Echoing America’s failure in Vietnam, a new inspector general report found the U.S. built an Afghan army dependent on outside support.
WHEN THE AFGHAN military and government collapsed in the summer of 2021, it was the worst failure of the U.S. defense establishment since the fall of Saigon. The U.S. today has moved on — providing the Ukrainian military with weapons and tactical support in its fight against Russia — but the question of why the world’s most powerful nation failed to build a capable Afghan military has not yet been fully answered.
A new report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, issued this week sheds critical light on what went so terribly wrong in America’s longest war — and how tens of thousands of ordinary Afghans were set up by their leaders and foreign partners to fight and die for a doomed cause.
“The real damning thing about what is in the report is that people had been telling the U.S. military this for years.”
The SIGAR report, “Why the Afghan Security Forces Collapsed,” paints a picture of the U.S. government’s effort to construct an Afghan military from scratch over two decades. As in many other U.S. conflicts, this enterprise relied heavily on contractors and advisers who themselves were “poorly trained and experienced for their mission,” according to the report. Among other tasks, contractors would often run logistics systems and direct airstrikes on the Afghans’ behalf.
The American mission in Afghanistan had been to build an army that could stand on its own feet to resist the Taliban. In the end, however, the Afghan military was not only riddled with corruption, but also designed to function properly only so long as the foreign contractors and soldiers remained around to manage it.
In effect, similar to its disastrous experience in South Vietnam, the United States had attempted to build an army suitable for a modern, industrialized country like itself, rather than one that would fit the realities of a poor and agrarian state.
“The types of security forces that we were trying to build, which were relatively sophisticated and relied on advanced technology and electronics logistics systems, were just not within the general capacity of what Afghanistan would be able to use in sustainable ways,” said Jonathan Schroden, an Afghanistan expert at the Center for Naval Analyses, a nonprofit military research and analysis center in Virginia. “The real damning thing about what is in the report is that people had been telling the U.S. military this for years.”
Afghans were not blameless in this debacle. Ethnic and political divisions within the government resulted in competent commanders being shuffled out of roles in favor of individuals connected to Kabul-based powerbrokers. Corruption at elite levels was endemic. The notorious issue of “ghost soldiers,” conscripts who existed only as budget-line items but not as flesh-and-blood service members in the field, continued to dog the Afghan military to its last days.
Yet the oft-repeated claim that the Afghan military itself did not fight the Taliban proved untrue. Tens of thousands of Afghans died fighting the Taliban, continuing the war until the fight became futile.
THE SIGAR REPORT outlined another reason for U.S. failure in Afghanistan that will be relevant to any future foreign conflicts or nation-building enterprises that the U.S. embarks upon: The war went on too long.
The report says that “the length of the U.S. commitment was disconnected from a realistic understanding of the time required to build a self-sustaining security sector.” For a period lasting more than a decade up until the final withdrawal, U.S. political leaders — recognizing how unpopular the war was at home, as casualties mounted and little battlefield progress was made — began drawing up timelines for when they would head for the exits.
What’s more, Schroden, the Center for Naval Analyses expert, pointed to the issue, highlighted in the SIGAR report, of U.S. government personnel and contractors rotating in and out of the country on short stints, leading them to repeat the same mistakes as their predecessors every few years. Despite the length, then, the U.S. continued its long commitment, without any realistic prospect of success on the horizon.
The half-in, half-out approach to the war was inconducive to a lasting victory over the Taliban. It pushed neighboring countries like Pakistan and Iran to hedge their bets and bide their time. And, most importantly, the short timeframes involved made it almost certain that the Afghan security forces would not have time to develop the solid institutional structure they would need to survive indefinitely, even if their training had been effective.
Given the fundamentally flawed approach that the U.S. had taken to building up the Afghan military, spending another two decades occupying Afghanistan and then withdrawing on the same terms would have been unlikely to lead to a very different outcome.
As tragically as the war ended for many Afghans, including tens of thousands who were sent to fight and die in a military that was unequipped for the task of securing the country, the withdrawal agreement negotiated in Qatar by the U.S. and the Taliban in 2020 did finally put an end to an endeavor that had already been failing for many years.
“The Taliban and D.C. ultimately wanted the same thing, which was for U.S. troops to leave,” said Adam Weinstein, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and former U.S. Marine in Afghanistan. “The conditions of the final agreement were not as important as leaving the country as soon as possible.”
Winters in Kabul are always difficult, and this year was no exception – with temperatures dropping well below zero and heavy snowfall. The snow turns the unpaved secondary roads where most Kabulis live into rivers of mud, making it difficult for people to get around. But if there’s little snow – increasingly the case because of global warming – water will be scarce in the summer. This year, winter arrived early, leaving many Afghan families, already struggling with the fallout from Afghanistan’s economic collapse, ill-equipped to manage. The start of winter also marked weeks of power outages across the country and a skyrocketing of the cost of coal and wood, the fuels people use to heat their homes. In the latest instalment of The Daily Hustle, our series of individual accounts about one aspect of daily life in Afghanistan, we hear how one family is coping with winter in Kabul.
It’s still dark when we wake up, well before the morning call to prayer. My wife has gently tapped my shoulder to wake me. I listen to the children’s slow steady breathing and savour a last few minutes under the warm covers before I face the chill that has set in the room since the fire went out in the bukhari [heater] overnight. I can hear the rustling of my brothers. I usually have to wake them, but they’re already awake this morning.
I leave the room quietly, careful not to wake the children, and light a fire in the bukhari in the dahliz [large hallway]. We used to have an electric fire there, but electricity has been scarce in Kabul since the start of winter and we’ve had to put a small gas heater instead – we use it only for an hour or two in the mornings just to take the chill off the air when we first wake up. My wife often wheels it into the kitchen when she gets breakfast ready for the family.
The price of coal has soared this year. Last year, I paid 8,500 Afs [about 97 USD] per tonne, but this year the price had almost doubled, to 15,600 Afs [177 USD]. I go out to a wholesaler in Deh Sabz [just to the northeast of Kabul city], but even then, it was difficult even to find coal. I had to put my name on a waiting list. He called me a week later to say I could come and pick up the coal. We don’t usually get enough to last the whole winter. Especially if spring comes late, we buy extra coal late in the season. But everything is so expensive this year, I don’t think we could afford more coal, so we have to economise. I mix the coal with firewood to make it last.
Wood has also got more expensive, but not as much as coal. Since last year, it’s gone up from 7,000 Afs to 8,000 Afs [79 to 91 USD] per kharwar [equivalent to about 560 kg]. We used to have a sawdust bukhari in my brothers’ room, as well. Slow-burning sawdust is an efficient way to heat a room, but it’s costly and most people have stopped using it, so it’s not easy to find. So now, there’s a sandali [a rectangular wooden table covered with a large quilt that uses a coal or electric fire under the table as a heat source] there, with an electric fire under it when there’s electricity and hot water bottles there isn’t.
My father’s room is the largest in the house and we keep the bukhari going there 24 hours a day because he’s old and he shares it with my ailing aunt and younger sister. The family spends most of its time there, watching TV, playing games, talking and generally passing the time. My aunt’s already awake when I carry the children into the room before I leave for work. She’s reading the Quran by the dim light of a solar-powered light bulb. She looks up and greets me with a smile. I point to the corner of the room where we usually pray to let her know I’m about to bring her a bowl of warm water for her ablutions.
These days we have about eight hours of electricity a day, by turns; one day, it’ll be during the day, the next in the evening. At the start of winter, we began having days-long power cuts. If we were lucky, we’d get an hour or two in a day. Sometimes, it would come on in the middle of the night, which did us no good because we were sleeping. A couple of years ago, with help from a technically savvy colleague, I installed a small solar system in our house. It generates 20,000 Watts of DC power, enough to give us light throughout the house, but not sufficient for TV or other appliances. The 300 USD I paid for the two batteries and solar panels was a huge outlay and more than most Afghans could afford.
We’re among the lucky families in Kabul who can afford such things. Many families have to make do with whatever they can find to burn, use hot water bottles [if they can boil water] or just endure the cold, putting on layer upon layer of clothes to try and keep warm. We have neighbours too poor to afford any sort of heating. We help them the best we can. We’ve given them a line of electricity from our house to use when there’s power and we also give them boiling water so they can fill their hot water bottles to try to keep warm.
