afghanistan paid 11,000 militants to lay down arms now money run out wash post may 17 2016

8/16/2019 Afghanistan Paid 11,000 Militants to Lay Down Arms Now Money Run Out WASH POST MAY 17 2016

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Afghanistan paid 11,000militants to lay down theirarms. Now the money hasrun out.

Afghan Taliban look on after handing over their weapons as they join the Afghan government's reconciliation and

reintegration program in Herat province in 2013. Today, with no money, the program is effectively suspended.

(Mohammad Shoib/REUTERS)

By Tim Craig and Mohammad Sharif

Asia & Pacific

May 17

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/a-us-afghan-plan-to-buy-off-militants-may-be-

failing/2016/05/16/79ea22f8-1a65-11e6-aa55-670cabef46e0_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines

JALALABAD, Afghanistan — Faridoon Hanafi says he probably killed American soldiers as a

Taliban commander in eastern Afghanistan from 2009 through 2014. And he’s certainly

killed some Afghan troops.

But since then, Hanafi has joined a rare demographic here: reformed, de-radicalized Islamist

militants.

After he handed over his assault rifles and grenade launchers to intelligence agents, Hanafisettled into a safe house and started collecting $200 a month. In return for those payments,

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funded with foreign aid, Hanafi worked with local officials in Nangahar province to try to

lure other militants away from the fight.

Now, the money is drying up, and a central goal of the U.S.-led effort to rebuild Afghanistan

— that Islamist militants can be rehabilitated or paid to reintegrate into the law-abiding

public — is at a crossroads as the war drags into its 15th year.

“If the government stops paying, these people will find another way to get money, and

negotiations will fail,” Hanafi said in an interview.

Feraidoon

Hanafi, a reformed and deradicalized Islamist militant who handed over his assault rifles and grenade launchers

to intelligence agents. (Courtesy of Feraidoon Hanafi)

Two months ago, after the United States and other countries had invested about $200

million in the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program, the six-year effort was

effectively suspended while officials reassess its goals.


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The suspension comes amid broader scrutiny here and in Washington of de-radicalization

efforts as the Taliban leadership shuns peace talks and parts of Afghanistan drift even deeper

into the grip of extremist ideology.

“The society and symptom is just too big, and the medicine that is provided is just too little,”

said Ali Mohammad Ali, an Afghan security analyst and researcher.

The program, carried out by an Afghan council set up to push for peace talks, included

payments to former militants, the hiring of hundreds of local mediators, and tens of millions

of dollars for public services in militant strongholds.

But just 11,077 militants have entered into the program, and officials of what is

called the High Peace Council can’t be sure how many have remained loyal to the

government. In a country awash in weapons, only 9,800 have been handed over.

Auditors have also struggled to track how the public-works money, including $50million from the United States, has been spent.

“One important premise that underpinned the overall strategy was that peace was

imminent,” said Douglas Keh, country director for the U.N. Development Program, which

oversees the effort. “At the time, the international community had its reason to be guided by

this assumption, but what was hoped for did not come about.”

As officials reevaluate the program this summer, they have stopped payments to the

mediators who formed the backbone of its operations. The High Peace Council is still

technically operational — the United States rushed in $5 million to pay administrators — butpayments to former Taliban fighters have been suspended, said Farhadullah Farhad, deputy

chief executive of the peace council.


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Taliban militants join the Afghan government’s reconciliation and reintegration program in Kandahar in 2011.

(Ahmad Nadeem/Reuters)

“We are assessing our past to redesign our future,” Farhad said.

Yet Hanafi argues that the program can point to some success. He said he joined the

insurgency as a teenager around 2008 after hearing reports of civilian casualties from U.S.

airstrikes. He met a cleric who told him that “jihad was an obligation” because “villagers

were suffering.”

Within weeks, Hanafi was leading a group of Taliban fighters in Wardak province,

“ambushing” American troops who were struggling to fortify bases in the area. He recalls

hiding in a bush in neighboring Logar province while directing another militant who had just

set five roadside bombs.

