Defence`s Feeds

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Qari Hekmat, a self-proclaimed IS commander in control of parts of Jawzjan, has survived another Taleban attempt to oust him from the area in January 2018. Following this, he attempted – without success – to take a district centre in the province from government control. AAN’s Obaid Ali has compiled additional information about how he has consolidated his still precarious grip over two districts of this northern province by reaching out or attracting local and outside commanders, recruiting more fighters and putting in place semi-government structures under the flag of the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP). He looks at reports about foreign fighters in the area.

A new unsuccessful Taleban offensive

Qari Hekmat, a dissident Taleban commander, who has been sailing under the flag of the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP; also known as Daesh in Afghanistan) since 2015, has survived another Taleban attempt to oust him from his area in the northern province of Jawzjan. This was less due to his strength, but rather more attributable to disunity amongst the Taleban forces attacking him.

Starting on 19 January 2018, the Taleban had gathered hundreds of fighters in an attempt to retake the two districts he controls, Darzab and Qush Tepa. Their offensive was carried out from three directions. Prominent local commanders in Faryab, Sar-e Pul and Jawzjan provinces led the Taleban fronts. Mawlawi Abdulbaqi, a Taleban commander in Belcheragh district of Faryab, to the south of Darzab, led the attack towards the north. Mullah Nader’s fighters, from Sayad district of Sar-e Pul, attacked Qush Tepa from the east. The Taleban front led by Qari Ghani, their shadow district governor for Qush Tepa, and Mullah Seraj, shadow district governor for Darzab came from Shirin Tagab and Dawlatabad districts of Faryab from the west. Both had retreated there in October 2017, when fighters loyal to Hekmat carried out their previous large-scale anti-Taleban offensive (read our previous analysis here).

The clashes continued for ten days causing serious casualties for both sides. According to local sources, 26 Daesh affiliated fighters and eight Taleban were killed. Hekmat’s fighters were forced to temporarily leave their positions near both district centres and toretreat to areas in northern Qush Tepa (Khanaqa and Beg Sar) and southern Darzab (Moghul and Sar Dara). The fight, however, unexpectedly ceased and the Taleban returned back to their original positions in Faryab and Sar-e Pul. According to local sources, the Taleban commanders participating in this operation lacked coordination in their command and control and their attack fell apart.

Following this episode, Qari Hekmat went on the offensive himself. On 26 February 2018, fighters loyal to him attacked two checkpoints of the Afghan Local Police (ALP) near the district centre, in Putaw and Qarayi villages. In Putaw, a few kilometres to the south of the district centre. ALP commander Sher Muhammad was aware that Hekmat would attack and was able to push him back. Also in Qarayi, just 500 metres to the northwest of the district governor office, another ALP unit was able to beat back the attack. According to local sources, eight of Hekmat fighters and two security forces – one ALP and one Public Order Police member – were killed.

The humanitarian fall-out of the fighting

Halima Karimi, a female Jawzjan provincial council member, told AAN in mid-January, before the latest round of fighting, that some 5,000 families fled last months’ fighting from Darzab alone. She said, “Around 2,800 IDP families [alone] live in critical conditions [around] Sheberghan“, Jawzjan’s provincial capital some 100 kilometres to the northeast.

However, these figures seem to be exaggerated. According to very recent UNOCHA data offered to AAN, 1,030 families (7,250 individuals) have been displaced from both districts over the course of 2016 and 2017 due to conflict. Since the January fighting, UNOCHA has not reported new displacements in Jawzjan in any of its weekly field reports. Local aid workers told AAN that, despite fighting, locals are less likely to flee under the current winter conditions.

But the figures between UN agencies also differ. The International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) weekly activity report of 15 November 2017 on humanitarian assistance said reportedly 1,707 families as being displaced from Darzab and Qush Tepa due to conflict. On 10 January 2018, still before the fighting, the organisation stated that reportedly 1,807 families had been displaced due to conflict in Qush Tepa district alone, to Sheberghan city and within the district. Since then, it also has reported no new conflict-related displacements in Jawzjan province.

Personal disputes, shaky loyalties

This second failed Taleban attack against Hekmat within four months (read AAN’s earlier analysis here), was probably not fully serious from the beginning. It was originally the result of a personal dispute between local Taleban commanders and Hekmat and followed weeks of tension over the killing of a prominent Taleban commander’s brother by fighters affiliated with Hekmat. On 9 January 2018, Nurullah, a Hekmat ally (and nephew of Mawlawi Zikrullah, another prominent commander loyal to Hekmat), shot dead a brother of Mullah Nader, a former Taleban shadow governor of Sar-e Pul province, in the Kandah area of Sayad district, in neighbouring Sar-e Pul. (This seems to have been a personal dispute; there is no indication of fighters loyal to Hekmat operating in Sayad.) Nader intended to solve the issue peacefully and sent elders to Darzab asking Qari Hekmat to handover the killer. However, Hekmat rejected this request and instead insisted that he would punish Nurullah in Darzab himself.

It also seems that a power vacuum exists in both districts that facilitated the ground for Hekmat’s ability to hold the area. Over the past two years, the Taleban have shifted their strategy from fighting in rural areas to coming closer to more populated district centres (Khamab, Qarqen, Mangijik, Aqcha and Khaniqa) in the province’s northern and eastern parts, as well as around the provincial centre, Sheberghan. The Taleban also increased their presence along the highways leading from Sheberghanto the district centres in an attempt to prevent logistic supplies getting to security forces based there.

Therefore, neither the government, nor the Taleban, were interested in retaining a strong presence in remote and isolated districts, such as Darzab and Qush Tepa. This has put Qari Hekmat, who understood these dynamics, in a good position to establish his foothold.

Apart from the district centres, which are under government control, fighters loyal to Hekmat now control Darzab and Qush Tepa fully. Government offices in both districts are largely paralysed, with the officials sitting in the district governors’ compounds and few nearby military bases and district governors in the provincial centre. The Taleban have shadow structures for the two districts that operate from ‘exile’ in Faryab province.

According to Abdulhai Yashen, head of the provincial education department, 42 out of 45 schools, including high schools, secondary schools and registered religious schools, are shut down in Darzab. In Qush Tepa, he said, this number is 21 out of 28. He told AAN local elders had reached out to Qari Hekmat a number of times to negotiate their reopening. He said, “In the beginning of the [Afghan] year [starting in March 2017], Hekmat vowed to reopen the schools but later, when foreign fighters joined him, Hekmat rejected the mediation”.

