Rise in Violence in North Shows Afghanistan’s Fragility
29 May NY Times - Rise in Violence in North Shows Afghanistan’s Fragility by Abdul Waheed Wafa and Carlotta Gall.
Quote:
Angry supporters of Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, the ethnic Uzbek strongman, clashed with the police in the northern town of Shiberghan on Monday, leaving at least seven people dead and 34 wounded, officials said. The government sent army units to the area, anticipating further unrest.
Also in the north, a suicide bomber attacked a convoy of foreign security contractors, killing himself and two Afghan civilians. It was the fourth such attack in the north in the past two weeks.
The bombings in the relatively peaceful north indicated a rise in insurgent activity, and the violence in Shiberghan was a reminder of how tenuous Afghanistan’s internal stability remains, with former militia leaders like General Dostum still capable of rallying armed supporters to settle local power struggles..
Taliban successes in the North
Someone fallen asleep at the wheel?
Taliban takes hold in once-peaceful northern Afghanistan
Quote:
In squads of roaring dirt bikes and armed to the teeth, Taliban fighters are spreading like a brush fire into remote and defenseless villages across northern Afghanistan. The fighters swarm into town, assemble the villagers and announce Taliban control, often at night and without any resistance.
Maybe its time to again ask the very inconvenient question as to what the ANA/ANP are doing and are actually capable of?
Someone fallen asleep at the wheel?
JMA,
No, I doubt it. The development of a Taliban presence has been well documented in open sources and several posts have referred to it. What is puzzling and worrying IMHO is that we have associated these areas with the former, now demobilised Northern Alliance and assumed the locals would neither welcome the Taliban or tolerate them.
The primary problem is still in Pashtun areas
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fuchs
The trouble in the RC North sector is afaik concentrated on Pashtu minority regions.
You can have all the hearts and minds of most settlements, but meanwhile there are a few Pashtu settlements in between whose inhabitants feel suppressed by a corrupt non-Pashtu governor. The Taliban arrived and slowly gained footholds over the years.
Agreed, and this article makes it sound like Taliban there are a recent problem while Wikipedia cites problems with Pashtuns there dating back to 2007...even all the way back to our invasion of 2001 when Northern alliance troops took back control from the Taliban Pashtun. There are mostly non-Pashtuns in these northern provinces and land swaps could be arranged if the government desired to consolidate into two largely autonomous states and keep Pashtuns together in their own area.
It is interesting to note that Gormach district is mentioned in this new article, and Wikipedia says it is 97% Pashtun. Wikipedia of "Gormach district" also said it was part of Badghis province which is 62% Tajik and only 28% Pashtun as a whole. But wait, another Wikipedia says Gormach is NOW (as of Dec 2008) part of adjacent Faryab province...which is 53.5% Uzbek, 27% Tajik, and just 13% Pashtun. See the problem? A small Pashtun district that the Taliban is "invading" is surrounded by non-Pashtuns.
The result? This is one of the few areas where the Ring Road around Afghanistan is not fully finished. Check out this article about the contractor who was repeatedly kidnapped and threatened for trying to finish that section of road:
http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ...672735403.html
1 Attachment(s)
Northern Afghanistan: a guide and looking forward
Hamid Hussain, our irregular contributor on the Pakistani Army and other factors, has provided a commentary on the situation today, which also looks to what may happen. See attachment.
An assumption challenged:
Quote:
Everyone is assuming that a friendly northern Afghanistan will be happy to host U.S. bases but things are changing quite rapidly. There is slow and steady rise of resentment even in the north against the presence of U.S. troops due to suspicion, war weariness and fear that these installations will invite attacks. There will be debate and significant opposition from various segments of Afghan population against a long term U.S. presence.
Bala Morghab district, Badghis Province in 2008–09
SWC missed this PRISM in December 2011 article 'War comes to Bala Morghab: a tragedy of policy and action in three parts’ and I think this is the best place for it:http://www.ndu.edu/press/lib/pdf/pri...36_bessler.pdf
Noted by a non-SWC member:
Quote:
Bala Morghab is a remote district within one of Afghanistan’s poorest provinces, on the border of Turkmenistan. It describes how inappropriate efforts to provide reconstruction and reform succeeded only in bringing war to the area.
The story of the Bala Morghab district of Badghis Province in 2008–2009 reveals lessons derived from the difficulties posed by the friction of coalition warfare at the tactical and operational levels, the gaps between policy and operations, the contradictions of winning hearts and minds, and the challenges of day-to-day survival. Not to engage with local leaders well in advance of policy implementation is a recipe for failure. Building trust among the local population in legitimate leaders will itself build capacity and minimize the influence of insurgents. Finally, half-measures of the whole-of-government approach in the absence of unity of purpose will fail.
Taliban surge in the northern gateway
Hat tip to a "lurker" for this AAN article, which opens with:
Quote:
It took little more than seven months to turn Faryab from a province with a worrisome security situation into a province under constant attack. Since the Norwegian Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Faryab closed in September 2012, the security situation has quickly deteriorated. These days, Faryab is one of the main targets of the Taleban’s spring offensive. On the very first day of the offensive, the insurgents launched their biggest attack so far in the country, with several hundred fighters sweeping the Afghan Local Police (ALP) out of important positions in two districts. Clashes between national security forces and insurgents are continuing on a daily basis and the regular Afghan forces seem unable to make a lasting impact. AAN’s Obaid Ali updates an earlier report on a province perceived as a gateway to the north of the country and how the Taleban are targeting strategically valuable locations.
Link:http://www.aan-afghanistan.com/index.asp?id=3401
The departure of the Norwegian PRT I am sure was not the critical factor.:wry:
