Our last field assessment conducted in Helmand shows the signs of increasing instability: The state of war in Afghanistan can be defined as a situation of prolonged, politically motivated violence between organised factions. These factions can be national or local, public or private and are more or less institutionalised.
Given the escalating violence and the absence of control of the central government over entire territories, it can be concluded that Helmand is in a state of war.
2.1 LOCAL STRUCTURES - Administrative structures
The Provincial Governor is the main representative of the central government in Helmand appointed by President Karzai. The Governor of each district, who is assisted by a district police chief in the establishment of municipal structures, reports to the Provincial Governor.
Traditional ties and allegiances amongst local communities are a decisive factor in the real authority of the Provincial institutions. In the case of Helmand, the Deputy Governor, Mullah Amir Mohammad, a religious leader, is reported to control most of the newly established municipal structures and is considered more powerful than the actual Provincial Governor, who is originally from Eastern Afghanistan and was appointed by the Kabul government.
Helmand Governor: Eng. Mohammad Daoud
Eng. Mohammad Daoud was appointed Governor of Helmand in early 2006. He is originally from the eastern region of Afghanistan, and claims to be from the Safi tribe or the Arab tribe. Until the Taliban times, Eng. Daoud was heading an NGO who used to distribute wheat among the poor in Afghanistan. He was later accused of corruption by the Taliban and had to flee to the Kwata, Balochistan province in Pakistan, where he met now Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his brother, Wali Karzai. The alliance with Karzai shaped his political future thereafter, leading to his appointment as Governor of Helmand. Allegedly, the British authorities have viewed his appointment in Helmand favourably.
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The provincial structures are inherently weak and have been unable to enforce law and order in Helmand, and to command loyalty among the province population. The government administration, therefore, remains a prime target for the Taliban/Insurgents, who take advantage of the enforcement vacuum in the province to establish themselves as the de facto legitimate authority.
On May 10, 2006 the Taliban claimed to have established control of the Baghran district. The claim was denied by the Provincial Governor but upheld by many independent sources. There are also suggestions that members of the Governor’s staff and local notables associated with the narcotics trade are planning to oust him.
The signs of the growing offensive of the insurgents are widespread in the province and District Governors are coming under pressure from the insurgents. The Governor of the Gamser District was recently assassinated by Taliban elements whilst in Musa Qala, the district commissioner’s compound was attacked on May 17, 2006 – an eight-hour battle ensued, leaving nine policemen and countless insurgents dead.
Insurgents are also gaining territorial control. The official provincial authorities have little control over the districts of Naw Zad and Dishu, and no control over the districts of Musa Qala and Kajaki.
Government control improves in proximity to the provincial capital Lashkar Gah. 80 per cent of the area is reported to be under the authority of Governor Daoud; however, his grip is dwindling rapidly.
On June 1, 2006, the Lashkar Gah Governor’s compound was deserted but for two guards, leaving it dangerously exposed to the insurgents who roam the city.
Moreover, government control over the strategic Lashkar Gah-Kandahar road is now limited to daytime. Insurgent road blocks throughout Helmand are evidence of the true extent of Taliban authority. This demonstrates both the outright failure of the provincial government and foreign forces to extend authority beyond their bases, and the organised and confident nature of insurgent tactics.
Reports on the ground suggest that institutional weakness and the increased confidence of insurgents are paramount in leading Helmand to a state of war.
International troops are increasingly aware of the threat that a weakened governance structure poses to the Karzai Administration and the international community control over Helmand and the south. In a statement on May 10, 2006, days before the outbreak of the most intense fighting in the Helmand province since the fall of the Taliban, US General Eikenberry admitted that it is weak state institutions rather than a stronger enemy which is the main cause of the rise in insurgency levels in Helmand.
Reports of a Taliban checkpoint just fifteen miles from the British base at Lashkar Gah is a particularly potent example of the challenge facing British troops in a province where insurgents often move unchallenged and frequently launch attacks against provincial institutions.
The key to the struggle to enforce control over Helmand lies with winning over the real authorities in the province – the informal governance structures, local assemblies and religious leaders, which are increasingly doubting the central government’s ability to enforce security in the region.
2.2 Informal Governance Structures
Alongside state institutions, a semi institutional form of governance is represented by traditional local systems. The core of the social system in the Helmand province is based on traditional groups such as the communal group, village, extended family tribe or ethnic group. Small villages (kalay) and large villages (qaria) are considered the informal institutions contributing to social order through informal processes and the exercise of traditional authority. The local assemblies, Jirga/Shura, operate as the central traditional structures and local mechanisms of collective decision-making and dispute settlement. The tribal code of the Pashtuns, the Pushtunwali, is the main legal code and dispute settlement mechanism.
The leaders of the Jirga/Shura are usually elders from the district who command the respect and support of their villages. These mechanisms incorporate institutionalized rituals and customary laws, and their decisions are binding and fully respected by the local population. Although these local social structures are informal in nature, in most areas they are more influential than the central government. In fact, the Jirga/Shura are the most widely accepted authority within rural communities in Helmand and they effectively control and manage the villages in Helmand.
If the government attempts to impose laws alien to the local social group and the Jirga/Shura system, there is likelihood that the central government will encounter resistance in enforcing the laws. The local notables and the Jirga/Shura are the real control enforcing bodies of the province. The power struggle between the insurgents and government institutions is also a struggle for the Jirga/Shura allegiance.
As the central government and their international allies fail to deliver development and security to the province, and eradication policies exacerbate the conditions in rural communities, the elders’ faith in the central government falters. Insurgents are competing for the community institutions’ support, through threats but also offering financial help and protection against the widely unpopular eradication policies.
The insurgency is, therefore, spreading deeper within the social tissue, as the population turns away from state institutions.
2.2.1 State Institutions: Army and Police
The Afghan National Police (ANP) and the Afghan National Army (ANA) are state institutions operating in Helmand. Resources are scarce and the governmental forces are overstretched, as these are being employed in counter narcotics operations, counter insurgency and personal protection of the local governors, leaving very few resources for the enforcement of law and order.
The ANP is also underpaid – non-trained police officers are paid approximately US$15 per month while trained officers receive US$ 64-70 per month. The Police in the provincial capital have reportedly been paid regularly in recent months, but police forces in the more remote areas have allegedly not received payment for many months. As a result many ANP officers live off bribes from criminal networks involved in the opium trade as well as from the insurgents.
ANA and ANP forces have also been a primary target in the recent surge in insurgency levels in the Helmand province along with government officials.
Allegedly in the districts of Sangin, Musa Quala, Washer, Baghran and Kajaki, the Taliban have been distributing “night letters”- death threats to police chiefs. In recent months, three police chiefs have been killed in the district of Dishu.
Police checkpoints and ANA convoys are also coming under increasing attack from insurgents. An ANA convoy was ambushed on May 19, 2006, sparking some of the most intense fighting since the fall of the Taliban, leaving 50 insurgents and 23 soldiers dead.
An ANP convoy with the district police chief was also attacked in the Baghran district on May 22, 2006, with six policemen dead and six wounded.
The multiplication of attacks is further crippling the insufficient capacity of ANA and ANP in an extremely delicate time for the power balance in Helmand; that is, the transition between the US and British command of international forces in Helmand.
2.2.2 INTERNATIONAL PRESENCE IN HELMAND The US engagement in Helmand
US troops have been involved in Helmand since the fall of the Taliban under the mandate of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). The southern provinces of Kandahar, Helmand and Uruzgan have been the Taliban stronghold, and al-Qaeda fighters were known to harbour in Helmand.
The main objective of the OEF in Helmand is counter terrorism operations carried out through targeted strikes and the hunting down of terrorists. The OEF therefore has been a fairly “light footprints” enterprise and has not been concerned with establishing and rooting a control and development structure in Helmand. Its mandate, moreover, was detached from local realities, and eschewed interaction with local population and the adjustment of its military effort to local civilian needs. The impact of OEF on governance in Helmand has, therefore, been fairly small and has not greatly contributed to the improvement of security in the region. The US militaristic approach contributed to exacerbating negative perceptions among the local population.
