. According to the electoral law, the election for a new president should be held 30 to 60 days before the expiry date, which is between 22 March and 22 April 2019. Article 71 of the electoral law stipulates that the IEC should announce the election date at least 180 days in advance, and publish the electoral calendar at least 120 days before the election day. This means that the respective deadlines were 22 September to 22 November to announce the date, and 22 October 2018 to 22 December 2018 to publish the electoral calendar. 

(3) The Grand National Coalition was launched on 26 July 2018 as an expansion of the ‘Ankara coalition’ that was formed in June 2017. It also included the New National Front, Mehwar-e Mardom and influential figures from the Greater Kandahar Unity and Coordination Movement and the Eastern Provinces Coordination Council. However, the coalition may have fallen apart, as several of its members have joined different presidential tickets. 

(4) Earlier, on 27 December, Atmar had issued a statement saying that “It seems that the Election Commission under pressure by the government plans to delay the presidential election date which … will lead the country into crisis.” The statement said that he considered any delay illegal and unacceptable and “the beginning of the engineering of the election process by the government.”

(5) The Alliance of Election Observer Groups for Transparent Elections consists of FEFA, Free Watch Afghanistan (FWA), Training Human Rights Association for Afghan Women (THRA), Free Election and Transparency Watch Organisation (FETWO), Elections and Transparency Watch Organisation of Afghanistan (ETWA), and Afghanistan Youths Social and National Organisation.

(6) The IEC had initially planned to hold the district council elections together with the parliamentary elections in October 2018. However, on 29 July 2018, it proposed that they be postponed. The IEC argued that only 40 out of Afghanistan’s 387 districts had an adequate number of candidates to compete. On 27 November, the IEC, in decision number 114-1397 (AAN has seen a copy of it), set the following dates: 20 April 2019 for the presidential elections and parliamentary elections in Ghazni and 30 Sunbula 1398 (21 September 2019) for the provincial and district council elections.

A separate law to regulate the authorities and responsibilities of the councils still has to be approved by parliament and the president. The IDLG had been reportedly holding consultative meetings in different regions of the country on what roles should be codified for district councils. However, since the district council elections were postponed, there is no indication of any progress yet..

(7) Danesh pointed out that the legal term of both the provincial councils and one third of the Meshrano Jirga had already ended, which calls into question the legitimacy of the Meshrano Jirga. Provincial councils are elected for a period of four years, while district councils – which have so far not been established – are to be elected for a period of three years. Two thirds of the Meshrano Jirga’s 102 members are to be elected from among the provincial and district councils. These bodies – and, thus, the electoral processes that elect their members – are particularly relevant for when the government wants to call a Loya Jirga, which according to article 110 of the constitution, comprises of: 1) members of both houses of the national assembly; 2) heads of all provincial councils; and 3) heads of all district councils. 

(8) Tolonews, however, leaked a document by the RAND corporation, a global policy think-tank in the US, titled “Agreement on a Comprehensive Settlement” (AAN has seen a copy of it) that called for the establishment of “a Transitional Government for the 18-month transitional period, including a Transitional Executive with a negotiated by-name list of a Chairman, several Vice Chairmen, and members (rotating chairmanship is suggested in case the parties cannot agree on a single individual to serve as Chairman.” According to Tolonews the document had been shared with several senior Afghan government officials.

Annex: electoral calendars

The IEC has published two calendars: a detailed one also covering the remaining activities linked to the parliamentary elections, and a shortened version dealing only with the presidential elections. Original can be found here.

Calendar 1: Electoral calendar, also including the remaining activities for the parliamentary elections

 ActivityStartEnd Duration1Election Calendar Publication31 December 201831 December 2018 12Wolesi Jirga Elections finalisation – Result announcement23 November 20187 January 2018 483Lessons Learned Workshops HQ and PEOs – Identification of key activities in preparation for the next elections15 December 201831 December 2018 17 4Recruitment for vacant posts – completion of taskhil posts HQ and field offices1 January 201931 March 2019 595Capacity building plan and training for newly hired staff1 February 201931 March 2019 596Development and approval of public outreach plan for top-up voter registration1 January 31 January 2019 31 7Implementation of public outreach plan for top-up voter registration1 January 201931 March 2019 59 8Operations plan and budget finalisation (including NUG and IC funding commitment)20 January 201920 January 2019 19Possible legislative changes required (ie Gahzni elections)31 January 20191 February 2019 210BVV assessment/procurement or introduction of other new technologies1 January 20191 February 2019TBC32 11Security – PC assessment; commitment from ANDSF to electoral timeline1 January 20191 February 2019 3212Socialisation and agreement on readiness report by key stakeholders30 June 201930 June 2019  13Voter list cleaning1 January 201910 March 2019TBC69 14Voter registration update1 March 201920 March 2019 2015Voter registration update Ghazni1 March 201931 March 2019 3116Public display of voters list for review for correction1 March 201931 March 2019 3117Publication of preliminary voter list10 April 201910 April 2019IEC118Objections against the preliminary voter list10 April 201913 April 2019419Corrections on preliminary voters list10 April 201913 April 2019420 Complaints against exhibition and correction process10 April 201927 April 2010ECC1821Candidate nomination Presidential22 December 201820 January 2019 3022Verification of candidate documents – presidential 21 Jaunary 20194 February 2019 1523Publication of preliminary list of candidates5 February 20195 February 2019 124ECC vetting process5 February 201922 March 2019 4625ECC submission of decision (s) to IEC23 March 201923 March 201933+14126Challenges and appeals to preliminary list of candidates5 February 201922 March 2019 4627Candidate withdrawal final date23 March 201923 March 2019 128Ballot lottery 25 March 201925 March 2019 129 Publication of final list of candidates26 March 201926 March 2019 130Candidate nomination PC-DC-Ghazni1 March 201915 March 2019 1531Verification of candidate documents- PC- DC- Ghazni2 March 201921 March 2019 2032ECC vetting process22 March 20196 May 2019 4633ECC submission of decision(s) to IEC29 April 201929 April 2019 134Challenges and appeals to preliminary list of candidates22 March 20196 May 201933+144635Publication of preliminary list of candidates22 March 201922 March 2019 136Candidate withdrawal final date6 May 20196 May 2019 137Ballot lottery 7 May 20197 May 2019 138Publication of final list of candidates7 May 20197 May 2019 139Finalisation of polling centres list by security 20 April 201920 April 2019 140Establishment of media committee1 March 20191 August 2019 15441Accreditation of observers and candidate agents10 January 201910 May 2019 12142Publishing final voter list 1 May 20191 May 2019 143Generation and printing of ballots- arrival of sensitive material at the IEC1 May 201917 June 2019 48 44Presidential campaign period19 May 201917 July 2019 60 45District council and Ghazni WJ campaign period3 July 201917 July 2019 1546Provincial council campaign period28 June 201917 July 2019 2047Sensitive material packing18 June 20192 July 2019 1448Movement of sensitive material from HQ to provincial offices20 June 20194 July  1449Movement of sensitive material from provincial offices to polling centres4 July 19 July 2019 1550Silence period18 July 201919 July 2019 251Submission of compliants on campaign period19 May 201917 July 2019 6052Polling daySaturday, 20 July 2019Saturday, 20 July 2019 153Recording of challenges about E-day for presidential and provincial elections20 July 201921 July 2019ECC254Processing challenges about E-day presidential and provincial, district and Ghazni WJ elections20 July 201921 August 2019ECC3355ECC submission of final decision22 August 201922 August 2019ECC156Tabulation of votes20 July 20199 August 2019 2057Announcement of presidential preliminary results 10 August 201910 August 2019 158Recording of challenges about the preliminary presidential results10 August 201911 August 2019ECC259Processing of challenges about the preliminary presidential results10 August 201912 September 2019ECC3360ECC submission of final decision 13 September 201913 September 2019ECC161Announcement of final presidential results14 September 201914 September 2019 162Announcement of preliminary provincial and district council and Ghazni WJ results1 September 20191 September 2019 163Recording of challenges about the preliminary provincial and district council and Ghazni WJ results2 September 20193 September 2019ECC264Processing of challenges about the preliminary provincial and district council and Ghazni WJ results3 September 20195 October 2019ECC3365ECC submission of final decision6 October 20196 October 2019ECC166Announcement of final provincial and district council and Ghazni WJ results 7 October 20197 October 2019 167Presidenetial second round (probable) (1)    

Calendar 2: Electoral calendar for the presidential elections – shortened version

 ActivityStartEndDuration1Voter registration update1 March 201920 March 2019202Voter registration update Ghazni1 March 201931 March 2019313Public display of voters list for review for correction1 March 201931 March 2019314Candidate Nomination Presidential22 December 201920 January 2019305Publication of preliminary list of candidates5 February 20195 February 201916ECC vetting process5 February 201922 March 2019467ECC submission of decision (s) to IEC23 March 201923 March 201918Challenges and appeals to preliminary list of candidates5 February 201922 March 2019469Candidate withdrawal final date23 March 201923 March 2019110Ballot lottery 25 March 201925 March 2019111Publication of final list of candidates26 March 201926 March 2019112Candidate nomination PC-DC-Ghazni1 March 201915 March 20191513Publication of preliminary list of candidates22 March 201922 March 2019114ECC vetting process22 March 20196 May 20194615ECC submission of decision(s) to IEC29 April 201929 April 2019116Challenges and appeals to preliminary list of candidates22 March 20196 May 20194617Candidate withdrawal final date6 May 20196 May 2019118Ballot lottery 7 May 20197 May 2019119Publication of final list of candidates7 May 20197 May 2019120Accreditation of observers and candidate agents10 January 201910 May 201912121Publishing final voter list 1 May 20191 May 2019122Presidential campaign period19 May 201917 July 201960 23District council and Ghazni WJ campaign period3 July 201917 July 20191524Provincial council campaign period28 June 201917 July 20192025Polling daySaturday, 20 July 2019Saturday, 20 July 2019126Tabulation of votes20 July 20199 August 20192027Announcement of presidential preliminary results 10 August 201910 August 2019128Recording of challenges about the preliminary presidential results10 August 201911 August 2019229Processing of challenges about the preliminary presidential results10 August 201912 September 20193330ECC submission of final decision 13 September 201913 September 2019131Announcement of final presidential results14 September 201914 September 2019132Announcement of preliminary provincial and district council and Ghazni WJ results1 September 20191 September 2019133Recording of challenges about the preliminary provincial and district council and Ghazni WJ results2 September 20193 September 2019234Processing of challenges about the preliminary provincial and district council and Ghazni WJ results3 September 20195 October 20193335ECC submission of final decision6 October 20196 October 2019136Announcement of final provincial and district council and Ghazni WJ results 7 October 20197 October 20191

American Columbia Class Ballistic Missile Submarine

There has been a fresh attack on civilians by armed men whom the victims’ family and the Paktia provincial governor’s spokesman have said were from the Khost Protection Force, an irregular militia supported by the CIA. A survivor of the attack carried out in Surkai village in Zurmat district, in Paktia province, described to AAN how five men in his family, including three university students, and a neighbour, were summarily executed and how he was questioned by an American in uniform accompanying the Afghan gunmen. The Paktia governor’s spokesman has also confirmed that ‘foreign troops’ were involved in the operation (and the US military spokesman has said the US military was not involved). As AAN Co-Director, Kate Clark, reports, the incident raises yet again the unaccountability of such forces and the impunity with which they act. It also raises the question of motive – this particular family was a bulwark against Haqqani influence in Zurmat.

What happened in Zurmat

On the night of 30 December 2018, Ghulam Muhammad told AAN he was at home in the large compound he shared with his brother, Naim Faruqi, in the village of Surkai, in Zurmat.

I was listening to the ten o’ clock news on the radio. I thought I heard a drone, then, I was not sure – did they make the hole with a bomb or a rocket? – in any case, [a detonation] left a hole in the [compound] wall. I understood this was a raid, as I have seen many before… Then, there was shouting that no-one should move or turn on the lights.

Uniformed men with night vision goggles and head-mounted lights had forced their way into his home.  “When they came into my room,” he said, “I stuck my hands up.” He said one of the girls of the house who is disabled cried out in Pashto and the men said they would not harm her as they took him outside. From the room came the sound of a muffled shot. He would later learn his younger brother, Sayid Hassan, had been shot dead.

With the armed Afghans, he said, was an American who asked, via a translator, if Ghulam Muhammad knew the Taleban commander, ‘Sargardan’. He said he told the American that there was no one by that name in Paktia or Paktika. The name is indeed strange. Then, he said the American told him Commander Sargardan had come to the house the previous day and sat with his brother. Ghulam Muhammad said he had been trying to explain how the previous day he had met someone very different, the “tough anti-Taleban” border commander from neighbouring Matakhan district of Khost province, Commander Wadud. Ghulam Muhammad said they had discussed security and he had suggested to Wadud there should be a checkpost in his area – evidence, presumably, that he and his household could not possibly be a threat or supporting the insurgency. He said the American had been listening to this conversation when he asked about the commander.

According to Ghulam Muhammad, the men of the house were separated into different groups. One of the armed Afghans revealed they had orders to kill him, but instead, he was going to spare him. Saying “Pray for me, as I am saving you,” he sent Ghulam Muhammad to a ruined building nearby, telling him to wait there. He waited a long time, until concern over one daughter with a heart problem sent him back to the house. 

I heard her voice [so knew she was alright]. When I got into the house, I went to my room and saw that Sayid Hassan had been killed. I went to the guest room and found Atiqullah and Fath al-Rahman, also dead. [In another room] were Naim and Karim, both killed – one of my nieces, the daughter of Naim, was with them. Naim was sat on the floor – he had been shot in the eye. Karim had been shot in the mouth and his face was destroyed…

The wolf from the mountains doesn’t carry out such actions. They shot them in the eyes and mouths, where the women were sitting, a mother was sitting. I can’t explain… And those young people, they were the future of Afghanistan, students at university. 

