Defence`s Feeds

The Independent Election Commission has published the preliminary list of the 2019 presidential candidates. The list includes 18 candidates. It should now go through a vetting process and a challenge and appeal period before it is finalised and published on 26 March, according to the electoral calendar. AAN’s researcher, Ali Yawar Adili, looks at the list and provides a brief background on the 18 presidential tickets. He also points out that there are still doubts about whether the election date, 20 July 2019, can be adhered to, not least because new rifts between the president and the other candidates about some necessary electoral reform steps have appeared (with input from Thomas Ruttig). 

The Independent Election Commission (IEC) has published the preliminary list of the candidates for the presidential elections scheduled for 20 July 2019. The list was published on 5 February 2019, as per the electoral calendar. The IEC has approved all 18 candidates who had submitted complete documents and paid the deposit money of one million afghanis (around USD 13,300). (This amount is returned to the candidate if they win or receive at least ten percent of the valid votes polled in the first round of the elections.). Two applicants were rejected because they had failed to meet the legal requirements. (1)

The candidates include: incumbent Ashraf Ghani, Chief Executive, Abdullah Abdullah, and former national security adviser, Muhammad Hanif Atmar. They are widely seen as the favourites. 

Almost half of these 18 candidates had run in at least one previous presidential election. Apart from the incumbent (who had run unsuccessfully in 2009) and the 2009 and 2014 runner-up Chief Executive Abdullah, there are: Zalmai Rassul (2014), Latif Pedram (2005), Hakim Tursan and Dr Faruq Nejrabi (2004).

In contrast to the 2004 and 2009 elections, there are no women candidates. In 2004, the only female candidate, Massuda Jalal, finished at rank six from amongst a total of 18 candidates (see the results here). In 2009, two female candidates stood. In 2014, there was one female candidate who was disqualified before the poll. (2) This time, only three candidates have proposed one woman each for one of their two vice-presidential posts (see the list of the tickets in the table below). 

The initial nomination period was from 22 December 2018 to 2 January 2019 when the elections were still planned for 20 April 2019. It was extended until 20 January after the election date was moved to 20 July 2019 (see AAN’s previous reporting here).  

Who are the presidential tickets?

The IEC has published the following preliminary list of the candidates (see the statement and list here: and the list with photos here). It is unclear how the IEC has chosen the order. In response to AAN’s enquiry, a deputy spokesman for the IEC, Abdul Aziz Ibrahimi, first said that it was based on alphabetic order, but when he was shown that this was definitely not the case, he said that it was not important, as it is still a preliminary list. Earlier, the IEC had published the names in a different order, based on the order of the dates they had registered (see here): 

NoPresidential candidateFirst running-mateSecond running-mate1Abdul Latif PedramMuhammad Ehsan HaidariMuhammad Sadeq Wardak2Haji Muhmmad Ibrahim Alekozai Khadija GhaznawiDr Sayyed Sami Kayani3Dr Zalmai RassulAbdul Jabbar TaqwaGhulam Wali Wahdat4Pohand Professor Dr Ghulam Faruq NejrabiSharifullahMuhammad Sharif Babakarkhel5Dr Faramarz TamanaPohanmal (Prof.) Sayyed Qiyas SaidiDr Muhammad Amin Reshadat6Shaida Muhammad AbdaliAbdul Basir SalangiZulfiqar Omid7Nur Rahman LiwalDr Abdul Hadi Zul HekmatMuhammad Yahya Wayar8Enayatullah HafizJannat Khan Fahim ChakariAbdul Jamil Shirani9Muhammad Shahab HakimiAbdul Ali SarabiDr Nurul Habib Hasir10Ahmad Wali MassudPohand Dr Farida MomandDr Abdul Latif Nazari11Muhammad Hakim TursanMuhammad Nader Shah AhmadzaiDiplom Engineer Shafiullah Qaisari12Rahmatullah NabilMurad Ali MuradDr Massuda Jalal13Gulbuddin HekmatyarPohandoy Dr Fazl ul-Hadi WazinMufti Hafiz ul-Rahman Naqi14Sayyed Nurullah JaliliAbdul Khalil RumanCheragh Ali Cheragh15Dr Abdullah AbdullahDr Enayatullah Babur FarahmandAsadullah Sadati16Muhammad Ashraf GhaniAmrullah SalehGhulam Sarwar Danesh17Muhammad Hanif AtmarMuhammad Yunus QanuniHaji Muhammad Mohaqeq18Nur ul-Haq UlumiBashir Ahmad BezhanMuhammad Naem Ghayur

The two tickets not registered were: Ahmad Elyas Elyasi, with Abdul Maqsud Hasanzada and Amruddin Fahim as running-mates; and, Ustad Zia ul-Haq Hafizi, with Muhammad Zalmai Afghanyar Popal and Omid Langari as his first and second running-mates (see also media report here).

What will happen now?

Now that the preliminary list has been published and according to the electoral calendar (see it annexed to AAN’s previous report here), the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) will conduct a 48-day vetting process from 5 February to 22 March. 

For up to two weeks following the publication of the list, objections to the preliminary list can be submitted to the ECC in accordance with article 74 of the electoral law. Paragraph one of article 91 of the same law says that “individuals, political parties and other organisations” may file objections with regard to the ineligibility of a particular candidate or candidates within two working days. 

It is not clear why two deadlines are given for the objections. It seems that the ECC also is not fully clear about this. Spokesman Rohani told AAN that one interpretation could be that article 79 refers to the general objections to the preliminary list, while article 91 is specifically about ineligibility. It is also unclear why the time for objections is so limited (particularly the two-days deadline that, practically, makes objections impossible), while the commission has been given almost seven weeks to work on their decisions on them. 

The criteria under which candidates on the preliminary list can be disqualified are given in two articles of the electoral law:  

Article 44 bans members or commanders of illegal armed groups from standing. The responsibility to investigate their possible links to illegal armed groups rests with a Vetting Commission that forms part of the ECC. It is headed by the ECC chair, currently Abdul Aziz Ariayi, and includes representatives from the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the Ministries of Interior and Defence and the Independent Directorate of Local Governance (IDLG). These institutions are charged with providing the ECC with the needed intelligence about candidates. After its deliberations, the vetting commission then recommends a list of those candidates found to be linked to illegal armed groups to the ECC for disqualification, which then takes the final decisions (see AAN’s previous reporting here).

Article 38 of the electoral law prescribes further requirements for the presidential candidates, as follows: they must be 1) an Afghan citizen, a Muslim and born to Afghan parents and not have the citizenship of another country; 2) not be less than 40 years of age on the day of candidacy; 3) not have been convicted of crimes against humanity and felony or deprived of civil rights by the country; 4) not have been elected as a president or vice-president for more than two terms. Their running-mates are also required to meet the same requirements. (3) 

Any candidate the ECC disqualifies will have the opportunity to appeal. The ECC will then address this, and then the decision will be final. (4)

It is not clear whether or not all 18 candidates will survive the vetting and challenge process. In 2014, 27 candidates had registered, but the IEC brought the list down to 10 (see this list here). The then head of the commission, Yusef Nuristani, told journalists they had excluded candidates who had a second citizenship or had failed to submit 100,000 voter cards of supporters from at least 20 provinces or had other problems with their registration. This time, the IEC sent a query to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the issue of a possible dual citizenship of candidates or their running-mates, as a deputy spokesman for the IEC, Ibrahimi, told media on 6 February. However, it seems that the IEC has not yet received any response. Ibrahimi said that, as this would possibly be time-consuming, the issue could be clarified later and before the publication of the final list. 

Candidates on the preliminary list can still withdraw their names by 23 March. In this case, they should inform the ECC in writing. There have been such cases during previous elections when some candidates decided to withdraw to favour another candidate in return for them securing a government position should the favoured candidate win or to enter into another form of a political deal. If they withdraw after that date, they remain on the ballot, but any votes cast for them are not counted and their deposits are not returned with the money going into the state revenue. (5)

When this procedure is finished, the IEC will conduct the ballot lottery on 25 March to determine the order of candidates’ names on the ballot and publish the final candidates list on 26 March. The election campaign will start on 19 May and continue for 60 days until 17 July. This will be followed by a silence period of 48 hours before the polling day on 20 July.

Brief background to the tickets

Most registered tickets have adopted a name to indicate the focus of their respective election campaign or programme. (6) ‘Justice’ and ‘peace’ are the two most used words. We follow IEC’s order of the tickets on the preliminary list: 

Azadi wa Adalat (Freedom and Justice) team led by Abdul Latif Pedram, a Tajik from Badakhshan, who leads his own party, the Tajik-ethno-nationalist and pro-federalism National Congress Party. Pedram was an unsuccessful 2004 presidential candidate, a two-term (2005-10 and 2010-19) former MP, and an unsuccessful 2018 parliamentary candidate from his home province of Badakhshan. His first and second running-mates are respectively: 

• Ehsanullah Haidari, a Hazara from a prominent family in Ashterlai district of Daikundi province. He has a degree in sociology and archaeology from Kabul University. Haidari worked with several NGOs, including Oxfam and French Action contre la Faim. 
• Muhammad Sadeq Wardak, a Pashtun from Maidan Wardak province. He attended school up to secondary education and is a former Jihadi figure. (The info about both comes from diplomatic community sources) 

Mubareza bar zed Zulm wa Be-adalati (Fight against Oppression and Injustice) team led by Muhammad Ibrahim Alekozai, a Pashtun from Kandahar, who is the head of the National Consensus of the People of Afghanistan, a political coalition that came together in 2017 (media report). Since then, the group has been taking positions on political issues in a bid to establish political relevance. Alekozai is an elder of the eponymous tribe and chief of its council (according to diplomatic sources). He has graduated from political sciences from Kabul University and ran in the 2018 parliamentary elections in Kandahar, but was not elected (media report). His first and second running-mates are respectively:

• Khadija Ghaznawi, a Hazara born in Badakhshan (see here), but the family with origins from Ghazni (diplomatic sources), who tried to run with her own ticket in the 2014 presidential elections, but was disqualified (AAN’s reports here and here). Ghaznawi owns a logistic company, and is the president of the Ibrahim Asia Group of Companies.
• Sayyed Same Kayani from Ismaili-inhabited Kayan valley, Dushi district of Baghlan. 

Wahdat, Shafafiat wa Etedal (Unity, Transparency and Moderation) team led by Dr Zalmai Rasul, a Pashtun born in Kabul, but originally from Kandahar, who is a medical doctor, and served as minister of transport and civil aviation, minister of foreign affairs, and national security adviser to former President Karzai. Before 2001, he was the chief of staff of former King Zaher Shah in his exile in Rome. Rassul, with Ahmad Zia Massud and Habiba Sarabi as running-mates, also ran in the 2014 presidential elections (see here), and ranked third in the first round. His first and second running-mates are respectively: 

• Abdul Jabbar Taqwa, a Tajik from Farkhar district of Takhar, who was a member of Jamiat-e Islami during mujahedin (diplomatic sources) and has served as a governor of Parwan, Takhar and Kabul (see his biography here)
• Ghulam Ali Wahdat, a Hazara from Bamyan, who has servedas a governor of Bamyan as well as in several positions within the ministry of interior, including provincial police chief in Bamyan, police chief of the 404th Maiwand zone in southern Afghanistan, deputy minister of interior (see here). He is the brother of MP Safura Elkhani. He competed for 2018 Wolesi Jirga elections and was sentenced to three years in prison for misusing his authority and, as of October 2018, was said to be imprisoned, but still had the right to appeal (diplomatic sources).

A yet-unnamed ticket led by Ghulam Faruq Nejrabi, a Tajik from Kapisa province, who is the leaders of Hezb-e Esteqlal Afghanistan, holds PhD in surgery from Indira Gandhi University, India. It is the third time he is running for presidency (see also media report). His first and second running-mates are respectively: 

• Sharifullah (no information available so far) 
• Muhammad Sharif Babakarkhel 

Tadbir wa Tawse’a (Prudence and Development) team led by Dr Faramarz Tamana, a Tajik born in Herat, who holds two PhD degrees in the field of international relations and studies from Tehran University, Iran, and Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. He has worked with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in various capacities since 2002. Before registering to run for the presidential elections, he was head of the Centre for Strategic Studies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has been teaching as lecturer in different universities for the last ten years and is the chancellor of a private Afghanistan University. His first and second running-mates are respectively:

• Pohanmal (Prof.) Sayyed Qias Saidi, born in Chaparhar district of Nangarhar province. Sa’idi has completed his higher education in the field of economics from the University of Nangarhar and Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. He has worked with UNICEF as the head of public outreach and information in Nangahar, in charge of regional office of the United Nations Refugees Agency in eastern provinces, and head of Nangarhar provincial department of economy. 
•  Dr Muhammad Amin Reshadat, a Hazara born in Ghazni, holds a PhD in sociology (development and social change) from Shiraz University in Iran. Reshadat is currently deputy chancellor and a member of founding board of private Gharjestan University in Kabul. (The biographical information is extracted from their biographies published in Dari on Tamana’s Facebook account on 17 January 2019.)

Musharekat wa Taghir (Participation and Change) team led by Shaida Abdali, a Pashtun from Kandahar, who holds a master’s degree from the US and a PhD from India, and served as former deputy head of the National Security Council under former President, Hamed Karzai. Abdali has also been ambassador to India (2012-18). His first and second running-mates are respectively: 

• Abdul Basir Salangi, a Tajik from Parwan, is a member of Jamiat-e Islami party, has served as chief of police in Kabul, Maidan Wardak and Nangarhar between 2002 and 2009, as well as governor of Parwan and Farah in 2009-18 (see also this).
• Zulfiqar Omid, a Hazara from Daikundi, is the leader of Labour and Development party and is one of the leaders of the Enlightening Movement, a predominantly Hazara protest movement that emerged in protest to the rerouting of TUTAP power line from Bamyan to Salang (see AAN background here and here). Omid served as the director of international relations at the administrative office of the president during Karzai’s second term, and was an unsuccessful parliamentary candidate 2018 from Kabul and 2004 from Daikundi.

Masuliat wa Adalat (Responsibility and Justice) team, led by Nur Rahman Liwal. He was born in Logar province and is a computer and software engineer and the founder and owner of Pashto language software company in Kabul (media report here). He was also a candidate in the 2014 presidential election. His first and second running-mates are respectively:  

• Abdul Hadi Zul-Hekmat, a Pashtun from Logar province 
• Muhammad Yahya Wyar, a Pashtun from Khak-e-Jabar district of Kabul province, and a medical doctor with Jihadi background. He was a candidate for both 2014 and 2018 WJ elections, but failed to be elected. He worked as a public outreach officer for the Joint Election Management Body (JEMB) in 2005.

Khademin-e Mellat (Servants of the Nation) team led by Enayatullah Hafiz, a Hazara from Behsud district of Maidan Wardak. He has graduated from language and literature from Shahid Rabbani Education University, Kabul. He has been an unsuccessful two-times candidate for provincial councils, as well as an unsuccessful one-time candidate for the Wolesi Jirga (media report here). His first and second running-mates are respectively:  

• Jannat Khan Fahim Chakari, a Pashtun from the Chakari area, Bagrami district of Kabul province. Chakari holds a bachelor degree in military affairs and is a former military officer (diplomatic sources).
• Abdul Jamil Shirani, also a Pashtun, from Kabul. He holds a bachelor degree and is a former employee of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (diplomatic sources).    

