A Hidden History

May 29, 2024

The New York Times

May 22, 2024

A Times investigation uncovered a brutal campaign enacted by U.S.-backed forces during the war in Afghanistan.

I covered the war in Afghanistan and went back after the Taliban took over.

General Abdul Raziq was one of America’s fiercest allies in the fight against the Taliban. He was young and charismatic — a courageous warrior who commanded the loyalty and respect of his men. He helped beat back the Taliban in the crucial battlefield of Kandahar, even as the insurgents advanced across Afghanistan.

But his success, until his 2018 assassination, was built on torture, extrajudicial killing and abduction. In the name of security, he transformed the Kandahar police into a combat force without constraints. His officers, who were trained, armed and paid by the United States, took no note of human rights or due process, according to a New York Times investigation into thousands of cases that published this morning. Most of his victims were never seen again.

Washington’s strategy in Afghanistan aimed to beat the Taliban by winning the hearts and minds of the people it was supposedly fighting for. But Raziq embodied a flaw in that plan. The Americans empowered warlords, corrupt politicians and outright criminals in the name of military expediency. It picked proxies for whom the ends often justified the means.

I’ll explain in today’s newsletter how using men like Raziq drove many Afghans toward the Taliban. And it persuaded others, including those who might have been sympathetic to U.S. goals, that the U.S.-backed central government could not be trusted to fix Afghanistan. If there was ever any chance that the United States could uproot the Taliban, the war strategy made it much harder.

My colleague Matthieu Aikins and I have covered Afghanistan for years. After America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, we were suddenly able to visit people and places that were off-limits during the fighting. We traveled there, hoping to learn what really happened during America’s longest war.

Alongside a team of Afghan researchers, we combed through more than 50,000 handwritten complaints kept in ledgers by the former U.S.-backed government of Kandahar. In them, we found the details of almost 2,200 cases of suspected disappearances. From there, we went to hundreds of homes across Kandahar.

We tracked down nearly 1,000 people who said their loved ones had been taken or killed by government security forces. We corroborated nearly 400 cases, often with eyewitnesses to the abductions. We also substantiated their claims with Afghan police reports, affidavits and other government records they had filed. In each of the forced disappearances, the person is still missing.

Even at the time, U.S. officials grasped Raziq’s malevolence. “Sometimes we asked Raziq about incidents of alleged human rights abuses, and when we got answers we would be like, ‘Whoa, I hope we didn’t implicate ourselves in a war crime just by hearing about it,’” recalled Henry Ensher, a State Department official who held multiple posts on Afghanistan. “We knew what we were doing, but we didn’t think we had a choice,” Ensher said.

It would be too simple to say that Raziq’s tactics were entirely in vain. They worked in some respects, reasserting government control in Kandahar and pushing insurgents into the hinterlands. Raziq earned the admiration of many who opposed the Taliban. More than a dozen U.S. officials said that without him the Taliban would have advanced much faster.

But Raziq’s methods took a toll. They stirred such enmity among his victims that the Taliban turned his cruelty into a recruiting tool. Taliban officials posted videos about him on WhatsApp to attract new fighters.

Many Afghans came to revile the U.S.-backed government and everything it represented. “None of us supported the Taliban, at least not at first,” said Fazul Rahman, whose brother was abducted in front of witnesses during Raziq’s reign. “But when the government collapsed, I ran through the streets, rejoicing.”

Even some who cheered Raziq’s ruthlessness lamented the corruption and criminality he engendered — a key part of why the Afghan government collapsed in 2021. After Raziq’s death, his commanders went further. They extorted ordinary people and stole from their own men’s wages and supplies.

“What they brought under the name of democracy was a system in the hands of a few mafia groups,” said one resident of Kandahar who initially supported the government. “The people came to hate democracy.”

Historians and scholars will spend years arguing whether the United States could have ever succeeded. The world’s wealthiest nation had invaded one of its poorest and attempted to remake it by installing a new government. Such efforts elsewhere have failed.

But U.S. mistakes — empowering ruthless killers, turning allies into enemies, enabling rampant corruption — made the loss of its longest war at least partly self-inflicted. This is a story Matthieu and I will spend the coming months telling, from across Afghanistan.

A Hidden History
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Investigating a Monster: What We Found and How We Did It

May 29, 2024
By Azam Ahmed

The New York Times.

The only thing faster than the American withdrawal from Afghanistan might be how quickly the world moved on.

The Biden Administration largely stopped talking about it. Most news organizations were already scaling back in Afghanistan when the Taliban took over.

But a question remained, at once basic and vast.

How did it come to this? How did the group that the United States invaded Afghanistan to eviscerate wind up back in charge?

With the war’s end, The New York Times could finally reach people and places that had been off limits during the fighting — to figure out what really happened.

We found that one of America’s most important partners in the war against the Taliban — a celebrated general named Abdul Raziq — had carried out a systematic campaign of forced disappearances that killed hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

General Raziq’s story was not just a familiar one of tragedy and loss in a faraway war. Across Afghanistan, the United States elevated and empowered warlords, corrupt politicians and outright criminals to prosecute a war of military expediency in which the ends often justified the means.

It helps explain why the United States lost.

General Raziq was the police chief responsible for security across Kandahar. The U.S. military lionized him for years as a fierce combatant and a loyal partner. American generals made pilgrimages to see him.

But his battlefield prowess was built on years of torture, extrajudicial killings and the largest-known campaign of forced disappearances during America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan, The Times found.

We obtained hundreds of pages of ledgers belonging to the former U.S.-backed government. In them, we identified almost 2,200 cases of suspected disappearances in Kandahar Province alone, with families reporting missing relatives.

That is almost surely a gross undercount. The Times only logged cases that were corroborated by at least two people. Many of the families who had reported missing loved ones were impossible to locate, and many others never filed complaints.

A mechanic and a rickshaw driver. Tailors and taxi drivers. The human tally helps explain why many Afghans so quickly embraced the Taliban after the American withdrawal.

“None of us supported the Taliban, at least not at first,” said Fazul Rahman, whose brother was abducted. “But when the government collapsed, I ran through the streets, rejoicing.”

When the Taliban took over the country, they inherited nearly everything that had belonged to the U.S.-backed government. The computers, rickety office chairs, even tea glasses.

They also inherited documents, at least those that hadn’t been destroyed.

The Times obtained and combed through a decade’s worth of handwritten ledgers, made available to us by the Taliban, stretching from 2011 until the American-backed Republic of Afghanistan collapsed in 2021.

Using the ledgers as tips, local Times researchers searched for the families of the disappeared. Each was asked to fill out a form with the details of the disappearance and provide records to substantiate the claim: police reports, affidavits, medical files, government documents, whatever they had.

We spoke with nearly 1,000 families and narrowed that list to hundreds of verified cases of forced disappearance.

In each case, the person is still missing.

General Raziq was one of the United States’ most important allies in Afghanistan. When he took charge of units in Kandahar, he managed to beat the Taliban there.

He was always dogged by accusations of human rights abuses. But the Americans stood by him until the last.

When he was gunned down by an undercover Taliban assassin in 2018, he was standing next to the top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Austin S. Miller, who celebrated him as a “great friend” and “patriot.”

He was seen as the only partner capable of beating the Taliban in the heartland of the insurgency.

“We knew what we were doing, but we didn’t think we had a choice,” said Henry Ensher, a former State Department official.

But many Afghans say General Raziq used his position, and his American support, to pursue personal vendettas and decades-long tribal rivalries. To many everyday citizens, General Raziq was the cruel hand of the American government. Even the Taliban seemed preferable.

Like so much about the war in Afghanistan, this is something that former top American officials say they never truly understood.

Azam Ahmed is international investigative correspondent for The Times. He has reported on Wall Street scandals, the War in Afghanistan and violence and corruption in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.

Investigating a Monster: What We Found and How We Did It
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Where Are My Rights? Afghan retirees appeal for their pensions

May 22, 2024

Ali Mohammad Sabawoon • Jelena Bjelica

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Afghanistan’s retired public sector employees have not received their pensions since the toppling of the Republic and the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in August 2021. In the almost three years since then, their pleas to the government to start paying what is their due have fallen on deaf ears. In April this year, they were handed a further crushing blow when the Islamic Emirate abruptly announced it was abolishing the pension system and that it had stopped deducting pension contributions from the salaries of current civilian and military staff. That decision diminished the future prospects of existing pensioners ever getting paid. AAN’s Ali Mohammad Sabawoon and Jelena Bjelica (with input from Roxanna Shapour) have been hearing from retirees about their day-to-day struggle to survive and have also been looking into why it is so hard to pay Afghanistan’s pensioners. 

Afghanistan’s public sector retirees have been on the streets, protesting outside government offices, demanding that the government make good on their pensions, which have not been paid for almost three years. Posted on Facebook by Muhammad Sami’i Naderi on 19 May 2024.
 
