Getting the story
By Graeme Smith (The Globe and Mail)
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN
March 22, 2008
Understanding the insurgents is a basic part of reporting on the Afghan war, but it's a remarkably difficult task. I've had several meetings with individual Taliban since I started covering Afghanistan, but personal contacts with the insurgents are growing more dangerous because they have started kidnapping journalists.
So we decided to try an unscientific survey.
I’ve been working with a researcher in Kandahar since September of 2006, meeting with him regularly for long sessions of tea and talk. He’s a close friend of The Globe and Mail translators in the city. I often send him on fact-finding trips to places that would be off-limits for anybody without strong connections to the insurgency, and over many months he has learned basic journalism skills. This project involved tasks at which he’s already proven reliable: Find a specific person, point a camera at them, ask questions from a list and, most challengingly, listen to the answers and formulate further questions. He’s still learning the art of follow-up questioning, but otherwise he appeared to be fairly disciplined about obeying the rules described below.
The Taliban researcher was asked:
- To find small groups of Taliban and try to speak with them individually. They don’t need to show their faces or give their names. (Persuading the insurgents to speak by themselves proved difficult, and clusters of three or four interviews often contain answers that echo each other, as apparently Taliban waited to hear what their comrades would say.)
- To visit as many districts as possible. (He visited five: Zhari, Panjwai, Maywand, Arghandab and Daman. Access to each district was negotiated by him and a Globe and Mail translator.)
- Ask a standard list of 20 questions, in the same order every time. (He largely followed this request, with a few exceptions: He sometimes felt it would be dangerous to push insurgents for answers about their loyalty to Mullah Omar, for instance.)
- Try to get enough elaboration that the interview lasts a minimum of 10 minutes. (This improved during the course of the project, with durations varying from four to 15 minutes.)
The researcher’s work was supervised by a long-time translator for The Globe and Mail, who watched the videos and did the rough translations.
I debriefed the researcher as he returned from his visits to the districts. A professional service was contracted to provide a second verbatim transcript in English, with coding for subtitles, so that we could publish all the material online.
The interviews began in August of 2007 and finished in November. In months that followed, the videos were circulated privately among sources in Kandahar and Kabul to gather opinions about the authenticity of the material and reaction to the Taliban statements.
Face to face with the foot soldiers
He looks like an ordinary Afghan in ragged clothes. He says he's young, 24 or 25 years old, but his eyes seem older. Somebody he knows, or loves, was killed by a bomb dropped from the sky, he says. The government tried to destroy his farm. His tribe has feuded with the government in recent years, and he feels pushed to the edge of a society that ranks among the poorest in the world.
So he lives by the gun. He cradles the weapon in his arms, saying he will follow the tradition of his ancestors who battled foreign armies. He is not only a Taliban foot soldier, he says. He belongs to the mujahedeen, the holy warriors, who fight any infidel who tries to invade Afghanistan.
He does not care where the foreigners come from. Maybe he knows the word Canada, but he cannot point to the country on a map. When he squints down his rifle at Canadian soldiers, he cannot imagine the faraway land that gave birth to those helmeted figures. He only wants to drive them away. He fervently believes that expelling the foreigners will set things right in his troubled country.
This portrait of an average Taliban fighter emerges from groundbreaking research by The Globe and Mail in Kandahar. The newspaper's staff, working with a freelance researcher, gained unprecedented access to insurgent groups in five districts of Kandahar province, and finished the dangerous assignment with 42 video recordings of fighters answering a standardized list of questions.
It's not a scientific survey, but it's the first public attempt to look at the Taliban in a systematic way.
The translation of the interviews, 517 pages long, suggests the Taliban are more complicated than might be guessed from their usual depiction as religious warriors; they are fierce and frightening, but proud and occasionally poetic. They use the language of radical Islam, but their message often consists of nothing more than xenophobia and a desire to protect their way of life.
Uneducated and inarticulate, they mumble their way through monosyllabic answers and avoid hard questions. When asked about money, for instance, the fighters reveal few details about their sources of financing. With repeated questioning, they do eventually open up, however, about their political dreams and the economic rationale for the war. They even dare to question their own leadership.
"These people are the heart of the problem," said a former mujahedeen commander in Kandahar who reviewed the interview footage. "These are the people you need to deal with: the guys with the guns."
PORTRAIT OF AN INSURGENT
Strong patterns stood out in the fighters' answers, some of which will be explored in more detail in The Globe's series on the insurgents over the coming week.
- Almost a third of respondents claimed that at least one family member had died in aerial bombings in recent years. Many also described themselves as fighting to defend Afghan villagers from air strikes by foreign troops.
- Most of them admitted a personal role in the illegal opium industry, and half of them said their poppy fields had been targeted by government eradication efforts, suggesting they suffer more eradication than other Afghan farmers. Several of them voiced frustration that the government officials take bribes for turning a blind eye to the drug trade while punishing poor opium growers.
- They claimed origins in 19 different Pashtun tribes, but the largest numbers came from Kandahar tribes that have been disenfranchised by the current government. No foreigners or non-Pashtuns were encountered during the survey, supporting the impression that such fighters are extremely rare.
- Few of them claimed to be fighting a global jihad; most described their goal as the return of a stricter Islamic government in Afghanistan.
- They showed deep ignorance about the world, even making serious errors in their telling of Afghanistan's recent history. None of the fighters appeared to know anything about Canada; faced with a multiple-choice question, only one of them correctly guessed that Canada is located north of the United States.
- Perhaps most surprisingly, 24 of the fighters said it doesn't matter whether Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar returns to power as the head of Afghanistan's government. Most claimed to be fighting for principles, not a leader.
Trying to understand the insurgency has become a daily topic of conversation in Afghanistan, as the growing violence increases demands for a negotiated peace.
Some analysts say the opinions of front-line Taliban fighters aren't relevant in a feudal society where people usually obey their leaders, but others point to indications that the insurgency's momentum no longer comes from its top organizers. It's sometimes labelled a "franchise" expansion model, in which groups of Afghans who don't feel a strong allegiance to Mullah Omar decide to join the insurgency for their own reasons.
"I think the answers of ordinary Taliban do matter, in the context of how strong are their beliefs and how motivated they are," said Ahmed Rashid, author of Taliban and other books on Islamic extremism in the region. "But it's most important in the context of, ‘Can you divide the Taliban, and talk to more moderate ones?' "
Many kinds of negotiations with the Taliban have sprung up as the insurgents assert their presence in the outlying districts. Aid agencies and cellphone companies regularly negotiate safe passage of their workers across Taliban territory, and negotiations with kidnappers have become chillingly frequent.
Canada's government publicly refuses to talk with the Taliban, but the Dutch military makes such discussions an explicit part of its strategy in Uruzganprovince. The British have tried, and so far failed, to negotiate local deals that will pacify Helmand province.
President Hamid Karzai issued a public plea last year for one-on-one talks with Mullah Omar, and the United Nations's internal trend forecasting describes a negotiated political solution as the single thing most likely to dampen the conflict in the foreseeable future.
Uncertainty hangs over all such negotiations, however, because, at the most basic level, the Taliban remain a mystery. Few analysts are willing to predict whether an average fighter would lay down his weapons, and under what circumstances.
Two Western security officials who reviewed The Globe's survey said the sample reflects the fact that foreign extremists do not have a significant role in the Kandahar insurgency. That could make negotiation more feasible; local Afghan insurgents have a reputation for being more flexible in their allegiance than the Arab or Central Asian extremists who sometimes appear on the battlefield.
"Their goals really aren't global jihad, and their connections with al-Qaeda aren't very strong," one security official said.
FOLLOW THE LEADER?
The insurgents' apparent lack of loyalty to Mullah Omar might also be interpreted as a positive sign. The Globe's researcher initially refused to ask the question -- "If foreigners leave Afghanistan, would you accept a government without Mullah Omar?" -- because he feared the insurgents would threaten him for questioning the importance of the reclusive leader who calls himself Commander of the Faithful. But among the 32 insurgents who answered the question, 24 of them said they would be willing to accept different leadership under certain conditions.
Those conditions varied: The most common demands were for an "Islamic leader" who would enforce "Islamic laws." The Taliban did not clearly define how such a leader and laws would be different from the present Muslim President and Afghanistan's current system of laws based on Islamic teachings.
