Jowzjan Province: Worsening Security; Mixed Reviews on

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KABUL 001574

DEPARTMENT FOR SRAP, SCA/FO, SCA/A, EUR/RPM
STATE PASS TO AID FOR ASIA/SCAA
USFOR-A FOR POLAD

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PHUM PGOV AF
SUBJECT: Jowzjan Province: Worsening Security; Mixed Reviews on
Governance; Water, Energy Projects Underway

Summary
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1. Over the past six months, deteriorating security has been the
most significant change in Jowzjan province. Insurgents have
demonstrated their ability to launch attacks both in remote
districts of the province as well as along the ring road from
Sheberghan to Mazar-e-Sharif. While the insurgency in Jowzjan and
neighboring provinces is not on the same scale as in other parts of
the country, it is growing, and neither ISAF nor ANSF-led operations
have put a dent in it. This has strained relations between
provincial officials and the PRT in Mazar-e Sharif, which covers the
region. Governor Zare is an able administrator but draws mixed
reviews from the provincial council, whose members want to be
consulted by the governor more frequently. The USAID-funded testing
of the Sheberghan natural gas fields is underway. This project
hopes to attract much needed private sector investment in
construction of a power plant that would reduce Afghanistan's
dependence on imported electricity.

Security
--------------

2. The security situation in Jowzjan has been worsening in areas
bordering the insecure districts of Faryab, Sar-e-pul and Balkh
provinces. While the insurgency in those areas is not as widespread
as it is in other parts of the country, it is growing, and is not
confined to Pashtun pockets of the north. Worse, neither ISAF nor
ANSF clearing operations have resulted in any kills or captures of
insurgent leaders there. Insurgents hiding in the lawless
Dasht-e-Laili desert area between Faryab, Jowzjan, and Sar-e-pul
provinces illegally tax residents of border villages with increasing
frequency and impunity. The Afghan National Police (ANP) are
undermanned and outgunned throughout the province. Nowhere was this
more evident than in Qush Teppah district, where a brazen March 2009
insurgent ambush claimed the lives of 11 GIRoA officials, including
the district governor and district chief of police. Reports from
the Norwegian PRT in Faryab point to cooperation between Taliban and
radical Uzbek militants in Faryab with ties to the Islamic Movement
of Uzbekistan. The police chief believes that these groups were
behind the attack on Qush Teppeh authorities.


3. The Jowzjan provincial council chairman has been very critical of
the government's failure to respond swiftly to the attack on the
Qush Teppeh officials, and told State PRT officer that he had
received several calls from alarmed district residents who were
clamoring for a strong response from the provincial government,
especially when insurgents began collecting illegal taxes from them.
The chairman fears that some of those residents may have turned
their backs on government. Both he and the provincial governor
advocate vetting and arming a select group of villagers to repel
insurgent advances in Qush Teppeh and neighboring Darzab district,
where insurgents, believed to number between 30 to 60 men, have
effectively seized control of 15 villages. The Darzab district
administrator and his police force of 18 men are afraid to venture
to some villages only a few kilometers from the district center.


4. The Qush Teppeh incident also exposed glaring deficiencies in how
information about the incident was shared among Afghan National
Security Forces (ANSF). When the German military liaison officer
from ISAF's Regional Command North arrived at the ANSF Regional
Operations Coordination Center (OCCR) nearly ten hours after the
attack, he found only one ANP training officer on duty, who still
did not have a grasp on what had actually happened in Qush Teppeh.
It took another hour to determine how many GIRoA officials had been
killed and wounded.


5. Despite resistance by German leadership of Regional Command North
to supporting an Afghan National Army (ANA) operation without Afghan
commando units, the Swedish PRT planned and executed Operation
Shaheen with the ANSF, involving over 900 men, in the Qush Teppeh
border areas. The provincial governor and chief of police have
roundly criticized the PRT for the ineffectiveness of the operation,
which failed to capture Mullah Nadir, the main leader of the
insurgency, or any of his subordinates. Governor Zare told State
PRT officer that he no longer has confidence in ISAF. A telling
sign of this loss of confidence is Zare's refusal to invite the PRT
to a regional security meeting in early June to plan a joint ANP-NDS
operation to capture Nadir. According to Governor Zare, the Afghan
army northern region commander has promised to send ANA units to the
area, but for now, those units are involved in an ongoing operation
in Ghormach district of Faryab.


6. Qush Teppeh and Darzab are only the latest problem areas in
Jowzjan. An ambush of the Feizabad district governor's convoy on
the ring road last fall left one teacher dead and the district
administrator seriously wounded. PRT units have had a few close
calls with IEDs intended for them along the ring road. The Jowzjan
police chief believes the perpetrators of these attacks are given

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safe passage in the neighboring insecure Balkh districts of
Charbolak and Chemtal. Police have recovered night notes warning
people not to cooperate with ISAF, and there has been anti-ISAF
preaching in local mosques in Aqcha, Feizabad, and Murdian
districts. The compound of a faith-based NGO in Acqha came under
rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) fire last fall. Female Turkish
teachers at a girls' school in Aqcha also narrowly escaped harm when
their apartment residences came under RPG attack a few weeks later.
In these districts, many residents have lost confidence in the
police's ability to protect them and in the courts' ability to keep
prisoners in jail. That said, some are still willing to take risks
to assist the ANP. Residents of Shisha Kana village in Feizabad
district assisted police by detaining four insurgents on motorbikes
following an attack that claimed the life of an ANP colonel on the
ring road.