Later, at around 1.30 am, a phone call came – it was the son of a neighbour, Muhammad Omar. He said his father had been martyred. Then, at dawn, Ghulam Muhammad said, neighbours came with lanterns.

In all, six men had been killed: Naim Faruqi and Sayid Hassan (Ghulam Muhammad’s brothers), Muhammad Karim (his son and Naim’s son-in-law), Fath al-Rahman and Atiqullah (Naim’s sons) and Muhammad Omar, a farmer and neighbour of Naim. Ghulam Muhammad had five bodies to prepare for burial.

In our culture, the bodies of martyrs do not have to be washed… But Islam says that if someone says a word after they have been wounded [and before they die] then they must be washed. We had not seen the martyrs die, [so we didn’t know if they had said anything]. So we agreed that, to be careful, we should bathe them.

The funerals, however, were delayed. The family decided to go with the bodies to the governor. They could have gone to see the governor either of Paktika where they believed the armed men had come from, or their own province, Paktia. They chose their own provincial capital, Gardez, said Ghulam Muhammad:

We decided that ten cars should go. But when people got to hear of it, 100 vehicles came. The deputy governor [Alhaj Abdul Wali Sahi] met us on the steps and told us that he understood a terrible thing has been done. We have no response for you. This was oppression.

A later delegation went to see the Paktia governor himself, Shamim Katawazi who, Ghulam Muhammad reported, was hostile. He fully defended the operation and criticised the people of Zurmat for, he said, not resisting the Taleban. Ghulam Muhammad said the governor also told him there was a ‘kill list’ of 16 other men and he was on it. The governor’s spokesman denied the governor had said this or that the Khost Protection Force has a kill list.

A government investigation team from Kabul, including head of the Senate security commission Hashim Alakozai has visited the house. The Paktia governor’s spokesman also told AAN that the provincial authorities, including the deputy governor, local NDS and other security institutions were also investigating. As of now, nothing has been reported back to the family or the public.

Who was killed

The brothers, Naim Faruqi and Ghulam Muhammad, had seen many night raids, more than one hundred, since 2001. Both had been commanders with the mujahedin faction, Harakat-e Enqelab-e Islami, fighting the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, and the third brother, Sayid Hassan, a younger man had been a junior commander in the later stages of the war. After the PDPA government of Dr Najibullah lost power to the mujahedin in 1992, Naim became district governor of Zurmat and Ghulam Muhammad became the district police chief, staying on in these posts when the Taleban captured Paktia in 1995. Many Harakatis, including the sub-faction the brothers belonged to, led by Mawlawi Nasrullah Mansur, joined the Taleban (see AAN reporting here), so the fact that the brothers kept their posts under the Taleban government was unremarkable. After 2001, however, they were among the many civilians caught up in the madness of the campaigns of mass arbitrary arrests carried out by the United States military and CIA in the first two years of the intervention.

Those detained in Zurmat and sent to the US prison camp in Guantanamo (many more were sent to Bagram or held locally) ranged from prominent elders and mullahs to criminals to a twelve year old boy, a victim of bacha bazi. They included reconciled Taleban, those who had opposed (and been jailed and tortured) by the Taleban when the movement was in power, and men who had tried to stand up to the corrupt provincial government officials appointed by President Karzai and then defence minister Marshall Qasim Fahim in 2001. Details of these detentions can be read in Anand Gopal’s book “No Good Men Among The Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes” (pages 133-139). Details of the disastrous government appointments and ensuing corruption and abuses that fed rebellion and insurgency can be found in this AAN dispatch, “2001 Ten Years on (3): The fall of Loya Paktia and why the US preferred warlords”. 

Those sent from Zurmat to Guantanamo included Naim Faruqi, as Gopal writes:

Commander Naim was an eminent tribal elder who had been elected security chief of Zurmat following the Russian departure, stayed on through the Taliban years, and was reelected in 2002. An ardent supporter of the Americans and one of the most popular figures in Zurmat, he nonetheless discovered one day that some men under his command had been detained by US troops. When Naim showed up to ask why, he, too, was arrested, blindfolded, and handcuffed. “They stripped me naked, out in the open, where everyone could see,” he told a reporter. “I was thinking that these are infidels who have come to a Muslim country to imprison us, just like the Russians.” Taken from one base to the next, Naim eventually found himself shackled in the wire-mesh cages of Kandahar Airfield. “We were without hope because we were innocent,” he recalled. “I was very sad because I could not see my children, family, friends. But what could we do?” 

Naim suspected that a rival, Mullah Qasim, had given false information to the Americans and got him detained (see also documentation from Guantanamo). Such false tip-offs, made by Afghans for money or to get the US military and CIA to target their personal rivals were common in this era. Naim was eventually assessed as “neither affiliated with al-Qaeda nor being a Taliban leader” and as not posing “a future threat to the U.S. or U.S. interests.” He was recommended for release on 18 January 2003 and transferred to Afghan custody, and, Gopal writes, finally released “following intense tribal pressure.” Sources in Paktia said Karzai offered Naim the Zurmat district governorship after his release, but he declined, saying that, having lost everything, he did not want to be further involved, and that the government and the people of Zurmat should adhere to a policy of mutual non-interference.

Naim was detained, yet again, in 2010 and this time taken to the US detention camp north of Kabul at Bagram airfield, as Gopal describes:

[In 2010], Naim attended a meeting with the governor to discuss how they could convince insurgents to come in from the cold and support the government. Upon leaving, he was arrested by American special forces. Angry protests swept the province, and merchants carried out a three-day general strike in his support. 

Naim was in Bagram for more than two years. Ghulam Mohammad and Sayid Hassan (the other brother killed on 30 December) were also both jailed in Bagram, in 2002, for two and three years respectively.

‘Naim Faruqi’s is a well-known, landowning family. A sign of their standing in the province is that Ghulam Muhammad was one of Paktia’s representatives to the Emergency Loya Jirga of 2002. The process of selecting and electing these representatives was easily the cleanest exercise in democracy Afghans have experienced since 2001 with the majority of those sent to Kabul genuinely popular and representative (see AAN reporting here). Throughout the years, despite the raids and detention, Naim maintained relations with the provincial authorities and participated in jirgas. One source said he had been due to see Paktia’s governor Shamim Katawazaithe week after his death. None of those killed in the raid were combatants. If the authorities had wanted to question any of them, they could have asked them to come to Gardez. 

Killing civilians is, of course, a war crime. Even if it was not, politically and militarily, the killing of these six men makes no sense. In a province like Paktia where the Haqqani network is powerful, such families as Naim’s, with their strong background in the anti-Soviet jihad and standing in the community provide a bulwark against the insurgents – not just politically, but also militarily.

Naim and his brothers, the older Ghulam Muhammad and the late Sayed Hassan, have repeatedly blocked Haqqani expansion from the network’s base to the south in the Shahi Kot highlands area of Zurmat district. There were clashes five years ago between the brothers and other local men, and Sulaimanzai Kuchis whom, Paktian sources said, had been armed and supported by the Haqqanis. The Kuchis were claiming government land on the western side of the Shahikot escarpment (between Sahawza and Shahikot). The Zurmatis interpreted this as an attempt by the Haqqanis capture their area and extend the Haqqanis’ sphere from Shahikot deeper into Zurmat. They forcibly expelled the Kuchis. 

Later, there were demands for transit ‘rights’ through the Zurmat valley by the Haqqanis and their allies, who locals call ‘Kafkazis’, often translated as ‘Chechens’, but more accurately Muslims from the north Caucasus or, even more broadly, former Soviet Union (see earlier AAN work on the difficulty of defining ‘Chechen’ during the Afghan war (here and here). The foreign fighters, members of al-Qaeda, have established bases in Shahi Kot and, with the Haqqanis, wanted to be able to travel through Zurmat and on to Gardez and potentially Kabul. Naim and his brothers rejected this, on the basis that it was their territory and that no one had the right to enter or operate in it but them, and they did not want their area further affected by the conflict or the Haqqanis expanding. In the summer of 2017, AAN was told, the foreign fighters established a post near Surdiwal on the junction linking Shahikot, Nek, Surkai and Gardez. The Zurmatis set up three posts to block them. They refused to move and the Zurmatis attacked, with men lost on both sides and the Haqqanis and foreign fighters forced to retreat. There were similar clashes in the summer of 2019 with again the Haqqanis and their allies withdrawing. 

All this makes the motive behind the killing of Naim and his family members and neighbour baffling. The KPF and the CIA, counter-insurgency forces bent on battling the Haqqanis, have succeeded in aiding their enemies. Also, when considering the future of places like Zurmat and Paktia, the loss of the three sons, all at university, is troubling. Zurmat is a conservative province and most families send their sons to the local madrassa to get educated. Naim and Gul Muhammad were from the small handful of families sending their boys to college. In a country where the cultural and political split between modern and madrassa education is sharp, killing off university students who are the sons of traditional madrassa-educated men undermines future hopes for social reconciliation.

The victims

1. Naim Faruqi

Around 60 years old, former front commander with Haraqat-e Enqelab and district governor of Zurmat.

2. Sayid Hassan

Mid-40s, brother of Faruqi and Ghulam Muhammad, a businessman. He had served as Harakat commander in the latter stages of the fight against the Soviet army and PDPA government. During Rabbani’s mujahedin government (1992-1996), he was head of an intelligence unit (qeta-ye kashf)in the Gardez Army Corps. 

3. Muhammad Karim

Son-in-law of Naim Faruqi and son of Ghulam Muhammad. In his twenties. Student in his fourth year at Gardez university. 

4. Fath al-Rahman 

Son of Naim. In his twenties. Student in third year of Khost university.

5 Attiqullah

Son of Naim, In his twenties, student at the Sharia faculty, University in Khost. 

6. Muhammad Omar,  a farmer and neighbour of Naim.

Who carried out the killings?

The armed men who came to Naim’s house were uniformed and well-equipped. They were accompanied by a foreigner who spoke English and asked questions through an interpreter. Ghulam Muhammad said he had been told by one of his sons in Sharana, the provincial capital of neighbouring Paktika, that a convoy of 50 vehicles had come from there that evening. The family believe the armed men who carried out the raid were from the Khost Protection Force (KPF) which is under nominal NDS command, and operates with CIA support out of its base in Camp Chapman in Khost province. It also has battalions, AAN was told, in Sharana and Gardez. (1) The Paktia Governor’s spokesman, Abdullah Hasrat, confirmed to AAN that those carrying out the operation were from the Khost Protection Force and also that “foreign troops” were involved. The US military spokesman, David Butler, told AAN that US military personnel were not involved in this operation. 

The allegation is reasonable, that the KPF carried out the killings, and also that the American accompanying them was from the CIA. Allegations against the Khost Protection Force are longstanding and include extrajudicial killing, torture, beating and unlawful detentions. The occasional presence of CIA personnel or ‘Americans’ or ‘foreigners’ when atrocities have been carried out has also been alleged before.

The KPF is a ‘campaign force’, one of the Afghan militias established after 2001 under international (usually CIA or US special forces) control. Other examples include the Kandahar Strike Force and Paktika’s Afghan Security Guards. The Khost Protection Force emerged out of the 25th Division of the ‘Afghan Military Forces’, the term used to describe the various Afghan armed forces that came under formal Ministry of Defence command in 2001 and 2002 and received US funding. This was before the creation of the Afghan National Army. The Afghan Military Forces encompassed a wide range of militias and forces drawn from the Northern Alliance and those loyal to pro-US Pashtun commanders. The 25th Division in Khost was unusual in that it had a high proportion of former members of the PDPA army, from the party’s Khalqi wing, including its commander, General Khialbaz who is from Khost’s Zazi Maidan district.The 25thDivision was spared Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) because of its good links to the CIA, although Khialbaz claimed to this author in 2004 it was because of its success as a “non-partisan grouping.” Over the years, accusations against the KPF have been numerous and their modus operandiconsistent:

In 2014,UNAMA found that five detainees who had been arrested by the Khost Protection Force together with international military forces and detained at the US Camp Chapman basein Khost had been subjected to ill-treatment. 

In December 2015, The Washington Post  and New York Times both reported allegations against the KPF of killing civilians, torture, questionable detentions, arbitrary arrests and the use of excessive force in night raidsand the presence of what the papers called “American advisors.” The Washington Post described a raid carried out in October 2015 similar to that which was carried out on Naim Faruqi’s house.

“When my father opened the gate, they shot him dead,” recalled [Darwar] Khan, who was inside the house at the time. “Then, they tossed a grenade into the compound, killing my mother.” His father was a farmer. His mother was a homemaker… (2)

UNAMA’s 2016 mid-year report cited particular concerns about the number of civilian casualties caused by the Khost Protection Force.

In 2018, UNAMA, in its third quarterly report into the protection of civilians, again named the Khost Protection Force, along with NDS Special Forces, which are also backed by the CIA and operate outside formal ANSF command.

In the first nine months of 2018, UNAMA documented 222 civilian casualties (178 deaths and 44 injured) caused during search operations by Pro-Government Forces, more than double the number recorded during the same period in 2017. UNAMA attributed 143 civilian casualties (124 deaths and 19 injured) to search operations involving National Directorate of Security (NDS) Special Forces, either alone or partnered with international military forces. 

UNAMA said it had also received “consistent, credible accounts of intentional destruction of civilian property, illegal detention, and other abusescarried out by NDS Special Forces and pro-Government armed groups, including the Khost Protection Force.” 

Most recently, in December 2018, The New York Times reported how ‘campaign forces’ including NDS special forces and the Khost Protection Force were leaving “a trail of abuse and anger.” The newspaper reported the a night raid on a house in Nader Shah Kot in Khost province by the KPF in which two men and a woman were allegedly shot deadand the house burned down, within it a three year old girl who burned to death.

Lack of accountability

It has proved impossible for Afghans to hold forces like the KPF and NDS special forces to account. This is due partly to their murky chains of command and partly to the power and secrecy of their backer, the CIA. 