For more than two years, public sector retirees have been on the streets, protesting outside government offices – see media reports from June 2022, November 2022, January 2023, August 2023, February 2024, April 2024. In rallies that have shown little sign of engendering a positive response, the pensioners have demanded their ‘rights’. The word for rights, huquq, is also used in Afghanistan to mean wages, or in this case, pension payments. The pensioners have not received any of their ‘rights’ since August 2021 when the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) came to power.[1] The end of the payments coincided with the collapse of the Afghan economy and that double blow has pushed many pensioners into poverty.[2] As head of the Afghanistan Retirees Association in Kabul, Afandi Sangar, explained:

We gathered several times to ask the Emirate to pay our pensions. We aren’t protesting, but we’re objecting. We worked for this country. This is money that was taken out of our salaries and it’s our right [to get a pension]. It’s a debt the government owes us. We aren’t asking for charity. We’re asking for our rights. If we don’t get our rights, the only thing we can do is raise our voices.

They have felt that the government had just been keeping them in limbo: “Every time we visit the pension department to get our rights,” one retiree told Pajhwok in August 2023, “they say it will be paid today, or tomorrow,” adding, “We don’t want charity, we… want our rights from the government.”

While the number of current public sector retirees is unknown, the Afghanistan Retirees Association did give a precise number in 2021 – 148,881, made up of 92,254 former civil servants and 56,627 former military (as reported by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL/). A news report from BBC Pashto in March 2024 put the current number of pensioners as far higher: 159,000, including 10,000 women, who include widows entitled to their late husband’s pension.[3] Afandi Sangar summed their situation up with bitter words: “What should the retirees eat? They are not young enough to work. How long should we wait with empty stomachs?”

How are retirees coping? 

We wanted to get an idea of how retirees and their families have been surviving since they last received their pensions. We interviewed three women and three men, who are all in their late sixties or early seventies. They told us about their everyday struggles, their search for employment and their reliance on charity. They told us that they feel betrayed and angry, forsaken and stripped of what is rightfully theirs – the small percentage of their salaries that had been deducted year after year, which they expected would fund their old age.

One woman, a widow of 22 years who had been living on her husband’s pension, described how it stopped suddenly in August 2021, leaving her family dependent on the help of neighbours:

If it wasn’t for the community, my four children and I would have died of hunger…. In Ramadan, people helped us – some people brought cooking oil, some brought flour, and some helped us with other food items.

Her experience was not unusual. All our respondents told us in poignant detail about how they have had to rely on the charity of others to – just about – keep afloat. A former public librarian from Kabul, who has six children and retired in 2018, told us how he and his family go hungry most days:

I have nothing to feed my children. I haven’t received my pension since the arrival of the Taleban. I have nothing to eat now. Thanks to the people who gave me some zakat [alms] in the month of Ramadan and at Eid, I have enough [money] for about two months. I don’t know what to do. I’m lost. Sometimes, I think I should kill myself, but two things stop me: one, suicide is forbidden in Islam, and second, how would my death benefit my children?

A former teacher with four children from Kabul province who has been retired since 2015 described how she had tried to make ends meet.

Over the last three years, I’ve sold most of my belongings. We have almost nothing left, [only] what we need, and actually, we didn’t make much money from selling [our possessions].… I am going mad. Sometimes, I go to a private school where one of my former students is the principal. She’s sympathetic to my situation and sometimes, when a teacher is absent, she calls me to cover. Actually, I don’t teach. She asks me to keep the students busy when there’s no teacher in the classroom…. Then she pays me some money. But that money is never enough for my family.

Another retiree, who used to be a mid-level manager (modir) in Kunduz province and who has been retired since 2017, has a long-term health problem and can no longer afford to pay his medical bills:

I’m sick. I have four children and all of them are underage. I have a problem with my lungs and I can’t afford to have an X-ray. Sometimes, people help me buy flour or something else, food or non-food items. When people in the community can’t help, my brother steps in and buys some food for us. Actually, I’m a burden to him because he himself is a poor man. He and his son work in a factory in Kabul. Sometimes, I borrow some money from him to buy medicine.

A former colonel, a pensioner since 2013 in Laghman province, was also worried about health bills, but for his wife: “She has a chronic illness. When I was receiving my pension, I could afford her medication, but now I can’t.” He had taken to selling vegetables to support his family, but says that, in the current economic situation, the money he earns is simply not enough.

The vegetable stall used to support my financial needs in the past, but now all the vegetables in my cart are only worth 2,000 afghanis (USD 30). Suppose I sell all the vegetables, how much [profit] will I make? How will I feed my family and how can I buy medicine for my wife?

Our last interviewee, a woman with three children who worked for the military in Kabul and retired when Karzai was president (she does not remember the exact year), said her family had had no income since her husband fell ill, and the government stopped paying her pension: “My husband used to work as a painter and decorator until about two years ago when he fell ill,” she said. “My pension and his earnings used to be enough to feed our family and cover our other expenses. Now, we have neither my pension nor his earnings.” She said she received a little help during Ramadan from the Association of Retirees, which had received a donation of flour and other food items.

As these interviews show, the impact of the Emirate’s decision not to pay pensions has gone far deeper and wider than just on the pensioners themselves. While public sector retirees account for only about 18 per cent of the 835,900 Afghans of retirement age,[4] that translates into providing support to 150,000 families, or almost one million individuals.[5] For many of those families, the government pension has been a significant source of income. For some, it was their only source. In August 2021, Afghanistan’s pensioners and their families found themselves suddenly immiserated. In reality, though, the non-payment of pensions was the culmination of a crisis which had been brewing for years, masked only by the huge amounts of money paid by foreign donors into the Republic’s budget. When those funds disappeared overnight, it brought the crisis to a head, as detailed below.

Afghanistan’s mounting pension bill

Under the Islamic Republic’s 2008 Labour Law, retirement was set at 65 years of age or after 40 years of service (see the Pashto/Dari version of the law here and the English version here). The Republic’s formal social protection system consisted largely, according to the World Bank, of “a pension scheme for public sector employees and uniformed servicemen [sic] of the military and police, and social safety nets encompassing a number of government and donor schemes that transfer cash and in-kind benefits to various population groups.” Their salaries would have had contributions deducted at source, to which the government also added.[6] The widows, underage children and unmarried adult daughters are also eligible to receive a late husband/father’s pension and are referred to as ‘survivors’ in the laws and documents. Those who have not been in regular employment or who work in the private sector do not receive any social benefits from the state when they reach retirement age.

The country’s pension system has long been in crisis and in 2008, the World Bank launched a programme to support a government-led reform of it (see ‘Afghanistan Public Sector Pension Scheme: From Crisis Management to Comprehensive Reform Strategy’). The Bank put the total of ‘active pensioners’ (either they themselves or their close heirs were registered, alive and receiving a pension)[7] in 2007 at just over sixty thousand people (see Table A4-3 in Annex 4, p55, of the above-cited document).

Unlike pension funds in many other countries that make investments to generate income and so ‘future-proof’ their pension obligations, Afghanistan’s system relied on contributions from current employees and large appropriations from government coffers to pay its former public sector workers. This is because sharia law places constraints on investments that would yield interest or might be deemed as speculative. However, the system was not financially sustainable and was increasingly putting pressure on Afghanistan’s fragile and heavily aid-dependent public finances.

In 2018, a full ten years after the reforms process began, the system was still in crisis. With “pension liabilities – set to swallow the equivalent of a third of the current USD 5 billion budget within 15 years,” the Republic’s then Deputy Finance Minister Khalid Payenda spoke publicly about the urgent need for action. “Previously,” he told Reuters, “they kicked the can down the road and it’s snowballing right now and needs to be fixed.” As part of the finance ministry’s agenda to reform the public sector, it was exploring sharia-compliant investments, such as sukuk instruments (sharia-compliant government-issued bonds) and other measures to try to make sure it could meet its mounting pension bill, which had reached 26.3 billion afghanis (USD 368 million) in 2019 (see the Ministry of Finance’s 2021 Fiscal Strategy Paper).

It was no surprise to many observers, therefore, that retirees stopped getting their benefits after the Republic fell in August 2021. The foreign assistance that had been propping up Afghanistan’s bloated national budget and footing the lion’s share of the pension bill had disappeared overnight and there was simply not enough domestic revenue coming in for the government to both run the country and meet its obligation to retirees.

