What Does the Taliban Attack on Kabul Portend?

Najmuddin A. Shaikh

The “spectacular” Taliban attack on numerous venues in Kabul and in three provinces seen in conjunction with the suspension of talks between the Americans and the Taliban in Qatar and the vehement Taliban rejection of talks with the Afghan government has reinforced the apprehensions of the Afghan people that peace and stability in Afghanistan remains a distant dream and exacerbates fears that the completion of the foreign troop withdrawal will not only bring economic hardship but chaotic security and political conditions. These apprehensions and fears are justified but, in my view, they should not have been accentuated by the Taliban attack.

When one examines the details of the Taliban attack what emerges is that the Taliban occupied buildings in the most closely guarded part of Kabul for more than 18 hours but did little material damage. On the government side the loss of life was limited to 8 members of the Afghan Security Forces and some 4 civilians. 36 Taliban, on the other hand lost their lives. The Taliban spokesman could term these admittedly well-coordinated attacks as a “remarkable achievement” but the government and NATO could even more validly claim that the response of the Afghan forces showed that they had acquired the professionalism to handle such attacks and defeat them with minimum loss of life. By and large this assertion could be accepted even though it is clear that the Afghan forces needed to rely on NATO helicopters and their weaponry to finally dislodge the insurgents from their vantage points.

Admittedly the infiltration into Kabul showed that the insurgents had inside support and information which enabled them to smuggle in and store caches of weapons in sensitive locations and thereafter to get themselves into these location to use these weapons. Admittedly it showed that the insurgents have a band of people that can be called upon to sacrifice themselves in suicide attacks. Admittedly it showed that they have some prowess in planning and executing complex operations in accordance with a set plan. But these are attributes that have been known to be part of the Taliban arsenal. In fact it could be argued as some NATO and Afghan officials have done that the relatively small number of insurgents employed and the insubstantial damage caused showed that the Taliban had lost the momentum.

There are some who would also point to the plea posted on a Taliban website appealing for financial assistance as evidence of the fact that the Taliban have really been hurt by the NATO offensives in the South and need fresh sources of money to garner fresh recruits. Perhaps this is too optimistic a reading of the purport of the Taliban plea. After all we are told to believe that much of the financing for Taliban operations comes from taxing Opium cultivations and from contributions that drug traffickers make as “protection money. The truth however is that much of the illicit money made from opium cultivation and drug trafficking lands up in the pockets of corrupt officials- the job of a police chief in a drug transiting province is said to be available only if a bribe of $60,000 is paid and even a district police chief has to pay $25000 for his job and then be prepared to provide monthly benefit to his bosses. In the areas that they control the Taliban levy a tax equal to 10% of the crop but this does not yield the sort of revenue that western sources suggest.

Where is the big opium money? On a recent visit to Kabul one was shown house after house, garish but clearly expensive, almost all owned by beneficiaries of the opium trade and the revenues it generated for politicians and officials and equally importantly for the warlords who had carved out their fiefdoms along the drug trafficking routes. A recent story in the “Economist” magazine about the state of affairs in Tajikistan was revealing. It said that “The UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that some 30% of Afghan opiates—including 90 tonnes of heroin a year—pass through Central Asia on their way to Russia, most of them through Tajikistan” and that “researchers believe the industry is equivalent to 30-50% of Tajikistan’s GDP.” Clearly the principal beneficiaries of the opium trade are not the Taliban.

Separately it has been reported that the US Treasury designated Gen. Gholamreza Baghbani, who runs the Revolutionary Guards' Quds force office in Zahedan near the Afghan border, as a narcotics "kingpin" for facilitating Afghan drug runners. Iran is a major consumer of opium itself with some 4 million users and is said to be the conduit for 55% of the Afghan opium crop. The Afghans perhaps share the American belief that the money earned for facilitating the drug trade is also used to finance arms shipments into Afghanistan.

Whatever the Taliban earn from drug trafficking may be insubstantial but opium is a problem for Afghanistan in another sense. At the basic level it provides income for the poor farmer who has not other comparably profitable crop. This is why the UNODC survey shows that the area under opium has grown this year. 15 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces remained poppy free this year but none of the 5 that lost this status in 2011 has regained that status.
Little success has attended NATO and American efforts to curb the cultivation of opium. In Helmand and Kandahar, where the “surge” of American troops has chased the Taliban out of many key areas there has been little or no resultant reduction in poppy cultivation this year. The UNODC survey shows that over 63,000 hectares in Helamand and almost 22000 hectares in Kandahar have been cultivated this year reflecting only a marginal change over 2010. Elsewhere there have been substantial increases in poppy cultivated areas in provinces like Nangarhar.