UNAMA has highlighted both issues. In 2018, for example, it said:

These forces are of particular concern as many of them appear to operate outside of the Afghan National Security Forces’ chain of command, resulting in a lack of clear oversight and accountability given the absence of clearly defined jurisdiction for the investigation of any allegations against them.

It has called for the KPF’s integration into regular ANSF “with clear reporting lines to the Government and that jurisdiction for the investigation of any allegations against them are clearly defined in law.” (see here). Until such time as these forces are regularised, it said “their activities are contrary to the laws of Afghanistan and the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.”

In its third quarterly report for 2018, UNAMA mentioned the problems it was facing just trying to talk to NDS special forces and the KPF and their backers: “The mission urges NDS and international military forces working with NDS Special Forces to provide a point of contact through which UNAMA may engage with these groups.” Humanitarian agencies working in Khost have also faced similar problems trying to get the sort of protocols they have with other parties to the conflict so that, for example, they can get through KPF checkpoints or have a point of contact if something goes wrong. 

Yet, the problem is not only with the KPF’s murky chain of command, but also the secrecy with which its backer operates. Since late 2001, the CIA has operated out of the Ariana Hotel, between the Presidential Palace and the US Embassy and NATO/US military headquarters. Unlike the US military, it can not be contacted by Afghan MPs or their constituents, the media or NGOs. Again, unlike the military which publishes its training and legal manuals, we do not know whether agency operatives get training in the Laws of Armed Conflict or are disciplined for breaching them. The only monitoring of the CIA is in the United States and is domestic, through the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. Moreover, different US legislation governs the CIA and the military. The CIA, as opposed to the military, has extensive license to run secret programmes and the government is legally restricted from providing information about them. This has also meant the NDS is excluded from monitoring by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), one of its officials told AAN, because its funding comes from the CIA. The agency is also not subject to human rights vetting procedures under America’s Leahy Law, which proscribes the use of American taxpayer dollars to assist, train or equip any foreign military or police unit perpetrating gross human rights violations. (See AAN reporting on the use of this law against the late General Razeq, former police chief of Kandahar province and reporting on the CIA in Afghanistan (here  and here).

What happens next?

In the early years of the intervention, hubris and ignorance led to many civilians being targeted, detained and tortured by the CIA and its allies (as well as by the US military) for unfathomable reasons. One would assume those days were long over. Yet, the reported presence of an American at the house where the six civilians were killed on 30 December 2018 suggests this was not the work of a ‘rogue group’, but authorised. From a counter-insurgency standpoint, the killings in Zurmat make no sense whatsoever; they will hamper attempts to curb Haqqani influence in Zurmat district. The killings look to be the consequence of bad intelligence and the lack of even rudimentary knowledge of provincial politics and military history. They are also the consequence of the secrecy and lack of accountability surrounding both the CIA and the Khost Protection Forces, which make abuses and breaches of the Laws of War more likely to happen. 

Who ordered these killings and why needs to be investigated and those responsible held to account. Also, of immediate concern to civilians in the province is the suggestion that the KPF is operating a ‘kill list’. If Afghans are not to fear more extrajudicial killings from this and similar forces in their country, there needs to be a full, public and judicial investigation into the deaths of the six men in Surkai village on 30 December. 

(1) As well as the KPF having a record of committing extrajudicial killings, one friend of the family from Zurmat said that, while he was sitting with elders from Sharana, received a call from someone identifying himself as the “secretary of Tanai,” presumed to be Nemat Tanai, commander of the KPF. He reportedly warned the elders not to hold the large memorial service they were planning and said there were 12 more people from Ghulam Muhammad’s family who should be eliminated (“Bayed gilim jam shawa”).

(2) Darwar told the Post he was taken with his brother to Camp Chapman where he was “interrogated by Afghans, but Americans fingerprinted him and scanned his eyes, communicating with him through an interpreter.” His uncle who lived next door appeared to have been the target of the raid. He bought and sold Kalashnikov rifles, his relatives said, “hardly the high-level type of suspect the CIA typically targets,” reported the Post. He was also detained and was still unaccounted for when the Post reported the raid two months later. 

(3) The killing of Naim Faruqi brings to mind the targeted killing of another civilian who had huge potential for peace-making, but was tarred by his having been a pre-2001 Taleban commander, Zabet Amanullah. He was killed while campaigning as an agent for his nephew in the 2010 parliamentary elections in Takhar province. Our granular investigation revealed the extent of the bad intelligence behind the targeting.

The main objective of the hearing is to identify human rights challenges and best practices related to EU security policies in third countries.
The focus of the current European external security agenda is mainly the fight against terrorism, organised crime and cybercrime as well as border management. However, more consideration of human security is needed, as outlined by the UNDP's 1994 Human Development Report, including the threat posed by interpersonal violence, especially gender-based violence. This hearing will therefore widen the focus to human rights and human security as an integral part of security policy.
Location : ASP 3G3 BRUSSELS
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Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

EDA’s Governmental Satellite Communications (GOVSATCOM) Pooling and Sharing demonstration project (GSC Demo) entered its execution phase this Tuesday 15 January with the first meeting of the Project Arrangement Management Group taking place in Madrid.

This means that the project is now ready to provide GOVSATCOM services to meet the GOVSATCOM demands of Member States and European CSDP actors through pooled capabilities (bandwidth/power and/or services) provided by contributing Member States. This governmental pooled capability is set up to provide satellite communication (SATCOM) resources that cannot be obtained on the commercial market with sufficient level of guaranteed access and security.  The GSC Demo corresponds  responds to an existing need and is fully in line with the revised 2018 Capability Development Plan and its related EU Defence Capability Priorities. It has also to be seen in the light of the ongoing efforts within the European Union to establish an EU GOVSATCOM within the EU’s next space programme. Furthermore, the GSC Demo project also complements EDA’s EU Satcom Market project, already in place since 2012, which provides commercially available SATCOM and CIS services in an efficient and effective manner. 

Today’s milestone was achieved after intensive work done since June 2017 to establish a Project Arrangement. Under the leadership of Spain, all 15 contributing EDA Member States of the project (Spain, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Greece, France, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom) accepted the Project Arrangement as baseline for mutual support and collaboration. Norway, which has signed an Administrative Arrangement with the Agency, is also contributing to the project.

EDA Chief Executive Jorge Domecq, who attended today’s meeting in Madrid, stated: “The role of satellite communication in a European strategic autonomy perspective cannot be overstated. I am pleased to say that EDA has played its part in facilitating SATCOM solutions for the EU for some time and in an incremental fashion that has proved quite successful. This GSC Demo project together with the Agency’s EU SatCom Market project underlines the importance of SATCOM and confirms the priority that has been granted to this capability during the most recent revision of the Capability Development Plan".

Major General Salvador Alvarez Pascual, the Deputy Director of Programs in the Spanish Ministry of Defence, said:  "Now it is time to start this project which is the result of significant work of experts from different nations. Spain will face the chairmanship of the Project Arrangement Management Group with confidence to have a good cooperation. The project will fulfill our common objectives and targets and provides the ideal opportunity to test its governance“.
 

Background

Reliable, stable and secure communications are crucial in any CSDP mission and operation. Yet, terrestrial network infrastructures are not available everywhere, for instance in areas hit by natural disasters, at sea, in the air or in hostile zones. SATCOM can be the solution: rapidly deployable, flexible and distance insensitive, SATCOM can offer communication links where terrestrial networks are damaged, overloaded or non-existent.

However, access to SATCOM cannot be taken for granted at any time, especially not when governmental users require them at short notice and without pre-arranged agreements. In situations of high demand, competition with other users of commercial SATCOM capacities creates a risk of non-availability and high costs. Against this backdrop, EU leaders decided in 2013 that there was a need for a new solution combining the advantages of commercial and military satellite systems in order to address both civil and military needs through European cooperation. The European Defence Agency, in collaboration with the European Commission and the European Space Agency, since then is preparing the next generation of GOVSATCOM. 

GOVSATCOM is seen as a capability that is placed in between the commercial satellite communication market and the highly protected military satellite communication capability.

The project originates from an EDA Steering Board decision of November 2013 which tasked EDA to pursue its work on GOVSATCOM coordination with Member States, the European Commission and the European Space Agency in order to propose a comprehensive programme for Member States who wish to participate. After a sound preparatory work, the aforementioned EDA Member States decided in June 2017 to establish the GSC Demo project and intensify their collaboration in GOVSATCOM.

Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

Chinese JL-3 Submarine-Launched Intercontinental Ballistic Missile

A new local defence force is being mobilised in Afghanistan. The establishment of the Afghan National Army Territorial Force was announced by President Ashraf Ghani in April 2018. Careful consideration has gone into its design, with safeguards built in to try to avoid the pitfalls associated with previous locally-recruited forces, such as the Afghan Local Police. AAN Co-Director Kate Clark (with input from Erica Gaston and Ali Yawar Adili) has been speaking to some of those involved in setting up the new force. In this dispatch, she looks at what the Territorial Force is and whether it will be better than its predecessors in protecting local people and holding territory, and not being co-opted by strongmen or factional interests. She reports that haste to get ‘boots on the ground’ over the summer has already led to an expansion of the Territorial Force before pilots were evaluated. She also looks in detail at the Territorial Force companies now being set up Jaghori in Ghazni province. 

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.

A translation of the as yet unpublished decree authorising the new force appears in an annex to this dispatch.

1. What is the Afghan Territorial Force (ANA TF)?

The Afghan National Army Territorial Force (ANA TF) (quwat-ha-ye manteqawi urdu-e milli-ye afghanistan) (also referred to in Persian as the ‘territorial army’ or urdu-e manteqawi) is a new local defence force currently being mobilised under the Ministry of Defence as part of the Afghan National Army (ANA). Each company (tolai) draws soldiers from a particular district but is led by officers from outside that district who are already serving in the regular ANA or who are in the ANA reserves. The aim is for the Territorial Force to eventually be 36,000 strong.

The ANA TF was authorised by presidential decree (a copy of which is in an annex) in February 2018. The initial aim was for a pilot phase in eight to ten locations and, after evaluation, for it to roll out to a phase 1 with as many as 48 districts (discussed below) and then a phase 2. President Ghani announced the establishment of the Territorial Force on 5 March 2018, recruitment was reported to have begun on 15 April and the training of the first 370 “cadets” at the Kabul Military Training Centre reported on 11 June.

2. Why was a local defence force felt to be necessary?

Despite the many pitfalls associated with local defence forces – see the next Q&A for detail on this – international forces and the Afghan government have kept returning to them because when they work, they work extremely well, producing determined fighters with local knowledge who protect the civilians in their areas and often stand their ground more than regular troops because they have nowhere else to retreat to. (See AAN case studies in Yahyakhel, Paktika and Shajoy. As AAN detailed in “Enemy Number 1: How the Taleban deal with the ALP and uprising groups”, this has made them more feared and hated by the Taleban than regular Afghan forces or even foreign troops. Equally significant is that local forces are cheaper to mobilise and support. 

As to the ANA TF specifically, Ministry of Defence (MoD) sources told AAN the idea for it came out of brainstorming between President Ghani and the then commander of NATO and United States forces in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson and was an attempt to address four key issues: 

1. 1) Supporting ANA forces at current levels is not financially sustainable in the long-run or by the government of Afghanistan. (1)
2. 2) The need to free up regular ANA for offensive, not defensive/hold operations, something which, in turn, should mean Afghan special forces are less stretched. (2)
3. 3) The need to address ANA recruitment gaps and retention issues, including the hope that Pashtuns from the south and east might be more willing to serve if they could stay in their home areas. 
4. 4) The need to leverage local knowledge and expertise. As one Ministry of Defence official put it, regular ANA “keep walking into traps that a normal villager wouldn’t.” 

Also at issue was continuing United States dissatisfaction with the Afghan Local Police (ALP), which is currently about 28,000 strong (see page 102 of the latest SIGAR report). The US is the sole funder of the ALP and, as AAN has written, has put significant pressure on it to reform and address allegations of abuse, misconduct and graft. Even so, in the face of continued US Congressional scrutiny and criticism from many sides, the US had been poised to cut funding to it by the end of 2017. Dislike of the ALP is not directly related to the ANA TF mobilisation, but a significant impetus seems to have been to channel US ALP funds into a more accountable and fit-for-purpose local force programme.

3. Why was setting up a new local defence force controversial?

When word came out, in September 2017, that a new force was being planned, it was met with concern (see reporting by AAN here and here), Human Rights Watch and various media, for example, here. This was not the first effort to mobilise local forces and, whether paid for by the international military or government, they have had a sorry history, of association with war crimes, impunity and graft, capture by factional, ethnic, tribal and/or criminal interests, and some with collusion. There have been many iterations of the local forces model since 2001, including the CIA or US military-backed ‘campaign forces’ (in the news recently again with allegations of summary executions, private security companies, the Afghan Local Police (ALP) and popular uprising forces (for the full, long list, see this AAN/GPPi review). National security forces have not been immune to problems of corruption and factional capture either, as AAN has detailed in its look at the Ministry of Interior and Afghan National Police (ANP). However, local forces have been particularly prone to committing abuses with impunity and of capture by local interests and are often referred to by Afghans simply as ‘militias’. 

The largest of the recent local force mobilisations, the ALP, was envisioned in 2009 as a sort of ‘community watch’ with local forces protecting their communities and standing up to the Taleban. However, as the programme expanded, it became a way for Kabul politicians and regional strongmen to put their militias on the payroll and many ALP were found to abuse local people more than they protected them (see examples of abuse allegations in part III of the AAN/GPPi review).

The other current iteration of the local defence force model are the popular uprising forces (wulusi patsunin Pashto and khezesh-e mardomi in Persian).Emerging since 2012, but especially from 2015, these groups supposedly coalesce from spontaneous rebellions by local civilians against the Taleban. The resistance usually turns out to have been prompted by or was soon supported/co-opted by the National Directorate of Security (NDS), with, it has been assumed, the support of its main sponsor and funder, the CIA. As the UNAMA human rights unit has pointed out in their reports on the protection of civilians in the conflict, uprising groups have no legal status. Nor is it clear what, if any, chain of command they answer to. (3) Consequently, there are also no formal mechanisms for accountability. 

