An Afghan soldier protects the palace of King Amanullah (1919-1929) that was partly destroyed in the 1992-1996 civil war. Credit: Giuliana Sgrena/IPS

By Lal Aqa Sherin
KABUL, May 16 2013 (IPS)

Western fears of a civil war in Afghanistan are growing ahead of the scheduled pullout of international troops in 2014. However, experts here say the situation on the ground is not comparable to either 1988, when the Soviets withdrew from the country, or the mujahideen’s rise to power in 1992, which plunged the country into civil war.

Speaking to BBC’s Radio 4 last month, British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond described the future of Afghanistan as uncertain, echoing a British Parliamentary Defence Committee warning that the country could descend into civil war within a few years.

But locals who have been watching the situation closely do not share this bleak prognosis of the country’s future.

Retired Colonel Mohammad Sarwar Niazai, a military observer, says the situation is different to what it was in the early 1990s when the Soviets pulled out, leaving the communist government of Mohammed Najibullah without support and presenting seven jihadi parties, armed and aided by the United States, with the perfect opportunity to seize power.

This time around, “no one can get the government out forcibly,” Niazai told IPS, referring to the fact that the U.S. and its coalition partners in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have promised to stand by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his government for the foreseeable future.

Recently retired ISAF Commander General John Allen, speaking in Washington on Mar. 25, said the U.S. and its allies would retain a presence in Afghanistan big enough to bolster Afghan forces after the withdrawal of international combat troops at the end of 2014.

Still, Kabul Regional Chief of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) Shamasullah Ahmadzai warned that the roughly 336,000-strong Afghan National Army, though highly motivated, is in serious need of the weapons and arms promised by western allies during talks about the pullout.

Strategic interests

As international media reports of “impending” or “inevitable” conflict continue to proliferate, experts here contend that Western countries with a vested interest in maintaining their military presence have conjured the bogey of civil war to justify continued engagement.

“Their…goal is to create fear in Afghanistan,” Ghulam Jailani Zwak, head of the Afghan Analytical and Advisory Centre, told IPS, adding that he sees “no substance” in the predictions of chaos after 2014.

“Over the last 11 years, Afghanistan has built up a functioning civil society and a strong parliament that has shown it can stand up to the executive,” he said referring to the fact that at the end of 2012, 11 ministers were issued summons to appear in parliament or face impeachment for failing to spend 50 percent of their annual budgets in the last financial year.

Abdul Ghafoor Lewal, head of the Regional Studies Centre, believes threats of civil war are a deliberate Western ploy to maintain a military presence here, particularly in the Bagram airfield, one of the largest U.S. military bases in Afghanistan, located in the Parwan province.

Western powers would like Afghans to believe that foreign troops are their “best bet for security,” Lewal told IPS. The government must be “wise, prudent and…protect itself from the machinations of the West,” he added.

Meanwhile, Major General Rahmatullah Raufi, former commander of Paktia Army Corps and erstwhile governor of the southern province of Kandahar, dismisses the fears of war, claiming Afghans are more united now than they were 11 years ago.

A clear example of this was seen at the third ministerial conference of the Istanbul Process, held in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, on Apr. 26.

Originally intended to foster regional cooperation in the so-called ‘heart of Asia’ – primarily between Afghanistan and its neighbours – this year’s high-level gathering delved into a host of social issues, from education to disaster management, to help strengthen the war-torn country’s economic stability.

The independent Afghanistan Analysts Network said the Afghan government’s participation made clear that it saw the regional initiative as crucial to securing its future after 2014.

Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul, who led the delegation, said Afghanistan was “determined to reclaim (its) rightful place” as an economic centre connecting South Asia, Central Asia, Euroasia and the Middle East.

Moreover, according to experts like Member of Parliament (MP) Habibullah Kalakani – a former jihadi commander who fought against the Soviets – Afghan civil society is no longer “pliant” to foreign interests.

Independent media and human rights organisations including the AIHRC, whose president Sima Samar won the Alternative Nobel Prize last year, are widely respected and have earned international recognition for their efforts to build a culture of peace here.

Kalakani also pointed to the increasing number of educated young Afghans who are perfectly positioned to help their country make a democratic transition.

According to the Institute of International Education (IIE), only 4,000 students submitted applications for university admission in 2004. In 2005 this number increased tenfold to 40,000, reached 52,000 in 2006 and finally passed the 120,000-mark in 2012.

Girls now occupy 25 percent of the seats in public universities, a numbers that is increasing annually, while 52 new private universities have popped up around the country.

Defence Ministry Deputy Spokesperson Siamak Herawi agreed that 2014 will be a “year of change” but insisted there was good reason to believe “the change will be positive not negative,” he told Killid, adding that, this time around, “Afghan hands” will help to build the country.

* Lal Aqa Shirin writes for Killid, an independent Afghan media group in partnership with IPS.

Western fears of a civil war in Afghanistan are growing ahead of the scheduled pullout of international troops in 2014. However, experts here say the situation on the ground is not comparable to either 1988, when the Soviets withdrew from the country, or the mujahideen’s rise to power in 1992, which plunged the country into civil war.

An Afghan soldier protects the palace of King Amanullah (1919-1929) that was partly destroyed in the 1992-1996 civil war. Credit: Giuliana Sgrena/IPS

Speaking to BBC’s Radio 4 last month, British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond described the future of Afghanistan as uncertain, echoing a British Parliamentary Defence Committee warning that the country could descend into civil war within a few years. But locals who have been watching the situation closely do not share this bleak prognosis of the country’s future.

Retired Colonel Mohammad Sarwar Niazai, a military observer, says the situation is different to what it was in the early 1990s when the Soviets pulled out, leaving the communist government of Mohammed Najibullah without support and presenting seven jihadi parties, armed and aided by the United States, with the perfect opportunity to seize power.