On the other hand it is now evident that opium and heroin addiction has grown in Afghanistan with a million or more users most of them addicts. It can be anticipated that as economic activity slows down following the foreign troop withdrawal, the need for poppy as a cash crop will increase, and with it the number of addicts in Afghanistan and all its neighbouring countries.

This should be the source of genuine apprehension for the Afghan people since, along with indiscriminately spent foreign aid, drug trafficking has been the principal driver of corruption and of the poor governance that more than any other factor has contributed to the present instability in Afghanistan.

A second point of concern should be the planned reduction in the size of the Afghan national Security Forces (ANSF) from the level of 352,000, which will be reached before the end of this year, to 230,000. This will mean a reduction in the cost of maintaining the force from about $6-7 billion a year to about 4.1 billion, which, the Americans say, should be met by a $500 million contribution from Afghanistan, $2.3 billion from America and another $1.3 billion from NATO and other countries. At the recent NATO meeting in Brussels despite the presence of both Secretary Clinton and Secretary Panetta, the only firm pledge came from the UK whose representative committed to providing S110 million from 2015 onwards. Brave words have been spoken about the fact that firm pledges will come before the May 21st Conference in Chicago but so uncertain is the prospect that the NATO Secretary General has already appealed to Russia and China to contribute.

President Karzai himself is so uncertain about the prospect that he has called for the Americans to reduce to writing whatever amount they will provide for the Security forces arguing that even if the amount is lower than the amount the Americans are currently talking about he wanted a written commitment. This, the Americans have rejected with Secretary Panetta explaining that the administration could not make such commitments since appropriating money remained the prerogative of Congress.

This disagreement and the war weariness of the NATO countries suggests that this pledge of $4.1 billion a year for the 2014-2024 period will not be met and an even more drastic reduction in the ANSF will become necessary. But even if this pledge is met it seems difficult to understand how the extra 2-3 billion annually that will be needed to allow for the reduction to take effect gradually until 2017 will be catered for. Some have suggested that the Americans will have no choice but to pick up the slack. The Afghans must worry about whether this will happen.

But even more they must worry about what happens when some 120,000 ANSF personnel knowing little other than how to fire a gun will be accommodated in a shrinking economy. A senior British officer is reported to have said, "Do we really want 120,000 disaffected men – trained to use arms – made unemployed, out on the streets, in an economy highly unlikely to find them other jobs?"

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During a recent visit to Kabul Afghan friends pointed out that according to the World Bank, the contribution of the Services sector to the Afghan GDP was 50%. An optimistic but hopelessly unreal assessment was offered-this would be only marginally affected by the withdrawal of foreign forces. The truth of the matter is that again according to World Bank estimates 90 to 97% of economic activity in Afghanistan was driven, in the last few years, by the foreign presence. It would not be wrong to assume that once the foreign troops withdraw and foreign aided projects begin to be abandoned for lack of funding the services and construction sector of the economy will contract much more drastically perhaps by as much as 90%.

I had mentioned in the earlier article that the reduction of the ANSF would, by 2017, demobilise about 120,000 ANSF personnel and add these men, with few skills other than handling weapons, to the ranks of the large number of currently unemployed people in Afghanistan. To this one must also add the large number of people currently engaged by foreign and Afghan security companies who will be thrown out of work once foreign financed projects grind to a halt and the need for security at such sites diminishes. What will these people do to secure their daily bread? Out on the streets begging or more likely adding to the ranks of the common criminals or extortionists supported by one war lord or another, to exacerbate the difficulties that the ordinary Afghan citizen faces particularly in urban settings. Many of the unemployed may seek to become economic refugees. I have calculated that as many as 2 million Afghans may, post 2014, seek shelter in Pakistan where the border is open and a smaller number may try to cross into Iran where border controls are stricter

One way to handle this situation would be to ensure the maintenance of a high level of economic assistance to Afghanistan post 2014. The Afghans at the Bonn meeting had circulated a paper suggesting that the international community commit to providing $10 billion a year to Afghanistan up to 2024 by which time the Afghans estimated that enough progress would have been made on the exploitation of Afghanistan’s estimated $1 trillion worth of mineral deposits and on the development of its agricultural potential to allow Afghanistan to stand on its own feet. What most Afghans are asking is whether this is a realistic goal given the donor fatigue that exists in the NATO countries and the obvious reluctance of other potential donors to make such commitments.

