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Original: English
NATO Parliamentary Assembly
DEFENCE AND SECURITY
COMMITTEE
Afghanistan – Post-ISAF
SPECIAL Report
Julio MIRANDA CALHA (Portugal)
Special Rapporteur
www.nato-pa.int 11 October 2015
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Introduction 1
II. RESOLUTE SUPPORT Mission and Goals 10
III. Security Environment Overview 30
A. TALIBAN TACTICS AND STRATEGIES 46
B. OTHER INSURGENT FORCES 60
C. NARCOTICS TRAFFICKING 71
IV. AFGHAN NATIONAL DEFENSE AND SECURITY FORCES Status 80
A. CAPABILITY GAPS AND INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT 91
V. Government Status 97
VI. Development Indicators 128
VII. Evolutions and engagements with the Region 154
A. PAKISTAN 163
VIII. Status of negotiations with the Taliban 171
IX. Conclusions 189
BIBLIOGRAPHY 199
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I. Introduction
1. On 1 January 2015, the Resolute Support Mission (RSM) replaced the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) as an international force to train, advise, and assist the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF).[1] Although an end-date has not yet been formally set for this mission, RSM is widely expected to conclude by the end of 2016 when the United States draws down to a normal Embassy presence, as outlined by President Obama in May 2014.
2. At the end of 2014, the Inteqal Transition Process, focusing on political, security, and socioeconomic sectors in the country drew to a close. On 1 January 2015, Afghanistan formally entered its Transformation Decade, where Afghanistan has full leadership and ownership of its national affairs (UN, 2015a). The 2014 political transition has lent new dynamism to the country’s relations with the region and the international community working to assist the country’s ongoing transition.
3. Although relations with Afghanistan are normalizing, the stakes remain high for NATO Allies and their partners in Afghanistan. Building a viable state in post-Taliban Afghanistan serves both strategic regional and global security interests. Continuing to degrade remaining insurgent forces in Afghanistan and maintaining a viable counter-terrorism capacity in the region is necessary, at least until a negotiated peace can be achieved. Progress on these fronts will undergird the stability of Afghanistan and contribute significantly to regional stability.
4. NATO and its partners must consolidate their gains and focus attention on the success of RSM. Encouragingly, the National Unity government under President Ashraf Ghani’s leadership has expressed the will to be a strong partner in this endeavour. This committee will remain seized with the issue throughout the mission, continuing to monitor the progress of the security situation in the country and the institutions charged with guaranteeing the future viability of Afghanistan.
II. RESOLUTE SUPPORT Mission and Goals
5. NATO and its partners are leading and executing the Resolute Support Mission, for which NATO heads of state reaffirmed their support at the 2014 NATO Summit in Wales. In addition to RSM, the United States will also maintain a parallel counterterrorism mission.
6. RSM is a train, advise, and assist mission aimed at supporting the ANDSF through the end of 2016, which places international forces in a non-combat role. RSM provides logistical, intelligence, and air support to the ANDSF as the security forces continue to build strength against insurgent forces (UN, 2015a). This will help further develop the Afghan security institutions and their capabilities, enabling them to conduct the various national-level functions needed for generating, resourcing, and sustaining fielded forces. These include planning, programming, budgeting processes, resource management, and procurement. Both the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of the Interior, which provide oversight for the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) respectively, currently lack qualified and experienced leadership and suffer from low institutional prioritization of planning and budget functions ([US Department of Defense (DoD), 2014].
7. In order to develop the long-term sustainability of the Afghan security institutions and ANDSF, capacity development efforts are focused on eight essential functions: 1) plan, program, budget, and execute; 2) transparency, accountability, and oversight; 3) civilian governance of the Afghan security institutions and adherence to rule of law; 4) force generation; 5) sustain the force; 6) plan, resource, and execute effective security operations; 7) develop sufficient intelligence capabilities and processes; and 8) maintain internal and external strategic communication capability (US DoD, 2014). This includes the promotion, development and implementation of best practices and common guidelines for biometric data collection, storage, and sharing with RSM and NATO, enabling standardization of forensic and biometric data formats, technical interfaces, and methodologies.
8. In accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2189 (2014), RSM works in close coordination with the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) and is operating from Kabul and four regional locations: Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, and Jalalabad (UN, 2015a). Four countries serve as framework nations taking the organisational lead in specific geographic areas of Afghanistan: the United States (east and south Afghanistan), Germany (north), Italy (west), and Turkey (Kabul).