Targeted killings and Special Forces’ operations removed with some degree of success specific Taliban/al-Qaeda elements, but failed to uproot the insurgency structure and its potential network of operation, which are now haunting the poorly established control system of government institutions and foreign presence.
In March 2005, the US established a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Helmand with funding by USAID and the Overseas Humanitarian Disaster and Civic Aid Programme. The PRT was until recently co-ordinated by OEF’s Combined Task Force Bayonet and commanded from the Kandahar airbase. The US-led PRT involved 3,200 troops, mainly US nationals, with contributions from Canada and Romania. Unlike NATO-led PRTs, the main emphasis of the enterprise has been military with the development dimension receiving less attention.
DEFINITION OF PRT
The Provincial Reconstruction Team is a NATO military-civilian institution with the following objectives:
- Strengthen and extend the authority of the Central Government;
- Assist in establishing stability and security;
- Enable reconstruction and facilitate the coordination and division of labour between civilian and military actors, including delivery of projects;
- Provide professional expertise and facilitate the work of NGOs and other actors by improving the security situation.
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Throughout the course of 2006, US engagement in Afghanistan will decrease with 2,500 troops being repatriated. NATO will take command of the south, as part of ISAF III expansion into Helmand, Uruzgan and Kandahar. The British will officially take over the PRT in July 2006 but British troops are already being deployed to the province with the US troop re-focusing on their counter terrorism mission.
As the table below illustrates, the UK-led PRT differs significantly in aims and forms from the US model.
As the table below illustrates, the UK-led PRT differs significantly in aims and forms from the US model.
2.2.3 British Deployment to Helmand
The ISAF III expansion to southern Afghanistan is overseeing the deployment of 8,000 NATO troops. Britain is contributing 3,300 troops and taking over responsibility of the formerly US-led PRT in Helmand.
British deployment started in February 2006 and will be completed by June 2006, with the official takeover at the end of July. The coordination falls with the UK-led Headquarters Group of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps.
The differences between the UK and US command of the PRT will be considerable and will span from funding to objectives. While funding for the US-led PRT was channelled via US representatives in the province, the UK government will channel the majority of its funding through the Government of Afghanistan in order to integrate its approach to local institutions . The PRT will be funded by the Afghan Strategy for the Global Conflict Prevention Pool.
The involvement of Afghan institutions in the channelling of the funds aims at improving Afghan ownership over reconstruction efforts.
The British are aiming to engage the local population in the struggle against the insurgency; this echoes all objectives of the PRT and the military-civilian composition of its command structure.
Likewise the British PRT of Mazar-e-Sharrif, the UK-led Helmand PRT will focus on stabilisation in order to create an acceptable security environment for the continuation of development work.
In order to pursue its development and security goals the British PRT will be endowed with military as well as civil personnel. The deployment can be described as a triumvirate Foreign Office and DFID (Department for International Development), which will be complementary to military troops. The table below fully lists the military and civilian endowments of the UK- led PRT.
In order to pursue its development and security goals the British PRT will be endowed with military as well as civil personnel. The deployment can be described as a triumvirate Foreign Office and DFID (Department for International Development), which will be complementary to military troops. The table below fully lists the military and civilian endowments of the UK- led PRT.
The PRT model has been an innovative and successful model for NATO-led peacekeeping in Afghanistan. The combination of civil and military personnel helps stakeholders in post-conflict situations share a common sense of purpose for the future, in both the security and development fields.
The model however is vulnerable to different national styles of management, in particular with regards to balancing the military/civilian focus. This constraint becomes apparent when PRT management changes hands, and emphasis on the military or civilian element shifts. Moreover, to be successful, the PRT requires a certain degree of political stability, a degree of infrastructure and NGOs and other civic actors to build bridges with the local community and help deliver development projects.