This time around, “no one can get the government out forcibly,” Niazai told IPS, referring to the fact that the U.S. and its coalition partners in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have promised to stand by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his government for the foreseeable future.

Recently retired ISAF Commander General John Allen, speaking in Washington on Mar. 25, said the U.S. and its allies would retain a presence in Afghanistan big enough to bolster Afghan forces after the withdrawal of international combat troops at the end of 2014.

Still, Kabul Regional Chief of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) Shamasullah Ahmadzai warned that the roughly 336,000-strong Afghan National Army, though highly motivated, is in serious need of the weapons and arms promised by western allies during talks about the pullout.

As international media reports of “impending” or “inevitable” conflict continue to proliferate, experts here contend that Western countries with a vested interest in maintaining their military presence have conjured the bogey of civil war to justify continued engagement.

“Their…goal is to create fear in Afghanistan,” Ghulam Jailani Zwak, head of the Afghan Analytical and Advisory Centre, told IPS, adding that he sees “no substance” in the predictions of chaos after 2014.

“Over the last 11 years, Afghanistan has built up a functioning civil society and a strong parliament that has shown it can stand up to the executive,” he said referring to the fact that at the end of 2012, 11 ministers were issued summons to appear in parliament or face impeachment for failing to spend 50 percent of their annual budgets in the last financial year.

Abdul Ghafoor Lewal, head of the Regional Studies Centre, believes threats of civil war are a deliberate Western ploy to maintain a military presence here, particularly in the Bagram airfield, one of the largest U.S. military bases in Afghanistan, located in the Parwan province. Western powers would like Afghans to believe that foreign troops are their “best bet for security,” Lewal told IPS. The government must be “wise, prudent and…protect itself from the machinations of the West,” he added.

Meanwhile, Major General Rahmatullah Raufi, former commander of Paktia Army Corps and erstwhile governor of the southern province of Kandahar, dismisses the fears of war, claiming Afghans are more united now than they were 11 years ago. A clear example of this was seen at the third ministerial conference of the Istanbul Process, held in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, on Apr. 26.

Originally intended to foster regional cooperation in the so-called ‘heart of Asia’ – primarily between Afghanistan and its neighbours – this year’s high-level gathering delved into a host of social issues, from education to disaster management, to help strengthen the war-torn country’s economic stability.

The independent Afghanistan Analysts Network said the Afghan government’s participation made clear that it saw the regional initiative as crucial to securing its future after 2014. Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul, who led the delegation, said Afghanistan was “determined to reclaim (its) rightful place” as an economic centre connecting South Asia, Central Asia, Euroasia and the Middle East.

Moreover, according to experts like Member of Parliament (MP) Habibullah Kalakani – a former jihadi commander who fought against the Soviets – Afghan civil society is no longer “pliant” to foreign interests.

Independent media and human rights organisations including the AIHRC, whose president Sima Samar won the Alternative Nobel Prize last year, are widely respected and have earned international recognition for their efforts to build a culture of peace here. Kalakani also pointed to the increasing number of educated young Afghans who are perfectly positioned to help their country make a democratic transition.

In the last eight years Afghanistan’s precious stones and artifacts have been pillaged at record levels. Thieves, both foreign and domestic, often steal the riches from under the noses of officials.

The eight-year long war has also contributed hugely to the illicit excavation and trade of Afghanistan's precious minerals. Credit: Najibullah Musafer/Killid

They end up spread far and wide, from East Asia to Western Europe. Some Afghan government officials even play a key role in the illegal excavation and smuggling process.

But the biggest driver is the war that has dragged on for eight years. Security forces understandably spend the vast amount of their resources on fighting insurgents. As a result, smugglers have free rein in some provinces to pick the land clean of precious gems, stones and antiquities.

Alaf Gul, a resident of Nuristan says that local authorities, armed men, and even Taliban groups in his province dig up precious stones and other mineral resources.

“They sell the stones to traffickers who come through this area,” he says. He presumes that the items are then exported to other countries.

“All day they take these things,” he says. “The government can’t stop them. They dig precious stones and sell them to Pakistan.”

Local people say that there are many precious stones in the Nandraj Valley. Ghulam Sakhi, a tribal leader and advocate during Zahir Shah’s reign, says, “People and smugglers from Laghman, Kunar, Paktia and Nangrahar are coming here. They work here and take the precious stones.”

According to Sakhi, there are illegal mines in the area where the government has little control or oversight. “The government is weak here,” he says. “Everything is being stolen, looted, because the mines are in areas where the government has no authority.”

He adds that explosives for excavating the mines are brought from regions where the government does have control, but there isn’t enough regulation on those materials either.

Mamoor Shah Wali, of Laghman, is a former member of the Afghan National Army in Nuristan. He says that the mountains in the area are riddled with precious stones and illegal mines which extract them. “The people who run these mines are doing so only to fill their pockets.”

The Waigal district of Nuristan is particularly attractive to looters, who often come to the area heavily armed.

“They have betrayed the nation,” Wali says of the armed thieves. “If they are left to their own devices, all of the wealth and resources of our area will be looted.”

Even road crews in Nuristan have noticed an increase in traffic of those who have come to do business in Afghanistan’s pillaged natural resources.

“They sell these precious stones for very high prices,” says one road builder who asked not to be identified, but has seen an influx of “foreign businessmen” coming through the area to purchase precious stones and gems. “These Pakistani businessmen sell them for a fortune in Peshawar.”

Wakhat News recently ran a story about a soldier who worked with a local commander in Nuristan who had a second job looting ancient artifacts.

Though the soldier would not identify his commander, he told Wakhat that, “The commander looted every mountain and all the artifacts [in the area.] He sold these things, and precious stones cheaply to foreign businessmen.”

