Daily Times

In February 2014, the killing of 21 Afghan soldiers in Kunar province triggered the anger of an Afghan National Army (ANA) general who never expected the ethnicisation of Afghan military intelligence, which spies on ethnic Pashtun generals, officers, soldiers and their families, in and outside military barracks. In 2013, the Afghan defence ministry once warned Pashtun officers and soldiers that they would lose their jobs if they did not shift their families from Pakistan to Afghanistan. The Afghan defence minister had received reports that Afghans living in Pakistan work for the ISI and other intelligence agencies. This warning further caused mistrust between Pashtun and non-Pashtun officers. Pashtun military officers complain that the Afghan intelligence is spying on an ethnic basis within the army and police force, which has caused alienation, frustration and suspicion.

The killing of 21 officers was termed an intelligence failure by the defence ministry of Afghanistan, which fired some military commanders including regional intelligence chiefs. Daily Outlook reported the biggest backlash of the Afghan media where President Hamid Karzai’s policies towards the Taliban were harshly criticised. Interestingly, the president did not attend the funeral of the soldiers but cancelled his visit to Sri Lanka. There were speculations within the Afghan parliament and defence ministry that, because of their ethnicity, the president did not consider it necessary to attend the funeral of the murdered soldiers.

In the last four decades, ethnic rivalries between the central government and local ethnic groups have been reported in the Afghan press time and again. After the Soviet withdrawal and the fall of the Dr Najibullah’s government, the Afghan army and its intelligence infrastructure collapsed and a new realignment of ethnic and sectarian actors emerged with their criminal militias. They established their own ethnic intelligence units to gather information about their rivals’ military activities. Their intelligence units were influenced by the intelligence agencies of neighbouring states to further their national interests in Afghanistan. The ISI is also trying to influence the Afghan army and its intelligence wing.

The fragmentation of millions of Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been a key factor in the crisis. Perceiving them as a formidable ethnic group, the ISI and Saudi intelligence agencies have often tried to keep them divided. Afghanistan has never been able to support Pashtuns in Pakistan but the country remains the cradle of Pashtun pride. In addition to ISI and Saudi intelligence designs, Iran pursues a policy of its own, shaped by its national security interests. In reality, all Afghan neighbours are busy provoking ethnic and sectarian groups to strengthen their position in the country. Pakistan wants to maintain its influence in Afghanistan and also try to stabilise the country to secure its own territory but, unfortunately, Afghanistan has been in trouble due to its complicated ethnic politics that are decades old.

The sad incident in Kunar province is considered an intelligence failure. The Kunar province is mostly controlled by Taliban forces where Afghan intelligence has no access to collect intelligence information about the dissidents. Speaking at the funeral ceremony, Defence Minister Maulana Bismillah Khan Muhammadi criticised the controversial role of the Taliban, ISI and his own country’s military intelligence.

Maulana Muhammadi regretted the failed and non-professional strategies of his country’s civil and military intelligence agencies, and the ethnic tendencies of his military commanders who intentionally or unintentionally allowed Taliban fighters to safely enter the fort and kill soldiers, not officers. We have often been told that corruption and illegal use of power, nepotism, regionalism, ethnicity and sectarianism within the ranks of the ANA have divided the loyalties of ANA officers. Such accusations have also harmed the reputation of ANA officers. There is no check and balance in the armed forces. This recent incident is an eye opener to put into practice the laws responsible for keeping a proper check and balance on the top tier of the police and national army.

There is also mistrust between the government and its intelligence agencies as the Taliban have intensified their efforts to inflict more harm on the ANA and the police by taking them hostage in large numbers. The recent investigation of the Afghan defence ministry proved that intelligence has failed to counter Taliban infiltration into the ranks of the armed forces. The main reason behind all these incidents is the ethnic role of the Afghan intelligence agencies and their targeting of Pashtun military officers. Since 2001, non-Pashtuns continue to target Pashtun officers in state institutions. These policies have mostly alienated the whole Pashtun population from the state. Pashtun officers are leaving the armed forces and joining the Taliban forces in the thousands every year. The army is dominated by mafia groups who use it against ethnic Pashtuns in the western and eastern parts of the country.

The ANA is shrinking by the day, as the west prepares to leave the country to its own devices. Having broken the system that was in place, the US and NATO are now leaving Afghanistan to face Taliban elements, criminal warlords and private militias, which disrupt any efforts to pull the nation together. Yet the ANA arose under foreign tutelage and will remain dependent upon foreign support for the foreseeable future. Thus it can only be seen by the majority of Afghans as a legacy of the occupation and not a ‘national’ institution. The current state of the ANA, Taliban infiltration, intelligence failures, the ‘intelligence war’ among various nations and alliances (NATO, US, UK, ISAF), green-on-blue attacks and the rise of war criminals heading private militias present the biggest challenge to the reorganisation of state institutions.

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