Turning gangsters into allies: the American way of war in Northern Afghanistan

ABSTRACT

The American way of war in Afghanistan presents a conundrum for proponents of 21st-century state-building projects. How can liberal peace proponents engage in efficient state building without sacrificing their ideals? The US learned that state-building allocates a degree of command and control to powerbrokers operating in the shadows to launder aid money, traffic illicit narcotics, and engage in extrajudicial punishments. These clients failed to represent the liberal values foreign patrons endorsed, because the latter not only offered resources without conditions but also rewarded bad behavior. This issue is examined by looking at the case of post-2001 northern Afghanistan, where powerful warlords should have held greater control over their paramilitary forces, limited predatory behavior, and built stronger relationships with the community. Instead, warlords-turned-statesmen expanded their material and social influence in the north, while holding onto the informal instruments of racketeering and patronage that overwhelmed Western ideals and shaped the predatory state present in Afghanistan today. Moreover, paramilitaries were influenced by material, social, and normative incentives that rewarded violent and predatory behavior and further eroded already weak community control mechanisms at the subdistrict level.

KEYWORDS:

• Afghanistan
• counterinsurgency
• paramilitary
• Taliban
• American way of war

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The earliest sign of President Bush’s embrace of a nation-building plan was during a 12 October 2001 news conference when he stated, ‘It would be a useful function for the United Nations to take over the nation-building. I would call it the stabilization of a future government after our military mission is complete’.

2. The market of protection is a term I borrow from Lane, ‘Economic Consequences of Organized Violence’, and introduced in Dearing, ‘A double edged sword’. It represents the industry in the use of force. In periods of state formation, consumers of protection (citizens) seek an efficient price/service ratio in the market, while producers of the service seek to monopolize and maximize profit. Legitimate governments are in the business of providing efficient (cost-effective) markets of protection, while challengers, such as bandits, mafia, and private security contractors, seek to provide less efficient markets that maximize profits.

3. Otherwise referred to as Jombesh and Jamiat; other popular parties include Hezbi Wahdat, Hezbi Islami, and Harakati Islami parties. See Giustozzi, The Resilient Oligopoly, 12–15.

4. See Piattoni, Clientelism, Interests, and Democratic Representation; and Robinson and Verdier, ‘The Political Economy of Clientelism’.

5. See Mainwaring, Rethinking Party Systems; Weingrod, ‘Patrons, Patronage and Political Parties’; and Kitschelt & Wilkinson, Patrons, Clients, and Policies.

6. Eaton, ‘The Downside of Decentralization’, 535.

7. Ahram, Proxy Warriors.

8. Ladwig, ‘The Forgotten Front’.

9. See Berntsen and Pezzullo, Jawbreaker; Connors et al, A Different Kind of War; Grenier, 88 Days to Kandahar; Stanton, Horse Soldiers; Schroen, First In; Gopal, No Good Men Among the Living; and O’Hanlon, ‘A Flawed Masterpiece’.

10. By mid-October 2001, three ODA teams were on the ground; in mid-November, there were 10; and by December, there were 17. By the end of January 2002, over 18,000 bombs, including 10,000 precision munitions, had been dropped. See O’Hanlon, ‘A Flawed Masterpiece’.

11. This is evident through the reading of internal administration correspondence and meeting notes held at the National Security Archives. For example, in November 2001, US foreign policy objectives began a sudden shift toward Iraq, where initial planning for the ‘decapitation’ of the Iraqi government was discussed between US Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld and CENTCOM Commander General Tommy Franks. This planning came at the direction of the President, according to Woodward (2004) who asked Rumsfeld on 21 November, ‘What kind of war plan do you have for Iraq?’ There were already questions regarding how military forces should be utilized ‘coming out of Afghanistan’. See Rumsfeld, Talking Points Memo.

12. Like Dostum, Noor’s Seventh Corps had just a few hundred loyal men prior to the US invasion. In late 2001, they mobilized a few thousand men, and by the spring of 2002, Noor had between 4,000 and 5,000 men under his command. He also controlled up to 30 tanks, 25 armored personnel carriers, and 30 artillery pieces. Atta Mohammad Noor joined the mujahedin as a teenager and fought under a northern militia commander named Zabihullah. Under the Rabbani government in the 1990s, Noor commanded the 7th Corps of the Afghan Military Forces—a unit loyal to Jamiat Islami. See Connors et al., A Different Kind of War; Mukhopadhyay, Warlords, Strongman Governors, 80; and Schiewek, ‘Keeping the Peace’, 172.

