Military

DATE=February 8, 2002

TYPE=Dateline

NUMBER=7-35919

TITLE=Afghanistan's Warlords

BYLINE=Dave Arlington

TELEPHONE=619-1101

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=Neal Lavon

CONTENT=

INTRO: New fighting broke out early this month among factional leaders in Afghanistan -- bringing fresh violence to a nation weary of conflict. Officials from the United Nations and Afghanistan's interim administration have been serving as mediators in an effort to end the fighting. This edition of Dateline examines the struggle to establish the authority of the national government over Afghan warlords operating with their own armies. Here's Dave Arlington.

TEXT: When President Bush welcomed interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai to the White House late last month, the President said he understood that security was Mr. Karzai's top priority in Afghanistan.

TAPE: CUT ONE -- BUSH :10

"We're going to help Afghanistan develop her own military. That is the most important part of this visit, it seems like to me."

TEXT: But on his recent tour of world capitals, Mr. Karzai was looking for more than assistance in establishing a national army. In his address January 30th to the U-N Security Council, the Afghan leader said the initial deployment of an international security force in Kabul was insufficient and he wanted more troops in more places across his country:

TAPE: CUT TWO -- KARZAI :25

"The creation of a national police force and a national army, however, will require some time. The extension of the presence of multinational forces in Kabul and expanding their presence to other major cities will signal the ongoing commitment of the international community to peace and security in Afghanistan. We hope that you would authorize an extension and expansion of the mandate of these forces."

TEXT: Before Mr. Karzai even returned home, Security Council members saw that, without a national or international force in place beyond Kabul, deadly violence could return to the Afghan countryside. More than 50 people were killed when two warlords began a battle for control of Gardez, the capital of Afghanistan's eastern Paktia province. Nearly as many fighters were reported killed in skirmishes in northern Afghanistan between an ethnic Uzbek general and an ethnic Tajik commander. The violence was all too familiar to Afghans who remember the pre-Taleban days when warlords were in constant battles against each other. This man in Kabul told VOA rival militias eventually reduced his neighborhood to rubble.

TAPE: CUT THREE -- GULJAN (ACT IN DARI) ESTABLISH AND TAKE UNDER -- :18

TEXT: Forty-two year-old Guljan says "we know what they did. Look around and see all the houses and destruction. Who would trust them again? Maybe with the help of foreigners, he says, Afghanistan will be able to form a good national Afghan police and army." But will the warlords ever bow to national authority and give up their power and their armies? Phyllis Oakley, formerly U-S Assistant Secretary of State, says the different factions represent a significant political and military obstacle to Mr. Karzai's administration:

TAPE: CUT FOUR -- OAKLEY :46

"First of all, it's the politics.to get all these diverse groups, who have been so spread apart and independent for over twenty years, to come together and to think about the common good of the country, and perhaps giving up some of their own power and to get a process started. He faces a real military and security problem. Warlords have been used to operating off by themselves for a long time. They have troops, and those troops remain armed. He is going to have to figure out what to do about this. And I think that is why he has pressed for assistance for his own security forces and for his own army, so that he too will have the power versus the warlords."

TEXT: To further complicate matters for the interim government, factional leaders may be courted by neighboring countries that are linked to parts of Afghanistan by a common language or culture. During an appearance this month on ABC television, U-S Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld charged Iran with interference in Afghan affairs.

TAPE: CUT FIVE -- RUMSFELD :15

"We have any number of reports that Iran has been permissive and allowed transit through their country of al-Qaida. We have any number of reports, more recently, that they have been supplying arms in Afghanistan to various elements in the country."

TEXT: Iran denies the allegations. Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi has pledged that any al-Qaida or Taleban member found in Iranian territory will be expelled. The international community has promised to provide billions of dollars in assistance to help Afghanistan rebuild. Political analyst Ahmad Rashid, who has covered Afghan conflicts for more than two decades, says the aid gives Hamid Karzai an important bit of leverage over the warlords.

TAPE: CUT SIX -- RASHID :20

"The way he's going to extend his authority is not going to be through the power of the gun. He's going to use aid and money and reconstruction, and then a political process, which is really, hopefully going to eventually sideline these warlords and make them less politically important. You know, they have muscle but they don't have much brain basically. And they're not particularly popular this time around."

TEXT: But the warlords do have their armies and can continue to use the power of the gun. Afghan scholar Larry Goodson, author of the book "Afghanistan's Endless War" told me he expects to keep hearing about skirmishes outside the capital:

TAPE: CUT SEVEN -- GOODSON/ARLINGTON Q&A 1:03

[GOODSON]: "I do think it's just the beginning of probably several years, it could be, of in-fighting between various factions, violence in the countryside and sort of scrambling for position and power, 'warlordism' or anarchy."

[ARLINGTON]: "Could it be that the Afghan people are finally so fed up with these factions and these warlords that maybe their authority will not hold?"

[GOODSON]: "If there is a difference these days in favor of a more stable system, it is the substantial war weariness of the population. When you talk to the average Afghans all over the country, almost to a person, people are fed up and they think that the only solution this is a bit ironic in Afghan terms because they are so anti foreign invaders but the only solution that a lot of people are seeing is to have an outside force that is there to help disarm the combatants and make them transition into political actors."

TEXT: With their armies in competition with each other, several local commanders have been accused of feeding false information to U-S forces in an attempt to trick them into attacking a rival warlord. Afghan leader Hamid Karzai says U-S troops were intentionally misled by a local chief back in December and ended up bombing a group of tribal elders on their way to the inauguration of the interim government.

Larry Goodson a professor of International Studies at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts says three factors will determine whether Mr. Karzai can get factional leaders to offer their allegiance to his government.

Mr. Goodson says he should get the expanded peacekeeping force he is seeking as he builds a national army. Second, he must be politically adept in doling out relief assistance to local and regional players. And Afghanistan's neighbors must not be allowed to meddle in Afghan affairs:

TAPE: CUT EIGHT -- GOODSON :45

"If Hamid Karzai tells a warlord like Ismail Khan in Herat: 'I'm going to provide you with so much millions of dollars for these kinds of reconstruction projects. And, in return, of course, I want you to give up control of your military units to some Pashtun commanders that I'm going to send there,' he might say: 'I'm sorry, I just won't do that.' And then Hamid Karzai says: 'Well, I'm not going to give you the aid.' And then he's going to say: 'That's okay.I'll get it from my friends in Iran.' Ismail Khan can pay the Iranian card. Gul Agha down in Kandahar can play the Pakistani card. [Abdel Rashid] Dostum up in Mazar can play the Uzbek card. And so on."

TEXT: Mr. Karzai may get the international peacekeepers he is asking for. The chief United Nations envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, told the Security Council last week to urgently consider expanding the security force. Bentley College Professor Larry Goodson says one way to assess Mr. Karzai's success will be to look at Afghanistan's roads. If they are rebuilt -- and if they operate freely under the authority of the national government rather than at the whim of local leaders, then the country may be on track:

TAPE: CUT NINE -- GOODSON/ARLINGTON Q&A :33

[GOODSON]: "There's a symbolism with the warlords controlling the roads. It sort of bespeaks to everyone both in the outside world and to the Afghans themselves that this is a situation where the warlords control and the government doesn't. And so we need the highways to be functional once again so that the economy can work and so that people in Afghanistan feel that they can move around safely, that they do have a government."

[ARLINGTON]: "So the road to peace is actually a road to peace?"

[GOODSON]: "It is, absolutely."

TEXT: In the remaining half of the six-month interim administration, we'll find out whether that road paved with accomplishment . . . or simply good intentions. For Dateline, I'm Dave Arlington.