“An [Afghan intelligence] vehicle came and stopped right on a bomb, and the guy asked what

he should do.

“I said, ‘Let him go.’

“Then an [Afghan] army vehicle came, and he asked again.

“I told him to let him go.

“Then a big American vehicle came, and I said, ‘Do it, it’s time.’ ”


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The blast “destroyed” the vehicle, Hanafi said, and intensified coalition military operations

in the area. He moved to the eastern province of Nangahar, but over time, he said, he became

unnerved by the gruesome insurgency. He was shaken by the sight of militants dragging the

body of an Afghan soldier behind a pickup truck.

He began second-guessing whether he really needed to die on the battlefield or as a suicide

bomber to be a good Muslim. And he became incensed that most of his orders appeared to be

coming from Pakistanis.

In late 2014, working with local mediators from Nangahar, Hanafi laid down his arms.

“The Taliban are tired and will join if the government pays them, and if the

government provides jobs for them,” Hanafi said.

But efforts to maintain Afghan reintegration and de-radicalization programs are coming up

against what Western diplomats and aid officials say is a tightening financial noose.

New funds for the program would have to be raised at an international summit in Brussels in

October. But donors are skittish amid concerns about an unstable global economy, lower oil

prices and the domestic price tag of the refugee crisis in Europe.

A question that remains unanswered, officials say, is whether an estimated 30,000 to

50,000 Taliban fighters — as well as tens of thousands of sympathizers — can

even be de-radicalized.

In a report last fall, the U.S. Institute for Peace concluded that moderate Afghan influences

are being “outmanuevered by both violent extremist groups and nonviolent Islamist groups

and charismatic mullahs with better organizational skills and better grassroots contacts and

networks, particularly among youth.”

The international effort is also struggling to achieve results because it largely overlooks the

influence that Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran wield to stir up fundamentalist

passions in Afghanistan, said Ali, the security analyst.

New madrassas and mosques supported by those countries are a pipeline for

radical thought, he said.

De-radicalization, he said, “has failed, and the reason it has failed is because we don’t

go to the root causes of the radicalization, which are the policies of these

countries that support it.”

But the Obama administration has appeared reluctant to take on Saudi Arabia or

Pakistan over the issue. Instead, the administration is spending some $33 million in

Afghanistan on Countering Violent Extremism programs, which sponsor cultural,

entertainment and educational efforts — from a local version of Sesame Street to

skateboard lessons. But millions of dollars also go to more-shadowy initiatives that


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seek to bolster moderate clerics or help Afghan politicians and media personalities draft

public messages.

Though the State Department tries to shield the identity of some grant recipients,

citing fears of militant reprisals, much of the money appears concentrated in

major Afghan cities, largely bypassing rural areas most at risk of becoming

radicalized, said Seth Jones, director of the International Security and Defense Policy

Center at the Rand Corp.

“Without seeing better evidence, I am going to be skeptical these programs are having

much of an impact,” Jones said.

While some Afghan officials credit the High Peace Council for de-escalating hundreds of

local conflicts, other officials question whether Afghanistan’s version of walking-around

money can make a lasting difference.

“It’s not going to convince die-hard Taliban, because these Taliban have links to

outsiders who can give even more payments,” said Sayed Fazlullah Wahidi, a former

Afghan governor.

Peace council officials say even a scaled-down reintegration program would be likely to

require an additional $50 million to $75 million from international donors.

If money doesn’t arrive, Hanafi says, he will look elsewhere for help — maybe taking

up arms again.

“But not the Taliban,” he cautioned. “We may have to do some sort of independent militia.”

Sayed Salahuddin in Kabul contributed to this report.

Read more:

Despite billions in U.S. funding, Afghan forces have a problem with boots

U.S. troops are back in restive Afghan province, a year after withdrawal

A year of Taliban gains shows that ‘we haven’t delivered,’ top Afghan official says

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Tim Craig is The Post’s bureau chief in Pakistan. He has also covered conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and within the

District of Columbia government.

Follow @timcraigpost
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afghanistan paid 11,000 militants to lay down arms now money run out wash post may 17 2016

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