Pensions and the Emirate 

Since taking power, the IEA did not only stop paying retirees, it also reportedly began deliberating what to do with the pension system it had inherited from its predecessors. Currently, there are about 150,000 pensioners. However, that figure was set to rise significantly, given the size of the public sector workforce, both now and under the Republic, as workers reach retirement age.[8]

In summer 2022, about a year after the takeover, the Emirate announced it would look into the sharia basis for pensions. Later, in October 2022, a pension plan ratified by the cabinet was sent to Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada for his approval (as reported by BBC Persian, see also AAN’s readout of this Kabul Now report), with the Ministry of Finance proposing to allocate four billion afghanis (around USD 46 million) to pay for public sector pensions. That was hardly enough to cover the government’s annual pension bill, which, according to recent BBC Persian estimates, stands at 12.5 billion afghanis (USD 175 million). This would also not have included the arrears owed to pensioners for 2021 and 2022. The Republic had budgeted 46.2 billion afghanis (approximately USD 530 million) for these two years – 22.4 billion (USD 257 million) for 2021 and 23.8 billion (USD 273 million) for 2022.However, as the weeks turned into months with no approval from the Supreme Leader, retirees continued to gather outside government offices to demand their long-awaited pensions. In February 2024, IEA Spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahed, told ToloNews that “their appeal has been considered” and that he hoped “their problem will be solved soon.”

Finally, on 3 April 2024, the Ministry of Finance announced that the country’s pension system had been abolished. Under the mandate of a new decree, the government had stopped deducting pension contributions from both civilian and military salaries from the start of fiscal year 1403 (2024/25), with the first contribution-free month being Hamal (21 March to 21 April 2024). The decree had instructed the Ministry of Finance to provide details about the length of service and the funds deducted against pensions for each civil servant or military staff member who was currentlyworking for the government (see a photo of the decree in this BBC Persian report and these Amu TV and Ariana Newsreports), ie not the pension pots accumulated by current pensioners when they were working. This was apparently not mentioned.

Although the IEA has not explicitly explained the reasons behind its decision to abolish the pension system, it was reported that it might hold that it was in breach of sharia. “A number of Islamic scholars do not consider the payment of pension insurance to be in accordance with sharia…. They [the Taleban] had several meetings, including in Syria, on this issue but could not reach a consensus,” professor of economics Muhammad Amir Nuri told BBC Persian. Nuri attributed this to differences of opinion among Islamic scholars about the imprecise nature of pension schemes. “It is not clear that you will receive as much money as you have in your account. Because one often gets more or less than the amount of money in their account…. [If] a person lives longer than the average life expectancy, he will receive more money than the balance in his account, but a person who dies early, if he does not have an eligible heir, [will get] less than the amount of money in his account,” he said.

Meanwhile, the announcement touched off a new round of protests in Kabul by retirees who say that, without state assistance, they and their families simply cannot survive (see, for example, this RFE/RL report).

Human dignity hanging by a thread

Afghanistan’s economic woes have pushed many of its citizens to the edge of endurance – some 24 million are in need of assistance this year alone according to UNOCHA. While 835,900 Afghans are currently of retirement age (65 or older), only 150,000 – those who worked in state institutions – had expected a state pension. Older Afghans, in general, do not seem to figure on the government’s agenda and rarely find themselves on a donor’s priority list. Many are poor and struggling, but the former public sector workers had planned their final years on the assumption that the state would honour their ‘rights’. Instead, they are facing a future with no choice but to rely on charity and the kindness of relatives, neighbours and communities, their human dignity hanging by a thread. What then should they do now?

The woman who, along with her four children, had lived on her late husband’s pension for 22 years, said she felt helpless and powerless:

We ask the leader of the Emirate to give us our rights. Where should we go? Where could we get food, if he doesn’t give us our rights? I am a woman; I can do nothing. What can I do and who will listen to me?

One of the other female interviewees, the former teacher, felt betrayed and angry. She saw no other option but to take to the streets in protest:

In the last days of our lives, we’d rather be respected than punished. Not paying pensions is equal to a punishment. I’m very disheartened. I never thought we’d face such a destiny. We want the government to be kind to us. We’re elderly and cannot support our families. If the government doesn’t support us, we’ll have to take to the streets and raise our voices.

Others worried that protest itself might be dangerous. The retired colonel said he would not be demonstrating, but remained hopeful that the government would eventually start honouring its obligation to pensioners:

Believe me, I can’t protest. I’m afraid that if I protest, I’ll be arrested or injured. If you get injured at this age, then it’s very difficult to recover. I never thought of protesting. What is meant to happen, will happen.[9] But we hope that the Emirate will pay our pensions. We’ve worked for this country. We are not Americans. We are Afghans.

Edited by Roxanna Shapour and Kate Clark

References

References
↑1  Retirees reported only patchy payment of pensions in the last months of the Ashraf Ghani government. Working civil servants were also not paid their salaries at this time, as Ghani prioritised spending on the war.
↑2 The ‘World Bank’s ‘Afghanistan Development Update, Navigating Challenges: Confronting Economic Recession and Deflation’, published on 17 April 2024 reported that GDP had shrunk by 26 per cent since the takeover, this on top of several years of worsening poverty rates.
↑3  The particulars of pension arrangements for private sector workers as well as those who are not in formal employment are not entirely known and are beyond the scope of this report.
↑4  This calculation is based on World Bank reporting in 2022 that 2.39 per cent of Afghanistan’s population was over the age of 65 in 2022 (see here) and an estimate in ‘Quarterly Statistical Indicators Fourth Quarter 2023’ from the Afghanistan National Statistics and Information Authority (NSIA) that the country’s population was 34,971,517 (see here).
↑5 The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) ‘Afghanistan Socio-Economic Outlook 2023’ calculated that the average Afghan household comprises 6.6 members.
↑6  For the civil service, an amount equal to 8 per cent of the salary was deducted at source, with the government contributing an equal amount. For the security forces, the salary deduction was 5 per cent, with the government contributing 11 per cent. See Pension Policy Reform document.
↑7 This table provides an overview of the number of retirees logged in the Pension Department’s system in 2007. “Registered pensioners” represent the official Pension Department figures which were cited at the time for budgeting purposes. This figure included the cumulative number of all individuals “dead and alive, active and passive, retirees and their survivors who had ever applied for a pension since inception of the system.” Those classed as “active pensioners” are retirees or their survivors (wives, minor children and/or unmarried daughter) who were alive at the time of the assessment and eligible to receive a pension. See Afghanistan Public Sector Pension Scheme: From Crisis Management to Comprehensive Reform Strategy.
↑8  In its ‘Quarterly Statistical Indicators Fourth Quarter 2023’, the Afghanistan National Statistics and Information Authority (NSIA) put the number working in the public sector at 443,243 (see NSIA’s website here). At least 350,000 more people are employed in the security sector. In accountability sessions over summer 1402/2023, the Ministry of Defence reported that it employed 170,000 personnel, with a planned rise to 180,000 in 1403/2024 and the Ministry of Interior 161,000. The General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) did not appear in the sessions. For more details, see AAN’s November 2023 report, Survival and Stagnation: The State of the Afghan economy. AAN knows of no publicly available breakdown by age of the workforce.
↑9 The Persian expression harch-e bada bad roughly translates as ‘que sera, sera’, or ‘whatever will be will be’.

 

Where Are My Rights? Afghan retirees appeal for their pensions
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The Taliban’s Attacks on Diversity Undermine Afghanistan’s Stability

May 19, 2024
BY: Joyana Richer; Belquis Ahmadi
United States Institute of Peace
Thursday, May 16, 2024
 KEY TAKEAWAYS
  • Afghans of all backgrounds want more than the end of violence. They want true peace built on coexistence and reconciliation.
  • Instead, the Taliban are imposing their views on Afghanistan’s diverse ethnic, cultural and religious groups.
  • The international and regional community is notably united on pushing for a more inclusive government in Afghanistan.

Each year, the U.N. International Day of Living Together in Peace reminds us that true, sustainable peace is achieved not simply by eliminating war, but rather by building tolerance, inclusion, understanding and solidarity among and between communities.

In Afghanistan, this day holds immense potential. For more than four decades, the country’s resilient yet diverse population has endured cycles of political turmoil, violent conflict and civil war. After so much suffering, Afghans yearn to transcend the mere cessation of violence — to establish true peace built on coexistence and reconciliation. However, while Afghanistan is no longer in an official state of war, the Taliban’s grip on power has made the prospects of seeing real, positive peace appear faint.

The End of War Does Not Ensure the Promise of Peace

Many in the international community were quick to praise the Taliban for ostensibly ending the war. And while security has improved throughout much of the country, this view overlooks critical context: The Taliban were the primary instigators in the first place, and they routinely employed tactics like insurgency and suicide bombings to instill fear and weaken opposition.

Moreover, their failure to reach a peace agreement with the Afghan government further underscores their responsibility for the prolonged conflict. It’s important to acknowledge these factors to grasp the complete picture and avoid inadvertently legitimizing actions that have caused immense suffering.

It’s true that the war is officially over. But that does not mean Afghanistan is at peace. And as the country’s now-de facto authorities, the Taliban are responsible for cultivating an environment that allows the Afghan people to reconcile their differences and begin the process of healing the deep wounds inflicted upon them.

Instead, the Taliban continue to brutally suppress dissent — resorting to harsh punishments, detention and torture for those who oppose their ideology. In December 2023, the Taliban’s Ministry of Economy issued a letter calling on local and international organizations to refrain from implementing projects focused on peace, conflict resolution, advocacy and public awareness. According to the Taliban, these projects are not considered a need. But the ban hinders efforts to address past grievances and envision a better future for the country.

Afghans should not be forced to choose between their fundamental rights and safety from violence. They deserve a chance to live with dignity, to have their rights respected and guaranteed, to rebuild their lives, and to have influence over their own future or that of their government.

Inclusion is a Foundation for Lasting Peace

When a government strives to include all voices of society, it creates a more sustainable foundation for peace. Take, for example, Colombia’s 2016 peace accord. In an extremely diverse country, all members had a stake in the peacebuilding process — whether it was a former guerilla group, women or Indigenous populations. The peace accord ended 50 years of violence, where one of the roots of the problem had been political exclusion.

Afghanistan is also home to a diverse and vibrant population. The country is home to a vast number of ethnic and cultural identities — such as Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Turkman, Baluch, Pachaie, Nuristani, Aymaq, Arab, Qirghiz, Qizilbash, Gujur, Brahwui and other tribes — and many religious groups such as Sunni and Shia Muslims, Sikhs, Baha’is, Hindus and a small population of Christians. Afghanistan’s future cannot and should not be dictated by any singular group. That means all Afghans should be included in decision-making processes at every level, be it local, national or international level.

In February 2024, however, the Taliban made it clear they did not want other non-Taliban representatives of the Afghanistan to attend the U.N.-convened meeting on Afghanistan in Doha. They even made it a precondition for their own attendance — terms the U.N. secretary-general deemed unacceptable.

But the Taliban’s rejection of inclusive governance and decision-making is at odds with much of the international community. Notably, the United States, the U.N. and many European countries have all made recognition of the Taliban conditional based on the need for an inclusive government, among other things.

Inclusion is also one of the few consensus positions among Afghanistan’s contentious neighbors, many of whom do not always see eye to eye. Foreign ministers from Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran have all called on the Taliban to have a more inclusive government and a national reconciliation process.

Meanwhile, the Kazan Declaration, which was released at the culmination of the 5th Moscow Format last year, claimed that there had been no progress toward a more inclusive government in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the declaration — which was put forward by representatives from China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — pushed for a more constructive dialogue with different ethnic groups within the country in order for there to be a more “inclusive, accountable, and responsible government.”

Despite this consensus both internationally and regionally, the Taliban have rejected the need for inclusion and responded to the Kazan Declaration by stating they already had “religious and national legitimacy.”

The Taliban are Undermining Social Cohesion

Some parts of the international community claimed that the Taliban have become more moderate since their first rule — but the opposite has proven to be true. In addition to eschewing calls for inclusion, the Taliban have also made every effort to erase what glued Afghanistan’s diverse population together.

The Afghan constitution that recognized equal rights for all citizens has been suspended, robbing the population of their rights and the government’s responsibility to protect those rights.

The Taliban also replaced the country’s centuries-old solar calendar with the lunar calendar and cancelled the widely celebrated Nowroz public holiday in March 2022. A year later, in March 2023, they declared Nowruz as an act against sharia. What once was an opportunity for communities to come together to celebrate the beginning of spring has now been trampled into an eerie silence.

Meanwhile, the Taliban have made it mandatory that people speak Pashto in government offices, one of many languages spoken in Afghanistan, depriving people from engaging the government in their own native language freely. This imposition includes renaming government and educational signs and titles.

Finally, in January of this year, the Taliban started confiscating books, starting with 20,000 books in Kabul related to Afghanistan’s ethnic history, Tajik history, Shia sects, religious enlightenment, identity and other topics. They also ordered that universities exchange all books about the Republic era and replace them with the Siraat (the biography of the Prophet Muhammad). Such actions not only erode the fabric of Afghan society, but also represent a grave threat to the nation’s cultural heritage and collective identity.

Learning From Past Mistakes

While other global issues undoubtedly command attention, history shows us that it’s important to sustain focus on Afghanistan and craft policies that prioritize the well-being of its millions of citizens.

Following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, international attention drifted elsewhere, and the Afghan people lacked the support needed to rebuild their nation. This inadvertently fueled further conflict, as it left Afghanistan fragile and vulnerable to the rise of extremist groups. The consequences were dire: Afghanistan became a breeding ground for terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda. To ensure the Afghan people are not alone in the aftermath of yet another major geopolitical shift, the international community should sustain its commitment and support for Afghanistan’s stability and development.

And while the Doha agreement marked the conclusion of direct U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, our responsibility to our strategic allies persists. The sacrifices made by the Afghan people — of their lives, their liberty, and their future — warrant our continued support.

U.S. engagement with the Taliban regime should prioritize principled, outcome-driven approaches. In doing so, our guiding principle should be to avoid causing harm to women and men who are exercising their right to find true peace and live free from persecution and oppression from the Taliban. Upholding this principle of “do no harm” is crucial in navigating engagements with the Taliban, ensuring that our actions prioritize the protection of vulnerable populations and promote inclusive, equitable outcomes.

Furthermore, Afghanistan’s pivotal geopolitical position makes it susceptible to exploitation by violent extremist and terrorist groups. History has taught us that instability in Afghanistan reverberates far beyond its borders. Our continued support for Afghanistan is not merely a moral imperative but also a strategic necessity in ensuring regional stability and averting potential threats to international security.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s). 

The Taliban’s Attacks on Diversity Undermine Afghanistan’s Stability
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Pope’s appeal for Afghanistan helps a ‘forgotten’ people

May 17, 2024

By Deborah Castellano Lubov

Vatican News

17 May 2024

Pope Francis on Wednesday made an appeal for the international community to provide necessary aid and support to the most vulnerable in Afghanistan where at least 300 people have been killed in flooding in 18 districts across at least three of the country’s northern provinces in the past few days.

Following the Pope’s words, Fr. Giovanni Scalese, the last superior of the Mission sui iuris in Afghanistan, who was the only Catholic priest present in the country, granted an interview to Vatican News, about the Pope’s appeal, and discussing the consequences that the recent floods will have on a people who face a daily scarcity of essential goods for survival.

According to the United Nations World Food Programme, hundreds more have been injured in the recent floods, and it is believed that many people remain buried in the mud. Most of the casualties were reported in Baghlan province, where heavy rains destroyed an estimated 3,000 houses, flooded farmland, washed away livestock, closed schools and damaged health centres.

Father Scalese, at his General Audience, Pope Francis made an important appeal for Afghanistan which has been struck by devastating floods. What news do you have regarding this disaster? How do you receive this appeal from the Pope?

Unfortunately, I have very little news. I learned of this tragedy in recent days from a confrere of mine, Father Moretti, who was my predecessor in Kabul, because otherwise no one in the media is talking about it. Instead, other less important events dominate the media, and they are talked about every day for weeks. When it comes to Afghanistan, no one talks about it. So, I think it is certainly important that the Holy Father made this appeal yesterday morning. Indeed, we are really very grateful to him for breaking down this wall of silence. We hope that at least now, having spoken about it, some media outlet will report the news because otherwise, no one will know anything.

Afghanistan is already a very poor country. What effect could these floods have on the daily lives of the people?

Yes, exactly, Afghanistan is a very poor country, and Afghans have very little to lose, so unfortunately, they are used to these disastrous events and are used to facing them as best they can. Clearly, the victims, those who lose their lives, can do nothing. The others will try to move forward as best they can, as they have always done throughout Afghanistan’s history, gritting their teeth and starting over each time. Certainly, there is still hope for intervention by those who could intervene. The Pope himself yesterday morning appealed to the international community, to non-governmental organizations, to international bodies. So, we hope there will be interventions to help these populations.

As you mentioned, the Pope specifically called for help from the international community, and you also highlighted that there is a kind of wall of silence, that after the Taliban took power in Kabul, hardly anyone speaks about this country anymore. But what can be done to give Afghanistan a voice in the midst of this silence?

I don’t know. I don’t know because this is unfortunately exactly what happened after August 15, 2021. No one talks about Afghanistan anymore. Because it’s not interesting! It’s not interesting, unfortunately! The world of information is not objective, it does not report all the news, it is very selective. It only chooses certain news, those that may interest the general public or news that may be important for some ideological or political reason. And so, in this case, Afghanistan has been completely forgotten. I hope, however, that little by little people will realize that, regardless of who is in government, in power in a country, especially international organizations and non-governmental organizations should make an effort so that populations in need can receive help, regardless of the political regime in power in a particular country.