The number of Hekmat’s fighters is unclear, and government officials’ estimates differ. Sher Muhammad, the head of the Afghan Local Police (ALP) in Darzab district, told AAN in February 2018that their total number in both Darzab and Qush Tepa could total 1,000. Locals, however, contradict this. They told AAN that Hekmat leads only around 400 fighters. In any case, Qari Hekmat has proven he has sufficient forces under his command to be able, not only to threaten the local government (which is mainly confined to the district centres), but also to stand against the local Taleban fronts. Alhaj Muhammad Akram, head of the Provincial High Peace Council, who is from Darzab district and well aware of the insurgency dynamics in the area, told AAN “there are different ethnic groups – Uzbek, Tajiks and Pashtuns – among the fighters.”

Attracting commanders, setting up a parallel administration

It has emerged from reports that AAN received from the isolated region, that Qari Hekmat immediately after he switched to Daesh, and as early as 2015, had reached out to local commanders and had attracted others from elsewhere. He now hosts limited numbers of outside fighters from Ghor, Kunduz, Sar-e Pul and Balkh provinces. According to local sources, they constituted “not more than a few dozen.”

His first step was to selectively target local commanders who led small groups of fighters. Previously, most of them had either dealt with the Taleban or the local government. Some served as local Taleban commanders and others operated under pro-government militia forces with shaky loyalty. Qari Hekmat managed to convince at least 20 of them operating in Darzab and Qush Tepa to put themselves under his command.

The most prominent was Haji Zainuddin, a local Uzbek and former Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) commander. He had some hundred fighters located in an area at the border between Darzab and Qush Tepa. There, his fighters mainly operated as a community protection forces dealing with local issues independently. He had struck a deal with the Taleban in 2009 that formally put him under their control, but left a degree of autonomy. The deal was mainly based on two conditions: that his villagers in his area would not join the government forces – in return the Taleban would give him full authority to control the area, including taxation – and the Taleban would not deploy his fighters to other parts of the district. In 2016, when Hekmat became stronger, he switched side to Hekmat.

Another example is Mufti Nemat, an Uzbek commander hosting around 80 fighters. Nemat had surrendered to General Abdulrashid Dostum in February 2015. He stayed almost two years in Sheberghan, but later left and joined Qari Hekmat (read AAN previous analysis here). Now he serves as a Daesh-affiliated commander in the Sar Dara area of Darzab, which served as Hekmat’s fall-back position during the latest Taleban offensive. Commander Qudrat Gul, with 40 to 50 fighters, and commander Hamza, with around 30 followers, also started to operate under the Daesh flag in mid-2016.

Around the same time, with Omar Muhajer, who led fighters from Ghor province, some commanders from outside southern Jawzjan started to join Hekmat. Mujaher is a Tajik from either Ghor or Farah and is said to be very young. His previous affiliation, if any, is unknown to AAN’s local sources. The second outsider group is said to be from as far away as Dasht-e Archi district in Kunduz. It also is a small group of some 10 to 15 fighters, who are most probably from Jundullah (the Army of God). They joined Hekmat in late 2016. Jundullah is a splinter group of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. They are mostly active in Afghanistan’s northeast, but consist only of Afghans. In 2015, some Jundullah fighters had expressed interest in the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) by translating ISIL leader Abu Baker al-Baghdadi’s statements into the local language and dubbing and circulating ISIL video clips from Syria in social media. The Taleban then disarmed and detained a number of Jundullah fighters in Kunduz and Takhar provinces, making some of them to flee (read our previous analysis on Jundullah and Taleban dispute here). A third group, led by Mawlawi Habib Rahman from Balkh, joined Hekmat in 2016 with around ten fighters. He served as the head of the shadow judiciary under Hekmat for some months, but then was replaced for an unknown reason. Mawlawi Habib Rahman now serves as a Daesh-affiliated commander in the Sar Dara area of Darzab.

Over the border from Jawzjan, in Sayad district of Sar-e Pul province, another small group of fighters stretched out their hands to Qari Hekmat and visited his base in Darzab. Mullah Ghazanfar, an infamous Taleban commander, leads it. When he met Hekmat at the beginning of 2017, he sought assurance that he would be provided with shelter in Sayad, in case the Taleban pushed him out from Darzab. However, this friendship did not last for longer than a few months. In August 2017, Ghazanfar, along with Mullah Nader, the shadow Taleban district governor for Sayad, carried out a widely-reported assault against Afghan Local Police and public uprising forces in Mirza Olang village. This resulted in a number of civilians killed (read AAN previous report here).

Qari Hekmat has already set up a shadow structure in the area under his control to deal with people’s daily affairs. There were units for the judicial, military, police, finance and ‘virtue’ affairs, i.e. a religious ‘police’. He uses Arabic terms for them in a clear distinction from the Taleban’s shadow structure, for example, shortah (Arabic for police), al-maliyah (for finance unit), qazi’iyya (for judicial unit), and askariyah (for military unit).

According to sources close to him, the group has established a decision-making council of 14 members led by Hekmat to deal with different issues. “All members of the council are prominent commanders and heads of the units are also included. They discuss finance, military, public outreach and security issues every month.” Hekmat has distributed administrative positions among the commanders who joined him. Mufti Nemat serves as head of the military court, and Omar Muhajer as the head of the ‘virtues’ unit. Mullah Sohbatullah, another Uzbek from Darzab, heads the finance unit, while Mullah Qudratullah, a Tajik from either Herat or Badghis, operates the intelligence unit.

Hekmat also appointed two deputies: Mullah Zabihullah, for military affairs, and Haji, for civilian affairs. Local sources were unable to provide more detail; both deputies seem to come from outside the area.

Hekmat has proved that fighters loyal to him are able, not only to eliminate the Taleban from his area, but also practice Daesh-style brutalities. As AAN has already reported, his fighters publicly beheaded a local resident accusing him of distributing amulets in January 2016. In the same year Daesh-affiliated fighters set on fire two shrines in Bibi Maryan and Sufi Dost Muhammad villages in Darzab district. The shrines were popular locally, but Daesh suppresses all forms of religious activity that do not conform with its own interpretations. These activities also aimed to attract public attention and give further credibility tothe claim that the group is Daesh’s representative in the north. Qari Hekmat uses the Daesh logo in the statements and messages he delivers. In February 2018, for instance, the group distributed leaflets in Darzab and Qush Tepa with the Daesh logo calling on locals to obey the Daesh instructions.

