Afghan tribe makes first step in anti-Taliban pact by bringing in alleged collaborator

Afghan tribe takes first step in anti-Taliban pact

FORWARD OPERATING BASE HUGHIE, Afghanistan — The man accused of running drugs and abetting the Taliban sat on a bench in a room full of Afghan elders, glancing warily at the American diplomat and the Afghan police commander on either side of him.

The Americans had been planning to arrest 28-year-old Qari Rahmat, but held off in the hope that the leaders of his Shinwari tribe would persuade him to mend his ways.

The turnaround came this week, around a table laden with fruit and soft drinks, when Rahmat stood up and pledged fealty to the law and the Afghan constitution. He also denied having collaborated with the Taliban, but everyone seemed content to ignore the past so long as he was sincere about the future.

The scene that unfolded Tuesday, in front of U.S. military commanders and a dozen bearded, shawl-draped elders, was the first evidence that the Shinwari tribe is making good on a pact signed by 170 elders last month to banish the Taliban from their corner of eastern Afghanistan.

The U.S. pledged more than $1 million to the tribe for development after the signing of the January agreement.

Some may see it as a glimmer of hope that the Iraq experience of allying with tribes to fight insurgents can be replicated in Afghanistan. But Rahmat’s case is just the first since the signing of the pact, and even the Shinwari’s pledge will be hard to copy elsewhere in Afghanistan. Many argue that the two countries are too different for analogies to be drawn.

“The way people in rural Afghanistan organize themselves is so different from rural Iraqi culture that calling them both ‘tribes’ is deceptive,” says a September U.S. Army report. “‘Tribes’ in Afghanistan do not act as unified groups, as they have recently in Iraq.”

It’s also a controversial strategy, because President Hamid Karzai complains that too much foreign aid is bypassing his government and undermining its authority.

But at least with the 600,000 Shinwaris in this small patch of Afghanistan, the approach appears to be working.

The tribal elders promised Rahmat that he wouldn’t be arrested and will enter him in a government program to reconcile repentant Taliban — a key move that shows their willingness to work with the government.

If he breaks the rules, he’ll be fined up to $20,000 and “We’ll burn his house down,” said Usman, a Shinwari elder who like many Afghans goes by one name.

Rahmat, a thin, heavily bearded man, had been on the military’s most-wanted lists for months, said Lt. Col. Randall Simmons, who commands the roughly 500 U.S. troops in the area.

He’s a “Taliban facilitator and probably the top narco-trafficker in the southeast,” Simmons said. But the military held off on arresting him because it decided that building trust with the tribe was more important.

“We could go out and kill these guys all day long, like we have been, but as soon as you whack one, another one takes his place,” Simmons said.

The aid money was not pledged with any conditions, he added, but they hoped it would embolden the tribe to take actions like delivering Rahmat. Simmons hopes that next they’ll band together to demand the governor fire district officials suspected of stealing government funds meant to go to the community.

The Shinwari elders will have to agree how to allocate the funds: some projects dicussed include health clinics and schools. They’ve already been working on U.S.-funded jobs programs involving bridge-building and canal-cleaning, but those involve far smaller sums.

The main reason the Americans decided to bypass local officials is, in Usman’s words, because “probably 95 percent of them are corrupt.”

Simmons said he soon realized that none of the Shinwari elders trusted the government representatives, and the only one at the meeting was border police commander Col. Niazi, who has become a trusted intermediary.

He said he is being harassed by district officials who claim he is trying to do their jobs, and that he recently was told to transfer to another province but got the order reversed.

Government officials could not be reached for immediate comment on the Shinwari situation, but Karzai has criticized military reconstruction teams in the provinces for giving money directly to governors or districts.

The Shinwaris are unusual in that their tribe has remained unified throughout decades of war. And since they dominate the six districts of Nangarhar province where they live, there is little ethnic conflict for the Taliban to exploit.

This is one of the more peaceful parts of Nangarhar province. The Taliban pass through and appoint shadow representatives, but are not seen as controlling the area, said Lt. Joe Dahl, an intelligence officer.

In December, the Nangarhar governor flew four Shinwari elders to Kandahar to share their experience and help the southern tribes make similar pacts, Usman said.

But the elder doubted it would work in Kandahar, the heartland of the Taliban insurgency, where the militants have assassinated scores of government-friendly tribal leaders.

“The situation in Kandahar is very bad,” Usman said. “Nobody can go out of their houses. No one can even go see the police commander or the district chief.”