Solh, Qanuniat wa Refah (Peace, Lawfulness and Welfare) team led by Shahab Hakimi, a Pashtun from Maidan Wardak province, who holds a degree in agriculture from Kabul University and a master’s degree in administration from Preston University, Islamabad. He has worked as a lecturer at Kabul and, recently, as the director of the Mine Detection Centre. He was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2005 Wolesi Jirga elections. His first and second running-mates are respectively (media reports here and here):  

• Nur ul-Habib Hasir (no information available so far)
• Abdul Ali Sarabi (no information available so far)

Wefaq-e Melli (National Accord) team led by Ahmad Wali Massud, a Tajik from Panjshir, who is another leading Jamiat member and brother of assassinated mujahedin leader Ahmad Shah Massud. He served as Afghan ambassador to London for many years, starting under the ISA government of Prof Borhanuddin Rabbani (1992-96). Today, he heads the Ahmad Shah Massud foundation in Kabul. Massud’s first and second running-mates are respectively:  

• Pohand Dr Farida Momand, a Pashtun from Nangarhar, who has served as professor at Kabul Medical University and dean of the paediatric department, and minister of higher education from President Ghani’s camp from April 2015 to 14 November 2016, when she lost a vote of confidence in the Wolesi Jirga (see AAN’s background here and here); She was an unsuccessful candidate for the 2009 provincial elections,  the 2010 and 2018 parliamentary elections.
• Dr Latif Nazari, a Hazara from Ghazni, holds a PhD in international relations from Tehran University, Iran, and is the founder of Eslahat Newspaper and the head of board of founders of private Gharjestan University. Nazari was a 2018 parliamentary candidate from Kabul, but did not win (his bio on his supporters’ Facebook page here). Nazari was previously a member of Hezb-e Wahdat-e Mardom led by Muhammad Mohaqeq.

Amal mekonem, sho’ar na medehem (We act, we do not chant slogans) team led by Hakim Tursan, an Uzbek born in Kabul. He graduated in Persian literature from Kabul University, and served in various intelligence capacities under former President Dr Najibullah. He ran in 2009 (but withdrew before the campaign) and 2014 (according to his bio, his supporters published). His running-mates are respectively:

• Nader Shah Ahmadzai, a Pashtun from Kabul, who is head of Civil Rights and Research Organisation of Afghanistan. He was one of the 17 presidential candidates disqualified in the 2014 presidential election
• Muhammad Shafi Qaisari, an Uzbek from Qaisar district of Faryab (see also here). He graduated from the Polytechnic Engineering Faculty at the University of Kabul and is a former head of Governmental Housing Company (Tassadi-ye Microrayonha) in Kabul. Qaisari is a leftist and former member of the Jombesh party (according to diplomatic sources). 

Amniyat wa Adalat (Security and Justice) team led by Rahmatullah Nabil, a Pashtun from Maidan Wardak (see AAN bio here). He served as the head of President’s Protection Service (PPS) in the presidential palace under President Karzai and then as chief of National Directorate of Security (NDS) from July 2010 to late 2015 (see AAN’s previous reporting here). He is a founding member of Mehwar-e Mardom-e Afghanistan coalition (AAN reporting here). His first and second running-mates are respectively:  

• Murad Ali Murad, a Hazara from Ghor province, who has served as commander of the Kabul Garrison until early 2019 (a position he resigned from in order to be able to run) and before as senior deputy minister of interior for security, first deputy of chief of army staff, and general commander of ground forces (see also his short bio on a Facebook page of his supporters here).
• Dr Massuda Jalal, a Tajik from Badakhshan, who was a presidential candidate in the first, 2004 presidential election, and then served as the minister of women’s affairs from October 2004 to July 2006 (see also AAN’s previous reporting here). She was a candidate in the October 2018 parliamentary elections from Kabul, but was not elected.  

Solh wa Adalat-e Islami (Peace and Islamic Justice) team led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a Pashtun from Kunduz, the leader of Hezb-e Islami during the war against the Soviet occupation and now of one of its factions (AAN background here). His first and second running-mates are respectively:

• Dr Fazl ul-Hadi Wazin, a Tajik from Parwan, who has a PhD degree in Islamic studies from Imam Muhammad Ben Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and served as lecturer in International Islamic University in Islamabad, and a visiting professor in Fatema Jinah University, Pakistan. 
• Mufti Hafiz ul-Rahman Naqi, a Tajik from Badakhshan, who has served as a judge, as well as in other capacities in the judiciary, and was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2010 and 2018 parliamentary elections.

The information about the two running-mates is extracted from their bios AAN received from a deputy spokesman for the party, Fazl Ghani Haqmal. He claimed in a conversation with AAN on 7 February that Hezb-e Islami had picked the running-mates based on merits, and not on any division of ethnic groups. Haqmal said that both running-mates were members of Hezb-e Islami. Media had earlier wrongly reported that Wazin was an Uzbek (see here and here). 

A yet-unnamed ticket led by Nurullah Jalili. Ali Madad Rezayi, the person in charge of his public relations, told AAN on 7 February that the name and slogan of Jalili’s ticket had not yet been finalised. Jalili is a Sayyed from Nangarhar province and graduated from Kabul medical university. He previously worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the Taleban. He is the director of the Kabul-based road-construction company America. Both he and his company worked as contractors with the US military (according to diplomatic sources). His first and second running-mates are respectively:  

• Khalil Roman, a Tajik born in Kabul, who has graduated in journalism, was a member of the Parcham branch of People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, has served as chief of staff of former President Dr Najibullah, and deputy chief of staff of former President Karzai. He was an unsuccessful candidate in 2010 parliamentary elections from Kabul province. 
• Cheragh Ali Cheragh, has served as director of Kunduz public health department, head of Jamhuriyat hospital, Kabul Medial Institute, acting head of Shahid Rabbani Education University, and head of Balkh University (media report here). Cheragh was the second running-mate of Dr Abdullah in the 2009 presidential elections. 

Subat wa Hamgerayi (Stability and Integration) team led by Dr Abdullah Abdullah, the current chief executive of the National Unity Government and a prominent member of Jamiat-e Islami. After 2009 and 2014, this is the third time Abdullah has run for the presidency. Some leaders of his party, such as Ismail Khan, had requested him not to run again, criticising him for his – in his view – too quiet role in what he called the “kindergarten” National Unity Government. Abdullah’s first and second running-mates are respectively: 

• Dr Enayatullah Babur Farahmand, an Uzbek born in Jawzjan, who holds a medical degree from Balkh University and has served as correspondent, producer and reporter with the BBC Uzbek service. He was an MP from 2010 to 2015, and chief of staff of first Vice-President General Abdul Rashid Dostum from 2015 until January 2019 when he resigned to be Dostum’s man in Abdullah’s ticket (see his bio on his Facebook page in English here). 
• Asadullah Sadati, a Hazara MP from Daikundi, who holds a degree in literature from Kabul University and a master’s degree in international relations from the private Ibn-e Sina Unversity, also Kabul. He was an MP from 2010 to 2019 and is affiliated with the leader of one faction of Hezb-e Wahdat-e Islami and head of High Peace Council, Muhammad Karim Khalili.  

Dawlat-sazan (State-builders) team led by Muhammad Ashraf Ghani, a Pashtun from Logar province, who is the incumbent president of the National Unity Government since 2014. He has served as adviser to former President Karzai during his interim administration, chancellor of Kabul University, and minister of finance. He was a candidate in the 2009 presidential elections and ranked fourth. He was appointed by Karzai as the head of the Transition Coordination Commission. The team’s title possibly refers to Ghani’s book Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World (2009, with Clare Lockhart). His first and second running-mates are respectively: 

• Amrullah Saleh, a Tajik from Panjshir, and a former Jamiati who has distanced himself from his old party. He now runs his own Green Trend of Afghanistan, which he established after his resignation as NDS director in 2010 and had its first public appearance on 5 May 2011. Saleh supported Dr Abdullah in the 2014 presidential election. During the NUG, he co-headed the fact-finding commission investigating the 2015 fall of Kunduz. He was appointed as state minister for security reform in March 2017, but resigned after three months and as minister of interior in December 2018. After less than a month, he resigned again to be able to run on Ghani’s ticket (see AAN background here and here).
• Second Vice-President Sarwar Danesh, a Hazara from Daikundi province, served as the first governor of Daikundi (after it was established in 2004), minister of justice and higher education under former President Karzai. Danesh was a member of the constitutional drafting commission in 2003. He is a member of Khalili’s Wahdat-e Islami Party, which supported Ghani in the 2014 presidential election. However, this time, Khalili’s party has announced its support for Abdullah. 
• It is important to note Ghani has also picked a third, informal running-mate: Muhammad Yusef Ghazanfar, an Uzbek and former MP from Balkh, and brother of former minister of women’s affairs, Husn Banu Ghazanfar (diplomatic source). Ghazanfar was present at Ghani’s registration and might serve as an adviser or special representative to him, until any possible amendment to the constitution to create a third vice-presidential post. 

An idea had been floated to amend the constitution to create a third vice-presidential post, but in more practical terms, this step is a bid to garner the votes of the Uzbek community,the fourth-largest ethnic group of the country. (On Ghani’s 2014 ticket, Dostum was the vice-president ‘for the Uzbeks’; there was no Tajik on the ticket then.)

Solh wa Etedal (Peace and Moderation) team led by Muhammad Hanif Atmar, a Pashtun from Laghman, who has served as national security adviser to President Ghani until 2018, and before as minister of rural rehabilitation and development, education and interior under President Karzai (who fired him – AAN background here and here). Atmar is also a founding member of the Right and Justice party established in 2011 (AAN background here). His first and second running-mates are respectively: 

• Former vice-president Muhammad Yunus Qanuni, a Tajik from Panjshir, is senior Jamiat member. In 2001, Qanuni served as chief negotiator for the ‘Northern Alliance’ delegation at the Bonn conference.  He was a candidate in the 2004 presidential election, ranking second. He also served as speaker of Wolesi Jirga from 2005 to 2010, MP from Kabul from 2010, and as first vice-president following the death of Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim in March 2014 (AAN background here) till October of the same year. 
• Muhammad Mohaqeq, the second deputy to Chief Executive Abdullah, and the leader of Hazara-dominated Hezb-e Wahdat-e Mardom-e Afghanistan. Mohaqeq served as a vice-president and the minister of planning in Karzai’s interim government, and was a candidate in the 2004 presidential elections, ranking third. He was a two-term MP from Kabul (2005-10 and 2010-14 when he resigned to join Abdullah’s ticket as second running-mate). On 24 January, President Ghani issued a decree dismissing Mohaqeq from his position as the deputy chief executive, which he rejected as “illegal.” Chief Executive Abdullah, who had nominated him, called the dismissal as “totally in contradiction with the spirit of the political agreement founding the National Unity Government,” saying that the government would continue to serve till the next presidential elections are held and “the next legitimate government is formed.” 
• Like Ghani, Atmar has also picked a third, informal running-mate, Alem Sa’i, an Uzbek and a former governor of Jawzjan. He is a member of the anti-Dostum New Jombesh party, which declared its existence in June 2017 (AAN background here).

Mardomsalari, Enkeshaf wa Tawazun (Democracy [People’s Power], Development and Balance) team led by Nur ul-Haq Ulumi, a Pashtun from Kandahar, who leads his own political party called Hezb-e Mutahed-e Melli (National United Party) and served as minister of interior from January 2015 to February 2016 (see AAN reports here and here). He was an MP from Kandahar from 2005 to 2010. Under the government of President Najbullah (1986-92), he was a general and head of the southwestern zone, ie ‘Greater Kandahar’. His first and second running-mates are respectively:  

• Bashir Bezhan, a Tajik from Badakhshan,  who has served as editor of Ariana Airlines magazine Parwaz, editor of Khabar Negar and the founder and editor of the weekly cultural magazine Cina magazine. He was and unsuccessful candidate in 2009 presidential elections and 2018 parliamentary elections from Kabul.
• Muhammad Naim Ghayur, born in Guzara district of Herat, according to his Facebook profile, is from a mixed Tajik/Pashtun family. His father is originally from Ghor province and his mother hails from the Katawaz area of Paktika province. He holds a bachelor in law and political science degree, as well as attended several military and intelligence courses in Afghanistan and abroad. He started his official governmental career as Enjil district direct of NDS and served in the ministry of defence in different capacities, including director of intelligence for 606 Ansar police zone in Herat province (2014-18). Ghayur is said to be a leftist, formerly with the PDPA’s Parcham faction (diplomatic sources), and is currently a member of Ulumi’s party.

Conclusion: Caveats

All proceedings for the planned July 2019 presidential election continue to be overshadowed by the on-going peace efforts (AAN analysis here) and the election reform process. On the former, US special envoy for reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, said at an event at the US Institute of Peace in Washington DC on 8 February that he hoped to achieve a peace agreement with the Taleban before the 20 July 2019 election date. An agreement, whenever reached at, would require to then merge the (old or new) Afghan government with the Taleban who – as a partner of such an agreement – however so far do not consider the government in Kabul as an actor in its own right.

On election reform, President Ghani held a consultative meeting with a number of presidential candidates or their representatives, as well as with representatives of some political parties in the presidential palace on 8 February (report by the presidential office here). There, the president said that there was a consensus to amend the electoral law and that the government had prepared draft amendments. On 9 February, another consultative meeting with representatives of candidates, parties and observer organisations was chaired by Vice-President Sarwar Danesh to discuss various articles of the proposed amendments to the law (see here on his Facebook page). No outcome was officially reported. Mobinullah Aimaq, the head of Free Watch Afghanistan, an observer organisation, who had participated in the meeting, told AAN on 9 February that there was no agreement reached and it was decided to meet again. 

On 9 February, a joint committee of the presidential candidates, which includes all presidential tickets except President Ghani’s, issued a statement. This said that the council had rejected the amendments proposed by the Palace on 8 February. These candidates submitted their own draft amendments including: retaining the selection committee for shortlisting applicants for the position of electoral commissioners, but changing its members (while the government’s draft amendment, of which AAN has seen a copy, calls for abolishing the selection committee and asks registered political parties and election-related civil society organisations to introduce 15 candidates each and the president – then in consultation with the chief justice, speakers of the two houses of the parliament, attorney general, heads of the commission for overseeing the implementation of the constitution and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, as well as heads of political parties and civil society organisations – appoints seven of them as IEC members); calling for the appointment of new electoral commissioners and heads of the IEC and ECC secretariats in consultation with the candidates; cancelling the existing voter list and preparing a new one using biometric technology only; and using technology in the presidential elections (without specifying whether it means they want electronic voting). 