This morning, there’s no electricity, so my wife has put two pots of water on the stove, one for our family to use for ablutions and another that she’s already boiled for the neighbours, which she asks me to take round to them.
By the time I get home in the evening, it’s already dark. On the nights when there’s electricity in our neighbourhood, the streetlights cast a yellow glow on the snow, turning the mounds of snow piled up on either side of the road into gold. On those nights, everyone in the family is gathered in my father’s room watching TV. But when there’s no power, the streets are dark and ominous. Every alley, every turn in the road, every dark corner could be harbouring a thief standing in wait to rob you.
On the long winter nights when there’s no electricity, we while away the time chatting about the day that’s passed. My aunt is a gifted calligrapher and tutors my sister – who can’t go to school any more because of the Taleban’s ban on girls’ education – in penmanship. My brothers sell clothes on pushcarts in the Mandawi [Kabul’s central market] and tell me about their day, how many customers they’ve had and how much money they’ve made. On snowy days, when they can’t take their carts out to tout their wares, they stay home and help my wife with the heavy housework, plough the snow from our roof and clear the snow from the yard and the road outside our house. I watch after the children to give my wife some rest after a long day of housework. My three-year-old daughter is waiting patiently, but still fidgeting with expectant eyes, for the treat I’ve picked up for her on my way home, usually a small chocolate bar. One of my greatest joys is watching her jump up and down and squeal with pleasure when I finally reach into my pockets to fish out her daily present.
As I get dressed to go to the office, the smell of freshly baked bread wafts from the kitchen, but I have no time to eat breakfast at home this morning. On snowy days, I leave the house early and walk to work. I love to walk in the snow. I enjoy the fresh air, the rare respite from Kabul’s usual pollution, which forces us to cover our faces. I find the snowflakes dancing in the air and the delicate light coming off the carpet of snow romantic. But I know that snowfall is not romantic for the poor. For them, it’s a nightmare that will only end with the coming of spring and the hope that next year there will be enough money to heat their homes and electricity to light the long winter nights.
Edited by Roxanna Shapour
The Daily Hustle: How to survive a winter in Kabul
Kabul, Afghanistan – One morning in early October last year, 16-year-old cousins Marzia and Hajar Mohammadi were laid to rest next to one another in a remote graveyard on the outskirts of Kabul. Among the roses on the girls’ graves, their grieving family members placed a few of the teenagers’ favourite books – a tribute to their love of reading.
Marzia and Hajar were among the 53 students killed last September in an attack on a Kaj education centre in Dasht-e-Barchi, a predominantly Shia Muslim and Hazara ethnic minority neighbourhood. A suicide bomber detonated his explosives in a crowded classroom among students who had gathered for a practice university entrance exam. Most of the victims were young women.
While no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, the affiliate of the ISIL (ISIS) armed group in Afghanistan, the Islamic State of Khorasan Province, ISKP (ISIS-K), has targeted places where Hazaras worship, study and work. In April 2022, explosions targeted two educational institutes attended by students in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood, killing at least six people. The centre where Marzia and Hajar were killed had been attacked before – in 2018, in a blast that killed more than 40 students. ISKP claimed responsibility for that attack.
Since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, ISKP has claimed responsibility for 13 attacks against Hazaras and is linked to at least three others, in which at least 700 people have been killed or injured, according to Human Rights Watch.
A bucket list of dreams
A day after Marzia and Hajar’s funeral, their heartbroken uncle, 42-year-old Zaher Modaqeq, discovered a number of diaries and journals among the girls’ personal effects. Deeply moved by their writing, he shared some pages from Marzia’s diary on social media, including a bucket list of things she wanted to do in life.
“My Marzia and Hajar were such amazing girls, so different than others their age. I wish more people could have known their determination,” Zaher reflected. “They could have inspired many, I believe they still can.”
Although Hajar’s parents did not wish to share their daughter’s writing in public, Zaher says Marzia’s entries provide a glimpse into both their aspirations.
At the very top of their bucket list was meeting their favourite author, Turkish-British novelist Elif Shafak. Other unfilled dreams included visiting the Eiffel Tower in Paris and eating a pizza in Italy. On social media, Zaher posted Marzia’s entry about shopping for books after the Taliban takeover. And he shared how the girls’ siblings left books on Marzia and Hajar’s graves. The posts went viral on social media and touched a nerve in a country which continues to lose its young people to continuing violence.
After Marzia and Hajar’s funeral, their 22 siblings returned regularly to the quiet, dusty, hilltop cemetery. About a week later, they found several books – mostly in Persian, some in English, and all well-worn from years of reading – left behind by strangers.
The following week, there were about two dozen books – titles by Shafak, American author Rachel Hollis and Iraqi Yazidi human rights activist Nadia Murad.
“We always knew Marzia and Hajar really loved books,” explained 21-year-old Insiya, Hajar’s older sister and Marzia’s cousin. But after pages of Marzia’s diary were shared on social media others learned “how much they liked being surrounded by books, and people honoured them with these books”.
The orange outdoor library in a Kabul graveyard dedicated to Marzia and Hajar [Courtesy of the Mohammadi family]
Strangers’ books
Pages from Marzia’s diary, daily notes she wrote to herself in neat, legible handwriting in Farsi and occasionally in English, were shared by Zaher with Al Jazeera. More than half a dozen diaries – some battered notebooks, others leather-bound planners – filled with hundreds of entries, reveal a determined young woman who found strength in books amid the attacks on Hazaras, an historically persecuted group, and other Shia Muslim communities, and growing restrictions on women under the ruling Taliban.
Since the Taliban’s return to power, it has shut down girls’ secondary schools, affecting about three million students, restricted women from entering workplaces and imposed other curbs on freedom including requiring a close male relative to accompany any long-distance travel.
On August 23, 2021, about a week after the Taliban’s takeover, Marzia wrote, “Today I stepped out of the house for the first time since the arrival of the Taliban … I had a feeling of insecurity and dread.”
The teenager went to a bookshop and bought The Architect’s Apprentice by Shafak, the author Marzia and Hajar idolised. “Today I realised how much I love books,” she wrote. “I like seeing people’s joy when they see and read books.”
As Marzia and Hajar’s siblings came upon more books left behind by strangers they decided to create a small outdoor library.
One family member brought out an old cupboard that had fallen into disuse. They cleaned and painted it bright orange – the girls’ favourite colour.
Fatema Khairullahi, an Afghan graphic designer, made an illustration of the girls after they had died showing them with a pine tree – a symbol of strength and resilience – and shared it on social media. When the family decided to set up the library they contacted the artist who agreed to recreate the image as a mural in the centre of the cabinet.
In late October, the sturdy cabinet was brought to the graveyard and placed next to the cousins’ graves. The shelves hold about two dozen books, protected by glass doors which are left unlocked so the volumes can be easily accessed.
Marzia and Hajar lived in the same household with several families. Books were always stacked around the room they shared with their siblings.
“We made this library because we know how much they loved being surrounded by books,” explained Insiya, who sat with other relatives including Zaher, on toshaks, or traditional Afghan floor cushions, in the sparsely decorated family room of the extended family home.
“We feel this is making them very happy” as reading and being around books is what they wanted in their lives, she added, tearing up as she spoke. “Hajar had written in her diary, ‘I feel so good when I am reading. I feel like I am part of that story’.”
The cousins were best friends and were motivated to continue their education despite growing restrictions [Photo courtesy of the Mohammadi family]
Constantly learning
Marzia and Hajar were not just cousins – they were inseparable friends. They both dreamed of becoming architects and writers like the authors they admired.
“Most of us just read the books that we are supposed to read for our school, but Hajar and Marzia were different. They would read lots of different books, constantly seeking more knowledge,” Insiya recalled with a sad smile. “They wanted to learn more than what we learned at school.”
Both loved fiction, said their 28-year-old aunt Nooria, Zaher’s sister, who sat with Insiya and wore a light pink dress and a loosely wrapped maroon headscarf. “But they were also fond of motivational books. I think one of the reasons they still had hope [after the Taliban shut down girls’ high schools shortly after returning to power] is probably because of the kind of books they read — books that encouraged them to be stronger women, to aim higher and work for their goals,” she explained.