A few suggested that replacing Mullah Omar would require a decision by the leader himself, or even a sign from God. Another fighter declared that a president of Afghanistan would only be acceptable "if that person is like Mullah Omar." Others said that only the Taliban elders are qualified to choose Afghanistan's leader.
But some said they're not demanding a Taliban government at all. "We are not saying that it should be our government," he said. "But we want only a Muslim king."
Even Mr. Karzai, whose troops are fighting the Taliban, was sometimes considered acceptable if the foreign troops leave. "If it is Karzai or Mullah Omar it doesn't matter," one said.
Other fighters vehemently disagreed, saying Mr. Karzai is a "slave" of foreign powers.
This variety of opinion among the insurgents has been viewed as a weakness by their opponents. A spokesman for Mr. Karzai has said he's hoping to sow confusion in the Taliban ranks by pushing the issue of negotiations.
One of the insurgents admitted it's a topic of debate among his comrades: "We have those who want peace and those who want to fight," he said.
Their uncertainty about the importance of Mullah Omar may spring from an understanding that he's not deeply engaged in the day-to-day workings of the insurgency, a senior United Nations official said. The Taliban know their one-eyed master remains isolated somewhere far from the battlefields, he suggested, and this serves as another weak point that might be exploited by negotiators.
But a lack of central authority could also make the Taliban more dangerous, a security analyst said, if their own leaders can't stop them from fighting.
"They're not loyal to Mullah Omar, yes, but is that a good thing?" the analyst said. "Because maybe a Taliban leader cuts a deal, but he can't deliver the fighters because they're too fanatical."
A former Afghan government official said the Taliban's lack of zeal for their leader reflects the same kind of false humility they displayed from 1994 to 1996, when they took power under the guise of a temporary regime. "It's a trick," he said. "It's crap. You can't believe them."
The Taliban also seemed skeptical about the Afghan government as a negotiating partner. Several referred to the early days of the Karzai administration, in which some Taliban tried to join the new government but ended up in detention. Mr. Karzai must take orders from the U.S. forces, the insurgents said, and the Americans don't want to negotiate.
Nor did there appear to be much desire for peace talks among the insurgents. None admitted any willingness to accept money, work, property or immunity from prosecution in exchange for a ceasefire. Only a handful of them added that they're willing to stop fighting if they get the order from their superiors.
"I personally believe that negotiations are inevitable," said Thomas Johnson, director of the culture and conflict studies program at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., and a leading expert on the Pashtun tribal areas.
"The problem of course is finding people willing to negotiate," Mr. Johnson said. "Pashtuns generally will not negotiate when they sense they are winning. Hence, you see that the Taliban are ‘willing' to negotiate, but only after international forces leave the country."
WHY THEY FIGHT
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization says insurgent attacks increased 64 per cent from 2006 to 2007, and very few of the Taliban surveyed showed any sign of respecting the military strength of the Canadians and their allies. Many claimed the foreign troops lack personal courage, and repeatedly told stories of battle that mocked their opponents.
"They are cowardly people," a fighter said. "If you take away their tanks and airplanes, they are nothing against Muslims."
They also seemed offended by the suggestion that peace could be bought for a price. Many spoke about the corruption of the Afghan government, and tried to set themselves apart from the regime by claiming their loyalty could not be purchased.
"Even if you give me so much money that I can't spend it in my entire lifetime, I will not stop," said one. Another promised to continue fighting even if offered "a million million."
Their ferocity usually had a limited focus, however. A few talked about global jihad -- "This is a world war" -- but most of them gave their fight a narrow definition, usually aiming their rage at the foreign troops and their political opponents within the borders of Afghanistan.
"Why are you fighting against this government?" The Globe's researcher asked a 25-year-old former driver. "Because they are with the non-Muslims," he replied. "If there were no non-Muslims, we would not fight with them, because one Muslim does not fight with another Muslim. But when we are fighting an Afghan soldier, it is because they are in an American convoy."
"If they weren't in a convoy with Americans, you wouldn't fight with them?" he was asked.
"No," he said. "Then we wouldn't fight."
Some of the most revealing dialogue in the interviews happens when the Taliban stray from the original list of questions. Spontaneously, without prompting, two of them spoke out against the modern way of life that has started to appear in the bustling streets of Kabul. It's unlikely that these poor foot soldiers had much personal experience in the capital, hundreds of kilometres away, but they obviously had heard stories about how the city has changed since the fall of the Taliban regime.
"There are some things forbidden by Islam and the Koran, like alcohol, adultery and cinemas," said a 27-year-old farmer, with a belt of machine-gun bullets draped around his neck. "Why don't they stop these things which are clearly going on in Kabul and some other provinces? Instead they beat those who are poor."
Another man also singled out movies as a source of moral corruption. Street vendors in Afghanistan have started a black-market trade in recent years, selling video discs of Indian movies and hardcore pornography — sometimes alongside Taliban propaganda videos that denounce the same foreign influences.
"They are enthusiastic about the dollar and cinemas," a fighter said. "That's why we are fighting them."
The comments often reflect a deeply insular view of the world, and a revisionist history that would be unrecognizable to an outsider. Many of the fighters would have been too young to fight alongside the Taliban as they conquered the capital in 1996, and they seem to be repeating a legendary version of the old regime as a way of stoking their own ambitions.
"In the time of the Taliban, they captured all Afghanistan; only one corner remained out of our grasp," said a young man with bushy eyebrows visible between his black turban and the black scarf wrapped around his face. He guessed his age at 21 and said he had been a religious student since he was 6.
"Thus all the world's non-Muslims were afraid of us and afraid of the Taliban capturing all of Afghanistan," he said. "It would be a centre of Islamic government for the whole world. So they started a campaign against us and destroyed our government."
None of the Taliban mention Sept. 11, 2001, in their explanations of the war. Nor do they talk about many other things that muddy their claims of moral superiority: the hundreds of civilians who have died in the conflict, a majority of them killed by the insurgents; the Afghans addicted to the opium that grows in their fields; and the prosperity that people have started to enjoy in the northern regions of Afghanistan that are not plagued by insurgency.
Things are much simpler for the Taliban.
"We are people of war," a fighter said, "and we want an Islamic government."
Air strikes and drug eradication
Air strikes and drug eradication are feeding the insurgency in southern Afghanistan, as those actions convince some villagers that their lives and livelihoods are under attack.
In a unique survey, The Globe and Mail interviewed 42 ordinary Taliban foot-soldiers in Kandahar and discovered 12 fighters who said their family members had died in air strikes, and 21 who said their poppy fields had been targeted for destruction by anti-drug teams.
The results suggest an unusual concentration of first-hand experience with bombing deaths and opium eradication among the insurgents, analysts say. Despite the violence and expensive counter-narcotics campaigns in Afghanistan, most villagers have not been touched by these events themselves, and their prevalence among the Taliban highlights two important motives for the insurgency.
"This is very interesting," said Sarah Chayes, an American author who lives in Kandahar.
The Taliban may exaggerate their claims of civilians killed in air strikes, Ms. Chayes said, "but I do think civilian deaths, and the cultivated impression of civilian deaths, is playing an increasing role."
Some analysts have described senior Taliban leaders reaping large profits from the opium industry, but Ms. Chayes said the ordinary fighters are only trying to protect a meagre source of income in a place where other jobs are scarce.
"It's not profit motive at these guys' level; it's bare livelihood," she said. "Anybody would defend that."
Aerial bombings and civilian deaths have both increased: The United Nations estimates more than 1,500 civilians were killed last year, as compared with the 900 to 1,000 civilian deaths counted by two studies of the previous year. An analysis of the first nine months of 2007 found the number of air strikes was already 50 per cent higher than the total for 2006.
Civilian bombings emerged as a major theme of the war last year. President Hamid Karzai shed tears in public as he spoke about civilian deaths. In June, a coalition of Afghan aid agencies published a controversial report suggesting that the rate of civilian casualties had doubled from the previous year, and that international forces were starting to rival the Taliban as the greatest source of civilian deaths.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization disputed the aid groups' figures, but quietly took action to reduce the likelihood of killing civilians. A report from United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this month said that international forces had reviewed standard operating procedures for aerial engagement with a view to reducing collateral deaths caused from the air.