According to the soldier, who remained anonymous in the Wakhat report, smugglers are happy even for a small amount of money. The fact that they are selling pieces of Afghanistan’s history or natural wealth seems almost beside the point.

According to Afghan law, deserts, rivers, mountains and mines (both exploited and otherwise,) belong to the government. The government is working to use the natural mineral resources to build economic stability, and illegal looting only undermines that effort.

“The government is investing in coal and precious stone mines,” says one resident of Panjshir. “When we work in a government mine, we can earn a piece of bread, legally. People are employed in the digging.”

But the eight-year long war has also contributed hugely to the illicit excavation and trade of Afghanistan’s precious minerals. Areas that have been destabilised in recent years, Logar for example, have seen sharp increases in the illegal mining and export of precious stones and artifacts. Ironically, the war has also hurt the ability of smugglers to turn a profit on their ill-gotten loot.

After the Pakistani army launched operations against Taliban and insurgent groups in Swat and Waziristan, the fighting shut down a major smuggling route out of Afghanistan. One smuggler from Khost, who wanted to remain anonymous, says that the operations in western Pakistan have crippled his business, cutting the sale price of precious stones in half.

“If the war continues,” he says, “our business will be greatly damaged.”

The conflict has also helped curb the illegal excavation of precious stones, because villagers know that their work will not be as handsomely rewarded. Laiq Khan, the director of mines in Khost, says that the new, lower price of stones has caused many part-time illegal miners to quit the business altogether.

“It is no longer worth it for them,” he says. Still, Khan adds, it is impossible to shut the trade down entirely, especially in the midst of a war.

“There is no way to avoid it,” he says. “Before, people were smuggling the stones out of the country using animals and security forces could sometimes stop them. But now that we are involved in fighting, there is no one to catch them.”

Khan says that he’s shared this concern with security forces in Khost, but has yet to receive a response.

*This was originally published in the Killid Weekly. Killid, part of the independent Killid Group in Afghanistan, and IPS are partners since 2004.

After the fall of the Taliban, the most widely recognised and praised Afghan film has been ‘Osama’. Directed by Sediq Barmak, the 2003 production is the heartrending story of a young girl who disguises herself as a boy named Osama so that she might survive the Taliban regime. Osama received awards at both Cannes and the Golden Globes.

During the shooting of the Afghan-French production, Kabuli Kid, a 2008 release. Credit: Kabuli Kid

While all of the actors in the film were found on the streets of Kabul, the film nonetheless owes its life to foreign money.

The production was funded by Japan and Ireland. The production team that shot and directed the picture were actually Iranian.

Other post-Taliban era films follow a similar pattern.

‘Raqas Atish,’ released in 2002, and directed by Jawad Basel was created with help from the U.S. ‘Nelofar-e-Darbran’, another 2002 production, was backed by the French and directed by Hamayoon Kareempoor. More recently, the Wahid Nazari directed ‘Hejrat’, and the ‘Se Noqta’ by Roya Sadat – both released in 2004 – were also created with the help for foreign donors and production teams.

While these films were critically acclaimed, there is a view that overall, foreign influence has had a deleterious effect on the quality of Afghan cinema.

“In the past,” says Latif, president of Afghan Film Engineers, “film quality had value, but now the number of films has become more important than the kind of films we release.”

Some actors have quit the business entirely, saying that artistic motivation has been completely removed from the Afghan filmmaking process and replaced by a desire for only fortune and fame.

Qarar Aziz is one actor who got fed up with what he perceives as the commercialisation of Afghan cinema.

“Non-professionals have flooded the industry,” he says. “These private companies just work for money and fame.”

Mamoon Maqsoodi, another prominent Afghan film star also says that the rise of private companies over government funded film production have hurt the quality of filmmaking here by opening the industry to amateurs. Many popular Afghan films are actually remakes of Indian, Pakistani and Iranian hit movies.

“As it is important that a doctor should be a professional, so too must a film director,” Maqsoodi says. “But a doctor just deals with one person, whereas a film is seen by many tens-of-thousands. There is a major lack of professionalism in the industry right now.”

The upside of this change in the Afghan film industry is that more films are being made and the distribution networks are far wider than before. Some industry insiders say that viewership for locally made films has increased by as much as 80 percent over the last five years.

Shafiqullah Shayeq, head of the Actor’s Association of Nangrahar, says that some of the productions do manage to capture the national mood and unique aspects of Afghan culture in ways that government sponsored filmmakers could not. “There are some irresponsible production companies that are only interested in fame and fortune,” he allows. “But there are many that make fine, high-quality pictures that Afghans should be proud of.”

One of the major hurdles faced by Afghan movie-makers is the participation of women in films. Many directors say it is near impossible to find local actresses to appear on screen. As a result, local directors and producers have to bring in female talent from abroad in order to round out their casts.

Film star Maqsoodi says, “People look down on films here, from a moral standpoint. They see cinema as bad for our culture. Of course this isn’t true.”

Unfortunately, importing actresses hurts the realism of some Afghan films. Because the women are not Afghan, they don’t look like Afghans and their accents are very different from the different regional dialects that pepper Afghanistan.

Part of the problem may have to do with the borrowed plot lines and themes from other countries.

“When I make a film,” says Maqsoodi, “My film must present Afghan prestige and dignity. I don’t want to show young girls dancing in trousers and drinking wine.”

But Saba Sahar, an actress who also owns Saba Films, a Kabul-based production company, downplays this problem, saying that over the past few years it has become easier to find local, female talent.

“Two or three years ago this was a problem,” she says. “I had this problem then, but I don’t now. Only filmmakers in Nangrahar have this problem.”

Sahar, an actress who also owns Saba Films, a Kabul-based production company, blames the degradation of Afghanistan’s film industry on television, saying that filmmakers are drawn to the small screen because of TV’s much larger audience and global reach via satellite.

