Julian Borger
Seven men wearing explosive vests drove into Kabul last week and showed how easy it is to bring a city of more than three million to a halt if you are prepared to die doing it.
The burning buildings and prolonged gunfights with the army shattered the Afghan government's always tenuous claims that it could protect its capital, or even its ministries. But there was another striking aspect of Monday's attack that may have a longer-term significance. In all the mayhem caused by the four-hour battle – involving rocket-propelled grenades, a shoot-out in a shopping centre and the final detonation of their vests by the surviving insurgents – only five civilians were killed. That was a much smaller toll than the one caused by a similar, less ambitious, attack last February.
The Afghan army and police put this down to their speedy intervention – and they were undoubtedly quick to deploy. But it almost certainly had more to do with the fact that when the attackers reached the shopping centre, they told the stall holders and shoppers to get out. At one point the attackers used children as human shields, but let them go before blowing themselves up. The seven suicide bombers appear to have been under orders to target government institutions and the people who worked there, but to avoid harming bystanders. It was not an attack aimed solely at creating terror for its own sake, suggesting Nato may not be the only party in the fight trying to limit civilian casualties. The insurgents, whether it was the Taliban or another group that attacked last Monday, seem aware of their own deep unpopularity and are rethinking tactics accordingly.
Such an isolated example of scruples would not add up to much were it not for a recent cluster of other positive signs for the Kabul government and its Nato backers. An opinion poll published this month by the BBC found a leap in optimism among Afghans, with 70% believing the country was going in the right direction, compared with 40% a year ago. Support for Nato troops rose from 59% to 62%. Meanwhile, opium production dipped in 2009, with the area of poppy cultivation down by a third in Helmand – the province under British control that has hitherto been the poppy centre of the country. Also in Helmand, district centres that were run or threatened by the Taliban until a few months ago are now under Afghan army and police control, and peaceful enough for the shops and bazaars to reopen. At the same time, anecdotal evidence from the villages suggests an increasing number of Taliban fighters – battle-weary or drawn by new jobs – are returning home to their families.
Such flickers of hope have been rare in the past four years in Afghanistan. The question is whether they are evidence of a lasting change or merely a statistical blip on the long descent into chaos. There is a growing sense among politicians, diplomats and soldiers that the next few months will provide the answer, and determine which way Afghanistan turns. "We all know 2010 needs to be a decisive year in Afghanistan. The momentum needs to be reversed away from a deepening insurgency," David Miliband, the foreign secretary, told the Observer during a visit to Kabul and Helmand last week.
On Thursday, President Hamid Karzai arrives in London for an international conference aimed at getting the Afghan government and its international backers – so often at loggerheads – to work together on a common strategy and ultimately open the door to a political solution to the conflict. Among those preparing the conference, there is more determination than optimism. Some worry that the recent flurry of good news is built on the surge of US troops and money flowing into the country, and will come to an abrupt end when the troops begin to leave as Barack Obama has pledged next year. Diplomats bemoan a lack of political will in Kabul, both to reform government and to seek a settlement with the insurgents – a deficit that is being masked or even worsened by the constant infusion of foreign help.
One official compared the Afghan body politic to a "corpse that we are constantly having to jiggle around to make it look alive". Another likened it to "a cancer patient on a lot of painkillers". There is no doubt that Helmand is in intensive care. It is home to three out of the four most violent districts in Afghanistan, but US marines are flooding into the province. There are 13,000 now and by March that will rise to 20,000, fighting alongside 10,000 British troops – a tripling of Nato strength. With a new Afghan army corps being set up in Helmand, the troop levels will approach the 25:1000 ratio of forces to local population that the US command believes is needed to win a counter-insurgency.
The extra troops have quickly helped secure districts that were recently no-go areas, allowing normal business to return. It helps that the US marines have deep pockets. They have paid out £150m in employment projects in the villages. Perhaps not surprisingly, they have won a good reputation among Helmandis. Ahmad Naveed Nazari, a journalist in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, said: "Since the Americans came to my home district, it has been peaceful. There have been no casualties and people are coming back to the village because marines are paying for construction work.