Still, some countries, such as the United States, have been reluctant to curtail their use of air power.
"The United States views this as the tragic but bearable cost of a successful operation against insurgents, without understanding that the Taliban has deliberately traded the lives of a few dozen guerrilla fighters in order to cost the American forces the permanent loyalty of that [bombed] village," wrote Thomas Johnson and Chris Mason, of the Naval Postgraduate School in California, in an academic paper last year.
The Taliban are usually reluctant to admit that they're fighting for any causes other than religion, but they have recently embraced civilian deaths as a rallying point. Insurgents have helped journalists arrange interviews with victims in the aftermath of air strikes in southern Afghanistan, and NATO soldiers have repeatedly witnessed the Taliban forcing civilians into dangerous situations in hopes of getting them killed by foreign troops, thus evoking the wrath of the village.
The Globe and Mail's survey was not scientific, but it offers a sample of the insurgents' views on the topic. Asked specifically about bombings by foreign troops, almost a third of respondents claimed their family members had died in such incidents during the current war.
Some insurgents complained about bombings by Russian aircraft in the 1980s in addition to recent air strikes under the Karzai government, suggesting that memories of the Soviet invasion fuel some of the current opposition to U.S. and NATO troops.
Even those who have not lost family in the bombings clearly identify themselves as defending Afghanistan against such attacks: In response to the question, "Has your family been bombed by foreigners?" four fighters offered fatalistic responses such as: "No, not yet." Two others gave variations on a declaration of solidarity. "No," one fighter said. "But the families of my friends have been bombed, and other Muslims are like my own family." Others described the air strikes hitting even closer to home: "No, but our neighbours and relatives have been bombed."
About half of those who claimed bombing deaths in their family said they joined the Taliban after the killings occurred: Six joined afterwards, five joined before and one was not asked.
Those for whom the bombings was a trigger for joining the Taliban generally fell into two categories: Young men replacing older relatives who died fighting in the Taliban ranks ("call-ups"); and men who took up arms against the government after their civilian relatives were killed.
An example of the call-up mechanism was the case of a 25-year-old farm worker who said three older members of his family were killed in air strikes. He specified that all of his slain relatives were Taliban fighters, and said it was his duty to replace them.
"All of them were with the Taliban and when one of them was killed in war, after that another was killed and then the third one was also killed," he said. "So after that I decided to join the Taliban."
"But what is your goal? Do you want to take revenge or what?" he was asked.
"No, no, no," he said. "I would never fight to take revenge for my family or something else. I am fighting only to remove the non-Muslims from my country because they are here to destroy our religion."
Others did not dwell on the rhetoric of jihad. A 22-year-old farmer initially said he abandoned his farm work because foreign troops arrived in his area, but later specified that three of his relatives, two elders and one child, had been killed in an aerial bombing in the previous year, and he joined the Taliban after the bombing.
"Are you fighting because of that bombing?" he was asked. "Yes," he said. "Because of the bombing, and also because the foreigners are here."
Bombing was the only reason given when an older farmer, perhaps in his 40s, described his motives: "The non-Muslims are unjust and have killed our people and children by bombing them, and that's why I started jihad against them," he said. He claimed his family was bombed several times. "They have killed hundreds of our people, and that's why I want to fight against them."
International troops sometimes complain that they're fighting three wars in Afghanistan: the war on terrorism, a war against insurgents and the war on drugs. The first two conflicts are viewed as inescapable, but the counter-narcotics campaign is often seen as hurting the rest of the war effort.
With opium production soaring to record levels, however, many Western politicians are pushing for a new crackdown on poppy farmers. The International Crisis Group predicted in February that such an effort would be disastrous: "Insurgents would exploit local alienation to recruit more soldiers," the ICG report said.
Most of the insurgents in the Globe survey admitted a personal role in the opium industry, with more than 80 per cent of respondents saying they farm poppies themselves and a similar percentage saying it's farmed by their family or friends.
Those numbers aren't surprising in rural Kandahar, where poppies rank among the most common crops. The more significant number, in the view of some analysts, was that half those surveyed said their fields had been targeted by government eradication efforts, sometimes more than once.
Eradication was not widespread in Kandahar in the years before the survey was conducted; it appears the Taliban either exaggerate the government's counter-narcotics program, or there is a connection between farmers who face eradication and those who join the insurgency.
The Taliban did not seem inclined to admit an economic rationale for the war, saying it's a secondary reason for fighting after the primary concept of religious war, but a few described the connection bluntly: "Previously they were cutting them [poppies] down, but now those areas are controlled by mujahedeen and now they cannot cut them down," said a 26-year-old who described himself as a former religious student.
Under the previous Taliban regime, Afghanistan briefly witnessed one of the world's most successful anti-drug campaigns when Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar declared that growing poppies is un-Islamic. Some historians say the Taliban cynically cut production to increase the values of their own stockpiles, but the effects in the fields was dramatic: A year's crop was almost entirely wiped out.
The idea of opium as a religiously forbidden crop has lingered in Afghanistan, and it's often reinforced by the current government. But many of the Taliban in the survey gave a new rationale when asked to explain why they have reinvented themselves as protectors of the drug trade.
"We grow it because it damages the non-Muslims," a fighter said, repeating the line used by many others, sometimes parroting the phrase verbatim.
"Before this drug reaches the non-Muslims, won't it destroy our own people first?" he was asked by the Afghan researcher, expressing concern about Afghanistan's growing population of drug addicts.
But the fighter shrugged off this argument, saying the opium is mostly consumed in foreign countries.
"Islam says that it isn't permitted," the fighter conceded. "But we don't care whether it is permitted or forbidden. But we are only saying that we will grow poppies against non-Muslims."
A private security consultant in Kabul who reviewed the survey videos said the reoccurrence of this argument among the fighters seems to suggest an indoctrination campaign by Taliban leaders.
"If you read between the lines, some higher commanders have figured out a good excuse to cultivate poppy," the consultant said. "Those farmers are quite well brainwashed."
TALIBAN FUNDING
The Taliban revealed very little about their financing when asked by The Globe and Mail's researcher. Other sources suggest that their biggest cash inflows arrive from supporters in Pakistan, sometimes originally from donors in the Middle East, but the front-line insurgents didn't seem to know much about those transactions, or else kept them secret.
"All the Muslims give us money, whether they are Afghans or from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else," one fighter said.
Other insurgents described voluntary payments by ordinary Afghans and implied that the insurgents get a cut of the local drug trade. Such payments were always couched in the language of traditional Islamic payments to charity, usually in two forms: usher and zakat.
Usher literally means one-tenth, but can refer to any portion of agricultural crop that is set aside as a donation. Zakat is another kind of obligatory charity, usually 2.5 per cent of annual profits from business.
These payments are regularly shared with the Taliban in southern Afghanistan; farmers sometimes give half their donations to the insurgents and the other half to the local mullah for charitable causes.
Prominent local drug dealers and businessmen in Kandahar are known to make donations beyond the requirements of zakat and usher, sometimes in the form of cash, opium, vehicles, cellphone-recharge card numbers, or even warm clothing in winter.
Tribal animosity drawing Taliban recruits
Canadian troops and their allies have been drawn into an ancient tribal feud that simmers beneath the conflict in southern Afghanistan.
In a sample of ordinary insurgents, 42 fighters in Kandahar province were asked by The Globe and Mail to identify their own tribe, and the results point to a divide within the Taliban ranks: Only five named themselves as members of the three major tribes most closely associated with the government, suggesting that tribal animosity has become a factor that drives the recruitment of insurgents.
"This government is a family business," said a prominent Afghan aid worker in Kandahar. "The other tribes get angry when a few tribes have all the power."
Afghan tribes often share the same ethnicity, religion, language and culture, but they're divided along ancestral lines that resemble the branches of a huge family tree. Little except bloodlines distinguishes most tribes from each other, but struggles for power among the tribes have been a source of bloodshed for centuries in this harsh land.
The small survey did not include enough interviews to draw firm conclusions about the tribal makeup of the Taliban, and the results may be biased by the tribal identity of the researcher who conducted the interviews since it would have been easier for him to find his fellow tribesmen in Taliban-controlled districts.
