PRT/TARIN KOWT - TALIBAN REMAIN POTENT THREAT IN SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 KABUL 001103 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR SCA/FO, SCA/A, INL, EUR/UBI, EUR/RPM, S/CT NSC FOR HARRIMAN/AMEND CENTCOM FOR POLAD, CG CFC-A, CG CJTF REL NATO/ISAF/AUS/NZ E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/13/2016 TAGS: PTER MARR SNAR PGOV SOCI AF SUBJECT: PRT/TARIN KOWT - TALIBAN REMAIN POTENT THREAT IN SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN KABUL 00001103 001.8 OF 004 Classified By: POLITICAL COUNSELOR ANGUS SIMMONS, FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) A ND (D) ¶1. (S) SUMMARY. The security environment in the province of Uruzgan in southern Afghanistan remains grave. The Taliban threat has not diminished over time and may increase in the near term. The provincial government - only marginally effective on the best of days - shows signs of surrendering its reach into the province's outer districts, leaving a vacuum of security and governance that is, in turn, filled by insurgents. These assessments are borne out by a review of reports of insurgent activities; by conversations with provincial officials and citizens; and by on-the-ground perspectives from coalition forces in the province. By all measures, Afghan authorities are a long way from establishing in Uruzgan the secure environment necessary to take on the next set of challenges such as good governance, education, and rule of law. The single greatest deficit hampering progress here is the lack of competent provincial leadership, and while we are hopeful that the arrival of a new governor will mark a turning point, locals are less sanguine. END SUMMARY. BACKGROUND ON URUZGAN -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Isolated by dusty and mountainous terrain, the 200,000 inhabitants of Uruzgan province are traditional, religious, and deeply conservative. The provincial capital of Tarin Kowt has one rugged road to the outside, linking it to Kandahar. The people are overwhelmingly Pashtun with Hazara communities along the northern border: violent tribal conflict is a fact of life here. The Maryland-size province comprises five districts: Dae-Rawod and Charchina (Shahidi-Has) in the west, Khas-Uruzgan and Chora in the east, and Tarin Kowt district in the center, where the village of Tarin Kowt (pop. 6,000) serves as provincial capital. Economic activity is entirely agricultural, apart from those employed by the government or the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). The town of Tarin Kowt has about 200 tiny shops in its bazaar, selling clothing, produce, and small household items. There are no medium or large scale economic activities in the province. Poppy cultivation is significant and the UN ODCCP predicts this year's crop, concentrated in the Helmand River valley, will be substantially larger than 2005's, when Uruzgan's crop dropped sharply to 4,600 hectares (seventh among Afghan provinces). The drug trade has deeply penetrated the countryside and corrupted government officials. ¶3. (C) Taliban leader Mullah Omar was born in Uruzgan in 1959, and conditions have changed little since then. Abject poverty, tribalism, illiteracy, tribal codes in lieu of modern law, isolation from Kabul, and radicalizing influences from Pakistan create fertile recruiting ground for anti-coalition militia (ACM). Provincial officials believe that most insurgents are local men, recruited by ACM leaders who slip into the province from Pakistan. One district chief told us he can only stand by and watch as local boys disappear for months and then return from Pakistan radicalized. WEAK PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT -------------- KABUL 00001103 002.8 OF 004 ¶4. (C) Jan Mohammed Khan, an old ally of President Karzai and a former Mujahadeen fighter, has been Uruzgan's appointed governor since 2002. Last week, Karzai fired Jan Mohammed and replaced him with an outsider, Hakim Monib, but Monib has not arrived and Jan Mohammed remains in place. Jan Mohammed's local power base is his Pashtun-Populzai tribe, the strongest in the province. His cousin heads the AHP highway police. Jan Mohammed is corrupt, autocratic, divisive, administratively incompetent, and embedded in tribal rivalries - yet no decisions are made without his endorsement. In a typical exchange at a recent meeting, Jan Mohammed apologized to PRT officials for arriving late, saying he had to resolve a tribal feud that dated back to a murder twenty years ago, and a recent revenge murder in response. The governor's solution was not to arrest the revenge killer but rather to order him to marry the victim's sister. Jan Mohammed then expressed his condolences on the death of a U.S. soldier killed the day before in a nearby IED strike, and the ex-guerilla fighter then offered his solution to the province's escalating violence: government security forces alongside coalition units should hide in the hills at night and ambush Taliban insurgents. PRT officials' suggestions that it would be useful to develop a more comprehensive security plan made no visible impact on the governor. (We are now undertaking such planning with the chiefs of provincial security forces.) Jan Mohammed will not be missed. A PALPABLE FEAR AMONG CITIZENS -------------- ¶5. (C) The provincial government does not exercise equal authority in all five districts, and it is increasingly unable to reach large areas outside of Tarin Kowt, comprising more than half the province's area. Lack of security and infrastructure make overland transportation dangerous and contribute to the cycle of isolation and radicalism. Government activities outside Tarin Kowt generally require escorts by police or military units, and government officials readily admit they are afraid to work in the outer districts. For example, a USG-sponsored Alternative Livelihood program was designed to provide much-needed supplies of wheat seed and fertilizer to farmers, yet months later the stocks destined for Charchina district remain in Tarin Kowt warehouses because local officials are unable/unwilling to move them out to the field. These fears were only compounded on March 2 when insurgents in Chora district burned two trucks bearing 29 tons of World Food Program assistance. These fears are heard repeatedly in conversations with officials and citizens here who recount the often-grisly details of recent Taliban murders in the villages. Provincial officials told us that village elders in the Mirabad valley of Chora district reported being warned by the Taliban not to speak with government officials. People here believe the security environment is growing worse, they