It is very clear that the British takeover of the PRT in Helmand will suffer from the inherent faults of the PRT model. The transition from a “search and destroy” approach (US national approach) to a long-term security and development strategy (UK approach) may create a vacuum and uncertainty, which Helmand cannot afford under the present circumstances. Analysts suggest that communication channels on insurgents, databases and infrastructure need to be shared in order for the transition to be successful. So far, NATO and OEF have failed to pool intelligence resources and coordinate effectively.
Moreover, where violence is so acute that combat operations prevail, as in Helmand, the UK approach may be ill suited to create the basic security precondition for a successful PRT to function. According to control and security indicators, Helmand’s is considered to be in open warfare, hence causing more hurdles for the PRT implementation.
The mandate of the British mission in Helmand, therefore, has to be tailored to the province needs and to the actual security situation on the ground. ISAF missions accompanying PRTs usually have a traditional peacekeeping approach to the use of violence, which is mainly defensive. The UK rules of engagement are, however, considerably more robust than the ISAF traditional mission. In various instances British Government officials have declared that the British forces are prepared to strike first rather than wait to be attacked.
"If they attack us we will defend ourselves and if defending ourselves ... means taking pre-emptive action we will do that. If they attack our troops we will attack back, in some cases taking the initiative."
British Defence Secretary John Reid
25 April 2006
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British forces have been recently engaged in combat operations, before they have even officially taken full control of the PRT. On the 22 May, British troops engaged in combat with the Taliban for the first time in Helmand, with over 100 troops from 16 Air Assault Brigade supporting Afghan soldiers during a two-day firefight against hundreds of Taliban fighters in the Musa Qala district. A military spokesman for the British army recounted the incidence as follows: “A company of about nine troops fired warning shots against the enemy force, largely Taliban, over the weekend” during an operation supporting the Afghan National Police. No UK casualties were reported, but the incident is symptomatic of insurgency burgeoning into the onset of a fully fledged military campaign. An analysis of the insurgency actors and patterns will provide further insight to assess the potential success or failure of British involvement in the province.
2.2.5 ‘Phantom Borders’ – The Durand Line
The border between Helmand and Pakistan is another major cause of concern, international dispute and instability. The border forms part of the so-called Durand Line, created by the British Indian government in 1893 to divide the Afghan tribes, which at the time were a major concern for the British rulers of India. That border, never accepted by Afghanistan, is still in place and divides both the Afghan Baloch and the Pashtun tribes on both sides of this technical barrier. Nowadays, Afghans still refer to some parts of the disputed territory on the other side of the border as south Pashtunistan.
After the collapse of British India and the subsequent partitioning of the country in the year 1947, The Durand Line became the actual border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 1949, the Afghan parliament (The Loya Jirga) unilaterally proclaimed that it did not recognize the Durand Line as a legal boundary and declared the border invalid. The justification was that British India had ceased to exist in 1947 with the independence of Pakistan.
This historic dispute resulting in a border that can best be described as a “phantom border” has important implications for the present-day security situation in Helmand. Pakistan is still putting pressure on Kabul and on the regional tribes to accept the Durand Line as an official international border. The issue remains a source of tension between both countries. Afghan people from the Pakistani provinces North West Frontier Province, Balochistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas are still looking for separation from Pakistan and consider their territories to be part of Afghanistan.
This means that neither government has full control over border areas that are disputed by the very tribes that live in the area. The Governor of Helmand has little or no control over the tribal activities in this area and his Pakistani counterpart has even less control over what most local people see as Afghan territory. Pakistan wants to uphold the border as a barrier against the flow of Afghan refugees every time there is conflict on the other side of the border. The United Kingdom seeks a firm border against al-Qaeda militants and remnants of the Taliban who operate in Afghanistan, but find a safe haven in the Baloch region across the border.
With the third deployment phase of ISAF forces, the British troops have to stabilize the “phantom border” between Helmand and northwestern Balochistan – a border that the counter insurgency Operation Enduring Freedom failed to stabilize in over four years. Popular support for al-Qaeda and the Taliban has solidified in the area because of the past failure to improve the living conditions of the tribal people living in these areas. Moreover, as long as Afghanistan claims that Pakistan is not acting strongly enough to deal with insurgents on the Pakistani side of this superficial border and Pakistan claims that Afghanistan is actively supporting an insurgency in Balochistan to ultimately reunite the Afghan Baloch tribe within one country, the British troops will have a mission impossible on their hands in southern Helmand. To make matters worse, this border region is exactly the area where the Taliban is regrouping and reinforcing.