They will note the example of Pakistan. The Obama administration pushed strongly for the American Congress to approve what came to be known as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Bill, which committed the USA to providing 1.5 billion annually in economic assistance for 5 years. Since American law prohibited a commitment for longer than 5 years it included a recommendation that a future congress should extend this for another 5 years. In other words there was formally a decade long commitment of economic assistance. In practice however much of this is bogged down and the Pakistanis have been vociferously complaining about the shortfall in disbursements and about the projects that the Americans have chosen for implementation.

For the moment it is known that on 22nd April a draft ‘Strategic Partnership Agreement” document was finalised and signed by both Ambassador Crocker on behalf of the United States and National Security Adviser Spanta. While the contents of the agreement are not known it is generally believed that this provides for a decade long involvement of the USA with Afghanistan. Commenting on the agreement an American embassy spokesman said, “Our goal is an enduring partnership with Afghanistan that strengthens Afghan sovereignty, stability and prosperity and that contributes to our shared goal of defeating al-Qaeda and its extremist affiliates,”... “We believe this agreement supports that goal.”

It is highly unlikely that this document, which does not deal with the question of a residual American military presence after 2014, will spell out the specifics of the concrete economic assistance that the Americans will provide over the next decade. But even if it does the Afghans must assume that its implementation may face the some problems, as the Pakistanis believe they are experiencing with the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill.

The Afghans know that those with money are rapidly taking the money out of Afghanistan. The Deputy Governor of the Central Bank has said that $ 8 billion were taken out of the country last year and there are good reasons to believe that despite the new regulations introduced to discourage the exodus of funds more than $4 billion will leave the country this year. Some Afghan friends have said that this fear is unfounded. They believe that the announcement of the US-Afghan Strategic Partnership will restore faith in the future of Afghanistan and such funds will be invested in Afghanistan. One can hope this turns out to be true but the prospects are bleak.

As the foregoing shows, the economic picture-post 2014 appears grim and that is the reality but one must also recognise that there are some bright spots, which, if properly developed, may mitigate the hardship.

These are the major foreign investment agreements signedso far. First the Aynak copper mines where the Chinese have committed to a $2.4 billion investment for strip mining that will provide considerable investment in the mine itself but will also involve the construction of such infrastructure projects as a thermal power plant and a railway to allow the shipment of the mined ore to some smelting unit. A similarly large investment has been committed for the exploration and exploitation of Afghanistan’s fossil fuel deposits. The Indians on their part have put together a consortium, which has committed to an investment of more than $10 billion for the exploitation and transport of iron ore from the Hajigak deposit-reportedly one of the largest and richest in the region. Lastly there is the finalisation recently of the agreement between Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India on transit fee for the pipeline, which is to bring 3.2 billion cubic feet of gas daily from Turkmenistan to markets in Pakistan and India. This project alone would give Afghanistan a transit fee that at the agreed rate of 49.5 cents per thousand cubic feet an annual income of mote than half a billion dollars and would generate other economic activity that could add another half a billion to Afghanistan’s GDP.

Much remains to be done before these projects can bear fruit. The Aynak project remains stymied until the archaeological remains around the site have been completed. The routes to be followed by the transport infrastructure to be created to take the ore to market have yet to be decided. One would like to suggest that as regional cooperation increases the Chinese and Afghans should think in terms of transporting this copper ore to Pakistan’s Baluchistan where a similarly large deposit of copper is awaiting exploitation. The combined product of the two mines would permit the setting up of a smelting plant within the region and an economical transport of the finished product through Pakistan’s port at Gwadar. Currently legal problems are holding up the Pakistan project but were there a chance of a joint smelting plant being set up the incentive for resolving the legal disputes in Pakistan would become irresistible.

Similar work of an imaginative and innovative nature will need to be done for the other projects that are being considered. The most important issue however is going to be the post 2014 security situation and that in turn is going to depend on how rapidly the process of reconciliation proceeds and how this process helps to bridge the differences both ideological and political between the “armed opposition” and the Karzai administration on the one hand and between Afghanistan’s various ethnic groups on the other. Will there be agreement on retaining an American military presence after 2014? If so will this become an insurmountable obstacle as negotiations with the Taliban proceed? Will Afghanistan’s neighbours cooperate?