13. In late 2001, the US supplied 767 tons of supplies and USD 70 million to Uzbek, Tajik, and Hazara forces—enough to raise a 50,000-man militia. Subsidies paying for Afghan Militia Forces were based in part on numbers of actual troops each faction held. From November 2001 to January 2002, each faction’s militia numbers (on paper at least) expanded exponentially. Ismail Khan went from 2,000 to 25,000, and Dostum went from 1,200 to over 20,000, claiming he could bring in as many as 40,000. UNAMA and MoD both did surveys of the number of militiamen in Afghanistan; the first derived a figure of 94,000; the second produced one of 250,000. Giustozzi notes the latter figure is likely due to Ministry of Defense inflation in order to garner greater international resources. See Giustozzi, ‘Bureaucratic Façade and Political Realities of Disarmament and Demobilization in Afghanistan’, 182; Giustozzi, Empires of Mud, 89; and Schiewek, ‘Keeping the Peace’, 216.

14. Biddle, ‘Afghanistan and the Future of War’.

15. Human Rights Watch, Paying for the Taliban’s Crimes.

16. Gall, ‘A Nation Challenged’; Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, From Arbaki to Local Police, 34.

17. Human Rights Watch, Paying for the Taliban’s Crimes, 27, 29.

18. Ibid.

19. In December 2001, the Bonn Conference established a Transitional Administration and appointed Hamid Karzai as interim chair. In June 2002, his position was confirmed at an emergency Loya Jirga.

20. Goodhand, ‘Corrupting or Consolidating the Peace?’.

21. For example, while Jombesh and Jamiat were allied in the early days of the civil war (1992–1993), Jombesh broke the alliance in 1994 and joined with Hezbi Islami. In 1995, Jombesh joined with the Taliban, only to break the alliance and re-ally with Jamiat in 1996. However, the alliance broke again in 1997, when Jombesh allied again with the Taliban. Jamiat, for the most part stayed away from the Taliban, except for some reports that Atta’s men supplied intelligence to the Taliban in order to have some of Dostum’s men killed. See Christia, Alliance Formation in Civil Wars; and Giustozzi, Empires of Mud, 123.

22. In fact, Dostum was able to do the same to Jamiat military formations, reaching out to the Army Corps VII and VI in Balkh and Kunduz, converting two of the four divisions in Army Corps VII to Jombesh units. See Giustozzi, Empires of Mud, 150–51, 175; and Schiewek, ‘Keeping the Peace’, 192.

23. Mukhopadhyay, Warlords, Strongman Governors, 85–86.

24. Maley, The Afghanistan Wars, 236.

25. I am grateful for an anonymous reviewer’s comment that clashes at this time were in Samangan, Faryab, Jowzjan, Balkh, and Sari Pul, but not Kunduz. There are conflicting accounts and I defer to Schiewek’s study, which cites the last three provinces.

26. The force was comprised of 240 men from Jamiat, 180 from Jombesh, and 180 from Shia groups (Hezbi Wahdat and Harakat). See Schiewek, ‘Keeping the Peace,’ 192, 222.

27. Schiewek, ‘Keeping the Peace’, 172, 175; and Mukhopadhyay, Warlords, Strongman Governors, 546.

28. Schiewek, ‘Keeping the Peace’, 176.

29. Gall, ‘For an Ancient Afghan Town’; and Constable, ‘Afghan MilitiaLeaders Sign Truce’.

30. For example, when Yengi Qala village was ransacked by Hazara bandits, a Tajik villager placed a call to Atta, and within hours a truckload of weapons were delivered to the village. Later, a Jamiat commander was summoned to ensure the village remained free of Hazara banditry. See Human Rights Watch, Paying for the Taliban’s Crimes.

31. Giustozzi, ‘Bureaucratic façade’, 184.

32. The ANBP was meant to disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate the Afghan Militia Forces into society. Combatants were registered and assigned a case-worker to interview and counsel the militiaman with work or training options. See: Giustozzi, ‘Bureaucratic façade’, 171–2. A second phased program implemented in 2006 called the Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups (DIAG), focused on disarming and disbanding illegal armed militias that continued to exist past the ANBP phase. The initial phase of DIAG called for voluntary compliance; the second phase intended for negotiated compliance; and the final phase involved enforcement. See: Shaw, ‘Drug Trafficking’, 196.

