Example of What Creates Taliban

[Khostai]

Yes, because my loyalties are to the old red, white, and blue where I yearn for the days of Ronald Reagan and am offended when I see a negro within eyesight.

You understand that media shapes society, right?

Media has its influence but you must also not overreact about it. Especialy in Afghanistan, from my last visit the way people look at things hardly changed. And this song will also hardly have any influence I doubt if anyone in Afghanistan even know who the singer is.

And by the way do you see women in the streets wearing meat dresses and having fake big ass and pink wings? I doubt so.

[marwat]

Mullah Omar's refusal to extradite Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda directly led to the invasion.

Historical inaccuracy, your Shamali boys gave him the initial refuge. Additionally, while his actions were deplorable, he was the direct result of decades of intervention including the Russo Afghan War (instigated by the US), the rise of the Iraqi police state, and the subsequent base making on the Saudi peninsula which, even per April glaspie, the US ambassador to Iraq, were Arab Arab conflicts which the US had pledged not to intercede into. Had this pledge by Ambassador Glaspie been lived up to we might not have the current mess spanning multiple continents that we have today.

and you think you answered him. that's your problem.

[marwat]

which makes the Taliban not any better than the foreigners.

The invaded generally have the moral ground in most matters - the Vietcong did the same things and Martin Luther King spoke to this issue noting that the Vietcong and their actions werea downstream effect of the American invasion.

again it does not makes the Taliban any better than the foreigners..

And they are very good at it, being responsible for more than three quarters of war casualties.

Lower resolution weaponry will tend do that - refer to the above.

what does that mean?

[BarakzaiAbdali]

and you think you answered him. that's your problem.

No, he was answered, there is no problem, except if you are an awami party propagandist... usually those guys are manufactured whole cloth in some mad red hatter factory and pretty much reject hard evidence contrary to their propaganda/conspiracy theories.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

again it does not makes the Taliban any better than the foreigners..

According to folks like Martin Luther King, an indigenous people rocked by war and the subsequent conditions that prevail and give rise to these sorts of movements puts the instigating foreigners at a lower moral standing. Its simply the truth.

But once again Awami party types sold themselves to Russians a few years ago and then sold themselves again in the last 15 years - so by their playbook, yes foreigners that have money are never a bad thing.


what does that mean?

It means that an ill equipped enemy will likely not have access to munitions and the highest quality weaponry resulting in more and more desperate and rudimentary forms of weaponry. Its like how the Palestinian has a rock by the Israeli has laser guided weapon. If the Palestinian throws a rock, unless he is a major league baseball pitcher its highly unlikely the rock will land at its target and may hit someone else on the way.

x

[DaZahroJaam.]

tell me barikzai, you are not ignorant of your people's history or their misfortunes in the past. unlike those who have never seen the face of a classroom, and to some extent, you are educated too. how do you justify one injustice to your people by supporting the cause of a bigger one?? a forigner betraying an afghan is nowhere near as unfortunate as an afghan betraying another afghan.
how does your "zameer" allow you to not only accept this injustice but to reinforce it further?? what does it take?? i will exclude questions of whether you know what 'zameer' and 'ghairat' even are. just answer my very VERY genuine question. what does it take??

[BarakzaiAbdali]

tell me barikzai, you are not ignorant of your people's history or their misfortunes in the past. unlike those who have never seen the face of a classroom, and to some extent, you are educated too. how do you justify one injustice to your people by supporting the cause of a bigger one??

Sure, lets talk. 1) Define supporting a cause, and what exactly it is that allows you to definitively see as me "supporting the bigger one."

I have never said I want Taliban in power or agree with their particular approach. I have merely said I understand why a significant segment of Afghans do not tolerate Karzai or Ghani or Abdullah if they permit kharij occupation the way other nations have been occupied. There is a key difference.

If there was the DZJ native militia made up of saints and sinners who abided by Geneva conventions and they were fighting against kharij presence and instigated by kharij actions, I would also describe what the DZJ militia is in fair terms... where it fits culturally... why it continues to draw recruits... and perhaps why it is a responsive element to the conditions imposed on it - not the instigative one. If the DZJ militia was derived from girls who were abused buy Talibs, the government, etc etc etc and they stated this and there was evidence for this, I would also note their bases.

2) What delineates a bigger injustice according to you? that is, how in your estimation was a A) responsive element created out of the heat of war and B) at times locally supported by people due to the continuing actions of a combination of kharij and collaborators C) previously praised by Karzai (Abdul Ahad and Hamid btw) the bigger injustice?

Every Kandahari and their brother knows the story of how Umar came to power regarding the two girls, the rogue commanders, the shaved heads of the females, and the brutal justice that was dealt out.

The sequence of events was not, :
Mullah Umar builds a time machine ---> goes back to 1969 ---> Starts doing idiothope and hardcore village moves against women and girls everywhere ---> Starts the movement to topple Najib ---> Poor Najib Gaw like a wilting flower cowers in fear from the big bad bearded Mullah ---> Mullah Omar returns to Kandahar and starts randomly and wantonly terrorizing people ---> ETC ETC ETC

No, the sequence, even per Hamid Karzai was
Afghanistan attempted relations with both super powers ---> America and Russia used political proxies in a pressure cooker environment ---> Marxist Afghan goverment goes to far in some of its impositions on rural people ---> US quietly funds some resistance groups to trigger uprisings ---> Russia smells a rat and invades ---> Foreign Armies, especially the Russians, do what they do everywhere and maim, kill, aerial raid, etc. ----> They get beat in a heavy and costly war and leave an environment where fragmented Afghanistan is controlled by local and regional militias ---> In Kandahar some of these militians (e.g. Esmat Muslim Achakzai Militia) make life a living h-ell for every day Afghans and going one village to the next or even within a single village or between sections of teh city was dangerous ---> Out of these chaotic environments the balance flips and the folks usually confined to the seminaries (madrassahs) who were more organized and unified spilled out of the seminaries and began to deal with these harsh conditions with the only ways the culture/situation etc permitted/facilitated.

You prefer me to white wash this and to somehow use emotionalism to ignore their humanity and what created them in the first place (which they NEVER asked to happen to them) so as to CONDEMN them without a fair trial/discussion because popular opinion urge it

But you demand that I wink and bow to Karzai, AbdurRazziq Ghani, Shukria, and the whole lot of them who thrust themselves onto the scene on their own volition and choice and just ignore their crimes against humanity.

And you ask us to do this against all the prior foregone historical examples of why such ventures turn out bad for the occupied peoples.

This I simply cannot do because there is truth, evidence, and justice and then there is the opposite.

a forigner betraying an afghan is nowhere near as unfortunate as an afghan betraying another afghan.
how does your "zameer" allow you to not only accept this injustice but to reinforce it further?? what does it take??

Well a question for a question, how does promoting a completely ahistorical and nonevidence based understanding of the situation promote justice or any honor of any sort?

If you have a child raised in a crack house to a prostitue and that child goes on to be hit, beat, used, malnourished and then the child behaves predictably - why should the complex situation not be examined for justice's sake when the child acts out or does something destructive? Why should the prostitute and her concurrent crack heads not be held to account?

