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New Delhi risks being sidelined in Afghanistan if it maintains its hard line.

By Kabir Taneja for The Diplomat

June 07, 2017

In June 2015, the rich Northern European country of Norway served as the unlikely host to a delegation of Afghan Taliban representatives and officials from the Afghanistan government. Norway has never shied away from attempting to mediate global conflicts. This land of just over 5 million people has done more than most in the name of peace, from mediating between the LTTE and Sri Lankan government to playing a successful role in ending the 50-year war between the Colombian state and the leftist FARC rebels in 2016.

The fact that the Taliban set up an office in Doha in 2013 for talks with not just the Afghan government but international actors as well could be seen as the initial sign that the American-led military campaign to dismantle the Taliban, launched as a reaction to 9/11 in 2003, was coming to an inconclusive conclusion. However, the Talibans Oslo sojourn and the Norways enthusiasm for ending global conflicts produced a convergence of a sort.

The Taliban had developed some confidence in the Norwegians, specifically their diplomat, Alfe Arne Ramslien, whose work to gain the terror groups trust had proven astonishingly successful in 2007. According to a report by The New York Times, the Norwegians even managed a coup, orchestrating a late-night meeting with the then elusive and now deceased Taliban chief, Mullah Mohammed Omar, himself.

Since then we have seen not just the mainstreaming of the Taliban and dialogue processes around the terror group, but the international community and actors also opening dialogue processes with the organization. While the Norwegians have met Taliban representatives in cities such as Oslo, Karachi and Bangkok, the Chinese have hosted an Afghan Taliban delegation led by Qatar office chief Sher Abbas Stanikazi. This visit to Beijing came only days after Chinese, Pakistani and Russian diplomats met in Moscow and called for Taliban leaders be removed from the United Nations sanctions list, and Moscow, perhaps savoring the irony, offered to host peace talks between the Afghanistan government and the Taliban. The U.S., China, Russia and other Western nations are now in the mood to bring the Taliban into Afghan politics. But these maneuvers, initiated after nearly 15 years of Western military efforts, are stepping on the toes of some other vital and influential partners in the Afghan story, most notably, India.

New Delhi has maintained a highly visible marketed stance on terrorism, namely that the concept of good terrorists and bad terrorists is invalid. Indias stakes in Afghanistan are great, as it fears any mainstreaming of the Taliban into the fabric of Afghan politics would give unbridled access to archrival Pakistan, as its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) provides, protects and manages the Taliban from its fortresses in Rawalpindi. However, Indias argument against political acceptance or normalization of the Taliban is in danger of leaving New Delhi isolated.

Last month, the Afghan government made a valuable breakthrough by bringing to a close its long-standing battle with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of Hizb-i-Islami (HIG). Hekmatyar, warlord to some, terrorist to others (as designated by the U.S.-led Coalition) dropped his most prevalent precondition for any peace process with the state, that of a complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghan soil. A disciple of Egyptian Islamic scholar Sayyid Qutbs vision of political Islam via the Muslim Brotherhood, Hekmatyar has been dubbed Butcher of Kabul for single-handedly being responsible for most of the civilian deaths that city saw in the 1990s. His return is no sudden epiphany, but is rather the outcome of political negotiations and deal-making between him and the Afghan government over the past six years.

On his return to Kabul, Hekmatyar called for peace with the Afghan Taliban while speaking at the presidential palace, an area that in years past his forces bombarded mercilessly. He addressed the Taliban as brothers, as he positions himself as a politician, mediator and statesman. Upon his arrival, his engagements also included a host of meetings with foreign diplomats, including a dialogue with Indias Ambassador to Afghanistan, Manpreet Vohra.

The optics of Indias acceptance of Hekmatyar, perhaps at the behest of the Ghani government, are confusing. As Vohra and Hekmatyar sat down for the meet, Indias flag shared the stage with the flag of Hizb-i-Islami and not that of Afghanistan, highlighting the intricacies and grey areas between HIG and the Afghan government that still prevail. More than this, however, the meeting threw the spotlight on Indias hard line on the good terrorist-bad terrorist hypothesis. In preparation for the success of Afghan governments talks with HIG, the UNSC removed Hekmatyar from its sanctions list (although other HIG commanders remain on it) and the U.S. praised this reconciliation.

The security situation in Afghanistan has been deteriorating over the past few months, with more frequent attacks on the Afghan armed forces and the Taliban making territorial gains. It is perhaps the geographical advances and re-establishment of supremacy by the Taliban in parts of the country that has most worried Washington and others, including New Delhi. According to the latest report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), Afghanistan directly controls only 24 percent of the country and influences 36 percent of it. Meanwhile, the Taliban and other insurgents contest, influence or control 40 percent of Afghan territory. Despite the U.S. committing further troops to a war they thought had ended, Kabul does not see military operations as an effective way of diminishing the Taliban, and perhaps no one but the Afghan government now has the experience to make that call.

This leaves India in a bind. As a major influence in Afghanistan with billions of dollars invested in developmental projects, New Delhi has sternly maintained that there is no differentiating between good and bad terrorists. On this basis, India has not officially at least engaged in negotiations with the Taliban or approached the groups Doha office. However, not viewing Hekmatyar as a terrorist on the basis of the Kabul-led reconciliation begs the question: Should India now also look at participating in multilateral (or even bilateral) dialogues with the Taliban? This would mean softening its line on the good and bad terrorist view and being open to such groups political validity. True, a change now on this front could also have domestic political implications for India. Nonetheless, if New Delhi continues its policy of refusing to see any political validity in the Afghan Taliban, it could also be sidelined from the political jigsaw puzzle and lose the position it has spent years building via goodwill and development. Even Hekmatyar during his meeting with Vohra highlighted Indias developmental work, thanking India for the Salma Dam in Herat province.

Indias approach in Afghanistan has been centered on developmental projects and aid; however, its understanding of the political landscape may be in need of drastic shift. While Rawalpindis influence on the Taliban and the Quetta shura is undeniable, New Delhi needs to revisit its Afghanistan policy and position it in a long-term frame, one attuned to the changing dynamics. If that means opening official channels with the Taliban, then such an idea should be given space for deliberations.

Kabir Taneja is an Associate Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.

Originally posted here:
How Afghanistan Is Challenging India's 'Good Terrorist Bad Terrorist' Stand - The Diplomat

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'American Viceroy' in Afghanistan? - WhoWhatWhy / RealNewsProject (blog)

Introduction

The Taliban is a predominantly Pashtun, Islamic fundamentalist group that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001, when a U.S.-led invasion toppled the regime for providing refuge to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The Taliban regrouped across the border in Pakistan, where its central leadership, headed by Mullah Mohammed Omar, leads an insurgency against the Western-backed government in Kabul. Both the United States and Afghanistan have pursued a negotiated settlement with the Taliban, but talks have little momentum as international forces prepare to conclude combat operations in December 2014 and withdraw by the end of 2016.

The Taliban was formed in the early 1990s by an Afghan faction of mujahideen, Islamic fighters who had resisted the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (197989) with the covert backing of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and its Pakistani counterpart, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI). They were joined by younger Pashtun tribesmen who studied in Pakistani madrassas, or seminaries; taliban is Pashto for "students." Pashtuns comprise a plurality in Afghanistan and are the predominant ethnic group in much of the countrys south and east.

The movement attracted popular support in the initial post-Soviet era by promising to impose stability and rule of law after four years of conflict (19921996) among rival mujahideen groups. Talibs entered Kandahar in November 1994 to pacify the crime-ridden southern city, and by September 1996 seized the capital, Kabul, from President Burhanuddin Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik whom they viewed as anti-Pashtun and corrupt. The Taliban regime controlled some 90 percent of the country before its 2001 overthrow, analysts say.

The Taliban imposed its brand of justice as it consolidated territorial control. Taliban jurisprudence was drawn from the Pashtuns pre-Islamic tribal code and interpretations of sharia colored by the austere Wahhabi doctrines of the madrassas Saudi benefactors. The regime neglected social services and other basic state functions even as its Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice enforced prohibitions on behavior the Taliban deemed un-Islamic, requiring women to wear the head-to-toe burqa, or chadri; banning music and television; and jailing men whose beards it deemed too short.

