Pakistan civilian casualties now higher than Afghanistan

As the Pakistani Army offensive gets underway in the Swat Valley in the north of the country it is probably worth putting a few facts into context. First, there can be little doubt that Pakistan is presently in the grip of an insurrection. This is hardly an exaggeration. Just compare the figures for civilian deaths connected to militant or army activity with those in neighbouring Afghanistan.
According to the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA), 2,118 civilians were killed as aresult of armed conflict in Afghanistan in 2008. This represents a 40 per cent increase on UNAMA’s figure for 2007. Even according to the highest estimate, from Afghanistan Rights Monitor (ARM), the total for 2008 was 3,917.
Yet if we look at the Pakistan figures provided by the Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS) (and aggregated by me) we can see that the total number of civilian deaths in the six months from October 2008 – March 2009 was 1,765. If military and insurgent deaths are added, the total is 4,266. If the civilian death figures for Pakistan were extrapolated from six months to one year, the projected total would amount to 3,530 – much higher than the UN figure for Afghanistan and almost as high as the highest estimate.
The PIPS figures show that on average more than 200 terrorist incidents are taking place every month. In the six-month period mentioned, 2,152 militants were killed by the Army and paramilitary forces.
The most significant figure provided by PIPS is that showing the number of Pakistan Army casualties. In the six months in question, the total is just 39. Both the Frontier Corps and the police have had more deaths in a single month. Clearly the Army has, until now, had a policy of only limited engagement with the Taliban and its allies, while the other non-military forces have taken the brunt of the Taliban offensive.
Second, the Taliban in Pakistan is not the same as the Taliban in Afghanistan. The former is a coalition of various groups which, although they are united in wanting to establish an Islamic caliphate, have very clear political and religious differences. The chances of long-term stability of leadership are slim. There are few figures who are universally acknowledged as being pre-eminent. Several of the factions have been in open conflict with each other in the recent past.
It is worth emphasising also that the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) in Pakistan is not even solely a Pashtun organisation. As far back as the anti-Soviet jihad, it was true that many of the Taliban leaders based in Pakistan were in fact Punjabis – many of them seconded from the Pakistan Army. As the TTP has grown in influence over the last two years, it has also attracted attention from organisations such as Kashmiri-based Lashkar-e-Toiba which are known to have close connections to ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence service.
Evidence of the growing influence of Punjabis on the Taliban comes from recent reports showing that the TTP is now operating within the Punjab itself. Eight police officers were killed on 6 February in an attack in Mianwali, a poor wheat-farming district on the border between Punjab and the North West Frontier Province.
Traders in the Punjabi city of Multan recently received leaflets warning that unveiled or unaccompanied women visiting the market would get acid thrown in their faces. The local medical school received threats telling it to cease educating women. The men involved In the March attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team while visiting Lahore (which is the capital of the Punjab) and a military police training academy are thought to be local, but trained in the tribal areas.
In April the TTP issued its first video in Punjabi. The video shows men preparing to attack NATO supply terminals on the outskirts of Peshawar
Speaking in Karachi last week, the well-known Pakistan writer Ahmed Rashid summed up the situation. He said "I no longer say that there's a creeping Talibanization in Pakistan; it's a galloping Talibanization."
He went on to say:
"The leadership of the Taliban is now in Pakistan, and they have stated their intention of overthrowing the government here. The Taliban are linking up with groups in Pakistan, and the Pakistani Taliban movement is turning into a multiethnic movement. Groups cultivated [by the Pakistani Army] to fight in Kashmir have joined up with the Pakistani Taliban, and include Punjabis, with organizations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Harkatul Mujahideen. Now, some 40 groups in Pakistan are loosely affiliated.... For that reason, Pakistan faces a more dangerous situation than Afghanistan, where Tajik and Uzbek fighters were not permitted to join the Afghan Taliban movement."
The real issue now for Pakistan is whether or not the Army can be persuaded to change its policy in relation to the jihadi groups. It has fostered and protected these organisations in order to pursue its policy of regaining control of Kashmir from India. Without a deal on Kashmir, the logic runs, there will be no deal to end the conflict in Afghanistan.
Now this policy has been revealed to be double-edged. As the TTP and its allies have grown in strength, they are intent on taking over control of the country. Pakistanis are slowly waking up to this fact and there is widespread support for the military action now taking place – not least from the millions of Pashtuns who have been forced to leave the tribal territories by the TTP and al-Qaeda and who live in poor conditions in Karachi and the Gulf.