33. Mukhopadhyay, Warlords, Strongman Governors, 540.

34. Semple, ‘Citing Taliban threat’.

35. Giustozzi (2008) notes the DDR process was a bureaucratic façade and lacked political will by the very figures expected to endorse it—Jamiat and Jombesh party leaders contesting for territory in the north and new seats in the government.

36. Maley notes that the greatest achievement of the program was the decommissioning of heavy weapons such as tanks and artillery, not small arms. See Maley, The Afghanistan Wars, 252; and Giustozzi, ‘Bureaucratic façade’, 173.

37. Giustozzi, ‘Bureaucratic façade’, 174.

38. While 255 Provincial Council candidates were targeted for their association with these groups and pressured to renounce their ties before the September 2005 election, many kept informal alliances intact, while at least half of the 249-seat lower house of Parliament was made up of Islamists or former militia members. See Shaw, ‘Drug Trafficking’, 197; and Gall, ‘Islamists and Mujahedeen Secure Victory’.

39. Suhrke, ‘Reconstruction as modernization’, 1301.

40. Shaw, ‘Drug Trafficking’, 196; United Nations Development Programme, ‘Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups’; and Semple, ‘Citing Taliban threat’.

41. Mukhopadhyay, Warlords, Strongman Governors, 551–2.

42. Torjesen, ‘Transition from war to peace’, 57–8.

43. One former commander positioned as the head of the Criminal Investigations Directorate is alleged to have accepted and extorted bribes, stole confiscated cash from police raids, and engaged in criminal kidnapping and ransoms. See Giustozzi, The Resilient Oligopoly, 47; and Mukhopadhyay, Warlords, Strongman Governors, 553.

44. The German PRT worked largely within the formal Afghan institutions, only working through informal powerbrokers as necessary to mitigate conflicts. The US relied upon and empowered informal powerbrokers to more effectively fight counterinsurgency, but this was at the expense of longer-term stability and formal institution building. See Munch, Local Afghan Power Structures, 1–2, 17–21.

45. Giustozzi and Reuter, The Insurgents of the Afghan North, 25–27; Goodhand and Hakimi, Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, 33; and Reuter, ‘Power plays in Afghanistan’.

46. Goodhand and Hakimi, Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, 36.

47. In late 2008, the provincial NDS chief of Kunduz, who was a junior commander to Alam in the 6th Corps, sought the latter’s support for militia recruits. In July 2009, Vice President Fahim’s convoy came under attack in Kunduz province. Soon thereafter, militia recruitment increased. See Heward, ‘Legal, Illegal: Militia’.

48. Alam was also appointed police chief of Baghlan province after disarming in 2005, though he later remobilized his militia forces. See Heward, ‘Legal, Illegal: Militia’; and Reid and Ally, Just Don’t Call it a Militia, 30.

49. Reid and Ally, Just don’t call it a militia, 27–28.

50. Tahir, ‘Afghan village fight to keep Taliban at bay’.

51. Cash payments were reportedly distributed to insurgents, militiamen, and those working with regional strongmen, Kabul elites, or intelligence departments such as NDS through the CIA’s secretive payout program. In one instance, funds were reportedly used to pay an Al Qaeda ransom fee to release an Afghan diplomat. See Goodhand and Hakimi, Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, 33; Reuter, ‘Power plays in Afghanistan’, Rosenberg, ‘Afghan leader confirms cash deliveries by CIA’; Rosenberg, ‘Karzai says he was assured CIA would continue delivering bags of cash’; and Rosenberg, ‘CIA cash ended up in coffers of Al Qaeda’.

52. Dearing, ‘A Double-edged Sword’.

53. Pajhwok news claimed over 1,500 ‘tribal militiamen’ were under loose control of the Ministry of Interior, while another 1,200 anticipated recruitment in the Afghan Local Police program.

54. Even Afghan Local Police were frustrated with illegal militias. One ALP Commander, Gul Afghan, planned to recruit his own side force to protect communities against the illegal militia causing problems for the ALP. See Reid and Ally, Just Don’t Call it a Militia, 32, 40; and Reuter, ‘Power Plays in Afghanistan’.