9. Initial plans for RSM called for 12,000 troops to meet mission requirements, with the UnitedStates contributing the bulk of the forces. The United States initially planned to withdraw half of its remaining forces in Afghanistan by the end of 2015, with a view to complete withdrawal by the end of 2016. However, in response to a request from President Ghani, the United States is slowing its timetable for withdrawal. To date, the United States has agreed to keep 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through the end of this year to support both RSM and the US counterterrorism mission (SIGAR, 2015c). As of May 2015, the Resolute Support Mission was being executed by 40troop-contributing nations (25 NATO Allies and 15 partner nations), consisting of 11,325 NATO and 1,900 partner forces. Approximately 6,500 RSM personnel are provided by the United States (US DoD, 2015). US troop levels for 2016 will be decided later this year.
10. President Obama and President Ghani stated that this change in the pace of the drawdown of RSM and US counter-terrorism operations was a necessary response to the expected Taliban aggression over the spring and summer months, along with a parallel realization that the ANDSF require additional training (Shear and Mazzetti, 2015). The US military presence in Afghanistan after 2016 is still expected to be limited to a security mission based at its Embassy in Kabul, with about 1,000 personnel. NATO Allies and Resolute Support operational partners are expected to reduce their forces in parallel by the end of 2016 (US DoD, 2015).
11. On 13 May 2015, NATO Ministers for Foreign Affairs endorsed a set of guidelines and principles for NATO’s post-2016 support to the ANDSF following the completion of RSM. The NATO-Afghanistan Enduring Partnership will become a civilian-led mission, but will maintain a military component (UN, 2015b). The Enduring Partnership will continue NATO’s ministerial and institutional level advising beyond 2016 (US DoD, 2015).
12. Both RSM and US counterterrorism operations are enabled by two agreements signed in late 2014. Representatives of the Afghan government and the United States signed the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) on 30 September 2014, providing the legal basis for US forces to remain in Afghanistan post-2014. NATO representatives signed a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) for a more broad-based international security force presence in the country immediately following the signing of the BSA. These documents were originally due to be signed in late 2013, and their delay caused difficulties for the detailed planning of RSM, and for force deployment by some NATO and partner countries. The United States provided an additional 1,000 troops at the beginning of 2015 to bridge the force generation gap and allow RSM to commence at full strength.
III. Security Environment Overview
13. Afghanistan is actively threatened by a convergence of insurgent, terrorist, and criminal networks. The conflict has intensified since the launch of RSM, leading to a deteriorating security situation accompanied by historic levels of attrition and casualties not only for the ANDSF and the Taliban, but also among the civilian population. While the southern, south-eastern, and eastern regions continue to bear most of the violence, security incidents have spread into the north and northeast regions, which were previously considered relatively safe (SIGAR, 2015c).
14. On April 22, the Taliban launched its spring offensive. In the week following the announcement, there was a 45% increase in recorded armed clashes, compared to the week following 2014’s announcement (UN, 2015b). The Taliban’s stated primary targets are “foreign occupiers” as well as government offices and Afghan security forces. Nevertheless, the UN reported that less than 1% of attacks were directed against Coalition bases from 15 February to30April 2015. The majority of attacks instead targeted the ANDSF, Afghan government officials, and Afghan facilities (SIGAR, 2015c).
15. In 2015, the ANDSF is engaging in its first fighting season without the full support of coalition combat forces and with access to only very limited coalition air and ISR support (USDepartmentof Defense, 2015). ANDSF forces are being stretched thin as they respond to increasing threats and conflict throughout the country. As of June 2015, 40 of 50 Afghan districts were facing security threats while the Afghan Ministry of Defense had ongoing counterinsurgency operations in 14 of 34 provinces (SIGAR 2015c; UNAMA, 2015).
16. The insurgency is resilient. While various organizations measure security in Afghanistan differently, most[2] portray 2015 and 2014 as particularly violent years. The United Nations tracks the number of security-related events relevant to the work, mobility, and safety of civilians across the country impacting the delivery of United Nations-mandated activities and programmes. 2014 experienced an increase in such incidents of 10% over 2013 and 2014 was second highest for such events in the UN’s 13-year record, surpassed only by 2011 (UN, 2015a).