Two more excellent reports from CPAU

Readers may remember that I recently wrote about a report from the Cooperation for Peace and Unity organisation about the background to conflict in Kunduz. Now the same organisation has published two further reports, one on Wardak and the other on the Jaghori and Malistan districts of Ghazni. In total, CPAU has now released five reports, which can be downloaded here.

The report on Jaghori and Malistan, like all these CPAU reports, makes fascinating reading. These two districts are mainly inhabited by Hazara Shias, which are surrounded by districts in which Pashtuns predominate.

Overall in Ghazni, the Taliban has been resurgent in recent years, not least because central government authority simply does not extend to this area. According to the report, a 2008 survey found that 46 per cent of people in Ghazni had never seen the Afghan National Police and 51 per cent had never seen the Afghan National Army. In Jaghori, the figure was 90 per cent.

CPAU believes that a major factor in the growth of support for the Taliban is the failure of the government and foreign forces to guarantee security. People in the country feel that they have been left behind to fend for themselves. Thus when the Taliban presents itself as a force for stability, many people accept the argument. There are more Taliban than police and desertion rates from the latter are very high.

Despite the deteriorating security, in 2008 around 150 US troops based in the rural Nawa district were pulled out due to sustained Taliban attacks. For the people of Ghazni, this signified that the central government was not in control of the rural areas. According to the report:

“This and similar events seem at worst to have led locals to turn their support to the Taliban as the primary power holders and a source of security in the absence of an alternative, or at best diminished local will and capacity to resist Taliban presence and the establishment of associated shadow government structures”.

The report says the Taliban view Ghazni as a strategic province with proximity and road access to Kabul via the Kabul-Kandahar road. They have also spread propaganda throughout villages across the province, mostly through the distribution of night letters (shabnamah) which highlight the government’s shortcomings and urge villagers to join their movement as the only potential solution to their difficulties.

In much of Ghazni, the Taliban has already established shadow government structures with shadow District Commissioners in many Pashtun-dominated districts, including Andar, Dih Yak, Zana Khan, Gelan and Waghaz. Some areas have shadow police chiefs. According to UNAMA, the Taliban’s parallel administration in Ghazni is run by the Quetta Shura.

Another way in which the Taliban is making inroads into the region is through the migratory Kuchi minority. There is a history of conflict between the Kuchis, who winter with their flocks in the south and then move up to this region during the summer, and the Hazaras. Grazing rights and other issues have led to armed conflict, particularly last summer, when dozens of Hazaras were killed. Reports suggest the Taliban are using their followers within this community to extend their control into Hazara areas.

The report also notes changes in Taliban tactics over the past two years including an increased reliance on suicide and roadside attacks, and the exploitation of existing ethnic and cultural tensions to divide communities. In the Jaghori area, for example, this has led to the killing of key community figures’ family members, kidnappings, and killing Hazara labourers from Jaghori working in nearby Pashtun areas.

The Taliban has also begun to attack soft targets such as schools:

“From January to July 2006, 202 attacks on schools in 27 provinces were reported by the Ministry of Education. In Ghazni and five other south-eastern provinces 208 schools were closed between April and July 2006 for security reasons and due to threats. Girls’ schools and schools built by foreign NGOs or with foreign funding were specifically targeted. By June 2008 the threat of the Taliban had successfully prevented school attendance to the extent that even girls’ schools in Ghazni city were forced to close down.