In June 2017, Mawlawi Zikrullah, Hekmat’s fellow Darzabi commander, reportedly led a delegation with ten other fighters in Hekmat’s name to Nangarhar province to visit the ISKP leadership that is the recognised branch of IS in Afghanistan. According to sources close to Hekmat, Zikrullah stayed in Nangarhar for a couple of weeks. However, the nature of Hekmat’s connection with ISKP base in eastern Afghanistan still remains unclear. It seems it is more on the communication level, rather than operational or involving financial support being exchanged between Hekmat and ISKP. (1)

The issue of foreign fighters

Both the ALP commander for Darzab district, Sher Muhammad, and locals from the district, mention that foreign fighters had joined Hekmat. Baz Muhammad Dawar, Darzab’s district governor, told media outlets in December 2017, that Uzbeks, Chechen and even French and Algerian nationals had been seen in Darzab district. Asked by AAN how they identified them, locals said, because of their facial features and “the way they wear their cloths” and also because they did not talk to people. The spokesman of the Afghan Ministry of Defence (MoD), Dawlat Waziri, in December 2017, also picked up on the alleged presence of French and Algerians.

The French news agency AFP even quoted “European and Afghan security sources in Kabul “ confirming this, without giving more detail, though.

AAN has been tracking the militant groups active in Jawzjan over the past years. Reliable Afghan sources familiar with the insurgency dynamics in Darzab and Qush Tepa districts have reported that there were a dozen foreign fighters among Hekmat’s men, most of these being Central Asian. Locals told AAN that there might be a small number of Uzbek fighters, but that it was “hard to identify their nationalities or to figure out how many foreigners are there. ”According to Alhaj Muhammad Akram, head of the provincial peace council, some foreigners had joined Hekmat in mid-2016. Their identity was unclear, although most of them spoke Uzbeki and, therefore, locals associated them with Uzbekistan.

The sources denied the presence of any French fighters. According to Alhaj Muhammad Akram, “There is no evidence to claim the presence of French fighters”.

Conclusion

The Taleban have failed one more time to retake control of Darzab and Qush Tepa; mainly as a result of their own disunity. This has boosted the non-Taleban militant group’s morale and consolidated their power in the two isolated districts. However, if the Taleban were to become more serious in a future attack, the outcome would be unclear. The government, for the moment, does not seem to be in a position – or willing – to tackle this problem in this remote region. There are even indications that it might be happy that the Taleban – its much stronger enemy countrywide – has come under pressure there.

The Taleban’s unsuccessful counter-offensives indicate that the movement suffers from fragmentation and lacks a strong leadership at the provincial level in Jawzjan. This has yielded negative results affecting their local fighters’ ability to take on Hekmat. The Taleban also seem to face the same problem government troops face after so-called cleaning operations – the enemy withdraws, and returns when the troops retreat again.

Hekmat has taken advantage of this situation and dramatically expanded his territory in both districts. Some government forces hold out in the district centres, but the Taleban were wiped from parts of Darzab and Qush Tepa; territory they still held in October 2017.Public services and schools remain shut and locals face serious challenges in their efforts to continue their day-to-day lives.

Qari Hekmat’s group has emerged as the strongest single group in this part of Jawzjan. It might have come as a surprise, even to himself, that his capability to survive militarily (so far) has enabled him to set up his own shadow administrative structures in these two isolated districts. This facilitates disgruntled Taleban commanders and more radical groups to join him as an alternative to the Taleban. It has also turned the area into a refuge for such groups from elsewhere. But so far he has proven too weak to defeat the remaining pro-government forces holed up in the centre of his home district.

It is unclear to date whether he has any intention to expand his grip beyond Darzab and Qush Tepa. The appearance of the Central Asian fighters in Jawzjan and of Daesh style atrocities might be an indication that he intends to build relations with foreign fighters.

The size of the outside groups remains limited to a dozen fighters. This indicates that southern Jawzjan is still far from being a northern Afghan ‘Nangrahar’. Also, the danger emanating from this region is minimal in respect of the overall strategic balance in Afghanistan, as it is neighbouring countries where there is a fear of a spread of Daesh.

 

Editing by Sari Kouvo and Thomas Ruttig

 

(1) ISKP in Nangarhar faces major challenges to keep its fighters unified and to maintain access to sustainable financial channels. The long ongoing dispute between Central Asian and Pakistani fighters over leading the ISKP (after its previous leader Sheikh Abu Hasib’s death in a drone attack in May 2017) has created fissures in the group (although, this has not led to a formal split). The Central Asian fighters rejected to accept a Pakistani leader to lead the group. They accused the ISKP’s Pakistani fighters of maintaining connections with the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence.

 

 

 

 

Czech BM-21MT Artillery Rocket System

Americas

• Following a report released in January expressing concerns about the KC-46 Pegasus tanker aircraft, the US Air Force is working with the Pentagon’s operational test and evaluation office to dissuade these issues while maintaining the aircraft will keep to its milestones and schedules. One issue raised was that the aircraft did not meet the office’s standards for electromagnetic pulse testing—which took place in July at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, and Edwards Air Force Base, California—however, this was because not all of the systems were online during the previous round of tests. The test showed that the tanker’s flight-critical and boom-refueling systems could withstand a 6-decibel electromagnetic pulse, but certain systems were uninstalled or deactivated before testing, according to the report. “The systems that were uninstalled or deactivated were not flight critical or required for aerial refueling operations,” the command said. There are no plans as of yet for additional EPTs.

• Ammo-manufacturer Olin Corp. received Tuesday, February 27, a $51.1 million contract modification for several types of small arms ammunition. Under the terms of the agreement, the Illinois-based Winchester Division of Oilin will produce 5.56mm, 7.62mm, and .50 caliber ammunition cartridges for the US Army. Work will be performed in Oxford, Mississippi, with an estimated completion date of August 30, 2019.

• Charles Stark Draper Laboratory has been awarded a $132.9 million contract modification for the Trident (D5) MK 6 guidance system. The agreement, awarded by US Navy, will see the production with failure verification, test, repair and recertification of inertial measurement units, electronic assemblies, and electronic modules. Work will take place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Clearwater, Florida, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, with a scheduled completion time for January 30, 2021.

Middle East & Africa

• An investigation into the crash of a Tiger helicopter operated by the German military in Mali has ruled out an external attack or weather factors as the fatal accident’s cause. Military officials briefed a German parliamentary defense committee on Wednesday on the latest finding about the crash that killed both crew members during a peacekeeping mission in the West African nation’s desert north last July. In a letter to lawmakers, seen by Reuters, State Secretary Markus Gruebel said the investigation had also found no evidence of malfunction in the aircraft’s rotors or engine. Instead, the investigation has focused on “striking aberrations in the longitudinal control system” of the helicopter, which “significantly limited” the motion of its elevator axis, causing its autopilot to shut off, but had not determined how they occurred. The aberration was not found in other German Tigers. Manufacturer Airbus said the investigation was ongoing and it was too early to draw conclusions about potential root causes.