But the findings appear to support the impression of many analysts that the Kandahar insurgency draws fighters most heavily from the tribes outside of the Zirak Durrani tribal federation, which dominates the local government.
The Taliban interviewed claimed origins from 19 different tribes, all of them part of the Pashtun ethnic group that occupies most of southern Afghanistan. The largest numbers came from the Noorzai and Eshaqzai tribes, which accounted for 16 of the 42 surveyed. Many members of those two tribes live in the most dangerous parts of the Panjwai valley, where Canadian troops have been fighting for the past two years, and they often complain about being alienated from Kandahar's government, with little representation in the administration.
The Popalzai tribe of President Hamid Karzai, by contrast, had relatively few members in the sample of insurgents. Only two Taliban identified themselves as Popalzai, and they appeared to have personal reasons for participating in the insurgency: One said his family had been bombed by foreign troops and the other said the government repeatedly eradicated his opium fields. There was a similar lack of insurgents from other tribes usually aligned with the government.
"Currently there is war between the tribes," said a former Afghan intelligence officer, whose experience in Kandahar spans three decades.
But another observer said the friction between tribes still hasn't reached that point.
"We don't have a true tribal war here, yet," said Neamat Arghandabi, head of the National Islamic Society of Afghan Youth, who said he remembers such feuding during the period of chaos in the early 1990s that followed the withdrawal of Soviet forces. "It's the worst," he said. "It has no borders, everybody fights each other and you have to hide your roots. But for now, it's like competition among political parties."
The fact that certain tribes are more heavily represented than others within the Taliban appears to be a touchy point with the insurgent leadership, which prefers to describe religion as the group's unifying force. The Globe and Mail's researcher was sharply criticized by Taliban when they learned he had been surveying the tribal background of insurgents.
Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, scoffed at the idea of a tribally motivated insurgency as he watched The Globe's videos at his home in Kabul. "Among the Taliban, there is no difference between the tribes," Mr. Zaeef said. "The tribe issue among Taliban is not important."
But academics who monitor Afghanistan are paying increasing attention to the issue. Thomas Johnson, director of the Culture and Conflict Studies program at the Naval Postgraduate School in California, was among the first academics to describe the tribal underpinnings of the war.
Three tribes that dominated Kandahar in the years after the Soviet withdrawal, the Popalzai, Barakzai and Alokozai, all from the Zirak Durrani group, lost significant power when the Taliban swept the country from 1994 to 1996, Mr. Johnson said. In their place, the tribal groups aligned with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar installed themselves in the seats of government. The Taliban leader's own tribe, the Hotak branch of the Ghilzai federation, occupied seven of the senior positions in Mullah Omar's regime, according to Mr. Johnson's analysis.
The latest government in Kandahar has largely returned the Zirak Durranis to power, Mr. Johnson said, which reflects a tribal struggle that goes back hundreds of years.
Afghan government officials vigorously disagree with emphasizing the tribal element of the conflict, framing the war as a struggle against terrorism, but Mr. Johnson said they are playing down the role of the tribes.
"[They] can't face reality, and it is a recognition that the real conflict runs much deeper and will be much more difficult to resolve," Mr. Johnson said.
But many experts say it's wrong to view the tribal aspect of the war as a reason for despair, because the notion that the tribes always fight each other is false. Afghanistan has enjoyed decades of peace among the tribes, as recently as the 1960s and 1970s.
"Power dynamics have something to do with it; there were relatively more Ghilzai in the Taliban government, and that gave the current Durrani leadership an excuse to under-represent them in government," said Sarah Chayes, an American author who lives in Kandahar. "But I think it is wrong to characterize this conflict as a manifestation of age-old tribal conflicts, or as a kind of fight for the spoils among groups eagerly trying to loot Afghanistan. Treating it that way will be a self-fulfilling prophesy."
The tribes have gained power as an alternative political force only because the central government is weak, Ms. Chayes said, and bringing a clean and responsible government to the province would likely dampen Afghans' enthusiasm for the tribal system.
"Tribes that feel themselves to be mistreated by the government may act in a concerted way, like the Alokozais in Khakrez district deserting en masse to the Taliban, but this has been a reaction to the very tribal dimension of the actions of certain Kandahar leaders," Ms. Chayes said.
But a wealthy member of the Noorzai tribe, a group that often complains of being disenfranchised, said he thinks the cycle of tribes squabbling for power has already gained its own momentum and will be difficult to stop.
"Some warlords were against our tribes, and they wanted revenge against them," said Din Mohammed, a grey-bearded elder who owns a construction company. "They wanted to push these tribes out of the new government, put pressure on them, so these people went to Pakistan. And Pakistan supported them and sent them back to Afghanistan, and now the fighting is more and more."
Pakistan's brutal beneficiaries betray their refuge
Despite a long history of using Pakistan as a safe haven, Taliban on the front lines of the insurgency say they have no loyalty to their neighbouring country.
A survey of 42 insurgents in Kandahar found most were critical about Pakistan, where they are reported to have headquarters and supply lines, and most were critical of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, often using the harshest language to describe him.
Some insurgents claimed they want to fight for the seizure of vast swaths of Pakistan's territory in the name of expanding Afghanistan to include the major cities of Quetta and Peshawar. Every fighter asked said those two cities belong inside Afghanistan, and all of them rejected the existing border as a legitimate boundary between the countries.
The Globe and Mail's modest sample of Taliban opinion may only reflect an effort by the insurgents to hide their sources of support in Pakistan, analysts say, or it may point to something more troubling: the growing indications that parts of the insurgency are no longer controlled by anybody.
"If they are supported by ISI [Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency], why are they attacking Pakistan?" said Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, after reviewing The Globe's raw video footage. "Why would the ISI want these kinds of activities in Pakistan? It's out of control. Nobody is able to control it."
"This is Afghan government propaganda, about the Pakistan government controlling the Taliban."
Few historians dispute that Pakistan's intelligence services played a decisive role in establishing the Taliban movement in 1994, and Islamabad appeared to retain a strong influence over the regime that seized Kabul two years later.
President Musharraf formally cut ties with the Taliban in 2001, but in recent years a growing number of observers have accused Pakistan's agents, or former agents, of continuing their assistance for the radical movement.
"With the collaboration of elements within one of Pakistan's ... intelligence services, the ISI, the Pashtun borderlands have become a safe haven for the Taliban," write Thomas Johnson and Chris Mason, of the Naval Postgraduate School in California, in a coming issue of the journal International Security.
The Afghan government strongly endorses that view, often helping journalists arrange interviews with captured insurgents who tell stories of training centres in Pakistan.
During one such interview session last year at the Kandahar Governor's Palace, an Afghan intelligence official paraded out a group of prisoners who described themselves as Pakistanis persuaded to wage jihad against foreign troops in Afghanistan after attending madrassas in Pakistan. They gave details of an informal training camp in Chaman, Pakistan, that suggested the insurgents were making little effort to hide their activities from local authorities.
If the Taliban are creatures of Pakistan, however, The Globe and Mail's survey suggests they are not a particularly obedient creation.
Some parts of the Taliban in particular, such as the recently created Pakistani Taliban group led by Baitullah Mehsud, have proven themselves more of a threat within Pakistan than anywhere else.
"The Islamist extremist Frankenstein is no longer confined to the whims of political power games," wrote Irm Haleem, a South Asian expert who teaches at New York's Seton Hall University, in an article this month that devoted itself to the comparison between the Taliban and Mary Shelley's mythical creature.
Every insurgent asked by The Globe researcher said huge parts of Pakistan belong to Afghanistan, but they offered varying ideas about how much territory should be claimed and how it is historically justified.
One fighter said that only half of Pakistan's provinces, Sindh and Punjab, rightfully belong in the country.
"Those areas of Pakistan were small," the fighter said. "In the time of Zahir Shah or someone else, then they made this line [the new border]." Another gave a similar explanation for the loss of Quetta and Peshawar: "The King Zahir Shah sold them, but when Mullah Omar was in Kandahar, he saw the contracts and the contracts were expired."
