Afghanistan

CAATSA Implementation Makes US Strategy in Afghanistan Even More Unsustainable

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The next chapter in the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) saga will unfold on November 5, 2018. On this day, the provisions reimposing sanctions on entities trading with Iran in certain sectors will come into effect.

In India, the primary discussion point has been whether India will receive a significant reduction exemption on November 5. Such an exemption will allow Indian companies to continue importing Iranian oil without coming under ‘menu-based’ sanctions. It is quite likely that India might receive an exemption for both oil imports and for development of the Chabahar port. However that is not the only point of contention for India and the region.

Regardless of the decision on November 5, CAATSA is already closing the door on new solutions for the war in Afghanistan.

First, it increases the costs for Iran and India to collaborate on Afghanistan. We had written last year that not only will the Chabahar port help Afghanistan, the US will have much to gain from a connectivity project for Central Asia which does not have China at its core. But with the threat of secondary sanctions looming, companies at the margin will not invest in any project that involves Iran — why assume the risk of a volatile geopolitical environment which comes at a prospective cost of making business in the US market difficult?

Second, it also closes the door on a Russia – US understanding in Afghanistan. What we often forget is that ouster of the Taliban after 9/11 was made easier by an alignment of interests between US and Russia albeit for a brief period of time. Russia at that time provided critical logistical support from Afghanistan’s north and shared crucial intelligence for US-led coalition forces. CAATSA makes any such arrangement in the future even more unlikely.

Combine these two effects with the fact that the US attempt at talks with the Taliban are making no headways, and what you get is that there are zero new possibilities to end the war in Afghanistan. Only two scenarios remain. One involves the US withdrawing out of Afghanistan completely. The second involves the US returning to its dependence on Pakistan. Both scenarios will leave Afghanistan worse-off.

 

 

A Major Setback in Kandahar

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Things just got worse in South Afghanistan. The screenshot below taken from Long War Journal’s Mapping Taliban Control in Afghanistan project illustrates the significance. The areas marked in dark grey are under Taliban control. Those in red are contested districts. The uncoloured ones are controlled by the Government of Afghanistan. Kandahar city and surrounding districts immediately pop out as islands of government control in Southern Afghanistan. May be not for long anymore.

Image source: Mapping Taliban Control in Afghanistan, Long War Journal by Bill Roggio and Alexandra Gutowski

The reason is that Lt Gen Abdul Raziq, who was the police chief and the governor of the province was killed on 18 Oct 2018 supposedly by Taliban fighters who had infiltrated his inner circle. Gen Raziq was a major anti-Taliban leader in the South and his death makes Taliban’s complete control of the South imminent.

In many of our previous articles covering Afghanistan, we had mentioned how important Raziq’s role was. This is from 2015:

An unstated tenet of Afghan history is that the march for control of Kabul and the country is predicated on wresting control of Kandahar, the Taliban’s traditional base. In recent times though, ever since General Abdul Raziq was appointed police chief of the province, the Taliban have not tasted much success in Kandahar. Raziq has singularly been responsible for the relative peace in the province.

Raziq was no stranger to suicide attacks on his life. Various estimates say that there have been 30-40 attempts on his life before the fatal one. Only in May this year, there was an suicide bombing in front of his house. In his previous speeches, he had singled out the Haqqani Network and ISI for trying to wipe out the military leadership of the province.

It seems unlikely that such an attack could have been arranged without Pakistan’s support. It is also strange that this attack happened while the Taliban leadership is in talks with the US envoy. Moreover, the attack took place in the presence of the US Commander in Afghanistan. Some reports even claim that the main target of this attack were these US military leaders and not Lt Gen Raziq.

This is a big moment for Afghanistan. Even as elections take place on Saturday, the focus will be on what the US decides to do in response.

 

 

 

There’s a New Great Game in Afghanistan. It’s Called Cricket.

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— By Retd Lt Gen Namaloom Afraad

There’s a new Great Game in Afghanistan and it is hurting Pakistan badly. This week saw Afghanistan’s entry into test cricket. While we welcome the move, we strongly protest the way in which this was done. India, after surreptitiously granting a ‘home ground’ for the Afghanistan cricket team in Dehradun, is trying to pose itself as a state genuinely interested in Afghanistan’s well-being. What is being forgotten is that the team would have not taken shape at all but for Pakistan graciously allowing Afghan youngsters to play cricket in refugee camps.

The world is well aware of Pakistan’s commitment to peace and stability in Afghanistan. Pakistan has sacrificed many lives to ensure that a true Afghan-led solution can be brought about. That’s the only reason why we are supporting the Afghan Taliban even though it incurs a huge cost to the Pakistani state and society. But while we were busy doing that, India is sabotaging Pakistan’s national interests by providing cricket training to the people of Afghanistan.

We are always asked for proofs of Indian interference in Afghanistan. We don’t need to provide them any longer because India’s role is out in the open. But let me provide a few pieces of evidence in any case.

One, the Afghanistan cricket team couldn’t have been trained without the extensive support provided by R&AW. Grounds and stadia in Afghanistan have been constructed by India. This bolsters the case we have argued for long — India’s four consulates in Afghanistan are actively undermining Pakistani interests in the region.

Two, India is spreading false propaganda in American newspapers on the rise of Afghanistan’s cricket team while whitewashing the role played by Pakistan in the team’s rise.