Many Afghan filmmakers have opted to work full time for well funded non governmental organisations (NGOs) who are constantly in need of instructional and documentary material.

*This was original published in the Killid Weekly. Killid, an independent Afghan media group, and IPS are partners since 2004.

A Taliban fighter infiltrated the Afghan police force, killing seven Afghan officers and British soldiers. Similar attacks have taken the lives of U.S. troops.

Afghan interior and defence ministries deny that the screening of prospective soldiers is poor, but a police officer admitted to Killid that he was accepted into the Afghan National Police (ANP) after submitting falsified papers that were never verified by recruiters (see sidebar).

On Nov. 3, in Nad e’Ali district, Helmand, a group of British soldiers from the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards sat down to breakfast at an ANP compound known as Blue 25. Among them was an ANP officer named Gulbadeen from Musa Kala district. Gulbadeen had been with the ANP for two years, and just graduated from the academy last year.

But on that November morning his true allegiance became clear. While inside the Blue 25 compound, Gulbadeen drew his weapon, fired first at his Afghan commander and assistant commander and then turned the gun on the British soldiers who were there to mentor and train the Afghan police. In all, five foreign soldiers and two ANP were killed in the attack. Another five Brits were injured, before Gulbadeen fled the compound, hopped on a motorcycle and made good his escape.

Despite a massive dragnet by the Ministry of Interior (MOI), secret police and British forces, Gulbadeen remains a free man. MOI officials declined to comment about the incident, citing the continuing investigation, but a Taliban group later took credit for the deadly shootings.

At the heart of these attacks lies a frightening commonality: poor screening of police and army applicants. Apparently all it takes to join these forces is an easily forged National Identity Card and at least one working leg.

It’s hard to blame the police and army for taking all comers however. The security situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating more quickly than new recruits can be given uniforms and with expanding units – such as the southern border guards – security forces will need fresh personnel for some time.

Also, one in 10 ANP officers will die in the line of duty this year. As grim as it sounds, those men need to be replaced, even if it is by those of lesser mettle.

Experts and former members of the Afghan security forces fear that the lax selection process has allowed insurgents easy access to the ranks of police and army.

Retired Colonel Aqa Muhammad Logari says that attacks like the one on Nov. 3 are proof that insurgents have a toe-hold within security forces and worries of more such attacks down the road if the government does not become more careful about whom it hires and arms.

“The government should take this issue more seriously,” Logari says. “They should not let just anyone join the army and police. It damages everything from moral to the [Afghan security forces] public image.”

Despite their protestations to the contrary, some Afghan government officials acknowledge that there is an effort on the part of insurgents to break into government security forces.

In the aftermath of the attack on British soldiers, Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak told The Washington Post that the ANA has had to be “very watchful because we do have the reports that [insurgents] are really trying to infiltrate.” Wardak did however say that “As far as the army’s concerned, we have been relatively successful. It has not been a major problem up to now,”

Wardak says that the army wants to implement a biometric scanning system of the kind used by coalition forces in Afghanistan. The scanners record retinal images, fingerprints and other data. The information can be checked against an existing biometric database of insurgents as well as used as a record of all successful recruits.

Wardak repeated that the police had a much bigger insurgent infiltration problem than the army.

When asked about The Washington Post story, MOI spokesman Zmarai Bashari blanched, denying the defence chief’s statement. “We do not approve this report,” Bashari says of the story. “It is not true. The MOI does not have any reports that enemies have infiltrated the police, except in one or two instances.”

Some of the friction between MOI and Minister Wardak, could come from the fact that Wardak’s ministry is responsible for the army and MOI is responsible for the police.

But despite intra-agency squabbles, parliamentarian Pashtoon says that insurgents have long tried to infiltrate government security forces, even back in the days when the government was Soviet.

“The Mujahiddin were always trying to find ways to break into the police,” Pashtoon says. “It was the perfect way to strike against the government.”

In many ways, it still is.

* This was originally published in the Killid Weekly. Afghanistan’s independent Killid Group and IPS are partners since 2004.

Niamatullah joined the Afghan National Police (ANP) for the same reasons that many Afghan men do.

Underage soldiers are serving, dying and being maimed in the front lines of Afghanistan's fiercest battles. Credit: Najibullah Musafer/Killid

“I am illiterate,” he says, sitting in the police barracks in Aghandab district, Kandahar, a Kalashnikov machine-gun hanging from a strap on his neck. “I couldn’t find a job, so I was compelled to join the police. There were only two ways. Join the police or beg.”

Niamatullah has something else in common with all too many Afghan police and army forces: he’s only 16 years old.

On the record, government sources say that there are no underage soldiers or officers in the ANP and Afghanistan National Army (ANA). But speaking anonymously, many admit that in fact there are soldiers and police officers under the age of 18 serving in both security forces.

In interviews, these teen soldiers say that they need jobs to provide for their families and the police or army are more than happy to hire them, even providing the teens with fake National Identity Cards (NIC). In a matter of weeks, Afghanistan’s boys can go from high school students, to uniformed soldiers.

Seventeen-year-old Abdurrahman lies in a bed at Bagram’s military hospital, recovering from wounds suffered during a recent battle in Barg-e-Matal district, Nuristan province. A member of the ANP, he’d been shot in a gunfight between insurgents and foreign soldiers, though he was not directly involved in the conflict.

“I was standing with gun-in-hand,” he says, fear still etched on his young face, “at the entrance to a hotel. When the fight started, a stray round hit me.”

His uncle, 45-year-old Rohullah, who regularly visits Abdurrahman in the hospital, told this reporter, “I don’t think you believe that my nephew was a policeman. Believe me, he was.” Rohullah displayed his nephew’s ID card, showing that Abdurrahman was, and is, in fact a member of the ANP.