2.3 Pakistan’s influence in Helmand
Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, evidence suggests that Pakistani elements have attempted to maintain its influence over Helmand and neighbouring provinces by maintaining links to ethnic Pashtuns and by exploiting the ill-defined Afghan-Pakistan border.
The Taliban has long-standing links with the Pakistan Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), and despite Pakistani denials, the Afghan government has continued to accuse the Pakistan army of aiding and abetting the Taliban’s launch of attacks across the border in Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s President Karzai recently said that “Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) trains young Afghans to burn down schools and attack engineers working in construction.” During his February 2006 visit to Pakistan, President Karzai gave President Musharraf a list of Taliban fighters allegedly being sheltered in Pakistan’s border areas and asked him to stop sponsoring terrorism. According to the Governor of Helmand, Eng. Mohammed Daoud, “we have intelligence reports that hundreds and hundreds of Taliban who have been in Pakistan for the last four years have now moved into the province and are gathering in the mountains.”
The Pakistan military works closely with the Islamic parties which govern the two provinces that border Afghanistan, North-West Frontier and Balochistan. These political groups are long-standing supporters of the Taliban. By interfering as little as possible with the support of these groups to the Taliban, Musharraf’s administration may be trying to ensure its political survival by keeping Islamic radicals on his side.
However, according to the director general of the Pakistani ISI Hamid Gul, Pakistan-although it has positioned 80,000 men along the Durand Line that separates Afghanistan and Pakistan- is not able to police the Taliban in Pakistani territory: “The Americans cannot stop infiltration through the Mexican border - how can we stop it [with Afghanistan]? Especially as the Durand Line is just an imaginary border, not a physical border."
2.3 Insurgent Groups Operating In Helmand
In the volatile Helmand province, the term “insurgent” has functioned as a catch-all term for politically motivated groups taking part in the action against the central government and foreign troops. The picture of the insurgency is more complex and encompasses a number of different groups; some indigenous and some foreign Jihadists with divergent goals and backgrounds.
They all share however a radical Islamist ethos and the objective of ousting the Karzai Government. In recent months, there is obvious indication of increasing coordination and similarities in tactics between different insurgent groups, who are joining efforts to gain territorial control over Helmand.
Another common feature is their focus on Southern/Eastern Afghanistan with increasing expansionist moves into western and central provinces like Uruzgan, Nimroz and Farah. As the groups gain the strength to take over the south, they proceed to destabilize further regions of Afghanistan.
The table below lists insurgent groups and main political features/command structure.
2.4 Insurgency Strategy
The strategy of insurgent groups in Afghanistan, including remnants of the Taliban, has recently shifted from traditional guerilla hit and run tactics, combined with the deployment of low class Improvised Explosive Devices on an unorganised basis, to organised, low-intensity terror techniques, combined with platoon plus sized attacks, some even occuring in daylight.
The insurgency strategy has shifted from defensive operations in the wake of the overthrow of the Taliban regime to some more offensive attacks. This guerilla strategy is achieved through the merger of insurgents’ units, blending into the local population and waging a war using the local population as cover.
Four main factors are at play in the strengthening of the insurgency and the launch of a systematic insurgency campaign against legitimacy:
- The extreme poverty of the local population and their disillusionment and sense of abandonment vis-à-vis the international community development effort, combined with aggressive and intrusive eradication policies, are pushing communities in the arms of the Taliban.
- Safe havens on the Afghan – Pakistan border are still operational, providing a strategic lifeline for insurgents to re-group after attacks, recruit new members and maintain a sufficient supply of weapons and logistic
- The ‘Iraqisation’ of insurgent tactics through the acquisition of new low-cost techniques – mostly suicide-bombings, kidnappings and beheadings, remote controlled Improvised Explosive Devices. Those new tactics have given the insurgency a new visibility and allowed to conduct highly-mobile attacks against the government and international troops.
