Will the Afghan National Security Forces be able to hold their own after the Americans leaveIJ The killing of an Indian author is a chilling reminder of the dangers that lurk post-2014
The killing of the Indian author, Sushmita Banerjee, outside her home in Afghanistan’s Paktika Province, where she lived with her Afghan husband, Mr Jaanbaz Khan, bears the unmistakeable imprimatur of the Taliban. The crime once again raises the question of the Afghan National Security Forces’, and particularly of its main component, the Afghan National Army’s ability to hold the Taliban at bay once the bulk of the American and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s forces depart in 2014. The assessments, earlier uniformly pessimistic, are now mixed and even offer a glimmer of hope that the ANSF and ANA may succeed.
In this context, a report by Azam Ahmed, carried by The New York Times on August 30, stands out for being different from the usual doomsday forecasts in Western media. It shows how Afghan forces have not only held on but have had an impact on the situation in Pech Valley in eastern Afghanistan where, following heavy casualties, American forces had to abandon in 2011 an offensive, ‘Operation Khanjar’ (curved sword), they had launched against the Taliban in 2009.
Understandably, a contingent of American troops that returned to the rugged stretch of terrain that had been so violent that they had christened it “Valley of Death”, and where its soldiers did not expect the Afghans to last “even for weeks” on their own, were surprised. Equally understandably they began wondering how such an unthinkable eventuality came about! Their conclusions are important as indicators of how the security situation in Afghanistan can unfold in the future.
One of these is that the withdrawal of foreign troops has removed an irritant and the local Taliban often hesitated to attack Afghan Government troops who were Muslims like them. There seemed in some cases to have been an understanding between the two sides as to what was off limits for each other. Also, the performance of the Afghan troops had improved with intensified training, better arms and combat experience. Finally, an aggressive campaign of American drone strikes in Pech over the past year and a half had devastated Taliban networks and killed the organisation’s leaders — including Dost Muhammad Khan, Nuristan’s shadow governor, and “a crucial asset for Al Qaeda” and their facilitators.
The question is whether the Afghan National Army will be able to hold on to its gains after the Western withdrawal. It is one thing to succeed in Pech which is only one area, albeit with a record of deadly violence, and quite another to prevail over the whole of Afghanistan. Significantly, according to a report by Ben Farmer in The Daily Telegraph of August 18, it has been a somewhat different story in the southern district of Sangin where Afghan forces, suffering heavy casualties from a Taliban offensive that began in late May, called for help from the British who had earlier fought the Taliban in the area at great cost to themselves in terms of human lives. The 80-man strong British mission which led to the neutralisation of more than 30 IEDs and the killing and detention of a number of Taliban, cost the lives of a number of Afghan soldiers but not of any Britisher. In addition, Americans provided satellite images to help the Afghans target groups of Taliban and evacuated wounded Afghan soldiers by air, but, unlike in the past, did not fight or provide the air support. The resultIJ The situation has been somewhat stabilised but Sangin remains “a challenging area”.
According to a report by Steven Swinford in The Daily Telegraph of September 5, Nato commanders, while believing that the ANA has the ability to fight the insurgency, are concerned that they lack technical and logistical expertise. It quotes a senior military source as saying that as a result, Nato soldiers might be required in a non-combat role for “three to five years” beyond December 2014, and were likely to provide casualty evacuation and logistics to the Afghan National Army beyond the official draw-down in December 2014. In fact, the source suggested that Britain’s military involvement after the draw-down was likely to be far more significant than previously thought.
Two things are going to be critically important — the size of the Afghan Army, which will have to shoulder the bulk of the military operations, and the kind of air an artillery support they received. The ANA had a strength of 2,00,000 at the beginning of the year, and the ANSF, which includes Afghan National Police and other law enforcement organisations as well, of 3,52,000. This is highly inadequate. As lieutenant General (Retired) RK Sawhney points out in his chapter ‘Afghanistan Today’ in Afghanistan: A Role for India, the US counter-insurgency doctrine prescribed the presence of 20 to 25 counter-insurgency personnel for every 1,000 residents. Afghanistan’s population of roughly 28.4 million (some put it at 30 million) call for the deployment of anything between 5,68,000 and 7,10,000 troops.
Instead of trying to raise the ANSF’s strength to either level, the US and its allies are talking of reducing it to 2,28,000 by 2017. This will be absolutely disastrous, particularly since the ANA does not have the air force and heavy artillery support it needs —the second of the two critically important factors — to prevail over the Taliban. It is important, therefore, that the Americans and their allies provide ANA with both and continue to provide adequate support in the interim.
A matter of serious concern here is funds. According to reports, the US and the Nato countries involved would not be able to spend around six billion dollars annually on the ANSF which they have been doing, and would be able to afford only $4.1 billion dollars which would sustain an ANSF strength of 2,28,000. As of now, only a part of the revised amount has been accounted for and it seems doubtful whether the total will be available.
If this happens, others will have to step in. India, whose foreign policy has of late been marked by incredible cravenness, has reportedly refused military aid to President Hamid Karzai. The Government should be compelled to change its policy and coordinate with countries like Russia and others, which have a stake in the region, to prevent a Pakistan-backed Taliban-Al Qaeda takeover of Afghanistan. The consequences of such an eventuality need hardly be spelt out.