“I am confident these books made them stronger even in times of adversity and restrictions. It taught them to not give up and continue fighting for their goals,” added Nooria, a medical student, and the first woman in the family to graduate from university.
“When the girls in our family learned that some of them would no longer get to go to school, they were all very upset,” recalled Zaher, a tall man dressed in a simple shalwar kameez.
He and Nooria gathered them one evening soon after the Taliban takeover. “I brought them a cake and had a long conversation with them about how they must not give up. I told them they need to be stronger, they have to be different,” he said.
“When I read their diary entries from those days, I saw how motivated they were to rise up despite the new restrictions and challenges. They wanted to continue their education and had hoped to take control of their future,” Nooria added.
‘No excuses’
While they were alive, the cousins hoped to attend university. With their high school graduation delayed due to the closures, Marzia and Hajar were determined to press on and start preparing for the university entrance exam, which at the time they could sit for.
In February last year, Marzia wrote, “I have to try harder than yesterday and last week. … I have to make a decision to change my future and my life. The only way to succeed in an emergency situation like this is to study.”
She wrote about passing the university entrance exam as being the “first step” to securing a scholarship abroad so she could leave Afghanistan.
“I have to believe in myself and God will help me.
Time 12:30 midnight
God!! Me and Hajar, next year this time on Feb 4, we shouldn’t be in Afghanistan.”
In an undated entry, she writes about needing to continue her studies “with or without electricity”.
In their first mock university entrance exam, Marzia and Hajar scored 50 and 51 percent respectively. Marzia was disappointed. She would aim for 60 in the next test. “Bravo Marzia!” she wrote after she got 61.
Zaher shared how her scores improved until she got 82 percent, a result she wanted to maintain. “But then…” he said, his voice trailing off.
“Marzia and Hajar turned to their education and books for solutions when the situation got worse. Even when it felt like there was no hope of university, and some people were saying girls might not even be allowed to sit for the entrance exams, they still continued to study, read and learn on their own,” said Marzia’s older sister, 23-year-old Parwana. “They inspired us.”
But not everything they read helped. With the uncertainty in Afghanistan, 50 pages into the account of Yazidi activist Nadia Murad about surviving capture and enslavement by ISIL, Marzia remarked in her diary that she did not have the “patience for it” and put the book away before later completing it.
In late 2022, just a few months after they were killed, the Taliban banned women from university. In January, the Taliban ordered private universities to not allow female students to sit for upcoming entrance exams.
‘A lot of pain’
Even before the Taliban restrictions, it was not easy for the women in Marzia and Hajar’s family to access education. “We had to struggle for it,” Nooria said.
“Our parents are illiterate and they didn’t understand the importance of equality; the boys were valued more than the girls,” explained Insiya, sharing how she and Hajar’s eldest sister stopped going to school after her marriage as a teenager. “But since then we have been fighting these traditions and gradually changing perspectives of the elders in the family towards educating girls,” she continued, referring to the many conversations that Zaher and others had to convince older relatives to allow women in the family to study.
“We live in a society where such change is hard, but Marzia and Hajar’s parents really came around to the idea and had been fully supporting their daughters’ education,” said Nooria.
Today, their parents and the rest of the family are still grappling with their loss.
“There is a lot of pain,” Parwana said, pausing briefly to hold back her tears. She took a deep breath and continued. “But building this space, this small room for them, has given us the opportunity to channel our hurt in a way that would make Marzia and Hajar proud.”
Zaher chokes back tears while speaking about his nieces, repeating how “unique” they were.
When the Taliban retook power in 2021 there was a mass exodus of Afghans, particularly those at risk of persecution.
Zaher said the family chose to stay to play their part in shaping a brighter future and peaceful society in Afghanistan.
“This is why we stayed, so we and our children like Marzia and Hajar, could be catalysts for change,” he said.
Now he only hopes that the memory of his nieces can inspire some positive change when it comes to girls’ education.
A metal cupboard, with a picture of Marzia and Hajar, serves as a second library established in honour of the cousins. The inscription at the top reads: ‘Hajar and Marzia had dreamed of becoming architects. Girls, you should follow their dreams’ [Photo courtesy of the Mohammadi family]
Inspiring new readers
The graveyard library on the city outskirts is not easy to access – it can only be reached by car – and as such, has not received many visitors. The library’s collection is slowly growing.
“But the reaction to it has been overwhelming, because many people are now talking about the importance of reading and education, the values that Marzia and Hajar strongly believed in,” Insiya reflected. She recalled how an older neighbour visited the graveyard and returned with one of the motivational books from the library.
“She came to our house later saying that she was inspired and wanted to read and learn more.”
In February, the family set up another small cupboard library with about 30 donated books – mostly novels including Marzia and Hajar’s favourite titles – in a primary school in their village in Ghazni province.
The family hopes to eventually set up larger libraries in memory of the cousins in Kabul and other Afghan cities. “It was Marzia and Hajar’s vision for all Afghan girls to be able to continue their learning, even if they can’t go to school,” said Nooria. “For now, this library is a symbol of that message.”
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
‘Books they love’: A Kabul graveyard library for two schoolgirls
The Islamic Emirate’s Spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, called aid by the international community a right of the people of Afghanistan.
Josep Borrell Fontelles, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said that they “cannot abandon the Afghan women to be punished twice,” both by the decision of the Afghan government and with cutting of aid by the EU.
Borrell made the remarks at a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly’s meeting in support of the Afghan women.
“We cannot abandon the Afghan women to be punished twice. First by the Afghan government decision and second by us cutting development support,” he said.
The Islamic Emirate’s Spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, called aid by the international community a right of the people of Afghanistan.
“The international aid which is based on humanitarian purposes, should not be linked to the political issues. It should not be halted. The Afghan nation as a war-affected country, has the right to receive aid. On the other hand, some of the political issues are not only within the Islamic Emirate, but the policies of the international community are also not positive,” he said.
The political analysts said that the continuation of aid will benefit the people of Afghanistan but called on the caretaker government to show flexibility in engagement with the international community.
“The Islamic Emirate should not hide the current situation from the people of Afghanistan and it should not blame others for it,” said Janat Fahim Chakari, a political analyst.
“The Islamic Emirate should also show some flexibility in its policies and it should have engagement with the international community, so that Afghanistan can stand on its own feet,” said Abdul Malik Afghan, a political analyst.
This comes as the Islamic Emirate’s decree barring women from higher education and working at NGOs faced a strong reaction by the international community.
High Representative Says EU Cannot Abandon Afghan Women by Cutting Aid
Timing and reach free from barriers are the key to a humanitarian response in a disaster. I learned this from some of the dedicated individuals at the Victorian Emergency Management Institute while mocking a rapid response exercise in an imaginary country.
I am a former war correspondent in Afghanistan and the week-long essentials of humanitarian practice course in Melbourne helped me explore the history of many of our household names in this sector, how they are coping or failing to cope with the ever-changing dynamics of international politics.
The setup designed for the training was imaginary, but what we are witnessing in places like Syria and Afghanistan is not a mock exercise of calamities of the worst forms but a toxic cocktail of egoistic human policies overlapping with natural disasters. For this, our global humanitarian ecosystem has no solutions, it seems.
Generally speaking, the Syrian regime is at odds with much of the rest of the world – and of course with so many of its own citizens. It is one of the main hurdles stopping aid convoys and volunteers from reaching the needy, according to reports from the Syrian opposition-run rescue group, the White Helmets.
The Assad regime has only given the UN access to two border crossing entry points from Turkey for the thousands of earthquake victims, when much of the critical time to save lives has already been lost. We can add this to the list of atrocities committed by the regime in Damascus.
Does that mean we take this experience as a point of no hope and give up on critical humanitarian responses that are above and beyond all political boundaries? Definitely not.
The first Geneva convention of 1864 laid the foundations for many of the rules governing the mandate of humanitarian actors. Since then we have seen an array of large institutions emerge, such as the UN, the International Committee of the Red Cross and many more. Our complex world today needs more robust and binding laws globally to be effective in stopping the conflicts in the first place and ensure a universal authority and access for humanitarians to the needy wherever, whenever.
