Daily Times

The year 2015 began with the cabinet-less journey of the unity government in Afghanistan, where the internal security crisis has deeply impacted the normal lives of citizens. The Afghan National Army also faces tough resistance from Taliban insurgents and private militias. The journey became ostensibly more disappointing when international partners declined to further invest in the ethnically divided national security forces of the country. The threat from both Iran and Pakistan is real and shows no signs of diminishing. Young Taliban fighters are being recruited in these states to inflict huge damage on the war-torn country. The Islamic State (IS) is another emerging challenge, which has deeply established its branches across the country. The president’s worry is quite understandable from his CBS television interview on how IS might attempt to threaten the security of Afghanistan.

President Ashraf Ghani, who sternly denounced warlordism 10 years ago, now surrenders to war criminals’ demands shamelessly. The president’s indecision to tackle warlordism is considered hoodwinking and circumvention. Lacking a coherent and prioritised policy on corruption and national security issues created misunderstandings about the so-called anti-corruption and anti-terrorism strategies of his government. The Afghan National Army (ANA) continue to desert, shrink and be squeezed due to lack of funds and modern weapons needed to defeat the Taliban insurgents and IS. Private criminal militias are in control of 70 percent of the territory of the state and are posing a perpetual threat to the existence of the ANA. Far from their homes, poorly paid and discriminated against, every year thousands of ANA soldiers and officers are deserting the army. This increasing desertion costs $ 900 million each year to the armed forces. The army is carrying out attacks along the same pattern as the US did, killing their own countrymen indiscriminately. The consecutive military operations have caused the closure of more than 130 schools in Helmand province, in which 193,000 students were enrolled. In Kunar and Nooristan provinces, the wrongly designed military operations of the ANA military command forced thousands of residents to leave their homes.

Another setback to the ANA occurred in September 2013 and August 2014 when more than 36,000 ANA soldiers were dropped, causing the force to suffer serious combat losses. More worrisome was last year when 2,850 soldiers were killed and 14,600 injured in counterinsurgency operations. Another challenge faced by the ANA is from the unity government’s warlords. Vice President General Rasheed Dostum dramatically challenged the credibility of the ANA by announcing that he had prepared a special force of 20,000 Uzbek men to eliminate the Taliban from Afghanistan. Abdul Rasheed Dostum warned that he would clear Kunduz province of the Taliban and then march his forces to Kunar and Helmand provinces. The Gilam Jam Militia commander is on a special mission to northern Afghanistan. He warned the Taliban that joining the peace process and living in peace was better than being killed.

In 2008, the former president, Hamid Karzai, appointed Abdul Rasheed Dostum as chief of staff of the ANA. In 2009, General Abdul Rasheed Dostum did not run as a candidate for the election but was asked by Hamid Karzai to support his bid for re-election. Later on, he engaged in talks with Taliban-backed militias in northern Afghanistan but failed to bring them back to normal life. Due to the escalating conflict among various factions, it is harder to insulate the ANA from a similar intensification of such factionalisation. President Ghani tries to keep a lid on the cauldron of factionalisation as much as possible but the hydra has now gone out of control. The political representation of Hazaras, Uzbeks, Tajiks and Pashtuns within the ANA and the police is disturbing. Now, with the possible announcement of a new cabinet, there are speculations that the restructuring (re-ethnicisation) of the armed forces would be based on political, ethnic and sectarian lines, as every political, ethnic and sectarian partner of the unity government will demand their share within the armed forces and its military command.

At present, the factionalised unity government, which hardly has any penetration in the provinces and districts, is countered by the criminal militias. The widespread availability of guns, bombs and explosive materials in all provinces is the main driver of insecurity in the country. The Ghani-Abdullah government has openly allowed warlords to carve out space in the black market economy, most notably in drug trafficking. These militias are facilitating domestic and cross border arms smuggling. They are providing arms to the Pakistani Taliban and other terrorist groups. The destabilising political process from ethnic mobilisation to the increasingly disturbing nature of patronage networks and misgovernance is a matter of great concern. War criminal Abdul Rasool Sayyaf, who supported Dr Abdullah in the presidential election, has also mobilised a 10,000 strong Salafi militia. Hezb-e-Wahdat (a Shia militia) is in the field, Hazrat Ali manages a strong militia in Jalalabad and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is also modernising his forces. Many of these problems are compounded by the neighbouring states, which remain deeply problematic factors in efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan.

Another war criminal, who has already challenged the ANA, has declared mobilising his own private militia. Warlord Ismail Khan recently ordered his commanders to reorganise the militias to defend the country from foreign invaders. The provincial government confirmed the distribution of arms among his militia members. Mr Ismail Khan said that the mujahideen need to rearm militias as foreign forces, which he described as “girls” who had failed: “The foreigners sidelined those who fought for ages. They collected all our weapons, our artillery and tanks, and put them on the rubbish heap. Instead, they brought Dutch girls, French girls, they armed American girls. They thought by doing this they would bring security here, but they failed.”

The writer is the author of Punjabi Taliban and can be reached at zai.musakhan222@gmail.com