Afghans also remember the war crimes, impunity and general state dissolution associated with the PDPA-era kandakha-ye qawmi (‘tribal’ or ‘ethnic battalions’) usually referred to in English as ‘tribal militias’. These were mobilised especially by President Najibullah in the late 1980s and early 1990s. (4) He came to rely on them to defend his government and as the Afghanistan Justice Project’s “Casting Shadows: War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity: 1978-2001”, has documented, this helped them enjoy effective impunity. 

Yet the idea of setting up a new local defence force was not only controversial for human rights activists. The leadership of the Ministry of Defence was initially allergic to the idea of hosting a local defence force, adamant that a ‘militia force’ would not be planted in its ranks, given the record of the ALP and uprising groups and the tribal militias. They also bore in mind the 1990s civil war when the national army split on ethnic grounds and joined the various warring tribal militias and mujahedin factions. “Militias are like a poison for building a force with integrity,” one MoD official told AAN. The tribal militias, he said, were “small snakes turned dragons with funding and weapons,” while the ALP “had destroyed the name of the [Afghan National] Police.” 

4. How is the ANA TF different from the ALP? 

At first blush, the ANA TF and ALP models seem quite similar. Both are designed to mobilise men from a local community (neither recruit women, unlike the regular ANA and ANP) and develop them into a defensive, hold force. They are supposed to be auxiliary or adjunct forces only, with limited weaponry (5) and a limited geographical remit permitting them to operate within their own communities. However, the ALP operates at village level, the ANA TF at district level; Territorial Force soldiers can be deployed anywhere within their district, making the force, it is hoped, less prone to very local capture. Restrictions are also more explicitly spelled out for the ANA TF (including that they may not independently undertake duties in enemy-controlled areas, carry out independent offensive manoeuvres, or undertake civilian policing or “dangerous operations, such as strikes, arrests and rescue operations” (for more detail, see the Annex), but were also implicitly part of the model for the ALP. 

One major change is that the ANA TF falls under Afghan National Army command rather than, as the ALP does, the Afghan National Police. The ANA has generally had far better command and control than the ANP with a more advanced (and functional) disciplinary and military justice system, to which the ANA TF would be fully subject. The Ministry of Defense also has a better accountability record with donors than the Ministry of Interior and has been much better able to escape factional and criminal interests. 

Other differences in command, oversight and training are designed to reinforce MoD command and control, and institutional accountability. Each Territorial Force company will be under the command of officers from the regular ANA, ideally from the reserves, and these officers may not come from the company’s district (although Non-Commissioned Officers, NCOs, can be). By contrast, ALP units follow a local commander, something which increased the tendency towards pre-existing militia units simply being ‘re-hatted’ as ALP, with their commanders and other agendas intact (see Derksen’s comprehensive paper detailing this enduring pattern). ANA corps commanders select the officers and NCOs of the ANA TF. Having an experienced, professional leadership, said one international advisor “should be a counterbalance to it becoming too local a force.” 

Other efforts are going into institutionalising Territorial Force soldiers into the rest of the ANA (here, there have been some minor modifications between the plan and what has eventually transpired – see question 9 below). ANA TF recruits are subject to the same ten-week training as regular soldiers, including on human rights, rule of law, and humanitarian law. The initial aim was for recruits first to come to Kabul for an initial round of training and then to have another round regionally at the ANA headquarters they were to deploy under; this was to ensure good cooperation between regular and territorial soldiers. The original plan was for ANA TF soldiers to live in ANA barracks, co-located with regular soldiers, again to ‘socialise’ them into the ANA. ANA TF soldiers will only be allowed home when not on duty (this has not been changed), unlike the ALP who live at home.

These institutional changes could make a difference. Perhaps more importantly, every Afghan and international involved in setting up the new force has shown a greater interest in getting recruitment and ANA TF locations right from the start. The spectres of the past – Dr Najib’s militias and the civil war, the ALP and uprising forces – spurred those planning the new force into incorporating as many safeguards as possible.

Two other major differences between the ANA TF and ALP relate to funding and image. The creation of the ANA TF does not mean the overall force strength (tashkil)of the ANA will grow; every Territorial Force soldier stood up means giving up a regular ANA soldier, with the overall size of the ANA held steady. The formation of the ANA TF within the ANA, then, should not inflate costs and, in the long run, because a local force is cheaper to maintain, should reduce them.

Also significant is that, while European countries have never funded the ALP on the grounds that it is a ‘militia’, NATO is involved in the ANA TF, although it remains a largely US-military supported force.

5. Who gets to join the force and what are the benefits? 

The general requirement is for men aged 18 to 40 who are from the district, with a preference for former members of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). Hopeful recruits have to pass a background check by NDS and, according to an MoD official, be vouched for by local elders (the presidential decree specifies elders vouching only for former members of the ANSF, not other recruits. Sources have also said recruits need to be signed off by the provincial governor or his/her deputy, although this is also not mentioned in the presidential decree. 

In an attempt to avoid ANA TF companies effectively being captured by pre-existing local militias, planners told AAN that members of the ALP and uprisers were banned from joining the new force. 

ANA TF wages are set at 75 per cent of a regular ANA soldier’s wage. The 25 per cent reduction sets off the benefit of serving in one’s home area. The hope is that the wage will be high enough to encourage enlisting, but not so high as to make the ANA TF more attractive than the regular ANA. ANA TF soldiers and officers or their families get the same benefits as those in the regular ANA if they are disabled or killed in action. Officers get the same wages as regular officers. There is also a career structure: ANA TF can be promoted, but only if they leave their districts; officers can move back to the ANA and will be treated the same as other offices. 

6. Is the ANA TF a community force, or just a local recruitment arm of the ANA?

AAN’s research into what works and what does not with the ALP suggests that behind the success stories lies strong community engagement and control and a determination to have all groups within a local population involved (see the Yahyakhel and Shajoy case studies and a contrary example of what can go wrong when there is not widespread community support in AAN’s Andar case study). A locally-backed force not only benefits from intelligence and tip-offs, but its members tend to fight harder when defending their own people. The opposite is also true; imposing a local force on a population which does not view it as legitimate can benefit the Taleban. It will then be they who benefit from tip-offs, intelligence and recruits. Where local communities have had some authority over the establishment of an ALP unit, recruitment to and some control over it, those units appear to behave and fight better (although a local force with the backing of only some elements of the community may also fight well, as was seen in the Andar case study).

Those behind the ANA TF – both international and Afghan – have all stressed community involvement in the new force. However, most of the innovations designed to make it different from the ALP involve elevating institutional controls, without the same attention to community control and support. The presidential decree setting up the ANA TF deals almost entirely with the state’s role in recruitment and command and control. The one specific role given to ‘the community’ is in guaranteeing former ANSF members who want to serve in the new force. On paper, this is less involvement than communities were given in the setting up of ALP units (although in practice, ALP models of full community engagement in selection and accountability rarely bore out in reality, see section II of the AAN/GPPi literature review). AAN was told there is more detail in the guidance given to those setting up the force, but we are not privy to that. 

Those involved in mobilising the ANA TF pilot forces also described the need for ‘community sensitisation’ and public education, before asking for volunteers, and recommendations from elders and community leaders. It appears that there are aspirations for community involvement and a desire for the ANA TF to be ‘local’ in a sense greater than just to be made up of men living in a particular district. However, the means of achieving this does not appear, as yet, thought-out. In April 2018, we were told the pilots would be watched carefully to see how this aspect of the force panned out. This, however, did not turn out as planned – more on which below. Also, some innovations have been made to the model – again, more on which below. 

7. Why was the location of ANA TF companies such a difficult issue?

The question of where to locate the pilot projects was critical and highly contentious. “Everyone had a view on where they should be located,” one international planner told AAN. “It was very painful. There was a lot of internal politicking, disagreements.” Strict criteria had been agreed in order to avoid the many problems associated with ALP mobilisation. ALP units were stood up in places where the model was never designed to work: in areas where it could never be a ‘hold’ force because active fighting was not over, where the community did not want it and would not support it, or where the presence of factional interests, illicit economic sources, or local strongmen was likely to result in a compromised or self-interested force. The cautions against mobilising ALP in these environments were often ignored due to expediency, pressing security demands and political pressure (for a behind-the-scenes accounts of these pressures, see our analysis of the setting up of the Andar ALP). Political pressure on the ALP remains to this day. Ministry of Interior officials have described to AAN how politicians and MPs still constantly ask for ‘their own’ ALP units to be set up in their home areas. 

Those establishing the ANA TF told AAN they sought to avoid these issues by only choosing districts where the model could work. They had to be in what the military calls ‘green areas’, ie in territory held by the government or only ‘lightly contested’ and locations need to be near regular ANA back-up. As one international officer said, “Because they are a static force. The precursor [for the ANA TF] has to be a clearing operation, with the potential to last. These are not even yellow areas. They have to be green.” They also had to be in locations where they would not in danger of being caught up in politics and factional interests, but where there was support form the governor and corps commander, and where they were needed.

Given this background and these guidelines, discussions were fierce. A long-list of 120 locations was whittled down, but even then, the ‘final list’ went through numerous iterations: 38 different sites were decided upon only for most to be ruled out. Eventually, an actual final list of nine locations was determined. Sites were ruled out because they were too vulnerable to the Taleban or to narrow political self-interest and interference or to factional or ethnic takeover or because they were safe and did not need an ANA TF company. 

One Ministry of Defence official described the selection process as “agonising.” He also recounted the political pressure put on Afghan planners from some of the highest officials in government to locate ANA TF companies in their areas. Nevertheless, the determination that ANA TF companies would not be co-opted by strongmen, MPs or factional, ethnic or tribal interests was strong. Whenever these requests were made, the MoD official said, “We kept pushing back.” Luckily, he said, they could use the US military as cover. “We told them, ‘Sure. We can create a unit, but General Nicholson won’t pay for it.’ Then they backed down.” The Tribes and Borders Minister, Agha Sherzai, also made a bid for half of the planned funding, so that he could make ‘tribal forces’ to guard the borders, or as interlocutors with AAN put it “arm ‘his’ Barakzais [ie men from his tribe].” 

ANA TF recruits being trained at the Kabul Military Training Centre in Kabul, (US Air Force Sgt Sharida Jackson June 2018)

8. How has the pilot phase of the Territorial Force gone?

In the summer of 2018, there was a major change of plan: the ANA TF pilot was rolled into phase 1 – with 52 more locations added – before the pilot had finished or been evaluated. This was explained variously as either General Nicholson operating under intense pressure from Washington for quick results and evidence of progress in the war, or him wanting to capitalise on the dynamics of the Eid ceasefire. It came as a great surprise then, especially given the painstaking care which had gone into designing the ANA TF and pinpointing the most suitable locations and the insistence that the pilot would be evaluated before moving on that expansion was expedited. Haste to get boots on the ground in the hope of changing fortunes on the battlefield has been a factor behind earlier forces failing or expanding with design flaws and weaknesses intact. That haste has undermined both national and local forces in the past, including the ANA, ANP and ALP. 

After General Scott Miller took over as commander of NATO and US forces on 2 September 2018, he called a halt to the expansion and a slowing down of the project so that the current ANA TF companies could be reviewed. One of the concerns emerging, AAN was told, was recruitment. A senior international officer said there were doubts as to whether the new companies “reflected community mobilisation,” whether the “current recruitment model worked” and whether there was “accountability.” (6) 

Planners asked AAN not to disclose information as to how many companies are now operational, in training or being recruited. However, they did discuss some of the issues thrown up by the mobilisation up till now. Recruitment has been slow, one MoD planner told us, the result, partly he thought, of the lack of public education as to what the ANA TF is: “The continual militarisation has been confusing, the ALP, the uprising groups, now the Territorial Force, and the local militias of various strong men.” He also said, some specific recruitment issues had emerged: the reluctance of people in the north to ‘give’ more sons to “the Territorial Force or anything else” because of the “many coffins [of ANSF that] have been coming home”; in some places in Loya Paktia, a scarcity or men because they are “already divided between the Taleban, the Haqqani network, the army and working in the Gulf” and; some communities “unwilling to give volunteers because of the repercussions they know will come from the Taleban.” 

The MoD planner also said they had discovered a recruitment problem on the officer side: the ANA reserves, from which the MoD had hoped to draw the ANA TF’s officer corps, were far smaller than the payroll had suggested: “We were supposed to have 18,000 in the reserves. We did an exercise and barely 1,800 turned up. They were dead, had left the country and so on. We didn’t have reserves in the south and east to command these units. So NATO told us we had to [recruit officers] from our active force.”This has been more difficult to achieve than was envisaged, sources told AAN, with officers fearing that serving with the ANA TF, an as-yet untested force, could harm their future chances of advancement in the future. 

9) What changes have been made to the model to address some of these problems?

Perhaps most significantly, a unit within the Independent Directorate of Local Government (IDLG) which works with communities, has been tasked with helping with community mobilisation. The IDLG and its director, Matin Beg, are also advising on locations of ANA TF companies. This came out of the awareness of the “profound need,” as one advisor put it “for the force to be accountable and broadly representative of the community.” In early November 2018, General Miller also stood up a cell within Resolute Support to focus on the ANA TF and ensure coordination, accountability and synchronisation (a military term to do with timings, in this case that training, equipment, support etc are available at the appropriate times). Many of the officers in the cell are veterans of the Village Stabilisation Operations (VSO) programme, which set up the precursors to the ALP and the ALP (for detail on this, see the AAN/GPPi review cited earlier), which means they are very aware of the many problems setting up a local force can run into. 