And from the years you served there as a missionary, what remain your most vivid memories? You were the only priest present there and so you are the only person who could tell such an experience…

But unfortunately, I don’t have good memories of Afghanistan. I was there for seven years from 2015 to 2021. They were very difficult years. I did not have the opportunity to visit the country; it was too risky, even just being in Kabul, inside the Italian embassy, where the Catholic mission was based, one could not even move around the city because it was dangerous. Every day, I would say, there were attacks. So, it was a country in a state of war, so I don’t have any good experiences to tell. If there is one good memory, let’s say, it is that of October 13, 2017, when at the end of the centenary of the apparitions of Fatima, we consecrated Afghanistan to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and this gives me so much hope. Because Afghanistan, even if it is ignored, forgotten, abandoned by everyone, certainly cannot be abandoned by God and by Mary. And Afghanistan is also in the Immaculate Heart of Mary, who will certainly protect this country and protect its people and will not allow this people to perish, despite all the trials it is subjected to. Thanks to the Holy Father who remembered Afghanistan, hoping that these interventions can have some effect in favor of the Afghan people.

Pope’s appeal for Afghanistan helps a ‘forgotten’ people
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Before the Deluge: How to mitigate the risk of flooding in Afghanistan

May 15, 2024

Mhd Assem Mayar

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In Afghanistan’s rugged landscape, floods arise from a multiplicity of causes: torrential rainfall, rain on snow, the rapid melting of snow due to warmer weather, glacial lake outbursts, the overflow of natural ponds or even the breach of dams. Regardless of their origins, floods can destroy whole villages, ruin farmland and change the very landscape. Almost a quarter of all casualties caused by natural disasters in Afghanistan are due to floods, with the problem only likely to worsen, given that the climate crisis is predicted to bring heavier spring rains and more severe monsoons. This spring, above-average precipitation brought an end to the multi-year drought that had plagued Afghanistan, says AAN guest author Mohammad Assem Mayar,* but the considerable rainfall has also led to devastating flooding. In this report, he delves into what can be done to mitigate the risk of flooding in Afghanistan, both now and in the longer term.
You can preview the report online and download it by clicking the download button below.

As we were preparing this report for publication, heavy rain falling on land, parched dry and hard by drought, had caused flash floods, affecting most of the country. Northeastern Afghanistan (Badakhshan, Baghlan and Takhar) has been especially hard hit by intense floods which hit the region on 10 and 11 May. So far, they are known to have claimed the lives of at “least 300 people, including 51 children, with many more injured,” according to this UN report. Search and rescue operations were ongoing in Burka and Baghlan-e Jadid districts in Baghlan Province, where 80 per cent of the deaths recorded so far had occurred, according to UNOCHA Flash Update #1. It also said that roads in the three provinces had been “rendered inaccessible,” hampering humanitarian operations. The floods have also devastated infrastructure and farmland. According to the preliminary figures in the Update, in Baghlan province alone, “at least six public schools and 10,200 acres [4,128 hectares] of orchards have been destroyed, 2,260 livestock killed, and 50 bridges and 30 electricity dams damaged.”

They were not the first floods of the year. AAN had earlier heard how the joy and relief of farmers in Zurmat district of Paktia that the multi-year drought had finally ended with good rain and snowfall in late winter had been transformed; rain “not seen for 30 years” in mid-April brought flooding that wreaked havoc with roads, bridges, homes and farmland (report here).

This year’s floods, and the ones forecast for later in the season, have made the publication of this report even more timely. They have highlighted the urgent need for immediate action to help Afghanistan mitigate the ill effects of floods, to reduce the risk of them happening in the future and to lessen the damage they cause to human life, livelihoods and the nation’s infrastructure. Afghanistan’s geography, its mountainous terrain and vast plains, renders it exceptionally vulnerable to flooding. Unlike in the past, when a smaller population and scattered settlements reduced the number of casualties caused by flooding, the country’s rapidly growing population has put more people at risk of floods. Pressure on land has meant people building homes where there is a greater risk of flooding.

The report uses maps to help describe the various types of floods affecting the different regions of Afghanistan and to visualise their social and economic costs. It looks at the development of one key tool needed for effective action to prevent floods and reduce the damage they cause – Afghanistan’s first nationwide flood hazard map. This important report then details the three essential elements of any flood mitigation plan needs: preparation; response and recovery; and mitigation. It delves into what was done during the Islamic Republic to fulfil these requirements and what the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) is doing now to help affected communities and ensure the risk of flooding is reduced in the future.

It is a terrible irony that Afghanistan, one of the lowest contributors of greenhouse gases (179th out of 209 countries), is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change (see a graphic illustrating this here). This disparity is further exacerbated by the non-recognition of the IEA, which means Afghanistan cannot access climate change funds designed to help the least developed countries adapt. The climate emergency will only exacerbate floods and their dire consequences for Afghans, underscoring the critical and urgent need for action.

* Dr Mohammad Assem Mayar is a water resources management expert and former lecturer at Kabul Polytechnic University in Afghanistan. He is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) in Müncheberg, Germany. He posts on X as @assemmayar1.

Edited by Kate Clark and Roxanna Shapour 

You can preview the report online and download it by clicking the download button below.

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Before the Deluge: How to mitigate the risk of flooding in Afghanistan
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The world’s poorest didn’t cause the climate crisis, but they bear the brunt of it

May 15, 2024
Letters

The Guardian

Wed 15 May 2024 12.17 EDT

As the global thermometer relentlessly inches upwards, revelations by top climate scientists of 2.5C warming this century (World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C target, 8 May) paint a grim future of famines, conflicts and mass migrations fuelled by escalating heatwaves, wildfires, floods and storms. However, this so-called semi-dystopian future is already a harsh reality for millions on the frontline of climate change who bear the brunt of a crisis they had little hand in creating.

From farmers in sub-Saharan Africa battling year-on-year crop failures to communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan confronted by unprecedented flooding every rainy season, the impacts are immediate and devastating, bringing untold human suffering. This is not a problem for 2100, but a problem now, immediately, before our eyes. My organisation has witnessed these effects first-hand, and these few examples should serve as a stark reminder to the international community that the time for meaningful change is now.

Yet the response, as highlighted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has been woefully slow. Addressing the climate crisis in these frontline communities requires a multi-faceted approach that goes beyond short-term fixes. It requires a huge increase in funding and all forms of investment in support of locally led adaptation solutions that allow households, communities and societies to adapt their livelihoods and lifestyles to new patterns of weather and extreme weather events. It also requires partnerships with governments and companies to speed up technology transfer for a fair shift to clean energy, promoting clean and inclusive economic growth where it is most needed.

The climate emergency is not a far-off reality for even rich nations. It’s happening now. We are the proverbial frog in the boiling pot of water. It is the marginalised who will be left behind in the face of this escalating climate crisis. As the climate scientist Dipak Dasgupta rightly points out, the plight of poor people cannot be overlooked if we are to avert catastrophe for all. We cannot afford to avert our eyes while the world burns. The time for meaningful change is now, and it is incumbent upon all of us to heed the call before it’s too late.

David Nicholson
Chief climate officer, Mercy Corps

The challenge to poor countries is not that they cannot raise funds from their own people (Poorer nations must be transparent over climate spending, says Cop29 leader, 6 May), it is that the financial approach to climate change only benefits countries that can lend, namely rich countries. Poor countries (that are in reality becoming poorer) cannot absorb any more debts. Twenty sub-Saharan countries are already paying more in debt repayments than they can devote to either health or education. More lending will worsen the situation. What is needed is more investment in human capital, educating the poorest not through formal schools, but through better popular education. Above all, the rich world must change the physical and social environment of smallholders to enable them to produce enough food. Better agriculture leads to better management of the physical environment.

Benny Dembitzer
London

The world’s poorest didn’t cause the climate crisis, but they bear the brunt of it
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Senior Study Group on Counterterrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan: Final Report

May 14, 2024

USIP Senior Study Group on Counterterrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan

United States Institute of Peace

Tuesday, May 14, 2024

Executive Summary
When announcing the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in April 2021, President Joe Biden identified counterterrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan as an enduring and critical US national security interest. This priority became even more pronounced after the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, the discovery of al-Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul less than a year later, and the increasing threat of the Islamic State of Khorasan (ISIS-K) from Afghanistan. However, owing to the escalating pressures of strategic competition with China and Russia, counterterrorism has significantly dropped in importance in the policy agenda. Following 9/11, the national security policy pendulum swung to an overwhelming focus on counterterrorism, but since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, it appears to have swung in the opposite direction.
In 2022, the United States Institute of Peace convened the Senior Study Group on Counterterrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan to examine the counterterrorism challenge from the region in light of the US withdrawal and growing strategic competition. The study group is a bipartisan group of experts, bringing a range of policy, scholarly, operational, and analytical experience related to terrorism, counterterrorism, and South Asia policy issues.In meetings from 2022 to 2023, the study group assessed the terrorism threat from Afghanistan and Pakistan and its bearing on US interests, as well as reflected on lessons from efforts to mitigate terrorism risks over the past 20 years. Members then examined what the components of a well-defined and sustainable counterterrorism strategy for the region could be to effectively mitigate existing threats, especially those directed against the US homeland and its allies and partners.