On 11 February, the IEC issued a statement saying that it had been informed through the media that the government seeks to amend the electoral law and endorse it through a legislative decree. It said that given that the president and the chief executive of the national unity government are among the candidates, amendments to the electoral law by the national unity government at this critical time “will not pursue any other goals other than manipulating the upcoming election process, which is very dangerous for the country’s future and the post-elections that will result from this will move the country to crisis.” 

The IEC said that it had referred the issue of how to amend the electoral law to the legal institutions, including the Supreme Court and the Commission for Overseeing the Implementation of the Constitution so they can share their legal opinions with the IEC and other bodies that seek to amend the electoral law at this juncture.

This shows that the palace and a unified front of all other candidates are currently at loggerheads over large parts of the electoral reforms, including the mechanism of changing the commissioners, and they both face backlash from the IEC. If the disagreement lingers, it will continue to hamper the preparations and, perhaps, lead to another delay in the elections, as the IEC might not be able to start certain important activities, such as the top-up voter registration exercise planned for 1 to 20 March and the registration of candidates for the provincial and district council elections, as well as Wolesi Jirga elections in Ghazni planned for 1 to 15 March.

Edited by Thomas Ruttig

(1) According to article 73 of the electoral law, the application for presidential candidacy should include the following:

• Name and specific address
• A copy of the document that proves his/her identity 
• Verified copy of educational documents as mentioned in this law.
•  Information on non-conviction, age, health status, movable and immovable properties, permanent and current residence addresses, latest place of employment and other instances stated in this law. 
• List of names, number of the voter registration cards and the fingerprints of one hundred thousand voters, from a minimum of twenty provinces, at least two percent from each province
• Provision of official document of resignation from the government positions pursuant to the provisions of the law. 
• Provide the names of two eligible vice-presidents, who fulfill the conditions set forth in this law. 

(2) In 2009, Foruzan Fana and Shahla Atta ran. The former, widow of minister Dr Abdul Rahman, who had been assassinated in 2002, scored best, ending on seventh place with 0.47 per cent of the total valid vote (see AAN analysis here). The IEC did not provide any reasons for the disqualification of the only female candidate in 2014, Khadija Ghaznawi,  but generally (there were other disqualifications) cited failure to meet registration requirements and having dual citizenship (see AAN’s report here).

(3) Article 38 of the electoral law reads:

• A person may nominate himself/herself for the presidency, who meets the following requirements:
  • Shall be an Afghan citizen, a Muslim and born to Afghan parents and shall not have the citizenship of another country.
  • Shall not be less than 40 years of age on the day of candidacy.
  • Shall not have been convicted of crimes against humanity and felony or deprived of civil rights by the court.
  • Shall not have been elected as a president or vice- president for more than two terms.
• The vice-presidents shall also meet the requirements mentioned in clause (1) of this article.

(4) Article 74 of the electoral law says:

• The Commission is obliged to publish the preliminary list of candidates soon after the completion of the candidacy period.
  • The persons, who may have objections to the preliminary list of the candidates, may submit their objections to the Central Complaints Commission within a maximum of two weeks following the publication of the list. These objections shall be addressed in compliance with the relevant procedure and this decision shall be final.
  • Once all the objections are addressed by the Central Complaints Commission, the final list of candidates shall be published by the Commission. This list shall be unchangeable.
  • The Commission is obliged to display the final list of candidates at the polling centres on the Election Day.

(5) Article 75 of the electoral law reads: 

•  In case a candidate withdraws from his/her candidacy, he/she is obliged to inform the Commission in writing prior to the date determined in the electoral calendar.
•  In case a candidate withdraws from his/her candidacy or dies after the date determined in the electoral calendar or if he/she is disqualified by the Complaints Commission, the votes related to him/her shall not be counted during counting of the votes. 
•  Only the deposit money of those candidates would be returned, who have withdrawn or died within the period of time determined in the electoral calendar.

(6) Source: Terms of reference of the joint committee of 2019 presidential candidates, which includes 17 presidential tickets, except President Ghani’s (AAN has seen a copy).  The committee, which they also call the Council for Collaboration of the 2019 Presidential elections, has been formed after candidate nomination ended. The term of reference sets the following objectives for the committee or council: a) to facilitate consultation and taking joint stance regarding the instances pertaining to the integrity of the election process; b) to prevent illegal interference and influence by the government and other institutions in the election affairs; c) to forge coordination among candidates and different electoral teams about the necessary electoral reform, as well as in working with the relevant commissions; and d) to observe the election process. It issued a statement on 2 February saying that the council had approved a proposed procedure on preventing the abuse of government resources, authorities and facilities for election and political campaigning, which sets out “binding moral limits.” The statement said that majority of candidates had approved the procedure and officially sent it to the presidential office. The statement also said that the council had discussed a second document, which is a draft proposal on electoral reforms (AAN has seen both documents). 

The Italian Lightning II are involved in their third deployment to Decimomannu airbase. Six ItAF F-35As out of the eight currently in Italy (two more ones are at Luke Air Force Base in the U.S.) [...]

“AOPA estimates that more than 2,000 airports—home bases to more than 28,600 aircraft—are located within the area’s lowest airspace contour.” GPS has become increasingly important to our lives. Not only do Waze, Uber, and many [...]

Long live the Legacy Hornet! On the very same day the U.S. Navy bid farewell to its last operational “Legacy Hornets” at NAS Oceana, Virginia, the U.S. Marine Corps Marine Aircraft Group (MAG) 11, 3rd Marine [...]

will take place on Tuesday, 19 February (09:00-12:30 and 14:30-18:30) 2019 in Brussels.

Organisations or interest groups who wish to apply for access to the European Parliament will find the relevant information below.

Further information
Watch the meeting
Access rights for interest group representatives
Eschange of views on 'Security situation in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait'
Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

EDA Chief Executive Jorge Domecq and Hans-Werner Grenzhäuser, the Athena Administrator, have signed an arrangement renewing the framework for future cooperation between EDA and Athena.

The Cooperation Arrangement signed on 1 February 2019 aims at replacing the previous arrangement which was signed on 27 February 2015 and was valid for a limited period. It offers the option for any CSDP Operation/Mission Commander to call upon EDA to provide technical and overall administrative support for their most complex procurement procedures. The full text of the arrangement is available here.

Under the previous arrangement, the Agency has supported the EU Training Mission in Mali for the procurement in Europe of a medical incinerator between May 2015 and February 2016. EDA also supported operation EUFOR ALTHEA in Bosnia and Herzegovina for a cost-benefit analysis of camp management in the Sarajevo Camp Butmir from July to October 2015.

In addition, the Agency supports CSDP military operations and missions with other projects as well as contracted support pre-mission solutions. On the project side this has so far included cyber awareness seminars, maritime surveillance, personnel management as well as management of geospatial information. Contracted support reaches from satellite communications to wider logistics support. 

This has already been the case for CSDP military operations in the Central African Republic (EUFOR RCA and later EUTM RCA), the Mediterranean Sea (EUNAVFOR MED operation Sophia), Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUFOR Althea), Mali (EUTM Mali), Somalia (EUTM Somalia and EUNAVFOR Atalanta). 

Most recently, EDA also started supporting the newly established Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC) with contracted communication services, and it is supporting CSDP civilian missions as well.
 

The Athena Mechanism

Athena is the mechanism established to administer the financing of the common costs of European Union operations having military or defence implications governed by Council Decision 2015/528/CFSP. The Council Decision allows for arrangements to be negotiated with Union bodies to facilitate procurement and/or financial aspects of mutual support in operations in the most cost-effective manner.
 

More information: 

• Cooperation Arrangement signed on 1 February 2019 (full text)
• Support to Operations (EDA brochure)

 

The European Defence Agency has just concluded multiple framework contracts with Global Helicopter Service GMBH, Elitaliana S.R.L. and Starlite Aviation Operations Ltd. for the provision of fixed and rotary wings medical evacuation services in the context of EDA’s Support of Operations. The contracts run until January 2023 for a maximum value of 120 million Euro. 

In national and multinational operations, the provision of In-theatre aeromedical evacuation services is often a challenge. In many cases, capabilities are not available from Member States and outsourcing is necessary to provide air medical evacuation services through private companies. Experience shows that contracting on the spot under time pressure is mostly not a cost-effective solution. Having in place ready-to-use arrangements is very beneficial to ensure immediate availability of services, whilst equally reducing the administrative burden and achieving economies of scale.

The overall purpose of the AIRMEDEVAC project is to efficiently and cost effectively provide contributing members with an option to order ‘ready-to-use’ commercially available In-theatre aeromedical evacuation services through EDA. The 4 contributing members (CM) today are: Austria, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. The project is open to all EDA participating Member States, EU entities as well as third states having an administrative arrangement with EDA.

The contributing members have mandated EDA through a Project Arrangement (PA) to manage the project including the negotiation of Multiple Framework Contracts (FWCs) and service requests on their behalf. The contracts concluded today are the result of a close cooperation dating back to 2016 between EDA, the EU Military Staff and the contributing members to define the requirements and evaluate the services required. EDA has been in the lead of the process up to the conclusion of the contract and will continue to be fully responsible for its management throughout the implementation. 

The contractors offer services to evacuate patients from the point of injury to the initial Medical Treatment Facility (Forward AIRMEDEVAC) or to transfer them between in-theatre Medical Treatment Facilities (Tactical AIRMEDEVAC) in the context of national and/or international defence and/or security operations. Services include access to a wide range of Rotary and Fixed-Wing aircraft in Europe and Africa to meet a variety of operational needs, both abroad and at home. 

The project constitutes an efficient pay-per-use solution that does not impose any binding financial commitments beyond services requested. It is quick and flexible and will reduce the administrative burden for members who do not have to run their own bidding processes since they can rely on the EDA framework contracts.
 

More information: 

• AIRMEDEVAC factsheet
• EDA brochure support to operations

MH-6 Little Bird and MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters involved in a urban training exercise in downtown Los Angeles. U.S. Army helicopters are conducting realistic military urban training in the greater Los Angeles and Long Beach [...]

Chinese QBU-88 Designated Marksman Rifle

“Europe for Aviation” is the theme around which European aviation organisations working to implement the Single European Sky (SES) will gather at this year’s World ATM Congress, from 12 to 14 March in Madrid, Spain.

Strong collaboration between European aviation organisations (civil and military) is proving key to generating growth for the industry and to meeting the passenger demand for safer, smarter, greener and more seamless air travel, in line with the EU Aviation Strategy. Over the course of the 3-day Congress, these organisations will come together to show how through collaboration they can go much further in tackling pressing challenges, such as air traffic delays and congestion, drone integration, digital transformation and cyber security.

The “Europe for Aviation” stand and theatre (#849 and #1151) will host a wide range of debates, presentations and guided walking tours, illustrating the collaboration in action between European aviation organisations working to implement SES, namely the European Commission, EUROCONTROL, SESAR Joint Undertaking (SESAR JU), SESAR Deployment Manager (SESAR DM), European Aviation Safety Agency, European Defence Agency, Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA), and EUROCAE. In doing so, the organisations will show how between them they cover the full project management cycle from policy and funding to research and deployment.

Look out for:

• Official opening by Director General of DG MOVE, Henrik Hololei with the Executive Directors/Director Generals of each of the participating organisations.
• Single European Sky Awards ceremony (#SESAwards) followed by a networking drink (12 March, 17:00).
• Panel debate sessions on the looming capacity crunch, global interoperability, civil-military collaboration, standardisation, and the future of the Single European Sky.
• Technical sessions on U-space and drone integration, communications navigation and surveillance (CNS), datalink services implementation, digital transformation and cybersecurity.
• A series of SESAR walking tours on the latest technological advances underway by SESAR partners, and their status in terms of research and development, and deployment.
• Dedicated stand for networking with SES partners, featuring interactive and virtual reality experiences.

Register as exhibitor visitor at the Congress and gain free access to the “Europe for Aviation” stand and theatre.

Follow #EuropeForAviation for updates from: 
@Transport_EU @eurocontrol @SESAR_JU @SESAR_DM @EASA ‏@EUDefenceAgency @INEA_EU @EUROCAE1

 

Europe for Aviation

Europe for Aviation” is the theme around which European aviation organisations working to implement the Single European Sky will gather at this year’s World ATM Congress.  Over the course of the 3-day Congress, these organisations will come together to show how through collaboration they can go much further in tackling pressing challenges, such as air traffic delays and congestion, drone integration, digital transformation and cyber security.

 

The end of an era: “Tonka” have returned to RAF Marham from their last tour of duty. On Jan. 31, 2019, the RAF launched the final operational sortie of the Tornado GR4. The aircraft (ZA601/066 [...]

Interesting images of the 180th Fighter Wing’s Vipers flying over KSC. During the cold winter months, the 180th Fighter Wing’s F-16s belonging to the Ohio Air National Guard, based at Toledo Air National Guard Base, [...]

Here are some shots of the F-35B operating at sea in “Bomb Truck” configuration. F-35B Lightning II aircraft, attached to the F-35B detachment of the “Flying Tigers” of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 262 (Reinforced), [...]

Under the auspices of the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Romanian Ministry of National Defence, in cooperation with the European Defence Agency (EDA), organises a conference on the theme of “Capability-Driven Defence Research and Innovation”.

The conference will take place on 26 March 2019 in Bucharest at the Palace of the Parliament venue. 

High-level representatives from Ministries of Defence, defence research centres, industry and the European institutions will discuss the present and future opportunities as well as challenges of the Capability Driven Defence Research. The event will showcase the new prioritisation instruments for defence research, technology and innovation, highlight the fusion that can be achieved on research priorities at National and European level and provide an update on the latest developments on the European Defence Fund. Moreover, the conference will provide to participants insights and lessons learned from some of the most successful R&T collaborative research projects which have been implemented under the framework of EDA.

A formal invitation, including the full programme will be available in the coming weeks. 

Inquiries regarding the event should be directed to: conference2019@dpa.ro

The conference agenda is available here.

The conference registration is available here.

With the US-Taleban negotiations in Doha actually addressing how to end the Afghan war, and with first progress being made in the form of an agreed draft framework, Afghanistan seems to be slowly inching beyond the impasse of only ‘talks about talks.’ With this, a peace process has possibly left the starting blocks, but only barely. The main problem is that, so far, the negotiations have only involved two of the three main parties to the conflict. The Taleban are formally still blocking the inclusion of the Afghan government in the talks, but they might have room for manoeuvre. The Afghan government, meanwhile, has been incensed by talks about an interim government by which it feels being undermined. AAN co-director and senior analyst Thomas Ruttig looks at the issues that were discussed at the talks, as well as those that were not yet, at least not officially (with input from Martine van Bijlert and Obaid Ali).

This research was supported by the Embassy of Canada in Kabul through its Canada Fund for Local Initiative (CFLI) Program.

The ‘framework’

The contours of the latest round of US-Taleban negotiations in Qatar have begun to emerge. After six days of meetings with representatives of the insurgents, US special ‘reconciliation’ envoy Zalmay Khalilzad came to Kabul on 27 January 2019 to brief the Afghan leadership. He told the New York Times that a “framework” had “in principle” been agreed upon. The framework seems to mainly consist of two key topics that need to be further negotiated: the withdrawal of all foreign forces and Taleban guarantees against a post-agreement return of al-Qaeda-type terrorist groups to Afghanistan. Or in Khalilzad’s words: “We have a draft of the framework that has to be fleshed out before it becomes an agreement.” For that purpose, two “working groups” have been established.