Europe

• Italian aerospace firm Leonardo announced the delivery of the final M-346 advanced jet trainer ordered by the Italian Air Force with the handover taking place at a ceremony at Leonardo’s plant in Venegono Superiore (Varese). A total of eighteen aircraft are now in operation with the service with Galatina’s 61st Air Wing (Lecce), where Italian fighter pilots are trained together with personnel from other countries including the United States, Spain, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, Argentina, Greece and Kuwait. Training on the M-346 is preparatory for pilots before they fly more advanced aircraft such as the Eurofighter Typhoon and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

• Romania inked this week final contracts with the United States for the purchase of both the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) and Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS). The February 26 signing was overseen by Romanian Secretary of State Mircea Dusa and the country’s defense chief, Gen. Nicolae Ciuca, and comes six months after the US State Department cleared a package calling for 54 Lockheed Martin-made HIMARS launchers for a total of three systems and 81 unitary GMLRS—making Bucharest the first foreign operators of the system. The program is estimated to cost $1.5 billion.

Asia-Pacific

• The Japanese government has released photographs of ship-to-ship cargo transfers of goods to North Korean vessels that are in breach of UN Security Council (UNSC) sanctions. So far, Tokyo has confirmed four cases of at-sea handoffs involving North Korea. On Tuesday, the Foreign and Defense ministries released photos taken by its P-3C maritime patrol aircraft of a North Korean tanker pulled up alongside a Maldives-registered vessel on Saturday night, possibly transferring fuel. The transfer took place approximately 250km east of Shanghai. The release of the photographs came with pleas from the government for the US and South Korea to help assist in keeping an eye on North Korea’s maritime smuggling and hold the hermit state to international sanctions.

Today’s Video

• Promo video of China’s J-16:

Chinese Beijing BJ80 Light Utility Vehicle

The second meeting of the Kabul Process for Peace and Security Cooperation that was held in the Afghan capital on 28 February 2018 marked a change in the peace rhetoric. The Afghan government presented some very concrete proposals for peace talks with the Taleban. It came with a few conditions (not called as such) – mainly that women’s rights and the basic values of the constitution are not up for negotiation. The offer includes, for the first time, a mention of a ceasefire, an office in Kabul for the Taleban and the lifting of sanctions on those Taleban leaders who would join the negotiation. What is not clear is the sequence and over what time period all this would come together. AAN’s Thomas Ruttig and Jelena Bjelica (with input from Sari Kouvo) conclude that the ball now seems to be in the Taleban’s court, as they summarise and analyse the key messages coming from the second meeting of the Kabul Process.

AAN has also published a dossier bringing together all our analysis on efforts to find peace from 2010 until now.

President Ashraf Ghani’s “comprehensive plan to the Taleban and Pakistan,” as announced in the media in the run-up to the Kabul Process conference (1) was certainly the most complete peace offer that has been publicly announced since 2001.

In his speech, which Ghani consecutively delivered in three languages – English, Dari and Pashto (see transcript here) – the concrete points of what he called “the proposal on behalf of the National Unity Government to the Taleban” came in the Pashto part, addressing the Taleban in the language of the majority of their fighters.

He said that this proposal was offered “without any preconditions,” although he made clear at the same time that the basis for any negotiation would be the current constitution. Nevertheless, at the same time, he offered a partial “review” and “amendment” of it. Previously, the Taleban had rejected the constitution in its entirety and had demanded that a new constitution be drafted, if negotiations were to commence.

Ghani made it very clear, repeatedly throughout his presentation, that the “right and duties of all citizens, in particular the women” must be secured in this process “according to the current constitution.” Women and civil society would also be consulted and included at “each stage” of future negotiations. At least in the run-up to the Kabul meeting, however, this principle apparently was not applied, as Habiba Sarabi, the deputy head of the High Peace Council, can be heard complaining about in this clip posted by daily Etilaat-e Roz.

He also said that any solution must include the guarantee that no “armed group with links to foreign terrorist networks [or] foreign criminal organizations, state or non-state”, would be allowed to seek influence in Afghanistan. This dissociation from al-Qaeda has been a consistent demand of the international community from the Taleban. For the Afghan chapter of the Islamic State, ISKP, however, this would seem to be irrelevant as there is enmity not cooperation on the battlefield, despite some observers claiming the opposite. In any case, it is not difficult for the Taleban to make this statement at this juncture.

What has been proposed?

Ghani’s “peace proposals to the Taleban” have laid out a peace road map (our term, not his). Further down in the text, it is more specifically directed at “Taleban that quit the violence.” It consists of seven points, as follows:

• A “political framework” that includes: a “ceasefire,” the recognition of the Taleban as a political party (siasi gund), confidence-building measures and what he calls free and fair elections;
• A “legal framework” that includes the already-mentioned review of the constitution, the release of Taleban prisoners and the lifting of sanctions;
• It stipulates that: the government of Afghanistan should be officially recognised, the rule of law should be respected, the way should be paved for “reforms, a balanced development” of all regions of the country and the return of refugees;
• It calls for measures to be taken to ensure the security “of all citizens, and in particular of the reconciled Taleban”;
• It foresees that “refugees” [the term used here most likely refers to future returnees] and former fighters should be included in national progammes for social and economic development;
• It envisages that international diplomatic and financial support should be retained, including for determining the fate of foreign fighters and taking reconciled Taleban off the sanctions lists;
• A monitoring and evaluation mechanism should be set up.

Ghani added that the process should be conducted in three phases: negotiations, ratification (taswib) and implementation. He emphasised that in each and every phase women representatives should participate and be consulted. To “Taleban that quit the violence” a “peaceful and respectful life” is offered, Ghani said.

Ghani also said that the National Unity Government (NUG) – in the name of which the proposals are forwarded – had agreed that the Taleban should be offered the means to open an office in Kabul. Passports and the freedom to travel would also be provided to those involved in the negotiations and those accepting peace. In addition, they would be offered support to relocate their families to the country.

He called Kabul “the preferred venue” for talks, but also offered Muslim countries that are not engaged in the conflict (which, in the Afghan view, would exclude Pakistan and possibly hints that Indonesia could be involved – see footnote (1)), “a UN facility or any third country.” In the meantime, Germany has offered to facilitate, or to host peace talks with the Taleban “in Bonn, Berlin or elsewhere” and there are even talks of a “third Bonn conference on Afghanistan” (see tweet of Kabul embassy diplomat here).

