[R-G] Afghanistan: is it too late?

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.newstatesman.com/200803270027

Afghanistan: is it too late?

Chris Sands

Published 27 March 2008

The Taliban are very far from being defeated. Worse, western  
governments are in denial about the dangers of failing

A normal week in Kabul recently went like this: one day unknown  
attackers dressed in military gear kidnapped a local businessman; 48  
hours later a rocket landed in a deserted area; not long after, a  
businessman's driver was abducted and a ransom demanded; then, in a  
district near the city, a mine was found planted in a dirt road.

Within a fortnight violence had moved up a level. A suicide bomber  
targeted a US convoy as it travelled along the main route leading to  
the airport. Eight Afghan civilians were killed and 35 wounded. Much  
of this is just routine horror, details that will be swept aside by  
even the most pessimistic Nato members when they meet in Bucharest for  
their summit on 2-4 April. But what the west is starting to  
acknowledge, people here have known for some time: Afghanistan is not  
a success story.

Najiba Sharif was elected as an MP for Kabul in September 2005, when  
the war had apparently been won and hope was still in the air. As a  
female politician in a land until so recently controlled by the  
Taliban, she represented a new dawn. A little over two years later she  
described to me how that had changed: "If everything continues like  
this, I feel very sad about my children's future. I never wanted to  
flee the country before, but now I get the sense that I should.

"I do not want to stand for parliament again. Whatever aims I had, I  
could not achieve them. I have no answers for the people who voted for  
me and I feel ashamed."

A series of sobering reports on Afghanistan has emerged in recent  
months. In January alone, Oxfam warned of a potential humanitarian  
disaster, President Hamid Karzai said the picture was one of "doom and  
gloom" for his country, and US senators accused their government of  
having no clear strategy to defeat the insurgency.

For men and women trying to survive everyday life, these realisations  
are too little, too late. Even the most alarming assessments only hint  
at the paranoid anger that exists in villages, towns and cities.  
Sharif's despair is legion.

Earlier this year I met the husband of an MP from southern  
Afghanistan. With him was a team of bodyguards that he had hired  
recently after his wife received threatening phone calls telling her  
never to go back to parliament. When I asked him who was responsible,  
he insisted it was allies of Karzai. People are frightened by all  
sides in this war, including government and Nato-led forces. For many,  
the kind of security offered by the Taliban is preferable to what they  
have now.

Delawar Chamtu became a policeman 28 years ago and survived everything  
the world threw at him until one morning last autumn, when the bus he  
was travelling in blew up. At least 13 people died, including a woman  
and four children. Suicide bombings were rare here until 2006. Now  
they occur regularly across much of the country and are threatening to  
take the insurgency to a new level this spring and summer.

Their impact has been hugely damaging, reaching far beyond the number  
of people killed. Each explosion sows doubts in the minds of Afghans,  
some of whom wholeheartedly supported Kar-zai when he first came to  
power. Chamtu was among them.

"He was very optimistic in the beginning," recalled his eldest son,  
Khyber. "I wanted to leave the country then, but he said I was not  
allowed to go because it would become stable. He said Afghanistan  
would become just like all foreign countries. After security went bad  
he became worried and started asking how it could happen. He would  
say, 'How can the Taliban create these problems and occupy parts of  
our country when we have all the world with us?'"

Growing numbers of Afghans are pondering the same question. It is  
estimated that last year more than 8,000 people died in violence  
related to insurgency, and there were 160 suicide bombings - a record  
total. Kabul had, since the invasion, been regarded as relatively  
safe. Increased militant activity and rampant criminality are changing  
that perception of the capital city.

People avoid going out between seven and nine in the morning, when  
suicide attacks often happen. Blast walls put up to protect government  
and military compounds are raised higher with each passing month. And  
when an army convoy or a bus full of policemen moves through the city,  
civilians watch on anxiously.

Mahfouz Khan was killed in the same incident as Chamtu. At first, his  
brother Isatullah could only find a familiar-looking pair of legs in  
the morgue. Then he discovered the body they had been torn from and  
his fears were confirmed.

"I will never blame the suicide bomber. Maybe he was in trouble or had  
been given bad advice. Someone had put him under pressure and told him  
this would be Islamic, or perhaps he was just very poor," said  
Isatullah. "But I blame my government. If we had a proper government  
that could deploy good police on our borders how could these people  
cross into our cities? There is no real government and no real police.  
Everyone in the government is a killer."