This means that both sides have accepted to work out the practicalities of how to implement each other’s main immediate political goals into a workable sequencing: making sure all foreign troops leave Afghanistan – which has always been the Taleban’s main demand (although the wish to withdraw is now also shared in large parts of the US administration, but not fully by Republicans in Senate) – while ensuring that renewed 9/11-style attacks cannot emanate from Afghan territory again – which has always been a main US demand. 

It is not clear how much has already been put in writing, or whether the discussions were based on written documents (both in Doha, and during the round of talks in Abu Dhabi in December 2018). (1) What is clear is that, for the first time, the threshold from preliminary ‘talks about talks’ to substantive negotiations has been crossed (after earlier rounds of negotiations, from 2011 to 2014, that focused mainly on a prisoner swap that actually happened, see AAN analysis here; the fact that those talks took three years, indicate how difficult negotiations, on even a single issue, can be). The duration of the latest round of negotiations in Doha – six days, the longest since talks commenced in 2018 – indicated that both sides worked seriously on an agreement. 

According to Taleban sources, the US have also “promised” to help in reconstruction efforts after its troop withdrawal, and the Taleban would welcome this. “We have told them that after ending your military intervention, we will welcome U.S. engineers, doctors and others if they want to come back for reconstruction of Afghanistan,” Sher Muhammad Abbas Stanakzai, the outgoing head of the Taleban office in Doha, said. (2)

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US envoy Khalilzad called the agreement on the framework “significant progress.” Several media outlets, possibly encouraged by their briefers, even opted for the term “breakthrough.” The Taleban simply spoke of “progress” after the latest Doha round.

According to outgoing Taleban chief negotiator Stanakzai (quoted here), for the next meeting in Doha, set for 25 February, “the two technical teams will prepare proposals and take decisions and bring them to the table.” He added that after that a larger meeting would be arranged, with major powers, the United Nations and representatives of Islamic countries in attendance as “guarantors” where assurances will be given that all foreign troops will leave Afghanistan. But he still made no mention of the possible inclusion of the Afghan government.

The conditionalities of a ‘package deal’

Spreading optimism is part of a diplomat’s basic toolbox. It is also currently a necessity in the US, where President Donald Trump’s lack of patience with the US mission in Afghanistan is well known. Trump made it clear long before he came into office that he would have preferred a quick pull out (see AAN’s annotated collection of his pre-election, Afghanistan-related tweets here). Khalilzad is well aware of this need to placate this impatience and, for now, seems to have done so satisfactorily. One of the President Trump’s fearsome tweets on 30 January lauded the Afghan negotiations as “proceeding well” (quoted here).

Still, Khalilzad works and Afghans live under a Trump “tweet of Damocles” (a term the Wall Street Journal seems to have coined). When Khalilzad took on his new assignment in September 2018, he told diplomatic colleagues that he probably had six to twelve months to produce a breakthrough for the president, according to “people briefed on the discussions” quoted by the Wall Street Journal in November 2018. Other outlets suggested that he had until the 2019 Afghan presidential election, which has been postponed from April to July 2019. According to the WSJ article, it was Khalilzad who had raised the issue of a possible delay – something he himself denies – as an election could stand in the way of ‘peace’.

The NYT article that broke the news of the agreement on a ‘framework’ and that inspired a media frenzy across the world also had more details on the possible complexities of what lies ahead. It quoted an unnamed “senior American official involved in the talks”, who said the Taleban had asked for time to confer with their leadership on the additional US requirements of a cease-fire and direct talks with the Afghan government. The official described these issues as “interconnected” and part of a “package deal.” 

This suggests that the talks will not simply revolve around a framework with a topic list, but that all will depend on the ability to agree on the sequencing and interconnectedness of the various points of conditionality. 

Thus, the United States said it would agree to withdraw its “combat troops” from Afghanistan “only in return for the Taliban’s entering talks with the Afghan government and agreeing to a lasting cease-fire.” Khalilzad stressed elsewhere that all talks would take place in accordance with the principle that “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.” (A principle that was also used in Colombia’s peace negotiations with FARC; see AAN’s dispatch on what Afghanistan can learn from this process here).

The Taleban, in turn, insisted on a conditionality of their own. Reuters quoted their spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed as saying that “until the issue of withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan is agreed upon, progress on other issues is impossible.” They also continue to refuse to talk with the Afghan government. (3)

The two conditionalities, for the moment, seem to block each other. However, the fact that the Taleban delegation is said to have asked for a break of the Doha negotiations to confer with their leadership, shows that there may be room for manoeuvre. Also, on their ambivalent wording on their seemingly unmovable position not to talk to the government in Kabul before all foreign soldiers have left. At the Afghanistan conference in Moscow in mid-November 2018, (4) Stanakzai told Russian media in an interview:

Those matters which are related to the Afghan side… the future government, the constitution etc, that can be discussed with the Afghan side… But before that, the American side should guarantee and they should fix a timetable for the withdrawal of their forces. When they give an international guarantee for the withdrawal of their forces, than it is possible [to talk] with the Afghan side also. … Also with other forces that have influence in Afghanistan. 

Here, the existence of a timetable is set as the precondition for direct talks, not the finalised withdrawal. 

Afghan president Ashraf Ghani has his own conditionality: he has vehemently rebuked talks about an “interim government”, particularly as feels this is been discussed over his head (more about this below). 

Issues agreed upon ‘in principle’

1.Troop withdrawal 

Even though the withdrawal of foreign forces is part of the agreed framework, and of the future talks’ agenda, not much is clear yet. Some media have reported, quoting Taleban sources, that the US has agreed to withdraw forces within 18 months (which seems unlikely under the principle that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”), while noting that the US had denied that a timeline was even discussed (see, for example, here). Taleban spokesman Mujahed also denied that an 18 months’ timeline had been established in Doha. Outgoing Doha office chief Stanakzai was quoted in Pakistani media as saying that “I think the US government is very serious to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.“ However, AAN has been told by Afghan journalists that Khalilzad told them – off the records – that a US military withdrawal within 18 months would be definite. (This still doesn’t mean it has been formally agreed with the Taleban, but their public statement clearly indicate they got this message, too.)

So far, the Taleban have made their involvement in an agreement conditional on US readiness to, at least, commit to a timetable. This was also one of the take-aways of the Moscow conference, the Taleban’s Stanakzai told Russian media: “Before [intra-Afghan talks], the American side should guarantee and fix a timetable for the withdrawal of their forces.” The US had already signalled its readiness to discuss a timetable in future negotiations in February 2018 during the Kabul Process 2 meeting (AAN analysis here). 

Regardless of whether an 18-months withdrawal period has been substantively discussed, or not, it does seem logistically possible. For example, the reduction of ISAF troops (90,000 of which were Americans) from 129,000 in March 2012 when the drawdown was decided, to around 28,000 in November 2014 (which was the last available figure; full withdrawal was never completed and the remaining troops were re-labelled Resolute Support) had been possible within less than three years. The Soviet Union even managed to withdraw their circa 100,000 troops within ten months between May 1988 and February 1989 (although this was made somewhat easier by the fact that it was a neighbouring country and they could use land routes). 

The discussions around troop withdrawal, so far, seem to focus on all “foreign forces”, which seems to imply that it will also cover all non-US, NATO and non-NATO, troops. The New York Times article quoted above, speaks about the withdrawal of “combat troops” which, as it is not a direct quote, might be the interpretation of the paper. But it could also leave open the possibility of non-combat missions, such as the current (but further reduced) US/NATO-led Resolute Support “train, advise and assist” mission, or – as the Brooking’s Vanda Velbab-Brown suggested – a “residual U.S. military force, of say 1,000 soldiers to protect the U.S. embassy, which – wink, wink, with the Taliban’s permission – will have the capacity to conduct limited counterterrorism strikes.” Or just an intelligence presence, as Trump suggested in his 3 February 2019 interview with CBS. There are further questions as to whether the discussed withdrawal would also cover private security contractors and whether the US may seek continued access to Afghan military bases in the context of counterterrorism. 

There are also indications that the US would like to keep the bilateral US-Afghan security agreement (BSA) of 2014 in force after a possible deal (more on the BSA here at AAN, including the full text) after a peace deal. Resistance to a maintained agreement, that regulates the presence and activities of US troops in Afghanistan might not only come from the Taleban. Stanakzai had stated in Moscow: “We will not tolerate a single American soldier in our country,” but he is not the only one who feels that way. Islamists and nationalists in Afghanistan itself, including in parliament, have spoken out against the US presence. Former president Hamed Karzai has also vehemently opposed the agreement and resisted signing the document that was worked out during his tenure. He had left it to his successor, Ashraf Ghani, who also opted not to sign it in person, but passed it on to his then national security advisor (and now challenger in the 2019 elections) Hanif Atmar. 

The US currently has 14,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, divided between the Resolute Support mission (8,500 by December 2018, according to NATO) and the purely US ‘can-be-combat’ counter-terrorism mission Freedom’s Sentinel (see AAN analysis here). Additionally, there are some 8,000 troops from 38 NATO and non-NATO countries, ranging from Germany to Georgia (currently troop providers number two and four), from Great Britain (second largest) to New Zealand, and from Turkey to Mongolia. 

It is likely that many countries will leave if the US does, even if they are not asked to do so. German defence minister Ursula von der Leyen, for example, already told national media on 16 January 2019 that, in the case of a full US withdrawal, her country would also pull out its troops. She quoted the NATO principle of “together in, together out.“ Practically speaking, most non-US troop providers would be unable to stay behind anyway, as many of them depend on US logistics and air cover. There is also an ‘Afghanistan fatigue’ in many governments and parliaments, who would welcome a withdrawal. A number of other countries, such as Canada and France, have already fully withdrawn. With Turkey, Azerbaijan and Bosnia, there are some Muslim-majority countries with forces in Afghanistan. But the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the only Arab country ever participating in ISAF with doctors and Special Forces, has pulled out.

2.Counter-terrorism 

The Taleban have reportedly agreed not to allow Afghanistan to be used as an operational basis for terrorist groups again. This mainly refers to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (called Daesh in Afghanistan and the Middle East), with its Afghan-Pakistani franchise, the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), but also to an array of other groups active in the region, ranging from Pakistani Lashkar-e Taiba, to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. The root of this demand is the fact that Osama Ben Laden’s al-Qaeda had planned, or at least inspired, the terrorist attacks on US territory on 11 September 2001, while living in Afghanistan. The Taleban hosted al-Qaida at that time and had refused to hand over Ben Laden (initially for his role in the October 2000 al-Qaida attack on USS Cole at the Yemeni coast). The Taleban had, however, neither been involved nor, apparently, been told about either of the planned attacks.

Since 2001, the US administration has often framed the war in Afghanistan as a war of ‘national security’, to ensure that the country would never again be used to plan or direct attacks against the US. Therefore, it would be very difficult, both practically and in terms of narrative, to enter into an agreement to withdraw troops without such a commitment.

The Taleban, it seems, will have no problem in agreeing to deny ISKP a safe haven. Despite some common elements in their modus operandiand ideology, as well as, reportedly, some local collusion or non-interference agreements, the Taleban consider the group an unwanted rival that is encroaching upon the arena of their own jihad. Since its appearance in 2015-16, the Taleban have systematically fought ISKP, and vice versa.

The nature of the relationship between Taleban and al-Qaeda is more controversial, and they have so far only distanced themselves from the group indirectly, not mentioning it by name. That the Afghan government, many Western analysts and large parts of the Afghan public, view the links between them as symbiotic and even inextricable seems to be debatable, at least. 

Indeed, before 2001, al-Qaeda contributed financially and with fighters to the Taleban’s struggle. Mullah Omar’s protection of Ben Laden also had to do with a certain personal gratitude for his role in supporting the anti-Soviet mujahedin in the 1980s. (Omar had been a mujahed, too). But already then, al-Qaeda was more dependent on the Taleban than vice versa. In their doctrine, they needed what they called a ‘liberated’ Islamic territory from where to declare a ‘legitimate’ jihad and, in this view, Afghanistan was the only one available. As a result, Ben Laden and later Ayman al-Zawahiri repeatedly swore allegiance to Taleban leaders. The Taleban also were always much stronger militarily than al-Qaeda, and are even more so today. The US never attributed more than a few hundred fighters to al-Qaeda after 2001, which is surely much less than one per cent of the Taleban’s strength. 

Today, the Taleban are also not (that) dependent on al-Qaeda’s financial and military support any more – if they ever were. Their widespread collection of taxes among Afghans (even beyond the immediate area of their control – see, for example, in Ghazni city here) has likely become their main income by now. There are also indications that, after 9/11, the Taleban revaluated al-Qaeda and realised that the attacks cost them their rule of Afghanistan. (5) With that and their control of large parts of Afghanistan, as well as their re-evaluation of al-Qaeda’s role, they will be able to curb their activity. That they have not distanced themselves from the group by name is likely caused by their fear to anger private Taleban sponsors in Gulf countries and elsewhere. Losing them might be outweighed by far by regaining power through a peace deal.

Finally, the Taleban and al-Qaeda are strategically far apart. In contrast to al-Qaeda’s internationalist-jihadist aims (shared by IS/ISKP), ie establishing a worldwide caliphate, the Taleban’s agenda remains focussed on Afghanistan. This does not exclude sympathies for internationalist jihadism among some Taleban, but this has, to this day, not found expression in their practical policy. A resurgence of al-Qaeda or a strengthened IS foothold in Afghanistan would interfere in the Taleban’s domestic goals, namely remodelling Afghanistan according to its own ideas of a ‘truly Islamic order’ (AAN analysis here). Activities of globally active, but – in Afghanistan – marginalised terrorist groups from Afghan soil, or reverting to their own highly radical policies would draw unwanted international attention to the country again, instead of letting it diminish after a full troop withdrawal. It rather seems in the Taleban’s interest to cut links with international terrorist groups and to moderate their stance on issues, such as education and women’s rights.

Thus, it is not a huge concession, and actually desirable for the Taleban to distance themselves from al-Qaeda and IS, at least as long as they continue to be one of most powerful factions in the country. In fact, and the Taleban continue to point this out, they have repeatedly stated that they would not allow any activity against any other countries from Afghan territory. In Moscow they said:

… we don’t have an agenda of destructive actions in other countries. In the past 17 years we have proven, in practice, that we have not interfered in any way in other countries. Similarly, we do not allow anyone to use the soil of Afghanistan against other countries, including neighbouring countries.

That they have not yet explicitly mentioned al-Qaeda so far might have to do with some nostalgic connotations to the 1980s and pre-2001 alliance. But it is more likely that the Taleban realise the importance to the US of the assurance, making it a bargaining chip they want to keep.

