This Week in Afghanistan Watch:

• Iraq Tactics Hit Afghanistan
  
• New Reports Available: Political Parties in Afghanistan (Crisis Group, June 7) and Disarmament, Demobilization, and Rearmament? (JANN, June 6)
  
• The Man in the Palace: Karzai's Relationship with America Examined
  
• In Other News: Gen. Myers Defends Treatment of Detainees; Sen. Biden Calls for Closure of Guantanamo; Khalilzad unveils plan for Iraq; Drug campaign slows growth in south

June 9, 2005

Iraq Tactics Hit Afghanistan
by Carl Robichaud

Last week's suicide bombing in Kandahar, which killed 19 and wounded 52, may be yet another signal that an alarming development is underway: the importation of insurgent techniques from Iraq to Afghanistan.

Before last month, suicide bombings were rare in Afghanistan. Since the fall of the Taliban three and a half years ago, the country experienced only five such attacks, none of which targeted civilians (see graphic). Now a recent wave of attacks-two suicide bombings against civilians in three weeks, along with a rash of assassinations and kidnappings-suggest that insurgents are borrowing tactics from Iraq. The spread of Iraq's problems to Afghanistan would be devastating to stability there, and to the entire region.

It's worth recalling that suicide bombings were rare in Iraq immediately after the invasion. There were several scattered suicide attacks against soldiers in the first few months, but the tactic lacked support. Then, five months after the invasion, a massive blast leveled the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, ushering in a new phase of the war. The radical element of the insurgency had tasted blood.

Today, Iraq's suicide attacks are tragically common. The escalating use of suicide bombs has pushed U.S. fatalities to 1,674 and the Iraqi civilian death toll to 12,000 over the past eighteen months-an average of 20 Iraqi civilians killed every day. The Los Angeles Times reported that suicide bombings "outpaced car bombings almost 2-to-1 in May," with "a staggering 90 attacks accounting for most of last month's 750 deaths." In April alone there were 69 suicide attacks, "more than in the entire year preceding the June 28, 2004, hand-over of sovereignty."

The diffusion of extreme tactics in insurgency is difficult to predict. It is perhaps surprising that suicide bombs have been so rare in Afghanistan, since the tactic would seem well suited the Taliban's low-skill but highly motivated insurgents. But suicide bombings, like other tactics, are spread by importation and demonstration. In Iraq, the rise in suicide tactics correlates with the influx of foreign jihadists, who used these tactics in Chechnya and the Palestinian territories. (According to the Pentagon, foreign jihadists comprise only ten percent of insurgents in Iraq but account for nearly all the suicide bombs targeting Iraqi civilians.)

According to a recent Washington Post- ABC News poll, a majority of Americans now believe the war against Iraq has made America less safe. The reasons frequently cited are the spreading thin of the military, the massive expenses, the surge in anti-Americanism, the undermining of traditional alliances, and the diversion from more pressing threats in Iran and North Korea. But there's another reason as well, and one that will persist for many years: the war in Iraq has demonstrated how a dedicated insurgency, through targeted brutality, can stalemate a technologically and numerically superior American force. In effect, Iraq has updated, and broadcast globally, the lessons of Vietnam and Beirut to a new generation of potential adversaries.

Afghanistan has been held out as a success story in contrast to Iraq's persistent violence, but victory remains far from certain. After a winter lull, Afghanistan has been just as dangerous for U.S. troops: Pentagon figures show that since early March, American deaths in Afghanistan are 1.6 per 1000 troops deployed, compared to 0.9 per 1,000 in Iraq over the same period. "It's not supposed to be like that here," said Capt. Mike Adamski, quoted in a June 4 New York Times article after a firefight with the Taliban in May. "It's the hardest fight I saw, even after Iraq."

The neo-Taliban, dwindling in numbers and threatened by an armistice agreement that could integrate its moderate members into the government, has little to lose. Their collaboration with foreign jihadists, which the government blames for the June 1 bombing (the account remains in dispute), could further radicalize the movement. Like the Iraqi insurgency, the Taliban realize they cannot hold ground but can wreak havoc. The strategy in both cases is similar: sustain operations, cause casualties, undermine the government's credibility, and outlast the international forces.