Causation does not justification make.

But your sense of justice is imbalanced. You chose to lead with what you like, what you prefer, and what the popular narrative is rather than where the evidence, history, and precedent lead you.

i will exclude questions of whether you know what 'zameer' and 'ghairat' even are. just answer my very VERY genuine question. what does it take??

A lot of life experience, education, empathy, learning, pattern recognition are key. Ignoring emotionalism and what I want versus what the reality is - this is what it takes. Understanding the motivations (real motivations) and what instigates them is paramount to what it takes.

Thankfully, I am a free man, able to earn for myself and not be beholden or not have a single family member beholden to the Afghan government, surrounding governments (or their opponents) for a living so that the have to pertend to be impartial. I have no unethical financial disclosures that need be made.

[marwat]

No, he was answered, there is no problem, except if you are an awami party propagandist... usually those guys are manufactured whole cloth in some mad red hatter factory and pretty much reject hard evidence contrary to their propaganda/conspiracy theories.

**** awami party, why are you mentioning it in every single post? you want to create an illusion and want to distract the reader from what the post is meant for.
please once again where is the answer?

[DaZahroJaam.]

first you tell me that you don't support them. then you go on about the poetic reasons of as to why they emerged. after that you went on about how my ideology represents the group of people that these warriors are in opposition with and last but not least, you spoke of your supposed freedom and proceeded on to bragging about your source of income and how it's independent and uninfluenced by "surround governments" to suggest that perhaps mine is.

i must say, you don't sound very innocent.

maybe i gave you too much credit when i said you are an educated man.
you may not have said you want taliban in power but you have supported them and justified their actions. this thread is a proof of just that. instead of going back to 1960s and some fairytale drama of how your noble warriors came about in respond to Marxists , let's be fair to my generation and focus on the portion of reality that we have all been witnesses to. even if there was a time when they were good, that can not be used to justify what they have done in the last 20 years.

if you don't support the taliban and are a free man then why the need to go on about the marxists of a time when my father was not even born?? i did the dishes three weeks ago. does that give me the right to smash every piece of it against the wall today?? are you that stupid??


i am not such an egomaniac that i should find myself taking pride in being found on pages of history in opposition of beings that take pride in being alongside warriors of peace and justice who barbarously drove the nation out of the country with their miraculous acts of going after children in schools and blasting mosques with the assistance of forced shahadats of donkeys. as much of a compliment as that may be, you don't need to link my name to any group of people.

you are so used to your own fairytale that whenever you hear something that does not resonate your own belief, you convince yourself that the person speaking has to be coming from the side of your friend's enemy. this is where you are caught in your lie. that you don't feel ashamed of being caught in your own lame lie suggests the exact extent of your freedom. what happened to "them" and what caused "them" to emerge maybe reason enough for you to justify their crimes against afghans today, it's not for me. i don't need to hear them give me a reason for their actions because there is nothing on the surface of this earth or whatever follows life here that could convince me to say "yes, you had the right to do what you did or the right to continue doing what you are doing". i don't care what that makes me.that you can be convinced, speaks of your education, your humanity and your freedom.
so don't give me reasons of why "they" became who they are when i ask you how you can justify their actions and then claim you don't support them. because you do. you just don't have the guts to say so.

free men don't sneak their realities or beliefs here and there like thieves.

[DaZahroJaam.]

i don't have the patience to read your edited lies five times. my respond to you is based on the first version of your post, not the five times edited one.

Originally Posted by DaZahroJaam.
tell me barikzai, you are not ignorant of your people's history or their misfortunes in the past. unlike those who have never seen the face of a classroom, and to some extent, you are educated too. how do you justify one injustice to your people by supporting the cause of a bigger one??

Sure, lets talk. 1) Define supporting a cause, and what exactly it is that allows you to definitively see as me "supporting the bigger one."

I have never said I want Taliban in power or agree with their particular approach. I have merely said I understand why a significant segment of Afghans do not tolerate Karzai or Ghani or Abdullah if they permit kharij occupation the way other nations have been occupied. There is a key difference.

If there was the DZJ native militia made up of saints and sinners who abided by Geneva conventions and they were fighting against kharij presence and instigated by kharij actions, I would also describe what the DZJ militia is in fair terms... where it fits culturally... why it continues to draw recruits... and perhaps why it is a responsive element to the conditions imposed on it - not the instigative one. If the DZJ militia was derived from girls who were abused buy Talibs, the government, etc etc etc and they stated this and there was evidence for this, I would also note their bases.

2) What delineates a bigger injustice according to you? that is, how in your estimation was a A) responsive element created out of the heat of war and B) at times locally supported by people due to the continuing actions of a combination of kharij and collaborators C) previously praised by Karzai (Abdul Ahad and Hamid btw) the bigger injustice?

Every Kandahari and their brother knows the story of how Umar came to power regarding the two girls, the rogue commanders, the shaved heads of the females, and the brutal justice that was dealt out.

The sequence of events was not, :
Mullah Umar builds a time machine ---> goes back to 1969 ---> Starts doing idiothope and hardcore village moves against women and girls everywhere ---> Starts the movement to topple Najib ---> Poor Najib Gaw like a wilting flower cowers in fear from the big bad bearded Mullah ---> Mullah Omar returns to Kandahar and starts randomly and wantonly terrorizing people ---> ETC ETC ETC

No, the sequence, even per Hamid Karzai was
Afghanistan attempted relations with both super powers ---> America and Russia used political proxies in a pressure cooker environment ---> Marxist Afghan goverment goes to far in some of its impositions on rural people ---> US quietly funds some resistance groups to trigger uprisings ---> Russia smells a rat and invades ---> Foreign Armies, especially the Russians, do what they do everywhere and maim, kill, aerial raid, etc. ----> They get beat in a heavy and costly war and leave an environment where fragmented Afghanistan is controlled by local and regional militias ---> In Kandahar some of these militians (e.g. Esmat Muslim Achakzai Militia) make life a living h-ell for every day Afghans and going one village to the next or even within a single village or between sections of teh city was dangerous ---> Out of these chaotic environments the balance flips and the folks usually confined to the seminaries (madrassahs) who were more organized and unified spilled out of the seminaries and began to deal with these harsh conditions with the only ways the culture/situation etc permitted/facilitated.

You prefer me to white wash this and to somehow use emotionalism to ignore their humanity and what created them in the first place (which they NEVER asked to happen to them) so as to CONDEMN them without a fair trial/discussion because popular opinion urge it

But you demand that I wink and bow to Karzai, AbdurRazziq Ghani, Shukria, and the whole lot of them who thrust themselves onto the scene on their own volition and choice and just ignore their crimes against humanity.

And you ask us to do this against all the prior foregone historical examples of why such ventures turn out bad for the occupied peoples.

This I simply cannot do because there is truth, evidence, and justice and then there is the opposite.

a forigner betraying an afghan is nowhere near as unfortunate as an afghan betraying another afghan.
how does your "zameer" allow you to not only accept this injustice but to reinforce it further?? what does it take??

Well a question for a question, how does promoting a completely ahistorical and nonevidence based understanding of the situation promote justice or any honor of any sort?