Ghani also had a list of suggestions for support that he requested at the international level. He asked for “coordinated international diplomatic support” for this peace effort and “a concerted global effort to persuade Pakistan of the advantages of a stable Afghanistan.” He asked the countries and organisations in the region to align their initiatives with the Kabul Process. In the run-up to the meeting, some key countries had apparently refused to call the Kabul Process an “umbrella process,” under which Kabul wants to see all other peace initiatives operating. (2) Ghani also requested the global Islamic community “to counter the use of interpretations of religious texts as justification of unrestricted war” and terrorist acts. This is a continuation of earlier efforts to persuade Islamic scholars from the country, Pakistan and other Islamic countries to declare Taleban attacks ‘un-Islamic’, something which has received a mixed response so far.

The Afghan president further requested general support “especially” for the “reintegration of refugees and ex-combatants.” This is in the context of his offer to Pakistan of “a consolidated state-to-state dialogue,” which would include “a plan for the return of Afghan refugees from Pakistan within a period of 18 to 24 months.” So far, in the current situation, when Afghanistan is still dealing with around 600,000 returnees from 2016 and 2017, and with about 1.2 million documented refugees still in Pakistan, the UNHCR has only been able to mobilise 9.4 million US dollars – seven per cent – of the amount necessary to pay for already existing and expected returnees in 2018 (see here and here). (3) Finally, Ghani launched an appeal for support for peace-building initiatives through “transit, trade, and investment, the reform and anti-corruption strategy of the government, and the forthcoming 2018 parliamentary and 2019 presidential elections.” He insisted that the parliamentary elections would still be held this year.

A short analysis of the proposal’s content

Ghani’s peace proposals are the most far-reaching move in this field of any Afghan government since 2001 (see AAN dossier on peace talks). Most of what was offered is not new when each element is taken separately. The offer to have peace talks in Kabul, for example, had already been brought up in a statement of the presidential office before the meeting. This said that the government “prefers peace talks with Taliban to take place in Kabul or any other Afghan province.” This statement, in turn, came after a proposal by Akram Khpelwak, head of the High Peace Council (HPC) secretariat from December 2017, inviting the Taleban to open an office in Kabul (see AAN analysis here). However, in this combination, the seven-point proposal does evidently provide a new quality to the offer.

The proposals are not a peace plan yet, though. Such a plan can only materialise through the desired negotiations with the Taleban. Therefore, Ghani announced, the HPC would appoint “a negotiating team, supported by a professional government team,” including women and civil society members, and expressed his hope that the two sides would be able to reach an agreement, “insha’allah,” on an agenda.

It was further noticeable that there was no bellicose rhetoric in the speech. This is in contrast to the run-up to the meeting when Ghani – for example, in a meeting with tribal elders and other Afghan dignitaries five days before – proffered that he would give the Taleban a choice “between peace and war.” (4) It is also evident that this proposal came with no deadline, as had been variously indicated before this meeting. However, given that there is no clear, time-bound sequencing for a broad peace road map (although, for example, the ceasefire comes before the political framework in the seven-proposal list), this perhaps makes sense. This also could be subject to negotiation.

Despite the claim that Ghani’s offers do not carry any preconditions, some of proposals sound like straightforward demands, such as the demand to recognise the Afghan government. Some are even patronising, for example, when it is said, “ideas and opinions and proposals of the Taleban would definitely be considered.” This might be difficult to swallow for the Taleban.

The most striking feature of the peace proposals is that Ghani brings up the idea of a ceasefire. While such a step would be certainly welcomed by most Afghans, it remains open how he plans to get there. It is left open as to whether Ghani expects the Taleban to make the first step, or whether Kabul would do so at some point in time – or whether this needs to be simultaneous in Kabul’s eyes, and would come as a result of a first round of negotiations. Kabul actually could offer such a unilateral step first, given the latest statements – also by the United States commander in Afghanistan – that the tide had been turned against the Taleban (whether this is fully correct or not). This could give it the moral high ground. (5)

The Kabul Process Declaration

The wording of the final declaration of the participating governments and multilateral organisations of the 28 February 2018 Kabul Process meeting (text here) reflects and supports Ghani’s peace offer, although its language is more elusive and general in nature. Participant nations reiterated their support “to the Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process” and concur “that direct talks between the Afghan Government and the Taleban—without any preconditions and without the threats of violence—constitute the most viable way to end the ongoing agony of the Afghan people.”

However, it contains one very significant offer: that the Afghan government’s “practical plan for reconciliation” should include the “negotiation of […] any contested aspect of the international community’s future role in Afghanistan.” This is a clear hint that the presence or withdrawal of the foreign troops – surely the most contested aspect – could be dealt with in any future peace talks. It reiterates, at the same time, the Afghan government’s and, more importantly, the US administration’s position that there would be no withdrawal before talks, as has been demanded by the Taleban. This takes the main argument out of their hands; namely, that it needs direct talks with the US to solve that problem. This proposal brings in the US, in any case, whether directly or indirectly.

However, even this positioning is not fully new. The same has already been said by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a speech at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington on 18 October 2017, but this is the first time it has come up in such an official document.

The Taleban’s response

The Taleban reacted surprisingly quickly to the Kabul Process offers. A reply posted on their official website late in the afternoon of 28 February had some positive words for the “peace orientation” of Ghani’s speech.

At the same time, they accused him of “missing the point,” ie their main demand, the withdrawal of the foreign troops. However, this statement came before the Kabul Process meeting’s final declaration that, as published, actually addressed this point. It now remains to be seen what the Taleban will have to say about that. They also stated that they were not interested in “positions and privileges” which, in their view, amounted to “political bribes.”

From rhetoric of peace to peace offer

There has been a definite shift from the previous rhetoric about peace talks to the serious peace offer at the 28 February 2018 Kabul Process meeting. It seems that the Afghan government’s position has changed in quality, moving from general ‘invitations to talk’ to some concrete suggestions (see our 2015 dossier). This might also have to do with president Ghani’s wish, one year before his presidential term ends, to achieve a break-through on peace. He also started his term with a peace initiative (read AAN analysis here).

There are many hurdles to cross for this set of peace proposals beyond the general rejection by the Taleban of any official direct talks with Kabul. This even might be less serious than it seems, as repeated indirect or unofficial contacts have been consistently reported over recent years. Much of this, although not all, used the Taleban’s Qatar office as a point of reference, including contacts by high-ranking Afghan government officials, the UN and non-governmental actors, such as the Pugwash Conference. These contacts, which included discussions of issues such as the Afghan constitution and its possible revision, women’s rights and humanitarian issues, including better measures for the protection of the civilian population in the Afghan war, also showed that the Taleban are at least thinking through some issues. This would make no sense if they did not want to talk at all. This also put their first reaction to the Kabul Process meeting into a somewhat different light.