The study group came to the following two major conclusions on the stakes and direction of the terrorist threat and identified options for a new strategy in light of the group’s findings.

1. Rather than considering counterterrorism as an unwelcome distraction from strategic competition, policymakers could recalibrate their focus on counterterrorism to mitigate threats and shield the strategic competition agenda.

Some policymakers perceive counterterrorism efforts, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as a distraction from the intensifying strategic competition with China and Russia. However, terrorist groups in Afghanistan, and to a lesser extent in Pakistan, still harbor intentions and possess growing capabilities to target the United States and its interests. If terrorists succeeded in making those intentions a reality, it would not only result in the tragic loss of lives but also have significant adverse effects on America’s strategic competition agenda.

For one, a mass-casualty attack would exert significant pressure on policymakers to respond assertively, which would divert resources, leadership attention, and political capital from the current focus on strategic competition. The American public still expects the US government to take necessary measures to prevent terrorist attacks against Americans both at home and abroad.

Terrorist attacks against the United States and its allies and partners, particularly attacks originating from Afghanistan and Pakistan, would also undermine America’s alliances. Amid the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal, Washington assured allies and partners that the United States would retain the capability to mitigate terrorist threats from Afghanistan following the military pullout. Failure to prevent attacks against the US homeland, regional interests, and allies and major partners would tarnish America’s credibility and reputation.

Additionally, terrorist attacks from Afghanistan and Pakistan against a critical partner such as India could spark dangerous regional crises. A major attack in an Indian city by a terrorist group, for example, could trigger an India-Pakistan military standoff with the risk of escalating to a nuclear exchange. Such a crisis would also significantly distract India from focusing on the challenge presented by China.

Given these stakes, the United States could consider recalibrating the focus on counterterrorism to safeguard the strategic competition agenda. Preventive investment in counterterrorism will enable a sustained focus on strategic competition.

2. Terrorist threats to US interests from Afghanistan and Pakistan are steadily rising—and Afghanistan presents growing opportunities for terrorist groups compared to the period before the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Terrorist groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan are persistent, and some are gaining strength in ways that threaten US and allied interests as well as regional security. The post-US withdrawal environment in Afghanistan offers terrorist groups a range of new opportunities for regrouping, plotting, and collaborating with one another. These groups are positioned to tap into the vast pool of trained militant personnel in Afghanistan and to some extent in Pakistan. The groups also benefit from the reduced US monitoring and targeting capabilities in the two countries.

ISIS-K presents a rising threat with reach beyond the immediate region, greater than during the pre-withdrawal period. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorist group has also returned as a regional security threat. While the worst-case scenario concerning al-Qaeda’s reconstitution in Afghanistan has not materialized, that group and its South Asia affiliate continue to maintain ties with and receive support from the Taliban and to call for attacks against US citizens, allies, and partners (including India) and US interests.

The Taliban continue to support terrorist groups in Afghanistan. Despite commitments to the United States and regional countries to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a terrorist haven, the Taliban’s decision to host al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul and their continued provision of sanctuary and material support to terrorist groups such as the TTP suggest that the Taliban are unlikely to distance themselves in meaningful ways from their allied terrorists. The Taliban target ISIS-K and have substantially reduced the group’s violence in the country, yet in the past two years, ISIS-K has plotted attacks against regional actors and US interests, which is particularly concerning. It is not clear if the Taliban’s crackdown can alter ISIS-K’s external attack ambitions and sufficiently weaken its capabilities. The Taliban’s educational policies, such as the expansion of madrassas in the country and a revised curriculum promoting extremist ideologies, also present a counterterrorism challenge.

Terrorist groups are also attempting to destabilize Pakistan. The TTP—a group that has killed Americans and plotted attacks against the US homeland—is imposing significant losses in Pakistan from its sanctuary in Afghanistan; and, going forward, it may become a bigger threat for Pakistan and the region. At the same time, Pakistan historically has maintained relationships with anti-India terrorist groups, although it has restrained them in recent years. As India-Pakistan tensions remain high, violence by such groups against India could trigger Indian military action against Pakistan and, in turn, risk a regional war between two nuclear-armed states.

Revitalizing the US Counterterrorism Strategy: Main Policy Options

The United States can implement a new counterterrorism strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan to address the rising terrorism threats from the region. This would not require the expansive counterterrorism posture of the past or a dilution of policymaker focus on strategic competition. The study group believes that it is possible to embed a counterterrorism approach with limited aims in the current strategic competition framework.

The group proposes the aims of deterring and, when necessary, disrupting terrorist threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan that target the United States and its interests overseas as well as its allies and major partners. The study group also proposes that Washington improve its preparedness to respond judiciously to a major terrorist attack; such preparation would help minimize the diversion of resources, leadership attention, and political capital from the focus on strategic competition. These priorities would create a sustainable end state for managing the terrorist threats from the region, in contrast to broad objectives of the past, such as the defeat and large-scale degradation of terrorist groups.

The study group’s main options for policymakers to consider include the following:

Continue to publicly pressure the Taliban to mitigate terrorist threats while maintaining communication channels for counterterrorism exchanges rather than adopting a cooperative approach with open-ended incentives or a pressure campaign that isolates the Taliban entirely.

Key steps to consider:

  • Developing a public reporting mechanism to document and disseminate the Taliban’s compliance with the counterterrorism terms outlined in the 2020 Doha agreement between the United States and the Taliban.
  • Holding a meeting of regional countries to codify the Taliban’s counterterrorism commitments to each country.
  • Adding to the federal terrorism watch list, before sanctioning (under US Executive Order 13324), Taliban leaders and personnel assisting terrorists in the country.
  • Building up dedicated diplomatic and intelligence counterterrorism channels with the Taliban to convey concerns and explore the possibility of exchanges on shared threats.

Improve military and intelligence postures to deter and disrupt terrorism threats against the United States and its interests, including those that the Taliban are unwilling or unable to contain in Afghanistan.

Key steps to consider: 

  • Making policies on military action against terrorist threats in Afghanistan—policies tightened by the Biden administration through a 2022 presidential policy memorandum that governs direct action counterterrorism operations outside areas of active hostilities—less restrictive, but not to the level of a conventional war zone or the level that was available to military commanders before the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
  • Increasing military and intelligence resources dedicated to counterterrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but still keeping them well below the pre-withdrawal level.
    • Increasing the overseas operations and security cooperation resources of US Central Command (CENTCOM) by providing additional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft, as well as long-endurance alternate airborne ISR capabilities; and increasing counterterrorism-specific analytical capabilities consisting of analysts, linguists, and screeners and offensive cyber capabilities for over-the-horizon operations.
    • Maintaining intelligence collection on Afghanistan and Pakistan at an appropriate priority level as part of the National Intelligence Priorities Framework and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s reporting about critical intentions and warnings on threats and operations.
    • Expanding the US Department of State’s Rewards for Justice program for Afghanistan and Pakistan by increasing the reward money for those currently listed as well as adding ISIS-K and al-Qaeda operatives currently not covered to generate leads.

Through appropriate legal authorities, leverage an enhanced military and intelligence posture to target terrorist groups while accounting for the risk of retaliatory actions and minimizing civilian harm.

Key steps to consider:

  • Targeting with lethal action in Afghanistan those groups that are planning or involved in plots against the US homeland and interests.
  • Employing shows of force through drones against Taliban leaders and personnel assisting terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda.
  • Carrying out cyber intrusions to disrupt al-Qaeda’s and ISIS-K’s propaganda and communications.
  • After targeting a Taliban-allied terrorist leader, considering declassifying intelligence—insofar as it is practical—on the presence and identity of targeted terrorists to make the case that US actions were justified; this, in turn, could exert pressure on the Taliban to distance from terrorist groups and reduce the risk of retaliation.
  • To minimize the risk of civilian harm, controlling the targeting tempo of military operations, keeping it in line with available intelligence resources; to detect civilians in the targeting process and check confirmation bias, the US Department of Defense could create well-resourced “Civilian Harm Red Teams,” or groups of analysts that question assumptions and interpretations of information with an eye toward protecting against civilian harm.
  • Making what qualifies as legal authorities for counterterrorism operations more transparent by clarifying the executive branch’s interpretation of the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force in Response to the 9/11 Attacks and Article II of the Constitution as they apply to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Improve the counterterrorism relationship with Pakistan while taking diplomatic steps to prevent a terrorism-triggered crisis in South Asia.