17. Civilian casualties are on the rise. The UN expects 2015 numbers to equal or exceed the record high numbers of civilian casualties documented in 2014, when UNAMA recorded the highest number of civilian casualties in any given year since it began documenting civilian casualties in 2009. In the first half of 2015, the UN documented 4,921 civilian casualties, a
1% increase in total civilian casualties compared to the same period in 2014. Of particular concern, however, a 23 and 13% increase in casualties to women and children respectively. With 3,699 civilians killed and 6,849 civilians injured in 2014, Afghanistan saw a 22% increase in civilian casualties over 2013 (UN, 2015a; UNAMA and UN OHCHR, 2015).
18. In 2015, roughly 70% of these casualties were attributed to the Taliban and affiliated groups, not including casualties caused by unattributed fire exchanges with pro-government forces. Approximately 16% of civilian casualties were caused by pro-government forces, a 60% increase from 2014, mostly due to an increased number of ground engagements. In accordance with the insurgency’s reliance on ground attacks (as outlined below), ground engagements between
pro-government and insurgent forces were the leading cause of civilian casualties for the first time in 2014, as well as in 2015, followed by improvised explosive devices (IEDs), complex and suicide attacks, and targeted killings. The slight rise in civilian casualties in the first half of 2015 is due to an increasing number of suicide and complex attacks, as well as targeted killings (UN, 2015a; UNAMA and UN OHCHR, 2015).
A. Taliban Tactics and Strategies
19. The 2015 fighting season is particularly intense: violence has increased from 2014, when the Taliban conducted one of its most fierce and distributed campaigns since 2003. Ultimately the Taliban failed to achieve their objectives in 2014, including disrupting the Afghan presidential elections (US DoD, 2014). While the final head of Coalition combat operations believed that the ANDSF could beat the Taliban, at least tactically, if properly motivated (Ahmed, 2014), the path and timeline to peace is unlikely to be either fast or smooth (UN, 2015a).
20. The rising number of security incidents indicates a mounting challenge for the ANDSF
(UN, 2015a). The strategies of core insurgent leaders focus on disrupting GIRoA and ANDSF authority channels, and undermining their standing among the civilian population. In 2014 and 2015, insurgent groups made serious attempts to capture territory, using as many as several hundred insurgents fighters in major ground offensives (UN, 9 December 2014; SIGAR, 2015c). Insurgents also emphasized targeting ANDSF and GIRoA officials and increasing the number of assassinations and kidnappings. From 10 February to 30 April 2015, the UN recorded
160 successful and 40 attempted assassinations, representing a 10% increase from the same period in 2014. An additional 91 abductions were reported in the same period, an increase of 21.3% from 2014 (UN, 2015b).
21. High-profile attacks are becoming more prevalent, particularly in Kabul. While the ANDSF has been able to respond to attacks, the results have been deadly. On 22 June a particularly brazen attack on the Afghan Parliament took place as parliamentarians prepared to confirm the Minister of Defence nominee. Afghan security forces repelled and killed the attackers, but only after the attackers killed a woman and child and injured 31 others. No parliamentarians were hurt during the attack. In August 2015, following the announcement of the death of Mullah Omar, three bombs were detonated in four days, killing and injuring nearly 400 Afghans. In May 2015, the Taliban detonated a car bomb outside Afghanistan’s Ministry of Justice, killing five people and injuring at least 42 others (SIGAR 2015c).
22. As noted above, large-scale ground offensives became an increasingly common insurgent tactic in 2014, this trend continues into 2015. In 2014, several hundred combatants often engaged in protracted battles, with orchestrated major assaults against district centres and ANDSF strongholds in brazen attempts to seize and hold territory. Fighting was particularly fierce in the provinces of Helmand, Faryab, Ghor, Logar, Nangarhar, Nuristan, and Kunduz. With limited support from US and NATO forces and hampered by a lack of offensive air capabilities, the ANDSF experienced serious difficulties neutralizing insurgent advances. Despite suffering heavy casualties, the ANDSF proved capable of defending against the majority of the offensives and even recovered lost territory (UN, 9 December 2014). According to Afghan media, during the first six months of 2015, insurgents carried out attacks in larger groups of fighters, resulting in the capture of a number of districts (SIGAR 2015c).