Issues still open

1. Ceasefire

The US official’s remarks about the ‘package deal’ indicate that there are more issues than just the two on which agreement has been reached ‘in principle’. First, there are the two big issues mentioned earlier: the US demand that the Taleban enter into a “comprehensive” – ie countrywide and longer-term – ceasefire and that they agree to an intra-Afghan dialogue. The US and Afghan governments may need to make substantial concessions to persuade the Taleban to lift this blockade. On the other hand, now that an agreement on troop withdrawal seems to come within reach, it may not be in the Taleban’s interest to be too intransigent on these issues. 

A comprehensive ceasefire would involve a promise by the Taleban (as well as the government and international forces) to stop fighting, while talking to the Afghan government and allowing US troops to leave. Earlier, in the December 2018 negotiations in Abu Dhabi, as Khalilzad told the Afghan news agency Ariana in an interview on 21 December, hediscussed a three-month ceasefirewith the Taleban, which, he might hope, could be extended when negotiations make further progress.

That the Taleban are able to agree to and implement a nation-wide ceasefire was shown over the Id festival in June 2018 (see this AAN report) The three-day truce, during which there was not a single violation, rekindledAfghans’ hopes their country could be at peace again. The Taleban’s behaviour during the Id ceasefire, moreover, seemed to have changed the minds of some observers in the west who, thus far, had still seen the Taleban as an unruly composition of factions without clear command-and-control (as the author recently witnessed during an international workshop in the Canadian capital of Ottawa). 

Of course, the stakes will be much higher, as will be the incentives for spoilers, when faced with a longer ceasefire and a possible end to the entire war. The Taleban are also aware that it will be difficult to motivate their fighters to return to the war if negotiations collapse after a longer lull, as The Economist quoted one of them. But the main issue here is whether and how a ceasefire – if agreed to – should be monitored, by whom, and what kind of sanctions could be realistically applied in case of violations? A monitored ceasefire without consequences if broken will not work. Experience from other conflicts shows that negotiations break down over unkept promises of ceasefires and arguments over who broke it first and most. An unmonitored ceasefire is also difficult to imagine. 

2. Taleban demands of confidence-building measures

While the Americans have now publicly laid their main demands on the table, the Taleban had also presented a list of issues in a kind of position paper that Stanakzai presented at the Moscow conference. This paper included four “Preliminary steps for Peace”, which were further explained as “parts of confidence-building measures” to be taken “before the beginning of the peace talks”. The four preliminary steps, according to the Taleban, were: removal from the sanctions list, release of detainees, formal opening of the Doha office, and an end to the “poisonous propaganda against the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.”

The lifting of the UN sanctions’ regime against Taleban leaders would ease negotiations, as it would officially give them the freedom of travel (even though this is already de facto the case for those actively participating in the Doha talks and other track II events; see AAN analysis here and here). The release of detainees, according to the Taleban, involves “tens of thousands” of prisoners held in “secret and open prisons”. The Doha office, the third point,had officially opened in June 2012 and was almost immediately closed again after the Afghan government protested its use of the term “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”, thus claiming a quasi-government-in-exile status. The office, however, continued to function semi-officially (AAN analysis here). The call to end propaganda against the Emirate specifically mentioned“unfounded accusations” against the Taleban for attacks on civilians and infrastructure, but, interestingly, did not refer to the label “terrorists” regularly used for them by their adversaries.

Neither side has referred to these issues after the six days of Doha talks. However, the subject of detainees (from both sides) did apparently figure in the December 2018 Abu Dhabi talks that were initiated by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, but then broke down. According to media reports (see, for example, here), the Taleban had rejected the US demand to release two lecturers of the American University in Kabul who had been abducted in 2016 and were held by the Taleban-affiliated Haqqani network. (AAN understands the US suggested they be exchanged for Haqqani family member and main fund raiser Anas Haqqani, similarly to the 2014 prisoners swap of US soldier Bowe Bergdahl against five Taleban-related Guantanamo detainees. Anas Haqqani, who had been captured in Afghanistan in 2014, is held in Kabul and has been condemned to death.

3. A new political system?

Stanakzai’s Moscow speech – that had been similar to earlier Taleban statements at several conferences and Track II events (AAN analysis here) – also referred to five so-called “obstacles to peace”. They also could be called the major outcomes of peace talks, in the view of the Taleban.

The six obstacles to peace he mentioned were: 

• the “occupation” (which would be covered by an agreement to withdraw foreign troops); 
• the lack of an “independent Islamic system” in Afghanistan; 
• the “current constitution”, which he said was “copied from the West and has been imposed on Afghanistan’s Muslim society under the shadow of occupation” (a new constitution, he said, would need to be drafted by “Afghan [religious?] scholars and intellectuals”); 
• the lack of guarantees for the implementation of future peace agreements (plural); he mentioned the United Nations, “major powers”, member-countries of the Islamic Conference and “facilitating countries” as possible guarantors; 
• the “continuation” of the US’s “war policy” with reference to the additional soldiers deployed, the increased number of airstrikes, military operations and civilian casualties caused by them.

The need for the release of detainees doubled as an “obstacle” in the paper, too (but it is not included in the above list).

While the first point on the list has been addressed in the Doha talks and agreed on ‘in principle’, the second and third points pertain to a crucial – and large – issue, which, obviously, cannot be addressed in negotiations with the US alone. This is, what a future political set-up – including possibly a new constitution – into which both Afghan sides would merge, would look like and how they would get there. 

The Taleban have made it clear that they would not simply ‘join’ or be ‘integrated’ into the current system and lay down their arms, as this would be surrender for them, and that they instead demand “reform”, including a new constitution drafted by “Afghan [religious] scholars and intellectuals.” This demand has been repeatedly raised, the last time in Moscow. At the same time, the Afghan government and large parts of the population are unwilling to surrender the democratic and human rights, including women’s and minorities’ rights, that are enshrined in the current constitution. If such discussions are indeed opened, the challenge will be to negotiate a political and legal system that both satisfies the shared desire for reform, while safeguarding rights and protections and guaranteeing room for genuine pluralism and inclusivity, not least of the genders. 

Several media have speculated (for example, here) that the Doha agreement would also include an interim government of which the Taleban would be part – as a possible transition mechanism to a post-agreement Afghanistan – and that this had already been discussed in Doha. However, Khalilzad categorically denied in Kabul that this was the case (quoted here). On the issue of rights enshrined in the current constitution, he was recently quoted as saying that although the US “is in favor of a democratic system where every Afghan’s rights are respected, where everyone has equal rights and responsibilities under the law … we did not talk about these issues with the Taliban because they are Afghanistan’s internal issues.” This does not sound like a strong commitment and is particularly worrying, as long as the Taleban and the US are the two only parties at the table.

Other related issues that may or may not be discussed in the near future, include the status of the Afghan security forces and current Taleban fighters under a possible joint political set-up, issues of (partial) disarmament and demobilisation and the question of possibly merging both sides into a joint security force. 

4. One agreement or more?

There is also the paramount formal question on how many agreements there will be and between whom. There may be one trilateral agreement – between the US, the Afghan government and the Taleban – or, possibly, a withdrawal and a peace agreement, flanked by what could be called a regional framework, including how the implementation of an agreement’s provisions could be practically monitored – and by whom. There is also the, rather undesirable, option of an agreement negotiated only between the US and the Taleban, with possibly other relevant parties – for instance, the Afghan government, or an array of intra-Afghan dialogue participants – being persuaded or pressured to sign up, with or without substantive input. 

The RAND paper: a blueprint or simply some drafted input? 

For the last few weeks, a draft document by the Rand Corporation has been making the rounds in Kabul. It contains some of the topics that were addressed in Doha, and many more. The document, titled “Agreement on a Comprehensive Settlement of the Conflict in Afghanistan,“ is labelled a “work-in-progress,” and, on most topics, several options are given. Its exact status is unclear, but it appears to be aimed at providing substantive input and possible wording for the negotiations and looks like much more than just a thought experiment. Since Khalilzad worked for this think tank, between 1993 and 2000, it can be assumed it was designed to inform his work, whether on his initiative or not.

Parts of the text have already been discussed by several media, such as Reuters, the New York Times and the Afghan news agencies Pajhwok and ToloNews. The existence of the document, and its level of detail, has served to exacerbate fears among many Afghans that an agreement is now under work over their heads. The New York Times alleged that Laurel Miller, who had acted as the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan until June 2017, had written it. Reuters quoted a tweet from the US embassy in Kabul said Rand’s work was independent of the US government and did not represent US policy.

The text contains far-reaching, detailed, politically controversial suggestions about what a future Afghan system could look like and how the country would get there. Such suggestions include a new political system, either to be determined by the Agreement or in debates by a transitional government or some form of intra-Afghan dialogue; a new constitution; the possibility of an Ulema High Council to review all laws for congruence with Islamic principles; a Joint Military Commission that would merge and/or demobilise former combatants; and reduced powers for the president coupled with a far-reaching devolution of power from the centre, possibly based on supra-provincial regions. 

It further mentions that all “important” parties and factions could be invited to sign “a side agreement … stating that the government representative’s signature on the Agreement is on behalf of all of them.” Although not made explicit, several of the suggestions would probably further formalise the influence of jihadi leaders and provide outsized importance to current opposition figures. They also appear slated to further legalise local militias and put a lid on the non-factional and non-violent political forces that could help overcome Afghanistan’s ethnically based political fissions. Thus, it resembles Khalilzad’s 2001 ‘big tent’ approach at the Emergency Loya Jirga (which turned out to be mainly for ‘jihadi leaders’), an approach that hampered democratisation and significantly contributed to Afghanistan’s current factionalised state of political institutions (more detail here).

The Rand document is weak on human rights, mentioning them as one of the principles on which the constitution is based, listed after Islam and before Afghan traditions and stressing “the rights of all citizens of Afghanistan to equal access to education, employment, and health care.” The latter is now, more or less, the position of the Taleban, as has been reflected in several of their documents. There is further a suggestion to apply the current ‘amnesty law’ “equally to members of the Taliban movement.“ This involves “judicial immunity … in regard to past political and military acts, except for claims of individuals against individuals based upon haq-ul-abd (rights of people) and individual criminal offenses.” An explaining footnote adds “the referenced law … has been controversial because of the breadth of the amnesty it provides.” (6) Most of the human rights-related language is in footnotes, seemingly reflecting the little weight they have been given. “Reconciliation” measures are given a separate chapter, though, “intended to provide some balance with the preceding Article on amnesty.” 

The draft also contains a timeframe of 18 months for a, possibly phased, troop withdrawal, the establishment of the transitional government and the drafting and passing of a new constitution. NATO is suggested to become a fourth signatory to the peace agreement; a “request by the Afghan parties” for future counter-terrorism support is suggested – a possible backdoor for a continued, although reduced US troop presence – and a Joint Implementation Commission of the four signatories is to be established. The Good Offices of the UN Secretary-General are given as one option for the monitoring of the agreement’s implementation. The insurgents feature under their old name, Islamic Movement of the Taleban, not as “Emirate”, which would acknowledge a quasi-governmental status.

Afghan reactions

It can be safely assumed that the Afghan government has seen the paper.President Ghani and sectors of the Afghan public reacted harshly, both to the news of the progress of the Doha talks – which took place without the Afghan government’s participation – and to what they, based on rumours and the Rand paper, believed may have been on the table too. 

Before Khalilzad came to visit him after the latest round of the Doha talks, Ghani publicly said: “Afghans do not accept an interim government – not today, not tomorrow, not in a hundred years.” In October 2018, the Afghan government had already conveyed to the media that it felt “blindsided” by the US talks with the Taleban (media report here).

On 28 January, the day after the meeting with Khalilzad –which had been a marathon session deep into the night, according to diplomats indicating that it had been tough and controversial – President Ghani went public with a high-profile, televised speech, staking out his red lines. According to an AAN transcript, Ghani called listed a number of values that were “indisputable”, including national unity, national sovereignty, territorial integrity, a strong and efficient central government and the fundamental rights of Afghan citizens. He once more urged the Taleban to start talking directly to his government. 

Three days later, on 31 January, he sent another strong signal to both Khalilzad and the Taleban. In a speech before youth representatives in the Loya Jirga tent in Kabul he announced that, if anyone thought he would sign another “Gandamak treaty” (the 1879 Anglo-Afghan treaty through which Afghanistan lost the control over its foreign affairs), they were making a mistake. Thus, it seems that Khalilzad’s briefings have not alleviated Ghani’s fears.

There are indications of widespread fears in the Afghan public that the US-Taleban talks may be a withdrawal-only “exit strategy” for the US, rather than a peace agreement, as a civil society activist said on Twitter. They are concerned they might lead to a draft agreement that is presented as a fait accompli to the Afghan public and which the government will be expected to accept. So far, this has mainly been publicly raised by individuals, not organisations. Kabul journalist and university lecturer Sami Mehdi, for example, said “peace without recognition of human rights, women’s rights, freedom of expression, inclusion of minorities, a democratic system won’t last long.” An op-ed in leading Kabul Hasht-e Sobh daily, written by civil society activist Samia Ramesh calls to defend the constitution and human and women’s rights, although “we only went half of the way.” One of the few organisations that went public so far is media rights watchdog Nai who raised concerns that the freedom of media and expression have been “forgotten” in the US-Taleban talks. AAN also heard from concerns among women and human rights organisations. [Amended 4 Feb 2019, 5pm Kabul time: Meanwhile, the Afghan Women’s Network came out with an appeal to Afghan negotiators, saying “We, women of Afghanistan, are very concerned about this process.” They are calling “on all Afghan men involved in the peace talks to adhere” to six points : “Do not change the political order; do not compromise law and order; bring Afghan women to the table; do not choose peace without human rights; be direct about women’s rights; do not cut off Afghanistan from the international community.” Others came out in support of a negotiated agreement, such as journalist Habib Khan Totakhel, who supported the idea of an interim government and said that only the “elites” would fear this. 

In order to alleviate the fears of Afghans, a State Department spokesperson when asked about Khalilzad’s instructions told Foreign Policy: “Any final agreement must include an intra-Afghan dialogue that includes the Taliban, the Afghan government and other Afghan stakeholders.” Obviously, the nature, timing and actual substance of such a dialogue will be crucial.

The discussion inside Afghanistan on whether to support the current US-Taleban Doha talks, or not, is somewhat muddied by the local political controversies and the wish of the president’s opponents to see him further weakened – including with an eye to the upcoming presidential elections. This is unfortunate at a time when the country needs politicians to take a longer view. 

In his context belongs the participation of a number of political rivals of President Ghani in the next Afghanistan talks in Moscow scheduled to begin on 5 February where also a Taleban delegation will attend. (The Taleban announced that Stanakzai will lead it again.) This time allegedly not organised by the Russian government (although in the same hotel as the November 2018 meeting, see here), the Russian Embassy in Kabul said (quoted here) it is organised by an “Afghan Society of Russia.” A list of 38 politicians “accompanying former president Hamed Karzai” to Moscow has been published, but there are also some additional names reported in various media to be attending. (7) The non-Taleban Afghan participants have presented the meeting in a joint statement as “the first step towards intra-Afghan peace talks.”(full text here; the statement does not give the names of the participants.) Representatives of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council (HPC) or the government have reportedly not been invited. The HPC nevertheless said in a statement on 4 February that it hoped the upcoming Moscow meeting would pave the ground for talks between the government and Taleban. Haji Din Muhammad who led the delegation to the November 2018 conference in Moscow now is on the Karzai delegations’ list.