If you have a child raised in a crack house to a prostitue and that child goes on to be hit, beat, used, malnourished and then the child behaves predictably - why should the complex situation not be examined for justice's sake when the child acts out or does something destructive? Why should the prostitute and her concurrent crack heads not be held to account?

Causation does not justification make.

But your sense of justice is imbalanced. You chose to lead with what you like, what you prefer, and what the popular narrative is rather than where the evidence, history, and precedent lead you.

i will exclude questions of whether you know what 'zameer' and 'ghairat' even are. just answer my very VERY genuine question. what does it take??

A lot of life experience, education, empathy, learning, pattern recognition are key. Ignoring emotionalism and what I want versus what the reality is - this is what it takes. Understanding the motivations (real motivations) and what instigates them is paramount to what it takes.


Thankfully, I am a free man, able to earn for myself and not be beholden or not have a single family member beholden to the Afghan government, surrounding governments (or their opponents) for a living so that the have to pertend to be impartial. I have no unethical financial disclosures that need be made.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

first you tell me that you don't support them. then you go on about the poetic reasons of as to why they emerged.

Or simply the reasons they emerged. If you decide to read poetry into that, then you need to resolve your own internal dialogue.

after that you went on about how my ideology represents the group of people that these warriors are in opposition with and last but not least, you spoke of your supposed freedom and proceeded on to bragging about your source of income

A disclaimer is not bragging it is the answer to your question about "what it takes." It takes nothing - I work for free.

and how it's independent and uninfluenced by "surround governments" to suggest that perhaps mine is.

That is your paranoia. This was not a comment on your affiliations

i must say, you don't sound very innocent.

When my head hits the pillow at night, I sleep like a baby - innocence is my forte.

maybe i gave you too much credit when i said you are an educated man.

I prefer recognition and degrees from accredited institutes of higher learning, not a random girl on the internet. Approval seeking is the last of my concerns

you may not have said you want taliban in power but you have supported them and justified their actions.

I repeat, as Glenn Greenwald said, "Explaining causation does not justification make." To a select group of you with your own personal qualms with reality- sure, these facts, histories, and realities sound like "support" and "justification" because they don't mesh with what you want to hear, which is what you decided to be true without merit.

this thread is a proof of just that.

Wrong, there are countless affidavits, even in the Kabul government's possession of captured Talibs, Hizbe, and insurgents who cited just such events as the trigger for their joining these movements. A solid face to face example is with the interview Jeremy Scahill conducted with the husband of a woman killed in a night raid in Gardez.

instead of going back to 1960s and some fairytale drama of how your noble warriors came about in respond to Marxists ,

Refer to the history. They were never referred to as noble or ignoble. Re-read it carefully, to ignore historical fact is the problematic sign of a closed mind. Show us where the historical error resides.

let's be fair to my generation and focus on the portion of reality that we have all been witnesses to. even if there was a time when they were good, that can not be used to justify what they have done in the last 20 years.

You still do not understand. It has nothing to do with justification. There is no need to justify anything. Explaining causation, for instance - if 3 people walk into a restaurant and 1 out of the 3 goes up to a random person and insults their mother and gets punched in the mouth... we have an instance of instigation and an instance of response. Legally, morally justification wise we could say that hitting someone or insulting someone's mother are both wrong. That is not what we are discussing, we are discussing whether: It was possible that going to the random person and insulting their mother enhanced the probability of an altercation



if you don't support the taliban and are a free man then why the need to go on about the marxists of a time when my father was not even born??

My father was born then as were countless people here on this forum. If your father was not born during that era he would have to have been born in the mid to late 1980s to not recall the situation relative to that government. Also, you are also making a historically inaccurate assumption and correlation: Taliban did not exist during the Marxist government - we repeat, they arose after the cascade of events and the war against the Marxist government concluded and chaos/disunity/civil war was tearing regions apart... therefore, discussing the marxists and their mistakes has no relation to justifying Taliban.

i did the dishes three weeks ago. does that give me the right to smash every piece of it against the wall today??

No, a better example would be: If you took the dishes and beat your young nephew or niece with them mercilessly in the name if discipline or "teaching them civility" and then they decided to smash every piece of them both on the wall and on your head. Neither action is justified, but the latter, done by your nephew or niece, was predictable based on the arc of history and the facts at hand.

are you that stupid??

No, I am terribly and fiercely smart actually.

i am not such an egomaniac that i should find myself taking pride in being found on pages of history in opposition of beings that take pride in being alongside warriors of peace and justice who barbarously drove the nation out of the country

Wrong, the majority of the refugees left in the context of the Kabul government of Najib's era sending their Red Army backed recruits into the countryside (it would turn out that even many of these folks would defect for fear of their handlers) followed by the Russians. There is vivid video footage of Afghans in Kacha Gerai and various other camps repeating the same story regarding Russkies and their Najib governmental colleagues degrading and debasing them and actually killing relatives in front of them - causing them to flee. In fact, read Sharbat Gul's story (the green eyed girl) - most of her family was massacred by Russians and she and her grandmother fled on foot to Pakistan for that reason

with their miraculous acts of going after children in schools

As opposed to Esmat Achakzai's militia men chasing children's rectums and raping them with inanimate objects? Sorry but the Kite Runner crap doesn't work on me.

and blasting mosques

Where and when and in what context did Talibs blast mosques? Please provide a citation I can read. Not saying it did not happen, but asking for the evidence.

with the assistance of forced shahadats of donkeys. as much of a compliment as that may be, you don't need to link my name to any group of people.

you are so used to your own fairytale that whenever you hear something that does not resonate your own belief, you convince yourself that the person speaking has to be coming from the side of your friend's enemy.

Incorrect, you have in the past praised Hamida Bibi (who in turn is on video in his younger days praising the Talibs in the first 2 years - so I recommend you discuss your disdain with him first)

this is where you are caught in your lie.

Your writing style lacks finesse mainly because you do not get to the point - you intersperse opinion laced with melodrama. Caught in a lie implies you have proof a lie has occurred - instead you are merely re-brainwashing yourself status post being challenged with facts and references that you cannot deal with.

that you don't feel ashamed of being caught in your own lame lie suggests the exact extent of your freedom.

The other issue with your writing style is that you rely heavily on cliches. My freedom, and its extent, is only threatened by the minutes I will be unable to retrieve when I decided to sift through these opinion pieces of yours.

what happened to "them" and what caused "them" to emerge maybe reason enough for you to justify their crimes against afghans today, it's not for me.

There is the bias again, once again it reveals the difference between an educated mind (mine) and yours (an emotional uneducated one). Regarding crimes... you choose to focus on theirs, but once again, what are their crimes? Are their crimes collateral damage production? if so Kharij, ANP, and ANA have piles and piles of names of average innocent Afghans were "collateral damage" during their operations (in fact a combination of kharij and ANA units killed Hamid Karzai's own Uncle)

Are their crimes rapes? That has not been a lodged complaint as of yet, but that sure has been confirmed against the ANP.

Are their crimes point blank murder of children and families in badi? No, that honor belongs to Razziq of Kandahar who killed Shin Noorzai's family members, even a child. Razziq was and is Karzai's right hand in Kandahar.



i don't need to hear them give me a reason for their actions because there is nothing on the surface of this earth or whatever follows life here that could convince me to say "yes, you had the right to do what you did or the right to continue doing what you are doing".

Of course its not right, that is not the point. It is predictable though and partly responsive to ANA, ANP, NDS, and Kabul government actions on one side of the border and Pakistani military and governmental actions on the other. This is validated in correlations between ISAF troop movements into pashtun regions which witness an enormous spike of attacks that occur when these forces begin conducting operations in these areas.

i don't care what that makes me.that you can be convinced, speaks of your education, your humanity and your freedom.

Convinced that they are tools that permit clarity of vision instead of emotionalisms and illogic such as that which you offer? certainly.

so don't give me reasons of why "they" became who they are when i ask you how you can justify their actions and then claim you don't support them. because you do.

Wrong again. I can also explain why the Vietcong did what they did and why Dhiem and the US Military pretty much created the right environs for that group to operate and derive support. You don't want reasons because you cannot reason - rather you prefer validation of preconceived notions for secondary gain - which is frankly, your business. There is no need to air your internal dialogue here.

you just don't have the guts to say so.

LOL. If I did, you would hear it. There is no crime in saying one admires or hopes for their victory but these are not things that I seek. I will however continue to post the dirty laundry of the NDS, ANP, ANA and every other Kabul regime figure that comes my way. I hope you find the guts to condemn these governmental actions as strongly. For instance, we await your condemnation of the rape charges against the ANP.

free men don't sneak their realities or beliefs here and there like thieves.
Unless their beliefs are intelligent and nuanced- then to the ignorant they seem to have been "snuck" into places.

x

[BarakzaiAbdali]

i don't have the patience to read your edited lies five times. my respond to you is based on the first version of your post, not the five times edited one.

Perhaps it can be an equal exchange - since I have to read the mind numbing drivel called your prose that meanders between cliche and emotional nonsense - you can read my single edits and I will try my best to cut past your fluff.

[khushal]

Here is a great case study of what creates Insurgency.

https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/back-to-bad-chahrdara-between-taleban-and-alp-district-case-study/

Back to Bad: Chahrdara between Taleban and ALP – a district case study

Author: Lola Cecchinel
Date: 6 September 2013 Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Print Download PDF
ALP-310x200


Chahrdara, an embattled district in Kunduz province, is a miniature model for all of Afghanistan’s larger conflicts. Traditionally a hotbed of the insurgency, military interventions could never bring lasting change, so Chahrdara – under heavy foreign siege in 2010 (1) – is back to where it was: a Taleban stronghold in the north. At the same time, the Afghan Local Police (ALP) deployed to the district, set up to fight the insurgency, add to the problems in a startling way – they fight not only against Taleban, but also against civilians and among themselves. AAN’s guest author Lola Cecchinel, who has been doing research in the area for the past year, puts this one district of Afghanistan under the magnifying glass and presents layers and causes of conflicts along but also across ethnic and political lines.

On 13 April this year, a group of Taleban blocked the road to the village Nahr-e Sufi in Chahrdara, Kunduz province, and searched all vehicles. The search lasted for one hour. The Taleban had set up the checkpoint to find Sher Arab, an ALP commander, who had managed to escape the area one hour before. They reportedly dragged passengers out of their cars, looked into their phones and threatened them to never cooperate with the ALP or they would be severely punished. As was seen country wide since the beginning of the Taleban’s spring offensive (read our initial analysis here: http://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/...ring-offensive), the ALP is the Taleban’s primary target. This is so in Chahrdara where the ALP program was initiated in 2010 and where recruitment began in 2011 (read here and here) as well as in other districts of Kunduz where the program was also initiated three years ago.(2) Ali Shah Ahmadzai, general director of the ALP at the Ministry of the Interior told AAN in a phone interview that of the 300 ALP deployed so far, “16 ALP were killed and 18 wounded.”

Once the search was over, several ALP commanders of neighbouring areas, including Gul Ahmad, Abdul Wahab, Nasir Ruz and Nazar, turned up at the scene and ransacked the village, which is predominantly Pashtun, looking for the insurgents. A witness of the incident interviewed for the author’s research reported that residents were pulled out of their houses, yelled at and threatened with death if they did not give names and locations of insurgents. One resident was taken to the NDS in Kunduz and accused of hosting two suicide bombers in his home and permitting their escape from the district. The arrested man was the brother of Allah Mohammad, one of the commanders of the Taleban in Chahrdara.(3)

Residents of Nahr-e Sufi, as well as all the other areas in Chahrdara where the ALP has set up to fight the Taleban, are caught between two evils, and it is not clear at all which is the lesser one. On the one hand, the ALP is violently repressing people suspected of supporting insurgents. On the other hand, the Taleban are issuing threats to anyone tempted to cooperate with the government in the district. The Taleban regularly attack ALP check posts and stage ambushes against their commanders in Chahrdara (4). For instance, a local from Aq Khash village (to the west of Chahrdara, north of Mamakhel) interviewed in July 2013 explained: “One of my brothers was in the ALP. The Taleban were warning our relatives every day, so I forced him to quit the ALP and sent him to our sister’s house in Pakistan to protect him.” Taleban threaten ALP recruits and their families with death and occasionally engage in direct confrontation; for instance, in early July near Nawabad (a remote area in western Chahrdara): an off-duty ALP officer was attacked by a group of insurgents. Afghan National Police (ANP) came to his help, but the clash lasted four hours, causing the death of three Taleban and one ANP officer and injuries to twelve civilians. According to a witness, heavy and light weapons were used and several houses in the area were damaged. One of the bullets hit a local mulla’s house, injuring both his wife and daughter. The girl died. In another house a mother with her child and four men of the family were wounded.

The confrontation between the ALP and the Taleban adds a layer of conflict in the quasi-civil war being staged in Kunduz. Today, Chahrdara district, traditionally a hotbed of the insurgency, features levels of insecurity similar to 2009 at the height of the insurgency in the north. Despite intense campaigns of joint ISAF/ANSF operations targeting the Taleban in Chahrdara,(5) the insurgency has regained its strength and now controls much of the area outside the district centre. The establishment of the ALP in 2010, predominantly composed of non-Pashtuns in a district where the majority are Pashtun, has helped revive tensions between Tajiks and Uzbeks versus the Pashtuns, and to a certain extent, it has fostered support – also forcibly – of the Pashtun communities for the Taleban.

After the episode of the beatings in Nahr-e Sufi, a resident told one field researcher: “What is the sin of the poor people to deserve being beaten up by the ALP? Because of the behaviour of the local police, the Taleban could come back again. If the ALP was truly respected among the people, the Taleban would not exist in the region.”