International advisors told AAN there are now specific mechanisms for consulting local communities and that various people need to agree to a company being established in a particular district for it to go ahead: elders in the district need to meet in a ‘security shura’ to formally agree to the ANA TF company and there also has to be agreement and support by the IDLG, ANA corps commander and provincial and district governors. AAN was also told there had been a ‘circling back’ to reassess the Territorial Force companies authorised over the summer. Corps commanders and advisors have now re-assessed each one and were happy that the ‘accountability pillars’ – agreement by elders, provincial and district governors – were in place and there was ANA support. One advisor, who worked on the ALP in 2010 and recalls how the US military accelerated its expansion – “punched the gas” – and all the problems that then ensued, said they were in a “lucky position” this time and the ANA TF companies so far were “right.” She added, “What we have is smart growth, not growth at all costs.” 

Some flexibility in terms of training and deployment have also been introduced into the model, including:

Training: The two-layer approach, ie first in Kabul and then at the regional level, has not suited everyone. Southerners did not want to come to Kabul, so have been trained in the region. Easterners were happy to come, so have done so. The MoD is using a mix of approaches.

Co-location of ANA TF and regular ANA soldiers:Most ANA TF companies will be co-located with regular ANA soldiers, AAN was told, but for those who were not, regular soldiers had to be “very near” and in locations where they could support the Territorial Force, militarily and with medevac. International advisors stressed that even trained and ready-to-deploy Territorial Force companies would not be deployed until they could be properly supported (see next question). 

10. Can you give an example of how one of Territorial Force companies is doing?

AAN was given a list of the ANA TF pilot locations, but asked not to publish them because of the particular threats the force is facing from the Taleban. However, one location which has been publicly reported on, both in the media and by the government is Jaghori in Ghazni province. It is notable because planners initially rejected it for a pilot because it did not meet Territorial Force criteria. It is too far – 70 to 80 kilometres – from the nearest ANA bases (in Qarabagh and Muqur districts) for there to be support, let alone co-location of ANA TF and regular ANA soldiers. Also, as one planner put it, the district is “on the edge of contested areas,” with neither of the two routes into Jaghori from the provincial capital, Ghazni City, under the full control of the Taleban or government, again making support difficult. (7) Although Jaghori itself is almost completely Hazara, it is on the Hazara-Pashtun ‘border’ (8) and planners also did not want to risk any hint that, as one person put it, “the [Territorial] Force could be used in an ethnic-centric way.” 

However, a territorial army company for Jaghori was later agreed to, partly, it seems, through successful lobbying by Second Vice President Sarwar Danesh who said Hazaras there felt vulnerable and, as elsewhere in the country, employment opportunities were needed. Both he and Second Chief Executive Muhammad Muhaqeq had been lobbying anyway for the deployment of regular army forces to Hazarajat, including to Jaghori. (9) Agreement for two ANA TF companies for Jaghori, we were told, was given before the Taleban’s assault on it and neighbouring Malestan district in early November and on Khas Uruzgan in Uruzgan province in late October (for AAN reporting on the assault, see here and here). However, that assault does appear to have accelerated the establishment of the Territorial Force, as well, significantly, as an uprising force. As well as lobbying by both political figures and the population for the government to ‘do something’ to defend this district, there was probably also the realisation by the government that if it failed to act, local people would mobilise forces against the Taleban anyway. These might be less easy to control and, especially with elections coming up, could be problematic. Also, government support for the defence of Jaghori (even though the administration’s initial response to the Taleban’s autumn attacks was tardy) would be popular with voters. The fact that both the Territorial Force and uprising forces were given the go-ahead at the same time and mentioned by local interviewees asked only about the Territorial Force is significant: local people appear to view the ANA TF in terms of a local defence force, with better pay and conditions for recruits than the uprising forces not as an arm of the ANA.

The establishment of the two ANA TF companies in Jaghori has strayed from the model. It is being formed in the absence of any assured long-term regular ANA presence, according to MPs and local security officials. ANA soldiers were deployed to the district to push the Taleban back in November. Ghazni MP Muhammad Ali Alizada told AAN that he and other MPs had been lobbying the government to deploy one of the six Ghazni ANA battalions to the district permanently. As of now, they have not received any assurances and fear that, once the ATA is formed, the regular ANA will leave and this will encourage the Taleban to attack again. District chief of police Yunus Ramazani also told AAN he thought the regular ANA could leave once other forces were up and running. Moreover, far from territorial soldiers being ‘institutionalised’ into the body of the ANA, according to Ramazani, the ANA TF will be co-located with the ANP, ALP and the new uprising force in two or three joint bases (qarargah). (10) When new ANA TF and uprising forces are all mobilised, he said there should be around 1,000 combined forces in Jaghori, none of them regular ANA:

• ANP: 150-200 under Ministry of Interior
• ALP: about 200 under Ministry of Interior
• NDS paramilitaries: about 60 to 70
• Uprising forces 300 under NDS, newly recruited 
• ANA TF: around 220 with ten [this should be about 20 or, ideally 26 for two companies, so may be a mistake] regular ANA officers, under Ministry of Defence (11) 

It has to be stressed that local sources, including security sources, are saying different things from international officers advising on the ANA TF. Asked specifically about Jaghori and the absence of long-term assurances of a regular ANA presence there, one international officer said: “The ANA TF cannot be deployed until they can be properly supported.” In other words, even if a company has gone through recruitment and training, he said, regular ANA support still has to be in place before it can be deployed.

Local sources in Jaghori have told AAN that Territorial Force recruitment, now completed, was carried out under the supervision of an ANA commissary. Two tolai (companies) have been stood up, each with 108 to 110 soldiers, who are now almost all in Kabul for their ten-week training. Recruits, sources said, had to be volunteers, 19-40 years old and not be disabled or addicted to drugs. Priority was given to former ANA members. The recruits had to fill out the forms and bring a zamen (a local guarantor). That is, recruitment complied with the ANA TF guidelines. Local sources noted that there was no sense of any wider community involvement. 

One recruit, who asked not to be named, said he joined the ANA TF because of doubts that the district would regain the level of security it enjoyed before the Taleban assault; defence forces, therefore, were necessary. During the Taleban attack, he had felt duty-bound to take part in patrolling and keeping watch (paira) in his area.This is a standard response in this area to a Taleban threat; after a community decision, self-defence is arranged and villagers take their personal weapons (whatever they might have) and take turns to go to the hills to patrol and keep watch, especially at night. This is done mainly in the areas bordering Pashtun districts from which the Taleban could attack. Since the Taleban were pushed back, the threat has reduced and some patrols have ceased. 

The ANA TF recruit said that in his area people were continuing to patrol, each taking their turn, but he had felt it better to join the ANA TF which is paid, equipped and armed by the government. He said there had been no consultation on the new force or public meetings. Instead, notices had been posted in village bazaars and mosques and, seeing these, he had decided to join. He also said Hassan Mujahed, (12) the general commander of uprising forces in his village (Baba) had encouraged young men to join the ANA TF, paying the fare for them to travel to Sang-e Masha for enrolment. Sources have also described to AAN the recruitment to the new 300-strong uprising force, being set up at the same time as the ANA TF: uprising fighters bring their own weapons and the NDS provides vehicles and motorbikes and pays salaries.

As AAN reporting has detailed (here and here), the Taleban’s attack on Khas Uruzgan district in late October came, partly, out of extremely tricky ethnic politics and a history of inter-communal violence; international and Afghan-sponsored, anti-Taleban local forces there leveraged and inflamed ethnic tensions. After the Taleban captured Khas Uruzgan, they capitalised on this to make an outrageous bid to take over Malestan and Jaghori, districts in which the movement has no local support. 

All this means that setting up local forces in Jaghori is not a straightforward issue. The decision to establish ANA TF companies in Jaghori could be early evidence of the force falling the same way as ALP – with strict criteria and safeguards abandoned because of the need for boots on the ground or political stakeholder pressure. However, the urgency felt by local people for forces to defend them from an insurgent group which has just brutally overrun their areas is significant. Moreover, despite the absence of formal community involvement in setting up this force, it looks to be both popular and have strong local backing. As such, though, it may not be typical of other districts where popular opinion and experience of both Taleban and government is more mixed. 

This issue of whether the ANA TF will be deployed if regular ANA are not in Jaghori needs to  watched. Finally, it is worth noting that both MPs and local people said what they really wanted was regular ANA, not the ANA TF. 

AAN has been doing some preliminary investigations into the ANA TF pilots/phase 1 locations, to see how communities receive them and whether the careful safeguards in the model are actually being put into practice. We hope to publish on this in the future. 

11. Is there evidence the new strategy and model is working? 

It is still far too early to say anything about whether the newly-established ANA TF companies are working well or not. Even the oldest were established only weeks ago. Looking ahead, one would want to scrutinise various aspects of this force: whether ANA TF companies are being mobilised according to the model, that is only where there is a genuine local desire and backing for them, only in green areas and without their capture by politicians, factional forces or strongmen; whether the community involvement is something other than just the ANA TF recruiting locally; whether ANA command and control is effective and the ANA TF is institutionalised into the regular army and; whether the ANA TF succeed in protecting local people and territory, are supported by the regular ANA, and free up regular ANA soldiers to take more offensive action. 

It is worth stressing that today’s Afghanistan is not an easy environment in which to make an innovation like the ANA TF. The MoD is trying to set up a new force while fighting an often vicious insurgency. On the US side, as well, there is general pressure to show ‘progress’ in Afghanistan especially on the battlefield to a White House that appears to be hovering on the brink of pulling out American troops. At the same time, one of the international advisors was somewhat reassuring on this last point, insisting they were not under pressure and that “battlefield benefits tomorrow” was not their aim. These would be welcome, she said, but the focus was on the long-term, “We are doing this [setting up the Territorial Force] deliberately and making sure accountability is in place.”   

Finally, there is one tiny victory to report. One of the main fears, certainly within the MoD, was that Afghans would consider the ANA TF to be a militia and the integrity and reputation of the ANA as a whole would be damaged. Up till now, what media reports there have been, (for example here and here) have described members of the force as “soldiers” and trainees as “cadets.” Even if, in the same news report, the ALP is referred to as a militia, reporters have not used the ‘m word’ to describe Afghanistan’s newest local defence force. 

Edited by Erica Gaston and Sari Kouvo

Annex: The President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Decree on the Creation of the Afghan National Army Territorial Force 

The following actions will be undertaken in order to improve the security situation, provide better security services to the people of Afghanistan, and establish the Afghan National Army Territorial Force with the aim of changing the defensive posture of the National Army to an offensive oneand extending security to all districts: 

1. After evaluating outcomes from the pilot [programme], theAfghan National Army Territorial Force shall be created, as a contingent force to the National Army, with an estimated thirty-six thousand (36,652) personnel. 
2. Afghan National Army Territorial Force personnel will be an integrated and essential constituent of the National Army. They will be recruited in accordance with relevant laws, rules and regulations from districts where they live. They will be trained within the framework of the National Army and deployed under the command and control of experienced National Army cadre.
3. The Ministry of Defense of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan will establish several pilot companies (tolai) of the Afghan National Army Territorial Force in the fourth quarter of 1396 (the month of Delw) [21 January to 20 February 2018]. Long-term planning for the creation of the Afghan National Army Territorial Force will proceed based on [lessons learned from] their experience. Details are specified in the six (6) articles attached to this decree. 
4. The Deputy Chief of the National Security Council Office on Armed Forces Affairs shall monitor the implementationof this decree and provide regular reports on its progress to the meetings of the National Security Council. 

Attachment to the Decree of the President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan on the Creation of the AfghanNational Army Territorial Force

Article One:Tashkil and Regulations

1. Establishment and Tashkil of the Afghan National Army Territorial Force: The Ministry of Defense shall undertake the following actions to establish the Afghan National Army Territorial Force:
2. Structure and organise the Afghan National Army Territorial Force on the model of the National Army, in companies (tolai) and battalions (kandak);
3. Create a pilot [programme] of Afghan National Army Territorial Force companies (tolai) alongside National Army battalions (kandak), or under the respective battalion’s protection;
4. If an aforementioned company is upgraded to a battalion, these forces will be included, as an Afghan National Army Territorial Force battalion, in the tashkilof the National Army brigade (lewa) posted to that province;
5. The leadership cadre for Territorial Force companies shall be selected from the National Army. While serving with the Afghan National Army Territorial Force, the aforementioned cadre will be considered part of National Army staff and will receive full salary and benefits provided to National Army personnel;
6. As the Afghan National Army Territorial Force expands, its cadre and leadership can be deployed to parts of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces within the framework of the Ministry of Defence [unclear what this means];
7. The cadre and leadership of the Afghan National Army Territorial Force at the level of platoon and higher will be selected from the National Army and those at levels lower than platoon, such as squads, should be selected from the National Army Territorial Force;
8. During the pilot phase of the Afghan National Army Territorial Force, the National Army Brigades support forces shall meet their needs;
9. All equipment for the Afghan National Army Territorial Force shall be provided in accordance with their tashkiland staffing.
10. Local Recruitment:All Afghan National Army Territorial Force personnel will be recruited, and serve, in the districts in which they live. The leadership cadre and commanders of the Afghan National Army Territorial Force are excluded from this order. 

National Training:  The Afghan National Territorial Force will receive basic and on going training to a professional level by qualified National Army cadre in National Army training centres. 

• Leadership and Command:The current cadre and commanders of the Afghan National Army will have command and control responsibility in order to ensure the effectiveness and stability of the National Army Territorial Force.
• Cost-effective and Sustainable: The Afghan National Defense and Security Forces are designed to be cost-effective and sustainable so that the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan will have the long-term ability to meet their expenses. The Afghan National Army Territorial Force is one such cost-effective and sustainable force. Their cost, as compared to the National Army, will be lower without impacting their effectiveness and duties. 

Article Two: The Creation of a Pilot Territorial Army, Location and Timeline for Their Creation

1. The Ministry of Defense shall establish the Afghan National Army Territorial Force pilot [programme] in several locations in the fourth quarter of 1396 (the month of Delw) [21 January to 20 February 2018]; and develop a long-term plan for creating the Afghan National Army Territorial Force based on [lessons learned] from this experience. 
2. The Ministry of Defense shall select locations for the establishment of the Afghan National Army Territorial Force [pilot programme].

