Development News from Afghanistan

By Farhad Peikar
Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA)
December 21, 2006

Kabul_(dpa) _ As NATO took over the security of the whole of Afghanistan, the year 2006 was the bloodiest for the war-shattered country, with the greatest death toll since the ouster of the Taliban regime in late 2001.

Over 3,900 people, including over 1,000 civilians, were killed in the militancy in 2006, four times the death toll of 2005.

The US-led coalition forces invaded Afghanistan after Osama bin Laden was accused of masterminding the attacks on US cities on September 11, 2001.

After a month of air operations, the Taliban government was toppled and the US stationed about 20,000 soldiers in the country to track down the remnants of the Taliban and their allies in the al-Qaeda network.

Al-Qaeda’s leaders Mullah Mohammad Omar and bin Laden are widely believed to be hiding in the tribal areas that lie between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

March saw the first visit of US President George W Bush who said in Kabul that, five years down the line, he was still confident that bin Laden “will be brought to justice.”

But soon after his visit, Taliban-led militants intensified their insurgency, mainly in the southern and eastern parts of the country, after the snows thawed.

Five years on, the Taliban managed to capture control of two districts in the volatile southern province of Helmand in July.

The militancy got bloodier when NATO, which took over the command of UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in 2003, took charge of security in the southern provinces, bringing the security responsibility of the entire country under its command in October.

The insurgency included over 100 suicide attacks, a tactic that Afghans had never experienced before 2003, which left over 270 Afghan civilians and 17 international soldiers dead this year, according to figures provided by ISAF.

The Afghan officials have always accused Pakistan of not doing enough to stop cross-border infiltration by the Taliban, whom they believe get training, financial support and motivation in madrassas (religious schools) located on Pakistani soil.

Relations between the two main allies of the US in the war deteriorated as a result of mutual verbal attacks by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharraf.

The growing insecurity in the southern and eastern regions of the country have also hampered rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, a country badly devastated by three decades of war.

The lack of improvements in the lives of the ordinary people, despite billions of dollars having been poured into the country by donor states, has tempered the legitimate hopes of Afghans with signs of frustration, hopelessness and disillusionment.

According to the Health Ministry, more than 400 children below the age of 5 die every day in Afghanistan. The country continues to have the highest infant-mortality rate in the world and the second highest maternity-mortality rate.

General David Richards, NATO’s top commander in the country, has warned that if the alliance fails to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people by conducting development projects in the next six months, about 60 percent of the population would turn against the international forces and the Afghan government.

The timeframe he referred to would be the winter months, which in the past have proven to be a relatively peaceful period.

The other challenge that both the international community and the Afghan government face is the menace of the country’s booming drug trade.

Afghanistan registered a record in 2006 as opium cultivation was found to have increased by over 60 per cent since 2005. Afghanistan produces over 80 per cent of the world’s opiates.

At the Riga summit held in late November, the NATO alliance stated that Afghanistan remained its primary mission outside its territory.

While the international community’s commitment to staying the course in Afghanistan is heartening, it must ensure that development work is not forgotten in the fight against the insurgency.

In a televised address at the launch of the so-called Action Plan on Peace, Reconstruction and Justice in Afghanistan, which coincided with International Human Rights Day, Karzai was moved to tears as he reviewed the pitiful state of the country and lamented that the deaths of innocent civilians in counter-insurgency operations was not always possible to avoid.

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