Daily Times

Everyday we read controversial statements in newspapers and on our television screens in which Afghan intelligence chiefs act like politicians instead of being professional intelligence managers. This kind of behaviour by National Directorate of Security (NDS) chiefs shows that the agency has become deeply politicised during the last 13 years’ war against terrorism. From 2002 to 2011, former NDS Chief Amrullah Saleh ethnicised, regionalised and politicised the US backed NDS ranks and files, and acted as an opposition party leader, criticising Pakistan’s role in his country. He shamelessly loved to appear on television time and again to show his regionalised activism and political affiliation, but the fact of the matter is that all professional intelligence chiefs of Pakistan, India and Iran act differently. They have never issued political statements and have never criticised neighbouring states. Having exercised his jingoistic approach to the national security mechanism of his country, Saleh criticised every peace effort between the Taliban and Pakistan, and, according to some diplomatic sources, he used the NDS to target agencies and officials in favour of talks with the Taliban.

The torture story of Mr Kamal Achakzai (Haji Gulalai) still reverberates in the ears of those Afghans who were severely tortured in NDS secret prisons. Mr Kamal Achakzai joined the NDS in the early 2000s. According to a secret memo circulated among western diplomats in Afghanistan in 2007, Mr Kamal was responsible for the systemic abuse of NDS prisoners. His methods included beating them, suspending them from ceilings, fastening them in handcuffs for long periods of time and depriving them of sleep. This nonprofessional approach of the agency to the traditional principles of intelligence mechanism in Afghanistan created misunderstandings between the state and its citizens.

In March 2013, the NDS chief behaved like a politician by calling on Afghans to unite against Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) plots. In December 2014, the chief of the NDS, Mr Rahmatullah Nabeel, severely criticised the policies of the unity government on the floor of the Afghan parliament when he was summoned to explain his organisation’s position on the surge of suicide bombings in the country, including Kabul. The intelligence chief blamed a loss of manpower and technology.

These are harsh realities while Afghan intelligence agencies may still have not been able to provide reliable intelligence information to the cabinet-less unity government. The agency should have demonstrated professionalism to provide reliable information to policy makers. Fighting a successful counterinsurgency in the country, the NDS required a reasonably professional and honest approach that Afghans believe is worth of supporting. When the CIA established the NDS in the 2000s, the agency mostly recruited illiterate, untrained and nonprofessional Panjshiri Tajiks who had never been in school or college.

When I read the disturbing stories of the new intelligence war between neighbouring states in Afghanistan and the inability of Afghan intelligence agencies to counter the Taliban insurgency, my hopes of a developed and strong Afghanistan vanished. The NDS did not review and study intelligence operations; it steadily transformed into a battlefield. It mostly focused on the political and diplomatic intelligence mechanism, causing resentment in diplomatic circles.

To address these challenges, fundamental changes are needed in the way information is gathered, assessed and redistributed. Ethnic and sectarian factors need to be addressed. Decriminalisation, de-politicisation, de-radicalisation and sectarian affiliation must be addressed if the government wants to reinvent a professional intelligence infrastructure in the country. There are dozens of intelligence networks operating across the country. The intelligence agencies of former Afghan mujahideen leaders, recruited by the ISI during the 1980s and 1990s, are still in existence. These agencies are more professional than the NDS and Khadamat-e Aetela’at-e Dawlati (KHAD). They provide intelligence to their parties and to the channels they receive funds from. Mujahideen leaders maintain both their intelligence wings’ international affiliations and send their workers for further training to some secret networks. Some have established a clandestine relationship with the Taliban and some with regional intelligence agencies. There are speculations that, in Afghanistan, the KGB, Federal Security Service (FSB) and Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) have also returned to reinvent their previous contacts.

If this chapter is added to the ongoing intelligence war in the country, the partition of the country cannot be ruled out as Afghanistan already faces a precarious national security crisis. Suicide terrorism, warlordism, regionalism, Talibanisation, ethnic and sectarian violence are the biggest national security threats in the country. The year 2015 began with the killings of more than 30 children and women by an Afghan National Army (ANA) commander in a wedding ceremony in Helmand province. Nation building faces massive challenges. The cloud of civil war has intensified as several warlords and mujahideen leaders have mobilised their private criminal militias in various provinces. The new wave of suicide terrorism, internal political turmoil and the poor state of the economy and corruption could pose a bigger threat to Afghanistan’s long-term viability. After a decade of near double-digit growth, the Afghan economy has stalled in the last two years.

With the establishment of the Ghani-Abdullah government, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The initial days of the two-heads’ regime were pleasing but, after three months, it became a headache and is now causing serious torment for politicians, parliamentarians and security forces. The present government represents two states in a weak and ethnically divided country, which has not yet agreed on the names of ministers. The government is under deep pressure from war criminals, narco-smugglers and arms traders and ethnic and sectarian leaders, whose share had been promised in the election days by the two heads of the state. This delay of the cabinet caused the wheel of work in all government offices to come to a complete halt. The Taliban are in full control of Kunar, Nooristan, Helmand, Logar and Kandahar provinces. In the northern parts of the country, the government hardly controls 50 percent of the territory.

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