believe the Taliban are becoming stronger, they have little confidence in government security forces, and they are petrified to act or speak out for fear of being targeted. SEVERE TALIBAN THREAT -------------- KABUL 00001103 003.8 OF 004 ¶6. (S) The Taliban and the poppy economy have filled the vacuum left behind by the government's shrinking bubble of authority. The situation is particularly acute on the western bank of the Helmand River in Charchina and Dae-Rawod districts and is growing increasingly severe in Chora and Khas-Uruzgan as well. Our assessment is that the majority of the population, given a free choice, would opt for normalcy and cooperate with government and coalition activities, and we are generally well-received in these areas. However, many are not given a free choice and there is significant and persistent support for the insurgents. One coalition military officer with extensive field experience here states that in Charchina district, one in three adult males is a Taliban supporter. The rest, he believes, are neutral or too frightened to speak out. He estimates there are several hundred active Taliban in Uruzgan, with no signs of weakening despite significant successes against the insurgents in ¶2005. Local officials told us recently that the Taliban believe they have Charchina "under control" - with the help of "thirty Arab fighters" now in that district - and will seek to expand their control to other areas during the transition to the new governor. The current Taliban leader in Uruzgan is Mullah Mohammed Yunis from northern Kandahar province, according to local officials. ¶7. (S) The Taliban typically operate in small units and have become adept in the use of IEDs, and recently IEDs followed by an ambush. They also use small arms and RPGs against security forces, slipping away before coalition air support arrives. Against civilians, they employ terror tactics, notably night notes followed by murder/mutilation of those suspected of supporting the government or coalition. The insurgents hail from these villages and are intimately familiar with the terrain, personalities, and tribal traditions. The struggle here is not only about anti-coalition or anti-GOA activities, but also about the complicated map of tribal politics. ¶8. (S) A review of Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force (CJSOTF) activity reports over the past year illustrates the persistence of the insurgency here. High-profile incidents, such as the IED strikes on February 13 and 28 that resulted in the deaths of five US soldiers, focus attention but fail to illustrate the ongoing, daily nature of the security crisis here. CJSOTF reports on only that fraction of overall incidents that involve or come to the attention of coalition forces such as an attack on a firebase, the discovery of a weapons cache, or the clearing of an IED. Thus, the majority of Taliban activities in the villages will not be reported. Since March 2005, an average of 18 incidents per month were recorded, including 28 in February 2006. The western districts of Charchina and Dae-Rawod account for 35% and 33% of reports, respectively. Chora district, with the treacherous Mirabad valley, accounts for the fewest reports, but that is likely because it is the only district without a permanent coalition presence to engage insurgents and report on incidents. The February 28 IED strike on US troops was in Chora, as was the March 2 burning of the WFP trucks. The majority of the 28 incidents that occurred in February took place after the commencement of CJSOTF offensive operations centered on the Khod River valley, following the February 13 IED attack that killed KABUL 00001103 004.8 OF 004 four U.S. soldiers. THE COALITION RESPONSE -------------- ¶9. (S) There was no significant Coalition presence in Uruzgan before mid-2004. Now, Coalition forces, working jointly with the Afghan National Army (ANA) conduct frequent anti-insurgency operations throughout the province. CFC-A identifies the increased Coalition activity as a main cause of increased Taliban, insurgent and criminal activity in the province, since Coalition operations threaten their interests. However, at present there is only limited Coalition coverage of the northern Helmand area bordering Uruzgan, and there is no Coalition presence in the neighboring province of Day Kundi. The ANA presence in Uruzgan consists of two undermanned battalions deployed at Forward Operating Bases in four of the five districts. The ANA are improving but are not ready to take on a lead security role. Most responsibility for local security falls to the Afghan Highway Police (AHP) and Afghan National Police (ANP) --the semi- reintegrated militias of Uruzgan's two rival warlords Governor Jan Mohammad and Police Chief Rozi Khan. While they are capable of anti-Taliban operations, neither the AHP nor ANP is yet up to the role of standard civilian police activities. Thus, coalition forces are key to strengthening the local forces and to engaging the insurgents in a strategic way. The PRT engages with and strengthens provincial authorities in many other ways, including police training, reconstruction of infrastructure, circulating medical clinics, and coordination meetings designed to improve the capability of overmatched local officials. COMMENT - LEADERSHIP IS JOB ONE -------------- ¶10. (S) Uruzgan province is at baseline zero by almost any measurable standard. There is enormous work to be done concurrently in multiple sectors. But - given the autocratic governing style that is the norm here - the sine qua non for security, infrastructure, and social programs to be effective is the installation and empowerment of a capable governor. The new governor must move to strengthen local institutions, including a competent local bureaucracy that can plan projects, disburse resources, and administer law and governance, so that provincial authorities can reestablish control over the entire province. All eyes in Uruzgan are focused this week on the governor's compound in Tarin Kowt, wondering what changes the new governor will bring. Friends and foes of Jan Mohammed, men who have survived remarkable changes of circumstance and leadership over the past three decades, are patiently awaiting the new man before they decide their next move. Nobody is revealing his thoughts or expressing any expectations. Our modest hopes rest on the fact that the new governor appears ambitious, has some governing experience, and as an outsider he owes no loyalty to the existing tribal structures here, nor to anyone but President Karzai. If the new governor is looking for problems to solve, he will find Uruzgan a target-rich environment. NEUMANN