"I know a lot of people who were Taliban. My cousin and my uncle were Taliban, but now they are at home working," he added. "When the British were in our district, unemployment was very high, everyone was Taliban. But the US marines are working with the people very well." But if the work and the money dried up, would the uncle and cousin go back to the Taliban? Nazari is not sure.
It is not just the new troops and money that have made a difference in Helmand. Last February, Nazari said he lost six relatives – his cousin's wife and five children on her side of the family – in an air strike ordered by British troops on his home village. "The British said the Taliban were there, but they were two or three kilometres away," Nazari said. "There was no compensation."
British officers at the Lashkar Gah base confirmed there was a record of Nazari's complaint, but only about a single relative. They said the incident happened during another brigade's tour. Incidents such as this, over the past four years, are one of the main reasons Nato has been alienating Afghans and helping the Taliban recruit. The son of Nazari's dead relative left soon after the air strike to join the insurgents.
One of the first orders General Stanley McChrystal issued after he took over command of Nato forces last summer was to limit the use of air power and artillery. The military priority would be the protection of the population rather than killing insurgents.
The British 11 Light Brigade – a unit put together specifically for counter-insurgency which is now manning the Lashkar Gah garrison – was training on Salisbury Plain when the order came through. They started using the new targeting practices the next day, relying more on manoeuvre than firepower. The use of high-explosive artillery shells by British troops is down more than 60% and the use of smoke shells to mask movement up by nearly 70%. The impact of McChrystal's "courageous restraint" policy has been felt around the country. According to a UN report this month, the Taliban are now responsible for about 78% of civilian casualties.
Another piece of good news coming out of Helmand ahead of the London conference is more ambiguous – the 33% drop in poppy cultivation. Narcotics experts say that largely reflects the earlier success of the traffickers. There is a glut of heroin on the market, so raw opium prices have dropped and farmers have switched to other crops.
Abdul Rahman Tariq, the chief executive in the Helmand governor's office, argues there is more to the poppy figures than a simple case of oversupply, however. "In areas the government controls, the growth of poppy goes way down. It's about more than the market. It's about the social relations between the government and the farmers," he said. Helmand's governor, Mohammad Gulab Mangal, has been widely praised for a subsidised wheat seed programme, which has reached 40,000 farmers, giving an alternative to poppy crops. He has also visited the districts to show the government is ready to listen and respond.
That performance has not been matched, however, by the national government in Kabul. In fact, Karzai has sought to undermine Mangal and is still backing his rival, Sher Mohammad Akhundzada, who was forced out of office in 2005 after nine tonnes of heroin were found in his cellar. It is the fecklessness of the Kabul government, created in the wake of a rigged election last August, that has done most to sap hopes that the gains of recent months can endure.
A report published last week by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime found that half the Afghan population had paid a bribe to a public official over the course of the year, and that most Afghans (59%) thought government corruption was a bigger problem than insecurity. "It's important to recognise that the Afghan government doesn't just need to avoid being outgunned by the insurgency, it must not be outgoverned by the insurgency either," Miliband told the US Senate foreign relations committee on Thursday.
Nato's generals mostly believe that the route out of Afghanistan is to build up Afghan security forces to a newly agreed ceiling of about 300,000 by next year, to demoralise the Taliban and wait for its troops to defect. But a growing number of western diplomats believe the path is not so straightforward. They see the Bonn agreement that established post-Taliban Afghanistan as deeply flawed – a "victors' peace" that excluded powerful Pashtun tribes. "We have interfered in the market in Pashtun politics and put it out of balance," one diplomat said.
Karzai has pledged to hold a peace council in the next few months, but he has a long way to go to earn the trust of insurgents who view him as a western puppet. By all accounts, there is a deal to be done. The Taliban want foreign troops out, and those troops want to leave. There are credible reports of a younger generation of Taliban leaders who want to sever ties with the Arabs of al-Qaida and are prepared to tolerate a measure of education for girls. The trick will be to draw those voices to the fore and strike a bargain with them. Getting there from here is not going to be easy. At best, this week's meeting in London will be the first step.