The regime was internationally isolated from its inception. Two UN Security Council resolutions passed in 1998 urged the Taliban to end its abusive treatment of women. The following year the council imposed sanctions on the regime for harboring al-Qaeda. Only Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Pakistan recognized the government. Many analysts say Islamabad supported the Taliban as a force that could unify and stabilize Afghanistan while staving off Indian, Iranian, and Russian influence.

Mullah Omar, a cleric and veteran of the anti-Soviet resistance, led Taliban-ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 as amir al-muminin, or "commander of the faithful." He granted al-Qaeda sanctuary on the condition that it not antagonize the United States, but bin Laden reneged on their agreement in 1998 when he orchestrated bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa. The episode was indicative of tensions that emerged between the two groups, analysts say. The Taliban was fundamentally parochial while al-Qaeda had its sights set on global jihadyet after 9/11, Omar rejected U.S. demands that he give up bin Laden.

Ethnic minority Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras in northern Afghanistan opposed to Taliban rule formed the Northern Alliance, which assisted U.S.-led forces in routing the Taliban after 9/11. Though the regime was dismantled during the occupation, Mullah Omar and many of his top aides escaped to the frontier territories of Pakistan, where they reconstituted the Talibans central leadership. Dubbed the "Quetta Shura" for the capital of Balochistan province, where they are believed to have taken refuge, they maintain a degree of operational authority over Afghan Taliban fighters, but appear "unwilling or unable to monopolize anti-state violence," a UN Security Council monitoring team found in September 2013.

Many experts suspect the Pakistani security establishment continues to provide Taliban militants sanctuary in the countrys western tribal areas in an effort to counter Indias influence in Afghanistan. Islamabad dismisses these charges. (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban, is an insurgent group distinct from its Afghan namesake; it coalesced in response to the Pakistani militarys incursions into that countrys tribal areas. The Afghan Taliban, by contrast, views Pakistan as a benefactor.)

The Talibans post-2001 resurgence has partially been financed by narcotics production and trafficking, though Mullah Omar issued injunctions against opium production, and the Taliban eradicated much of the poppy crop during its rule. Insurgents and other strongmen extort ushr, an agricultural tithe, from farmers and levies at roadside checkpoints. Revenues from illicit mining[PDF]also contribute to Taliban coffers, which net some $400 million[PDF]a year, the UN estimated in 2012.

More than a decade since its fall from power, the Taliban enjoys continued, if declining, support. The Asia Foundation found that in 2013, a third of Afghansmostly Pashtuns and rural Afghanshad sympathy for armed opposition groups (AOGs), primarily the Taliban. Nearly two-thirds of Afghans, the survey found, believed that reconciliation between the government and AOGs would stabilize the country.

Afghan support for the Taliban and allied groups stems in part from grievances directed at public institutions. While the Asia Foundation survey found the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police garner high public confidence, many civilians see government institutions such as the militia-like Afghan Local Police as predatory. Likewise, international forces support for warlords and strongmen, an expedient in securing territory, likely also alienated many rural Afghans from Kabul, analysts say.

Many rural Afghans have come to trust the Talibans extensive judicial network over government courts to "solve disputes in a fair war, without tribal or ethnic bias, or more commonly, without having to pay bribes," says Graeme Smith, a Kabul-based senior analyst at the International Crisis Group.

As the Obama administration wound down the war in Iraq, it recommitted the United States to counterinsurgency operations against the Taliban and allied groups in Afghanistan, authorizing a surge that brought peak troop levels to about one hundred thousand in June 2011 and redoubled civilian efforts. Pakistani safe havens stymied U.S. counterinsurgency efforts, though the CIAs targeted-killing program there has sought, in part, to fulfill a "force protection" mission where the U.S. military cannot operate.

But as the Pentagon withdrew the surge troops in 2012, further drew down its military footprint in 2013, and handed lead security authority over to Afghan forces in June of that year, the Taliban-led insurgency escalated.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) documented 8,615 civilian deaths and injuries[PDF]in 2013, a 14 percent increase over the previous year and the highest toll since it began keeping these records in 2009. UNAMA attributed the vast majority of these casualties to insurgents who deliberately targeted civilians or used such indiscriminate tactics as improvised explosive devices; other civilians were caught in the crossfire between insurgents and government forces.