The CPAU report makes for bleak reading, but unlike almost all the other material coming out of Afghanistan it is based on solid, empirical studies and a genuine understanding of local ethnic, tribal and social conditions. The information contained in all five reports should be standard reading for anyone working in Afghanistan and a standard by which other work should be judged. Sad to say, that is not presently the case.

Afghan season at The Tricycle

London’s Tricycle Theatre has organised what must be one of the most comprehensive and challenging arts festivals ever mounted on the subject of Afghanistan. Between now and 14 June, the theatre will be the venue for The Great Game, a series of plays, films, discussions and exhibitions that the organisers hope will shed some light on events in that country. “Afghanistan is likely to be the most important focus of British European and American foreign policy for the rest of this decade and for many years to come.
Through these plays, exhibitions and films it is hoped that audiences will more fully understand how this policy has evolved; and through debate and discussion lessons from the past can be used to better inform action for the future.”
The plays are all short and can be seen in groups of four at a time. Part 1 groups four plays under the general title ‘Invasions and Independence 1842-1930’. It includes Bugles at the Gates of Jalalabad, by Stephen Jeffreys, which is set in January 1842 during the British Army’s retreat from Kabul, as well as Durand’s Line (written by Ron Hutchinson), set during the time of Amir Abdul Rahman, Campaign (by Amit Gupta) and Now is the Time by Joy Wilkinson.
Part 2, grouped as ‘Communism, The Mujahideen and the Taliban 1979-1996 includes David Edgar’s Black Tulips, set in 1987 amongst Russian conscripts, Blood and Gifts by JT Rogers, Miniskirts of Kabul by David Greig and The Lion of Kabul by Colin Teevan.
The final four plays, grouped as ‘Enduring Freedom 1996-2009’, include Honey by Ben Ockrent, The Night is Darkest Before the Dawn by Abi Morgan, On the Side of the Angels by Richard Bean and Canopy of Stars by Simon Stephens, set in a British Army bunker close to the Kajaki Dam.
Films on show at the Tricycle include favourites such as Siddiq Barmak’s Osama and Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s Kandahar, along with other less well-known films including Hana Makhmalbaf’s Buddha Collapsed out of Shame and Kabuli Kid, directed by Barmak Akram. Documentaries include the wonderful Afghan Star, Beauty Academy of Kabul, and View from a Grain of Sand.
There are also wonderful exhibitions on Istalif Ceramics, Contemporary Afghan Photography and Afghan Artists in Britain, as well as talks by the BBC’s David Loyn, Christina Lamb of the Sunday Times and Masood Khalil. The Tricycle should be congratulated for putting together such an impressive cultural event. More information from www.tricycle.co.uk

Another way of resolving conflict

Any day now Richard Holbrooke’s review of American policy in Afghanistan will be published. Whatever the results of the study, we can be reasonably sure that much of it will be dominated by military thinking. Already there have been leaks suggesting, for example, that the US will extend its Predator drone strikes into Balochistan or that an attempt will be made to bribeTaliban foot soldiers away from the organisation.

The emphasis on military thinking is hardly surprising for a country that is obsessed by 9/11 and the threat from al-Qaeda and other extremist Islamist organisations. American generals want to inflict a defeat on the Taliban similar to the one they have inflicted on al-Qaeda and its supporters in Iraq.

It is not going to be so easy in Afghanistan. Even with an extra 17,000 US troops, the total number of Coalition soldiers in the country remains well below the level needed to inflict a severe defeat on an insurgent population. Iraq is much smaller than Afghanistan, with a smaller population and yet at times there were as many as 160,000 combat troops in the country. Most of these were concentrated in just one or two provinces such as al-Anbar, which meant that huge assets could be brought to bear on insurgent groups. Of course, huge damage was also done – who now remembers Falluja?

And the fact that the conflict in Afghanistan is being directed from a neighbouring country – Pakistan – that provides a never-ending stream of recruits, equipment and money, and whose military leadership has a vested interest in the continuation of the conflict – means the insurgency will not be easily defeated. Just over the border in Bajaur, even full-scale warfare and thousands of deaths in the Pakistan Army campaign against the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan needed nine months to win a ceasefire that everyone knows is worth nothing.