Key steps to consider:

  • Offering counterterrorism-specific security assistance and intelligence to Pakistan to (1) reduce the TTP’s threat as well as to obtain Pakistani assistance on top US counterterrorism concerns, (2) secure long-term airspace access for operations in Afghanistan, and (3) leverage reliable access in Pakistan in the event of a terrorist attack contingency. Such assistance should be calibrated to reduce the likelihood that Pakistan would find the assistance useful in attacking India.
  • Communicating to Pakistani leaders that if terrorists based in or backed by Pakistan carry out attacks in India, there will be serious negative repercussions for bilateral ties.
  • Offering assistance to promote peaceful coexistence among at-risk youth; to improve social cohesion by expanding the acceptance of religious, social, and political diversity; and to deradicalize underage children.

Prepare contingency plans for handling terrorist attacks in the homeland and overseas against major allies and partners such as India.

Key steps to consider:

  • Improving intelligence collection and analysis capabilities through the National Intelligence Priorities Framework for reliably attributing responsibility for terrorist attacks from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
  • Providing stepped-up travel warnings to Americans exposed to threats while traveling and living in the region.
  • Improving US leverage in Central Asia and Pakistan through assistance programs with the aim of securing emergency basing and access options for military operations.
  • Enhancing the Indian government’s confidence in the US government’s process for attributing responsibility for terrorist attacks through intelligence, investigatory exchanges, and crisis war games; and preparing US policymakers for terrorism-triggered crisis management in South Asia through regular tabletop exercises.

By implementing these measures, policymakers could better safeguard US interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan, while preserving the overall focus on strategic competition.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s).

PUBLICATION TYPE: Report

Senior Study Group on Counterterrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan report cover
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Senior Study Group on Counterterrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan: Final Report
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After the Deluge: Personal accounts of rain and floods in Zurmat district

May 13, 2024

Sayed Asadullah Sadat

Afghanistan Analysts Network

 

The rain and snow that has fallen in recent weeks has eased the hearts of Afghan farmers and given them hope that the multi-year drought has finally ended. At the same time, heavy rain falling on dry, parched land has caused flooding in many areas of Afghanistan. Hundreds of people have been killed in recent weeks, homes and businesses have been destroyed and farmland inundated with floodwater and mud. In March, we spoke to farmers in different districts about their hopes for better weather this year. For this report, Sayed Asadullah Sadat has returned to one district, Zurmat in Paktia province, to hear how the longed-for rain has brought devastating flooding.

Our next publication will be a major report by guest author Mohammad Assem Mayar: ‘Before the Deluge: How to mitigate the risk of flooding in Afghanistan’. Floods cause almost a quarter of all casualties stemming from natural disasters in the country, and worse is set to come, with climate change predicted to bring heavier spring rains and more severe monsoons. Mayar will look at the causes of floods, how they vary across Afghanistan and what can be done to protect people, buildings and farmland both now and in the longer term. Here though, we hear some personal stories.

When we interviewed farmers across the country just before Nawruz, we encountered great relief that the three-year drought had finally ended and hopes for the year ahead. Winter had begun with two desperately dry months. Then, it had rained. Our interviewee from Zurmat said that, finally, the karez[1] in his village was flowing with water again. “Agriculture,” he said, “is renewed. People are busy sowing crops, wheat, some are even planting trees. Everyone’s busy and happy. A few days ago, I was able to sow barley. The earth is soft and moist and the barley should grow very welI.” How different is the situation just a few weeks later when we returned to the district.

When the skies open

“I haven’t seen such rain in the past 20 years,” said Jamaluddin, a farmer in Kulalgo village in Zurmat. “Since just after Eid, it’s rained continuously.” Another slightly older farmer, Sultan Shah from Sar-e Char village, said he last saw “rain like this” 30 years ago. It rained continuously after Eid (which fell on 12 April), but then it stopped raining. If a cloud passed over the mountains, people became anxious, fearing the consequences could be disastrous if more rain fell. More rain did fall and flooding finally hit Zurmat overnight on 14/15 April.

People who live in Zurmat know that water levels rise quickly and can lead to erratic flash floods that sweep through the landscape, destroying homes, devastating agricultural fields, killing livestock and often taking lives. So when it starts raining heavily, as it did in April, they spring into action to avert the worst of the damage. They grab their shovels, pick axes and whatever tools they have and start digging trenches around their properties to try to ensure their families and homes stay safe and dry. They place sandbags around their houses and rocks to act as barriers and stem the force of the water. Then they wait, hoping the capricious waters spare their villages – not only their houses but also the fields that sustain them. They stay up all night and keep vigil so that they are not caught by surprise if the floods do come.

The district, located 35 kilometres southwest of Gardez city and bordering Paktika, Logar and Ghazni provinces, is largely flat and most residents are engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry. The waters of several rivers pass through Zurmat – from Kotal-e Tirah and the mountains around Gardez city on to Band-e Sardeh, a lake in the eastern part of Andar district in Ghazni province. But after three years of drought, dry riverbeds have been compromised through neglect or human activity, meaning there were insufficient clear channels for the water to flow through easily when the seasonal rivers came back to life.

Farmers in Zurmat are now dealing with the after-effects of flooding. The recent floods have destroyed dozens of homes in multiple villages, along with shops, roads and bridges. Most of the agricultural land, gardens and karezes were damaged. Hundreds of jeribs of land where wheat had been sown were left inundated: standing water weakens the wheat, ruining yields. Even worse, the floods deposited a thick layer of mud and stones onto some fields. Villagers who had planted rain-fed wheat in March lost this year’s crop and will have to cut their losses and look to other crops, tomato, onion and potato, which they can plant later in the season after the floods have receded and their fields are no longer waterlogged.

For farmers, who rely on the land for their livelihoods, recovering from floods is costly, time-consuming and labour-intensive. After the water recedes, they will have to manually clear the debris from their fields and hire tractors, which cost 3,000 afghanis (USD 42) per hour, to help clear the worst of the debris. They will have to dip into their savings, if they have any, borrow money from neighbours or ask family members living abroad to send funds to help get the fields ready for planting. In Afghanistan’s tight-knit rural communities, neighbour helps neighbour, and a farmer can always count on help to clear his land, but those who lack the financial wherewithal to rent heavy equipment are unlikely to clear their fields in time to have any sort of harvest this year. They will have to wait until next year.

One farmer, Sultan Shah from Sar-e Char village, described the destruction of his crops, especially wheat, when the river flooded the fields – although he was facing more immediate problems when the author spoke to him just after the flooding:

In the last two or three days, it’s become difficult to leave the house at all. The water has surrounded us and everyone is stuck at home, afraid to leave. We’re so scared. We stay awake and guard the house at night because we think if the water gets into our home, it’ll be damaged. We walk around the house with shovels and pickaxes so that if water threatens the house, we can make a barrier against it. All the small roads which connect our village to neighbouring villages were destroyed. Someone from our tribe living in another village died, but we couldn’t get to his funeral because the roads were all destroyed and it was raining heavily. Water was everywhere.

The recent flood destroyed the main road that goes from Zurmat to the provincial capital Gardez and in the Zaw area, it had damaged a large bridge. People waited for hours for the floodwaters to subside so that they could get to Gardez – or get home from Gardez. People trying to get sick relatives urgently to the hospital there were especially distressed by the sheer impossibility of travel.

A mixed blessing

Despite the flooding, most people were left in two minds about the rain. It is true that it caused flash floods that destroyed their crops and damaged homes and infrastructure, but it has also ended the devastating three-year drought. Jamaluddin, with around 30 jeribs (6 hectares) of land, mostly rain-fed and left uncultivated for several years, conveyed this attitude.

When it snowed and rained in the final part of winter, I sowed [wheat] on eight jeribs [1.6 hectares] of my rain-fed land. I said to myself: Inshallah, rain will water my land this year. But the flood came and my land was damaged. The floodwaters brought mud and stones onto my land. I can’t use it now. I was so upset. I’d expended a great deal of effort on the land. But … now, I’m generally happy because the drought is over.

The drought had hit him hard. Last year, he grew onions, which need a lot of water. However, the harvest failed for lack of rain, leaving him with a huge loss. He said the karezes in their area had been dry for several years and of his two solar-powered tube wells, one dried up last year and the water level in the second dropped so much there was not enough to water the fields. Even the well inside the house had dried up. “You know,” he said, “for a farmer, his land is everything and when there’s no water, the land is useless.” However, following the rain, all his wells had enough water. People reckoned the level has risen by three metres.

He worried that, although water from the recent rain had seeped into the ground and fed the underground aquifers, repeated droughts mean the water may not have penetrated the ground as well as it should have done and the rain that has fallen may not yet be sufficient to replenish the aquifers.

Meanwhile, another farmer in Kulago village, Mir Afghan, surveying the damage from the floods and worried that worse might be to come:

Roads, canals and karezes that irrigated agricultural lands have been destroyed. Farmers will face many problems this year because repairing these roads and canals costs a lot. Even in some areas, the floods have damaged the retaining walls, which were built during the Republic by NGOs at huge expense. This really worried people: they were built to protect our homes and villages, but now they’ve been damaged. The village is in danger.