The peace proposal also comes at a time when Afghan government representatives visiting Saudi Arabia have stated that they are working on closing down the Taleban office in Qatar, which the Taleban have declared to be their only official channel for talks. This would definitely not seem to be a confidence-building measure by the Taleban. It is also not clear whether, when and under which circumstances, Afghan and US forces would tone down their current military offensives to facilitate talks. The US President’s recent “no” to such talks has been explained away by visiting US dignitaries in Kabul as an emotional reaction “after the horrendous week of terrorist attack by the Taliban” in Kabul in late January 2018. Moreover, the US’s support to Ghani’s peace initiative is embodied in their signature under the final declaration of the Kabul Process.

At the same time, there is also a large blank in the proposals and final declaration of the Kabul Process meeting. An implicit amnesty has, in practice, been offered to “another armed group,” as in the 2016 deal with Hezb-e Islami (AAN analysis here). This happens in the context of the International Criminal Court’s on-going deliberations about opening a full-fledged investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity that have been committed by all parties since 2003. This would also include allegations against the Taleban which feature in the representations of over one million victims to the Court (see AAN analysis here).

The ICC is an independent court and its decision to start an investigation, or not, in Afghanistan cannot be subject to political decisions, such as the peace deal with Hezb, or the one desired with the Taleban. The ICC is concerned with the interest of justice and it leaves the interest of peace to other actors to sort out – even when the two interests seem to be conflicting. As AAN earlier reported, peace – or stability – has usually been sought in Afghanistan with little focus on dealing with the legacies of war crimes. Concrete examples are the failure to identify limits for amnesty in the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Programme (APRP) and the adoption of an amnesty law that provides amnesty for all those involved in the last four decades of war in Afghanistan. The lack of truth, the AAN report found, feeds into myths and conflicting narratives about the conflict – its victims, villains and heroes. It will only be by acknowledging the truth that the cycle of violence can be broken and a real process or reconciliation can start. Inevitably, this will be a long process in Afghanistan, but still needs to be an integral part of any sustainable peace process.

 

(1)The first meeting of the Kabul Process was held in June 2017. As then, the 28 February 2018 meeting came in the wake of increased violence in the capital (see AAN analysis here). The June meeting was overshadowed by the massive truck bomb in Kabul’s Zambaq Square near the German embassy. According to UN figures, this killed 92 civilians and injured 491. This January, Kabul was rattled by another series of attacks. The Taleban and the local chapter of the Islamic State shared responsibility for the violence (see AAN analysis here).

This obviously had an impact on the level of attendants of the meeting. This time, the Afghan government had hoped and planned for those attending to be ministers, then deputy ministers, but had finally had to settle with a “senior officials meeting,” mainly featuring AfPak envoys and ambassadors.

An exception was the Indonesian Vice President, Joseph Kalla. Afghanistan has recently courted the large south-east Asian, Muslim majority nation to act as a mediator in the conflict, but also invited Indonesian ulema to condemn Taleban terrorist acts as ‘un-Islamic’ (more details here). This is something many ulema in the Middle East and Pakistan have avoided doing so far.

(2) There are various bi-, tri- and multilateral initiatives, including those started by Russia, Kazakhstan and other countries (more in this AAN analysis).

(3) There is also an indirect reference to Pakistan’s role and the Taleban’s safe havens there in the final declaration’s second topic that deals with “the fight against terrorism.” It reads that

 […] states must “refrain from organizing, instigating, facilitating, participating in financing, encouraging or tolerating terrorist activities and to take appropriate practical measures to ensure that our respective territories are not used for terrorist installations, or training camps, or for the preparation or organization of terrorist acts intended to be committed by other states or their citizens.”

(4) Five days before the meeting, President Ashraf Ghani told a gathering of tribal elders, jihadi leaders and representatives of provincial councils in Kabul (media report here) that the aim of the meeting – described as “a main forum and vehicle under the leadership of the Afghan Government to guide and steer all peace efforts for ending violence in Afghanistan” – was “to create international consensus on Afghan peace and to see whether or not Taliban want peace.” According to another Afghan media report, he also said at the meeting that his government “… will give them [the Taleban] options to decide, they must think whether they have the intention to surrender to the will of Allah.”

(5) In a parallel development, The New Yorker magazine published an “An Open Letter to the Taleban” by former US negotiator, Barnett Rubin, on the eve of the Kabul Process meeting (here) in which he called upon the Taleban to “challenge Washington and Kabul to accept a temporary ceasefire.” Rubin’s letter is a ‘personal’ reply to a recent Taleban letter to “the American people” and the “peace-loving” members of the US Senate that had been published on 14 February 2018. They followed this up again on 26 February 2018 when they reiterated their stance that they would only talk to the US, not the Kabul government.

 

Jorge Domecq, Chief Executive of the European Defence Agency (EDA) and Alexander Stubb, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank (EIB) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen cooperation between the two institutions.

The European Council of 19 October 2017 encouraged the EIB to examine further steps with a view to supporting investments in defence research and development activities. As a response, the EIB recently approved the European Security Initiative - Protect, Secure, Defend, strengthening its support for RDI for dual-use technologies, cybersecurity and civilian security infrastructure. Today the EIB and EDA teamed up to support EU policy objectives, in particular as regards the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The cooperation between the two entities materialises as major European initiatives supporting the EU level of ambition in the area of security and defence are launched, including a European Defence Fund.

As a first step, EDA and the EIB envisage cooperation in the Cooperative Financial Mechanism (CFM). The CFM is foreseen as a mechanism for EDA Member States to financially support the set up and conduct of the development of military technology. The EIB role in the CFM would focus on supporting the development of dual use technologies. Additionally, the two organisations agreed to exchange expertise, in particular with a view to identify possible financing opportunities for defence and security-related Research and Technology projects in support of EDA participating Member States. EDA stands ready to support the EIB in identifying projects, that are potentially eligible for its assistance; this could include both projects promoted by the Member States, such as those in the context of the recently launched Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), as well as projects promoted by companies including Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in the defence and security sector. 

“European security and defence is high on the agenda of decision-makers and citizens alike. EDA and EIB have complementary expertise and are natural partners. The Agency will support the EIB in the identification and assessment of projects as well as by putting its defence expertise at the service of the Bank”, said Jorge Domecq. 