55. The inability to control clients was also evident when one of Mir Alam’s subordinates, Commander Qadirak, engaged in a botched anti-Taliban operation in September 2012. Regarded by locals as ghair-e qanuni, or illegal, Qadirak was hoping to receive support from NDS or US Special Forces. Qadriak’s men attacked Loy Kanam village, a Pashtun area they thought served as a Taliban refuge, and which Qadriak believed was involved in the killing of a relative. With 20–30 men, his militia attacked the village at night, pulling civilians from their beds and beating them in the streets. Twelve villagers were killed and eight wounded. The National Directorate of Security and the Ministry of Interior remained partial to these groups due to their degree of separation from the state, but officials such as the Provincial Governor called them ‘irresponsible armed militias’. Mir Alam even publicly disavowed Qadirak and his men, claiming, ‘These are not my men anymore’. Meanwhile, the Taliban used the issue to emphasize the predatory nature of the pro-government militia: ‘These criminal groups were created and trained by the occupying American forces in an attempt to lower the number of American casualties and to improve security’. They also noted that Qadirak and his men were still at large and working for the government. While the state appeared to ignore Qadirak’s behavior, his persistent predation on the population backfired when he began controlling access to public resources such as water. Khanabad district governor told journalists that after Qadirak cut off villagers’ access to water supplies, they organized a plan to invite Taliban into their village. In August 2014, Taliban assassinated Qadirak, killing an additional 20 civilians in the clash. See Rubin, ‘Afghan Rape Case Turns’; Heward, ‘For a Handful of Bolani’; Matta, ‘Afghan Forces Fail’; Ghanizada, ‘20 Civilians Killed’; and Reid and Ally, Just Don’t Call it a Militia, 32.

56. Babak, ‘Afghan Businessmen Prove Popular Targets’; and Human Rights Watch, Today we Shall all Die.

57. Human Rights Watch, Today we shall all die; and Abi-Habib, ‘Ethnic militias fuel tensions’.

58. I also confirmed this rough percentage in multiple interviews with Afghan government officials.

59. In mid-2012, residents in Tandurak village established a local defense force with the support of Governor Noor to prevent Taliban infiltration into the village. Initially, weapons were provided by Noor’s office (according to residents), and expectations were that the government would provide the necessary resources for the militia. Over time, however, residents were coerced by militiamen to fund and support their armed presence, with many of the former equating the militia with Taliban. This process of coerced taxation was sometimes a passive form of predation that was evident in many local defense forces in Afghanistan. Residents believed aid was distributed from Noor to subclients, and then distributed to other clients such as militia commanders, local powerbrokers, and village elders. Residents noted that each level of distribution included skimming that was felt acceptable as long as residents ‘get everything they need’. For the near term, residents were willing to side with the militia and Noor as they appeared to be the dominant power alliance and of most benefit to the village. See AIHRC, From Arbaki to Local Police, 34.

60. For similarities to the Colombia case, see Marks, ‘FARC, 1982–2002’, passim.

61. Shaw, ‘Drug Trafficking’, 198, 203; Heward, ‘For a Handful of Bolani’; Goodhand, ‘Frontiers and Wars’; and Schetter, Galssner, and Karokhail, ‘Beyond Warlordism’, 139.

62. One ALP commander in Dasht-e-Archi district harassed a resident to give him 2,500 Afghanis or two sheep on a monthly basis. When the man refused, the commander forced the man and his father to go down in a well. Water and dirt were poured over the men while ALP guarded the well. The men were imprisoned in the well all day and all night, and only released after village elders agreed to pay the ALP the ransom. The ALP Monitoring Unit within the Ministry of Interior failed to establish a significant presence at the provincial level in Kunduz, forcing it to rely upon provincial police chiefs to carry out its work. The political appointment of police chiefs and the patronage network of militias had come to incentivize the MoI to disregard complaints of ALP abuse. Pressure eventually built to rein in ALP abuses. In December 2014, four ALP members in Kunduz were convicted and sentenced for crimes against the population. In addition, an ALP commander charged with forced labor, intimidation, assault, and extortion was arrested in July 2014 and sentenced to 4-year prison. It is believed one of these cases involved an incident in Aliabad district, south of Kunduz city, where a rogue ALP officer attacked a family in Lala Maidan village, killing nine of its members. See UNAMA, Afghanistan Annual Report, 79–82; and Cecchinel, ‘Taleban Closing in on the City’.