In fact, the Durand Line agreement established the southeastern border of Afghanistan in 1893, long before the reign of King Zahir Shah, which lasted from 1933 to 1973. Pakistan and Afghanistan still formally disagree about whether the agreement has expired.
Some of the Taliban seemed to be appropriating the nationalistic cause of reclaiming the Durand territory as part of the insurgency's agenda.
"They [Quetta and Peshawar] absolutely belong to Afghanistan, and if we become successful in our war we will take it back from Pakistan, because it is a part of our holy Afghanistan," one insurgent said.
"Unfortunately, at the moment, Afghanistan is in a big pressure: Non-Muslims are here," another fighter added. "But when the non-Muslims leave Afghanistan, then it [the Durand territory] can never be a part of Pakistan. We will erase the Durand line."
Others blamed the government of President Hamid Karzai for failing to raise the issue with Islamabad, implying that Mr. Karzai cannot take action because he is controlled by foreign powers.
One fighter, asked why Pakistan retains control of the territory, said, "Because there is no Islamic government, all of them are non-Muslims, and the government of Pakistan is also a non-Islamic government, and that's why."
"The British handed it over to them," another said. "Where is the government? It belongs to the Americans now."
"So the Americans don't want it to be a part of Afghanistan?" he was asked. "He [Mr. Musharraf] is also a son of the Americans, and Karzai is as well. So if he [President George W. Bush] takes it from one son and gives it to another, what does he gain here?"
Despite their talk about Pakistan's unfair seizure of the Pashtun lands, the Taliban were strongly reluctant to accept the idea of "Pashtunistan" as a separate country, a concept raised by some ethnic nationalists in the border region. Only four respondents said they favour the creation of a new country for Pashtuns.
These front-line fighters likely don't realize the close relationship between Pakistan's government and the insurgents, said one Western expert in Kandahar.
"How many idealists have been manipulated by Machiavellian masters who kept themselves hidden in world history?" the observer said. "They almost certainly are not aware of the Pakistan government's involvement in their movement."
A former Afghan intelligence officer, whose experience in Kandahar spans three decades, agreed that the Taliban are unaware of their masters.
"The ISI co-ordinates Taliban activities, for sure," the retired officer said. "But the ISI has a few members who are leading the Taliban and the Taliban don't always understand the Pakistan role behind them. If the Taliban were aware they are puppets, they would stop fighting."
During a long afternoon of discussion last year in Kandahar, a Taliban sympathizer chuckled at the idea of the insurgents as unwitting pawns.
"The Pakistanis have two faces," said the full-bearded man, with an ample belly and a quick laugh. "They're friends with Talibs and Americans at the same time. They are betrayers of Islam."
He continued: "Pakistan gets money from Americans and uses many tricks against the Taliban. They give the Taliban money, training and places to stay. On the other side, they arrest them and sell them. ... The small Taliban don't understand this."
Front-line Taliban deeply ignorant about the world
The typical Taliban foot soldier battling Canadian troops and their allies in Kandahar is not a global jihadist who dreams of some day waging war on Canadian soil. In fact, he would have trouble finding Canada on a map.
A survey of 42 insurgents in Kandahar province posed a series of questions about the fighters' view of the world, and the results contradicted the oft-repeated perception of the Taliban as sophisticated terrorists who pose a direct threat to Western countries.
Faced with a multiple-choice question about Canada's location, only one of 42 fighters correctly guessed that Canada is located to the north of the United States, meaning the insurgents performed worse than randomly.
None of them could identify Stephen Harper as the Prime Minister of Canada, and they often repeated the syllables of his name -- "Stepheh Napper," "Sehn Hahn," "Steng Peng Beng," "Gra Pla Pla" -- that reflected their puzzlement over a name they had never heard.
Nor did they seem to associate the word "Canada" with anything except, in some cases, the soldiers now serving in Afghanistan. Most could not distinguish between the French- and English-speaking rotations of troops.
One of The Globe and Mail's questions offered the Taliban a chance to volunteer any information about Canada: "Do you know about this country? What kind of people are there? Is it a big country or a small country? Poor country, rich country? Cold or warm? Do Muslims live there?" None offered any meaningful responses, and most of them simply declined to answer. One of the few who guessed, a 21-year-old farmer, seemed to think the word "Canada" indicated a faraway city.
It might be an old and destroyed city," he said.
The results show the depth of ignorance among front-line insurgents in Kandahar. In a previous visit to the tribal areas of Pakistan, a reporter for The Globe and Mail personally met with more sophisticated Taliban who demonstrated a keen grasp of politics and appeared to know the latest news of the war. But those politically astute Taliban were hundreds of kilometres away from the battlefields, and it remains unclear how much control such organizers exert over the day-to-day operations of the insurgency.
The Taliban became synonymous with ignorance during their years in government, banning media such as television that might bring foreign ideas into the country. As insurgents, however, they've shown a newfound flair for technology, distributing video propaganda and sending press statements via text message to reporters' mobile phones.
"The Taliban also have a sophisticated media strategy and full grasp of modern technology," said a report by the European Council on Foreign Relations in January.
Canadian politicians and military officials often make public statements that suggest the Taliban monitor political trends in Ottawa and choose to attack at politically sensitive moments: General Rick Hillier, Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff, raised the possibility that a suicide bombing that killed more than 100 people in Kandahar province in February may have been connected with debates in the House of Commons about the future of the mission.
But a Western expert who reviewed The Globe's video footage said the kind of worldliness described by Gen. Hillier isn't the most likely explanation.
"Those [insurgents] making decisions are more sophisticated than those you are interviewing, so there is some chance of this being plausible," the expert said. "But I think they're working to their own calendar, not ours." Three fighters in the survey didn't recognize the name of U.S. President George W. Bush, and another mispronounced his name as "Bukh," suggesting he wasn't familiar with the word.
Those who had heard of the U.S. President often gave responses that revealed more of their parochialism. He was called a "Jew," and "King of America." Sometimes, amid the errors, the Taliban showed their simplistic view of world politics.
"He is the son of George W, [and] he is the son of Clinton W, and he is American, and is a serious enemy of Islam," said one fighter in his description of Mr. Bush.
"Why is he an enemy of Islam?" he was asked.
"The Koran says: 'Jews and Christians will be unhappy until you obey them. When you obey them, they will be satisfied,' " the insurgent replied. "This means if you obey them they are happy, but if you don't accept their commands, they will fight you."
Some of the comments about Mr. Bush showed the Taliban's enthusiasm for crude violence: "If I were to capture him, I would cut a piece of his flesh even as he was still alive." They were equally vitriolic in their descriptions of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, repeatedly calling him a "slave" of the Americans. "There is no difference between the red-faced and green-eyed infidel, and him," one said.
When the Taliban demonstrated any understanding beyond their immediate surroundings, it was often references to their own version of Islamic history. They invoked stories of ancient Egypt and compared the U.S. President to one of the pharaohs, also drawing a parallel between the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the medieval Christians who launched Crusades.
Another described the war in Afghanistan as part of a conflict that stretches back to the founding of Islam as a religion.
"Non-Muslims have been against Muslims for a long time," he said. "Just as they attacked the Prophet Mohammed and broke his teeth, so they are against us since that era."
Why the Taliban now embrace the concept of suicide bombing
Suicide bombing used to be a subject of debate among the Taliban, as they struggled to decide whether the tactic was too extreme, but the frightening new reality in Afghanistan is that the radicals appear to be winning that argument within the Taliban ranks.
None of the 42 insurgents surveyed by The Globe and Mail were willing to express any reservations about suicide bombings when confronted by a researcher with a video recorder, and many of them boasted that they were ready to volunteer for such missions themselves.
Some Taliban have previously argued that it's cowardly to wear an explosive vest, because it prevents an insurgent from fighting his enemy face-to-face. Others suggested that the carnage among civilian bystanders that often results from a suicide blast alienates ordinary Afghans from the insurgency. A Taliban faction even took out an advertisement in one of Kandahar's weekly newspapers in 2006, blaming recent suicide bombings on foreign fighters and promising to stop the attacks: "We will punish them," the advertisement said.
A year later, in the same province, all insurgents surveyed said they disagree. Suicide attacks are endorsed by religious authorities, they said, and they represent the Taliban's equivalent of air power, a devastating weapon capable of carefully aimed strikes. Few of them blamed foreign jihadists for the attacks.