There are two main interests to look at Chahrdara: first, special historical and social settings provide insights into a fragmented, rather anarchic, structure of power where a multitude of actors escape the control of the state. At the same time, the evolution of the situation in Chahrdara is illustrating general trends on the provincial level, notably the increased levels of violence not only between state or semi-state actors and insurgents but also against the civilian population. Previously – with the insurgency concentrating on targeting ISAF convoys and bases as well as national army and national police – violence frequently happened outside of communities. The introduction of a third actor in the equation, the ALP – which is state-supported but at the same time community-embedded and recruited from the local population – has considerably increased local exposure to violence (read this and this).(6) In spring 2012, the Afghan Human Rights Commission reported that the ALP had become the main cause of insecurity and human rights violations in Kunduz, mainly because members of illegal armed groups had been recruited into the ALP units. More recently, in January 2013, a UNAMA report of detainees interviewed in several provinces, found evidence that ten of the twelve detained after being arrested by ALP members had experienced torture or ill-treatment; seven of these ten were from Chahrdara district.

A look back in history

Chahrdara district is one of the seven districts of Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan, home to around 70,200 inhabitants; its district centre is located about ten kilometres to the southwest of Kunduz city. It shares borders, among others, with the Baghlan-e Jadid district in Baghlan to the south, another district notorious for being a Taleban stronghold. But this connection does not fully explain the level of today’s insurgency. A look back into its history reveals interesting layers of conflict, all contributing to the current situation.

Chahrdara is a multi-ethnic district reflecting the ethnic distribution of the province. Approximately 60 per cent of the population is Pashtun (mostly from the Omarkhel tribe), followed by Uzbeks (17 per cent), Tajiks (11 per cent), Turkmen (7 per cent) and Arabs (4 per cent).(7) The majority of Pashtuns were settled in the district under the reign of Amir Abdur Rahman Khan (1880–1901), moved there in an attempt to increase state regulation in the north. The forced settlement causes tensions up to today. Tajiks and Uzbeks claim that the Pashtuns were given their land while Pashtuns complain about having been forced onto land that was inappropriate for agriculture, but for which they nevertheless had to pay taxes, laying the ground for future tensions fuelled by three decades of displacement, wars and revenge. Pashtuns are accused of being responsible for the infiltration of insurgents into the district, both in 1997 and again in 2008. Since 2001, they have been subject to harassment and violence in revenge for Taleban crimes (find Human Rights Watch’s April 2002 report here). In turn, Pashtuns fear the domination of other groups in the security apparatus.

Following the end of the Soviet occupation, Chahrdara fell under the control of Hezb-e Islami (Hekmatyar) and one of its most famous commanders, Arbab Mohammad Hashem. Arbab Hashem was an influential Pashtun from the Popalzai tribe, responsible for the infiltration of the Taleban into the district in 1997. Both Hezb-i-Islami and Ittehad-e Islami relied on the predominantly Pashtun population to garner support during the war, which also facilitated the penetration of the Taleban (exclusively Pashtun-composed at that time) in the area. In 1997, as explained in AAN’s report “The Networks of Kunduz”, Hezb and Ittehad had been weakened in their positions and held less territory than before. As a result, many fighters and commanders in the district defected to the Taleban. As Kunduz fell to the insurgents, the Taleban consolidated their bases in the district, notably around Mamakhel, an area in the northwest, with about 500 families, 70 per cent of which are Pashtuns, the rest Uzbeks. Mamakhel is still considered the centre of the movement in Chahrdara.

Chahrdara was decisively captured back by the forces of the Northern Alliance in 2001. Former commanders – Tajiks, Uzbeks, but also former Taleban – benefited from the power vacuum after the ousting of the Taleban to impose themselves as major actors in the district. Arms were available in large numbers, favouring the progressive creation of militias under the control of independent commanders. Families who had fled the fighting returned only to find their property destroyed, looted or occupied (the UNHCR registered 389 returnee families in 2002 alone). In 2001, the district featured high levels of poverty and was inaccessible to even the most basic service providers.(8) Some donors, including USAID and the German government, invested in quick-impact projects in an effort to stabilize the district. However, rehabilitation has been hampered for security reasons. Insecurity on the roads and the many IEDs planted by insurgents have deterred basic service providers as well as humanitarians trying to reach people in need. These factors and the corruption within the district administration and District Development Assembly (DDA, the entity channelling assistance at the district level) concur to explain the slow development process in Chahrdara, compared to other districts such as Imam Sahib.

The resurgence of the Taleban in Chahrdara accompanied their broader penetration of the north from 2008 on (read more in an AAN analysis here and here). Back then, the Taleban leadership steadily established areas of local dominance in the district. They built up alliances with other groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), who were granted shelter in the Taleban’s territories in exchange for their technical and logistical support to the insurgency (read this). In AAN’s paper “The Insurgents of the Afghan North”, authors Giustozzi and Reuters reports that already in “early 2009, a group of Uzbek Taleban, related to IMU, was residing in Chahrdara, led by their own commander with the nom de guerre Mufti Selim”. In addition, as Giustozzi and Reuters point out too, recruitment went on beyond the traditional Pashtun base as a new strategy of the Taleban leadership to extend its influence in areas with no Pashtun majority.

Anxieties, frustration, mistrust

It seems that the Taleban conducted little propaganda in the district, as Chahrdara was fertile soil for recruiting fighters and supporters. Although Pashtuns constitute a majority in Chahrdara, they have been greatly marginalized since the Northern Alliance-backed government was established after 2001. Pashtuns are largely under-represented in the government and the security apparatus, which are dominated by Jamiat members.(9) In addition, until today Pashtuns are reportedly often arrested or beaten by the police on the allegation that they have links with Taleban. In this environment of anxiety, frustration and mistrust, the Taleban were able to extend their shadow government structures considerably. Their activities and “services” to the local people included providing fast and free “justice” (at least compared to the lengthy and corrupt processes in the state institutions) by solving criminal cases such as robbery, bribery and land grabbing through appointed judges and mobile courts (read more about criminal justice in Kunduz here and about how the Taliban run their judiciary here).

The presence of the Taleban inevitably reduced access to state institutions in two ways: First, people were threatened to not take cases to the district government and the district justice personnel to quit their functions in the government. Second, the provision of timely and effective justice (in the sense that enforcement of decisions was ensured immediately) have helped turn locals to the Taleban rather than to the state system. Also, commissions were set up on health and education, and taxes were collected from the population (read here). Shadow governors were successfully assigned to replace those who had been killed in military operations or were forced to flee from the province (read more here, here, here and AAN report The Insurgents of the Afghan North).

By 2009, the district had come under Taleban control for the second time.

From late 2009 to October 2010, Special Operations Forces (SOF) in Chahrdara reacted to this development by launching extensive capture-or-kill operations against Taleban commanders and mobilisers, sometimes up to four in a month (AAN report, The Insurgents of the Afghan North). By late 2010, the government had managed to re-secure parts of Chahrdara and the majority of Taleban commanders in the province had to escape. However, the killing of innocent people during operations together with the frustration caused by the incompetence and corruption of the government had, as in many other regions, already driven locals to join the cause of the insurgency or at least support them by granting shelter or facilitating their movements at night. A report to Congress, “Progress toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan”, released in November 2010, pointed out the impact of corruption and military operations on the growth of the insurgency: “Civilian casualties caused by air and SOF alienated the local populace and fuelled the insurgency. ISAF and its Coalition partners recognize that civilian casualties can undermine efforts to protect the population and create durable security and governance” (page 55) and, “Corruption continues to have a corrosive effect on ISAF efforts in Afghanistan. Afghan perceptions of injustice and the abuse of power fuel the insurgency in many areas more than the Afghan Government’s inability to provide services do” (page 62).

