EURASIA INSIGHT
Terry Friel
11/06/07
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Record drug harvests, a weak government, a flagging economy and mounting civilian deaths are stoking support for Islamic militants in Afghanistan. To reverse the current trend, President Hamid Karzai’s administration, along with its foreign supporters, must do a better job in delivering basic social services on the grassroots level, experts and politicians say.
Underscoring the escalating mayhem in Afghanistan, a suicide bombing on November 6 in Baghlan Province killed or wounded upwards of 100 people, according to local reports. Among the dead were at least five members of parliament who had travelled to the region to tour a sugar factory. It is one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Afghanistan since a US-led coalition forced the radical Islamic Taliban government from power in Kabul in late 2001.
More than 5,000 people have died so far this year, mainly militants, but including possibly hundreds accidentally killed in air strikes carried out by the US military and by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
And as the Taliban and affiliated rebel groups return to traditional guerrilla warfare after last year’s failed bid to take on foreign and Afghan troops in conventional pitched battles, the fighting is spreading to areas once considered relatively safe, including regions such as Baghlan Province north of the capital, Kabul.
"This year, you haven’t seen the standing battles
the human waves of Taliban throwing themselves at foreign troops," said an International Crisis Group (ICG) Kabul-based analyst, Joanna Nathan. "They have returned to more asymmetrical techniques, so you have the suicide bombings, the hit and run operations, the roadside bombs.
"They are projecting themselves across a wider proportion of the country now."
Analysts are quick to point out the Taliban revival does not seriously reflect growing support for the radical group’s aims or ideology. Rather, it stems from anger and disillusionment with Karzai’s administration and its foreign backers, in particular the United States and European Union.
"I think it’s important to emphasise I don’t think the Taliban themselves are wildly popular, I don’t think people want Taliban times back," said Nathan.
"It is a broad dissatisfaction with what is happening in the country now. I think the Taliban are very clever at appealing to people or groups that are locally disenfranchised or disempowered," Nathan continued. "So it’s not sort of a huge ideological movement as such, it’s more a protest movement in many ways often, often very local, and I think that’s very important to emphasize."
Aid workers and Afghan officials estimate almost 400 civilians have been killed by foreign forces this year, mainly by aerial bombing. NATO disputes this tally, but says some civilians have died, often when militants attack its troops from village houses.
Reports of civilian deaths have eroded support for Karzai who is derisively called in some circles "the mayor of Kabul" because his administration appears to exert little influence in Afghanistan’s provinces. "Six years on, the continuation of civilian casualties is something the Afghan people cannot understand, and rightly so," Karzai once moved to tears in a public speech on the problem said in a television interview with Britain’s Channel 4.
Beyond the violence related to the insurgency, Afghanistan’s weak economy presents another challenge for Karzai. Unemployment officially hovers around 40 percent, and most Afghans live in appalling conditions, with no electricity, running water or sewage. Power in the capital runs just a few hours a day.
"People thought democracy would give them everything jobs, roads, electricity, water but nothing of this sort has happened," said government adviser, analyst and former minister Hamidullah Tarzi, who often sports a silver pistol tucked under his coat.
"In fact, it’s getting worse. There is a lack of jobs, a lack of employment. Overall, nothing much has been done. The money that has come in has not been productive in relation to industrialization. In fact, we are losing what we had."
As the Karzai government and the international community struggle to spread the benefits of billions of dollars of aid down to ordinary Afghans, Taliban militants and criminal gangs are benefiting from year after year of record opium harvests.
"People
haven’t been able to tangibly touch and feel any positive changes in their lives," said Daoud Sultanzoy, an independent member of parliament. "One of the reasons that people are [feeling] as alienated as they are, to the level that they are, is not because Taliban [militants] are better and they are offering better alternatives, or that people are turning away from us, it’s because we have not done a good job at keeping the people on our side, as the state, as the government, as the international community."
NATO estimates up to 40 percent of the Taliban’s funds come from drug earnings (Afghanistan is virtually the world’s only supplier of opium, the raw ingredient of heroin) and production is booming. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The harvest soared more than 34 percent in 2007 to 8,200 metric tons from last year’s record 6,100 metric tons, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in its latest annual report on the country’s crop.
The Taliban, which declared opium un-Islamic, all but wiped out production when the movement governed much of Afghanistan from 1996-2001. But radical Islamic militants are now working with drug lords to protect smuggling routes and take a share of profits, analysts say.
The Taliban also shelter and train in neighboring Pakistan, bolstered by tribal ties. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf says there is no formal support for the rebels, once backed by Islamabad, but he is coming under mounting pressure to do more to seal the border and crack down on Taliban activities. The present domestic crisis in Pakistan in which Musharraf imposed a state of emergency on November 3 and is now facing fierce opposition calls into question Islamabad’s ability to contain rising militant sentiment on its side of the border. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Away from the battlefield, Afghan President Karzai is battling strong political efforts to cut back his powers, and is trying to balance demands of ordinary Afghans with those of the international community.
Relations with the parliament are strained, and in March a bloc of key Karzai allies joined some of his rivals to form a new National Front to trim the power of the presidency and create a new role of prime minister as a counterbalance. Among those killed in the November 6 suicide bombing in Baghlan was Sayef Mustafa Kazimi, a National Front leader.
The Front, made up mostly of militia leaders from the fight against Soviet occupation, is led by Burhanuddin Rabbani, who led a mujahideen government that collapsed into the 1990s civil war that ended with the Taliban taking power in 1996.
"While he means well, while he intends well, that’s not enough and we are suffering problems," said Sultanzoy, the MP. He went on to accuse Karzai of not being tough enough for the task of ruling a historically unruly nation.
Some analysts say Karzai is also hamstrung by the power the international community still wields, especially over spending in the country.
"We have an old saying: two kings cannot rule over one country. But this is what is happening," said Tarzi.
In six years, there have been some gains. A national highway linking major cities is almost complete although many parts of the thoroughfare are dangerous to travel and the power grid has been extended. In addition, more children, especially girls, are in schools.
Meanwhile, the army is building its capacity, although it will take years before the armed forces are capable of addressing security threats without the support of foreign forces, NATO commanders say.
Ultimately, despite the new army and the presence of tens of thousands of foreign soldiers, the solution here can never be military, analysts say. Instead, the country needs strong and transparent government, an end to corruption and the opium industry, more jobs and a better economy.
"You are not going to defeat them [Islamic militants] in the end. It’s essential to have a robust military force, but that is to create the space for political solutions to take place, so you have to see massive efforts to actually ensure there is something worth fighting for, to be putting something in place in terms of local government. You are not just fighting for the sake of fighting," said the ICG’s Nathan.
"You’ve got to be seen to be fighting for something. So the effort needs to go in from the Kabul government and backed by its international supporters into ensuring good local leaders and functioning service providers. That’s the bit that to us has been left out of the equation.
"Just building something doesn’t make them love you if there are not functioning systems, particularly in terms of justice and governance. These issues have been going on for years and there still doesn’t seem to be the political will behind it."
Editors Note: Terry Friel is a freelance reporter who specializes in Caucasus and Central Asian affairs.
Posted November 6, 2007 © Eurasianet
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