Article Three:Responsibilities and Duties of the Afghan National Army Territorial Force

1. Duties and Responsibilities:As local security forces, The Afghan National Army Territorial Force, will have the following responsibilities in areas under the full control or partial control of the government:
2. Provide security for areas that have been cleared of enemies by the National Army and Special Forces Units and prevent the enemy from re-entering these areas;
3. Be a source of information for the National Army and Special Forces on activities of the enemy in the area;
4. Perform duties in areas under the control of the government;
5. Perform duties in areas under the control of the enemy only with close support from the National Army;
6. Establish stable relations between government and people through the district authorities;
7. Provide security services at the district level and below;
8. Prevent the movement and activities of the enemy in the region;
9. Secure and protect key government infrastructure in the region, including highways;
10. Protect and defend the area until reinforcements or supporting forces arrive;
11. Help victims of natural disasters and emergencies;
12. If necessary, ensure the safety of events or ceremonies in the area.
13. Duties the Afghan National Army Territorial Force Will Not Undertake:The Afghan National Army Territorial Force will not undertake the following duties:
14. Independently undertake duties in areas under the control of the enemy;
15. Undertake independent offensive manoeuvres;
16. Dispatch and execute duties in provinces, districts and other villages (outside their area of responsibility);
17. Perform duties in offensive operations against large enemy groups;
18. Perform the duties of rapid reaction forces, in the place of forces from other districts;
19. Carry out dangerous operations such as strikes, arrests and rescue operations;
20. Perform the duties of the city police.

Article Four:Leadership Cadre

1. Selection Requirements:The leadership cadre of the Afghan National Army Territorial Force are members of the National Army personnel during their posting and until the end of their assignment. The Ministry of Defense shall recruit them in line with the following considerations. [They must]: 
2. Be an officer or sergeant of the National Army;
3. Be approved by the commanders of the relevant corps;
4. Have sufficient relevant experience and skills;
5. Be fluent in the languages of the [local] Afghan National Army Territorial Force;
6. Must not be from the same district as the pilot [programme] Afghan National Army Territorial Force to which they are assigned.
7. Education and Training: The Ministry of Defense shall direct the cadre members to the necessary training for their assigned duties after they are selected and before taking up their assignments as leaders of Afghan National Army Territorial Force.
8. Salary and Privileges: Officers and sergeants who are selected as cadre and commanders of the Afghan National Army Territorial Force will receive the same salary and benefits as they did in their previous assignment. The Ministry of Defence shall make all necessary arrangements to pay salaries and benefits. 

Article Five: Recruitment Requirements and Privileges for Afghan National Army Territorial Force

• Recruitment Conditions: The Afghan National Army Territorial Force personnel will be recruited according to the following conditions. [He must]:
• Be a resident of the same district where the Afghan National Army Territorial Force is established;
• Be between 20 to 40 years of age;
• Pass all National Army health standards successfully;
• Meet all Ministry of Defense assessment criteria based on his records and credentials successfully;
• Individuals who have previously served with the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces as enlisted personnel [صفوف] may retain their [previous] rank and can join the Afghan National Territorial Army Force after a revaluation by investigative bodies, in line with National Army recruitment policies, and after obtaining guarantees from local representatives, elders and district and provincial councils. Likewise, persons who have served in the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces as non-commissioned officers [چوکات] for one year — up to the level of squad commander – can retain their [previous] rank contingent on successfully completing professional training and receiving approval fromthe cadre or commanders of the Afghan National Army Territorial Force. 
• Training and Higher Education:Individuals recruited to the Afghan National Army Territorial Force will receive training at National Army regional training centres under the supervision of the Ministry of Defense. 
• Afghan National Territorial Army Force personnel who have served one-year successfully and completed professional training can join the National Army after their nomination and endorsement by the Afghan National Army Territorial Force commanders. After being recruited into the National Army, they can maintain their rank, but cannot be promoted to commanders and leadership cadre of the Afghan National Army Territorial Force in the same district;
• Afghan National Army Territorial Force personnel will receive on-going professional training up to squad commander level;
• The Ministry of Defense shall assign experienced personnel to regional training centres to train Afghan National Army Territorial Force pilot [programme] Personnel.
• Salary, Benefits and Other Expenditure:
• National Army Territorial Force personnel will receive salaries and benefits equivalent to 75 per cent of an ordinary National Army soldier;
• National Army Territorial Force personnel will receive all medical benefits which are afforded to those serving in the National Army;
• Budgetary expenditures (salaries, benefits, engineering reinforcements, uniforms and other equipment) for National Army Territorial Forces soldiers will be paid from the Ministry of Defence National Defense budget by the CSTC-A ([United States] Combined Security Transition Command- Afghanistan) Command;
• Benefits for martyrs, captives, the missing, and the disabled are the same as those of the National Army;
• Technical personnel of ANDSF who have successfully completed at least one period of servicewill receive the same salary as National Army Territorial Forces upon joining the National Army Territorial Force (except at cadre and leadership positions).

Article Six: Command and Control, and Promotions:

1. Command and Control:
2. Brigade commanders are responsible for command and control of the National Army Territorial Force as per the chain of command. In accordance with the chain of command, brigade commanders will assign National army battalion commanders to command and control pilot Afghan National Army companies established in the area;
3. Cadre and leadership of the National Army will be assigned to the battalions and brigades where pilot companies of the National Army Territorial Force are established. 
4. Protection and Survival: 
5. The commanders of the corps are responsible for assigning one brigade to protection and survival duties and providing essential logistical services to the National Army Territorial Force as a Rapid Reaction Force. This process will be activated quickly upon request. 

(1) In 2018, the Ministry of Defence was budgeted to receive 62 million Afghanis (about 825,000 USD) and the Ministry of Interior 61 million Afghanis (around 811,000 USD) (read the budget here). Estimated domestic revenue for that year was 153 billion Afghanis (about two billion USD). As was written in the budget, that year as in all previous years, “a significant proportion of the resources available to the Government for security is still provided by Afghanistan’s partners outside the national budget.” If the government had had to pay for the ministries of defence and interior out of its own pocket, it would have eaten up more than three-quarters of domestic revenue. As the budget document said, “…for the foreseeable future, the cost of maintaining security will be beyond the capacity of the tax system to meet.” 

The main donor for Afghan security (and other sectors) is the US. In 2018, it was projected to spend $4.67 billion USD on the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund (ASFF) which funds the sustainment, operations, training and infrastructure of up to 352,000 members of the ANSF, including army, police and local police. (See the latest SIGAR quarterly report from October 2018, pages 52-55). 

For some scholarly assessments of the financial sustainability of the Afghan National Security Forces, see research carried out in 2014 for the US congress, “Independent Assessment of the Afghan National Security Forces”, William Byrd’s 2014 article for Foreign Affairs, “Who Will Pay for Afghan Security Forces?” and, a broader study, Anthony H Cordesman’s 2017 study for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “The Afghan War: Key Developments and Metrics”. 

(2) The ANSF has faced continual difficulties holding territory that is under its control or that is lightly contested. This holding role, a NATO question and answer sheet from October 2017 on the ANA TF proposal said, was “currently conducted by a patchwork of forces including the Afghan National Police, Afghan Local Police and local militias with varying degrees of success.” One consequence, it said, was that the ANA is often drawn into the holding role and one aim of a “well-run local force” would be to free up the regular ANA, enabling it to change from having a defensive to an offensive ‘posture’. This, it is hoped, would also free up Afghan special forces, described by one of the international planners as “overused, constantly fire-fighting.”

(3) Examples of uprising forces, relevant to the ANA TF debate, are those in Nangrahar province where the idea for the ANA TF initially included the possibility that uprising forces in Achin and Kot districtswould bewould be re-hatted as a ‘territorial army’. These groups were the government and US military were fighting the local Daesh franchise the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP). As we wrote at the time, these uprising forces “… received arms from the Ministry of Defence, not just light, but also heavy weaponry, including pika (PK machine guns), dashaka (DShK heavy machine guns) and rocket-propelled grenades.” That might sound like the state had established the militias, we said, but actually, “local powerbrokers have been crucial or even primary in their formation.” For them, mobilising forces against the Taleban and Daesh were as much to do with trying to recover smuggling routes and illegal checkpoints in areas which the insurgents had captured. At the same time, we wrote, the uprisers, along with the ALP and Afghan National Border Police were “effective, aggressive against the enemy and, unlike other places, not particularly abusive of the population.” For other examples of uprising forces, see our in-depth look at Andar.

(4) As the Afghanistan Justice Project put it, “Before an Afghan national army had existed, the state relied on similar irregular forces to suppress revolts.” The most famous of the PDPA era militias were those which went on to become the largely Uzbek Jombesh-Milli, commanded by (now) First Vice-President General Abdul Rashid Dostum and Sayyed Jaffar Naderi’s much smaller Ismaeli militia. However, there were many others, including local mujahedin groups whom the state turned, re-badged and on whom they relied to keep control of local areas, as the Afghanistan Justice Project described: 

A plethora of armed structures parallel to the regular army and the paramilitary police were established by the communist government throughout the country in the years following the Saur Revolution in 1978. Some of these were affiliated to the communist party, while others were defensive and linked to industrial installations or specific localities, particular tribes or feudal personalities. As the years passed, the number increased, as did their level of organization and the complex nature of their identity and inter-relationship. From being in the main local defense forces many had metamorphosed to being combat units deployed outside their areas or origin, displaying—by virtue of their recruitment pattern—considerable group solidarity and military coherence.”

(5) AAN was told that planned equipment for the ANA TF was: AK47 rifles, rocket propelled grenades, DShK heavy machine guns (dashaka), VHF radios, motorbikes, vehicles and D30 artillery for every company (more than the ALP has). 

(6) One Afghan involved in advising on the ANA TF described how they recruited: “First education, putting up posters telling people what the new force is, then gather together community elders and explain the idea and ask them to introduce people. Ask them to guarantee that someone is a good guy.” 

(7) There are two main routes into Jaghori from Ghazni city, one via Qarabagh and Jaghato and one via Nawar. Both have had variable security in the past years and been vulnerable to Taleban checkposts (in the Dasht-e Qarabagh area of Qarabagh and Qiyagh area of Nawar).

(8) Jaghori borders both completely Hazara districts, Malestan(to the north) and Nawur (east), mixed Hazara-Pashtun districts, Qarabagh (east) and Muqur (south), and Pashtun districts, Gilan (south) and Khak-e Afghan, also known as Kakarof Zabul province (west).

(9) Danesh and Mohaqeq submitted a plan in December 2016 titled “Comprehensive Security and Administrative Plan for the Central Hazarajat Region” in which they had called for a brigade (lewa) to be deployed to Bamyan for Bamyan and Daikundi provinces and separate battalions for Jaghori and Balkhab districts (details in footnote 9 of the second dispatch on Taleban attacks on Hazarajat).

(10) At the official level, there appears to be some confusion about the new forces in Jaghori. The Ministry of Interior, for example, said on 18 November that it (sic) had established two tolai (companies) of a ‘territorial army’ and mobilised 600 locals within the framework of public uprising forces in the two districts of Malestan and Jaghori, saying they would be equipped and assigned to maintain security in their areas after receiving training.

(11) Etilaat Roz, quoting security sources  on 18 December 2018, gave somewhat different figures: combined security forces for Jaghori have been increased from 300 to 1090: 450 ALP, 350 public uprising forces, 240 ANA TF and 50 NDS paramilitaries. It reported that one big security base was planned along with 39 posts (16 for ANA TF and the rest for uprisers and ALP) in the villages of Hutqul, Angori, Daud, Zirak, Kotal-e Loman, Dahmarda, Pato, Tailum, Qarqunda, Drazqul, Parkhasha of Baba, Ghogha and Pushta-e Hicha. 

(12) After the Taleban attacks, Hassan Mujahed became the general commander of public uprising forces in Baba village. He fought with the mujahedin faction, Nasr, during the Soviet invasion of the 1980s. It was one of the biggest of the ten Shia Muslim mujahedin factions forming Hezb-e Wahdat in 1992. Recently, he has been aligned with former Second Vice President and now Chair of the High Peace Council, Abdul-Karim Khalili (also from the Nasrist strand of Wahdat). Mujahed also served in the army in the early years of the Karzai administration.

Jorge Domecq, the EDA Chief Executive, today accomplished a two-day visit to Vilnius where he had talks with the Lithuanian Minister of National Defence, Raimundas Karoblis, as well as with Vice-Minister Giedrimas Jeglinskas. He also met with representatives of Lithuanian industry associations. Mr Domecq furthermore attended the ‘Snow Meeting 2019’, an annual event organized by the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss common security challenges. 

The main topics discussed during the bilateral meetings at the Lithuanian Ministry of Defence included the current state of play and way ahead in the implementation of the various EU defence initiatives (PESCO, CARD, European Defence Fund), the revised EU Capability Development Priorities adopted last June, Lithuania’s current and potential future contributions to EDA projects and programmes (it currently participates in 10 of them), the implications of the Agency’s recent Long-Term Review as well as the EU-NATO relations. 

Mr Domecq welcomed that the launch of PESCO, CARD and EDF has raised EU defence cooperation to a new level which, he stressed, "requires Member States’ strong and continued engagement throughout the implementation to ensure that the governments’ commitments are taken forward in the national priority setting and implementation of new capability projects". In this respect, he commended Lithuania for taking the lead of the PESCO project on ‘Cyber Rapid Response Teams and Mutual Assistance in Cyber Security’ which is progressing well. He also confirmed EDA’s readiness to provide the support requested by Lithuania in view of the project implementation.  

Snow Meeting 2019 

The EDA Chief Executive also attended the ‘Snow Meeting 2019’ (an annual event organized by the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs gathering a close group of foreign and security policy leaders, politicians, opinion-makers and experts from Euro-Atlantic community to discuss common security challenges and develop policy ideas that could lead to practical solutions) where he participated as a panelist in the discussion on European leadership. 