A resident of Qarakhani village (in the district’s southeast) interviewed in the author’s research argued that “the problems that residents of Chahrdara are facing today have their roots in the government’s incapacity and incompetency … If the government was giving jobs to everyone who graduated from university, there wouldn’t be any Taleban or conflicts among people.”

As early as 2011, however, the situation began to change. The Taleban launched several high-profile attacks, including killing the official district governor in January 2011.(10) People reported an increase in IEDs on the roads of the district. Since then, residents have complained about the deteriorating situation: “No sooner had we gotten rid of the Taleban that the Afghan Local Police (ALP) appeared. The ALP is worse than the Taleban” (interview with a resident of Sarak-e Payin, south of Chahrdara).

Predators not guardians

Although the Taleban and ALP are the two main parties in the conflict, the conflicts themselves are not only bilateral. They are multilateral. ALP attack Taleban and vice versa, but the ALP also acts against civilians, as do the Taleban. And then there are the clashes between different ALP units.

A resident in Haji Aman village (south of Chahrdara) interviewed in the research in June this year complained: “I am tired of the Taleban fighting in the area. I cannot sleep at night; I cannot walk openly in my own village during the day. The Taleban are terrorizing us. I have two children who cannot go to school due to Taleban attacks and fighting. Once the Taleban fired on an ALP checkpoint and when the ALP fired back at them they hid themselves among the children who were coming back from school. They were traumatised, and their families too.”

Ethnicity is one component behind the complexity of animosities. According to a diplomatic source who wants to remain anonymous, in Chahrdara, most ALP commanders are Tajiks, Uzbeks or Turkmen who have been appointed by powerbrokers cutting the vetting process short, as already reported (see this previous AAN analysis). They are accused of regularly abusing and assaulting the population, especially the Pashtun majority, against whom they bear strong grudges dating back to the Taleban era in the late 1990s (read here and here). Nevertheless, these commanders and their men have been posted in areas that are predominantly Pashtun.

For instance, in February 2013, local field researchers reported that 30 Turkmen ALP officers under the command of a Turkmen ALP commander named Nasir Ruz were assigned to secure Mamakhel, the historic stronghold of the Taleban. Soon, the Taleban started to carry out attacks against the newly established ALP checkpoint in Mamakhel. In May, a checkpoint on top of the Afundi hill was under siege for three days. Nazir Ruz’s ALP men had nothing to eat or drink for three days and could not risk leaving the hill, as the Taleban were waiting for them. Some locals interviewed by researchers reported that they temporarily left their houses because the insurgents were building trenches in the yards.(11) It is unclear if and to what extent the local population supported the insurgents. An elder of the village said that before the attack, “the Taleban stuck a letter on the wall of the Gul Mohammad mosque warning all farmers they should harvest their crops in the next two weeks because the Taleban planned on attacking the local police soon. They wanted to avoid that wheat fields are burned during the clash.”

Nasir Ruz is also a main character in a story illustrating the next layer of conflict in Chahrdara – among the ALP commanders themselves. Locals report that Commander Nasir Ruz is constantly tussling with Commander Abdul Wahab, like him responsible for ALP units in the Ain-ul-Majar area north of Chahrdara by the river, where both, as locals say, harass the civilian population. On 20 March, however, Nasir Ruz was beaten by unknown armed men. Rumours had it that Nasir Ruz had planned to take down two of the men in Commander Wahab’s unit – locals guess because of a personal dispute – but that the men heard about his plan and assaulted him first. The conflict is unlikely to escalate further, as many fear that Nasir Ruz will retaliate against Wahab. In addition, this internal conflict is fuelled by ethnic issues. Nasir Ruz is Turkmen and Abdul Wahab is Uzbek – and although both are affiliated with Jumbesh, they are rivals, particularly about political leadership.

The deployment of the ALP in Chahrdara, like anywhere else in the country, was intended to increase security where state control was limited or inexistent. The ALP is a key dimension of the US counterinsurgency strategy, which focuses on recruiting locals to fight against insurgents on the basis that they have valuable knowledge of areas (in terms of networks and “human terrain”) that remains inaccessible to the state.

According to the “Procedure on the Regulation and Establishment of the Local Police”, community leaders were to select the members of their community’s ALP unit, and then the Ministry of Interior was to approve the selection. However, under the influence of powerful individuals at the provincial level – notably Mir Alam, Kunduz’ main powerbroker and leader of strong illegal militias but also the chief of police – recruitment often came down to giving a uniform to the local commanders and militiamen (often to Mir Alam’s own men but also to other commanders affiliated with Jumbesh) without consulting or seeking vetting from community elders.(12) Locals also claim that most recruits in Chahrdara are illiterate, have criminal records and lack any kind of knowledge on the rule of law (interviews from November 2012). Because of this flawed recruitment process and poor oversight mechanisms, the creation of the ALP allowed armed groups – labelled “arbaki” by the population – to take advantage of their position to commit abuses against the population.

According to reports published by human rights watchdogs (read here and here), many of them engage in criminal activities such as robbery, beating, rape, property destruction and targeted killings.

The widespread belief among the people of Chahrdara that that some ALP are linked with insurgents groups, and that they opportunistically form alliances to smuggle drugs and arms or stage robberies, probably hails from the fact that former insurgents were integrated into the ALP. Article 17 of the above-mentioned regulations for establishing ALP units clearly says that the “armed opposition members who join the peace process can be recruited and reintegrated along with persons who have not previously taken any part in armed activities if the local council and people guarantee them; MoI intelligence department and other intelligence institutions do not have any reservations against them”.(13)

Forcing civilians to build check posts and defuse IEDs

For the people of Chahrdara, the ALP experiment has failed dramatically. This does not hinder Afghan and international officials from praising the project. On 8 August, the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force of the US forces published a piece highlighting the efforts of the ALP in several districts of Kunduz including Chahrdara “to serve their villages with a sense of loyalty”, mentioning also their “desire to see their country develop into a safe place for all Afghans”. It was a lengthy article in which the provincial security leadership eagerly assured that the ALP had contributed to better security, governance and development in Kunduz. Not once were local residents asked their opinion.