The researcher asked them if the suicide bombers "are only Afghans or are they foreigners?"
"They are sons of Afghanistan, and they are Afghans through and through," a fighter said. "They sacrifice their lives for their country."
A few of the Taliban seemed to acknowledge that it's a controversial means of fighting, but they claimed that such tactics are necessary against the overwhelming technological superiority of the foreign troops.
"Some people say that it is not good," an insurgent said. "But they don't know that against non-Muslims, it is very good, because they can stop any kind of attack but not these kinds of attacks." Another gave a similar explanation: "It is good to be used against the non-Muslims, because they are not afraid of fighting for five days against us but they are afraid of one bomber," he said. "I pray to God to make me able to do this."
The result of this shift in Taliban thinking has already become obvious in the number of suicide blasts. Afghanistan had never seen a suicide bombing before 2001, and the first such attack in the country -- on Sept. 9, 2001, targeting Ahmad Shah Massoud, the famed rebel leader who was fighting the Taliban -- was blamed on Arab extremists, not Afghans.
It does not seem likely that the sudden Taliban enthusiasm for blowing themselves up was driven exclusively by the insurgency's desire to kill more troops, analysts say, because so far the Taliban have proven themselves relatively incompetent at suicide bombing. A report for the United Nations in September found that, on average, more than three suicide bombers are required to inflict a single casualty on the international forces. "From a military point of view, this could be considered extreme failure," the report said.
But the act of sacrificing oneself has a symbolic value; suicide bombers are publicly demonstrating the ultimate level of personal commitment to an ideology. The Globe survey suggested that those who craft the Taliban's ideology, their religious leaders, have made an organized effort to prove suicide bombing is acceptable in Islam.
Several of the insurgents said they couldn't remember the specific reference to Islamic holy texts used by their teachers to justify the idea, but some made reference to a story about a Muslim army that existed in the seventh century, during the lifetime of the Prophet Mohammed.
"There is a story from the time of the Prophet," one insurgent said.
"There were two companions of the Prophet, and ... they were attacking a place [where] the walls were high, so they could not jump over the wall." He continued: "One lifted the other over the wall and he died in the attack. He knew he would be killed, but it was his duty."
Turialai Wafa, former chief of staff to Kandahar's governor, said he has heard this justification before and it represents an incorrect view of Islamic teaching. A warrior who shows bravery in battle has nothing in common, he said, with somebody who breaks two major Islamic rules: committing suicide and attacking without first declaring intent.
"When one wants to justify an act of war to people -- in Afghanistan's case, illiterate angry masses who cannot read but only hear what the mullahs and radicals are telling them -- you can almost justify anything," Mr. Wafa said.
"The increase of suicide bombers recently has different causes, and one major one would be the lack of an alternative to express political opposition," Mr. Wafa added. "It takes either a strong resolve or absolute despair. My personal opinion is it's never, ever the strong resolve, but the absolute despair."
Air strikes: 2006 vs. 2007
Foreign troops in Afghanistan came under criticism for their increasing use of air strikes last year, after a sharp rise in the civilian death toll. International military forces say they need more soldiers on the battlefield, and without them they must rely on so-called "force multipliers" such as air power. But the foreign forces have been warned that civilian casulaties from air strikes feeds the insurgency.
A report from United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in March 2008 said that international forces had reviewed standard operating procedures for aerial engagement with a view to reducing civilian deaths. Critics say more air strikes inevitably mean more civilian deaths, however, and the bombings are likely to continue into this year's fighting season.
(Source: USA Today) Suicide attacks: 2006 vs. 2007 Afghanistan saw a stark rise in both suicide attacks and foiled attempts in 2007, and theories vary about why the insurgents have embraced a tactic that hardly existed in Afghanistan until a few years ago. A report in March 2008 by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the insurgents have shifted towards such terrorist-style attacks because the superior Afghan and foreign troops have forced their opponents to find ways of striking indirectly. Other analysts say the increase in suicide attacks is part of a rising level of insurgent attacks overall, and if the Taliban has shifted its tactics -- which remains unclear, according to some estimates -- it's a smart move towards attacks that work. A rigorous study of suicide attacks by the United Nations in September 2007 listed a variety of reasons why young men blow themselves up: "These include a sense of occupation, anger over civilian casualties, and affronts to their national, family, and personal senses of honour and dignity that are perpetrated in the conduct of counterinsurgency operations," the report said. "Some attackers are also motivated by religious rewards and duties." (Source: Ban's Report) Risk to humanitarian operations in Afghanistan Understanding the insurgency is not an idle pastime in Afghanistan. Such information is especially vital as the growing violence increases the need to deal with the Taliban. Aid agencies and cellphone companies regularly negotiate safe passage of their workers across Taliban territory, and kidnapping negotiations have become chillingly frequent. The latest assessment by the UN security team shows heightened risk for humanitarian workers visiting Afghanistan's south and east. (Compiled by Graeme Smith, Graphic: Trish McAlaster, Tonia Cowan/The Globe and Mail) Provincial opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan Much of the economy in Afghanistan is driven by the illegal opium business. Efforts by the government to eradicate the poppy fields have left farmers poor and frustrated -- a perfect target for a Taliban insurgency looking for recruits. Cultivation of the opium poppy is blossoming in areas with the least security, such as the south, suggesting a connection between zones of drug cultivation and places where Taliban have the greatest influence. (Compiled by Graeme Smith, Graphic: Trish McAlaster, Tonia Cowan/The Globe and Mail) The Taliban and the tribes A closer look at the Panjwai valley shows generally pro-government tribes (Popalzai, Barakzai) dominating the relatively secure northeast corner of the district, while disenfranchised tribes such as the Eshaqzai and Noorzai hold enclaves in the southwest, where Canadian troops have repeatedly battled to gain control. POPALZAI: President Hamid Karzai rules in the capital, while his brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, plays a major role in Kandahar as chairman of the provincial council. BARAKZAI: Former Kandahar governor Gul Aga Shirzai retains influence and business ties to the province through his tribe. ALOKOZAI: The late Mullah Naqib was the President's biggest ally in the south, and his tribesmen remain an important pro-government bulwark around the city. However, growing resentment within the tribe has helped the Taliban increase their presence in Kandahar's northern districts in recent months. ACHAKZAI: Abdul Razik, a flamboyant young police chief who controls the road crossing to Pakistan, is among this tribe's leading members. NOORZAI: The politician Arif Noorzai may lead this tribe officially, but arguably its most influential member is Hafis Majid, a senior Taliban leader. The Noorzai are populous west of Kandahar city, the scene of recent battles. ALIZAI: A bitter conflict between this tribe's leader in Kandahar, Habibullah Jan, and Ahmed Wali Karzai was a source of instability in the province until the two men reached a negotiated truce last year. ESHAQZAI: With many of their home villages in the conflict zones of Kandahar and Helmand, they are reportedly fighting to defend their opium business. SAYYED: Little information has been published about the Sayyed tribe, but in Afghanistan a person who describes himself as Sayyed usually claims direct ancestry from the Prophet Mohammed. OMAR EL AKKAD From Thursday's Globe and Mail April 23, 2008 at 11:20 PM EDT OTTAWA — On a single day in the summer of 2006, the Canadian Forces were involved in at least half a dozen instances of "friendly fire" that left two Afghans dead and four injured. The Forces ended up paying about $35,000 in compensation, even though it admitted no liability for the deaths. Documents obtained by The Globe and Mail through access-to-information legislation show more than 30 instances since January of 2006 where the Canadian Forces compensated Afghan citizens for everything from lost cellphones to the accidental killing of relatives by Canadian soldiers. The military labelled the vast majority of the payments "ex gratia," meaning they were made voluntarily and with no admission of liability. Although the forms don't say so directly, several of the friendly fire compensation claims appear to stem from an incident on Aug. 26, 2006, in a key district west of Kandahar city. On two occasions that day, Canadian soldiers opened fire on vehicles they thought belonged to the enemy, when in fact they were carrying Afghan security forces. The Canadians claimed the vehicles, travelling at high speed, were unmarked and non-uniformed Afghans responded to warning shots with gunfire of their own. The claim registries that note how much money was handed out contain very little detail about what actually happened that day. One of the forms outlining the $8,959.99 paid for one of the friendly-fire deaths simply states: "Settlement of ex gratia claim arising from incident of friendly fire that occurred on 26 Aug. 2006 in the Zheray district