 

The Project Arrangement (PA) for the Cyber Defence Situation Awareness Package Rapid Research Prototype (CySAP-RRP) was recently signed by the three contributing Member States:  Spain (lead country), Germany and Italy. The project was conceived as the first step of a spiral development in order to set up a full Cyber Situation Awareness (CySA) operational capability. The CySAP-RRP will be built upon previous work done by EDA to develop a Target Architecture and System Requirements for an enhanced Cyber Defence Situation Awareness Capability. The core objectives of the project include essential research challenges to assist military decision-makers in cyberspace and to set the basis of a Command and Control (C2) system for cyber operations.  Under this PA, results will be delivered using a spiral approach over the next 18 months.

EDA’s Project Team Cyber Defence (PT CD) identified the need for capabilities to enable military commanders at all operational levels to understand and manage the risk of cyber-attack. An important prerequisite is to provide situation awareness (SA) for the commander and his staff, based on a general and specific threat landscape from which the risk of cyber-attack can be observed, understood and evaluated. The objective is for military commanders to have a clear understanding of the cyber threat landscape including system vulnerabilities and attack vectors and to equip them with the tools required to make informed decisions in order to manage cyber risks during the planning and conduct phases of an operation.

A dedicated CySAP Ad Hoc Working Group (AHWG) comprising the contributing Member States, EDA and additional subject matter experts and stakeholders started work on a Common Staff Target (CST), Common Staff Requirements (CSR) and a Business Case which describes which operational elements are needed to achieve a cyber situation awareness for the EU Armed Forces. CySAP follows a modular approach which means that the adopted SA capability architecture will influence additional cyber defence solutions to achieve interoperability. Other spirals, subject to future commitments and out of the scope of the first step, are planned to further develop CySAP towards a final CySA capability. CySA is a key aspect in all cyber defence efforts and initiatives currently pursued within the EU and other international organizations.

As part ofthis endeavour, EDA hosted two capability awareness days with the support of industry and academia in order to allow the military to benefit from existing products and trends related toCyber Situation Awareness. Since its inception in 2016, EDA’s Cyber Research and Technology AHWG has supported CySAP. This working group promotes collaborative cyber defence research within a cyber Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) looking into research activities to address capability gaps. Following the Cyber Ranges Federation project launched by 11 EU Member States in 2017 CySAP is the second EDA collaborative Cyber Defence project and the first collaborative R&T project in the domain.
 

Background

Cyberspace is the fifth domain of operations, alongside the domains of land, sea, air, and space: the successful implementation of EU missions and operations is increasingly dependent on uninterrupted access to a secure cyberspace, and thus requires robust and resilient cyber operational capabilities. 

The updated EU Capability Development Plan (CDP) endorsed by the EDA Steering Board in June 2018 reconfirmed cyber defence as a priority for capability development in the EU. The CDP recognises the need for defensive cyber operations in any operational context, based on sophisticated current and predictive cyberspace situational awareness. This includes the ability to combine large amounts of data and intelligence from numerous sources in support of rapid decision making and increased automation of the data gathering, analysis and decision-support process. In November 2018, the European Council adopted an updated version of the EU cyber defence policy framework (CDPF). 

Supporting the development of Member States’ cyber defence capabilities is a priority area where the now established CySAP project serves as a core to guide future research and operational capabilities.

 

Hashish or chars is a fairly common substance in Afghanistan. Its use, without ever attaining the levels of mass consumption that characterise other lightly-intoxicating substances in other war-torn countries, like the chewing of qat in Yemen or Somalia, for example, has remained relatively widespread. This does not mean that it is condoned by society: hashish-users, known as charsi, are stigmatised in popular discourse as lazy or even unhinged. However, the use of hashish in Afghanistan has also acquired an element of communal ritual, allowing sometimes for a different depiction of hashish-smokers to emerge, one more acceptable to dominant Afghan values and traditions. In this dispatch, AAN’s Obaid Ali, Fabrizio Foschini and Jelena Bjelica look at the cultural history of hashish in Afghanistan.

This is the second dispatch in a two-part series on the cultural history of hashish in Afghanistan. The first dispatch, which looks at the cultivation and production of hashish, is available here.

Although opiates have understandably dominated the discourse around drug use in Afghanistan (read AAN analysis here and here) over the past decades, hashish has long been a mainstay of recreational drugs throughout the country. In fact, its use has traditionally been more widespread than that of opium (which was once widely consumed, often as a form of self-medication in places such as Badakhshan or Herat). Nowadays, the number of hashish smokers has increased to over a million users, and has spread among the young and educated class in urban areas.

Afghans’ familiarity with hashish is also quite apparent from its references in Afghan folklore. There are, however, different perceptions of hashish-smokers in society. Arguably, an ordinary Afghan could smoke an occasional spliff in order to relax and still keep his social status untainted more easily than if he consumed alcohol or opiates (the social stigma for women consuming any drugs, including alcohol, would be far higher). Even so, regular smokers get the rather nasty label of charsi. The social stigma attached to smoking hash seems to stem less from the illegality of the substance, than from the real or imagined effects it provokes. Hashish smokers have a reputation for being rascals and criminals.

Use of hashish in Afghanistan from the 1970s until today 

The use of hashish in Afghanistan from the 1970s to the mid 2000s is not well-documented. Sources from the 1970s, such as the US 1974 cables (here and here) offer rare insights into local habits. However, these documents mainly portray an official narrative, ie the Afghan government blaming local consumption on “the bad example of youthful western tourists.” In another cable, also from 1974, the Afghan government informed its American counterpart there had been no indications of significant ‘abuse’ of the drug by Afghans themselves. In this 1975 cable the US reported that “GOA [the Government of Afghanistan] does not, however believe there to be an urban drug abuse problem with exception of foreigner transients.” The cable said that, “Widespread traditional use of hashish is either overlooked, ignored or not seen as constituting a problem.” The post-1978 coup State Department’s annual narcotics report on Afghanistan said that between “150 and 250 metric tons of hashish per year is derived from locally cultivated cannabis,” while the “statistics on drug abuse within Afghanistan are virtually non-existent.”

In the 1980s, during the anti-Soviet jihad, the use of cannabis spread. Former United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) drug advisor in Afghanistan David Macdonald in his book Drugs in Afghanistan writes that “many mujahideen fighters were paid or rewarded for their fighting with hashish, which they often consumed before going to the battle.” Macdonald was told this by Mullah Akhundzada, the then-head of the Taleban High Commission for Drug Control, at a meeting held in 1999. Hashish consumption has long since been connected to the primary actors of this conflict. The use of chars by some notorious Kandahari commanders and their militiamen was associated with the loss of all moral order and breakdown of social rules that characterised the Civil War of 1992-94 there and in many other parts of the country. Even more recently, the age-old connection between the use of hashish and fighting has not been denied. Policemen (both ANP and ALP) in particular have been known to consume hashish, especially when left stranded to man isolated and remote security outposts. The Afghanistan Ministry of Interior (MoI) conducted nationwide urinary drug screening of Afghanistan National Police (ANP) in 2009 and 2010, which found that of the 9,034 ANP who tested positive for drug use, 80.5% (7,269) screened for tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a psychoactive constituent of cannabis. (1) The 40 years of continuous wars in Afghanistan undeniably contributed to an increase in drug use, not only of hashish but of others too (see this AAN dispatch on drug use in Afghanistan here).

During the Taleban regime, hashish was perceived as a ‘traditional Afghan vice’, as its use was widespread and an old habit among parts of the population. The Taleban imposed “draconian sanctions against both producers and users” (Macdonald, pp 25). In 1997, the Taleban issued a statement, which said that the use of hashish and heroin was not permitted in Islam (Macdonald, pp 80). These measures, however, were not particularly enforced. In 2003, a UNODC assessment on problem drug users in Kabul city, Macdonald reported, found that almost 24,000 people were regular hashish users, as reported by doctors, mullahs, shopkeepers and other key informants. But this number, according to him, was incorrect and probably an underestimate due to a lack of data and limitations of the UNODC assessment.

The latest Afghan drug use survey carried out in 2015 by the United States Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) found that approximately 900,000 to 1.1 million Afghans use cannabis. The survey also found that cannabis is the second most prevalent drug used in urban centres in the country, with the highest rates of cannabis use in Herat (4.0 per cent of the population) and Kabul (3.9 per cent). Cannabis, the INL survey found, is used by 2.4 per cent of the adult population, with men being the predominant users. Evidence of cannabis among women and children was negligible, the survey found. Smoking charsis almost entirely a male pastime, then. Before looking at how hashish is viewed in Afghanistan, it is worth stressing that its use is not an entirely ‘happy’ phenomenon, a point Macdonald makes (p26):

Western sensibilities and perception of cannabis often neglect the fact that the hashish produced in Afghanistan is often more powerful than much of the hashish available in Europe, and daily consumption rates among Afghan users significantly higher than their western counterparts. Reports suggest that hashish use in such an impoverished country as Afghanistan contributes to severe financial problems for the family, leads to arguments and fights among family members over money spent on drugs and exacerbates endemic health problems such as bronchitis, pneumonia, tuberculosis and other respiratory complaints.

Cannabis sativa plant. Photo: Dinesh Valke
(under CC BY-SA 2.0).

Hashish to suit different tastes and budgets

Afghan hashish is found on sale in different varieties, which largely refer to where it was produced and also define its quality and price. Balkh and Panjshir provinces are famous for their high-quality chars, known as shirak. Their hashish, compared to that in other parts of the country, is also more expensive.

Northern Balkh province has for some decades been home to the most famous type of Afghan hashish: the so-called ‘Afghan Black’ of international renown largely coincides with the hashish produced in this area. Over the course of the last few years, however, Shirak-e Panjshir has become the most sought-after and expensive product on the Afghan market, with seven grams fetching a price of 250 Afghanis (around 3,5 USD). Shirak-e Panjshir has a peculiar green hue and a very strong smell and easily melts in the cigarette or chillum. Among those who smoke it, Balkh now ranks second in the chars’varieties in Afghanistan. Shirak-e Mazar is the most famous type of hashish originating from this province: it is of a dark brown colour and has a pungent smell. Compared to Shirak-e Panjshir, its effects are less strong and therefore it is comparatively cheaper (7g for 200 Afs). Kandahar and Logar (2) provinces provide products of a relatively lower quality that rank in third place. Both provinces produce chars of a black-colour, which is found in the market for the relatively cheap price of 150 Afghanis for seven grams. The ‘best price’ product available to consumers without much money to spend is that coming from Nangrahar province: it sells at 100 Afghanis for seven grams and is also the lowest quality chars on the Afghan market.

Besides commercial production, habitual charsis sometimes produce home-made chars for their own consumption. In Kabul, for instance, there are a number of mini-production factories that only produce small amounts of chars. Basically, hemp is cultivated in the house courtyard, usually in a corner of the garden that remains out of sight of potential guests or neighbours. Once the bush grows enough and its blossoms have dried, it is cut off and dried. This process takes at least six months. Once it is dry, then the dried blossom is removed and it goes through a filtering process in order to collect the particles and pieces of dried blossom. The collected parts are then slowly warmed up over a fire and mixed together for around ten minutes. The preparation turns into an oily substance and is pressed together into a piece of chars.

Hashish in Afghan popular culture

Hashish is an established topic in popular Afghan culture, being the subject of many jokes and songs. (3) The most famous hit about hashish is probably the Pashto classic folk song “Adam Khana Charsi”, performed by many singers throughout the years (here in a rendition by Naghma). Written in the tradition of landai women’s poetry (read also here), the lyrics lambast Adam Khan’s lack of virility, enjoining him to remove his bed from the nuptial chamber to the courtyard as his wife is not interested only in sleeping, as he seems to be. From the title of the song to the mimicry usually enacted by singers who perform it (see also this video), the figure of Adam Khan is a stereotype of the chronic hashish-smoker, apathetic and lethargic.

In fact, one of the effects most frequently associated with the use of hashish in Afghan popular belief in the reduction of the sexual impulse and thus of the inability of a man to fulfil a husband’s obligations thereby securing his progeny. As these are issues of some importance in the eyes of the Afghans, the inculcation of this notion by society at large can well represent an attempt to discourage the use of hashish through psychological propaganda. Interestingly, the same fears had already been raised by medieval Islamic scholars in order to deter believers from indulging in hashish smoking (although some ascetics actually sought a reduction of their sexual urge through smoking, in order to better concentrate on spiritual matters).

Compounding the apathy it induces, hashish is also said to provoke fits of rage and madness, making charsis extremely aggressive at times. The term charsi can thus be used in Afghanistan to refer to anybody who behaves over the top, arguing, bragging or boasting to the point of appearing out of his mind. This is partly due to the long-term impact of cannabis: cannabinoids lodge in the fatty deposits of the brain and remain there for weeks, unlike alcohol or many other drugs, which the body excretes rapidly through urine. The effects of the drug are therefore longer-term and can appear to affect a person’s character or personality. This can give regular hashish smokers a recognisable appearance and attitude, which has given rise to a stereotype applied to other people as well, as a way of slighting them.

Overall, Afghans view hashish-smokers as generally being socially useless. However, there seem to be niches of popular discourse in which the charsis are not just criminals or despicable characters but a peculiar class of people, noted for their generosity and with their own sociability. In some parts of the country, this tradition seems to still be alive.

In the chillumkhana of Baba Qu

Ways of smoking chars in Afghanistan indicate a rural-urban divide, slowly bridging towards a standardisation of practices by young people countrywide. While urban hash smokers generally prefer a to empty a cigarette and fill it with hashish and tobacco (with youngsters developing creative ways of smoking bongs, such as piercing holes in an apple to inhale the smoke through it) – the rural, and, arguably traditional, way of consuming hashish still practiced by the elderly is through an earthen pipe or chillum. This can sometimes take the form of a collective act, one more sociable and ritualised than sharing a joint among friends, as will be seen in the most famous of all Afghan chillum-smokers, Baba Qu-ye Mastan.

