Daily Times

The announcement by President Obama about the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan created a lot of guesswork in Kabul. As no specific military, economic and political progress has taken root during the last 10 years of the presence of the foreign forces, the country will remain vulnerable to insurgent groups before and after their withdrawal in 2014. This premature disengagement will leave profound consequences for the future of Afghanistan. The Taliban have not been defeated and al Qaeda is still there. Afghan citizens, including parliamentarians and the military establishment, are bewildered that the foreign forces are leaving with all the fighting still raging.

The US and its allies failed to adequately resource the Afghan campaign. Military spending on private criminal militias or Blackwater may have increased the number of irregular warriors but has led to huge waste, inflation and corruption. This irregular spending increased the cost of the war and damaged the reputation of the Afghan government.

Millions of Afghans continue to suffer from shortages in housing, clean water, electricity, medical care and jobs. The Afghan National Army still has many weaknesses. It is fully dependent on embedded trainers and, regretfully, still not able to effectively tackle the insurgency. Warlords and mafia groups started the reorganisation of their forces while in government circles. American friends are mournful and say they are “helpless”. Interestingly, President Obama, in his announcement, did not include any long-term commitment like that offered to Japan and Korea decades ago. This has created more distrust about the future of the US-Afghan friendship.

Afghanistan is already troubled by major societal and economic problems and is especially vulnerable to the additional challenges posed by the influx of arms from Central Asia. Over the last 10 years, due to insufficient investment, poverty has become more and more pronounced as the rate of unemployment is rapidly rising. The country has become known as a guaranteed stock of sophisticated arms and drugs for war criminals and the Taliban, and so the clouds of civil war are re-appearing within the Afghan frontiers accompanied by a heavy rain of bullets. The vast majority of Afghan arms goes straight into the black market. The Afghan poor security and mismanagement have made arms depots attractive to smugglers and vulnerable to loss. Weapons from these depots are secretly going into the hands of smugglers and end up in the hands of Pakistani and Afghan Taliban groups.

On many occasions, arms and ammunition have been stolen or looted in various provinces of the country or the Afghan police and army personnel have sold these weapons for cash. In Afghanistan, as army personnel are not properly paid for their services, they have no option but to cooperate with insurgents for cash and supply them with weapons in exchange for money.

There are documented cases of Afghan soldiers selling weapons to Taliban fighters. Not only has the smuggling of weapons become a profitable business in Afghanistan, the trafficking of drugs, timber, diamonds and even human beings is a popular trade.

The militarisation of crime in Afghanistan has become a threat not only to the state but also put in danger the security establishment of the country. Having streamlined their business, Afghan arms traffickers mostly rely on various arms smuggling networks in Tajikistan, Iran, Pakistan and black markets in the region. In some provinces of the country, weapons are being bartered for hostages and heroin. Many Afghans ask who these arms smugglers are and where they operate from. The answer is clear: during the Soviet intervention, the west and Pakistan utilised the private arms brokers to facilitate Afghans in their struggle. These arms smugglers, however, are deeply involved even after the Cold War ended, and the arms pipelines they built then remain operational to this day.

The horses of the war criminals, drug mafias and private contractors are being prepared for a crucial race in the coming civil war that will drag Afghanistan back into 15th century ignorance. After the withdrawal of the western coalition from Afghanistan, the country might slide back into war and renewed turmoil. The business of kidnapping is in full swing and every group wants to collect a lot of money to finance its militarisation process. Lists of businessmen, big shopkeepers, plaza owners, jewellers and landlords have reached the headquarters of criminal mafia groups. The root of all evil in Afghanistan is the terrible security that hampers all sorts of social, political and economic developments.

Political actors, former warlords and sectarian elements have started visiting the capitals of neighbouring states including India and Russia to take directions for the coming race in Afghanistan. Those secretly associated with the SCO have their own agendas. In Islamabad, recently, Afghan tribal and political players booked rooms in luxury hotels, visited bureaucrats, military generals and clerics and invited them to join their race for political power in the near future.

Islamabad has tired now because neither stability comes to Afghanistan nor do the Americans want to leave Pakistan alone. In June 2011, General Kayani unwillingly told a European delegation that, “Pakistan wants a stable Afghanistan but not at the cost of Pakistan.” Ignoring ‘strategic depth’, he said that Islamabad wants to remain relevant in any peace initiative and is unlikely to accept a solution that would undermine its strategic interests.

The main problem in Afghanistan is money; if you have money it will amount to an open invitation to kidnappers in the current climate. Businessmen in the country have sent their children and families to the UK and US and are obliged to stay behind because of their businesses. The police in Afghanistan accept that there has been an increase in kidnappings for ransom while the business community is naturally concerned for its security. The justice system in the country has collapsed or has been infected with corruption and traditional politics. All institutions are corrupt as there is no punishment for influential criminals. The criminal culture, insecurity and the Afghan government’s inability to extend the rule of law to all parts of the country pose challenges for any future economic growth.

Afghan citizens understand that the government is a large part of the problem as the state police supports criminals. For example, an Afghan businessman told reporters that once, when driving home from work in the evening, he noticed that some criminals were following him. He called the police. When he got out of the car, masked men attacked him and tried to kidnap him but the police stood by helplessly and the kidnappers fled.

The writer is the author of Britain’s National Security Challenges and Punjabi Taliban. He can be reached at zai.musakhan222@gmail.com