“Under the European Security Initiative - Protect, Secure, Defend, the EIB is ready to step up its support to the security and defence sector. In line with our mission, we look forward to supporting in particular investment projects that target dual-use technologies, which can be commercialised also in civilian applications”, said EIB Vice-President Alexander Stubb. “Today’s cooperation agreement is welcome news for Europe’s security as it will help the European Defence Agency and the European Investment Bank to better contribute to EU policy goals”. 

Cooperative Financial Mechanism

The Cooperative Financial Mechanism (CFM) will play an important role in easing the launch phase of cooperative projects. Designed to support any type of collaborative efforts, in the R&T, R&D or acquisition phase, its support will include access to funding, a well-known shortfall hampering cooperative efforts, as well as the reduction of bureaucracy. It will result in an increased quality of public expenditures. 

The Mechanism, developed as an EDA ad hoc Category A programme, is voluntary. Member States decide if they wish to participate, contribute and support projects. 

Once negotiations on the Programme Arrangement are finalised, the CFM is likely to be based on two pillars. In the first, intergovernmental, Member States will have the opportunity to mutually support via a system of reimbursable advances and deferred payments. In the second, the European Investment Bank will act as the sole lender, supporting dual use projects in line with its policies. This will enable an increased support from EIB to the security and defence agenda, an objective underlined several times by the European Council. 

More information:

• European Investment Bank

EU Member States last week agreed to commence work on a platform to provide Member States with education, training, exercise and evaluation (ETEE) services in the field of cyber security/defence.  The platform will be led by the European Security and Defence College (ESDC) and will build on the support already provided by the European Defence Agency (EDA), the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the European Commission.

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

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

The ESDC will liaise closely with the EEAS, the Commission and EDA on the implementation. EDA will seek to migrate existant initiatives on education, training and exercises to the ETEE platform for sustained delivery into the future; a prime example is the increasingly well-established Cyber Strategic Decision Making Exercise. The ESDC will also seek synergies with respective NATO initiatives, also in the frame of the implementation of the EU-NATO Joint Declaration.

The cyber platform is planned to reach initial operating capability by 1 September 2018.  Meanwhile, staff will be recruited and an initial training catalogue drafted.  The full operational capability of the platform is planned to be announced in April 2019.
 

More information: 

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

 

 

American AGM-87 Focus Air-to-Ground Missile

Author’s Note: The title and the theme of this set of theses refer to Barnett Rubin’s “Theses on Peacemaking in Afghanistan: A Manifesto” published in War on the Rocks on 23 February 2018 (read here). But these theses will mainly scrutinise Afghanistan’s internal institutional crisis that needs to be addressed in order to improve the conditions for successful peace talks that do not result in a roll-back of post-2001 achievements particularly when it comes to rights and freedoms.

 

ترسم نرسی به کعبه ای اعرابی
کین ره که تو میروی به ترکستان ااست

(I fear you won’t get to the Ka’aba, oh traveller(*)
The way you are going leads to Turkestan.)

Sa’adi

 

اوبه له سره خړې دي

(The water muddies at the source.)

Pashto proverb, also available in Dari

 

What is an optimist: A person that doesn’t take things as tragically as they are.

Karl Valentin

 

1

Afghans are facing a highly complex situation involving multiple crises – security/war-related, socio-economic and institutional – of which the emergency of the insurgency was only a symptom. This means that when concentrating on ‘peace’ (and outsourcing blame for the lack of it) without looking at Afghanistan’s internal defects, this addresses only half of the problem.

 

2

Afghanistan’s institutional crisis political institutions and their inability to adequately react to these crises. This is due to birth defects resulting from the fact that the 2001 Bonn agreement was never fully implemented. The most important birth defect was not so much that the Taleban and Hezb-e Islami were not invited to the conference. There were other ways of including their constituencies as evident in the presence of multiple Hezb leaders at various levels of the Afghan government as well as in parliament even before the peace deal. It was rather the centralised political system it created.

 

3

Over-centralisation does not refer to the discussion about whether Afghanistan should remain a central state or become a federation, or whether it should experience a degree of de-centralisation or ‘devolution’ (elements of the latter, such as the promotion of minority language education and the protection of ethnic groups not explicitly mentioned among the 14 in the constitution, could strengthen national cohesion). It refers to some powers given to the president, such as the power to appoint the members of ‘independent’ institutions and commissions, including the electoral institutions, thereby putting in question their independence. The same goes for the members of the Supreme Court.

 

4

Centralisation of power was further increased by the removal of the position of a Prime Minister when the 1964 constitution “minus Kingdom” was temporarily reinstated in Bonn in 2001, as well as by the refusal of Afghan leader Hamed Karzai and his main supporters to include an independent Constitutional Court in the Constitution during the 2003/04 Constitutional Loya Jirga. The position of a Prime Minister would have mitigated the effects of the presidential system without rendering the president only a symbolic head of state. It would have made possible the formation of coalition governments of various parties under his lead that would be responsible vis-à-vis parliament which, in turn, would be able to replace them when needed. Such a set-up would also have better reflected the political and ethnic diversity of Afghanistan’s population and political landscape.

 

5

It was another mistake in Bonn – and obviously one intended by Karzai’s supporters – not to prevent the chairman, deputies or cabinet members of the interim and transitional administrations (2001-04) from running for office in the 2004 and 2005 presidential and parliamentary elections. It gave them the responsibility for organising elections in which they would themselves stand and opened the gates for them to manipulate the outcome through the electoral institutions, which they had appointed.

 

6

It was also a mistake not to hold the first presidential and parliamentary elections simultaneously. Afghanistan has been suffering from the resulting convoluted electoral calendar ever since. The international community has failed after every electoral cycle so far since the one in 2004/05 to urge the Afghan authorities to carry out serious electoral reform. Major defects within the electoral system were already obvious after the 2004/05 electoral cycle.

 

7

The already delayed holding of the first elections – which was against the constitution, but seen then as a minor fault – opened the gate for further breeches of the constitution at key political junctions later on.

 

8

The effects of the over-centralisation of power only became fully apparent following the interim and transitional periods. This early period was overshadowed by the quasi-monopoly of power by the former ‘Northern Alliance’. It was also based on a one-sided disarmament and failed de-militarisation of Kabul after the overthrow of the Taleban regime, which contravened the stipulations by the Bonn agreement.

 

9

A partial disarmament campaign that favoured former western anti-Soviet and anti-Taleban allies empowered warlords and commanders, enabled their transmutation into anti-terrorism entrepreneurs, who were paid for by foreign militaries and profited from large security, logistical and other contracts. Many of them were given positions in government or the new security forces while their ‘private’ armed groups remained (and still remain) at their disposal. These groups are thus able to switch between being ‘irresponsible armed groups’ (outside of formal government chains of control) or ‘pro-government militias’ or units of the Afghan Local Police and similar forces.