- Aggressive crop eradication operations have provided a tactical advantage to the insurgency: the insurgency can pose as the protector of alienated farming communities; eradication operations also represent a target of choice for mounting attacks and mining fields.
In Afghanistan, general attacks, surged from a monthly average of five in 2002 to twenty-five in 2006. This is a five-fold increase over less than 4 years. In the south of Afghanistan reports suggest that there has been a 600% increase in violent attacks in the last six months.
The recent surge of violence has multiple causes. Firstly, the pressure created by the transition between OEF and ISAF command is engendering a vacuum which the insurgents are filling. Moreover, in the last years, insurgent groups have had time to re-organize and re-group and strengthen their basis, mostly in the porous areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan, such as Helmand. As stated earlier, insurgent groups are forging alliances and joining forces against the central government.
Also, the growing insurgency in Iraq has played a role-model for groups in Afghanistan, with the “exportation of terror” by some actors or groups from Iraq to Afghanistan. Finally the amplification of the illegal opium crisis and ineffective responses to it, mostly eradication, has also reinforced the climate of lawlessness, which is the breeding ground for anti-state actors.
May 2006 saw a general upsurge in violence in Helmand. The most interesting development in terms of strategy is the insurgents’ readiness to engage in conventional warfare. Dozens of insurgents engaged in open battles with Afghan government and coalition forces, often lasting several hours, in some of the worst fighting since 2001. These developments attest to the insurgency’s improved military capability, particularly in terms of manpower, and a continued failure of government authority in rural areas, which has combined to inspire greater confidence amongst anti-government elements. Recent incidents also suggest the arrival of British troops has done little to deter the insurgency.
2.4 Insurgency Tactics
The latest attacks witnessed in Helmand are low-cost/high-effect tactics emulating the ones employed in Iraq. Beheadings, suicide attacks, assassinations and remote controlled, hi-tech Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) have surged both in numbers and sophistication over the last few months. Insurgent attacks mostly target Afghans related to the central government, international aid workers and coalition forces.
Improvised Explosive Device : The Disruption Potential of Low-Cost Weapon of Terror
IEDs are becoming one of the weapons of choice for insurgents’ new tactics in Helmand.
IEDs are constructed using old mines or rockets; in Helmand’s black market, a rocket is priced around US$ 25, a landmine US$ 100. The total cost of an IED is around US$125 but its damage potential is immense, as it can destroy a Hercules plane costing US$55m.
According to some reports a British Hercules C30 was set to flames by a remotely activated IED, as it landed Lashkar Gah airstip on May 23, 2006. The British Ambassador to Afghanistan was on board of the plane and was uninjured. Official versions attribute the explosion to a burst tire. If the allegation of an IED attack were true, however, it would provide a daunting reminder of the power of the availability of cheap and deadly weapons to insurgents operating in Helmand.
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Weapons are easily available in the Helmand province, endowing the insurgents with copious supply.
The table below illustrates the types of attacks used by the insurgents and recent examples of these in the Helmand Province.
Most of the new techniques serve a dual purpose; they aim at scaling up the attacks against the central government and its international allies, as well as creating a climate of fear among the local population and undermine all stabilization efforts to ultimately gain territorial control of Helmand.
The insurgents’ campaign for territorial control is apparent to the local population. They are more daring in attacking villages and even district capitals, where the government formal institutions are based. The insurgency controls entire villages and districts, most particularly in the north in Helmand, for increasingly longer period of times. Farmers interviewed in Helmand recounted that the Taliban taking over villages aim to exert authority therein, until government and foreign troops force them to retreat.
2.5 The Insurgents Relationship with the population of Helmand
The insurgents’ relationship with the local population in Helmand is highly complex on both sides.
On the side of the insurgents, the attempt to establish authority over the province is carried out through too seemingly opposite but complementary elements of control building, intimidation, to command respect, and co-operations, to gain consensus.
