Afghanistan
By Jim Lobe &
Abid Aslam
History
Unified in 1747 after centuries of fighting foreign invaders, Afghanistan was
repeatedly invaded by Britain during the 19th century as part of the "Great
Game" for control over Central Asia. London never succeeded in gaining control
over the country, which eventually wrested full independence for itself in the
aftermath of the First World War. During the cold war, both sides wooed Kabul,
which made significant territorial claims against Pakistan.
A 1973 military coup abolished the monarchy and established a republic.
Ensuing reforms ushered in a period of political instability. Two more violent
coups by different Communist factions in 1978 and 1979 helped provoke Islamist
insurgencies, and finally a Soviet military intervention in December 1979.
In the decade that followed, fighting between Soviet and Afghan government
troops against mujahedin guerrillas backed by Pakistan, the United States, and
Saudi Arabia devastated the country. Moscow withdrew in 1989, leaving President
Najibullah to fight on alone. In early 1992, the mujahedin coalition captured
Kabul but quickly proved unable to sustain its unity amid fighting between
ethnic-based factions.
In late 1994, the Taliban, a Pakistan-backed militia consisting of Pashtun
Islamic fundamentalists, launched operations along the Pakistani border,
sweeping westward until it finally captured Kabul in September 1996. In 1998, it
extended its control when it seized Mazar Sharif from predominantly Uzbek and
Hazara Shiite forces in the Northern Alliance and reportedly massacred thousands
of residents. In November 1998, the UN Security Council imposed economic
sanctions against the Taliban for its refusal to turn over Osama bin Laden in
connection with attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
In March 1999, the United Nations brokered a ceasefire between the Taliban
and the remaining Northern Alliance forces under Ahmed Shah Massoud, an ethnic
Tajik, but fighting resumed in July. In December 2000, the Security Council
imposed a ban on arms sales to the Taliban.
A combination of crippling drought, shortfalls in humanitarian aid, and
continued international isolation compounded by the Taliban's destruction of
Buddhist statues throughout Afghanistan contributed to growing hunger and a new
outflow of refugees. In September 2001, tensions mounted sharply after Massoud,
the Northern Alliance's chief military commander, was assassinated, and senior
U.S. officials suggested military action against Bin Laden and the Taliban in
the wake of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York
and the Pentagon outside Washington, DC.
Ethnic Profile
Pashtuns (also known as Pathans): 38% of the population; concentrated
in the eastern and southern part of the country, but also with a strong presence
in Kabul.
Tajiks: 25% of the population; concentrated in the northeast and in
the west around Herat.
Hazars: 19% of the population; concentrated in the central mountains
and along the border with Iran.
Uzbeks: 6% of the population; concentrated in the north along the
border with Uzbekistan.
In linguistic terms, more than 65% of the people speak Pashto, the language
of the Pashtuns, while the rest of the population speaks Dari and related
languages.
Main Actors
Taliban: Led by a council of ultra-orthodox Sunni Muslim clerics
headed by Mullah Muhammad Umar in Kandahar, the Taliban are overwhelmingly
Pashtuns from rural areas of Afghanistan, many of whom were mujahedin or were
refugees in western Pakistan during the Soviet occupation. Now in control of
more than 90% of Afghanistan's territory, the Taliban's strict rule and its
harboring of Osama bin Laden (who, according to some reports, is married to
Umar's daughter) and his associates have alienated much of the international
community.
Northern Alliance or United Front for Afghanistan: The opposition
coalition made up of major elements of the mujahedin alliance that forced the
Soviet withdrawal and ousted President Najibullah in 1992, as well as some
ethnic-based elements of the Najibullah regime. They include:
Islamic Society: Headed by former President Burhannudin Rabbani and,
until his assassination in September 2001, military chief Ahmed Shah Massoud,
this faction is predominantly Tajik and controls the Panjshir Valley and other
areas in northern Afghanistan. Ismail Khan, another legendary mujahedin
commander who was governor of Heart Province from 1992 until 1995 and escaped
from a Taliban prison last year, could emerge as the faction's new leader.
National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan: Led by Gen. Abdul Rashid
Dostam, who served under Najibullah before helping broker his ouster, this group
is predominantly Uzbek. Its control has been sharply reduced to small areas
along the border with Uzbekistan since Taliban forces captured its headquarters
at Mazar Sharif in August 1998.
Unity Party (Hizb-e-Wahdat): Although split into two major factions
since 1995, this group represents most Hazara Shiite Muslims traditionally
concentrated in Afghanistan's western Herat province and central Bamiyan
province, from which hundreds of thousands of residents have been displaced by
fighting and drought in recent years.
External Parties
Pakistan: Pakistan's military intelligence service played a key role
in launching and sustaining the Taliban, as it did with the mujahedin, and
Islamabad has acted until mid-September 2001 as its foremost defender and
apologist. (It is one of only three governments--along with Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates--that recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan's government.)
Under President Pervez Musharraf, who took power in a military coup in October
1999, the government, under increasing pressure from the U.S., has shown signs
of growing concern about the Taliban's defiance and its rising popular influence
within Pakistan itself, particularly among Pashtuns.
Iran: Long concerned about its border with Afghanistan and the welfare
of the Shiite minority, Tehran almost went to war against the Taliban in 1998
over the killing of nine of its diplomats in Mazar Sharif. It has provided
military and other support for the Northern Alliance, even as it has permitted
extensive commerce between Iran and Afghanistan and encourages Afghan refugees
residing in Iran to repatriate.
