EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - Formation of a New Afghan Government Overshadows Military Campaign

EURASIA INSIGHT

FORMATION OF A NEW AFGHAN GOVERNMENT OVERSHADOWS MILITARY CAMPAIGN

Ahmed Rashid 10/17/01

The US and its European allies are pressing former King Zahir Shah to accelerate efforts to forge a broad-based multi-ethnic government that can replace the Taliban regime in Kabul, according to European diplomats and the King’s aides in Rome.

"The need for a political alternative to the Taliban is now taking on greater importance than the US military campaign," says a senior European diplomat in Rome who has been intensely involved in Zahir Shah’s initiative.

US officials say that President George W. Bush has held several meetings with his National Security Council to discuss the formation of a post-Taliban government. Until recently Bush had resolutely declared that the United States would not be involved in "nation-building." However, Bush has tapped Richard Haas, head of policy planning at the State Department, and Geoffrey Lunstead, a seasoned diplomat and Afghan specialist, to coordinate US diplomatic efforts concerning Afghan state building.

Haas visited Zahir Shah in Rome in early October. Senior Italian and US diplomats held follow-up talks in Washington a few days later. In a further diplomatic move October 15, the Italian and French foreign ministers, Renato Ruggiero and Hubert Vedrine, together visited the king at his villa outside Rome.

Both the King and the US government are trying to mobilize Pashtun tribal chiefs and former Mujahedeen commanders from the anti-Soviet war now living in Pakistan to help promote Taliban defections. So far, this initiative has been unsuccessful. "The problem is that the moderate Taliban still don’t know what will emerge," says an aide to the King in Quetta, Pakistan.

One western diplomat in Rome says the problems of getting the Afghan leaders to drop their long personal rivalries, feuds and differences "should not be underestimated."

The Taliban, who are drawn from the majority Pashtun group, want assurances that Pashtuns will play a prominent role in any future government. Moderate Taliban are unwilling to defect to their hated enemies in the Northern Alliance, also known as the United Front, which is largely drawn from northern Afghanistan’s Tajiks and Uzbeks.

Since the Taliban seized control over most of Afghanistan in 1996, the movement’s loyalists have brutally suppressed Tajiks, Uzbeks and other minorities. Ongoing blood feuds could prompt inter-ethnic massacres if Northern Alliance forces take Kabul and other cities before Zahir Shah’s coalition government is in place.

Meanwhile, Taliban leaders are shifting from jihadi to nationalist rhetoric, calling upon all Afghans to defend the country against American invaders. Taliban intelligence chief Qari Ahmadullah has even urged Northern Alliance fighters to join the Taliban. "We will forget the past problems with those people, who join us because now it is the question of our religion and country," he told a news agency on October 14.

Zahir Shah, 87, who was deposed in a palace coup by his cousin in 1973, has lived in exile in Rome and since 1989, when the Soviet Union withdrew its troops from Afghanistan. Since then, he has been at the center of several failed efforts to form a broad-based government in Kabul. The former monarch is a Pashtun but his mother tongue is Persian, and the Pashtuns around him are largely drawn from the émigré community who served the king’s court in the 1960s.

Zahir Shah and the Northern Alliance have declared an intention to form a 120-man "Supreme Council for the National Unity of Afghanistan," which would be made up of 50 representatives each from the king and the Northern Alliance. The other 20 seats would be chosen by both sides, or left open for defecting moderate Taliban leaders.

According to Western diplomats, both Zahir Shah and Northern Alliance leaders have already drawn up mutually acceptable lists of names. However, their next meeting has been delayed because alliance leaders are stuck in the war zone and are unable to fly out from Afghanistan.

Sources say the king has told the European foreign ministers that final agreement on the composition of the Supreme Council would be followed by the creation of a small 10-12 man committee that could act as a political and military decision-making body. It could turn itself into a provisional government in exile, when or if the need arose.

Both the king and the European ministers have privately expressed support for the need of a small international peace keeping force to protect a future government in Kabul. Such a force could be assembled using troops from neutral Muslim countries, such as Turkey and Morocco, as well as from Afghan factions committed to the peace process.

Western officials remain concerned that Northern Alliance units, which are located about 25 miles from Kabul, may attempt to seize the capital before a Zahir Shah-led coalition is ready to govern. In a significant concession to the Western alliance and the king’s efforts, the Northern Alliance declared on October 14, after a lengthy and stormy meeting in the Panshir valley north of Kabul, that it would postpone an attack on Kabul for one month until a political solution can be reached.

Northern Alliance political leaders have had a tough time convincing their impatient military commanders that restraint is now needed. Any premature attack on Kabul by the alliance would aggravate Pashtun sentiment, preventing defections and possibly rallying moderate Pashtuns around the Taliban.

US and European officials stress that Western countries do not seek a major, high-profile role in helping the Afghans put together a government. US and European diplomats may soon seek a comprehensive UN Security Council resolution, providing a strong mandate to the Secretary General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, to play the major international role in Afghan state-building. "Clearly the UN will be playing a major role, no one government will be able to handle it," US Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters on his aircraft as he flew into Pakistan on October 15.

On the battle front, US air raids are supporting a Northern Alliance drive to capture the cities of northern Afghanistan. On October 15, Uzbek commander General Rashid Dostum captured the airport of the Mazar-i-Sharif, the largest city in the north. The next day, Dostum’s troops were reportedly advancing into the city’s suburbs. The Taliban defenses in Mazar have been pummeled by US air strikes in recent days. The fall of Mazar would allow US special forces, now based in neighboring Uzbekistan, to create a bridgehead at Mazar airport to be used for further attacks on terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and the Taliban leadership. In northeastern Afghanistan, Tajik militia units are aiming to capture the city of Taloqan, while Hazaras are making a bid to surround Bamiyan in the center of the country.

Diplomats in Rome and the King would prefer to see cities that are taken by the Northern Alliance governed under the authority of the king’s Supreme Council, rather than by individual commanders like Dostum. This would avoid a repetition of the bloody warlordism of the early 1990s, when cities were captured by individual commanders and turned into personal fiefdoms. Such a step would hopefully also prevent retaliatory ethnic massacres.

Editor�s Note: Ahmed Rashid is a journalist and author of the book "Taliban: Militant Islam and Fundamentalism in Central Asia." A truncated version of this story appeared previously in the Los Angeles Times.

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