I sincerely hope that Mr Holbrooke and his advisers are aware that the problems of Afghanistan cannot – repeat, cannot – be solved militarily. They would do well to examine the work of organisations like Cooperation for Peace and Unity, an Afghan not-for-profit think-tank that has been instrumental in establish Peace Councils in areas where the traditional mechanisms for resolving conflicts have been destroyed.

CPAU has begun to publish a series of conflict analysis studies on different areas - Badakhshan, Kunduz, Kabul, Wardak and Ghazni – that use local data to investigate the reasons behind conflicts over the last seven or eight years. The studies are funded by the Irish charity Trocaire.

The most recent study, on Kunduz is very revealing. It shows that the issue most likely to generate violent conflict in the ethnically mixed areas surrounding Kunduz is land. The background to this is the fact that tens of thousands of Pashtuns were expelled from the area following the collapse of the Taliban in 2001 and now local political parties are trying to position themselves as protectors of Uzbek and Tajik intererests. This, of course, allows the Taliban to present themselves as protectors of Pashtun interests.

The study says that rapid settlement of land disputes, many of them going back to 2001, needs to be implemented. And second, that part of any strategy to counter the Taliban has to include measures to counter the alienation of Kunduz Pashtuns.

There is much more in this study and it should be essential reading for anyone who seriously wants to understand the ways in which Afghanistan works. (A second study, on Kabul, also makes fascinating reading).

So when you read the headlines in the next few days about American muscle-flexing in Afghanistan, please don’t forget that history is never really about white hats and black hats. I think the US marine who had that Zippo lighter engraved back in Vietnam in 1967 had it just about right.

Barbarians strike at the Pashtuns' great poet

The damaged mausoleum of Abdurrahman Baba (Pashtun Post)

I arrived in Peshawar last night much quicker than I expected. This frontier city is now only a two-hour drive from Islambad along the new motorway. Instead of the chaos and confusion of the Grand Trunk (GT) Road, the journey was almost serene as the road cut through green fields and orchards and crossed river after river. Peshawar was once considered an Afghan city, until the Sikhs won it in battle and then the British defeated the Sikhs. Thus was it inherited by Pakistan.
But at its heart Peshawar is still Afghan to the core. Its huge expansion in the last 30 years, fuelled by the millions of Afghan refugees for whom it became home during the war against the Soviets, has done nothing to lessen this feeling. Women wearing the Afghan burka can be seen everywhere and whole districts are populated by those Afghans who never returned home.
More particularly, Peshawar is a Pashtun city, sitting in the heart of the North West Frontier Province and close by the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
And it is increasingly a Taliban city. Although they have no electoral support, theTaliban have the muscle and the influence to dominate the city. Since I arrived I have heard many accounts of Pashto language poets and singers giving up their profession for their own safety. Some have left for foreign countries and even - ironically - for Afghanistan, where they feel less constrained than here, where the Wahhabi influence is strong and growing.
One consequence of all this is that few visitors come here any more. Last night I went to the Khan Klub for dinner. This magnificent and famous five-storey haveli or guesthouse in the old part of the city, boasts five-star rooms decorated with wonderful local carpets, "classical eastern music" and "full service eastern and western fare restaurant".
In fact, when we arrived, there were no guests. We were the first foreigners to enter the building since February 2008. Despite this, our hosts produced a wonderful meal, served to us by candlelight.
This morning, the reality of the alien intolerance introduced by the Arabs of al-Qaeda into Pashtun culture was brought home in the usual way - by an explosion. There have been many explosions in this city, but few were as poignant as this one. No-one was killed, but every Pushtun was hurt by this bomb.
The target was the mausoleum of Abdurrahman Baba, the greatest of the Pashtun Sufi poets. The outer wall of his mausoleum in the Hazarkhwani area of the city was completely destroyed. According to an article in the Pashtun Post a group of unidentified militants used remote control bombs to destroy the four pillars of the building.
No matter which misguided people carried out this bombing, it was aimed at destroying Pashtun culture - the poems of Khushal Khan Khattak and Rahman Baba and later followers such as Ameer Hamza Shinwari and the journalist Mahmud Tarzi.
None was more important to Pashtun culture than Rahman Baba. He was born in 1632 just to the south of Peshawar and was a great Sufi poet in the tradition of Rumi. His wonderful poems teach the need for toleration, peace and spirituality. What could justify an attack on his mortal remains?
Four years ago Robert Sampson and Momin Khan Jaja published the 900-page The Poetry of Rahman Baba - Poet of the Pashtuns, the poet's complete works. You can find out more about the book here. In fact, I urge you to buy a copy, just to show the bastards who did this today that the pen of a great man is mightier than the sword.
As I mentioned in my previous blog, the Pashtuns are the real victims of the vicious strain of Wahhabi Islam that was introduced into this region during the anti-Soviet jihad and which is now in the ascendancy. It is not their choice, but one that is being imposed on them by outsiders. Their culture is being strangled by gunmen and killers who care nothing for the great traditions of a proud people.