The burning buildings and prolonged gunfights with the army shattered the Afghan government's always tenuous claims that it could protect its capital, or even its ministries. But there was another striking aspect of Monday's attack that may have a longer-term significance. In all the mayhem caused by the four-hour battle – involving rocket-propelled grenades, a shoot-out in a shopping centre and the final detonation of their vests by the surviving insurgents – only five civilians were killed. That was a much smaller toll than the one caused by a similar, less ambitious, attack last February.
The Afghan army and police put this down to their speedy intervention – and they were undoubtedly quick to deploy. But it almost certainly had more to do with the fact that when the attackers reached the shopping centre, they told the stall holders and shoppers to get out. At one point the attackers used children as human shields, but let them go before blowing themselves up. The seven suicide bombers appear to have been under orders to target government institutions and the people who worked there, but to avoid harming bystanders. It was not an attack aimed solely at creating terror for its own sake, suggesting Nato may not be the only party in the fight trying to limit civilian casualties. The insurgents, whether it was the Taliban or another group that attacked last Monday, seem aware of their own deep unpopularity and are rethinking tactics accordingly.
Such an isolated example of scruples would not add up to much were it not for a recent cluster of other positive signs for the Kabul government and its Nato backers. An opinion poll published this month by the BBC found a leap in optimism among Afghans, with 70% believing the country was going in the right direction, compared with 40% a year ago. Support for Nato troops rose from 59% to 62%. Meanwhile, opium production dipped in 2009, with the area of poppy cultivation down by a third in Helmand – the province under British control that has hitherto been the poppy centre of the country. Also in Helmand, district centres that were run or threatened by the Taliban until a few months ago are now under Afghan army and police control, and peaceful enough for the shops and bazaars to reopen. At the same time, anecdotal evidence from the villages suggests an increasing number of Taliban fighters – battle-weary or drawn by new jobs – are returning home to their families.
Such flickers of hope have been rare in the past four years in Afghanistan. The question is whether they are evidence of a lasting change or merely a statistical blip on the long descent into chaos. There is a growing sense among politicians, diplomats and soldiers that the next few months will provide the answer, and determine which way Afghanistan turns. "We all know 2010 needs to be a decisive year in Afghanistan. The momentum needs to be reversed away from a deepening insurgency," David Miliband, the foreign secretary, told the Observer during a visit to Kabul and Helmand last week.
On Thursday, President Hamid Karzai arrives in London for an international conference aimed at getting the Afghan government and its international backers – so often at loggerheads – to work together on a common strategy and ultimately open the door to a political solution to the conflict. Among those preparing the conference, there is more determination than optimism. Some worry that the recent flurry of good news is built on the surge of US troops and money flowing into the country, and will come to an abrupt end when the troops begin to leave as Barack Obama has pledged next year. Diplomats bemoan a lack of political will in Kabul, both to reform government and to seek a settlement with the insurgents – a deficit that is being masked or even worsened by the constant infusion of foreign help.
One official compared the Afghan body politic to a "corpse that we are constantly having to jiggle around to make it look alive". Another likened it to "a cancer patient on a lot of painkillers". There is no doubt that Helmand is in intensive care. It is home to three out of the four most violent districts in Afghanistan, but US marines are flooding into the province. There are 13,000 now and by March that will rise to 20,000, fighting alongside 10,000 British troops – a tripling of Nato strength. With a new Afghan army corps being set up in Helmand, the troop levels will approach the 25:1000 ratio of forces to local population that the US command believes is needed to win a counter-insurgency.
The extra troops have quickly helped secure districts that were recently no-go areas, allowing normal business to return. It helps that the US marines have deep pockets. They have paid out £150m in employment projects in the villages. Perhaps not surprisingly, they have won a good reputation among Helmandis. Ahmad Naveed Nazari, a journalist in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, said: "Since the Americans came to my home district, it has been peaceful. There have been no casualties and people are coming back to the village because marines are paying for construction work.