According to the Ministry of Labour, unemployment is at critical levels in Afghanistan, with 40 percent of workers jobless. For families desperate to put food on the table, the police and army offer steady work and long-term job security. Some teen-soldiers are even encouraged by family members to join the military or police.

Marjan Gul, 48, a soldier during Najibullah’s regime, says that young people fighting Afghanistan’s wars are nothing new and now, his family needs the income provided by his 16-year-old son’s military paycheck.

“He always has on a military uniform,” Gul says of his son. “He goes to the front lines of war. I am blind … if he quits his job, then who will support us?”

The law regarding underage soldiers is explicit. A presidential decree issued by Hamid Karzai in 2003 expressly forbids anyone under the age of 18 from serving in any military or police branches – conforming to Article 38 the Convention of the Rights of Children.

But some say that despite this law, the Ministry of Interior actually would encourage youths to join the security forces, by helping them obtain fake identity cards.

Zai-Ul-Haq, 17, is a police officer in Kabul who says that in order to recruit young men, “the Ministry of Interior issues NIC’s with an older age on them. Or they will update your existing NIC, so that you are of an eligible age.”

He says that when he applied to work for the police, “I lied about my age on the NIC. There aren’t enough police and soldiers, and that is why NIC’s are granted for small or underage boys. They just increase the ages.”

One former police officer, who lives in Khost province and asked that his name not be used in this story, says that he joined the police as a minor, even though he still is not legally eligible because he is too young. He says that the man who hired him knew that he was under age, but falsified an identity card so that he could join

“I knew a police officer,” he says, “I told him that I wanted to become a policeman. He recruited me and made me an NIC. No one ever asked about my age.” He says that he quit the force last year.

There is also the question of how qualified these teens are to carry out the work of the police and military, that is, keeping Afghans safe. When ordinary people see uniformed children with guns patrolling their streets, it does little to convey a sense of civil order.

Obaidullah, a 38-year-old from Kandahar, says that when he sees underage police, he begins to think less of the agencies that are supposed to be protecting him, and thinks that they may be doing more harm than good.

“They do not know military affairs and are not professionals,” Obaidullah says of teen-soldiers. “They may not know how to use that gun they are carrying.”

Insurgents and Taliban groups have long used the youngest of young men to help battle government and coalition forces. Insurgents often use children to carry explosives, perform suicide attacks or act as lookouts during operations.

Sometimes, the children are unwitting accomplices to the insurgency.

Last month, Akaz Daily, a Saudi Arabian newspaper told the story of an 11-year-old child named Eidullah, who was given a bag of flour by insurgents to deliver as a gift to a regional Afghan military commander.

What Eidulla didn’t know, was that the bag was packed with explosives. The bag prematurely detonated, blowing one of the boy’s legs off.

* This investigative story was originally published in the Killid Weekly, a publication of Killid Media. IPS and Killid, an independent Afghan group, are partners since 2004.

For the last three weeks, 30-year-old Ghulam Nabi has lain in a Kabul hospital bed, suffering. His face is etched with hopelessness, loneliness and despair over the life he once had and has now lost forever.

“I lost my land, my garden and everything else, to opium,” he says, thin hands gripping the rails of his bed, his wan gaze falling weakly at the doctors and nurses surrounding him.

He started smoking hashish as a young man, but after the killing of his two brothers by unknown assailants, and worsening conditions in his home village, he switched to opium by the age of 15.

Within a few years the addiction consumed his life. His wife, five children and extended family became distant strangers while he, lost in a fog of drugs, slept out in the open, away from his home.

“I do not know what they [my family] eat, wear, or who they must borrow money from, because I lost…everything to opium. If I found one or two pennies, I was buying opium. I could survive without food, but not without opium.”

Since coming to the hospital last month, Nabi says that things have gotten better. He is determined to give up his addiction and that after he gets out of the hospital he will never use again and will work hard to support his family.

Addicts AbroadOne little hard to pin down statistic is the number of people who pick up an opium habit while outside Afghanistan and return home with a nasty addiction. Some doctors put the number as high as 85 percent of all of Afghanistan’s addicts, though that number is likely wildly overstated. “If you interview 85 percent of addicted people” says Dr. Wahidullah Koshan, who treats patients at a Kabul addiction centre, “they will tell you that they became addicted in Iran.” Dr. Laiqullah Obaidi, a doctor at a 20-bed hospital in Nangrahar echoes this statistic, saying that, “85 percent of the addicts I treat are returnees from abroad.” Thirty five-year-old Omer Gul has been an addict for years and says that he picked up the habit in Iran. “I became addicted while outside of Afghanistan,” he says. “It was the years I was in Iran. Sometimes I smoke but now, sometimes I inject.” Zalmai Afzali of the Ministry of Counternarcotics says that out of three families returning to Afghanistan from Pakistan or Iran, generally one or two people will have become opium addicts while abroad. But here at home, the addiction is decimating families, as the men of the household are usually the first to pick up opium addiction. Malang has smoked opium for 12 years and has four daughters and a son, who he has been unable to provide for because of his crippling addiction. “I really regret, what I put my family through,” he says. “It is my shame.” He started smoking opium because he was unemployed and unhappy, a not unusual circumstance in a country with poverty levels of 70 percent. But now Malang has checked himself into a rehabilitation clinic and is making an effort to get clean.”I have made a firm commitment to quit,” he says.

But Nabi’s potential to get healthy is far from the norm for Afghanistan.

A sachet of opium can be had for about 120 Afghanis or 2.4 U.S. dollars on the open market. It is a cheap habit to start, and enables many of Afghanistan’s poorest to start young.

