The Karzai family strengthens its grip on Kandahar

The fifth of the impressive Afghanistan Reports from the Institute for the Study of War, released today, argues that the influence of the President Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, over the city of Kandahar, "is the central obstacle to any of ISAF’s governance objectives, and a consistent policy for dealing with him must be a central element of any new strategy".
Like two previous reports in this series, Politics and Power in Kandahar is written by Carl Forsberg, who argues that a strong, personality-driven political order is emerging in Afghanistan that undermines ISAF's goals.
Strong factors in this new political order include the declining influence of the tribes and the rise of the Karzai family. Control over guns, money and foreign support have now become important sources of power.
Forsberg says that Ahmed Wali Karzai and several of his close relatives are at the centre of a number of commercial and military networks that give him considerable influence over business life in Kandahar. His control over firms like Watan Risk Management and Asia Security Group allow him to enforce his political will and to give himself shadow ownership of the government of Kandahar.
Former Kandahar governor Gul Agha Sherzai runs a rival commercial network to Karzai and this is the main reason, says Forsberg, that he was removed from power in the city and transferred to Nangahar province by President Karzai in 2005.
All of this has consequences for ISAF because the local population sees the provincial goverment as "an exclusive oligarchy devoted to its own enrichment and closely tied to the international coalition". The Taliban are able to exploit this sentiment, with many local powerbrokers who are excluded from Ahmed Wali Karzai's circle only too willing to back the insurgency.
The problems in Kandahar are well known and there have been several attempts to remove Karzai from city, but these have been blocked by the President - causing deep frustration in Washington and London. As Forsberg notes: "In 2007 US Ambassador Ronald Neumann suggested to no avail that the president give his brother an ambassadorial post abroad in response to renewed allegations of Ahmed Wali’s involvement in the drug trade. This was repeated in November 2009, when Ambassador Eikenberry reportedly demanded that President Karzai remove Ahmed Wali Karzai from Kandahar, and again in the spring of 2010, only for the president to continue to refuse his brother’s removal. In a press interview in December 2009, President Karzai noted that it would be an abuse of his powers and a violation of the constitution for him to remove Ahmed Wali Karzai from his position as elected head of the Kandahar provincial council."
Whether or not Karzai junior is removed from Kandahar, Forsberg says ISAF can mitigate some of the worst effects of his presence by such measures as disarming private militias, reforming the way it lets contracts and doing more to build a professional administration in the province. None of these, sadly, will be easy.

Afghan Taliban: more information please

Jeffrey Dressler and Carl Forsberg of the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War have had another go at trying to explain the functioning of the Quetta Shura of the Taliban (QST) in a new report called The Quetta Shura in Southern Afghanistan: Organization, Operations and Shadow Governance.
Dressler's competent last effort, Securing Helmand, was not specifically about the Quetta Shura, but it covered many of the issues contained in this latest report.
But it has to be said that both reports are frustrating. There is plenty of detail about attacks carried out by the Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan, but little if any new information about how the organisation operates and how it is evolving. We still know almost nothing about the leadership. Who is in the Quetta Shura? Where do they come from? What is their background? None of these points are answered. Only four or five members of the QST are mentioned by name.
Then there is the question of the relationship between the QST and both al-Qaeda and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Following the suicide attack on the CIA base at FOB Chapman in Khost on 30 December all three organisations claimed responsibility. Are they really that close? If so, why did the QST issue a statement in the summer distancing itself from the TTP and saying that it no longer wanted to be known as the Taliban? Why indeed did Mullah Omar issue a new rulebook for the organisation last year stressing the need for ethical behaviour by its fighters?
And on foreign fighters, what is the situation? Dressler makes a strong case to support the argument that there is a large presence of foreign fighters in southern Afghanistan under the command of the Taliban. Others suggest that there may be only a hundred or two. If anything, it would appear that most foreigners are travelling to Pakistan to fight with the TTP. Indeed, another Jordanian was killed there this week, this one allegedly a bodyguard of al-Qaeda's No 3, Mustapha Abul Yazid . There is little evidence - certainly in terms of jihadist obituaries - of large numbers of foreigners dying in Helmand.
More light will be shed on the Taliban with the publication of their former Ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Zaeef's, autobiography, My life with the Taliban, next month. More on that soon. For those of you in London, Alex Strick Van Linschoten, who edited it, will be talking about the book at SOAS on 21 January and at several other venues subsequently. For some reason the Mullah himself cannot make it. The UK official launch will be held at the Frontline Club on 9 February.

More US troops needed in Kandahar - report

As US commanders consider how they are going to deploy an extra 30,000 troops in Afghanistan in the next few weeks, they may be considering a strategy spelt out in a report from the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.
Written by Carl Forsberg, who has also worked at the US Marine Corps Intelligence HQ and for the Ugandan State Minister for Disaster Relief and Refugees in Kampala, The Taliban's Campaign for Kandahar argues that The Quetta Shura of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has made the province of Kandahar, including the city itself, a primary objective of its campaign in the south of the country. Since 2004 it has taken control of the districts around the city one-by-one, with the result that by the end of 2008 its forces could use these areas to launch attacks on the provincial capital itself.
In contrast, ISAF has failed to prioritise the province over Helmand and has also failed to position sufficient forces within the city. Due to lack of troops, ISAF has only been able to disrupt the Taliban in Kandahar, but not eradicate it. Forsberg says ISAF should use enough troops to neutralise the Taliban in Kandahar, which is a necessary first step to reversing the Taliban's gains throughout the south of Afghanistan.
The problem with Forsberg's argument is that it cannot show how an increase in troops in the city will defeat the Taliban. The Canadians and the US battalion fighting in Arghandab to the north of the city have both been badly stung by Taliban fighters, who clearly have substantial support in the area. Indeed Forsberg himself points this out, noting "The Taliban’s judicial system, regularized taxation, oversight mechanisms, complaints committees, and protection of opium growers all demonstrate a clear concern with winning local support" and "The Taliban’s desire to win public support in occupied areas through their judicial code is also demonstrated by their willingness to moderate the harsh legal prohibitions on entertainment they had taken during their tenure in power during the 1990s. Radio, television, and the shaving of beards are no longer outlawed by the Taliban in Kandahar, although such activities remained rare in many Taliban-controlled villages due to a reigning conservative social culture."
If only it were possible to compliment the Karzai government in the same way.
The issue today is not military defeat of the Taliban. This is unlikely, even with the extra troops now heading to Afghanistan. A greater troop presence in the crowded confines of the city and surrounding connurbations will only lead to civilian deaths and even greater disenchantment. The only military strategy that makes sense now is one that drives a wedge between Mullah Omar on the one hand and the al-Qaeda-inspired jihadists who are using the Afghans to further their own heretical aims.