Russia: Moscow's main concern since its withdrawal has been
Afghanistan's efforts to export and support Islamist movements in Central Asia
and within Russia itself. It has accused the Taliban of supporting insurgents in
Dagestan and Chechnya. It has provided military and other assistance to the
Northern Alliance and cosponsored economic and diplomatic sanctions imposed
against the Taliban by the UN Security Council.
Central Asian States: With the exception of Turkmenistan, which has
had reasonably good relations with the Taliban and has sought a mediating role
between it and the Northern Alliance, the Central Asian states of the former
Soviet Union have been concerned about the Taliban's support for radical
Islamist groups and insurgencies in the region. Uzbekistan, the most militantly
anti-Taliban, provided military and other support for Dostam but has clearly
lost influence since his defeat.
China: Like Russia and the Central Asian states, Beijing has been
concerned about the Afghan-inspired spread of Islamic militancy in the region
and its possible penetration of Xinjiang province with its restive,
predominantly Muslim Uighur population. In recent months, however, it has
reportedly signed some modest commercial and cooperation accords with the
Taliban.
India: New Delhi has decried the close links between the Taliban and
Pakistan and drawn international attention to the reported direct participation
of Taliban and mujahedin veterans, including so-called Afghan Arabs, in the more
violent Islamist guerrilla groups active in Kashmir. India has also supported
the Northern Alliance in various ways.
U.S. Role
After the Soviet invasion in 1979, the U.S. focused its efforts on supporting
the mujahedin with a massive, $3-billion covert aid program channeled mostly
through Pakistani military intelligence. It included primarily military
equipment, including sophisticated weaponry such as scores of shoulder-fired
"Stinger" anti-aircraft missiles. While Washington continued to back the
mujahedin after the Soviet withdrawal, its policy objectives became more
multifaceted. These included ending the conflict and restoring stability;
eradicating the opium crop; retrieving the Stingers; removing landmines; and
preventing the export of arms and the mujahedin's militant Islamist ideology to
neighboring countries.
Since shortly after the Taliban seized Kabul, relations with Washington have
become increasingly problematic. Washington has spoken out forcefully against
the Taliban's treatment of women and girls, its interference with foreign aid
operations, and its sheltering of Bin Laden, who reportedly helped recruit
Afghan-Arabs in the final months of the Taliban's offensive. Washington has also
pressured the Taliban regime to close down suspected training camps of Bin
Laden's, which were the targets of several dozen cruise missiles launched by
America in retaliation for the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa. Shortly
afterward, Unocal, the California-based energy company, abandoned a proposed
mega-project to build oil and gas pipelines from Central Asia through western
Afghanistan to Pakistan. In 1997, Washington added Afghanistan to its list of
state sponsors of terrorism, and in 1999 imposed sweeping sanctions, including a
freeze on all Taliban assets in the U.S. and a ban on U.S. trade with
Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan. Some kind of military attack against
Afghanistan is considered highly likely in the wake of the September 2001
terrorist attacks in New York and at the Pentagon.
On the multilateral front, Washington has supported efforts since 1994 by a
succession of UN mediators--most recently Francesc Vendrell--and others to
negotiate a cease-fire and the creation of broad-based government. It has also
participated in the so-called "Six Plus Two" process established in 1997 to
support UN peace efforts. That forum includes six of Afghanistan's
neighbors--China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan--as
well as Russia and America. At the same time, it has joined Moscow in
cosponsoring Security Council resolutions imposing travel, diplomatic, economic,
and arms sanctions against the Taliban.
Proposed Solutions and Evaluation of Prospects
Almost all efforts to end hostilities in Afghanistan have been channeled
through the United Nations, bolstered by the Six Plus Two process initiated in
1997 after key external states agreed informally to observe an arms embargo
against all Afghan factions. The UN's efforts have been geared in the first
instance to achieving a sustainable cease-fire, but, aside from the two-month
cease-fire achieved in 1999 by UN Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, this has proved
impossible.
Although all factions agreed at that time to a process leading to a coalition
government, the cease-fire broke down after the Taliban made a series of
demands, including that its ultra-orthodox interpretation of Islamic rule become
the law of the land and that opposition armies be integrated into the Taliban's
militia forces. In 1997, the Taliban proposed that a religious council (ulema)
be established to resolve the conflict, but it coupled the proposal with demands
similar to those made two years later.
The Intra-Afghan Dialogue was launched in 1997 by internal groups, including
former mujahedin commanders, who have not taken sides in the war between the
Taliban and the Northern Alliance. This effort was supported by the Rome-based
former king, Zahir Shah, who has called for a permanent government to be
established by convening a traditional "loya jirga," or council of notables.
Called the ''Rome Process'' since 1999 when Dialogue representatives met with
the king, the effort gained a statement of support from the U.S. administration
in May 2000, but most analysts believe that the participants lack the clout
necessary to bring the warring factions to the table.
The elimination of Massoud, according to observers, could have been a fatal
blow to the Northern Alliance, given his stature and the role he played in
keeping the coalition together. But his assassination has been overshadowed by
the U.S. reaction to the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, leaving
the Taliban in a defensive crouch, unable to mount a new offensive in the
north.