where [Redacted]." Captain Kent MacRae leads a The Forces paid the same amount for each of the two Afghans who were killed. Those injured received either $1,800 or $4,500 each, but the extent of those injuries is not described. The documents shed light on the kinds of challenges facing Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. On more than one occasion, the military paid thousands of dollars after Afghans were injured or killed during "rules of engagement" escalation, where soldiers fired warning shots that then ricocheted and hit civilians. One such instance in February of last year left one person dead. The Forces paid $8,500 in that case, but the details of what happened are redacted. Some of the claim forms don't specify whether Afghans were killed or injured as a result of these force escalations. The Forces often paid somewhere between $8,000 and $9,000 when deaths occurred, but it is unclear if this amount was reserved for members of Afghan security forces or simply related to how much the claimant requested. In another case, "rules of engagement" escalation left an Afghan civilian dead — the Forces paid what the claimant asked for, $2,000. Many of the other compensation claims relate to private property damaged or destroyed by Canadians during operations. Those claims range from $33 to several thousand dollars. The Forces, it appears, also have a habit of losing cellphones they hold for safekeeping when Afghans enter Canadian compounds. However, it is difficult to tell what all the compensation claims deal with — in some cases there is no explanation for why the money was handed over. In other cases, the explanation is completely redacted. Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier publicly called Monday for the Afghan government to fire the governor of Kandahar, the province to which 2,500 Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) troops are deployed. Several hours later, Bernier withdrew his remarks, saying that he had never intended to impinge on Afghanistan’s right as a sovereign nation to choose its own government personnel. Bernier issued his call near the end of a three-day visit to Afghanistan during which he met with Afghan officials and France’s Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner. France recently agreed to increase the size of its contribution to the US-NATO occupation force in Afghanistan. Bernier told a press conference in Kandahar that Afghan President Hamid Karzai should “work with us to be sure that the [Kandahar] governor will be more powerful, [that] the governor will do what he has to do to help us. And there’s a question of maybe having a new governor. “It’s a decision,” continued Bernier, “the president will have to take in the near future about the future of the governor we have here. Is it the right person in the right place at the right time? President Karzai will have to answer these questions as soon as possible.” Only minutes later Bernier made similar comments in French, his first language. According to the Globe and Mail, Canadian officials including Bernier had been privately pressing the Afghan government to replace Asadullah Khalid as Kandahar’s governor and, earlier during Bernier’s visit, they had extracted a promise from Karzai that Khalid would be removed “within weeks.” Canadian officials now fear that it will be difficult if not impossible for Karzai to oust Khalid, since he will so demonstrably be doing so in response to pressure from Canada, whose troops are playing a major role in propping up his government. “There’s a bit of scrambling now,” an unnamed Canadian official told the Globe. Several hours after Monday’s press conference Bernier did issue a retraction, in a ham-fisted attempt to camouflage the neo-colonial relationship that exists between the NATO occupation force and the Karzai government. In a written statement Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister declared, “Afghanistan is a sovereign state that makes its own decisions about government appointments. I can assure you that Canada fully respects this and is not calling for any changes to the Afghan government.” The Toronto Star reports, however, that Bernier’s retraction only came after Afghan diplomats had strenuously objected to his remarks. What the Star termed “a highly placed Afghan source in Kandahar” said Bernier had placed Karzai in a bind. “If he stays with this governor, Karzai will look like he is ignoring the Canadians. But if he makes a change it will be obvious to Afghans where the real power lies.” Afghanistan’s ambassador to Canada responded to Bernier’s remarks by publicly asserting that there are “bounds” to Canada’s “special relationship” with Kabul. “We need to be mindful of that.” In addition to the large force deployed to Kandahar, the historic center of the Taliban and a hotbed of the anti-Karzai insurgency, the CAF has seconded some 15 officers to various departments of the Afghan government, including the president’s office, to serve as advisors. In an editorial Tuesday titled “Bernier does Karzai no favour,” the Globe criticized Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minster. Not for making demands of the Afghan government, but for doing so in public. “For Mr. Karzai ... a bigger problem than the presence of Mr. Khalid is the perception among some Afghans that he is running a puppet regime. ... So it is unlikely that he will respond favourably to Mr. Bernier’s intervention; if anything, it may discourage him from replacing Mr. Khalid ... It is appropriate to raise concerns with Mr. Karzai and other Afghan leaders in private. But the more [Bernier] attempts to exert his influence publicly, the less influence Canada will ultimately have.” The Canadian government, especially the Canadian Armed Forces, has until recently staunchly defended the Kandahar governor in the face of allegations that the local administration he heads is corrupt and routinely practices torture. Khalid is alleged to have personally participated in torturing prisoners—allegations the Canadian government sought unsuccessfully to prevent from becoming public knowledge. It is not clear why Canada has turned against Khalid now, although he clearly personifies the venal and anti-democratic character of the regime that the CAF is helping to sustain in power in Afghanistan. In a further indication of the extent of the influence and power Canada is wielding in Afghanistan, it has been suggested that Khalid’s replacement might be a 28-year-old Afghan, whose only real qualifications for job are that he has developed close ties to Canada and the Canadian military. According to press reports, this individual, who goes by the pseudonym “Pasha,” received his university education in Canada and has been serving as an interpreter for the CAF. With a population of close to a million, Kandahar is one of the largest of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. Last month Canada’s two principal political parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives, joined forces to pass a parliamentary resolution authorizing the extension of the CAF intervention in southern Afghanistan from February 2009 to the end of 2011. Conservative Prime Minster Stephen Harper has championed Canada’s leading role in the Afghan counter-insurgency war. With strong support from Canada’s corporate media, he has argued that if Canada is to asserts its “interests and values” —by which he means advance the predatory interests of Canada big business—on the world stage, it must be ready to deploy the CAF alongside allied armies in prosecuting war. In rebutting opposition criticisms of Bernier’s remarks at his Kandahar press conference, Harper made clear his government fully intends to use the CAF presence to exert leverage over the Karzai government. Said Harper, “We have talked to the government of Afghanistan from time to time about concerns on the performance of that government and we will continue to talk to them from time to time.” Accolades for retiring CAF chief Also this week, General Rick Hillier said he will step down as head of the CAF in July. Hillier’s announcement prompted gushing editorials in Canada’s dailies—editorials which attest to the extent to which the Canadian elite has embraced militarism. It was Hillier who pressed the Liberal government of Paul Martin to deploy the CAF to Kandahar, for he saw this as an opportunity to put paid to the notion of Canada’s military as a “peacekeeping force,” to acclimatize the population to the shedding of blood, and to press for the CAF to be expanded and re-armed. Speaking in 2005, shortly after he had been promoted over several more senior officers to the post of CAF chief, Hiller declared, “We are not the Public Service of Canada. We are not just another department. We are the Canadian Forces and our job is to be able to kill people.” For several decades, beginning in the 1960s, the idea that Canada, unlike the US, was a “peacekeeping nation” was promoted by Canada’s elite as a key tenet of Canadian nationalism. But, at least from the 1991 Gulf War on, the Canadian bourgeoisie more and more came to see this notion as an impediment to a more aggressive foreign policy. During the 1990s the CAF was repeatedly involved in aggressive military action, deploying troops to Haiti and Somalia and taking a leading role in the 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. But with the Afghan intervention, elite efforts to promote the CAF as a central instrument of Canadian foreign policy and whip up militarist patriotism have reached a qualitatively new level. One pivotal and menacing expression of this has been the widespread support Hillier has received for assuming an unprecedented, prominent public role. The CAF chief has sought to drum-up popular enthusiasm for the Afghan intervention, criticized past governments for their funding of the military, and, in the name of plain speaking, frequently contradicted government ministers and policy. Last October, Hillier made a major speech in which he openly challenged the fundamental democratic notion of the subordination of the military to the elected civilian government. He told a meeting of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, that he is the “champion” of the people who serve in the CAF, “and in a way I serve them as much as I serve the government of Canada and you Canadians and Canada itself.” Yet no one in the government or opposition parties, or for that matter the press, so much as criticized Hillier. In an interview with the National Post on the day of his resignation, Hillier boasted that under his tenure the CAF has “achieved ... irreversible momentum.” He continued: “I can only repeat what one of my commanders once said when he noted ‘we’re not trying to be one of the big boys, we are one of the big boys and we have to start acting like it.’ That’s a very good comment because that reflects our place in the world. Canada has had a significant reprofiling in the world. We’re one of the big boys now.” In a florid editorial tribute to Hillier, the National Post repeated Hillier’s boasts about the CAF and, thanks to it, Canada being a “big boy.” The Globe and Mail was no less laudatory. Hillier, it said, “spoke frankly and correctly about the need for Canadians to embrace their military as a fighting force, refashioning the spin from Ottawa that had long sought to portray Canada’s military as an NGO. He put the bite back into the Canadian Forces. ... “Gen. Hillier represented something noble in Canada, a country that was historically, and is again, unafraid to fight for what’s right.” Also joining in this celebration of the CAF and war was the liberal Toronto Star. Hillier’s “intelligence and drive,” said the Star, have revitalized the Canadian Forces, leaving the nation a modernized, more mobile military with greater firepower.” (New York, April 16, 2008) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai should suspend the death penalty and reject signing execution orders for about 100 prisoners whose death sentences were announced by the Supreme Court on April 16, Human Rights Watch said today. "The Supreme Court’s blanket confirmation of a hundred death sentences shows disturbing disregard for the right to life." Elaine Pearson, Asia deputy director at Human Rights Watch Supreme Court officials told the media those sentenced to death had been convicted of serious crimes, such as kidnapping, hostage taking, armed robbery, murder, and rape. Legal experts and human rights organizations in Afghanistan have long expressed concerns that international due process and fair trial standards are generally not met in capital cases. Under the Afghan criminal procedure code, death sentences handed down by local criminal courts are reviewed by an appeals court, and then, if the sentence stands, must be confirmed by the Supreme Court. Confirmed death sentences must then be endorsed by the Afghan president. Legal experts in Afghanistan told Human Rights Watch that in a number of these criminal trials, the cases were not properly investigated and the courts did not disclose crucial evidence leading to convictions. Previously, prisoners in Afghanistan have been executed with little or no warning. On October 7, 2007, the authorities executed by firing squad 15 prisoners who were on death row at Pule Charkhi prison. Neither the prisoners nor their relatives were informed in advance about the executions. All prisoners were on death row for crimes that had typically been commuted to prison sentences in the past. Human Rights Watch urged President Hamid Karzai not to sign the execution orders, and instead to announce a moratorium on the death penalty. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as an inherently cruel and unusual form of punishment and a violation of fundamental human rights.
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Asadullah Khalid says the behind-the-scenes manoeuvring to replace him as Kandahar governor is part of a plot hatched at a military base and represents the latest example of dangerous friction between himself and his Canadian allies in southern Afghanistan. In his first interview since Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister suggested he should be removed, the embattled governor defended himself against charges of corruption and voiced his own complaints about his international allies, saying they broke their promises to help his police when they were locked in deadly firefights with the Taliban. Mr. Khalid said unspecified officials at Kandahar Air Field must have given "bad information" to Maxime Bernier before Canada's Foreign Minister started a diplomatic storm last week by suggesting that firing the governor would reduce corruption in the province. Only the elected government of Afghanistan should make such decisions, Mr. Khalid said, and only the Afghan government should investigate its own corruption cases. He recently invited the Afghan Attorney-General's office to examine the administration in Kandahar, he added, and that investigation had cleared him of wrongdoing. Governor Asadullah Khalid, shown The Harper government retracted Mr. Bernier's comments, and Mr. Khalid says a Canadian official later called him to apologize. While saying he's pleased by the quick reversal, Mr. Khalid thumped his fist against the wall of his office in quiet frustration as he described how his relationship with Canada became so troubled. "It was not a mistake of Mr. Bernier," he said. "It was a mistake of maybe one, two, three people in the KAF." Two Afghan sources say Mr. Khalid had anticipated moving to another job in the near future, but that the undiplomatic statement by Mr. Bernier has embarrassed President Hamid Karzai, who has decided to keep Mr. Khalid in his position for now. Perhaps realizing that he must continue working with Canada, Mr. Khalid seemed eager to repair the relationship. He was polite and gracious with a visiting Canadian reporter during lunch at his palace in Kandahar city, and spoke about the need for better co-operation with his NATO allies. "We know now that we need more co-ordination," he said. "And co-ordination is not just this: To have meetings. We need real co-ordination." Some of the recent disagreements have turned deadly, he said. On Feb. 18, Afghan police warned the Canadian troops to avoid visiting the town of Spin Boldak because of intelligence showing a suicide bomber ready to strike a convoy; the soldiers went into town despite six warnings, Mr. Khalid said, and 38 people were killed. "If they don't listen to us, we will have the kind of tragedy you saw in Boldak," he said. More recently, Mr. Khalid referred to a series of bloody incidents in which he sent eradication teams to destroy poppy fields west of Kandahar city, resulting in firefights against local insurgents that killed at least a dozen police. He blamed NATO for failing to provide backup. Canadian and British officials disagreed with the governor's version of events, saying he was sending Afghan forces to eradicate poppy outside of designated zones. A Canadian official did agree, however, that the foreigners could work better with Mr. Khalid: "We will engage him more in future." One of the ways that Canada had planned to deepen its engagement with the provincial administration in Kandahar was adding civilian advisers to the Joint Provincial Co-ordination Centre, a small Canadian military outpost inside the walls that protect the governor's palace in downtown Kandahar city. The proposal called for Canadian experts to live and work in close proximity with Mr. Khalid and help him run an effective government. But Mr. Khalid expressed little enthusiasm for the idea. "In each sector, when we need something, capacity building, reconstruction, or something, the Afghan side should tell them this is what we agree with, this is what we should do," he said. "No one can put something on us, to do like this." Although the governor never spelled out his suspicion about why he believes the Canadian Foreign Minister spoke out against him, he hinted broadly that it's connected to a campaign to install a Canadian interpreter in his place. "There was a guy named Pasha, he was working as an interpreter with your military," Mr. Khalid said. "There was a program to make him governor." Pasha is a pseudonym for a 28-year-old Afghan-Canadian who has become a well-known figure in Kandahar as an interpreter and cultural adviser for Canadian Brigadier-General Guy Laroche. Some observers see his bid for the governorship as a long shot, but Mr. Khalid said he has been hearing rumours about such a plan for the past three months. "I met the interpreter himself," Mr. Khalid said. "I told him, look, it will be better if you follow the Afghan way and meet with the President. Maybe they will need you in the government. But this is not the way. We have our own government, elected government, and our own freedom." A senior Canadian official ridiculed the idea of a conspiracy to replace the governor with a military interpreter. "The business about Pasha being hatched as a plan to replace him is really far-fetched," the official said. "It's puzzling and unfortunate and certainly patently untrue." Full transcript of Graeme Smith's interview with Kandahar governor Asadullah Khalid (pdf) 
Forces paid for friendly-fire deaths, files show
Afghan families got up to $9,000 each for losing a family member – but without any admission of liability from Canada
sheep down an Afghan street.
The sheep was one of several
items given to a Kandahar family
in compensation for their son’s
killing by coalition troops.
(DND/The Canadian Press)Thursday, April 24, 2008
“Big Boy” Canada demands changes in Afghan government
By Keith Jones
18 April 2008Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Afghanistan: Karzai Should Suspend Death Penalty
Supreme Court Announces 100 Death Sentences
“The Supreme Court’s blanket confirmation of a hundred death sentences shows disturbing disregard for the right to life,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia deputy director at Human Rights Watch. “The Afghan justice system still has a long way to go to respect the basic rights of the accused.”
“President Karzai should suspend the death penalty immediately,” said Pearson. “More mass executions will be a huge setback for the rule of law in Afghanistan.”
Afghan governor blasts plot to oust him
this weekend in his Kandahar
office, says better co-operation is
needed among his NATO allies.
(Graeme Smith/The Globe and Mail)
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