An evening with the Pashtuns of Karachi

Pashtun does not equal Taliban, say the men of Karachi

I've been in Pakistan for two or three weeks, mostly in Islamabad, but for the last couple of days I have been in the chaotic (to me) port city of Karachi. Once Pakistan's capital, it is still a major
centre of business and commerce. It is also home to around 15 million people, making it one of the largest cities in the world.
What is less well known is that Karachi is also home to more than three million Pashtuns (or Pukhtuns) from the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), many of whom have arrived since the 1980s following the upheavals caused by the war against the Soviets in neighbouring Afghanistan. Others have been here since the 1950s and many were born here.
Pashtuns - particularly the Afridis - run much of the city's transport system, owning and driving the thousands of gaily coloured buses that snake their way through the traffic, their superstructures loaded with masses of chrome, chains and brightly painted scenes and patterns.
They also run much of Pakistan's road transport business, including almost all of the trucks that move between here and Peshawar, and some of which take supplies to the Coalition troops in Afghanistan.
The presence of so many Pashtuns has for some time been a source of tension for Karachi's political bosses, most of whom are members of the MQM and are Mohajirs descended from Moslems who fled from India to Pakistan at the time of Partition.
Last night I heard about this first hand in two hujras I attended, the first in the Sher Shah area of Karachi and the second in Shirin Jinna Colony. This was an extraordinary experience. Both were attended by people in the transport industry - about a dozen at the first meeting and around 70 at the second. A hujra is a traditional tribal gathering of men, held most nights, where all manner of issues are discussed.
Both meetings were formal, in that introductions were made and tea was served. It was unthinkable to leave before taking tea. Those attending were mostly Afridis, but there was a wide mixture of tribes present, including Shinwaris, Yusufzais and Mohmands. I won't name them, but several were prominent men in their communities.
At both meetings a common theme emerged. These men told me that they had been characterised as 'Talibans' and that the world seemed to think they were all terrorists. They wanted to impress upon me that this was untrue (see my picture above). They were devout Moslems, to be sure, but this did not mean they agreed with the Taliban. They felt that their homelands were being used to fight other peoples' battles - indeed it was the reason that many of them had left the NWFP in the first place during the anti-Soviet period.
Now, they said, they were under a different kind of pressure. The MQM was making it more and more difficult for them to stay in Karachi. Last week there had been a spate of vehicle burnings and when one of their drivers had tried to stop this, he had himself been burnt to death. If they try to apply for a job they are told they have to get ID papers from the NWFP, as they will not be issued here. This means obtaining birth certificates and other documentation that is simply not available. Many of them told me they had been born in Karachi, so why should they go to the NWFP to get papers?
This is the reality behind the perceived threat of 'Talibanisation' of Karachi. Already, I have seen videos on YouTube that try to suggest the Pashtuns are making a bid to take over the city. Of course, during the course of such a short visit, I can make no judgement on such a claim. However, there is a wider point here. Pashtuns from the NWFP and from FATA in particular are now scattered all over Pakistan and the Gulf. The tribal society that existed a generation ago no longer exists except in the most remote areas. It is this breakdown in tribalism that has been exploited by al-Qaeda and its supporters in some of the more remote regions.
Al-Qaeda had even sought to exacerbate this problem, not least by killing the traditional tribal maliks who dispensed justice. According to some reports, more than 170 maliks have been killed, many of them by Uzbek islamists who have no comprehension or interest in tribal culture. They are the same people who wish to impose their own stark and inhuman form of Islam onto the people of the region.
We sometimes forget that it is not only the West that is a victim of the intolerance of the salafists and takfiris associated with al-Qaeda. It is also their hosts, the Pashtuns, who have become victims of their own generosity and hospitality towards Osama bin Laden and his followers.

