1.1 Geography: a harsh environment
Canadian forces in Afghanistan are currently based in the province of Kandahar. Located in the south-eastern corner of Afghanistan, Kandahar is the country’s second largest province. Kandahar is bounded on the north and north-west by the mountainous Uruzgan and Zabul provinces, and in the west by Helmand, and shares a very porous 402km-long border with the Pakistani province of Baluchistan. The two major river systems in the province, the Arghistan and the Arghandab, are tributaries of the Helmand River. The southern part of the province is desert, and aside from a thinly populated strip along the Pakistani border in the district of Shorawak, this area of the province is largely unpopulated.
Kandahar is the gateway for much of southern and western Afghanistan. Its capital, Kandahar City, is situated at the junction of Afghanistan’s main highway and the major southern link to Pakistan. A highway from Spin Boldak district on the Pakistan border passes through Kandahar City and on to Kabul, while a second major highway leads from Kandahar City to Herat province
1.2 The history of a volatile province
Kandahar City is widely considered to be one of the oldest cities in the world. The city’s strategic location was prized by the various competing empires that came to dominate the region’s political history. Alexander the Great passed through the city in the fourth century BC, and it is thought that he actually founded the city, which was once named Alexandropolis in his honour. Later the city was ruled by both the Iranian Achaemenid Empire and the Indian Emperor Ashoka. From the seventh century the region was conquered by various rival kingdoms, including the Arabs in the seventh century, the Turkish Ghaznavid Empire in the tenth century, and Genghis Khan in the twelfth century. During this period, the local population, predominantly Pashtun, was converted to Islam.
From 1748 to 1773, Kandahar City was the capital of the emerging independent kingdom of Afghanistan, and is considered to be the birthplace of modern Afghanistan. The Battle of Kandahar was the last major conflict of the Second Anglo Afghan War in the 1880s, and Britain’s decisive victory cemented British control over the region. When Afghanistan achieved full independence under King Amanullah Shah in 1919, Kandahar became part of the state of Afghanistan. Following the end of the Soviet war with Afghanistan, the Taliban emerged from Kandahar in the mid 1990s to capture south, east and central Afghanistan.
1.3 Ethnic composition contributes to instability
Kandahar is divided into 17 districts, 3 sub-districts, and 1,854 villages. The dominant ethnic groups are the Durrani Pashtuns from the Populzai, Barakzai, Allokazai, Achakzai, Noorzai, Mohammedzai, and Alizai tribes. There are also minority communities from tribes such as the Hotak, Tajik, Kakar, Baber, Bareich, Tokhi, Baloch, Ishaqzai and Sayyeds. Historically, there have been political and social tensions amongst the various ethnic groups which are still contributing factors to the political and social dynamic today.
Pashtu is the most widely spoken language, although many of the people who live in and around Kandahar City can also converse in Afghanistan’s other main language, Dari. The majority of the population is Sunni Muslim, although there is a Shi’a community close to Kandahar City, and another one in the district of Khakrez.
1.4 A collapsed and poppy-dependent economy
Kandahar province has only recently started to recover from more than twenty-five years of war, during which most of Kandahar’s industrial infrastructure was either destroyed or badly damaged. In December 2003, a highway linking Kabul to the provincial capital was completed, stimulating the local economy. Some power generation and distribution facilities have been renovated, hundreds of kilometres of irrigation canals have been cleaned and repaired, and traffic along the Highway into Pakistan has tripled in the last two years. However, during recent field trips to the province, local businessmen stated that due to the deteriorating security situation they were moving their families and businesses out of Kandahar to Kabul or Pakistan where they would be safer.
Kandahar’s pre-war economy was primarily agriculture-based, with fruit production predominating. Indeed, Kandahar was widely known for the diversity of fruits grown in the province, particularly grapes (chiefly for raisin production), pomegranates, apricots, pears, plums and apples. In addition, industrial crops such as cotton, sesame and sunflowers, and various field crops such as wheat, barley, and corn were grown in some parts of the province. After Kandahar City, Arghandab, Dand, Pamjwai and Maiwand were the most agriculturally productive districts. However, these cities were significantly damaged during the war. The many years of fighting largely destroyed Kandahar’s commercial agricultural economy, which was principally based on the agricultural output of these districts. Small-scale rural industries, such as the production of galims (woven carpets) and namads (pressed wool carpets) tend to predominate in Khakrez, Reg, Shorabakt and Maruf districts. Manufactured products such as woollen cloth, felt, and silk, as well as wood, cumin seeds, fruits, madder, asafoetida and horses are exported throughout Afghanistan and to Pakistan. Kandahar City also produces some construction materials, although brick-factory owners have reported difficulties in finding skilled and experienced Afghan workers, and generally hire workers from Pakistan. Other small-scale industries include the packaging of animal fat in Arghandab and Maruf; baskets in Dand and Shahwalikot; and farm implements in Spin Boldak.