Contrary to security leaders, most people of Chahrdara would complain. However, these complaints, even if lodged officially, often do not seem to go anywhere. The number of grievance stories from Chahrdara is startling. For example, on 7 February 2013, about 25 community elders from different areas of Chahrdara, including the relatives of victims of abuses committed by ALP members, visited the district prosecutor’s office to lodge a complaint against ALP Commanders Najib, Ghafar Wahab and Sayed Murad. The victims had filed complaints of harassment before, including with the UNAMA office of Kunduz. During a visit in December in Kunduz, field researchers told the author of this report that Sayed Murad, an ethnic Tajik and the ALP commander in the village Nawabad-e Bala, is known to enjoy mistreating Pashtuns. In November 2012, for example, he was seen beating up a young boy who had stared at him after the commander had slipped and fallen in the mud. He reportedly broke the boy’s arm and smashed his head on the ground. Sayed Murad is also said to be supported by Kunduz’ powerbroker Mir Alam. The three commanders were indeed arrested and their cases were subsequently sent to the office of the public prosecutor of Kunduz province. However, according to informants interviewed in the author’s research, through the interference of “high-ranking officials” the ALP commanders were soon released.(14) Their cases are still under investigation, but Commander Najib has already warned the residents of Chahrdara of dire consequences should they complain about him again.

Another of the three ALP commanders accused of misdemeanour, Najib, a young Pashtun from the Ahmadzai tribe living in Ghundi village, is perceived to be protected by US Special Forces. According to residents interviewed in areas under his control, his group has been extorting money and goods, and they have regularly threatened and assaulted people. UNAMA reported that in January 2013, an ALP sub-commander had forced local people to build his check post. Sources in Chahrdara confirmed that Najib was the commander. In April 2013, he again forced local people, among them children, to find and then defuse an IED that had been planted on the road by insurgents. After the incident, one resident told field researchers: “This is not the first time that Najib has harassed people. But if anyone complains about him, the police chief says that the Americans are supporting commander Najib and that they should complain to them.”

Weakened social fabric

Summarising, locals say that the Afghan Local Police in Chahrdara is operating in competition with rather than under the supervision of the Afghan National Police. This complex power construction along, but also – confusingly – across, ethnic and political lines has much potential to aggravate tensions before and in 2014. And, the ethnic diversity of the population, consecutive waves of displacement and decades of war have profoundly affected the social fabric of communities in Chahrdara. As a result, there is very little social cohesion in the district, and traditional and accepted ways of solving conflict barely exist.

The influence of community elders, for instance, has considerably weakened. They have been subject to enormous pressure from former jihadi commanders on one side and insurgents on the other, both of whom have consistently undermined their authority. Today the elders’ role is limited to solving issues in the realm of family and close community. This weakening coincides with rising levels of ethnic and social fracturing within communities, bearing significant potential for violence. As a result, people have grown more fearful of each other, and ethnic groups are vulnerable to infighting and to outside pressure from political and military actors.

The creation of the ALP in communities where social fractures or ethnic frictions are salient has fostered rather than appeased tensions. The ALP is perceived as particularly mistreating Pashtuns, who are believed to help the Taleban by granting them shelter or even providing them with weapons. Indeed, many abuses such as extortion and physical assault have been reported, especially in communities like Mamakhel where certain parts of the population do support the Taleban. In response, some ALP units in Chahrdara have started to recruit members of the marginalised Pashtun population hoping that this will have a direct impact on the numerical strength of Taleban followers. In some cases, the strategy to arm Pashtuns alarmed other groups who in turn tried to legitimize their own militias through the ALP process. However, it would be inaccurate to conclude that ALP-related violence only affects Pashtuns.

The situation described in the introduction, in which the population is caught between the lines of fire of two warring parties (the ALP – and, more broadly, the government forces – and the Taleban), compels people to choose a side; they most often decide along lines of ethnic affiliation and according to personal experiences of violence.

The opportunity to stay out of the conflict, however, is not an option anymore.

(1) Operations were launched as early as summer 2009 – Operation Adler in August – and then in November, but took on a more sustained rhythm in 2010. This report from 2011, “Reversing the Northeastern Insurgency” by the Institute for the Study of War, lists operations led in the south and north of the district in 2010.

(2) The question remains whether this number given for the past one and a half years is accurate. The author’s field researchers’ collection of incidents amounts to nine ALP dead in Chahrdara in May, June and July 2013 alone; see footnote 4 (which does not claim to be a complete list). One explanation could be that – as attachments to the official ALP – illegal militias support the ALP’s work and their deaths are being included in the population’s reports to the field researchers. In the public’s perception, militias blur easily. Another explanation could be that the government tries to “talk” numbers down to influence the public perception of the Afghan war.

The spokesman for the Ministry of Interior announced in early July an increase in the deaths of Afghan police members throughout the country, mounting to 300 Afghan National Police (ANP) and Afghan Local Police (ALP) for the month of May alone. In addition, 618 policemen were injured.

(3) When the ALP was created in the province, Allah Mohammad, called “Pahlawan”, had escaped to Pakistan. He apparently returned in June 2013. According to field researchers involved in the author’s research, Said Sarwar Husaini, the police spokesperson of Kunduz explained that Allah Muhammad was killed in August during a four-hour-long fight with the ALP. “Pahlawan” Allah Mohammad was a well-known Taleban commander who fought for several years against foreign troops and ANSF in Chahrdara. He had about 25 men under his command. Local residents reported that his funeral ceremony took place on Saturday, 12 August, in Kolabe village, an area under the control of the Taleban.

(4) The UNAMA Afghanistan mid-year report 2012 on the protection of civilians in armed conflict already documented the number of attacks on the ALP by the Taleban: “From January to June 2012, UNAMA documented 72 civilian casualties, 14 civilians killed and 58 others injured, in 23 separate incidents where Anti-Government Elements attacked ALP”.

The 2013 mid-year report confirmed the trend: “UNAMA observed that the dynamics of transition broadened the scope for clashes between Pro-Government Forces and Anti-Government Elements as both parties fought to secure or regain territory. . . . Within these figures, the most dramatic increase is attacks against ALP that also caused civilian casualties. In 2013, UNAMA documented 18 attacks initiated by Anti-Government Elements targeting ALP, which resulted in 19 civilian deaths and 162 injured (180 civilian casualties), a 1,900 percent increase from 2012.”

A SIGAR report released in April 2013 states: “Insurgents attack ALP units up to 10 times more often than other ANSF components.”

Following is a list of incidents involving the ALP and the Taleban reported by surveyors in the research for the months of April, May, June and July (all were collected by field researchers in the course of the author’s research):

1. On 7 April, fighting broke out between the ALP and the Taleban in Zakhail area of Chahrdara. The fire fight happened close to a residential area and lasted for a short time. The fighting did not inflict any casualties or damage.

2. On 11 May, a newly established ALP checkpoint in Nawabad was targeted by the insurgents. Since the ANP and the German PRT were present in Nawabad, no ALP checkpoint had been set up earlier.

3. On 17 May, a local police check post was attacked by insurgents. Reportedly a local policeman was injured.

4. On 20 May, a rocket struck a police check post in Zarat Tapa.

5. On Friday, 24 May, Dur Mohammad, an ALP commander in control of a check post in Afandi Tapa (Mamakhel village) was killed with his nephew and his bodyguard by the Taleban.

6. On Tuesday, 6 June, at 3 p.m., a group of Taleban fought against the ALP in Isakhel village of Chahrdara. The fight lasted for five hours and as a result, five ALP officers and their commander were killed.

7. According to local officials of Kunduz province, on 31 May the Taleban and foreign terrorists attacked the ALP checkpoint in Haji Aman village.