7. Khwajeh do Koh district, which abuts the ring road, is the only
Jowzjan district whose police have undergone Focused District
Development (FDD) training. U.S. police mentors report that
feedback from communities in this relatively calm district toward
the newly trained Afghan police is positive. But no other Jowzjan
districts are scheduled to undergo FDD training for the next few
years. Germany will not commit to doing FDD in Jowzjan and wants
Sweden and Finland to share the burden of FDD training there. That
is unlikely to happen as both countries help fund the European Union
police (EUPOL) force in Afghanistan, which works at the provincial -
not district - level.


8. Complicating the ANP's efforts to respond to security challenges
is the recent order of the Ministry of Interior for each of the
provinces in the north to send 100 police officers to Kabul. The
Jowzjan police chief, frustrated by this order, said he will only
send new recruits to Kabul, not experienced ANP soldiers. The
reduction in police manpower raises doubts that even if ANP forces
from all Jowzjan districts were to undergo FDD training, they would
still number too few to significantly improve security in
troublesome areas. For example, the Aqcha district chief of police
remarked that he has only ten men to patrol his district. Expanding
the ANP forces in the districts and putting them through FDD stands
as a long term goal.


9. The Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups (DIAG) process has
stalled in Jowzjan, largely due to the refusal of former HiG
commander Mallawi Ebadi in Khaneqa district to turn in the weapons
cache he is widely believed to be concealing. Other former
commanders view the DIAG process skeptically, and are waiting to see
how Afghan authorities deal with Ebadi before deciding whether to
comply with DIAG. Ebadi, for his part, has denied that he still has
weapons but has also contradicted himself by reportedly saying that
he will hand over his weapons only after deputy provincial governor
Faquir, a former protege of General Dostum, hands over his.

Governance
--------------

10. Governor Hashim Zare is an educated, respected administrator,
but his performance as governor has drawn mixed reviews from his own
deputy, the provincial council, and apparently from the Independent
Directorate for Local Governance. He has deftly balanced
relationships between local Arab and Junbesh Party factions and has
even allowed Balkh Governor Atta's Jamiat Party to open an office in
Sheberghan without any incident despite the predominance of the
Junbesh Party in the province. But his tenure as governor has
coincided with a worsening security situation in the province.
Deputy Governor Faquir - a relative of Zare's - has termed Zare
"weak" in his handling of security matters. Zare is not known for
getting out and about the province, preferring to deploy his deputy
and other officials to resolve problems. His government's
month-long delay in responding with a show of force to Qush Teppeh
attack fueled the impression among residents that the government is
unresponsive at best and impotent at worst.


11. Governor Zare and his deputy governor Faquir have cleared the
air since Zare arranged for the rotation of five district
administrators in Jowzjan without consulting Faquir. Communication
between the two has improved since then, and Faquir is now brought
in on important decisions.


12. Jowzjan province remains Junbesh Party country and the
composition of the provincial council reflects that. The provincial
council chairman is a strong leader but he is frustrated that the
governor does not consult regularly with the council. Due to the
overburdened and often mistrusted formal justice system, council
members routinely find themselves settling disputes among provincial
residents. Some provincial council members accuse the attorney
general of corruption and blame the governor for protecting him.


13. Good governance is lacking at the district level. District
governors in the ethnic Turkmen districts of Khamiab and Qarqin,

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which share a border with Turkmenistan, are reportedly involved in
drug smuggling rings linked to Kabul-based government ministers.
The district administrator of Khaneqa district - a former HiG member
- is under the influence of former HiG commander Mallawi Ebadi. One
bright spot is the Darzab district administrator. A progressive,
activist administrator, he has called local National Solidarity
Program (NSP) representatives out on the carpet for allowing and
perpetrating corruption with NSP funds.


14. A sex scandal inside the Sheberghan female prison, which had
been doubling as a brothel, prompted an investigation that resulted
in the dismissal of the Jowzjan prisons chief, but only after UNAMA
pushed for a strong response from the Kabul prisons directorate.
Finland has decided to pull the plug on construction of a $1 million
euro male prison in Sheberghan in the wake of the scandal. It will
redirect this money to build police stations in Samangan province.

Development
--------------

15. (U) Jowzjan's biggest development need is potable water.
Through two small community-based grants to a community in Murdian
district, USAID has helped address this need by funding construction
of two water reservoirs near schools. Approximately 6,320 families
in the district now have reliable and safe access to clean drinking
water. Additionally, USAID's Local Governance Community
Development (LGCD) Program completed work on the largest water
reservoir project in Jowzjan that will support four communities in
the Mingajik District. The water reservoir will hold 1,485 cubic
meters of water and approximately 10,000 people will have access to
clean potable water. Governor Zare won support from President
Karzai for a $50 million potable water distribution pipe scheme, but
that approval arrived without any funding from Kabul.


16. USAID-funded testing of the Yatimtaq and Gerquduq natural gas
fields in Jowzjan began in April 2009. After determining the amount
of reserves, USAID will issue a tender for private investment in the
fields. It is believed that enough natural gas reserves exist to
fuel a power plant that could feed into the main electric grid, thus
reducing or even eliminating Afghanistan's dependence on imported
electricity from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.


17. Jowzjan province received $1 million in Good Performers
Initiative money last year for maintaining poppy-free status. The
province is expected to be declared poppy-free again this year.


18. The potential for conflict over grazing lands remains high
between Uzbek residents of Khwajeh do Koh district and Kuchi nomads.
The Kuchis have lived in the district for over twenty years but
have not been given district residency cards because they are
originally from Faryab province. Kuchis are growing in number in
the district but without residency cards, they have been ineligible
to receive benefits such as development projects through the
government's National Solidarity Progam. The provincial government
has not found a way to address this inequality yet.

EIKENBERRY