Afghanistan produces 6,900 tonnes of raw opium a year, more than the world’s entire demand for the drug. The raw opium is refined into heroin powder for illegal use, primarily in western countries, where it is snorted like cocaine or injected with a syringe.

According to a U.N. report released last month, opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is down 22 percent while opium production is down 10 percent last year. But this decline has little effect on the local market, where the supply is so plentiful that opium remains cheap and always available.

The Afghan Ministry of Counternarcotics fears that as many as 2 million Afghans may be addicted to the drug in its raw form and has begun a census to confirm that number. Ministry officials say that the results of the survey will be completed later this year.

According to a 2006 survey, nearly one-million Afghans were addicted to opium at the time and 7 percent were children, 13 percent women and the rest, adult males. In the meantime, addiction treatment centres have been built in 34 provinces across the country, with 16 more currently under construction.

Zalmai Afzali, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Counternarcotics, says that the number of treatment centres pales when compared to the scope of the issue. “The number of addicts” he says, “has been increased by half-again over the number we had in 2006.”

Afzali says that the biggest problem in combating addiction is a lack of funding to government agencies responsible for the prevention and treatment of opium use. “We want the international community to help us decrease the number [of addicts] and increase their treatment,” he says.

In the addiction centre where Nabi is trying to get his life back on track, around 100 opium addicts are currently receiving treatment round-the-clock, while another 400 are registered as outpatients.

Fareed Rayed, spokesperson for the Ministry of Public Health, says that this centre is able to keep the lights on due to funding from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), an intergovernmental aid agency.

He says that it takes “45 days to treat an addict in these centres,” but that is only after they spend a few days in “sleeping rooms” where their vitamin A levels are fortified so that their bodies have the strength to respond to treatment.

While centres like these are critical to combating the symptoms of Afghanistan’s opium addiction, the root of the problem lies with Afghan families and neighbourhoods.

The close relationships in Afghan families, where many generations live under the same roof, means that when opium addiction spreads it does so quickly and to catastrophic effect. Addiction isn’t just transferred from one friend to another, it leaps from husband to mother to son to daughter, and on and on, until an entire family or village is snared by unrelenting, crippling addiction. In this way, entire districts in places like Badakhshan and Nangrahar, have become slaves to opium.

Salima (not her real name) has used opium constantly since she was young and now her body resembles little more than skin and bones. She is only 40, but the ravages of drug use have aged her terribly and she looks at least 20 or 30 years older than her years. She is from Badakhshan, but currently lives in the Ashqan Aw Arifan section of Kabul.

She began consuming opium 20 years ago after her husband died, leaving her with two young boys to care for. Her vacant eyes fill with tears as she describes how she began down the path of addiction.

“A woman in our neighborhood was eating opium and I started too. I did not understand the power of the drug.”

And of course, Salima is not alone.

Many users begin by smoking the drug, before graduating to intravenous use. “First I was smoking, now I use injections,” says one 40-year-old man who declined to be identified. As he sat, his gaunt face looked tired and lifeless. “I am very tired with my life right now,” he adds.

*This is from Killid, an independent Afghan media group. IPS and Killid have been partners since 2004.

Partial results in Afghanistan’s presidential polls tend to favour President Hamid Karzai with Abdullah Abdullah, former foreign minister, trailing in second place. Kabul lawmaker Ramazan Basherdost who is at third place, seems to have garnered more votes than former World Bank economist, Dr. Ashraf Ghani.

6.5 million Afghans voted in the Aug. 20 presidential election Credit: Najibullah Musafer/Killid

With a majority of polling stations yet to announce their results, and investigations into major fraud complaints underway, the contest is still wide open.

Whoever the winner, unless that candidate wins over 50 percent of the vote, a runoff will be inevitable.

Daud Ali Najafi, head of the Independent Election Commission (IEC), says that his agency is prepared for such an eventuality. “The preliminary work of the second round, such as designing ballot papers, is already well under way,” says Najafi.

Richard S. Williamson, of the International Republican Institute, a USAID-backed election monitoring group, says that if the election does go to a second round the technical issues that plagued the first round of elections – such as lack of hole punches for ballots – “should not arise.”

CountdownWhile it will be weeks until the complete results of the Afghan elections are announced, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) says that it is has nearly completed counting presidential votes from the majority of provinces. Daud Ali Najafi, head of the IEC, says that the votes are in from 30 provinces. “Provincial vote counting from Kabul, Herat, Baghlan and Nangrahar is slow because there were so many candidates.” The IEC wants to declare a winner as soon as possible, but the Election Complaints Commission (ECC), an independent body sponsored by the U.N., will not certify the election results until they have investigated dozens of election-related complaints that could affect the outcome of the contest. Grant Kippon, head of the ECC says that there is no fixed deadline for certification of the results and his organisation will take “as long as we need” to complete the process. “We are the ones who have to certify the election results,” Kippon says. It is unclear whether the IEC will adhere to the rules laid down before the election. According to Afghan election law, if there is to be a runoff it must be held two weeks after the original election is certified.

Overall, election monitoring groups were satisfied with the electoral process, despite violence, threats against voters and widespread corruption. They are quick to point out, however, that though the elections were fair, the freedom of voters was severely restricted.

“Thursday’s (Aug. 20) elections were fair,” says Phillip Moran, head of a European team of 300 election observers. “But they were not free.”

Grant Kippon, head of the Election Complaints Commission (ECC), says that over 225 complaints were filed immediately after the election. Of these, 150 have been sorted through and approximately 35 were assigned “high priority,” meaning that if true, these allegations could affect the outcome of the contest.

The complaints run the gamut from ballot stuffing, tampering with ballot boxes, problems with indelible ink, non-IEC personnel present at polling stations, polling stations opening late, and voters being threatened to vote for a particular candidate.