AAN has also been told by Afghan journalists briefed by Khalilzad that he told them off the records about his dissatisfaction with what he calls President Ghani’s “egoism.” He is allegedly accusing him of supporting peace only under the condition that he would be able to stay in power, as reflected by his insistence to hold presidential elections. He also reportedly told them that the Taleban were still not ready to talk with the Afghan government but with what he called “ethnic groups.“ This points to those now gathering in Moscow and indicates that the US is content with the pressure on Ghani building up from this side.

Atmar more or less directly echoed this statement by saying on 4 February that he will “insist on making intra-Afghan talks inclusive” but called on the government at the same time “to not look at the peace process from a narrow window and respect the role of the political parties and the nation in efforts for peace and in safeguarding the system and national institutions.”

The Taleban, meanwhile, announced in a statement distributed via email on 4 February that, in Moscow, they want “to clarify its Shariah-based and ethical stance to various parties and explain its policy and mechanism about future Afghanistan vis-à-vis end of occupation, enduring peace in homeland and establishment of an intra-Afghan Islamic system of governance.”

Taleban upgrading their negotiations team

On 24 January 2019, the Taleban appointed Mullah Abdul Ghani, better known as Mullah Baradar (“brother”), as the new head of the Doha office. With this new appointment, the Taleban delegation may have greater authority to enter into substantive negotiations on difficult issues. Mullah Baradar replaced Stanakzai, a non-Kandahari without a strong home base in the Taleban movement, who had led the Taleban delegation until the mid-November Afghanistan conference in Moscow (media report here) but was said to be on the way out for the last several months.

Baradar is of another calibre. He was deputy to Taleban founder Mullah Muhammad Omar from the beginning of the movement in the mid-1990s. In 2010, he was arrested by the Pakistani intelligence, in response to his involvement in possible talks with the then Karzai government, which had not been authorised by the ISI (see my AAN analysis here). He was released in late 2018, under US pressure (AAN analysis here). His closeness to Omar – who has always been, and still is, beyond criticism within the Taleban movement – is a strong asset: it likely gives him full authority to negotiate, as well as the weight to function as a guarantor if a future agreement does not cover all Taleban demands. Mullah Omar’s son, Yaqub, who is currently one of the two Taleban deputy leaders, may also be susceptible to Baradar’s opinion. 

Baradar has not yet participated in the latest Doha round, and has not yet arrived in Doha from Karachi, but is expected to do so when the negotiations recommence on 25 February. 

Conclusion: Some contours, additional tracks 

The priorities set in the US-Taleban negotiations in Doha are determined by the fact that there is a president in Washington whose policies are based on the slogan “America First” and that the US seem mainly interested in their own security and in cutting their losses in Afghanistan. The fact that the two sides are talking about issues of substance is, undeniably, progress in itself. Limiting the talks to two parties has allowed them to make more progress than had so far been the case. However, progress achieved so far must be seen in the context of US not necessarily Afghan interests. 

With the various recent statements to the press, the first contours of a possible agreement – or agreements – with the Taleban have begun to emerge from the political fog (a fog to which the RAND paper cited above might still belong). The US side, driven by its president’s impatience and volatile decision-making, has dropped a major red line: no talks with the Taleban before Kabul is involved, ie the insistence on an “Afghan-led” peace process that had been almost dogma over a long time. This could still be interpreted as an attempt to break the current government-Taleban impasse and to bring in the Afghan government as well. 

The ball would then be in the court of the Taleban, and it should be their turn to make concessions. As said above, there is room to manoeuvre on their side. Also they have brought more heavyweights on their negotiating team which makes it easier for them to come to binding decisions. 

At the same time, the fact that the US have started spreading the message that they are dissatisfied with President Ghani, putting pressure on him, together with the new Moscow talks, are bolstering their position. They have said for a long time that they would talk to “other Afghans.” This they can do now at the upcoming Moscow talks, with the help of Afghan opposition politicians and factions but also some who until recently were part of the government. As in Doha, the government remains excluded there.

The exclusion of the Afghan government is highly problematic. Although its legitimacy has suffered as a result of its tumultuous elections, its institutional weaknesses and its dependence on external resources, it cannot simply be ignored. A US-Taleban solo ride in the form of a crudely negotiated, narrow cut-and-withdraw deal might give it the moral upper hand domestically, as it has started to mobilise popular discontent over a looming imposed deal.

All this may well result in an agreement that is more about US interests and less about Afghanistan itself. It is also clear from the nature of the ‘agreement’ – a draft framework identifying two topics that still need to be “fleshed out” – that this was only a first step on a very long way still to go even if there is buy-in from certain Afghan factions. In the end, also buy-in of the larger population and organised parts of the Afghan public is necessary. Therefore, a sell-out of or simple lip service to currently (if often only theoretically) guaranteed rights needs to be prevented. It remains to be seen which of the Afghan political forces will pick this up most convincingly – or would be ready to sacrifice them for remaining in power.

Edited by Martine van Bijlert

(1) That negotiation rounds were held in Abu Dhabi and Doha is a reflexion of regional tensions – with Saudi Arabia and the UAE on one side, and Qatar on the other one. The Abu Dhabi talks (where also Pakistani representatives took part, bringing the number up to five participating countries) were a failed effort by the UAE and Pakistan to lure the diplomatically prestigious ‘Taleban talks’ away from Qatar. It is interesting that the Taleban managed to get the talks back to Qatar (where, according to AAN information, only the US and Taleban spoke with each other) and that the US went along with this, against their Saudi and Emirati allies’ wish – another possible sign how much time pressure the envoy Khalilzad is under. The Taleban had also rejected the option of moving the negotiations to Pakistan’s capital Islamabad. 

(2) Stanakzai was apparently not involved in the latest round of talks in Doha; this AP report by Kathy Gannon does not list him among the participants. Instead, two of the five Taleban released in the prisoner swap – their former ministers Muhammad Fazl and Khairullah Khairkhwa – reportedly acted as negotiation team leaders. Stanakzai doesn’t seem to have departed in anger, as a number of post-negotiations interviews show, see, for instance, here and here. In an interview with the Afghan news agency Ariana he even praised Baradar’s negotiation skills.

(3) The government of Afghanistan – both under Karzai and Ghani – has tried to pay back in kind, by repeatedly intervening with other governments and the UN when they wanted to organise “intra-Afghan” dialogues involving the Taleban. The resulting ‘blockade’ was, interestingly, broken by the Moscow conference.

(4) The Moscow Conference on Afghanistan (also known as Moscow format consultations) in mid-November was organised by the Russian foreign ministry. The Washington Post wrote that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “played the roles of mediator and experienced hand in Afghanistan’s conflicts.” A delegation of the Taleban attended which got plenty of media coverage.

Originally scheduled for 4 September 2018 (media report here), the Afghan government had misgivings about this meeting and reportedly  insisted it must be in the lead because, in its view, the meeting would boost the international standing of the Taleban. It decided to not officially participate. The US initially concurred. This indeed led to the postponement of the meeting. Finally, a delegation of the High Peace Council participated from Afghanistan; the council is formally independent, but acts based on guidance from the Afghan government sent a delegation. (It had, with its deputy chair, Habiba Sarobi, the only woman at the conference table.) Also, the US finally sent Moscow-based diplomats, as “observers”, not participants (as did India). There were also diplomats from China, Pakistan and the five Central Asian republics present (see the list here).

However, Kabul’s ambassador to Russia, Abdul Qayum Kochi, an uncle of the president, was also seen in during the conference (see here).

(5) In this 2012 article, Michael Semple – a long-term Afghanistan and Taleban observer, including as political officer with the UN and the EU – quoted a high-ranking Taleb:

At least 70 per cent of the Taliban are angry at al-Qaeda. Our people consider al-Qaeda to be a plague that was sent down to us by the heavens. Some even concluded that al-Qaeda are actually the spies of America. Originally, the Taliban were naive and ignorant of politics and welcomed al-Qaeda into their homes. But al-Qaeda abused our hospitality. It was in Guantanamo that I realised how disloyal the al-Qaeda people were… To tell the truth, I was relieved at the death of Osama. Through his policies, he destroyed Afghanistan. If he really believed in jihad he should have gone to Saudi Arabia and done jihad there, rather than wrecking our country.

It should also not be forgotten that not the Taleban invited Ben Laden to Afghanistan. He came there under the mujahedin regime, before the Taleban took power. He was hosted near Jalalabad by one of their factions after he was expelled from Sudan in 1996 and fell under Taleban rule when they took over eastern Afghanistan soon after.

(6) The amnesty law already has a provision that it can be extended for insurgents.

(7) A published list of 38 politicians accompanying Karzai (who is the main proponent of an interim government) includes Ghani’s presidential elections rival Zalmay Rassul; former ministers like Ismail Khan (also a leader of Jamiat-e Islami), Omar Zakhilwal, Yusuf Pashtun, Rangin Dadfar Spanta and Karim Khorram; several former Taleban (Salam Zaif, Wakil Ahmad Mutawakkel, Hakim Mujahed, Mawlawi Qalamuddin and Wahid Muzhda, also an analyst) and Hezb-e Islami members (Hekmatyar’s former deputy Qutbuddin Helal); former head of the Independent Electoral Commission Daud Najafi; and two women parliamentarians, Raihana Azad (current) and Fauzia Kufi (former). Presidential candidate Hanif Atmar and former Balkh governor and Jamiat Chief Executive Atta Muhammad Nur (see here and here). According to the latter media report, Hezb-e Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar; Muhammad Mohaqeq who had just been sacked by Ghani as deputy Chief Executive; Ismaili leader Sayed Mansur Naderi; Kabul think tank head Hekmat Karzai; and former communist defence minister Shahnawaz Tanai who had unsuccessfully launched a military coup against then president Najibullah in 1990 in cooperation with Hekmatyar have also been invited. Mohaqeq said he or his deputy would attend; Hezb-e Islami also confirmed they would send a delegation, possibly led by Hekmatyar’ son Habib ur-Rahman, as well did Mahaz led by Pir Hamed Gailani and Jabha-ye Nejat led by Sebghatullah Mojaddedi. The Jombesh party, led by Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum, announced on 5 February, that their deputy leader Mawlawi Abdullah Qarluq will attend the Moscow meeting.

Chinese QJY-88 Light Machine Gun

Herat – the generally safe and prosperous city in western Afghanistan – has seen a series of attacks against Shia religious figures and sites, especially since 2016. Fieldwork shows there is little empirical evidence as to who the perpetrators are or why they carried out these attacks. Based on conversations with Shia and Sunni activists, AAN researcher Said Reza Kazemi reviews the incidents, puts them in the context of Herat’s changing population and presents the main different theories as to who and what is behind them. Specifically, he discusses an increasing rivalry between Shia and Sunni hardliners at the local level and the linkages to regional developments, including the war in Syria and the broader Iranian-Saudi rivalry. He notes that, at least in the foreseeable future, existing Shia-Sunni solidarity in Herat makes sectarian conflict there very unlikely.

Attacks on religious figures and sites

The city of Herat has witnessed an array of mostly small-scale attacks against Shias, particularly since 2016. The targets of these attacks – religious leaders, mosques and worshippers – show that they are deliberate. They have targeted the heart of the local Shia religious community by disrupting and wanting to provoke it, thereby crossing one of the last ‘red lines’ of violent conflict in Afghanistan.

This author has recorded the following chronological list of attacks against Shias in and around Herat city from November 2014 onwards: (1)

• 13 November 2014: Two men on a motorcycle shot dead Sheikh Azizullah Najafi, an influential Shia cleric and former member of the Herat Provincial Council. In his funeral procession two days later, thousands of Herat residents including notably both Shias and Sunnis protested in front of the Provincial Governor’s Office and demanded the arrest of those behind this assassination. The then provincial governor, Fazlullah Wahidi, told the demonstrators that the provincial government would arrest the perpetrators within three days. The following day (16 November), the then Herat police spokesman, Abdul Rauf Ahmadi, reported the police had arrested six suspected people – a statement that was rejected by the then police security director, Aminullah Azad, the day after (see here). This resulted in a dispute between the provincial governor and the police security director, with the former alleging the latter had corruptly handled the case.

• 22 November 2016: A blast in Rezaiya Mosque, a Shia mosque in the Ghur Darwaz area in the north of Herat city, injured four people including the mullah imam (mosque leader) named Mustafa Rouhani. The explosion took place during evening prayer.

• 8 December 2016: 50-year-old Sheikh Abdul Wahed Saberi, the mullah imam of Muhammadiya Mosque, a Shia mosque in Baghche-ye Mustufi in Police District (PD) 9 of Herat city, was assassinated by two men on a motorbike. The mullah imam was shot in the head while going from his home to the mosque. The assassins escaped. Previous to this incident, armed men killed Sayyed Yunus Alawi, a Shia cleric, on his way home after evening prayer.

• 1 January 2017: An explosion in the vicinity of Imam Muhammad Baqer Mosque, a Shia mosque in Pul-e Bagh-e Zubaida in the Darb-e Iraq area of Herat city, wounded six people including a woman. One of the injured, the mosque leader Mullah Ramazan Sarwari died afterwards in hospital. The blast took place next to the mosque wall after evening prayer (see pictures of this attack here).

• 19 January 2017: A blast in Abul Fazl Mosque, a Shia mosque in Jebrail area in PD 13 of Herat city, destroyed many parts of the mosque. There were no deaths or injuries.

• 11 April 2017: There was an explosion in the vicinity of Saheb ul-Zaman Mosque, located in PD 7 of Herat city. The explosives, carried on a motorcycle, killed one person and injured two others including a woman. It is thought the explosives went off prematurely before the motorbike reached the mosque.

• 6 June 2017: A blast near the northern gate of the Grand Mosque, Herat’s ancient mosque situated near the Office of the Provincial Police Chief in the city centre, killed at least seven people and injured at least 16 others including influential Shia clerics. Among the killed were Hujjat ul-Islam Fayyaz, head of the Shia ulama council in Injil district of Herat province, and Hujjat ul-Islam Karimi, manager of the Rasul-e Azam Madrasa in Jebrail area of Herat city. Sheikh Musa Rezai, head of the Herat Shia ulama council, was severely wounded. The explosion happened while a funeral ceremony was under way in the Grand Mosque.

• 1 August 2017: So far the worst attack in Herat, two suicide bombers stormed the fully-packed Jawadiya Mosque, a Shia mosque in Bekrabad neighbourhood of Herat city, during evening prayer. They began shooting at the worshippers and then blew themselves up, killing at least 34 people and injuring dozens of others (see the mosque after the attack here). Afterwards, local protests broke out with angry people throwing stones at a nearby police station and later setting it on fire. They alleged that the policemen were the first to escape the area when the incident happened. A later demonstration was attended by thousands of Herat residents, both Shias and Sunnis. The demonstrators criticised the Afghan government for failing to provide security for religious sites and figures. Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISKP) claimed responsibility for this attack.

• 5 March 2018: Two suicide bombers attacked Nabi Akram Mosque, a Shia mosque located in Bazaar-e Lelami area in downtown Herat. They were challenged by security guards who opened fire on them. One of the two suicide attackers was killed. The second detonated his explosives, killing at least one person and injuring eight others. ISKP said it carried out the attack.

• 23 June 2018: Armed men killed Sheikh Jafar Tawakkoli on his way home from mosque after prayer in the 64-Metre Road area of Herat city. Sheikh Tawakkoli was an important local Shia cleric: he owned a local radio station called Hekmat (Wisdom), represented Ayatollah Hakim, an influential Shia ayatollah based in Iraq, and was a member of the Shia ulamacouncil (see reporting here).

• 21 September 2018: The police and mosque guards prevented an attempt to attack worshippers in a Shia mosque in Injil district close to Herat city. Two attackers were arrested carrying rifles and riding motorbikes. One was injured in the clash with the police and mosque guards.

A changing population

Attacks on religious figures and sites are a new phenomenon in Herat (read previous AAN analysis on the start of such violence in post-2001 Afghanistan). In Herat where Sunnis and Shias have coexisted and intermingled peacefully for long, the incidents have shocked the overwhelming majority of the local population.

To make sense of these attacks, one needs to bring in the wider social context. The population of Herat city has been changing over the last couple of decades, especially since 2001. A greater Shia segment is the main feature of this demographic change. Repatriation from neighbouring Iran and displacement from central provinces of the country have increased the numbers of Shias that have settled in and around Herat city, building homes and mosques in new settlements. The change in demographics has led to greater Shia assertiveness, which in turn has led to sensitivity among some Sunnis.

It is thus not difficult to come across Shia and Sunni hardliners in and around Herat city. They reduce deep-rooted and longstanding local Shia-Sunni interactions to an incessant and potentially violent struggle for supremacy. One example from each side should suffice here.

When getting out of the Sadeqiya Seminary, the principal Shia Muslim religious organisation in downtown Herat, after a visit in August 2014, a talaba(religious student) pointed to a minaret that was being raised to increase its visibility from across the city. “The Sunnis cannot stand to see our tall minaret, the mosque that is being built behind it and the development of the Sadeqiya in general,” he told this author. This was while, he alleged, “They have themselves built a huge complex with Saudi money,” referring to the huge size and development of the Ghiasiya Seminary, the Sunni counterpart of the Sadeqiya, in the east of the city.

There is a similar thinking on the part of local Sunni hardliners. The author encountered a rickshaw driver in October 2016, who was upset by increasing Shia assertiveness especially during the mourning month of Muharram in 2016 when they carry out their religious rituals in mosques and other places of worship and get out onto the streets in large numbers towards the climax of the rituals (read our dispatch on the last Muharram in 2018). He revealed his strong anti-Shia leanings with unsolicited remarks, saying, “What have the Shias become? Who do they think they are? Look at what they are doing in the city. They have closed the roads for their nonsense mourning. I would be pleased if a suicide bomber attacked them or someone detonated explosives among them.”

Some local Sunnis think the Iranian government has intentionally supported the Shia population increase in Herat. They accuse Iran of carrying out a “policy of changing Herat’s population fabric in favour of Shias” with a view to promoting “Iran’s soft power and revolutionary Shiism” in Herat and in Afghanistan more generally (see pages 48-50 of this paper). They hold that, aided by Sayyed Hussain Anwari, a Shia Hazara who served as Herat provincial governor from 2005 to 2009, the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee (IKRC), a key Iranian charity organisation, has provided “non-indigenous Shias in Herat with development assistance and interest-free loans” to encourage the development of settlements that now encircle the city of Herat (see also here and here). “Seen from the view of Sunni hardliners,” Abdul Qadir Salehi, a leading local Sunni activist, told AAN, “it is like what Israel is doing in occupied Palestinian territories.”

Iran’s role in local Shia affairs and the fact that it sees Herat as its buffer zone in Afghanistan cannot be ignored (read about it in this publication), but seeing all recent Shia settlements as entirely engineered by the western neighbour is hard to marry up with the reality of life for Afghan returnees, said Ali Ahmad Jebraili, an influential local Shia leader. “Razavi Khorasan [Iran’s north-eastern province bordering Herat] does not give Afghan returnees money to buy and own lands and build houses in Herat. They even take money from the returnees for leaving Iran under what they call municipal fees.” However, Jebraili did admit that the concentration of Shia newcomers in settlements circling the city of Herat was “a cause of concern for some Sunnis, especially their hardliners.”

A distinction is made by both local Shias and Sunnis between the recent Shia settlers, who are mostly Hazara, and what are called ‘the indigenous Shias of Herat’ who are Farsiwan, ie Persian speakers with a Herati Dari dialect. Salehi, the Sunni activist quoted above, said that the indigenous Shias were “not the problem” because they and local Sunnis were related through longstanding family, business and other ties over the years. It was the recent Hazara settlers, he said, who made some local Sunnis sensitive by their increased presence and the settlements they constructed around the city.

From a technical urban development perspective, the way recent Shia settlers and IDPs have built their places to live does not seem to have had a specific ethno-political agenda. Many of their settlements are informal and thus unplanned. Research shows that such settlements across the country, including in Herat, have arisen because of “the extremely limited absorption capacity of major urban areas and the lack of affordable formal settlement solutions for many city dwellers, i.e., migrants and refugees and their families” (see page 15 of this paper).

Nevertheless, the changing demographics has built up some tension, especially between hardliners in both Shia and Sunni camps, which in turn may have contributed to the range of attacks against Shias in and around Herat city. It may also have contributed to the conjectures that Heratis make and the narratives they tell about who is attacking Shias and why.

Four theories as to why Herati Shias have been attacked 

Few people in Herat city want to talk about or investigate the recent attacks against Shias, at least publicly. There is one obvious reason: almost all are afraid of the potential security implications. Shias in particular fear that raising the issue could put them in danger by singling them out for more attacks in the future – either individually or as a community. Both Shias and Sunnis may also fear that by paying too much attention to the violence, it may become entrenched.

The Herat provincial authorities have in practice done and achieved very little, despite publicly assuring Shia and Sunni protesters that they are serious about arresting the culprits for prosecution. “The government has thus far just informed us about the prosecution of a 21-year-old man,” Jebraili told AAN. “He is accused of having provided board and lodging and motorbikes for the perpetrators of the attacks on the Jawadiya Mosque and the Grand Mosque in summer 2017. He has been sentenced to death. That youth doesn’t look very criminal to us. Nothing else has been done by the government to address the incidents.”

So the strategy both for most people and the government has been to let time pass and hope no further incidents like the ones listed above occur. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of Shia and Sunni residents of Herat have felt great relief that there have been no new attacks, since late September 2018.

However, speculation about the attacks abounds. Four theories are presented here. The first three focus on domestic aspects and the last relates to regional dimensions, although there is significant overlap between them. 

The first theory is that the attacks, or at least some of them, have been perpetrated by local insurgents affiliated to ISKP, as this group has itself claimed responsibility for at least two of the attacks listed above. Many Shia youth from Herat have gone to fight on the side of the Bashar al-Assad regime, and its backer Iran, in the war in Syria (read this author’s previous dispatch). ISKP might have thus resorted to carrying out disparate attacks to take revenge on Shias in Herat for the involvement of some of their members in the war in Syria. At the same time, ISKP might have tried to show that its reach is not restricted only to eastern Afghanistan, Nangarhar province in particular (read previous AAN analysis on ISKP in Afghanistan here and here).

Blaming ISKP for each and every attack, however, conceals internal religious dynamics that may have contributed to the attacks. The second theory therefore points to the growing radicalisation in Herat, particularly among some sections of Sunnis (and some groups of Shias), that may be driving the anti-Shia violence. In his typology of religious trends in contemporary Herat, (2) Abdul Kabir Salehi, a researcher writing for the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies (AISS), describes the increasing activity of Sunni religious groups (see pages 30-31, 44-45, 58, 65-67 and 71 of his paper). He has given the following five examples, the first and, to some extent, the fifth are part of regular Sunni religious practice, while the second to the fourth concern more hardline ones:

• The Herat branch of Tablighi Jamaat (a largely South Asian Sunni missionary movement focusing on return to what it sees as ‘original Sunni Islam’) held a three-day congress in Herat in October 2017 that was attended by over 35,000 people, potentially making it “one of the most influential social groups in Herat.”

• The Herat High Seminary (Dar ul-Ulum-e ’Ali-ye Herat), connected to Deobandi madrasas in Pakistan and run by Mawlawi Jalilullah Mawlawizada and his five sons, has become increasingly politically active. Mawlawizada was a top justice official in the Taleban regime. In July 2017, the seminary declared Ahmad Zia Rafat, a Herati poet, lecturer in Kabul University and former member and spokesman of Afghanistan’s Electoral Complaint Commission (ECC), an apostate for what it regarded as his “sacrilegious poetry” (see also here). In August 2017, the National Directorate of Security (NDS) office in Herat, moreover, arrested what it called “two terrorists” from inside this seminary (see also here). On 17 April 2018, the seminary gathered about 500 ulama from across Afghanistan to announce that they would boycott the 20 October 2018 parliamentary elections if foreign forces did not withdraw from Afghanistan unconditionally and the heads of the National Unity Government did not apologise for an aerial operation on a religious gathering in Dasht-e Archi district of Kunduz province and hold its perpetrators accountable (read AAN analysis of this incident here). (3) These ulamadid not say a word about the growing attacks against Shias in Herat, where their gathering was held.

• The Gazergah Mosque has become a major venue for Wahabbi Salafism in Herat city, a religious trend called “the road-opener for takfiri jihadists” by Salehi (see page 57 of this paper). According to Salehi’s description, the mosque is run by Mawlawi Mujib ul-Rahman, who often travels to Saudi Arabia, and his younger brother, who have turned it into a platform for “violent and fiery speeches against Afghanistan’s national interests and security.” In addition to this mosque, Mawlawi Mujib ul-Rahman is working with “Saudi-financed Persian-language TV channels to promote Salafism and provide violent religious teachings,” according to Salehi. Mawlawi Mujib ul-Rahman himself escaped an assassination attempt in November 2018 (see this media report).

• Hardliners have also come to dominate the “intra-paradigm dialogue” in the Herat branch of Jamiat-e Eslah, says Salehi, pushing out moderates such as he himself (for background details on Jamiat-e Eslah, see this AAN paper). The dialogue, which was mostly conducted through a monthly publication called Mahname-ye Marefat( Knowledge Monthly), dealt with the extent to which “modern values and institutions such as human rights, democracy, pluralism, elections, the rule of law and women’s political participation” were compatible with their interpretations and understandings of Islam.

• Hizb ut-Tahrir (an international, pan-Islamist political organisation that promotes the re-establishment of the Islamic caliphate) has become increasingly popular among students in Herat University (see also this paper on radicalisation among some university students in Herat).

Several Shias, including the hardliner ones, told AAN that they thought the greater radicalisation among some locally active Sunni groups had been the source of attacks against members of their religious denomination in Herat. This allegation was rejected by several Sunnis who spoke to AAN. In a similar fashion, they regarded increasing radicalisation among some Shias, especially the ones attending seminaries in or supported by Iran or taking part in the war in Syria as mobilised by Iran, as responsible for provoking the attacks that have been perpetrated against the Shia population in Herat. 

Thirdly, there is speculation that increased political party rivalry may have played a role in some of these incidents, particularly in the context of the previous parliamentary and upcoming presidential elections. One observer, Ali Mousavi, speculated that these incidents could have been “the deadly and bloody outcome of hard and expanding retaliatory acts between rival and hostile ethno-political groups, including Jamiat-e Islami, Hezb-e Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar [both mainly Sunni] and different Hezb-e Wahdat factions [all mainly Shia] in Herat province” (see here). This observer linked the incidents, in particular, to the re-entry of Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e Islami into the power game in the western province, since their leader’s return in May 2017. However, this speculation is very weak as it fails to explain why and how this might have led to targeting of mosques, religious leaders and worshippers. It would not be easy for these organisations to justify this type of violence, even to their members and sympathisers.

Nevertheless, the existence of ethnically-inspired political rivalry may be further exacerbated by the recent arrival in and around Herat city of what the daily newspaper Hasht-e Sobh says are “one million internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Farah, Ghor, Badghis and some southern provinces” (4) many of whom are Sunni Pashtuns. There are mounting concerns among many Heratis about the change these newcomers might make to provincial public life. Some local residents told AAN they feared there may be an organised policy to settle Pashtuns in the city in order to destabilise it, just as Farah had been destabilised as a result of Taleban attacks on the provincial centre (read our previous dispatch on insecurity in Farah city here). However, many of these IDPs have fled either war or drought, or both, in their provinces and taken refuge in Herat; changing the sectarian demographics of the city must surely be very far from their thoughts or intentions.

Lastly, there is perennial speculation about what the ramifications of the Iranian-Saudi, Shia-Sunni rivalry for security in Herat might be and whether it may be driving the recent wave of attacks against Shias. Some Shias and Sunnis, especially their hardliners, see any development or prosperity of ‘the other’ as a deliberate act of the opposing regional rival, either Iran or Saudi Arabia (as seen in the remarks of the religious student discussing the size of various religious buildings in the city, quoted earlier in this piece). Such thinking extends to the regional level with Iranians seeing the attacks against Afghan Shias, as part of a broader Saudi strategy to strengthen its Sunni allies, scare the Shia population out of and increase its influence in Herat and the wider western region of Afghanistan. Its ultimate aim would be to encircle and hurt Iran (read such an Iranian analysis here). A similar perception is held by the Saudis about what it considers Iran’s interventionism in its own sphere of influence, in countries such as Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen and, of course, Afghanistan (for details, see here). According to researcher Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh, both Iran and Saudi Arabia would prefer a government in Herat, and Afghanistan more broadly, that is “friendly to their interests at best, or in the worst case scenario – a renewal of civil war – to protect their interests, investments, and even territories” (see page iv of this PRIO paper).

Conclusion: more solidarity than conflict

There is hardly any empirical evidence as to who the perpetrators of the attacks were and what motives they might have been pursuing. This means there is little to go on when trying to substantiate whether or not any of this speculation might be the ‘real reason’ behind the attacks on Herat’s Shias. Nonetheless, at least three points can be made. 

First, the changing population in Herat and regional dynamics and conflicts have harmed local Shia-Sunni relations by making some Shias assertive and some Sunnis sensitive. In particular, the fact that some Shias, mostly Hazara newcomers, have gone to fight for Assad’s government in Syria, may have singled out the entire local Shia population as targets of resentment and outright attacks, particularly by ISKP.