63. While Regional Command North recruited 1,200–1,700 men into the CIP, a German report noted there were approximately 3,000 militia in their area. See Deutscher Bundestag, Antwort der Bundesregierung.

64. In addition, the Afghan government responded to the proliferation of paramilitary groups in Kunduz by introducing two disarmament campaigns that failed to bring in substantial weapons. The first campaign in 2011 brought in only 51 disarmed individuals; while the second in August 2012, targeting Khanabad district, only achieved 12 weapons. See UNAMA, Afghanistan Annual Report, 82; Hewad, ‘Legal, Illegal: Militia’; and Goodhand and Hakimi, Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, 34.

65. In 2011, reporters asked Karzai about the program during a visit to Germany. He expressed concern and dismay at their behavior. Shortly afterward, he announced the force would be disbanded. See Rosenberg and Rubin, ‘Afghanistan to Disband’.

66. Nabi Gechi is a notorious Turkmen warlord based in Qala-e Zal district, a 95% Turkmen district. He seems to have significant buy-in from the local community and the central government, but his brutality against insurgents and suspected insurgents is well known by residents. He also funded his operations predominately through taxation for his protective services, despite commanding over 300 militiamen in the CIP program. See Goodhand and Akimi, Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, 34; Sites, ‘Swimming With Warlords’.

67. In October 2012, US commended Gechi for his leadership. See Raghavan, ‘Afghanistan’s Defining Fight’.

68. A Ministry of Interior report cites a limit of 100 ALP for Qala-e Zal district, but other reports cite between 200 and 240 armed men.

69. Cecchinel, ‘The End of a Police Chief’.

70. Rosenberg and Rubin, ‘Afghanistan to Disband’.

71. As referenced in Reuter, ‘Power Plays in Afghanistan’.

72. Interview with Afghan intelligence official. Also see Cecchinel, ‘Taleban Closing in on the City’; Hamdard, ‘Gunmen Extort Locals’ Livestock’; Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, From Arbaki to Local Police.

73. Chahrdara is one of seven districts in Kunduz, comprised of around 70,200 residents. The district center is located about 10 kms southwest of Kunduz city. Approximately 60% of inhabitants are Pashtun, 17% Uzbek, 7% Turkmen, and 4% Arab. See Cecchinel, ‘Back to Bad’.

74. Cecchinel, ‘Taleban Closing in on the City’.

75. Ibid.

76. Cecchinel (Ibid) reported that due to Taliban offensives a number of ALP abandoned their posts in Dasht-e Archi district during the same period.

77. The head of the ALP at one checkpoint bellowed: ‘The Kunduz governor and police chief do not care about our nation and the local police fighting for them, they are sitting in their offices under the AC, watching Indian and Turkish dramas all day’. See ibid.

78. By July 2016, Dasht-e Archi and Chahrdara districts were only under nominal government control. See Cecchinel, ‘Far From Back to Normal’.

79. For more on village stability operations, see Moyar, Village Stability Operations. Also see Jones and Munoz, Afghanistan’s Local War, 26. The authors share particularly interesting views on the stark difference between militia engaged with the community and those engaged against it: ‘These forces are significantly different from warlord militias. Warlords are charismatic leaders with autonomous control of security forces who are able to monopolize violence within a given territory. Their militias are beholden to individuals, not to a community, making them fundamentally different from community policing forces. Warlords view themselves as above the tribe and, unlike traditional forces, do not answer to the jirgas or shuras’.

80. Cecchinel, ‘Back to Bad’.

81. AIHRC, From Arbaki to Local Police, 23–24.

82. For example, tribal elders in Kobayi village, Kunduz complained to local officials regarding Mir Alam’s militia activity and received no response. They later placed their complaint with the Ministry of Interior. See Heward, ‘For a Handful of Bolani.’