In a chaotic province such as Helmand, intimidation helps the insurgents project an image of strength and authority, endowments which appeal to the local population, who longs for law and order. The insurgents also display conservative tendencies and religious orthodoxy, which suits the socially conservative rural areas of Helmand to the expense of women and young girls, whose education and increased mobility are considered subversive.
Schools and in particular girls’ schools are increasingly coming under attack from the insurgents. Through death threats insurgents have accomplished the closure of several schools.
Threats to a school in Helmand
The female Principal of a school has received repeated intimidations from insurgents to close her school. The school welcomes all girls in Helmand and boys under age 10. Due to the high number of pupils, teachers operate three shifts of over 2000 children each in order to accommodate all students. The teaching body is composed of 425 teachers.
Recently one of the Lashkar Gah teachers, age 50, was killed by the fire shooting of two men in police uniforms traveling on a motorcycle in broad daylight. Later, the driver of the teachers, age 30, was killed in the same way.
On May 20, insurgent elements in a vehicle delivered a letter to a young girl on her way to school, with the following inscription on the envelope “This is the letter threatening the killing of the Principal”. The Principal reported the threats to Helmand police representatives, the governor and the military at the PRT in Lashkar Gah. Thus far, none of these institutions have offered assistance and protection to the school.
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The other element of insurgents’ strategy to establish themselves as legitimate rulers of the province is building consensus through opposing the widely unpopular poppy eradication policies, which are leading to further abject poverty in rural communities.
The insurgents are offering protection against eradication and financial help for eradicated farmers, gaining therefore the farmers’ support in their struggle against the local government.
In terms of strategy, opium eradication also provides a political and military tool for the reinforcement of the insurgency: eradication operations are themselves an ideal tactical target for insurgent groups, like mined poppy fields, to launch attacks on the national and foreign troops and create unrest among local population.
The intersection between the insurgents and the opium economy are multiple and deep. The illegal opium economy, in fact, offers a source of financial revenue to insurgents. Terrorist and insurgent groups generally rely on a mix of revenue sources to sustain their operations: foreign funding and support either from Pakistan, South East Asia or the Middle East, petty crimes and smuggling, day jobs (not for al-Qaeda), logistic support from local tribes, and in southern Afghanistan the opium economy.
Insurgent groups levies an “opium tax” on rural communities in exchange for their protection. Unconfirmed information suggests that community members listed as positive towards the “cause”, also receive better prices for their product.
The reaction of the population in Helmand to the insurgents’ state building efforts is also highly complex. On the one hand civilians resent the insurgency, for the current creation of instability and their threats to local Shuras and institutions such as schools. On the other hand, however, they have come to see the Taliban and insurgents as a powerful and organized political structure capable of taking control and enforcing it better than the current administration, which has not managed to enforce security in the province.
Despite much lip service to development of economic alternatives for poverty-stricken rural communities, corruption and foreign aid have enriched some, while failing to deliver to most of the population, resulting in the highly polarized economy, which enrages Helmand people as well as all Afghans.
Under the brutal Taliban regime, poverty was dire but also more evenly spread and the economic situation relatively more stable than today, when political destabilization creates havoc in most people’s daily lives.
Insurgent consensus building is on the rise also because of the growing distrust of local population towards foreign forces. Interviewed communities in Helmand declared outrage for the Kandahar case of reckless bombing on neighbouring communities which led to dozens of civilian casualties, thus greatly exacerbating animosity against the international troops. It has been viewed by the farmers as unjustifiable and has reinforced their perception of the Karzai administration as being unable to protect his people. The people of Helmand are reluctant to take arms against their own people - even though being Taliban - on the instruction of foreigners. A Helmand Shura leader declared: “We have killed our brothers on the instruction of foreigners in the past and we are not willing to do it again”.
Insurgent groups, including the Taliban, have also considerable tribal and family ties with the people of Helmand as intermarriages with the Pakistani provinces from which insurgents enter Afghanistan have strengthened kinship over the years. Moreover, in the past, the Taliban levied a son from each Helmand family for their army further rooting themselves at the heart of the social network.
It is widely reported that the Taliban are raiding houses obtaining shelter and food out of rural communities either because of complicity or because of fear of retaliation
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