Second, many locals from both sects feel that hardliners on both sides should be restrained, fearing that, if not, they will only tighten their grip on the practicing adherents of the two religious sects. In fact, the majority of Sunnis in Herat are moderate and tolerant, as are most Shias. In a conversation with AAN, Mawlawi Kababiyani, a well-regarded local Sunni cleric, said that prominent Sunni leaders such as his close colleague Mawlawi Khodadad Saleh, the influential head of the ulama council in Afghanistan’s western region, had time and again stressed the need for moderation, restraint and sustaining the unity of Sunnis and Shias, not just in Herat but beyond. (5) Another local Sunni cleric, Mawlawi Abdul Muqtader, told AAN, “I am 50 years old and in all this time I have witnessed good relations between Sunnis and Shias in Herat and across the country. They visit each other and eat each other’s food at home, have joint businesses and are even tied in family relations.” Similar calls for continued Shia-Sunni solidarity have been made by leading Shia leaders. “During the funeral procession of the late Sheikh Tawakkoli, I made it clear to all those attending, particularly our youth, that there is and should be no space for retaliation,” influential Shia leader Jebraili emphasised in his conversation with AAN. The moderate Sunni and Shia religious leaders and the public at large in Herat are therefore increasingly concerned about the need to restrain hardliners on both sides and prevent any escalation in sectarian tension.

Third, and perhaps most important, it is far too early to speak of a sectarian conflict in Herat. The attacks seen in the city have, apart from the one on the Jawadiya Mosque, been small-scale. Population movements, everywhere, very often create tension. In Herat’s case, however, the tension and the attacks have to be seen against the backdrop of deep-rooted, longstanding cordial ties between the majority of local Shias and Sunnis, which continue to exist. This means, as well, that on the whole both communities continue to staunchly believe that clashing with the other is in no one’s interest.

Edited by Sari Kouvo, Thomas Ruttig, Kate Clark and Martine van Bijlert

(1) The author has compiled this list by crosschecking personal observations, informal interviews and media reports. The list could be incomplete, because there may have been incidents that have not come to the author’s notice. However, the list does cover the major attacks against Shias in Herat city, particularly since 2016.

(2) Salehi presents the following typology of religious trends in contemporary Herat (see page 5 of this paper):

1. Traditional conservative: 
2. Traditional Hanafism
3. Traditional Shiism
4. Tablighi Jamaat
5. Sufi orders

• Political Islam trends:
• Deobandi Hanafism
• Revolutionary Shiism
• Salafism
• Muslim Brotherhood
• Hizb ut-Tahrir

• New religious thinking (an approach that challenges classic understandings of Islam to establish a connection between religious teachings and modern requirements)

(3) Hasht-e Sobhdaily newspaper, 18 April 2018, page 7.

(4) See Hasht-e Sobh daily newspaper, 11 September 2018, pages 6 and 8. See also this report by The Killid Group, a media organisation, which is also active in Herat.

(5) There was an assassination attempt on Mawlawi Saleh himself during a Friday congregational prayer in Herat’s Grand Mosque in October 2016 which was condemned by both Shia and Sunni leaders.

Chinese QJB-95 Light Machine Gun

Russian Club-M Coastal Defense Missile System

Professor Ludwig W Adamec was the author of “The Who is Who of Afghanistan” – a book every student of Afghanistan will have encountered early in her or his career. Printed in 1975, and updated several times since then, it is nothing less than one of the standard works of Afghan studies. AAN’s Thomas Ruttig bought his copy for a lot of money second-hand in Kabul in 1983 – its provenance may have been murky; books were stolen from libraries in large numbers and sold in Kabul bookshops. Professor Emeritus Ludwig Adamec passed away in Arizona on 1 January 2019 at the age of 94.

Ludwig W. Adamec, an Austrian-turned-American, belonged to the first generation of post World War II academics who turned their interests to Afghanistan, when still a country far from the focus of international reporting and even research. Visiting consistently over many decades, until the 1978 Saur coup and the 1979 Soviet intervention interrupted this opportunity, he became the meticulous encyclopedian of Afghanistan, informing generations of scholars with his work. He will remain remembered as a champion of Afghan studies.

Youth under fascism

Ludwig Adamec was born in the Austrian capital Vienna in 1924. He was not even a teenager when a proto-fascist, authoritarian regime took over in 1933, and was just 14 years old when Nazi Germany annexed his country in 1938. 

Later, in a 2010 testimonial titled “Die Würde der Arbeit“ (“The dignity of work”), Adamec wrote that, as a teenager, he developed the wish “to see the world but as a child of [the 1930s economic] depression there seemed to be no chance to fulfil this dream.” (1) He learned English anyway “just in case” and in what spare time he had left working as an apprentice toolmaker, he watched American movies and listened to Jazz. He became a ‘swing boy’, a member of the era’s nonconformist youth, who wore knee-long jackets, tight pants and long neckties with small knots. Adamec had a first run-in with a band of the militant Hitler youth, which – apart from some abuse because of his outfit – luckily remained non-violent. “Naturally I did not want to become a member,” he remarked later. 

Aged 16, Adamec became a full orphan and decided to leave the country. However, during his first attempt, a ‘friendly’ Red Cross lady, who had given him a bed in a town near the Swiss border, locked him in and handed him over to the Gestapo – Germany’s Secret State (political) Police. This started a long journey of stays in – and escapes from – jails, orphanages and ‘correction’ institutes. During the war, food was scarce and only available on the basis of coupons for those with an address and a registration. So, while on the run, Adamec depended on the help of friends. After another failed attempt to leave the country, this time through Hungary and Czechoslovakia, he was re-arrested and jailed in his home city, Vienna. 

In detention, Adamec witnessed other people, among them a man from the Roma minority, being sent to Auschwitz. He himself was sent in shackles to the Moringen juvenile concentration camp to do hard labour; first, in a salt mine and, later, in a quarry. In the camp, he was subjected to harsh treatment, beatings, humiliation and indoctrination lectures. His situation improved when he was sent to a metal workshop, given his vocational skills, but he still had to work 12-hour shifts, with only one meal of cabbage or pea soup per day. Apart from the lucky ones, who received food packages from relatives or the Red Cross, he wrote, “we were all undernourished.” 

Towards the end of the war, Adamec narrowly escaped being executed. While cleaning the guards’ barracks, he heard reports on an ‘enemy’ radio station of the capture of the first German cities by the allied forces. When he told his co-detainees about these reports, a guard overheard and reported him. Luckily, the man was a so-called ‘Volksdeutscher’ (Germans from the occupied areas, mainly in Eastern Europe) who spoke German badly, so Adamec was able to talk himself out of the allegations and was spared.

When the camps’ inhabitants were marched further away from the approaching frontline, Adamec managed to escape. “With someone else from Vienna, I marched through the front line at night, passing the American soldiers who did not stop us when I told them: ‘We are your friends, prisoners from a concentration camp.’”

This part of Adamec’s biography reminds us of the disturbingly long list of people who the Nazis considered “unworthy to live” – according to their antihuman terminology. Not only Jews, communists and political opponents were detained and killed in ‘labour’ and extermination camps, or experimented on in gruesome ‘research labs,’ but also the mentally ill, ‘gypsies’, homosexuals, criminals, the so-called ‘work-shy’ and ‘anti-social,’ as well as the non-conformist youth. Adamec was lucky to have survived this.

Ludwig Adamec as a young man. Photo: National Funds Austria.

Travelling to Afghanistan

After his escape and rescue, the fulfilment of Adamec’s dream to see the world started. Ludwig Adamec left Austria in 1950 and travelled extensively through Europa, Asia and Africa. In 1952, he came to Afghanistan for the first time. He stayed in Herat  – where a German-educated Afghan engineer had him hired for a job in the construction of a power plant built with assistance from the government of Germany – and Kabul for two years.In the 1960s and 1970s, he travelled to Afghanistan every year. 

In 1954, Adamec settled in the US and wrote his PhD thesis in Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of California in Los Angeles under the supervision of the prominent Austrian-American Middle East scholar, Gustave von Grunebaum. In 1967, he joined the University of Arizona at Tucson as a scholar in Middle Eastern studies. There, he taught the history of Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa from 500 AD to the present day, and Arabic and Persian, until his retirement in 2005. 

In the summer of 1967, as an assistant professor at Tucson, he was part of pioneering a ground-breaking “special studies seminar” at the University of Michigan. This aimed to give “public notice of scholarly efforts… on new methodological and geographical frontiers,” namely Afghanistan. As the University of Michigan’s George Grassmuck wrote in the foreword to the early Afghan studies handbook, titled “Afghanistan: Some New Approaches” (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1969), which the project resulted in:

Until well into the middle of the twentieth century the study of Afghanistan was heavily historical… [and] Afghanistan falls between the centers of South Asian study, Middle Eastern study, and Soviet and Central Asian studies; and because it remains in limbo, those who do research on the country, often approach it from the vantage point of their know references… The justification for [this] effort lies in the conviction that now is a good time for ordering the scattered varieties of new knowledge about this old land and long independent state, so that there can be broader and better comprehension, and so that the stock of knowledge about it will better serve those both inside and outside Afghanistan who must arrive at operative decisions or ‘non-decisions’. …

If there are to be new approaches to the study of this unique country, studies which produce conclusions based on consideration of various types of information, then it is necessary to pull together special capabilities and qualifications.

In 1975, he established a Near Eastern Center at the University, which he headed for the subsequent ten years. In 1986-87, he headed the Afghanistan Branch of Voice of America.

Adamec was lucky enough to witness Afghanistan under peaceful conditions, before its internal political tensions morphed into – still small-scale – armed conflict in 1975 and became internationalised in 1979. The fact that he saw Afghanistan in more peaceful times is reflected in the last paragraph of his 1967 monograph Afghanistan, 1900–1923: A Diplomatic History (Berkeley: University of California Press) where he wrote in full optimism:

As 1973 ended, Afghanistan was at peace with the world: relations with both [sic] neighbours were satisfactory, and the traditional policy of balancing powers appeared no longer to be relevant. The power of the British Empire that was Afghanistan’s traditional enemy had been reduced to the status of a secondary power. Germany was again a major partner of Afghanistan in the country’s development and modernization, and the Soviet Union and the United States had moved from the political field to the more positive area of competition for the goodwill of the Afghan people.

No one can blame Adamec for not foreseeing the ugly turn of events that Afghans were to experience within less than a decade. 

Before his last visit to Kabul in 2008, at the invitation of the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs to participate in an international seminar on Mahmud Tarzi, he visited Afghanistan again only twice; once each in the time of Hafizullah Amin’s (1979) and of Najibullah’s government (1986-92), to collect material to update the Who’s Who.

Adamec’s oeuvre

Adamec’s Who’s Who of Afghanistan, which has a historical and a contemporary part, is the most well-known book from his oeuvre. He consulted many scholars in the East and West for this book, including in Afghanistan. In his introduction to its first edition in 1975, Adamec wrote: 

Research in Afghanistan studies has advanced tremendously during recent years with the appearance of numerous works in virtually every field of scholarly interest. However, many scholars, especially those interested in history and contemporary research, have keenly felt the need for a reference source which would provide concise biographical data.

Adamec said he knew it was not exhaustive, but that he had followed the advice of Afghan scholar and diplomat, Abdul Ghafur Rawan Farhadi, “that it is preferable to publish a work [relatively quickly] and spend twenty years improving it… than to spend twenty years in seclusion in an effort to attain a perfection which may never be reached.” And that is exactly what he did, for more than twenty years.

In 1997, the Who’s Whobecame the Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan, with a second, further expanded edition, in 2002. It contained a great deal of additional entries, mainly of the new political players who had emerged on the Afghan scene with the revolutions and resistance of the 1980s and 1990s: from Hafizullah Amin to Abdul Qadir Zabihullah, then the most famous Jamiati commander in Balkh province, the memory of him now overshadowed by the surviving Atta Muhammad. A detailed timeline and an impressive list of sources were added, including cabinet lists. The genealogies of important Afghan families, mainly linked to the now overthrown monarchy, were dropped.

The Who is Who was printed in the city of Graz, in his home country Austria. Graz was also the home of the Afghanistan Journal, a three-monthly publication of research articles in English, French and German, covering everything from pre-war flora and fauna and ethnology, to economy and politics. The journal started in 1974, with Ludwig W Adamec on its team of scientific advisors and authors (in cooperation with the German-language academic Arbeitsgemeinschaft [working group] Afghanistan). It was discontinued in 1982, when its editor wrote that the political changes after the 1978 ‘April revolution’ had made it impossible for western scholars to still travel to the country and present up-to-date research results. 

Much of Adamec’s other works also show him as Afghanistan’s foremost encyclopedian. These include his 1973/74 re-publication of the monumental, six volume Historical and political gazetteer of Afghanistan.This had originally been compiled in 1914 by the general staff of the government of British India, as a secret reference source representing all information on Afghanistan that had been collected up to that time. There is also a Historical Dictionary of Islam (2nd edition 2009) by Adamec and a number of entries by him in the online Encyclopedia Iranica, which cover his second field: Afghanistan’s foreign relations. Some of his books – such as his 1967 monograph Afghanistan, 1900–1923: A Diplomatic History (Berkeley: University of California Press) – were translated into Persian.

Of particular interest, but not very well known, is an article Adamec wrote in 1998 and which was reprinted in 2015 in Afghanistan: Identity, Society and Politics since 1980 (London and New York). This was a ‘best-of’ of articles published by the prestigious Afghanistan Info. This bulletin, over four decades, distributed news and reviews about Afghanistan from Neuchâtel in Switzerland but was discontinued in 2017. Both, book and bulletin, were edited by Micheline Centlivres-Demont (more here).

Adamec’s article dealt with one of the most contentious issues linked with Afghanistan, the question: whether there had been a chance of reuniting Afghanistan with the tribal areas now part of Pakistan, titled “Greater Afghanistan: A Missed Chance?” In it, Adamec reproduced a secret document – a legal advice sought by the British Foreign Office in case it was taken to an international tribunal for arbitration, dated 28 April 1949, ie after the partition of British-India – he had found in the archives of the Oriental and India Office Collection of the British Library. The document indicated a ‘yes’ to this question, saying this had been possible “if the tribes had placed themselves under the protection of Afghanistan or if, with the consent of the tribes, the tribal areas had been annexed by Afghanistan.” Adamec commented: “It seems that Afghan diplomacy missed the chance to regain the Pashtun tribal belt, but it was a very slim chance.”

Parts of Ludwig W Adamec’s oeuvre. Photo: Thomas Ruttig

Ludwig W Adamec is survived by his wife, Rahella Adamec, his son, Eric Adamec, his step-daughter, Helena Malikyar, his step-son, Mahmood Malikyar, and his grand-daughter and step-grandchildren (see source). Watch another obituary, in Pashto, by the Voice of America here.

Edited by Martine van Bijlert

(1) Adamec wrote the testimonial for the Austrian Republic’s National Fund for the Victims of National Socialism (see here). It was first published in: Renate S. Meissner im Auftrag des Nationalfonds der Republik Österreich für Opfer des Nationalsozialismus (Hg.): Erinnerungen. Lebensgeschichten von Opfern des Nationalsozialismus.Vienna, 2010, pp 234-41.