Only slightly less important will be the efforts that are needed to provide better governance and the impact on these efforts by President Karzai’s repeated assertion that he was considering stepping down before 2014 when the next Presidential elections are due to permit the holding of the elections before foreign troop withdrawal is completed. Will a new team to cope with the challenges of overseeing the withdrawal and undertaking the needed reform of government structures?

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As I was writing this last instalment of my analysis of the Afghan situation we heard of President Obama’s secret visit to Kabul to sign the Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement with President Karzai and to make a prime time Television broadcast to the American nation. What should be noted is that the agreement is termed a legally binding “executive agreement” i.e. an agreement that has not been ratified by the US Senate and therefore has a much lower legal status in American law than a treaty. It talks of 10 years of support for the Afghans but mentions no specific amounts for security or economic assistance. In return the Afghans are required to improve governance, eliminate corruption, protect human rights etc.

The timing was important. On the first anniversary of the raid in which Osama bin Laden was killed by American commandos in the Pakistani city of Abbotabad, Obama wanted to be able to say that one of the principal purposes of the war in Afghanistan had been accomplished and he could therefore safely stay with his announced intent to withdraw American forces and hand over security to the Afghan security forces by 2014.

The intent was also clear. Say to the American people as the American election campaign intensified that. “This time of war began in Afghanistan and this is where it will end.” He could portray himself as the President of peace who was bringing to an end the decade of war that had blighted America and to assert that “As we emerge from a decade of conflict abroad and economic crisis at home, it’s time to renew America

To avoid the charge that Afghanistan was being abandoned, he pledged that beyond 2014,suppor will be provided not only to build the Afghan forces but to accomplish “two narrow security missions-counter-terrorism and continued training”. As a measure of reassurance to the region and to the Afghans, he added that “we will not build permanent bases nor will we be patrolling its cities and mountains”

The Obama visit has probably done him a great deal of good in terms of electoral politics back home but from the perspective of this analysis of the prospects for reconciliation, the notable feature of Obama’s speech was the reference to reconciliation where he acknowledged that his administration “in coordination with the Afghan government” has been in “direct discussions with the Taliban” and they can be part of the future if they renounce violence and abide by afghan laws. He added, and this many read as a strong message, that those who refuse to walk the path of peace will “face strong security forces, backed by the United States and our allies.”

So how will this affect the current state of play on the reconciliation process?

For the moment it appears that apart from the Hikmatyar Group, the smallest and, to my mind, the least significant of the “Armed Opposition” factions the Karzai administration has not been able to locate or talk in any substantive way with the other groups be they the Haqqani network in the east of the country or Mullah Omar’s Taliban in the South.

The talks that have taken place have been between the Americans and the Taliban after a long and searching scrutiny by the Americans to determine that they were in fact talking to genuine representatives. This itself suggests that despite all the intelligence resources deployed by the Americans and NATO allies not very much is known about the Taliban. One must therefore take with a pinch of salt the rumours that there are divisions within the Taliban ranks and rumours about the ruthless elimination of such Taliban It is clear however that the Taliban approached the talks in Qatar with a certain measure of wariness. They repeatedly emphasised that the now suspended talks with the Americans in Qatar were not for reconciliation but were primarily for the exchange of prisoners-the Americans releasing five persons from Guantanamo in exchange for the one American GI that the Taliban are known to be holding. This could support the thesis that the Taliban in entering into talks faced some internal opposition.

On the other hand one can conjecture that the Taliban leadership, which authorised the talks in Qatar had substantive negotiations for reconciliation in mind. We would not, otherwise, have seen the team of five Taliban leaders moving their families to Qatar and taking up long-term residence away from the reach of dissident Taliban or other elements opposed to reconciliation. Why were the talks suspended? Was it purely because the Americans were having problems getting Congressional clearance for the release into Qatari custody of the five Taliban or was it because the Americans demanded that in return for this demonstration of American sincerity the Taliban should issue a statement renouncing ties with the Al-Qaeda? Grossman visited Qatar before reaching Pakistan for the US-Pak bilateral talks and the “Core Group” meeting. Nothing has been said about a meeting with the Taliban but one can assume that some contact direct or indirect was established and is being kept confidential.