In some outlying districts, Afghan forces and local insurgents have reached informal cease-fires that effectively cede a degree of authority to the Taliban. The UN reported in 2014 that the Taliban maintained outright control of four districts, out of 373 nationwide, but the insurgencys reach extends much further: Afghan security forces judged in late 2013 that some 40 percent of districts had a "raised" or "high" threat level.

Afghan forces have taken over nearly all combat operations, but some military analysts question whether they can keep the insurgency at bay as coalition forces draw down. Though NATOs combat mission expires at the end of 2014, a consultative loya jirga, a traditional grand assembly of tribal elders and community leaders, overwhelmingly endorsed a longer-term role for the U.S. military and its partners in helping secure the country.

That role is likely to be narrowly circumscribed, however. The United States has articulated a post-2014 mission focused exclusively on training Afghan forces and conducting counterterrorism operations against "the remnants of al-Qaeda." In May 2014, President Barack Obama announced a timetable calling for a complete U.S. withdrawal by the end of 2016. (This residual force is contingent on the Afghan government concluding agreements[PDF]with the U.S. government and NATO; both candidates vying for the presidency have promised they would sign them.)

Some Afghans and U.S. military analysts see the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in late 2011, which followed Washington and Baghdads failure to agree on a renewed status-of-forces agreement, as a cautionary tale. After the last U.S. troops departed Iraq, Sunni insurgents unleashed levels of violence not seen since the height of the civil war several years prior, and made territorial gains across large swaths of the country.

Meanwhile, as an outright battlefield victory appeared unattainable, the United States came to believe by 2010 that political reconciliation "is the solution to ending the war" [PDF]. But talks between the Taliban and the central government have suffered repeated setbacks. Most notably, in September 2011, Kabuls chief negotiator, former president Rabbani, was assassinated. The Taliban has so far shown little interest in accepting the constitution and laying down its arms, while some civil society groups also oppose a negotiated settlement, fearing a backslide on womens rights and other gains made in the past decade.

U.S.-Taliban talks have not fared better than those carried out by Kabul. Prospective negotiations mediated by Qatar in July 2013 were quickly scuttled after Afghan president Hamid Karzai objected to the manner in which the Taliban opened its office in Doha. The Obama administration had originally explored the prisoner swap of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban officials as a potential confidence-building measure tethered to broader peace talks, but no such deal was in the works by the time the exchange went through in June 2014; it appears to have taken place as a one-off event.

Some of the White Houses detractors contend that the surges rigid timetable undermined U.S. leverage at a moment when maximum military pressure was brought to bear on the insurgency, and that the anticipated withdrawal has likewise diminished the Talibans incentives to negotiate.

As coalition forces draw down, the Taliban has recast its mission from one resisting foreign occupation to one that is confronting a government it considers a Western pawn. Meanwhile, its battlefield position and financial interests further reduce its incentives to negotiate, analysts say. The UN says the Taliban and Afghan forces are at a "military stalemate." Other analyses are less optimistic about the central governments ability to hold its ground. The International Crisis Group reports that insurgents are increasingly confident as "ongoing withdrawals of international soldiers have generally coincided with a deterioration of Kabuls reach in outlying districts." An independent assessment[PDF]of Afghan security forces commissioned by the Pentagon predicts that the Taliban will pick up the tempo of its operations and expand areas under its control between 2015 and 2018.

Meanwhile, strong revenues from a bumper poppy harvest [PDF] in 2013 and other illicit trade have further reduced the Talibans incentives to reach a negotiated settlement. Some Taliban factions have become less an ideology-driven armed opposition group than a profit-driven mafia, according to the UN.

But while the insurgency remained formidable, the Taliban failed at one of its chief strategic objectives of 2014: mass disruption of Afghanistans provincial and presidential elections.

See the original post:
The Taliban in Afghanistan | Council on Foreign Relations

Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, centre, at Kabul peace conference on Tuesday. The attack last week was one of the deadliest since 2001. Photograph: Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images

The death toll from the bombing outside Kabuls diplomatic quarter last week has climbed to 150 with more than 300 wounded, the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, has said at a peace conference in the city.

The revised number makes the attack one of the deadliest in Afghanistan since 2001. A week of violence and protests cast a shadow over Tuesdays long-planned meeting, named the Kabul Process. More than 20 countries took part, including some rivalling for covert influence in Afghanistan.

