When a senior Afghan official in the ministry of the interior in Kabul threatened to kill the head of anti-corruption, I knew we had an insurmountable problem. Our efforts to help reform and develop the Afghan security ministries were not going to work. I was the deputy head of an international assistance co-ordination unit at the ministry of interior. And there was a lot of corruption: police vehicles stripped for parts which were sold on the black market, police pay stolen by commanders and kickbacks from haulage companies supplying the mounting demands of the Nato presence in the country (the same businessmen also paid off insurgents).
Senior positions in the police were sometimes bought. The pressure to pay back the loan to do so or make good on the investment by corruption was immense. It was very difficult, if not impossible, to be a clean police commander in Afghanistan. Ugly accommodations with powerful forces were sometimes necessary just to survive. So when a new Afghan police colonel took charge of anti-corruption in 2011, advised by Nato and the European Union Police Mission (EUPol), and made allegations against a senior official, the response in the ministry was not to weigh up the strength or weakness of the charges but to question which faction in the government controlled the colonel.
The colonel for his part was concerned for his welfare and that of his family. He asked for international support. However, it was he who left his position while the senior official remained in place. All too often international donors in Afghanistan folded first, seeking to hurriedly work around a corrupt ministry or official rather than wait and insist on change.
Local militia
When the International Monetary Fund recommended that core funding to the Afghan government be temporarily suspended due to evidence of the large-scale theft of aid money, I was present when a senior American officer insisted that the money be turned back on since such a halt would interfere with the military’s “campaign cycle”. It was. Unable to reform and improve the performance of the Afghan National Police quickly enough, the United States military insisted on creating a series of local militia that were largely controlled by them.
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The US military insisted on creating a series of local militia that were largely controlled by them
Such accounts of corruption should not obscure the courage of the many Afghan police officers and soldiers who fought against the Taliban – those underpaid men who saw their commanders take kickbacks but still showed up to fight, again and again. There are more than 66,000 potential rebuttals of President Joe Biden’s claim that Afghans were not willing to fight. That is the number of Afghan soldiers and police who gave their lives in the war against the Taliban. Of course some felt compelled to join the police or the army because of a lack of alternative employment and did not want to be on the battlefield. A few even turned against Nato and their own government. But many knew what they were fighting for and showed courage that almost defied logic.
Even as some of their own leaders stole money and supplies destined for the military hospital in Kabul – where soldiers and police died of treatable wounds – these young men still wanted to fight against the Taliban. They had many reasons to do so. Some of these were personal or tribal: the Hazara, Afghanistan’s largely Shia ethnic group, knew firsthand or had heard of the appalling sectarian violence inflicted by the Taliban against their community in the 1990s. Others just wanted to see their country emerge with more opportunities and dignity than the poverty and enforced ignorance that the Taliban delivered at the point of a gun.
Blow to morale
Another reason why Afghan soldiers and police kept fighting was because they were not alone. Promises had been made by Nato. “Shoulder to Shoulder” until victory. Even after Nato handed over primary responsibility for the campaign to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), the alliance immediately commenced an “advise and assist” mission called “Resolute Support”.
Many knew what they were fighting for and showed courage that almost defied logic
It turned out that such support was anything but firm. The sudden and furtive withdrawal of US troops last month was a devastating blow to ANSF morale. It was also no secret that US air power was a critical weapon in holding back the Taliban. Nato had deliberately neglected properly equipping the Afghan air force for years, partly out of a reasonable fear that such a capability might be misused. Persistent and concentrated US air strikes had been critical to beating off Taliban full-scale assaults on key cities in the past, such as that on Kunduz in 2015. The Biden administration’s use of air power was anything but convincing; the ANSF and the Taliban grasped immediately what others (myself included) missed. The Americans had given up. Completely.
The war is not over, yet. Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, who until Sunday was Afghanistan’s minister for defence, once questioned me over lunch about the insurgency in Ireland against the British. He himself had fought against the Soviet Union in the 1980s and was later chief of staff to the legendary Tajik muhajid commander Ahmad Shah Masoud, “the Lion of Panjshir”. “Were the Irish guerrillas successful?” he asked. “Partially,” I replied. “But the island remains divided, so it depends from which position you look at it.” He laughed and remarked that Afghanistan also had its divisions. To many, he would always be viewed as a Panjshiri, a northerner, rather than simply as an Afghan.
Ten years ago, Gen Mohammadi’s US military adviser complained to me that Mohammadi, then minister of the interior, devoted disproportionate attention to northern Afghanistan, sending a lot of weapons and other equipment there, particularly to the Panjshir Valley. “They [the Panjshiris] are getting ready for the next fight,” the adviser sighed. That fight has now arrived.
Edward Burke is an assistant professor in international relations at the University of Nottingham. From 2010-2011 he was a EUPol analyst and deputy head of the International Police Co-ordination Board