"I know a lot of people who were Taliban. My cousin and my uncle were Taliban, but now they are at home working," he added. "When the British were in our district, unemployment was very high, everyone was Taliban. But the US marines are working with the people very well." But if the work and the money dried up, would the uncle and cousin go back to the Taliban? Nazari is not sure.
It is not just the new troops and money that have made a difference in Helmand. Last February, Nazari said he lost six relatives – his cousin's wife and five children on her side of the family – in an air strike ordered by British troops on his home village. "The British said the Taliban were there, but they were two or three kilometres away," Nazari said. "There was no compensation."
British officers at the Lashkar Gah base confirmed there was a record of Nazari's complaint, but only about a single relative. They said the incident happened during another brigade's tour. Incidents such as this, over the past four years, are one of the main reasons Nato has been alienating Afghans and helping the Taliban recruit. The son of Nazari's dead relative left soon after the air strike to join the insurgents.
One of the first orders General Stanley McChrystal issued after he took over command of Nato forces last summer was to limit the use of air power and artillery. The military priority would be the protection of the population rather than killing insurgents.
The British 11 Light Brigade – a unit put together specifically for counter-insurgency which is now manning the Lashkar Gah garrison – was training on Salisbury Plain when the order came through. They started using the new targeting practices the next day, relying more on manoeuvre than firepower. The use of high-explosive artillery shells by British troops is down more than 60% and the use of smoke shells to mask movement up by nearly 70%. The impact of McChrystal's "courageous restraint" policy has been felt around the country. According to a UN report this month, the Taliban are now responsible for about 78% of civilian casualties.
Another piece of good news coming out of Helmand ahead of the London conference is more ambiguous – the 33% drop in poppy cultivation. Narcotics experts say that largely reflects the earlier success of the traffickers. There is a glut of heroin on the market, so raw opium prices have dropped and farmers have switched to other crops.
Abdul Rahman Tariq, the chief executive in the Helmand governor's office, argues there is more to the poppy figures than a simple case of oversupply, however. "In areas the government controls, the growth of poppy goes way down. It's about more than the market. It's about the social relations between the government and the farmers," he said. Helmand's governor, Mohammad Gulab Mangal, has been widely praised for a subsidised wheat seed programme, which has reached 40,000 farmers, giving an alternative to poppy crops. He has also visited the districts to show the government is ready to listen and respond.
That performance has not been matched, however, by the national government in Kabul. In fact, Karzai has sought to undermine Mangal and is still backing his rival, Sher Mohammad Akhundzada, who was forced out of office in 2005 after nine tonnes of heroin were found in his cellar. It is the fecklessness of the Kabul government, created in the wake of a rigged election last August, that has done most to sap hopes that the gains of recent months can endure.
A report published last week by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime found that half the Afghan population had paid a bribe to a public official over the course of the year, and that most Afghans (59%) thought government corruption was a bigger problem than insecurity. "It's important to recognise that the Afghan government doesn't just need to avoid being outgunned by the insurgency, it must not be outgoverned by the insurgency either," Miliband told the US Senate foreign relations committee on Thursday.
Nato's generals mostly believe that the route out of Afghanistan is to build up Afghan security forces to a newly agreed ceiling of about 300,000 by next year, to demoralise the Taliban and wait for its troops to defect. But a growing number of western diplomats believe the path is not so straightforward. They see the Bonn agreement that established post-Taliban Afghanistan as deeply flawed – a "victors' peace" that excluded powerful Pashtun tribes. "We have interfered in the market in Pashtun politics and put it out of balance," one diplomat said.
Karzai has pledged to hold a peace council in the next few months, but he has a long way to go to earn the trust of insurgents who view him as a western puppet. By all accounts, there is a deal to be done. The Taliban want foreign troops out, and those troops want to leave. There are credible reports of a younger generation of Taliban leaders who want to sever ties with the Arabs of al-Qaida and are prepared to tolerate a measure of education for girls. The trick will be to draw those voices to the fore and strike a bargain with them. Getting there from here is not going to be easy. At best, this week's meeting in London will be the first step.
The Observer
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