US takes risks with ties to strongman

Colonel Abdul Raziq, a 33-year-old suspected drug baron, was keen to impress his American guest.

Masked gunmen stood watch on the rooftops of mud homes at a crossing in Spin Boldak on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. More armed men zoomed past on four-wheeled dirt bikes. Col Raziq strode toward the towering “Friendship Gate” marking the frontier sporting desert-patterned fatigues, a close-cropped beard and an engaging grin.

Afghanistan map

Stanley McChrystal, the top Nato general in Afghanistan, had come in search of help. Col Raziq is the commander of 3,500 Afghan Border Police and the undisputed king of Spin Boldak, one of only two main gateways to Pakistan .

The US military needs Col Raziq’s co-operation to implement a multi-million dollar plan to modernise the crossing and build a bypass to speed up the flow of Nato supply trucks from Pakistan. The alliance will otherwise struggle to import the food and fuel needed to power a big offensive in Kandahar province this summer that Gen McChrystal hopes will change the course of the war.
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The meeting illustrates a central dilemma: relying on local strongmen to preserve stability risks undermining the broader goal of promoting good governance needed to deny the insurgents support.

The dilemma is particularly acute in Kandahar province. US officials say an offensive launched last month in Marjah in neighbouring Helmand province was the prelude to a broader operation to secure Kandahar, birthplace of the Taliban and the political and economic capital of the south.

Marjah has confronted Nato with a similar problem. Abdul Zahir, the new district leader installed after the offensive, has a criminal record in Germany according to recent news reports, though Mr Zahir denies he has any convictions.

The Kandahar campaign forms a central pillar of Gen McChrystal’s plan to protect the population in the ethnic Pashtun centre of the insurgency to buy the government of Hamid Karzai, the president, time to build stronger support. US and UK aid workers deployed as part of a “civilian surge” alongside the American troop build-up aim to implement projects to show that the state can offer more than the Taliban’s “shadow” security and justice systems.

“The most important thing we want is honest and clean administration,” said Kamal Khan, a farmer from the Now’Zad district in Helmand.

Western officials believe a combination of military pressure and civilian support is yielding dividends in Helmand. Gulab Mangal, the provincial governor, can now appoint officials in 10 of Helmand’s 13 districts, compared with four when he came into office in 2008.

The gains are fragile but Mr Gulab believes the influx of troops and advisers will help consolidate his tenuous authority. “We must gain the trust of people by keeping our promises,” he said in Lashkar Gah, Helmand’s capital.

Extending the model to Kandahar may be harder. The Taliban has placed a campaign to retake Afghanistan’s second largest city at the centre of its strategy to dominate the south.

Nato forces expect to face some hard fighting, but US officials fear it will be even tougher to overcome widespread alienation from Mr Karzai’s government.

In his Spin Boldak fiefdom, Col Raziq symbolises precisely the kind of power-broker whose method of control runs counter to the ideal of impartial, technocratic administration envisaged in Gen McChrystal’s strategy.

Col Raziq’s district is one of the safest for Nato troops in southern Afghanistan, and he is popular among many locals. But western officials suspect he is involved in a lucrative cross-border opium smuggling operation.

The opposition accused him of organising mass ballot stuffing in favour of Mr Karzai during last year’s deeply flawed elections. By packing his police with members of his Achakzai tribe, researchers say, Mr Raziq has driven their Noorzai rivals closer to the Taliban.

Col Raziq denies the allegations, saying his troops have tightened frontier controls in recent months. “There are some newspapers who have accused me of corruption and drug smuggling,” he said. “The words are coming from my enemies who want to give me and the government a bad name.”

While western officials enthuse over Mr Mangal’s modernising approach in Helmand, in Kandahar US officials fear Ahmed Wali Karzai. President Karzai’s influential half-brother – known locally as the “king of the south” – is less supportive of reform. “He’s sucking all the oxygen out of every political initiative that we’re attempting,” a senior US official said.

Mr Karzai’s critics accuse him of using his position as chairman of Kandahar’s provincial council to favour his family’s Popalzai tribe, angering smaller groups. Mr Karzai has dismissed such criticism, saying he has used his influence to help stabilise the province.

Combating the disaffection that has fuelled the Taliban’s resurgence in Kandahar will be one of the west’s hardest tasks. “You have to get people to believe that government by crypto-warlord syndicate is not necessarily inevitable or permanent,” the US official said. “It’s going to be very tough.”