1.5 Limited government authority in Kandahar
In Kandahar, Afghanistan’s central government is represented by the provincial governor, appointed by President Karzai. The governor is supported by 17 district governors, who are in turn assisted by district police chiefs. Together these civil servants are responsible for governance and the establishment and maintenance of municipal structures. However, the actual legitimacy of these provincial governance institutions depends to a large extent on their ties with traditional governance structures, and their actual authority in the current unstable environment is very limited, and in some districts non-existent.
1.5.1 A US-friendly governor: Asadullah Khalid
A former governor of Ghazni province, Asadullah Khalid, age 39, was appointed governor of Kandahar province in 2005 by President Karzai. It is widely believed that Asadullah Khalid gained his position as a result of his excellent relationship with US authorities in Afghanistan. Tough on the Pakistan-Taliban connection, Khalid has become increasingly unpopular in Kandahar due to his poppy eradication campaigns.
Locals believe governor Khalid prioritises the US and UK-led counter-narcotics efforts over local farmers’ desperate economic situation. These eradication policies rapidly reduce the support for Khalid, the central government, and the foreign military presence in Kandahar. On June 4, 2006, Governor Khalid survived a suicide bomb attack on his transport convoy.
1.5.2 Weak Afghan National Army and National Police
Together with the provincial and district governors, other institutions of state operating in Kandahar include the Afghan National Police force (ANP) and the Afghan National Army (ANA). The governmental forces are over-stretched, and resources are extremely scarce. In Kandahar, ANP and ANA troops are deployed in counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency operations, as well as for the personal protection of local governors. As such, resources for law and order enforcement are extremely limited.
The ANP is underpaid: untrained policemen receive only US$15 per month, while trained officers earn an estimated US$65. In the province’s capital, Kandahar City, police are paid regularly, but in the more remote districts police officers have reportedly not received payment for many months. As a result many ANP officers are susceptible to bribes from the criminal networks involved in the opium trade, as well as from the insurgents.
Together with government officials ANA and ANP forces have also been targeted by insurgents in recent months. On 3 April, Taliban forces attempted to assassinate the police chief of Arghandab District, and on 21 April an attack by insurgents in Kandahar’s Maiwand district left six policemen dead. Also on 11 June, three policemen were injured when insurgents attacked a police station in Kandahar City.
The targeting of central governance structures by the Taliban and other insurgents is further weakening institutions, which already lack loyalty from Kandahar’s population.
In general, there is a serious lack of security forces in Afghanistan. A recent report confirms that 200,000 police, army and other security forces would be necessary to stabilise Afghanistan. However, the total number of international and national security forces currently present in Afghanistan amounts to 120,000. This huge security gap makes it extremely difficult to guarantee security in Afghanistan.
1.5.3 Strong traditional governance structures
Alongside formal state institutions, traditional systems of local governance contribute to the maintenance of social order in Kandahar. Although these local social structures are informal in nature, within rural communities in Kandahar the traditional collective decision-making and dispute-settlement bodies known as Jirga or Shura are more influential than the new central government institutions.
Jirga and Shura hold significant local power. Should these local structures object to any laws or policies, which the central government may attempt to implement, it is highly likely that central government authorities would encounter strong resistance in enforcing such laws.
Local religious leaders are also extremely influential in Kandahar’s rural community, and the Mullahs’ influence is growing amid confusion over who exactly controls the province. In the aftermath of the recent air strikes by international forces on Kandahar villages, locals turned to their mullahs for guidance on what to do and safe places to evacuate to. Mullahs were present in the Kandahar Mirwais hospital comforting the wounded and organizing assistance to the community. By contrast, there was no such response to the bombing victims and their families from the international community or the central government.
The insurgents/Taliban elements have been competing with the central government for the support of these community institutions, through offers of financial support and protection against the widely unpopular crop eradication policies, as well as through threats. The failure of Afghanistan’s central government and its international allies to deliver development and security to the province has caused community elders’ faith in and support for the central government to falter. The Taliban and other insurgents are exploiting the resulting power vacuum, and are increasingly becoming the de facto legitimate authorities.
As Kandahar’s population continues to turn away from unstable state institutions, it is clear that Afghanistan’s insurgency is spreading deeper within the social fabric of Kandahar. International forces in Afghanistan are clearly aware of the threat that these weakened governance structures pose to the Karzai’s administration’s control over Kandahar and the southern region. In a statement on May 10, just days before the outbreak of the most intense fighting in Kandahar since the fall of the Taliban, the commander of the US Combined-forces Command-Afghanistan General Eikenberry admitted that weak state institutions have been the main cause of the growing insurgency.
Reports on the ground suggest that both institutional weakness and the increased confidence of insurgents will be crucial factors in the increasingly all-out battle for control of Kandahar and southern Afghanistan.
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