 

10

The turning point was during the 2003/04 Constitutional Loya Jirga when the question “presidential or parliamentary system” became ethnicised. It pitted the Pashtuns and other small ethnic groups, supporters of a centralised presidential system, against most non-Pashtuns who supported a parliamentary system. The former won by a very small margin, leaving the substantial minority’s wishes largely unaccommodated. (The parliament was only given the right to ‘impeach’ ministers at any given time. This right was often invoked, leading to regular disruption of the government.)

 

11

One major outcome of these poor decisions and the developments playing out as a result is that the checks and balances foreseen in Afghanistan’s legal framework are often not utilised or even outmanoeuvred.

 

12

One major element of this are the long-term strained relations between the executive branch (‘the Palace’) and the legislative branch, particularly the lower house of parliament, the Wolesi Jirga. This started during President Hamed Karzai’s tenure when the house was often circumvented and its reputation undermined by manipulation and bribing. (Of course the blame is also on those MPs who accepted this.) This often leads to mutual obstructions, blockades and acts of revenge, as well as the stalling of vital legislative projects.

 

13

Parliament’s effectiveness was further curtailed by the failure to allow political parties, including those emerging from the underground after 2001, to play a role in the elections. There is a factual, although not legal, ban of parties presenting lists of candidates in the parliamentary elections or from forming party-based factions in parliament.

 

14

The government has erected further hurdles for political parties, e.g. by repeated campaigns of re-registration (often close to an election), which aims to reduce their numbers through administrative measures instead of letting the voters decide.

 

15

This has created a lopsided playing field between the ‘civilian’ parties and the former armed factions (tanzims)-turned-parties, with their ability to mobilise armed power and occasionally use the threat of violence to achieve political goals. This resulted in the almost complete disappearance of the underfunded pro-democratic parties of the first post-2001 years, while it perpetuated the tanzim-based parties who have access to other resources in violations of the political parties law without being held accountable by the relevant authorities.

 

16

Checks and balances have been further undermined by the failure to hold the 2015 parliamentary election on time. The current Wolesi Jirga is in legal limbo, only patched up by presidential decrees, which, themselves, have become a major instrument of legislation around parliament. A fact that is also often overlooked is that the Meshrano Jirga has never been fully instated, as it lacks directly elected district council representatives, which have never been elected. It also seems that this election – although planned to be held simultaneously with the parliamentary elections and mentioned by the Afghan electoral commission when announcing a further delay in early February this year – have dropped from current election preparations.

 

17

In general, political institutions often remain a façade or are relegated to having a secondary status, while key decisions are made in an intransparent ‘inner circles’ on the basis of ‘traditional’ systems of patronage. President Ghani has not been able to cut through this corrupt system because he was elected on its basis, relying on an electoral alliance that included tanzims and parties who demanded ‘their share’ after he was declared president. The same would have probably happened, had he been the outright winner of the 2014 election. Positive steps such as more merit-based appointments are too small to swing the system around; simultaneous ‘deals’ such as the recent one in Samangan, and before the peace deal with HIG, undermine them again.

 

18

With these points being taken into account, we can conclude that Afghanistan’s political landscape is polarised in various ways, without buy-in into institutionalised ways of resolving political conflict: between the government and the armed opposition; within the National Unity Government (NUG) – where the camps are also fracturing; no current alliance is fixed –; and also between the personal or factional ambitions of leading personalities. There is no political middle ground. Even if power changes hands after the next election, it will remain within the existing élite. In such an environment, the threat of violence remains a key means of retaining power during political conflict. This is underpinned by the impunity for pre-2001 war crimes and human rights violations self-awarded by parliament through the 2010 ‘amnesty law’.

 

19

This polarisation is accompanied by tendencies to ‘ethnicise’ politics, both real and perceived. It currently culminates in the never-ending debates such as about electoral reform, the e-tazkira and the Arg-Atta and Arg-Jamiat negotiations. These debates will prolong the time needed to prepare any election or to reach a consensus on how this will be done and by whom. Many positions in the electoral institutions are still vacant or open to further change. In the shadow of these debates, tendencies become visible that some Afghans describe as ‘authoritarian’.

 

20

 

Now many dream about ‘going back to 2001’ and starting from scratch, and some even propose doing this by convening a new Loya Jirga. But this is arguably self-serving, as it likely would return those to office who have contributed to the current situation. This would likely be the case because the existing (although factionalised) political elite has created an almost hermetically sealed system which blocks entry to fresh forces, or only allows them by co-option.

 

21

In the current situation, it is not merely important that elections take place, when and in which sequence or combination (parliamentary first, or parliamentary and presidential simultaneously) but also what will the quality of these elections be and will the future parliament, president and government be seen as legitimate as a result? Legitimacy, in the eyes of potential losers and of the disillusioned electorate in general, will only derive from reformed, independent electoral institutions and measures to minimise disenfranchisement. Elections in an unreformed framework will mainly legitimise the International Community’s presence in Afghanistan (in the eyes of donor country parliaments and electorates, and even there scepticism about the Afghanistan involvement has grown).

 

22

Currently, electoral reform mainly means that both sides in the NUG are fighting for control over the electoral institutions.

 

23

Even if electoral reform results in the strengthening of the role of political parties, it empowers parties that do not democratically function internally. It arguably also empowers some that might intend to use democratic means to establish an undemocratic government.

 

24

The major fact impacting voter disenfranchisement is, of course, the on-going war, which has long spiralled into cycles of senseless escalation. The war, however, which has led to an insular presence of the government in parts of the country, also provides ample opportunities for the manipulation of future elections, for example by ballot-staffing in the absence of Afghan or international observers.

 

25

For now, the Afghan government and its international donors should undertake that the 2018/19 elections are the last ones that will be held in a largely unreformed framework and in breech of some stipulations of the constitution. This would require that efforts at full electoral reform commence the moment this electoral cycle is over, and are not left to the last possible moment, again.

 

Thomas Ruttig is a co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN, Kabul/Berlin). He has a degree in Afghan Studies from Humboldt University in Berlin. In 2000, he joined the UN mission to Afghanistan and – in this capacity – participated in a UN attempt to negotiate a peaceful end to the war between the Taleban and the ‘Northern Alliance’ that same year. He also had a part in the preparation of the 2001 Bonn conference and was a member of the UN team there. 

(*) e’rabi literarily means ‘nomad’.