Kippon also says that many of the complaints came from Kandahar, Ghazni, Wardak and Kunduz provinces.

The ECC investigation process involves teams of 250 investigators in provinces throughout Afghanistan, who will look into complaints and then send results to the ECC office in Kabul.

“All complaints that could potentially affect the outcome of the election will be dealt with in a thorough manner,” Kippon said at a press conference, days after the election.

Kippon and others in the ECC say that they will look into all irregularities, whether ECC receives an official complaint or not.

The Fair Elections Federation of Afghanistan (FEFA) says that participation in this year’s election was as low as 20 percent in the troubled regions of Afghanistan. The northern part of the country saw much higher turnouts while in the south, voters stayed home out of fear for their lives.

Throughout the country, polls were allowed to stay open for an hour past the original closing time of 4 p.m. Analysts on a Killid national radio broadcast, said that people all over Afghanistan were frightened of what a trip to the polls might bring.

Analyst Ustad Habibullah Rafi said that “no positive or major change has come to people’s lives, so people do not want to participate in elections. But what participation is taking place should be appreciated.”

The registration numbers alone tell the tale of how Afghan participation has changed since the last election. In 2004, 12 million Afghans were registered to vote. This year the number of voting cards delivered went up to 17 million, though only estimated 6.5 million people voted.

In Kabul alone there were many clashes between Afghan security forces and insurgent fighters. Explosions rocked the 5th, 7th and 12th police districts of the city. The 8th district was the site of a fierce battle, perhaps the longest military engagement in the country on Election Day.

Punch tools – small, hand-held pliers used to indicate that a voting card has been used– were in short supply on Election Day. Many of the punch tools that were available did not work properly and election officials were forced to use scissors or other sharp objects to mark the cards.

These inefficiencies led to voter fraud. In Takhar province, one man admitted to Radio Killid that he voted three times with two cards because the punch tools were not working. He says that no one at the polling station seemed to mind.

Najafi, head of the IEC, says that he raised this issue with polling centres prior to the election, but still no steps were taken to rectify the situation.

A lack of indelible ink was also apparent as soon as the polls opened. At one north Kabul polling station, poll workers delayed the start of polling for almost two hours while they awaited a delivery of ink.

Substandard ink was also a problematic hurdle to fair elections. Many voters complained that the ink washed off shortly after it was applied, making vote fraud an easy game.

Basherdost who voted at Kabul’s Habiba High School noticed that the ink did not stay long on his finger. “This is clear fraud,” the candidate said, holding up his finger for journalists to see. Bashardost also filed an official complaint with the ECC.

The IEC’s Azizullah Lodeen first rejected that these things even happened. After Killid gave him concrete evidence, Lodeen backtracked, admitting that these things happened but “this is not a common problem. Perhaps it happened once or twice. Also, these people could have used special chemicals to remove the ink.”

(*The story moved Sep. 1, 2009 contained an error in the name of one source. It is not Richard Sun, but Richard S. Williamson.)

(*Published under an agreement with the Killid Group. This independent Afghan media group and IPS have been partners since 2004.)

Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission says that in the last seven months they have received 12 complaints about stolen land. The complaints cover the map, ranging from Wardak, Panjsher and Kapisa, to Parwan and Kabul.

Shamasullah Ahmadzai, who sits on the commission, says that these complaints generally don’t specifically name the powerful people who took the land because the complainants fear reprisals. “This fact alone paves the way for land-thieves to steal more.”

According to the Killid Media War Crimes Project, last year 500 jirib of land (roughly one third an acre) occupied by the Is’haqzi tribe of Sayed Abad district of Saripul, was actually stolen from 50 families that had been forced from the village.

The families say that that Kamal and Hajji Payenda Muhhamad (who is a member of parliament) are behind the land thefts.

Noorullah, a resident of the area, says that he had to leave his village because commander Kamel oppressed his family. “Our whole family was compelled to leave and our lands have been taken.”

Like Noorullah, many families decide against turning to the government for help. They say that officials do not offer any real assistance and will dare not take the powerful usurpers to court.

Abdul Wasi Khan, who once owned over 200 jirib of land in Sayed Abad, grieves over all he has lost. “My 200 jirib has been taken and my house was destroyed. What shall I do?” he asked hopelessly. Khan believes President Hamid “Karzai’s state is a warlord state and the United States supports these warlords.”

Hajji Payenda Muhammad, who represents Saripul in Afghanistan’s parliament, told Killid. “The land issue involving the Is’haqzai tribes is not a secret. President Karzai even knows about this. The Is’haqzai’s claim to the land is baseless.”

Afghanistan’s Supreme Court says that it hears hundreds of cases each week that have to do with property theft. But many more Afghans are reluctant to take their problems to government officials, because the authorities offer little by way of assistance.

Forty two-year-old Sherin Aqa fled the country during the years of Moscow’s occupation. While he was gone, a commander with a high position in the Soviet-backed government took more than half his property.

Upon Aqa’s return he realised it would be difficult to get his property back.

He says that he went to the attorney general for help, but the government’s legal representatives did nothing for him.

“I familiarised myself with more than 60 judges at the time, but could not get my property back because of fake deeds and nepotism. Now the property has been sold to developers who have built a large building on the site.”

Sixty five-year-old Malim Muhamad Zaman lives near Jalalabad, in Nowabad Village, Kama District. He claims that 30 jirib of his land has been stolen by powerful individuals in the area. He also has a large bundle of documents that he says contain proof of the crime.

“For the last 16 years” says the grizzled old man, “I have claimed the legal deed. The legal deed of the land dates back to 1930, but the sons of Hajji Hassan captured them and claim that the land was an inheritance from their father.”