Afghanistan is another dreadful example of humanitarian support left to the mercy of a brutal regime after the west abandoned the country to the Taliban, neglecting the needs of the country and its people. Now the sanctions imposed on Kabul, particularly its banking sector, make delivery of crucial aid for the war-ravaged country nearly impossible.
‘Where are they?’ Anger in north-west Syria at slow earthquake response.
The blanket ban on a number of international non-government organisations in Pakistan following the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is another example of humanitarian assistance falling prey to politics.
All this makes headlines but so far hasn’t led to a more efficient and humanitarian system where no individual, group or country can hinder the delivery of lifesaving support in any corner of the world.
UN agencies as well as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies with its 192-member national societies comprises a wonderful global institutional network ready to come for the rescue of humanity when local governments somehow fully or partially fail. Still, the potential of these bodies is used mainly because of the contesting political influences that undermine the actual immunity for the humanitarian workers on the ground.
These groups need to have enough resources and power to replace persistent appeals for aid with a more sustainable method.
Whenever there is tragedy – like the current one in Syria and Turkey – we feel the senseless curbs on humanitarian activities and then forget. We need to make the idea of free humanitarianism a truly respected global agenda, just like climate change, press freedom and gender equality. In order to achieve this, we must do some soul-searching and find a way to end all barriers for aid in future.
Otherwise what is happening now will happen again.
Shadi Khan Saif is an Afghan journalist based in Melbourne
The global aid system failed Syria just as it did Afghanistan. How long can this go on?
Amid Pakistan’s economic crisis and the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan, the Pakistani Taliban have reemerged as an increasingly potent threat.
The Pakistani Taliban’s late January attack in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, claimed the lives of more than 100 worshipping at a police compound mosque. The bombing was claimed by a faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban) initially, but later denied by the TTP’s central leadership. It was the group’s deadliest attack since its 2021 resurgence after the Afghan Taliban took power in Afghanistan. As Pakistan struggles with a major economic crisis, the fallout from the deadly floods of last fall and an ever-turbulent political scene, the TTP’s growing threat presents yet another challenge for the struggling nation.
USIP’s Asfandyar Mir, Andrew Watkins and Tamanna Salikuddin weigh in on what the attack indicates about the strength of the TTP, how Islamabad could respond, the Afghan Taliban’s posture toward the TTP and the options for U.S. policymakers.
What does the Peshawar bombing indicate about the scale of the TTP’s threat to Pakistan?
Mir: The Peshawar attack, conducted by a faction of the TTP, is one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Pakistan in recent years. Its lethality and the ability of the attackers to penetrate deep inside what should be the most secure part of Peshawar suggests that the TTP has re-constituted a critical capability of urban attacks. The attack follows an escalation in the TTP’s violence including IED explosions and targeted attacks since late last year when the cease-fire between Pakistan and the TTP collapsed. Taken together, this signifies the steadily ascendant trajectory of the TTP, presenting a major medium- to long-term challenge for Pakistan.
The TTP’s escalating campaign of violence is a function of its growing political and material strength — reflected in its political cohesion, expanding cadre of trained fighters, suicide bombers, weapons and equipment. Much of the TTP’s political leadership and capability is based in Afghanistan. In Pakistan, the TTP has regained some territorial influence in southern districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, like South Waziristan, North Waziristan, Tank, Bannu and Lakki Marwat. The TTP is able to fundraise through extortion inside Pakistan as well as in Afghanistan — across provinces, there are fundraising drives for the group’s so-called jihad.
The Afghan Taliban remain very supportive of the TTP and are providing the group with a permissive safe haven. The TTP also has a lot of popular support in Afghanistan, where both Taliban and non-Taliban constituencies get behind the TTP due to a fervent dislike for Pakistan. Some Taliban fighters are also joining the TTP, and there are reports of some recent bombers being Afghan. A handful of Taliban leaders, in particular Taliban Interior Minister Siraj Haqqani, have restrained the TTP on Pakistani requests on occasion. Yet the balance of opinion within the Taliban is strongly in favor of the TTP and its campaign. In particular, Taliban Amir Hibatullah Akhundzada agrees with the TTP that Pakistani system is “un-Islamic.”
Could this attack shift the Afghan Taliban’s calculus regarding its TTP’s ties? How is the Afghan Taliban likely to respond going forward?
Watkins: The Afghan Taliban appear unlikely to shift their strategic calculus on providing support to the TTP. In the weeks prior and days after the attack, their public messaging has been almost defiant, offering the weakest of condemnations and painting Pakistan as ultimately responsible for militancy within its borders. Speaking to a gathering in Kabul two days after the attack, the Taliban’s acting foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, warned Pakistan against “pointing fingers” or “sowing the seeds of enmity.”
This undiplomatic rhetoric underscores the Taliban’s determination to continue supporting the TTP, even in the face of intensified pressure from Pakistan. In January, Taliban security officials leaked a memo to local press that offered a description of training camps allegedly based in Pakistan and supported by the Pakistani security establishment, where thousands of Islamic State fighters were preparing to attack Afghanistan. In effect, the Taliban’s response to being confronted about their support for TTP has been to level counteraccusations — which does not signal an impending shift away from that support.
These rhetorical signals are matched by anecdotal reports from U.N. officials and other observers of TTP individuals moving freely and conducting business in Afghan cities. Meanwhile, interlocutors with access to Kandahar report that the emir and his close advisors are unlikely to waiver in supporting the TTP on ideological grounds.
However, in spite of the Taliban’s firm strategic calculus in favor of the TTP, their leadership appears to understand the importance of maintaining a functional relationship with Pakistan — or at least preventing tensions from deteriorating into full-scale conflict. The Taliban’s posture moving forward will likely appear like a tug-of-war, alternating between moments of tension and de-escalation.
How is Pakistan likely to respond?
Mir: Pakistan’s response to the TTP’s resurgence remains incoherent — and it is unlikely to improve in the near-term. After downplaying the TTP’s strength as well as the Taliban’s influence on and relationship with TTP for several years, Pakistani leaders now seem to be contending with the depth of Taliban support for the TTP. Yet Pakistani officials still seem to be searching for a deal — ideally a cease-fire arrangement — through the Taliban. The military and intelligence leadership, as well as officials at the Foreign Ministry, appear to want to work with the Taliban, viewing it as more favorable than the former republic government — which is indicated by Pakistan continuously asking the international community to engage the Taliban. But the Taliban’s uncompromising commitment to the TTP means that Pakistan has to either ignore the violence or concede to the TTP to maintain a relationship with the Taliban.
Another key factor shaping the Pakistani response is the country’s deteriorating economy, which is on the brink of a default. That limits Pakistan’s military options. Pakistan can carry out raids and undertake defensive actions inside the country, but it doesn’t have the resources for a sustained high-intensity campaign. Pakistan has flirted with the idea of cross-border airstrikes again, which it last conducted in April 2022. There is some growing pressure for action, as parts of the Pakistani political spectrum are framing the terrorism resurgence as a conspiracy by the military to block former prime minister Imran Khan’s return to power and to get American aid. Yet economic pressures and the risk of a conflict spiral, especially amid reports of Taliban fighters joining the TTP, may induce doubts in Pakistan about such a cross-border operation.
Does the TTP threaten U.S. interests?
Mir: While the TTP’s threat to Pakistan is clear, the threat it poses to American interests is nebulous. When the group first emerged in 2007, it posed a direct threat to the United States in several ways. It was supporting the Taliban’s insurgency against the U.S. military and the now defunct Afghan government. It was attempting to — and at times actually killing — U.S. personnel in complex attacks. For example, in December 2009, in a joint operation with al-Qaida, the TTP succeeded in flipping a spy sent by the CIA to infiltrate al-Qaida leadership in Pakistan’s Waziristan region, dispatched him back to his CIA and partner government handlers with a suicide bomb at a forward base in eastern Afghanistan, which killed multiple CIA officers. In 2010, the TTP attempted an attack in New York City’s Times Square, which failed.
In 2023, the TTP doesn’t pose such a direct threat to the United States, at least in the near-term. In contrast to the past, TTP messaging makes the point that it has no direct aims against the United States. In general, the group appears more focused on its local agenda against Pakistan. One of the main reasons for this shift is the current leader of the TTP, Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud.
In Mehsud’s diagnosis of the decline of the TTP from 2011 to 2017, the biggest setback for the group was its targeting by U.S. drone strikes, which eroded the TTP’s combat potential. Mehsud is deterred from taking on the United States by the fear of drone strikes. So, he is steering clear of provocations and plotting against the United States, in the hope of not triggering another campaign of drone strikes against his group. The TTP’s calculus could always change with new leadership. And even under Mehsud, some risk remains as the TTP is unpredictable, having undertaken attacks that belie its stated targets including against Chinese diplomats in Pakistan.
With that said, the TTP continues to incubate other direct threats to the United States. For one, elements of al-Qaida and its South Asia affiliate continue to shelter behind the TTP in Afghanistan. In general, the TTP remains helpful to al-Qaida — although perhaps less so than in the past. If the TTP gains territory in Pakistan, al-Qaida will look for space in territories controlled by the TTP. There are other foreign fighters in Afghanistan with varied regional agendas, who will find a haven in Pakistan should the TTP make major territorial gains. The more important way in which the TTP can threaten U.S. interests is by seriously destabilizing Pakistan. This possibility is real yet not imminent. If it were to materialize, it will raise the specter of eroded Pakistani nuclear security, broader regional instability and migration concerns.
What policy options does the United States have?
Salikuddin: Unlike the TTP’s previous terror campaign from 2007 to 2014, this time the Afghan Taliban are in control in Afghanistan and the United States has no military presence in the region: two factors which make U.S. policy options against the TTP far more limited. In previous years, the United States had the intelligence and military posture to be able to help the Pakistani government and military when it went after the TTP. Today, the United States is far more constrained even in its understanding and capacity to help in any kinetic action against the TTP. As mentioned, the threat to the United States from the TTP is also far more nebulous — a reality that will not make this growing threat a U.S. policy priority. On the flip side, the United States does not currently factor in the TTP’s calculus, and any direct policy options which would change that and make the United States a target of the TTP or even the Afghan Taliban would not be palatable in Washington.
Given the current economic and political crisis in Pakistan, U.S. policymakers may be well placed to have conversations with Pakistani leaders about the need to focus and develop a clear counter-TTP plan. However, Washington’s ability to shape or assist on such a plan will be limited. Continued U.S. support to Pakistani police and other law enforcement agencies, including training and tactical equipment, may be useful in the fight against TTP. The larger question will be how Pakistan will handle the Afghan Taliban who provide safe haven to the TTP. It is unlikely that the Pakistanis will heed any U.S. suggestions to pressure the Afghan Taliban in Kabul (let alone break ties). If Pakistan takes action within Afghanistan and against the Afghan Taliban, it will be because of decisive move emanating from Islamabad, and not at the behest of the United States.
Gordon Brown is chairman of the UN’s Education Cannot Wait fund and was UK prime minister between 2007 and 2010
The Guardian
12 Feb 2023
As a child, Ramzan’s fight for an education almost cost her her life. Worldwide, there are 222 million children out of school who urgently need our help
Shazia Ramzan has spent most of her young life fighting for her right – and the right of all girls – to go to school. In 2012, at the age of 14, sitting alongside her friend Malala Yousafzai on a bus that was going from school to her home, in the Swat valley in the north of Pakistan, she was shot at by an extremist intent on stopping girls from getting an education. She suffered injuries from which she, Malala and their friend Kainat took months to recover.
Now completing a nursing degree at Edinburgh University, and preparing to start her own nurses’ training school in Pakistan, Shazia almost always has the needs of girls in her home area in her thoughts. In her time between classes, she is raising funds for Pakistani charities that are quietly but effectively helping Afghan girls who have been losing out on their education since the Taliban shut them out of the country’s secondary schools.
There are 5 million girls in Afghanistan who are currently out of school, and they urgently need our support. Many have risked everything by demonstrating in the streets of Kabul. While sooner or later the regime will find that they cannot forever oppress brave women who have known what it is like to be free, for now the young protesters face arrest and torture.
‘Between classes, she is raising funds for Pakistani charities that are quietly but effectively helping Afghan girls.’ Shazia Ramzan.
Theirs is an untold story of courage and resilience. Girls in Afghanistan are also at risk of punishment beatings if they attend underground schools run by their parents and teachers. Many more are fleeing across the border into exile in Pakistan in the hope of an education.
But, sadly, those who have crossed the border are joining Pakistan’s ever-lengthening queue for schooling that is already 23 million children long. This is not just because of the country’s recent floods, which have closed 27,000 schools, but because of Pakistan’s long-term failure to invest in girls’ education.
Step back and the picture becomes even graver: these girls are only a fraction of the world’s 222 million crisis-affected children who are in dire need of educational support. Of them, 78.2 million, including 42 million girls, do not go to school at all, while the others are suffering so many disruptions in their education that they fail to acquire even the most basic literacy and numeracy skills.
Their numbers, so large that they already exceed the combined populations of Germany, France and Britain, are rising every year. More than 100 million people are refugees or internally displaced because of conflicts and civil wars, from Ukraine and Myanmar to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia.
A large number of children today, though, are exiled from their homes not because of war but because they are the victims of droughts, floods and other climate-induced disasters, or of natural disasters. In Turkey and Syria the dead are still being counted, but we must also address the urgent needs of the living, all those forcibly displaced by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake from which it will take years to recover. Even if we manage to feed, shelter and treat the victims, there will be little cash left over to provide temporary schooling, unless we do better than in the past; the child victims of the earthquake could spend years excluded from education.
In Turkey and Syria, as elsewhere, it will be girls who will suffer most: they are 35% more likely to be out of school than their male contemporaries, according to data from Unesco. And we have been warned to expect that by 2030 many of them – an additional 10 million girls – will have been forced into child marriages, the number of girl brides rising yet again after years when forced marriage was on the decline.
Children should not have to wait for wars to end, or for the effects of natural disasters to subside, for the opportunity to learn and thrive. It is to finance the education of the forgotten 222 million that Education Cannot Wait (ECW), which I chair, was created in 2017. Its replenishment conference will take place in Geneva this week in the presence of Andrew Mitchell and other international development ministers from all over the world.
Seeking to bridge the divide between humanitarian aid, only 2% of which was spent on education, and development aid, which always comes too late to deal with refugee crises, ECW is asking donors for $1.5bn to support its new strategic plan. Initiatives that will prevent child labour, early marriage and trafficking include the provision of safe schools in countries where Boko Haram still abduct girls from their classrooms; the expansion of online learning; and of double-shift schools that, piloted in Lebanon, use school buildings more effectively by teaching local children English and French in the morning and Syrian refugee children Arabic in the afternoon.
We know from unspeakable recent tragedies that hope dies when food convoys and rescue workers cannot get through to besieged towns, and when flimsy boats carrying refugees capsize at sea. Hope also dies when children are locked out of education and denied the chance to plan and prepare for their future. At the age of 11, 12 and 13, young people should be optimistic and excited about great opportunities that lie ahead, but I cannot forget hearing from charity workers in a refugee camp in Moria, Greece, who had discovered three refugees in their early teens so desolate that they were planning a joint suicide. For them, behind barbed wire in an insanitary camp with no schooling and little else, there was only the bleakness of despair.
But hope can come alive, even in the harshest and least promising places in the world, if we offer children the chance of an education. It is the one way to honour the international community’s as yet unredeemed promise set out in sustainable development goal 4 – to be the first generation in history where every single boy and girl, stateless or not, goes to school. As Shazia’s work of mercy reminds us, it is also a moral obligation that we owe to the next generation. Instead of developing some of the potential of only some children in some parts of the world, we should be developing the potential of every child everywhere.
The story of Shazia Ramzan, Malala’s schoolfriend, shows why education must be a right for all children
Since the Taleban’s return to power, an array of Hazara and Shia Muslim groups and individuals have tried to position themselves vis-à-vis the new order in an effort to protect a community that feels particularly vulnerable. The struggle over who gets to speak for the community has revived old intra-communal rivalries and factionalism, weakened their position and rendered them susceptible to division and manipulation. So far, the Taleban’s public messaging towards Shias and Hazaras has largely been conciliatory, as they sought to establish control, but has not been backed by positive action. Ali Yawar Adili (with input from Martine van Bijlert) provides an overview of the main Hazara and Shia political actors and their positions as they advocate for protection, political inclusion and religious recognition.This thematic report looks at the leaders and groups that have scrambled to respond to the Taleban’s dramatic takeover and domination of Afghanistan. They are a mix of leaders and officials from the old mujahedin factions, marked still by old rivalries and enmities, along with new politicians who emerged from the churn of electoral politics, large protest movements, the university and clerical establishment. There are even one or two Hazara/Shia Taleban. They include:
The old guard leaders who held senior government positions under the Republic and were leaders or senior members of mujahedin groups (Muhammad Mohaqeq, Muhammad Karim Khalili, Sarwar Danesh and Muhammad Sadeq Mudaber). They are outside the country but maintain in-country contacts through their aides and party networks. Initially, they did not support armed resistance, hoping instead that the Taleban would form a government inclusive of Hazaras/Shias, but have since become more vocal in their criticism of Taleban policies and behaviour. Although they have hinted at the possibility of armed resistance, they have not taken any concrete steps so far.
Three aides to Mohaqeq, Khalili and Mudaber who remained in Kabul and formed an ad hoc coalition early on to engage with the Taleban in order to secure Hazara/Shia representation in the government. All three are longstanding acquaintances of the Taleban and used to serve as their leaders’ focal points with the movement. Two have recently been appointed to government positions.
Several cleric-led Shia organisations have sought to represent the community, including the old Shia Ulema Council of Afghanistan, the newer General Council of Hazaras, which was established by Kabul-based Grand Ayatollah Vaezzada after the Taleban takeover, and the Assembly of Shia Ulema and Influential Persons of Afghanistan led by Sayed Hassan Fazelzada; it had already lobbied in favour of the Taleban before the takeover. Sayed Hashem Jawadi Balkhabi, a rare Shia member of the Taleban, is included in this section because he is close to Fazelzada. He has been speaking on behalf of the Taleban since the takeover and was given a role in defusing tensions between the Kuchis and villagers in the spring of 2022.
Several newer politicians who have been seeking to expand their influence, including former MP Jafar Mahdawi and Deputy Minister for Economy Abdul Latif Nazari. Both have academic backgrounds and were in contact with the Taleban before the takeover. Since then, they have discouraged Hazaras from any confrontation with the Taleban.
You can preview the report online and download it by clicking the link below.
Professor of Gender & Development, University of East Anglia
The Conversation
February 3, 2023
Jamila*, a widow living in Herat, lost her husband in a suicide attack about eight years ago. She has an 18-year-old daughter who is blind and a 20-year-old son who lost both legs in a mine blast.
Jamila used to be a housemaid and bake bread for people in their homes. With this income she was able to feed her daughter and son, according to research carried out by Ahmad*, a former lecturer at the University of Herat and shared with me.
Since the Taliban gained control of the country, Afghanistan has been on the brink of universal hardship. As many as 97% of people are now estimated to be living in poverty, up from 72% in 2018.
The recent Taliban ban on women working in international and national organisations and women moving about public spaces has also affected women being able to find employment.
Because of the current situation Jamila has lost her clients and is now struggling to cope. She could not pay her rent and the landlord asked her to leave her home. She now lives in a small room that a kind family gave her in their yard. She has no source of income.
Previously about 10% of educated women in Afghanistan worked in national or international organisations to support their children. If less educated, they had a range of formal and informal jobs including working as housemaids, baking bread, washing clothes, cleaning bathrooms and babysitting, and in rural communities rearing small livestock and growing wheat, maize and vegetables.
Jamila said that previously under the former government her family received a monthly salary from the state ministry of martyrs and disabled affairs, which pays families of military veterans or those killed in the fighting, and that gave them enough money for bread.
The new government (the Taliban) has now stopped this salary … they don’t believe our lost ones are martyrs.
My son also had a job with the municipality office in a city parking lot, taking care of vehicles and collecting money from people parking their vehicles there. There were many handicapped people doing this kind of job. But now all of them, including my son, have lost their jobs.
The Taliban has appointed their own personnel in these parking areas. We have very few options left. A neighbour now drops my son near a bridge in the city where he begs people to help him with coins. He brings him back here in the evening. With the coins he brings, we can get only bread to survive until the next day.
Jamila is not an exception. She is one of thousands of women who have lost their jobs as a result of the new decrees. Many are acutely malnourished and don’t know where their next meal is coming from.
Single women and widows have practically no way of earning money. On-the-ground reports reveal that many households are supported by women as male members of their family were either killed or injured in the ongoing conflict.
It is not just food, but also shelter, water, fuel and warmth that contribute to survival, especially in bitterly cold temperatures. Ahmad, the former lecturer in Afghanistan, said:
Since COVID-19, my wife and I have tried to raise funds from friends to help poor families (especially widows). Very cold weather has been forecast for the western zone of Afghanistan in February.
There has been snow and the temperature has dipped to -25℃ at night early in 2023. One of my friends, who is in the US, helped us with some money locally to buy charcoal to help poor widows like Jamila cook food and warm up their rooms. My wife is also very frustrated and helpless in the current situation.
But, the plight of women-headed households, lacking adult males, is especially dire. In the absence of any social connection, they are increasingly food insecure, with few options to feed and care for their children.
The Taliban have stopped girls going to school in Afghanistan.ton koene/Alamy
This follows Taliban decrees banning women from education at the secondary and university level and not allowing them to travel without a mahram (male close relative as chaperone). The Taliban also ordered the closure of all beauty salons, public bathrooms, and sports centres for women, important sectors of employment for women.
Overall, the dire situation in Afghanistan has increased the incidence of extreme hunger and malnutrition for both men and women, but women without husbands are being pushed into even more extreme poverty.
According to UN resident and humanitarian coordinator Ramiz Alakbarov, “a staggering 95% of Afghans are not getting enough to eat, with that number rising to almost 100% in female-headed households”.
The January 2023 high-level UN delegation led by Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed called on the Taliban authorities to reverse the various decrees limiting women’s and girl’s rights for the sake of peace and sustainable development. While the backlash against women’s rights needs to be urgently addressed, the crisis of food and nutrition security facing single women, widows and separated women, is not being recognised by many outside the country.
According to the 2015 Demographic Health Survey, only 1.7% of Afghan households were headed by women. The January 2022 report from the UN World Food Programme places this at 4%.
As a former employee of the Afghanistan Central Statistical Organisation, responsible for population data collection in four districts of Bamiyan province, told us: “It is very difficult to collect accurate population data.” She said that previous data concerning women-headed households was now likely to be invalid.
While women’s rights are under attack in Afghanistan, the full effect of the ban on women’s work and mobility on single women, widows and separated women, is yet to be fully recognised. While appeals for help to the United Nations by teachers, professionals and civil society activists are rising by the day, negotiations are not progressing, and the delivery of humanitarian assistance is becoming increasingly challenging.
It’s difficult to estimate how long local communities, themselves struggling to survive, can keep women-led households and their families alive.
**All names in this article have been changed for security reasons
Afghanistan: single women and widows are struggling to find their next meal under Taliban restrictions
UN Humanitarian Chief Martin Griffiths meets with Taliban leaders in Afghanistan. (Photo: UN)
UPDATE: At a UN press conference in New York on Monday 30 January 2023, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths stated that they were hopeful the Taliban would rescind at least some of their constraints, but could not say when or to what extent.“Our job is to identify the opportunities (of persuasion by the international community, local populations and within the Taliban themselves) and to advocate constantly for a fair and just Afghanistan,” he said.
While United Nations humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths appears to have made headway in convincing the Taliban to loosen some of their recently imposed constraints against women, it still looks as if everyone is shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to dealing with Afghanistan. The country’s hard-line rulers, whose dogmatism is not necessarily shared by all the movement’s factions, see no reason why they should buckle as they were the ones to have won the war. The international donors cannot be perceived as engaging with any hint of official recognition, while Pakistan, Iran and other regional players are not stepping up to mediate. For the UN, International Red Cross and 100-odd non-governmental organizations still operating out of Kabul, they must figure out how to help Afghans survive. As pointed out by knowledgeable sources, the only pragmatic option is to focus – to cite Winston Churchill – on long-term and discreet ‘jaw-jaw’ on multiple fronts if Afghanistan is to emerge from its dire humanitarian and economic imbroglio, including the possibility of renewed ‘war-war’.