You could not make it up

TIME Magazine’s recent feature on warlords in Afghanistan purports to be an up-to-the-minute expose, illustrating how a handful of greedy and rapacious bandit-kings are preventing the country from developing.

Sadly, it is nothing of the sort. It is an example of how sloppy TIME has become, allowing unchecked facts and old copy to be recycled as news.

Reporter Aryn Baker chooses to base much of her report on the activities of the Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum. She outlines an unpleasant (but old) story of how Dostum threatened to have a woman raped by 100 men and also how he is now building a massive pink mansion, complete with fish tanks in the entrance hall.

Baker also gives the distinct impression that she has recently met or spoken to the General. “These days, Dostum strides across the marble-inlay floors of his new mansion – a pink, three-tiered wedding cake of a house”. One assumes, reasonably, that Ms Baker has witnessed the General striding through his new palace.

She also quotes him in the present tense: “The money to build the house, Dostum says, came from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, for whom he was military chief of staff. According to Dostum, Karzai pays him $80,000 a month to serve as his emissary to the northern provinces. "I asked for a year up front in cash so that I could build my dream house," he says.”

What is the problem with all this, you may ask? Quite simple. Anyone reading this blog – not to mention other sources – will be aware that Dostum has been in Turkey since early December and that there is very little chance of his return. I reported here that Dostum had recently phoned former President Rabbani to complain about the fact that he had been tricked into leaving and could not return.

Time’s reporter Baker mentions none of this. Presumably she dialed a Turkish telephone number when she spoke to him? In fact, she seems to have done very little checking on this story at all. Much of her report is merely the recycling of a story she filed on 9 December last year. Then, in relation to the woman who was threatened by rape, she wrote:

“Last year Samimi received a phone call from General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a US ally who was appointed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai as Army chief of Staff, threatened to have her raped ‘by 100 men’ if she continued investigating a rape case in which he was implicated. Dostum denied every making such a threat and calls the rape allegation ‘propaganda’. A witness to the phone call, military prosecutor General Habibullah Qasemi, was dismissed from his post soon after, despite carrying a sheaf of glowing recommendation letters penned by U.S. military supervisors."

Compare that to what she reported in her 14 Feb story:

"In 2007, Samimi received a phone call from Dostum threatening to have her raped "by 100 men" if she continued investigating a rape case in which he was implicated. Dostum denies ever making such a threat, telling TIME that the rape allegation is "propaganda." And yet a witness to the phone call, military prosecutor General Habibullah Qasemi, was dismissed from his government post soon afterward, despite carrying a sheaf of glowing recommendation letters penned by U.S. military supervisors."

I should add that other sections of Baker’s more recent report are lifted almost without change from the story filed in December. She has clearly not made any further checking calls or she has accepted the propaganda put out by Dostum's officials.

When I contacted TIME to ask them about all these matters, this was their response: “Aryn Baker, who reported and wrote the article about Afghan warlords in the current issue of TIME, stands by her reporting that, according to General Dostum, Dostum’s men and government officials, Dostum is not in exile in Turkey but is there only to receive treatment for an unspecified condition before returning shortly to Afghanistan.” Oh well, it must be true then.