Message #267

[Mike Blais CD]

Winning over tribal leaders' fluid loyalties key to Afghan mission's success

  'This is how you win insurgencies; you try to win hearts and minds'

SARAH DAVISON

Special to Globe and Mail Update

April 21, 2009 at 4:35 AM EDT

KABUL — The future of Afghanistan rests upon the shoulders of Ahmed, and men like him. A thirtysomething tribal leader with nearly 800 fighters in two provinces, Ahmed is a Taliban commander who regularly takes up arms against the coalition forces.

But that doesn't mean he won't switch sides if the Americans, Canadian and British give him what he wants: better security, and a better government.

"This is a misunderstanding, the criminals are not the Taliban," he said. "The Taliban are good people who brought security here. Al-Qaeda are the criminals. The criminals are here, in the centre [Kabul]."

Resolving such "misunderstandings" will be essential if U.S. President Barack Obama's comprehensive review of Afghanistan strategy is to yield results.


The review calls for an additional 4,000 police trainers in Afghanistan and comes as talks with the Taliban, once considered anathema in the United States, gain credibility as a route out of the current stalemate.

But the word Taliban can mean pretty much anything, from a young religious student to a terrifying warlord.

Recently, the Kabul government reached out to the most extreme Taliban elements such as the fundamentalist warlords Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani. Both are reported to have ties to al-Qaeda and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence.

"Mullah Omar has given the green light to talks," Abdullah Anas, a former friend of Osama bin Laden told the Sunday Times recently. "For the first time, there is a language of ... peace on both sides."

Prof. Wesley Wark at the University of Toronto said that to use a language of "peace" is overstating the facts.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai does not have the authority to negotiate on behalf of the international community. Instead, the effort is directed at dividing and conquering, Prof. Wark said.

"I think this is what it's always been. This is how you win insurgencies; you try to win hearts and minds," he said. "I think a lot of this is smoke and mirrors, and it's been misinterpreted."

In his new white paper on Afghan strategy, Mr. Obama recommends that regional offices persuade mid- to low-level insurgents to lay down arms, but rejects reconciliation with hard-line Taliban.

"While Mullah Omar and the Taliban's hard core that have aligned themselves with al-Qaeda are not reconcilable and we cannot make a deal that includes them, the war in Afghanistan cannot be won without convincing non-ideologically committed insurgents to lay down their arms, reject al-Qaeda, and accept the Afghan Constitution," the white paper says.

Ahmed made clear that better security and improved governance will win the hearts and minds of his tribes, and those like him.

"If anyone takes a bribe, they should go to prison for 30 years; anyone who robs something should have his hand cut off; if anyone kidnaps you, they should be hanged," Ahmed said. "In that case, not only me but the government shall get the support of my whole tribe as well."

He also pointed out that while U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden has referred to paying Taliban to keep them onside, it is the tribal leaders who dictate their tribe's allegiance. And after 30 years of war, anyone who provides security comes out a winner.

Recently, Ahmed reinforced his own tribal support by arresting six brothers who had been setting up roadblocks, stealing from local people and restricting their movements. Four of the brothers are in his "private prison," but two escaped and are now working for the intelligence services.

Even though he's now wanted by the intelligence services, which he dismisses as belonging to the Northern Alliance, Ahmed moves freely in and out of Kabul, and between his two spheres of influence in Helmand and Wardak.

His biggest problem is public recognition. That is one reason why he keeps a low profile in Kabul and refuses to allow his name to be published, but his clothes are of high quality, and he speaks with natural authority.

He is called "commander" by those around him, who ordered me to listen carefully to what he said, and were quick to inform me when he was tired and wanted some lunch.

"If the international community makes a stronger commitment to the welfare of the people of the nation, then, of course, we will support them, but the coalition forces in our regions always kill women and children, innocent people," he said.

"If I come to your country and at 2 o'clock at night, I fly a plane and bombard you in the place where you live and kill all innocent people, so how do you look at me, how do you see me?"

The coalition also supports a corrupt central government in Kabul, which Ahmed views as dominated by the Northern Alliance. "Fahim, Rabbani — we will not co-operate with these people. What crimes have they not done — raped, killed innocent people, everything we have not done — and yet the international community supports them."

The Taliban, by comparison, look clean as a whistle, which is why they get Ahmed's vote. So far.

Afghanistan analyst Ken Guest said one of the Taliban's great successes has been their portrayal of themselves as agents of law and order. That shrewd exploitation of Afghan war fatigue has allowed the Taliban to present their politicized version of sharia law as Islamic law.

"Under this religious cloak, they are able to impose themselves on the tribes and discredit the government," Mr. Guest wrote in a position paper on behalf of election candidate Prince Abdul Ali Seraj. "Taliban sharia is not Islamic sharia."

Mr. Guest argues that it is only by winning over tribal leaders such as Ahmed, partly by allowing them to control, police and defend their own areas, that the international mission in Afghanistan will succeed. Special to The Globe and Mail