Like Aqa, Zaman claims that he has doggedly pursued his claim with Afghanistan’s government and justice system. “I repeatedly appealed to the government,” he says. “I showed them the documents, but nobody would listen. My land has three parts and I have the deeds to all three, but still the government would not help me.”

Killid attempted to track down the sons of Hajji Hassan, who live in Pakistan. We were unable to reach the men for comment. In court filings, they have repeatedly stated that their father left the land to them.

But Zaman is far from the only Afghan to have his land taken by the sons of powerful men.

Forty-year-old Habibullah says that 240 jirib of land that he and a partner purchased in Surkhord, Nangahar, has been stolen by Hajji Zahir, son of former minister and governor Hajji Abdul Qadeer. “[Zahir] started construction work on a building on the property. There are armed men there, and they mocked me, daring me to take action against them.”

Habibullah adds that he bought the land with a legal land deed. “When the owner, a man named Sayed Amir, submitted the documents, the head of the village was present.”

When reached by telephone, Amir confirmed that he had in fact sold the land to Habibullah and his partner, Hajji Nader. “The deed that I gave them is evidence,” Amir says. “I gave testimony in the presence of all. I will not go back on my testimony, because I gave them a legal deed.”

Habibullah says that he and his partner have been arguing the matter with Hajji Zahir for two years. He claims that they have gone to both the police and attorney general, but to no avail.

“We went to the district chief of Surkhrod. The chief said that he couldn’t do anything. We went to the police chief. He also said that he couldn’t do anything. He told us that since there were armed men working there, we had to turn to ‘the highest levels’ of government.”

Undeterred, Habibullah went to the Jalalabad police commander. “They said that we had to go to Kabul and bring written orders from there. Then the local police would stop the construction on our property.”

The struggle to regain what is rightfully his has left Habibullah frustrated and tired. “This is not a secret,” he says. Everybody knows that I bought this land under legal deed and he stole it.” Still Habibullah and his partner will not give up. “We will keep on forwarding our case to the highest levels.”

(This is the second of a two-part investigative series on property theft in Afghanistan by Killid Weekly. IPS and Killid Media, an independent Afghan group, have been partners since 2004.)

Afghans are queuing up Thursday to vote in an election that could give President Hamid Karzai a second term. Still, many among them could be wondering if democracy is working for the majority of people.

Land grabs are surprisingly simple to carry out for powerful men with guns Credit: Najibullah Musafer/Killid

Far too many Afghan families have been forced from their homes by some of the very government officials whose job is to protect them.

The Ministry of Urban Development (MUD) says that between 1,000 and 1,500 jirib (roughly equal to an acre) of public land where private families reside, have been stolen or usurped by powerful government officials and warlords each day. The ministry says that in all, more than three and-a-half million jirib of these lands have been stolen, a staggering figure.

Yousaf Pashtoon, who oversees MUD, says that these large-scale land grabs are surprisingly simple to carry out for powerful men with guns. “In the beginning” says Pashtoon, “these men usurped the land and then made counterfeit deeds. Now, they make counterfeit deeds first and then according to those deeds, take the land.”

Government officials also took advantage of their position and the chaos in the early years of the U.S. occupation. They used their special access to official maps and property ownership records to enrich themselves. “They made counterfeit deeds during the early years of war” says Haidarzada, Herat’s director of agriculture and livestock. “But these deeds do not have any basis in law.”

Balkh has been a particular target of corrupt officials and powerful men with a taste for other people’s property. According to a local official who did not want to be named in this report, residents of the northern province have seen more than 500 jirib of their lands stolen by the wealthy.

Katib Shams, Balkh’s director of agriculture, said that much of the land was stolen by commanders and governors during the 1990’s and distributed to their supporters. “Many of them did so with counterfeit deeds.” Many of them also still hold important positions in government, and according to a Killid source, continue to hold more than 1,000 jirib of land each.

The problem is much more widespread than just Balkh.

Nangarhar seems to have an epidemic of land theft by powerful men. A court there recently found that 18,000 jirib in Muhmandara, 12,000 jirib in Chaparhar, 8,000 jirib in Surkhord, and more than 10,000 jirib in Behsood district were pilfered.

There are cases pending in court, filed by the original landowners, to get these properties back, but the court says that the process will take time. A special commission has also been formed to find which public lands have been stolen, and return them to their rightful owners.

One resident of Behsood district, Nangarhar, told Killid, “a local commander has taken more than 50 jirib of public land and built a house and garden there.” The resident declined to name the commander, but says that the man is the head of a Nangahar district.

Sadly, the problem of land theft is not a new one for Afghanistan.

Six years ago, government officials in Sherpoor took huge swaths of land and drove the original residents out by force, using bulldozers to demolish the houses. In some cases, residents say, they were still in the homes as the buildings were being destroyed.

At the time, Basir Salangi was a security commander in the area. Under his command, residents say, 30 homes were destroyed.

“We were eating breakfast when we began to feel shaking,” says one former resident of Sherpoor. “We thought that it was an earthquake and the walls were going to fall down.”

Paim-e-Zan magazine reported at the time that some children were injured during the demolition process.

“These traitors robbed and lied,” one woman told the magazine. “They have come to push us from our house. We have been living here for 30 years. Now, they want to build palaces here.”

Some of the government officials and strongmen responsible for this theft still hold high positions in Afghan government. Many of them rent out the properties that they stole, further profiting from their misdeeds.

In all, about 120,000 square metres of stolen land in Sherpoor was distributed to ministers, commanders, ministerial deputies, governors and businessmen.

Former Attorney General Abdul Jabar Sabit has taken action against these men, saying that they violated “Article 285 of the legal code and Karzai decree number 377. These people are usurpers of governmental property and should be taken to court.

(*This is the first of a two-part investigative series on property theft in Afghanistan by Killid Weekly. IPS and Killid Media, an independent Afghan group, have been partners since 2004.)