“It’s a brutal situation because none of the key players are willing to back down,” said the representative of an international organization with several decades’ experience in Afghanistan and the region. “You cannot go in and tell the Taliban what to do. They’ll only hunker down even more because they don’t care what outsiders think. And the Americans and Europeans only want to talk about girls’ education and women’s rights, so that’s not going anywhere. The Taliban hardliners did not fight all these years to re-impose an equitable society. That’s the sad reality, but once this is recognized then perhaps the international community can start moving forward.”
As both he and other experienced observers point out, there is no single approach that will convince the Talib leadership to change its policies. The international community may be looking at months, possibly years, to achieve even limited reforms with different initiatives by respected groups and individuals ranging from international NGOs, such as the Norwegian Refugee Council and the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, to the UN itself.
At one point, too, countries perceived as neutral such as Switzerland, Norway, Finland and Iceland might emerge as possible long-term mediators. When asked to comment, the Swiss Foreign Ministry maintained that while it remains in touch with key actors in Afghanistan and across the diaspora, and is fully prepared to offer its good offices, “any mediation requires a mandate and the consent of the parties to the conflict.” Switzerland has mediated in the past and played a crucial role in talking to all warring groups during the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. There is also pressure that ‘International Geneva’ embrace a more engaged mediation rather than messenger role. (See SwissInfor article)
The Swiss government helped bring representatives of the mujahideen, or holy warriors, to Geneva for talks during the late 1980s to promote peace negotiations with the Soviets. For its part, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had begun supporting Afghan rebels in July 1979 to fight the communist regime in Kabul. It drastially increased its military and funding backing when the Red Army invaded a few months later. (Photo: Wikipedia)
How to get the mediation process moving
“But it may take a respectedfigure – whoever that be, Afghan or otherwise – to initially open the door,” noted Michael Keating, executive director of the European Institute of Peace (EIP) in Brussels who first became engaged with Afghanistan during the UN’s Operation Salaam in the late 1980s leading to the Soviet Red Army withdrawal. “This will mean someone highly knowledgeable regularly visiting or even based in Kabul who is respected by the Taliban. We’re talking about a lot of tea-drinking and patience.”
“You can talk an Afghan into going to hell, but you can’t talk him into going to heaven.” (Afghan proverb)
Some believe that former president Hamid Karzai, a Pushtun from Kandahar, or Abudullah Abdullah, a Tajik-Pushtun from the Panjshir and former Chief Executive during the NATO occupation, could emerge as possible candidates. Others disagree arguing that neither command sufficient credibility or trust. While the last western-backed Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, has proposed himself as a contender, he is widely regarded as corrupt and arrogant with little or no leverage left. As a result, finding a reputable Afghan with standing remains a critical challenge. As one analyst put it quoting an old Afghan saying: “You can talk an Afghan into going to hell, but you can’t talk him into going to heaven.”
British businessman and former journalist Peter Jouvenal (left) meeting with Taliban to discuss possible private sector investment prior to his arrest in Kabul in autumn, 2021. Despite being on good terms with various Taliban leaders, Jouvenal may have been the victim of factionalism within the Taliban and the principal reason behind his six-month detention. Despite his ordeal, Jouvenal believes that constant dialogue may prove the only way for the international community and the Talib leadership to come to terms with each other. (Photo: Peter Jouvenal family)
Some, too, including within the international aid and conflict resolution community, believe that the private sector could play a significant role. Peter Jouvenal, a British businessman and former journalist engaged with Afghanistan since 1980, who was arrested and held last year for six months by the Taliban, sees it as capable of nudging the current regime toward greater openness. “If the Taliban are able to see that more open investment is one of the only ways of helping the country back to recovery, then they may agree to re-establishing certain rights,” he said. “But they will only do it on their own terms, not if they’re pressured.” (See Global Insights article)
As for China, India, Turkey and Qatar, they are all exploring investment possibilities, notably mineral resources with an estimated worth of up to three trillion dollars yet remain hesitant as long as the Taliban go against the international flow. “The Chinese are not particularly looking to help resolve the Taliban’s political problems but are quite happy to engage with economic initiatives that can be exploited regardless,” said one international aid source in Kabul referring to Beijing’s efforts to develop the Mes Aynak copper mine, one of the world’s largest with up to 12 million tons of reserves. “We’re looking at significant potential investment initiatives, but these may drag out for years.”
Russia is reportedly seeking to purchase sophisiticated military hardware and ammunition abandoned by NATO forces in the summer of 2021 for its war in Ukraine. (Photo: TASS)
Russia, which previously supported the anti-Taliban resistance leading up to the US-led invasion in October 2001, is believed to be negotiating with the cash-hungry Taliban for the purchase of sophisticated military equipment for deployment in its war in Ukraine. Abandoned by NATO forces during their calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, much of it, including ammunition, is lying in guarded but often exposed storage locations.
Many majority Muslim countries, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, which had diplomatic relations with Afghanistan in the past, disagree with the Taliban’s backtracking on women’s education and their right to work. As pointed out by one Dubai-based international lawyer, “some openly consider such constraints as un-Islamic and have made this point to the Taliban.” To date, no country recognizes the Taliban regime. and hence there is insufficient lobbying to generate the official representation at the UN that the de facto regime in Kabul seeks. Various Afghan diplomatic missions such as Geneva and Washington are still represented by pre-regime ambassadors, several of whom see themselves as possible players toward bringing about rapprochement, although it is unlikely that the Talib hardliners will cooperate with them.
Afghanistan is running out of time
For Keating, the main objective now is restoring economic activity. “Humanitarian aid is essential but not the answer. And western development aid is politically impossible,” he adds. “A complete collapse in trade, investment, jobs will deepen the humanitarian crisis, will not resolve the human rights situation and will make women and children even more vulnerable. Rebooting the banking system and investments to create jobs is fraught with complexity but may increase the chances of the kind of change the international community is seeking.”
According to UN estimates, a staggering 97 per cent of Afghans are now living in poverty, while two-thirds require basic humanitarian aid to survive. Out of a population of 40 million people, half face acute hunger. So Afghanistan, which now represents the world’s largest humanitarian operation with 28 million receiving aid, is running out of time.
As Martin Griffiths, head of the UN’s humanitarian operation (OCHA), maintains: “Without women working, we can’t deliver for the people who are in fact the primary objects of humanitarian assistance – women and girls. So it’s a practical matter. It’s beyond rights.” With many years’ experience dealing with the Taliban, Griffiths, who has just completed a dialogue foray to Afghanistan as part of an Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) team, expressed hope that the leadership would be willing to rescind their recent ban on women working with international aid organizations. (For the moment, this does not affect Afghan women employed by the UN).
The Afghan Red Crescent Society providing humanitarian relief in Afghanistan. (Photo: IFRC)
“I think they’re listening,” Griffiths told the BBC of the Talib ministers he had met. “They told me they will be issuing new guidelines in due course which I hope will help us reinforce the role of women.”At the same time, Griffiths is fully cognizant that any long-term reforms may take a lot of subtle, under-the-radar negotiation to convince the Taliban.
Yet even this may not prove easy. As the Taliban’s head of Disaster Management, Mohammad Abbas Akhund, a cleric, told the BBC: “Men are already working with us in the rescue efforts and there is no need for women…” He strongly condemned the UN and other aid agencies for not respecting “our religious beliefs,” an allegation denied by Griffiths who said that such beliefs are always respected wherever the UN operates. Akhund further maintained that even if the UN halted its distribution of food to Afghanistan this would not change his government’s position.
For the moment, much of the work undertaken by UNAMA in Kabul is in the form of its own subtle diplomacy. “Maybe 95 percent of what we do is based on quiet discussions with the Taliban, ordinary Afghans and the different NGOs,” said one UNAMA representative. “This is the only way to know what really is going on.”
UN Deputy Secretary-General, British-Nigerian Amina Mohammed. (Photo: UN)
Nevertheless, UNAMA regularly helps organize official UN visits, such as the high profile four-day visit by a delegation in mid-January 2023 headed by UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, a British-Nigerian Muslim, to “appraise the situation, engage de facto authorities and underscore UN solidarity with the Afghan people.”