Mir Afghan said the floods had destroyed some farms and caused a lot of financial loss, but overall, the damage was less than in some other provinces and it was also far less than when heavy rain comes in the summer: “In the months of Jawza and Asad [third week of June to third week of August], rain is very dangerous because the soil doesn’t absorb it during those months. If it rains a little, it turns into a flood that flows everywhere and can be very dangerous.”

Hoping for rain, planning for floods

Meanwhile, as local communities survey the damage done by the most recent floods, they balance relief that the drought has ended against the fears that more rain later in the summer could devastate their lives. They gather in mosques to discuss how to mitigate the worst of it. They pool their resources to rebuild fallen retaining walls and rehabilitate canals.

With one eye on the sky and another on their fields, they get on with the business of clearing their land and sowing seeds, hoping, always, that the harvests will be plentiful, and that their homes, fields and families will be spared more flooding.

Edited by Kate Clark and Roxanna Shapour

[1] Karezes are used in much of Afghanistan to bring irrigation water to cropland. A series of well-like vertical shafts, connected by sloping tunnels, tap into subterranean water to efficiently deliver large quantities of water to the surface by gravity, without need for pumping. More on this UNESCO website on how karezes “allow water to be transported over long distances in hot dry climates without loss of much of the water to evaporation.”

[2] For up-to-date reports on the floods nationwide, see reports from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), for example here from 17 April.

 

After the Deluge: Personal accounts of rain and floods in Zurmat district
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Why Counterterrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan Still Matters

May 9, 2024

BY: Ambassador Anne Patterson; Tricia Bacon, Ph.D.; Ambassador Michael P. McKinley; Joshua White, Ph.D.; Brian Finucane, Ph.D.

Afghanistan Analysts Network

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Washington should focus more attention and counterterrorism effort on Central and South Asia before it’s too late, says USIP senior study group.

From wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to rising tensions in the South China Sea, there is no shortage of crises to occupy the time and attention of U.S. policymakers. But three years after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the threat of terrorism emanating from South Asia remains strong and policymakers need to be more vigilant. Indeed, at the end of March, an Afghanistan-based affiliate of ISIS launched a devastating attack outside of Moscow, killing over 140 people.
In a new report slated for release on May 14, a USIP bipartisan Senior Study Group says that Washington needs to be prepared for a rising terrorist threat in the region and, crucially, the threat this poses to the U.S. homeland. The Senior Study Group on Counterterrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan report evaluates ongoing terrorism threats from Afghanistan and Pakistan and assess options for a sustainable counterterrorism policy. Its findings identify dominant terrorist threats, stakes of the threats for U.S. interests, and policy options for the United States.Study group members Ambassador Anne Patterson, Dr. Tricia Bacon, Ambassador Michael P. McKinley, Dr. Joshua White and Dr. Brian Finucane reflect on the key findings and insights of the report.

Why is it important for policymakers to consider the insights and policy options identified in this report?

Patterson: I am one of many Americans who was deeply involved in the war on terror which saved many lives. But many of us also wonder that if due to the two-decade long focus on the war on terror, we forever lost the opportunity to successfully counter China. Unfortunately, our policy adjustment to this sentiment has overcompensated, resulting in dramatically reduced attention to counterterrorism in South Asia. Americans want to see Afghanistan and Pakistan in the rearview mirror. Even though American intelligence was able to give the Russians a stunningly precise warning about the recent ISIS-K attack in Moscow, our knowledge of threats from Afghanistan has and will continue to erode over time.

This report argues that more attention and counterterrorism effort should be focused on South Asia. It argues that stepped up, counterterrorism-focused regional cooperation can give us insights we don’t have and pressure the Taliban into curtailing space for terrorists. It argues that the India-Pakistan relationship and the China-India rivalry have complicated the counterterrorism picture in the region, increasing the potential for wider conflict triggered by terrorist violence. And it argues, alarmingly, that the U.S. is fundamentally unprepared for a terrorist resurgence in the region, including threats against the U.S. homeland. We must recalibrate our counterterrorism approach to better protect American lives and U.S. interests, prevent distractions by provocations, and shield our vital strategic competition priorities.

What are the key terrorist threats and trends in the region identified by the study group, and why is it important for policymakers to take stock of them?

Bacon: The study group identified the key terrorist threat in the region as the Afghanistan-based affiliate of the Islamic State, ISIS Khorasan (ISIS-K). Unfortunately, that threat did indeed come to fruition with the Moscow attack as the study group completed its assessment. Policymakers must take stock of the ISIS-K threat above all because the group has ambitions to directly strike the United States. ISIS-K is opportunistic and will look for ways to strike that do not require building extensive capability. Moreover, it is highly indiscriminate and thus willing to attack soft targets that even most fellow Sunni jihadist groups eschew.

Beyond the direct threat to the United States, ISIS-K’s attacks stoke regional tensions, breed mistrust between governments and distract allies from strategic competition. Concerningly, the threat from ISIS-K shows no signs of diminishing. Counterterrorism cooperation against the group has been hampered by international rivalries and mistrust. And though the Taliban has incentives to counter ISIS-K, its ability to conduct multiple attacks outside of Afghanistan demonstrates that the Taliban is either unable or unwilling to fulfill its pledge in the U.S.-Taliban Doha agreement to prevent terrorism emanating from Afghanistan.

At the same time, long-standing threats in the region persist and, in some cases, have worsened. Al-Qaida and al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent are seeking to exploit the war in Gaza to rebuild their safe haven under Taliban rule. In addition, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been emboldened by the Taliban’s victory. It is using its sanctuary in Afghanistan to pose a growing threat to Pakistan at a time when the country is grappling with political and economic instability. Finally, though the Pakistani security establishment has restrained anti-India militant groups in recent years, a terrorist attack in India with links back to Pakistan still has the potential to ignite a conflict between the two nuclear-armed states.

What is the study group’s assessment on the Taliban’s role in fostering and curtailing terrorist threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan and beyond, and the counterterrorism challenge presented by Taliban rule in Afghanistan?

McKinley: The debate since the fall of Kabul in August 2021 is whether Afghanistan could be a base for new attacks on the United States at home and abroad. What the study drives home is that the terrorist groupings supported by the Taliban in South and Central Asia can challenge broader U.S. foreign policy objectives. It acknowledges the primacy and importance of responding to greater international challenges like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the conflict in Israel and Gaza, and the emergence of China but underscores that the United States can and should do more to monitor and, where feasible, counter the Taliban’s support for regional terrorism.

The report offers practical suggestions on strengthening the United States’ counter-terrorism capabilities, keeping in mind the resource constraints and challenges of working on a threat emanating from a country where we no longer have a presence. The recommendations are also timely: recent developments in the Middle East and elsewhere make crystal clear that extreme terrorist attacks can surprise even the best prepared of governments.

What kind of counterterrorism relationship with Pakistan does the study group propose, and why might such a relationship be more effective at mitigating regional terror threats?

White: It is undeniable that the United States’ attention on Pakistan has waned since the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in 2021. That is understandable given the pressing global imperatives that have resulted from China’s dramatic rise. This study group therefore sensibly proposes a set of modest recommendations for U.S. policy toward Pakistan, designed to ensure that the counterterrorism relationship — however fraught it might be — can be sustained as a way of hedging against the very real risk of heightened terrorist activity in the region focused on the United States and its partners. Part of this involves recognizing that there can be some measure of reciprocity in the counterterrorism relationship, as Pakistan struggles to deal with the violent anti-state TTP and, to a lesser extent, ISIS-K.

What are some of the policy safeguards and legal provisions proposed by the study group to make the counterterrorism approach toward the region sustainable and lawful?

Finucane: Despite recent regional attacks attributed to or claimed by ISIS, the prospects for renewed U.S. counterterrorism direct action (capture or lethal targeting) in either Afghanistan or Pakistan appear slim. If the Biden administration foresees a continued need for the use of military force for counterterrorism in this region, or more generally, the study group recommends it should work to clarify the scope of the use of Authorization for the Use of Military Force (2001 AUMF) to improve political accountability of U.S. military operations. This can be done by reforming the 2001 AUMF, which is out-of-date.

The administration should work with Congress to update and better specify groups and the locations of operations, as well as introduce a sunset provision to the 2001 AUMF. Another option, which is not mutually exclusive, is to share publicly the executive branch’s interpretation of the scope of authority under both the 2001 AUMF and Article II of the Constitution for counterterrorism direct action. In addition, should the United States resume direct action in Afghanistan or Pakistan, it should incorporate lessons learned on avoiding and minimizing civilian casualties, particularly since the tragic August 2021 strike in Kabul. The study group, for example, honed in on the importance of checking confirmation bias and interrogating assumptions on identities amid military operation.

Why Counterterrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan Still Matters
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