Three, reliable sources have informed us that Afghanistan T-20 jerseys were being freely sold in India during the match. India even got many Afghanistan supporters into the spectator stands and made them carry flags and banners symbolising India-Afghanistan friendship. The BCCI (not our BCCI, that’s long dead) twitter handle also posted provocative videos like the one below where they got Afghan players to pose with the trophy. All these instances are deliberate acts of provocation on India’s part to destabilise Pakistan’s own efforts in bringing peace to Afghanistan.

Pakistan has always shown active interest in finding a settlement of the Afghan issue. In the recent past, we proposed a string of formations including the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG). In the QCG, Pakistan even took the initiative of inviting the cricketing teams of US and China so that Afghanistan and Pakistan could be in the finals. But the plan failed because India scuttled it and offered cricketing facilities to Afghanistan in India.

We must launch a strong protest against Indian role in Afghanistan cricket and raise the issue in the next UN General Assembly meeting. After all, what are we waiting for? Will we now have to put up with the ignominy of playing a test match against Afghanistan in India? It’s time that Pakistan stood up for its interests and exposed India’s commencement of the new Great Game in Afghanistan.

I watched the Afghanistan cricket team’s test match live from the spectator stands in Bengaluru’s Chinnaswamy Stadium. As Ratan Malli mentioned on Twitter, someone from Pakistan will soon write about how this new engagement is reflective of “India’s meddling in Afghanistan” and “how India is using Afghanistan to foment unrest against Pakistan”. This article has been written to help elements from the Pakistani military-jihadi complex in their endeavours. They can freely copy-paste from here. No citation needed. Only use #satire.

 

Another Shot at Negotiations with the Taliban

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Afghanistan’s President, Ashraf Ghani, has announced an unconditional ceasefire with the Taliban until June 20. At the outset, this looks like a last throw of the dice by Ashraf Ghani at peace before the elections. His tenure as President has seen a worsening security situation and a strengthened Taliban. The latest SIGAR Quarterly report (April 2018) noted that:

The winter months saw an unusual surge of violence in Kabul, reflecting the insurgency’s shift to launching successive attacks on civilians in the capital in response to increased ANDSF pressure in the provinces.

Neither has this ceasefire announcement come out of the blue. Earlier in February, Ghani offered to negotiate with the Taliban without preconditions if they would halt their ties with terrorism and respect the Afghanistan constitution. President Ghani had also raised the idea of the Taliban becoming a political party. That didn’t bear any fruit. The Taliban has only increased attacks in Kabul and has spurned all talks about talks with the Afghan government.

So here we are. The unconditional ceasefire is unlikely to nudge the Taliban into talks. They are negotiating from a position of strength with respect to the Afghan government now. Moreover, the current Taliban leadership is under the direct control of Pakistan and has no autonomy whatsoever. This is what we wrote last year:

The current leader of the Taliban, Haibatullah Akhunzada, is little known and has been foisted by Pakistan to deny autonomy to the group. Together, the Taliban and the Haqqani network – both beholden to Pakistan – have made it clear that their endgame is not talks but conquest. Even though the National Unity Government (NUG) has tried several processes from Istanbul to Murree to Kabul, and has opened up the terms of the dialogue to include a number of wide-ranging issues, Pakistan has made it clear that this military lever will not be transitioned into a political one.

Perhaps the best outcome that the Afghan government can hope to achieve from this unconditional ceasefire is to break the Taliban into credible factions that can become negotiators in the next round of talks.

PS: All this churn favours Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose return to Afghanistan in 2017 was engineered by Pakistan and is being repositioned by the Pakistan as a mainstream political leader.

India-China Collaboration on Railway Line in Afghanistan?

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After the Xi-Modi Wuhan summit, there is a lot of buzz around the possibility that India and China might take up a joint economic project in Afghanistan.

This prospect has got many people excited. All prominent news agencies have reported this and yet there is little clarity on what exactly this project is all about. The MEA’s press release on the Wuhan summit in fact does not mention Afghanistan at all. The MEA spokesperson has been quoted in Times of India saying that the identification of this project is still in progress. The Hindu’s report vaguely mentions the possibility of a road link to Chabahar from Aynak via Hajigak.

But Praveen Swami in Business Standard has the most clear view about what this project might be. He writes:

Earlier this week, President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to explore joint China-India work on a railway line in Afghanistan, with one spur carrying Mes Aynak’s ore to Torkham, and over the Khyber Pass into Pakistan; the other in a great north-western arc, into Hairatan.

I created this google map to understand how this railway line might look like. Please note that this is only an illustration – I have no more details other than the above article.

Based on the May 4, 2018 report in the Business Standard [Click to expand]

Won’t such a project pass through Taliban-controlled areas? What is the security situation like in the areas that this railway line might pass through. To check that out, I overlaid the Jan 2018 BBC illustration showing areas under Taliban/government control over the route map. That looks as follows.

The speculated railway line pass through areas with Taliban presence [Click to expand]

The areas marked in brown are under full-Taliban control. Areas in grey are in full government control. The orange areas are government-controlled areas having open Taliban presence. The darker shade indicates higher risk (attacked at least twice a week). Lightest shade of orange represents areas that are attacked once in three months on an average.

As is clear from this graphic, India, China, and the Afghan governments have a tough challenge ahead of them if they are serious about this project.