After the bombing on 31 May, hundreds of protesters demanded the resignation of government officials. The government helped fuel public anger when police fired into the crowds, killing nine.

On Saturday, three suicide bombers attacked the funeral of a senate deputy speaker who was killed at the protest. Nearly 20 people died, according to local media and people who attended the ceremony.

The one-day conference aimed to reboot peace talks and enlist neighbours in a regional fight against terrorism. Were fighting 20 transnational terrorist groups on your behalf, Ghani said. What we need is an agreement on regional security.

In front of an almost exclusively male gathering including representatives of Pakistan, India, Iran, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, the US and various European countries, Ghani accused Pakistan of waging an undeclared war.

He scolded western countries for attempting to negotiate with the Taliban on their own. There are too many players running too many parallel tracks with too little clarity on who they are and what they represent, Ghani said. We also ask that you respect the integrity of an Afghan-owned and led consolidated process and not set up separate tracks of your own.

Ghani spoke in the midst of regional diplomatic upheaval. Tensions between arch-rivals India and Pakistan have run high since Pakistan sentenced an alleged Indian spy to death in April. In May, more than a dozen Pakistanis and Afghans were killed in clashes on the two countries border.

This week, five Gulf states severed ties with Qatar over accusations of supporting Islamist terrorists.

The last direct talks with the Taliban, Afghanistans main armed opposition group, broke down in 2015 after Taliban founder Mullah Omar was declared dead two years earlier.

The Taliban called the Kabul Process futile. Talks about peace during the presence of foreign invaders will not yield results and are meaningless, the group said in a statement.

The withdrawal of western troops from Afghanistan is a demand shared by Russia and several regional powers, which further complicates a political settlement.

The representatives of the countries who attended the conference have many differences. They dont see eye to eye on the regional security problems, the Taliban and Isis, said Javed Kohistani, a military analyst in Kabul. We have had several such conferences of peace in the past. The result has been a piece of paper, which has quickly been forgotten, he said.

Tuesdays conference did not include representatives of the Taliban.

Also absent, in a sign of growing rifts within the government, was Ghanis foreign minister, Salahuddin Rabbani, who last week demanded the resignation of the national security adviser Hanif Atmar.

For security purposes, the government called a national holiday to clear the streets. Jets and fighter helicopters crisscrossed the sky. As the conference was getting under way, rockets landed on the tennis court of the Indian ambassadors house.

Last weeks police killings of protesters have prompted new rallies, with activists camping out in three different locations in Kabul. They were shielded from the view of delegates driving to the conference by shipping containers planted to block main thoroughfares.

The government is stopping young people, stopping democracy, said Sharif Beena, a protester.

Nazanin Atashi, 23, a political science student who spoke at a rally a hundred metres from the truck bomb site, said: I came to raise my voice and tell the government and the people that I cant bear it any more. Atashi was the only woman in sight among about 100 protesters. Because of the violence on Friday, most women are afraid, she said.

Atashi was travelling from Bamiyan to Kabul on Friday during the protests. When we arrived, there was a war going on between the government and the people, she said.

While demonstrators encouraged the government to meet with regional powers, they said peace was unattainable as long as Afghanistan did not solve its internal problems.

The way to peace, said a protester, Ahmad Fahim Yousefi, was for the government to reconcile with the opposition and civil society.

The western city of Herat suffered a deadly bombing outside the citys great mosque on Tuesday. After 3pm prayers, a remote-controlled bomb in a motorcycle detonated, killing eight and injuring more than a dozen, said the governors spokesman, Jalani Farhad.

The rest is here:
Afghanistan holds peace conference amid violence and protests - The Guardian

Foreign Policy (blog)

Should this have been the American strategy in Afghanistan? Yes, I think so Foreign Policy (blog) I am not quite sure of what MacLean, a journalist who was an Marine infantry platoon leader in the Afghan war, means by recognition of Pakistan's lack of interest in a stable Afghanistan. I'll try to ask him. Photo credit: SGT. MATTHEW FREIRE/U.S. ...

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Should this have been the American strategy in Afghanistan? Yes, I think so - Foreign Policy (blog)