While the largely female delegation, including the director of UN Women, an agency focusing on women’s issues, met with select Talib leaders in Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat, it was not received by any key figures. The most notable, Haibatullah Akhundzada, the fundamentalist Pushtun Islamic scholar, cleric and jurist considered to be the supreme leader of the Taliban refused to meet with them. But then, as one international source in Kabul pointed out, “this is not surprising as he does not even meet with some of his own ministers.”
While the UN delegation sought to reach out to Afghan women but also NGOs and other organizations to emphasize the international community’s committment to female rights, it was criticized for playing to the gallery without contributing toward any real change other than to aggravate the hardliners. While Griffiths’ trip was perceived by some as a “to do” intiative by someone with significant background to Afghanistan, Mohammed’s was referred to as one more “for show”.
A similar largely women’s visit conducted during the first Talib rule in 1997 produced equally limited results. When a delegation headed by the European Union’s Emma Bonino together with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour sought to highlight the plight of Afghan women by filming in a Kabul hospital, their highly mediatic presence only managed to anger the new Jihadist leadership who ordered the temporary arrest of all 18-members of the group.
As a businesswoman, Hassina (middle) has also been active with her support for women and children, including widows. (Photo: Hassina Syed archive)
“Perhaps I shouldn’t say this as a woman, but many Afghans were shocked by the way she (Amina Mohammed) went about her visit,” said Hassina Syed, an Afghan businesswoman, philanthropist and politician. Syed, who was evacuated from Kabul in August 2001 to the United Kingdom, remains in close contact with Afghanistan, including the Taliban. “We are all deeply concerned by what is happening and we want to help, but you need to be serious about connecting with the Taliban.” (See Global Insights article)
Syed further stressed that if one is to make headway in bringing about genuine change, then one needs to operate with the right background experience based on a close knowledge of the country. “You need to work with quiet diplomacy and be in Afghanistan fulltime. That’s the way Afghans are. It takes a long time to build trust. You can’t just go in there and talk about women’s rights. They’re not going to listen to you.”
Another concern voiced by Afghans and international aid representatives is that some international donors would like nothing better than to disengage from Afghanistan. This is primarily for budgetary reasons but also because of other more immediate distractions such as Ukraine. As some donors have already noted, the international community fought a pointless war and spent billions of dollars trying to support Afghanistan’s long-term recovery to no avail, except, as some maintain, its ability – largely the result of efforts by UNICEF – to send millions of girls to school and to university. (See Global Insights article)
So why continue? The fact that much of the responsibility for this horrendous failure must lie with the West’s managerial incompetence, lack of vision and often blatant corruption is becoming increasingly forgotten. “These governments simply want out,” said an aid representative. Or, as one former US diplomat seeking to justify the Trump-Biden fiasco put it: “Contact us in a hundred years if you’re serious about change. Then we’ll help you.”
The Taliban: A Revolutionary Franchise
French helicopters overflying Kabul during the 2001-2021 NATO occupation of Afghanistan. The US-led Coalition forces fought the Taliban for nearly two decades from October 2001 to the summer of 2021. (Photo: Edward Girardet)
Another problem is that there is no one Taliban. It is a movement – a “revolutionary franchise” as one UN representative aptly put it – consisting of different factions, commanders, and leaders. While perhaps a majority of Taliban in leadership positions in different parts of the country may disagree with the hard-line approach imposed by Kandahar, which is rapidly becoming the real capital of Afghanistan, they are too afraid to step out of line. Rifts are steadily emerging among Talib ranks, including in the Kabul government, to the point of violent altercations and even fistfights.
As various aid workers have pointed out based on their contacts with the regime, many Taliban have nothing against women working or girls going to school. “But you’re dealing with an extremely narrow-minded and traditionalist vision at the top seeking to impose its own version of what the ‘new’ Afghanistan should look like,” said one aid source.
In many ways, Afghanistan is witnessing a replay of when the Taliban first took power in Kabul in September 1996, eventually controlling nearly 90 per cent of the country prior to the US-led invasion of October 2001. The Ministry of Vice and Virtue regularly announced new ‘Tali-bans’ such as the prohibition of girls to attend high schools, the playing of music, the taking of photographs, the wearing of high heels that “make noise in the streets”, or even the flying of kites. And yet, many Taliban did not fall in line with what the leadership of the new Islamic Emirate declared. Travelling in Afghanistan at the time, the further away one got beyond Kabul the more young Talib fighters wanted their pictures taken. Or they listened to Iranian and Bollywood pop songs on tape cassettes.
As part of an initiative which may now be revived, a Swiss-based NGO, Media Action International (MAI), collaborating with the BBC created Radio Education for Afghan Children (REACH) in 1998 to support the clandestine home schooling of girls throughout the country. Talib commanders regularly – and surreptitiously – stopped by REACH’s office in Peshawar to pick up freely distributed course books for their children and communities. “A lot of the Taliban wanted their girls to be educated,” said a former MAI programme director.
It is no different today. Numerous Taliban have made it very clear that they want their girls to be educated, including at university level. According to UNICEF an estimated 200,000 girls are currently attending high schools in 12 out of 34 provinces, largely because of local pressure. As these Taliban stress, only female doctors, teachers, and community workers should interact with their women, not males. So this means ensuring that enough qualified women are trained. Many, too, want their wives to work. They desperately need the revenue. According to sources, both families and communities, many of whom have no jobs or means of survival, are increasingly pushing their leaders to resolve the current crisis in Afghanistan.
“The Taliban are going to have to do something about this. They can’t continue as before, and they know it. The Pushtun Kandahari leadership may be bloody-minded, but one needs to give them a way of getting out of this doldrum without losing face,” maintained an international source in Kabul.
One is also seeing a somewhat different Taliban in the manner with which the franchise is organized. The Taliban today are far more multi-ethnic, including minorities such as Tajiks, Uzbeks and even Shia Hazaras. There is also far less interference from outsiders such as the Arab Jihadists, Pakistanis and other Islamic interests which dominated the first Talib rule of the late 1990s. Pakistan, which played a double game through its powerful military InterServices Intelligence Service (ISI) backing the Taliban right up to the NATO withdrawal, has far less influence today. Several incidents along the Afghan-Pakistan border also recently broke out in which a number of soldiers on both sides were reportedly killed and wounded. The Taliban are also at odds with ISIS, Al Qaeda and other Jihadist elements.
Nevertheless, as some observers point out, an emerging reality is that the Kandahar leadership may seek to impose even more Pushtun dominance over the country. Traditionally, Afghanistan has always been run by tribal Pushtuns, who have tended to encounter trouble whenever they sought to push their own interests over others, including rival tribal Pushtuns. In the long run, such control is unlikely to be accepted by Tajik, Uzbek and other ethnic groups currently collaborating with the Taliban, particularly if the humanitarian and economic situation deteriorates further.
Talib commander Azizullah Asif and eight of his fighters in Baghlan Province who reportedly joined the National Resistance Front in the summer of 2022 citing “oppression, cruelty and crimes” within the Taliban as the reasons behind their defection. (Photo: NLFA)
Insurgent groups, such as the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRFA) headed by Ahmad Massoud, the son of assassinated guerrilla leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, have been attacking regime positions on a steady basis since last spring, 2022. So have various armed Hazara and other groups. They expect to increase their insurgency as soon as the snows melt. While resistance leaders met with US officials in December 2022 to discuss options, Washington, which backed the anti-Soviet mujahideen with weapons, training and funding during the 1980s, is cautious about whether it will again support armed revolt.
Another possibility is that the Taliban themselves could start imploding, particularly if former collaborators representing ethnic minorities in cities like Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat and Kunduz react to further imposition of hard-line Pushtun doctrine by Kandahar. For the moment, however, the emphasis is on peaceful resolution, possibly in the form of an internationally overseen Loya Jirgha, a traditional form of “grand gathering” bringing together all parties and ethnic groups possibly leading to a Swiss-style Federation of semi-independent regions. This system was proposed – and rejected – at the December 2001 Bonn talks by the leading donors in favour of top-down government from Kabul, a decision which may have cost Afghanistan long-term peace and the return of the Taliban.
Talking with the Taliban: a necessary exercise in frustration
Afghanistan Peace Campaign