8. According to some informants, on 4 June at 11 p.m. in the area of the Mullah Kenja market, the Taleban attacked a local police checkpoint with heavy weapons. The fight lasted for one hour, and the Taleban were finally repelled by the ALP.

9. On 16 June at 11 a.m., the Taleban attacked and killed two local police officers while they were patrolling in Mamakhel area.

10. According to some residents, a clash occurred on Thursday, 4 July while one police officer was shopping and the Taleban suddenly attacked him. The clash lasted four hours, and resulted in twelve persons being injured.

11. According to some local residents, on 8 July, an ALP officer was killed in Nawabad area. The incident occurred while the Taleban ambushed a convoy of ALP and one of the officers was passing by on a motorcycle.

(5) Until 2010, Germans stationed in Kunduz were criticized for observing limited rules of direct engagement with the insurgents and thus having a poor impact on the security situation in the province. As a result, the US sent 1,400 soldiers to step up efforts and conduct aggressive campaigns of clearing insurgent strongholds, notably in Chahrdara. For a detailed account of the operations led by ISAF/ANSF in Chahrdara from 2009 to 2011, see “Reversing the Northeastern Insurgency”. Also read here).

(6) The most recent UNAMA report on civilian casualties states: “Between 1 January and 30 June 2013, UNAMA documented 14 civilian deaths and 23 injuries in 32 separate incidents attributed to Afghan Local Police (ALP), an increase of 61 percent compared to the same period in 2012. The majority of civilian casualties resulted from ALP members committing human rights violations against civilians, including murder, torture, rape, threats, intimidation, harassment, forced labour, extortion and illegal taxation” (page 7).

Also see “From Arbaki to Local Police”, AIHRC (Spring 2012): one of the major concerns of the AIHRC regarding the creation of the ALP is “the increase in violence and insecurity in communities”.

(7) Ethnic Arabs descended from eighth-century Arab armies of Syria who settled in Afghanistan when the Russian Empire absorbed the Bukharan Khanate central-Asian state in the 1870s (source: Thomas Barfield, “The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan: Pastoral Nomadism in Transition”, University of Texas Press, January 1982).

(8) The economic situation of the district in 2007 is described in detail in the District Development Plan developed by the DDA of Chahrdara, here:

“The district residents have very poor living standard and weak economic opportunity due to their limited access to basic infrastructure, social protection and healthcare services, low agricultural and livestock productions level and quality and lack of respect for human rights in the area.” An Afghan national staff member of the WFP recently reported that Chahrdara was “highly food-insecure”.

(9) Research conducted by the author from October to December 2012 in Kunduz provided the following list of district administration members according to ethnic group and political affiliation: District Governor (Pashtun, affiliated to HIG); Mayor (Tajik, affiliated to Jamiat); Chief of the NDS (Tajik, affiliated to Jamiat); Head of the Criminal Unit (Tajik, affiliated to Jamiat); Head of the Justice Department (Tajik, affiliated to Jamiat); Chief Judge (Pashtun, affiliated to Jamiat); Prosecutor (Uzbek, affiliated to Jamiat); Head of Education (Tajik, affiliated to Jamiat); Head of the Haj Department (Turkmen, affiliated to Jamiat); Head of the Clinic (Pashtun, affiliated to Jamiat); Head of Agriculture (Tajik, affiliated to Jamiat); Chief of Police (Pashtun, affiliation unknown).

(10) See again “Reversing the Northeastern Insurgency”: “Yet, insurgent suicide attacks on ANSF and government officials in Kunduz have continued. Four high profile attacks have already occurred since the conclusion of these operations. Suicide bombers killed the Chahrdara district chief on February 10th and the Kunduz police chief a month later.”

(11) A report from the Center for Civilians in Conflict released in 2013 confirms the trend in which the Taleban uses people’s houses to hide and fire on the ANSF.

(12) See again the AIHRC report on arbakis and local police: “Additionally, the ALP recruitment process leads to lack of their loyalty to the central government, because the process is influenced by local commanders and influential figures that are in key positions of power. Also in many areas, the ALP comprises arbakis who have been armed by the US Special Forces and then registered and licensed by the Afghan Government as ALP.”

The UNAMA mid-year report 2012 on civilians notes: “UNAMA documented another example in Chahrdara district of Kunduz province in August 2010, where 300 ‘ALP’ were unilaterally recruited by the Provincial Chief of Police.”

(13) A US Institute for Peace (USIP) report on the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program (APRP) published in September 2011 says: “Without civilian jobs or adequate security, many reintegrees are admitted into the Afghan Local Police (ALP)”; A PRIO paper of 2011 confirms: “Although on paper APRP is a more comprehensive program than earlier efforts at reintegration in Afghanistan, in reality the incentives for reintegrees and their communities have largely been limited to enrolment in the Afghan Local Police, which might intensify local rivalries instead of bringing peace by maintaining armed groups in the country”.

(14) The UNAMA 2013 mid-year report on the protection of civilians in conflict reported cases in Kunduz of ALP members bailed out after being arrested or of un-investigated crimes committed by ALP against the population.

[DaZahroJaam.]

my question to you was, if one of your sibling got up and started beating the other one, and your beaten sibling got up and started choking the first sibling to death, how could you justify a passerby cheering for the one choking the other to death. you are telling me that because the first one hit the second one, it's okay for the second one to choke the first one to death because he was the one who started. ( i wouldn't know whether that is even true or not to begin with because A) i wasn't there when all that begun and B) you have the tendency of being a big fat liar.
my question was, HOW COULD YOU JUSTIFY A FOREIGNER CHEERING UP FOR ONE OF YOUR BROTHERS TO CHOKE THE OTHER ONE AND YOU WENT ON ABOUT HOW YOUR BEATEN BROTHER WAS INNOCENT WHEN IT ALL HAPPENED, PERIOD. if that is not utterly stupid and treacherous, i don't know what is.
the bloodshed of innocent afghans in the hands of your so called innocent brother is what has determined your peaceful sleeps.
i don't care who started it and what you are making for a living. i want to know how you can sleep so peacefully instead of admitting that there is a problem that needs to be fixed.
why have i never read you talk about what is happening in afghanistan as being sad all together rather than you always talking about every damn thing that a talib does as being someone elses fault.
can you show me an example of a time when you spoke against injustice in afghanistan by detaching yourself from both parties and speaking as a matter of factually?? why do you see their miseries and their misfortunes but have no recognition of the destruction and pain of others caused by them?? is it because you are insensitive to the pain of others or is it because you simply justify it and are unable to recognize it as a misfortune?? is there a different reason that i have not mentioned??
i don't know who this hamida bibi is but if you are referring to hamid karzai then i would like to inform you that i do not need to be praising him in order to justify my dislike of the talibs. why, it's very simple. unlike the types of you, i don't need to pick a side. i call that freedom.
so yeah, back to the original question: how does your zameer allow you to sleep peacefully while your brothers kill each other and you do absolutely nothing to prevent it?? do you even have one??

[DaZahroJaam.]

"wax can not hold feathers too firm near the sun.."
people like you maybe great experts at destruction, you can't built if your own existence depended on it. that is not the question at hand at the moment.