Baba Qu, a figure who lived in the first half of the twentieth century and whose historical persona borders on the mythical, still inspires a form of mystical devotion. He is buried in the ancient town of Balkh of the namesake province, and is still remembered across northern Afghanistan as a generous and chivalrous man, who would always provide lavish hospitality of food and chars to anyone in need. Even today, when local charsis light their cigarettes or chillum filled with chars, they first praise Baba Qu:

بابه قوی مستان

دور قبرت گلستان

هم بهار و هم زمستان

Baba Qu-ye Mastan

Your grave is a flower garden

Be it summer or winter

When charsis being smoked collectively and the cigarette or chillum passes from one person to another, smokers repeat this invocation:

پره به  پره جوانای سره، هرکس بد می بره سر نبره

Pass on, pass on to the brave youngsters, death to those who hate.

(The word parah describes the act of passing a cigarette or chillum filled with chars from one person to another).

After Baba Qu’s death, his fellow charsis built what is known as the chillumkhana (chillum-house) or saqikhana next to his grave. (4) This is a small building consisting of a main hall, very dark and with a low ceiling, furnished with stone-made benches lining the inner walls. There are several chillums available in the room and a caretaker in charge of filling and lighting them. The rules of the chillumkhana are clear: whoever gets inside has to smoke and failing to do so would be disrespectful. Visitors are welcome to contribute with offers of money or chars – provided they have a good batch, for in the chillumkhana only top-quality Shirak-e Mazar is used. If they do not wish or cannot afford to contribute, this is no problem: they get to smoke for free, but most importantly they have to smoke and pay a tribute to Baba Qu. At any rate, inside the chillumkhana the air is saturated with the fumes of burning hemp: all the windows and doors are kept shut and there is no fresh air circulating, augmenting the effects on the smokers. This way of smoking is called shishaband or darwazaband (closed-window/door).

Seeking solace in Kandahar

Baba Qu-e Mastan was by no means an isolated instance. A senior teacher in Kabul recalled how in the time of Zaher Shah, when he had been posted to a school in Spin Boldak, he would go on days off together with his colleagues to the place of Zabar Ali Padsha in Khadanay, roughly halfway between Spin Boldak and Kandahar city. Zabar Ali was an elderly man who had never married and had a big guesthouse with many servants devoted only to providing guests with chillums filled with the best-quality hashish. He was apparently well-off, or received sumptuous donations from the more affluent guests, because he would attend to his guests’ needs for whole evenings, not only offering them a smoke, but even having lambs slaughtered and cooked to feed them when, later in the night, they would go hungry. After some years of such visits, having become well acquainted with Zabar Ali, the teacher was astonished to see the old man, by now over ninety years old, performing a series of gymnastic exercises that would have put to shame a circus acrobat. Zabar Ali attributed his body strength to his still being a virgin, something he confessed to his friend, the teacher, and to his steadfast use of only the best quality hashish.

A more recent character familiar to many Kandaharis – Mrech Agha – has taken the place of Zabar Ali Padsha. In his guesthouse outside Kandahar city, until quite recently, Mr Chili Pepper, as his name translates, would host whoever wanted to enjoy a joint, assisted by a small army of servants and volunteers. Mrech Agha assiduously held his darbar (court), (5) utterly indifferent to the fierce battles being fought between first, the mujahedin, then between the Taleban and government forces, until his death in 2014. Mrech Agha was for a long time a local celebrity. Taxi drivers in Kandahar would sport placards with poetry praising his goodness, something along the lines of: “This person is good, that one is also good, but I salute Mrech Agha!” (A video of a Pashto song praising Mrech Agha here.)

After his death, a tense standoff took place at his home. His eldest son, feeling he could not step into his father’s large shoes, summoned all the assistants and announced he was dismissing them, as he would have to discontinue his late father’s habit of providing hospitality to half of Kandahar’s charsis because of the costs it entailed. Mrech Agha, however had two wives, the son being born from the first one. Reportedly, at the critical moment, the other, younger wife, summoned him and enjoined him not to dismiss the house-servants, “not to destroy Mrech Agha’s langar (refectory)”: she herself would provide whatever economic means was required in order to continue her late husband’s enterprise. Thus, she showed the same resolve as Malalai on the battlefield of Maiwand, even if the cause was not quite so noble.

The role played by figures such as Baba Qu, Zabar Ali and Mrech Agha sit somewhere between that of a private entertainer – with all the ideas of individual hospitality that that entails – and that of an institution which offers a service to the public at large. The idea of making a langar is obviously connected to the practice of providing food for everybody attending a religious ceremony or festival, common to Islamic communities across Central and South Asia, and often, but not exclusively, connected to Sufi brotherhoods. More significant than showing a connection in terminology between this type of hosts and the sphere of Sufi mysticism is the fact that Mrech Agha’s assistants came to call themselves his muridan, which translates closely into ‘disciples’ and is a term used quite exclusively for the followers of a Sufi tariqa or ‘brotherhood’. It is also possible to listen to a tarana (in the context of southern Afghanistan, a mostly vocal song often dealing with religious topics) sung by the muridan of Mrech Agha.

https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Merch-Agha.mp3

Baba Qu himself had reportedly been the disciple of a famous Sufi leader in Balkh. Also, marginality and eccentricity in Afghanistan are seldom allowed to totally develop as such, as a sort of counter-culture in open opposition to the established social order. Thus, these ‘social charsis’ have developed their own sub-culture and gatherings in the shadow of some holy shrines. Notable individuals among them were connected to these or followed established patterns of networking and symbolic codes in order to achieve some degree of public recognition.

But what is the purpose of such a social institution, then? The comparison to Sufi spirituality can again be useful. The latter, as described by scholars of Afghan history such as Robert Edwards or Nile Green (6), has often been enjoyed by Afghan men in order to transcend boundaries of kinship and fulfil the universal human need for avenues of social and spiritual engagement, detached from the strife and tensions of everyday life. At another level – and for different kinds of souls – this peculiar type of hashish-smoking gathering may have served the same primary purpose.

Other invocations uttered routinely by Afghan smokers point to this therapeutic aspect of the use of cannabis:

Nush nush, deh ke gham-et faramush

Smoke, smoke, come on so that you may forget your sorrow

Or the more caustic:

Nush nush, dushmanha-et kus-forush

Smoke, smoke, your enemies are just pimps

By allowing Afghan men to fraternise beyond divisions of class, ethnicity or tribe, characters like Mrech Agha may have played an important role in allowing Afghans not to lose their humanity amid the havoc of a lifelong conflict.

Conclusion

In the West, for hash users at least, Afghan chars has acquired something of the status of a legend: ‘Afghan Black’ has a reputation as a potent psychoactive drug, as seen in the first dispatch in this mini-series. Afghan experiences and views of hashish use are quite different. Most respectable Afghans continue to consider charsis a useless and marginal category of people. Nonetheless, the great number of Afghan hashish smokers may show, instead, the growing strains affecting many strata of beleaguered Afghan society. From soldiers to students, many seek solace in a puff of smoke. That they are almost all men shows something about who can access such solace and points to costs paid by wives and children if limited household income is ‘misspent’ by husbands and fathers. Even so, it can also be recognised that the charsi subculture also has its legends and rituals, and that these connect to the great Afghan values of generosity and hospitality, and to music, poetry and Sufism.

Edited by Kate Clark

(1) A local militia commander called Abdullah Charsi even became a high-ranking officer of the Afghan National Border Police in western Afghanistan in 2012, showing the possibility of a career even with such a strongly-flavoured sobriquet.

(2) During the anti-Soviet war, Logar also had a famous local mujahedin check post, on a hill west to the road to Paktia, the fighters at which were known as charsian. It was a famous weekend hang out spot for the local youth who had not much choice where to spend their spare time.

(3) The same sorts of jokes and gossip are reported from the Tribal Areas of Pakistan. For example, the Afridi Pashtuns inhabiting those parts of the Khyber Agency where hashish is extensively grown are said to be the world’s most skilled people at recognising varieties of chars by its smell: these ‘human hounds’ are able to tell not just the variety but even the specific field where a particular hemp plant is grown, just by smelling a piece of its hashish.

(4) Saqi is the cup-bearer of Persian classical poetry, a symbol for the serving of substances, which offer a pleasant intoxication that allow one to forget personal or worldly troubles.

(5) The lexicon here is important: Mrech Agha ‘held court’ like some sort of secular or religious authority; Zabar Ali also styled himself a padsha, a king, showing the status recognition that this unique class of people enjoyed in the eyes of at least part of Afghan society.

(6) David B. Edwards, Heroes of the Age: Moral Fault Lines on the Afghan Frontier, University of California Press, 1996; Nile Green, “Tribe, Diaspora and Sainthood in Afghan History”, Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 67, n°1, 2008.

 

 

 

Emilio Fajardo has been appointed EDA Industry, Synergies & Enablers (ISE) Director as of 1 January 2019. He previously held the position of Director for Naval Systems and Head of the Hydrodynamics Research Centre at the National Institute for Aerospace Technologies (INTA) in Madrid. Mr Fajardo’s assumption of office coincides with the entry into force of an organizational reshuffle of the Agency (see new EDA organigramme here). 

The new EDA Director holds a Master in Science as Naval Architect from the Polytechnic University of Madrid. Emilio Fajardo brings with him more than 20 years of experience in international defence cooperation, among others as a member and Director of the NATO CALS Program (Continuous Acquisition and Life-Cycle Support), the responsible officer for multilateral cooperation in the National Armaments Directorate of the Spanish Ministry of Defence (where he also managed relations with NATO, EDA and OCCAR) as well as the Armaments Councillor at the Spanish Permanent Representation at NATO and COPS (EU) in Brussels from 2005 to 2009.

“It is a privilege for me to join the European Defence Agency at a particularly challenging time for European defence in general, and for the Agency in particular. EDA plays a central role in implementing the various EU defence initiatives as well as in the prioritization of EU defence capabilities and I look forward to contributing to this important work as the Agency’s Industry, Synergies and Enablers Director, together with its highly qualified and experienced staff”, Emilio Fajardo stated when he took up his new post.
  
As Industry, Synergies & Enablers (ISE) Director, Emilio Fajardo will lead a key directorate in charge of a wide range of topics and crucial enablers for improving cooperative defence capability building and enhancing interoperability in Europe, including standardisation, certification, test and evaluation, airworthiness, training and education, industry engagement and representing the military views on wider EU policies. The newly renamed ISE Directorate – previously known as Cooperation, Planning & Support (CPS) – also develops activities related to European Strategic Autonomy and the identification of Key Strategic Activities (KSA) at EU level. In addition, it provides support to CSDP military and civilian operations and missions and EU Battlegroups, at the request of their Member States. The directorate also facilitates the coordination of military views from and in support of the Member States and the relevant international military organisations in the framework of Single European Sky (SES) and acts as the interface with the EU institutions and related bodies.
 

More information:

• Emilio Fajardo CV

 

Chinese JL-2 Submarine-Launched Intercontinental Ballistic Missile

The following article was published as a Strategic Analysis piece by the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats. It’s an expansion of some of the themes mentioned in a piece I co-authored with Michael Kofman for the Monkey Cage in the immediate aftermath of the Kerch Strait skirmish.

The November 25 naval skirmish between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the Kerch Strait was significant first and foremost as an open military confrontation between the two countries’ armed forces. But it also highlighted the fraught legal status of the strait and the Azov Sea, a status that Russia has been exploiting in recent months to exert political and economic pressure on Ukraine.

A slow march to confrontation

The confrontation began months before the recent events that brought the conflict to worldwide attention. In March 2018, Ukrainian border guard vessels detained a Russian fishing vessel in the Azov Sea for violating exit procedures from the “temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine”, namely from Crimea. The crew of that vessel remained in detention for several months, until they were exchanged in October for Ukrainian sailors. The captain of the Russian ship remains in Ukraine and is facing prosecution for illegal fishing and “violation of the procedure for entry and exit from the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine”. Since that incident, Russia has retaliated by detaining several Ukrainian fishing vessels.

In May, Russia also began to regularly hold Ukrainian commercial ships for inspection before allowing them to pass through the Kerch Strait. The initiation of this inspection regime largely coincided with the opening of a road and rail bridge across the strait. Russia claimed that the inspections were required to ensure the safety and security of the bridge at a time when some Ukrainians had publicly threatened to attack the bridge. The delays caused by the inspection regime, together with ship height restrictions caused by the bridge, have led to a 30 percent reduction in revenues at Ukraine’s commercial ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk, raising fears that Russia is trying to strangle the economy of eastern Ukraine.

In the same period, Russia also began to build up its naval presence in the Azov Sea, with at least three missile ships based there since summer 2018. Reports indicate that Russia plans to set up a full-fledged flotilla in the Azov in the near future. Ukraine has also strengthened its naval presence in the region, placing several armoured boats in Berdyansk and seeking to expand the base there.

The transfer of ships from Odesa to Berdyansk that caused the skirmish was part of this effort. Ukraine had moved naval ships through the Kerch Strait as recently as September 2018, but these ships were not armed. In that case, the ships were allowed to pass through without incident, although they were closely followed by Russian border guard vessels. The passage of two armoured boats through the strait in late November was thus the first attempt by the Ukrainian Navy to bring armed ships through the Kerch Strait since tensions began to mount and the bridge was completed in spring 2018.

The legal background

The status of the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait is regulated by a bilateral treaty that was signed by Russia and Ukraine in 2003. According to the terms of the treaty, the sea is considered to be internal waters for both countries, and both Ukrainian and Russian commercial and military ships have the right of free passage through the strait. Furthermore, the treaty does not specify any particular advance notice procedures for passage through the strait. Foreign commercial ships are allowed to pass through the strait and enter the sea if they are heading to or from a Ukrainian or Russian port. Military ships belonging to other countries may be allowed passage if they are invited by one of the signatories to the treaty, but only with the agreement of the other signatory. In 2015, Russia unilaterally adopted a set of rules requiring ships passing through the strait to give advance notification to the Russian authorities, ostensibly to assure safety of navigation. These rules have not been accepted by Ukraine.

 

Please follow this link to read the rest of the article.