It is now hard to find an Afghan who genuinely supports Karzai. From  
Kabul to Kan dahar, people complain that his administration is  
incompetent and corrupt. Their loyalty is to tribal elders, religious  
leaders or militia commanders, not to a regime they believe to be the  
tool of the Americans.

Uruzgan Province lies in southern Afghan istan, where it is bordered  
by the Taliban strongholds of Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul and Ghazni.  
Late last year, with a new governor in place and winter fast  
approaching, the US ambassador, William Wood, was flown in to showcase  
the sudden optimism said to exist in this key battleground. Some  
children stuck their middle fingers up at the Dutch soldiers deployed  
in town to provide the muscle all officials here need to survive. Most  
of the men just stood and stared, unflinching, as dust swirled around  
them.

Having met a handful of carefully chosen Afghans, the ambassador gave  
me a few minutes of his time. I asked Wood if he agreed that security  
was deteriorating and the insurgents were getting stronger.

"We all expected that the fighting season of 2007 would be a very  
difficult one for the government and for its international allies. In  
fact, it's been a very difficult fighting season for the Taliban," he  
said. "They seem to have given up on their ability to win the hearts  
and minds of the population."

A week or so later I joined members of the British army's 1st  
Battalion, Royal Gurkha Rifles as they patrolled through a valley in  
Uruzgan. Signs of militant activity were clearly visible, with well- 
made bunkers and trenches dotting the landscape. But local people  
denied there were any insurgents around and the troops did not know  
what to think. In the end I asked an Afghan interpreter his opinion.

"Of course, everyone in this village is Taliban," he said. "The men,  
women and children, they are all Taliban."

According to the Senlis Council, an international think tank, the  
Taliban have a permanent presence in 54 per cent of Afghanistan. In a  
report entitled Stumbling Into Chaos, published last November, Senlis  
also warned that insurgents could soon capture Kabul. These findings  
were dismissed by the Ministry of Defence in the UK and, despite  
growing concerns among the international community regarding the  
security situation, a state of denial remains.

Talks about troop numbers and restrictions on deployment will  
inevitably dominate Nato's Bucharest summit, but the arguments will  
seem surreal from inside Afghanistan. When I first came to live in  
Kabul, almost three years ago, I could travel by car to Kandahar with  
the odds just about stacked in favour of survival. Today, Afghans are  
scared to take that route, fearing the police, criminals and the  
Taliban. I cannot safely walk more than 500 metres from my front door.

Violence is also rising in the north, where warlords are tightening  
their grip on power. All the main land routes into Kabul are expected  
to be targeted this year, with the same kind of tactics used against  
Soviet occupation being adopted once again.

Many people hate the Taliban, but that does not mean they like  
Britain, the US, Nato or the Karzai government. In the words of a  
former Northern Alliance commander, a one-time ally of the US: "Now  
when any foreigner is killed every Afghan says, 'Praise be to God.'"

Chris Sands is a British freelance journalist based in Kabul

Afghanistan: 30 years of war

Research by Simon Rudd

April 1978 Democratic Republic of Afghanistan is established following  
violent coup

December 1979 Soviets invade Afghanistan

1985 Mujahedin form alliance with Pakistan against Soviet forces

1986 US supplies mujahedin with missiles

1988 Afghanistan, USSR, US and Pakistan sign peace accords. Soviet  
troops begin pull-out

February 1989 Last Soviet soldier leaves

1991 US and USSR agree to end military aid

1994 Taliban start to challenge government and begin to enforce  
religious conformity

September 1996 Taliban militias capture Kabul

August 1998 US missiles fired at suspected bases of al-Qaeda leader  
Osama Bin Laden September

2001 Attacks on US twin towers. Al-Qaeda held responsible

October 2001 US and Britain launch air strikes against Afghanistan  
after Taliban refuse to hand over Osama Bin Laden

January 2002 First contingent of Nato-led International Security  
Assistance Force arrives

October 2004 Hamid Karzai elected president

July 2006 Nato troops take over leadership of military operations in  
south. Fierce fighting in areas where Taliban are strong

March 2007 Nato and Afghan forces launch Operation Achilles. Heavy  
fighting in Helmand

2008 Canada threatens withdrawal of forces. US calls on European Nato  
members to dedicate more troops; France offers 1,000 more