Two suicide bombings and a rash of Iraq-style assassinations and kidnappings do not themselves constitute a trend. But the US cannot wait for the problem to become manifest. Proactive diplomacy must engage Afghan authorities, clerics, and regional and tribal leaders to disown suicide bombing as a foreign and terrorist tactic that has no place in Afghanistan. It may still be possible to split off moderate Taliban supporters from the extremists and foreign jihadists responsible for the latest attacks.

The costs of failure are great. If Iraqi tactics are imported to Afghanistan it could ignite a bloody second front against an American army that is stretched perilously thin. That would be one more cost of the war in Iraq that no one calculated.

Featured Reports:

Political Parties in Afghanistan (PDF)

June 7 (International Crisis Group)—In this new report, Crisis Group argues that political parties are critical: "In the absence of strong pluralistic and democratic institutions to mediate internal tensions, political bargaining and the competition for power will most likely continue to occur outside the institutions of government." The report makes a series of recommendations to strengthen the development of political parties, which are summarized in the overview.

Disarmament, Demobilization, and Rearmament? (PDF)

June 6 (Japan-Afghan NGO Group)—This report highlights challenges to the disarmament program. It provides a set of recommendations which include devising a more nuanced and varied approach to incentives, faster delivery of inducements, more comprehensive monitoring, and the hiring of disarmament staff through government channels rather than from regional commanders.

Featured Article:

The Man in the Palace: Hamid Karzai's uncertain presidency (PDF)

June 6 (The New Yorker) by Jon Lee Anderson—This is an intimate and fascinating profile of Hamid Karzai that's definitely worth the read. Anderson discusses Karzai's history, his ambivalence about power, and his current relationship with America -- examining its benefits and dangers. This article is not available online, but there's an 'audio slide show' that includes an interview with Anderson on the New Yorker website.

In Other News:

Senator Biden Calls for Closure of Guantanamo Prison

WASHINGTON, June 6 (WP)—"This has become the greatest propaganda tool that exists for recruiting of terrorists around the world. And it is unnecessary to be in that position," Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said on ABC's "This Week."… "But the end result is, I think we should end up shutting it down, moving those prisoners," he said. "Those that we have reason to keep, keep. And those we don't, let go."

Pentagon's Top General Defends Treatment of Guantanamo Detainees

May 30 (AP)—Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the United States has done a good job of treating detainees humanely…"We struggle with how to handle them, but we've always handled them humanely and with the dignity that they should be accorded."…Myers said a copy of the Koran was not flushed down a toilet. He repeated the Pentagon's contention that five cases of mistreatment of the Muslim holy book at Guantanamo Bay were confirmed.

The four-star general said the U.S. military has detained more than 68,000 people since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and investigated 325 complaints of mistreatment. Investigations have found 100 cases of prisoner mistreatment, and 100 people have been punished, Myers said.

Former Ambassador to Afghanistan Khalilzad Unveils Plan for Iraq

WASHINGTON, June 8 (LA Times), by Tyler Marshall—In Senate testimony, Zalmay Khalilzad offers a seven-point program for progress in Iraq. Experts say chaos there puts its success in doubt.

Trade in Afghan south seen hurt by anti-drug drive

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, June 9 (Reuters) by Sayed Salahuddin—Bomb blasts, rebel ambushes and raids are all too common in southern Afghanistan but traders say it is not the fear of violence that is hurting business but a government drive to stamp out opium…"There is less money around these days and less trade and business mostly because of the campaign against drugs," says Agha Gul Sherzad who runs the biggest mobile phone shop in Kandahar city, the main city in the Afghan south.

Under pressure from the international community that says Afghanistan risks becoming a "narco-state", teams have been out in the south and east, destroying fields and opium refineries and seizing tons of drugs and chemicals needed to make heroin. Impoverished farmers have lost income from their poppy fields but traders say big-spending drug traffickers have also been hit, and that is hurting business. Business people in Kandahar say value of property has fallen, less vehicles are being imported and the reconstruction of places such as hotels has slowed, apparently all because there is less drug money in circulation.

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Afghanistan Watch is prepared by Carl Robichaud, a program officer at The Century Foundation.

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