83. See Cecchinel, ‘Taleban Closing in on the City’; and Munch, Local Afghan Power Structures, 25, 29–30.

84. Human Rights Watch, Just Don’t Call it a Militia, 39.

85. Cecchinel, ‘Taleban Closing in on the City’; Bleur and Ali, ‘Kunduz Deteriorates Futher’.

86. UNAMA, Afghanistan Annual Report 2014, 85–86.

87. Cecchinel, ‘Taleban closing in on the City’.

88. In September 2010 and April 2011, complaints were voiced regarding Atta’s militia in the Pashtun dominant districts of Charbolak and Chemtal in Balkh province. The 452 militiamen outnumbered the 280 policemen in the two districts. Residents claimed the militia prevented Pashtuns from voting in the 2010 parliamentary elections. Atta’s commander noted he served under Atta’s behest but that he was not ethnically biased. Less than 2 weeks before the election, 67 out of 84 polling stations located in Chemtal, Charbolak, and Sholgara districts were identified as facing ‘high threat’ of armed attack. See Cecchinel, ‘The End of a Police Chief’; Abi-Habib, ‘Ethnic Militias Fuel Tensions’; Shamshad TV, ‘Analyst Says Pashtuns’; Weesa, ‘Report Says Afghan’; and Arzu, ‘Local Officials Express’.

89. Additional pressure on Pashtuns arrived in late 2009 to late 2010, when US Special Operations Forces engaged in kill/capture missions throughout the district. See Cecchinel, ‘Back to Bad’.

90. Department of Defense, Report on Progress, 62.

91. See note 80 above.

92. Atta was interviewed by a political party newspaper and addressed accusations of attempts by MoI minister Mohammad Anif Atmar to undermine his influence and create instability in Balkh province. Atta noted that 25 militiamen previously affiliated with Hezbi Islami were supplied weapons by MoI and reportedly threw ‘acid’ on ‘innocent schoolgirls’ and murdered civilians and police. See Mojahed Weekly, ‘Afghan Governor Accuses’; Payam-e Mojahed, ‘Taliban Spreading Influence’; and Arzu TV, ‘Afghan TV Shows Police’.

93. Atta’s requests for increased police and other security forces in Balkh were rejected by President Karzai, compelling the governor to arm and supply militias around Mazari Sharif. The militia reportedly received no pay from the government and engaged in pillaging the population. See Abi-Habib, ‘Ethnic Militias Fuel Tensions’; and Tolo TV, ‘Afghan Governor Opposes’.

94. For example, Mir Alam and Mohammad Omar provided all of the ALP commanders to the first ALP units in central Kunduz. The process of community engagement in ALP was more a façade with US Special Forces providing selected, vetted, and trained guardians to the council for a ceremonial signing. See Goodhand and Hakimi, Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, 35–36.

95. For example, Malik Pahlawan, a Jombesh member, used shipping containers to execute enemies in 1997. In August 1998, Taliban also used shipping containers to asphyxiate possibly hundreds of Hazara, Uzbek and Tajik civilians during their capture of the northern city of Mazari Sharif. See Human Rights Watch, The Massacre in Mazar-i Sharif.

96. The US would receive its first casualty to the Afghan war at Qala Jangi, CIA operative, Johnny Michael Spann. This was also the prison where the US captured the infamous ‘American Taliban’ John Walker Lindh.

97. Barry, ‘The Death Convoy of Afghanistan’.

98. The US Army’s Combat Studies Institute official history of the Afghan war completely ignores the Dashti Leili event. A declassified report proposes there were likely hundreds of mass graves from the Civil War. Physicians for Human Rights, an organization advocating investigation of war crimes at Dashti Leili, alleged in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that US forces might have witnessed atrocities around Shiberghan Prison. The FOIA investigation by Department of Defense found these allegations unfounded. In 2008, a UN official confirmed the mass graves were ‘disturbed’ by backhoes or bulldozers, and Afghan officials believed Dostum’s militia might have destroyed evidence at the site. See Filkins, ‘Afghan Militias Battle Taliban’; Lasseter, ‘UN: Afghan Graves Disturbed’; United States, FOIA doc# 2027283053; 200802926; Secretary of Defense, FOIA doc#200802926.

99. CNN, ‘House of War’.

100. See Williams, The Last Warlord, 267–271; Filkins, ‘Afghan Militias Battle Taliban’; and Partlow, ‘Dostum: a Former Warlord’.

101. Interviews with Afghan and US officials May 2017.

102. This is not to minimize the role humanitarian projects played. Once Mazari Sharif was secured, soldiers from the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion, 5th SFG, and 10th Mountain Division, as well as civilian specialists, organized a number of projects. By January 2002, a new hospital already treated around 8,000 patients. See Connors et al., A Different Kind of War, 91.