One can assume that the Taliban want a greater indication of the ultimate American objectives in Afghanistan before they publicly renounce Al-Qaeda. After all their recent appeal on their website for funding will have little resonance with donors in the Gulf if they renounce Al-Qaeda. And they can afford that loss only if they are assured that there is a genuine prospect of their demands being met. The Obama speech and his assertion that America seeks no permanent bases may be found reassuring.

There is no doubt that the negotiations in Qatar will resume and that over a period of time despite current Taliban statements they will accept the Karzai administration as the negotiating partners. Pakistan has already issued statements at the Prime Ministerial level asking the Taliban to talk. In the core group meeting of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States in Islamabad on the 26th and 27th April it has been agreed that a subgroup of experts will be set up to consider ways and means of providing safe passage to the Taliban desirous of participating in peace talks that presumably will be intra-afghan. Afghan deputy foreign minister Jawed Luddin as the Afghan representative at the core group meeting said, “We need to be able to find them, those who are willing to talk wherever they are...”We need to provide … a safe passage and an environment where they feel safe and confident that they can engage in peace talks without any consequence." Apparently agreeing with this Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Jalil Jilani said, “The formation of the group exploring safe passage was a tangible accomplishment.”

Between this statement of intent and the actualisation of the proposal there may be a considerable time gap but certainly the Taliban and Haqqani leadership will feel that Pakistan’s public statements and the agreement reached in the core group meeting will necessitate a more positive approach on their part. Also they have probably studied as carefully as possible the Strategic Partnership Agreement between Karzai and Obama. The Americans made serious concessions on night time raids and on Bagram Prison to reach agreement and that meant America was serious about providing support to the Afghan government for at least a decade after the foreign troop withdrawal and that such support would include a residual military presence for providing air support to the ANSF and for counter terrorism operations.

It is of course not at all certain that all the Taliban or the entire Haqqani network will find this acceptable. It will take time particularly since some hardliners may argue that the increasing incidents of “green on blue” incidents would make the Americans chary of an exposed presence in any other than very secure bases and would make their Special Operations forces shy away from joint operations.. But Taliban reluctance will not be the only hindrance.

There is very little chance that the political opponents of Karzai will accept that he and his team alone should negotiate with the Taliban. The unfortunate death of Mullah Burhanuddin Rabbani has removed a figure in which the opposition could have reposed confidence. At least they would have found it difficult to question his credentials. His son, Salahuddin Rabbani has been appointed as head of the High Peace Council but he does not command the same credibility. There will therefore have to be intra-afghan talks in Kabul to decide upon the Afghan negotiating team. In these negotiations there will also have to be agreement on what could be conceded to the Taliban but this will also raise the question of the demands from members of the opposition that there should be much greater autonomy for provinces and areas than is currently envisaged in the constitution. Some may argue that while the constitution may remain unchanged its provisions should be so interpreted as to permit greater delegation of authority to local officials locally elected or selected. This could become a major difficulty.

The Afghan people will be right to worry that these obstacles may well become insurmountable and may condemn Afghanistan to a further period of instability.

Lastly President Karzai has been talking quite frequently in the past month about his own desire to step down in 2013 rather than waiting till 2014 when his term legally ends. His argument for doing so is logical. If he steps down the Presidential elections can be held while foreign troops are still present and can provide an additional layer of security and such an early election will ensure that two major events-the complete withdrawal of foreign troops and the election will not be telescoped in 2014. He also says however that his team meaning both his advisers and his political allies are not agreeable.

The Americans and their allies have made it clear that they do want Karzai to step down in 2014 when according to the constitution says his term will end and when he will not be eligible for re-election but will they feel confident that a premature stepping down will not lead to further political turbulence? Karzai has ruled by compromise, by keeping major leaders from all ethnic groups on his side. Will his successor who, because of the demographics will have to be a Pushtun, be able to play the political game with the same skill? Will this unleash new rivalries at a time when forces in Kabul would need to be united in their pursuit of reconciliation with the Taliban?

These again are questions of concern to the ordinary Afghan who is desperately hoping that somehow peace and stability will come to his country. It is difficult to suggest that President Obama’s dramatic dash to Kabul and the agreement he concluded there will assuage in any substantive way these doubts and concerns.
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Photo 1: Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images
Photo 2: Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images
Photo 3: Reuters
Article published here: Strategic Culture Foundation: Part I + Part II + Part III
URL: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/2012/05/08/what-does-the-taliban-attack-on-kabul-po