103. The two previously mentioned declassified reports describe one of the ODA teams embedded with the Northern Alliance as providing the ‘best humanitarian treatment possible for the prisoners’. The team also advised Dostum in prison security, medical aid, and humanitarian assistance, while surveying the overall humanitarian situation. The second report confirmed the existence of mass graves and recommended that the best procedure for managing the ‘Mass Grave Objectives’ was to preserve the gravesite for future investigation. Logistics of doing so seemed impractical. For more, see Physicians for Human Rights, Timeline of the Investigation.

104. We see this characterization of the heroic and friendly Dostum in Western narratives such as the Brian Glyn Williams (2013) historical biography, The Last Warlord. He and Robert Young Pelton, a well-known adventure writer who was embedded with Dostum and ODA team 585 during the US invasion, brush off the accusations of a massacre as more myth than reality. See Williams, The Last Warlord, 267–270.

105. Human Rights Watch, Paying for the Taliban’s Crimes; and Human Rights Watch, Killing you is a Very Easy Thing for Us.

106. The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported a 1,600% increase in anti-Muslim hate crime incidents in 2001 in the United States. See Federal Bureau of Investigation, Confronting Discrimination in the Post-9/11 Era.

107. For example, US President Bush made no distinction between our enemies and ‘those who harbor them’. See Bush, Address to the Nation.

108. For more on the discussion of the Afghan sovereign’s right to redress see Edwards, Heroes of the Age, 119–123.

109. It should be noted Dostum has denied all claims to knowledge of the incident and challenges the numbers contained in official reporting. He has created a public webpage directly addressing the Dasht-e-Leili incident. See Dostum’s public website.

110. PBS, ‘Interview: US Special Forces’.

111. Raghavan, ‘Afghanistan’s Defining Fight’.

112. Dostum commands the honor of leading the northern Uzbek population. In order to secure the Uzbek vote (roughly 10% of the electorate) in a close presidential election, Ashraf Ghani selected Dostum as his first running mate in 2014. Not just for his lamentable history, but for seemingly unhinged public outbursts, Dostum increasingly saw his status marginalized within the administration on day-to-day functions. At a 2015 gathering, Dostum was seen in tears, shouting, ‘No one returns my calls! The people made me a general, but no one even asks for my help.’ At another event, Dostum claimed he would build a 20,000–man elite fighting force to clear the south of Taliban. And in Jowjzan province, he claimed that he persuaded 200 Taliban to reintegrate, when the figure was closer to 30 or 40, who actually were his own militiamen. Dostum appears to be searching for purpose and glory beyond his current position, which makes his status as second-in-line precarious. See Giustozzi, Empires of Mud, 188–190; Mashal, ‘Afghan Vice President Raises Concern’; and Zee News, ‘Dostum’s Reintegration Campaign’. In recent years, he has groomed his son, Batur Dostum, to serve as heir apparent of the Jombesh party.

113. Mukhopadhyay, Warlords, Strongman Governors, 133; Raghavan, ‘Afghanistan’s defining fight’.

114. Peake, ‘From warlords to peacelords?’ 188.

115. Mukhopadhyay, Warlords, Strongman Governors, 135.

116. Ibid., 152.

117. Sites, ‘Swimming With Warlords’.

118. Brazen expressions of violence are common in this region of Afghanistan, where the most popular game is buzkashi, a Central Asian sport where a headless goat carcass is fought over by horsemen. In another case, a vigilante group calling itself Margh (‘Death’) vowed to martyr themselves to save Afghanistan from the threat of Islamic State militants. Dressed in ninja-like outfits adorned with colors of the Afghan flag, they appeared less threatening than Taliban or pro-government paramilitary groups. Revealed as more like a gathering of aging mujahedin commanders nostalgic for the anti-Soviet Jihad, they bear no more firepower than most Afghans, some with Kalashnikov rifles, others with farming tools. Their power was linked more to a growing narrative of self-defense against foreign invasion. Convinced by experience that their government could not protect them, they vowed to fight the Islamic State as they had fought the Soviets and the Taliban. See: Raghavan, ‘Afghanistan’s Defining Fight’.

119. Giustozzi, ‘Bureaucratic façade and political realities’, 189.

120. Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force—Afghanistan, ‘Afghan Local Police’.

121. See note 80 above.

122. Interview with Afghan government official.

123. Giustozzi, Empires of Mud, 125–130.