Afghanistan's Military Bears the Full Brunt of Fighting Season for First Time

Afghanistan's 2015 fighting season is shaping up to be the worst in nearly a decade. Over 1,000 civilians have been killed so far according to Tolo News, and the UN deputy special representative for Afghanistan predicts more civilian casualties this year than in 2014, which itself saw the greatest number of civilian deaths since 2009, when the UN began recording casualties (Tolo News, June 9; Reuters, April 30). Significantly, the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) are bearing the full brunt of these attacks, partly because this is the first fighting season without the presence of NATO combat forces, although U.S. drone strikes are continuing.

According to Ministry of Interior spokesperson Sediq Sediqqi, Afghan forces are currently fighting militants in ten of the country's 34 provinces, which gives an indication of the range of the fighting (Tolo News, June 10). Already casualties among the security forces have increased significantly, and these rose 33 percent from April to May (Tolo News, June 9). In one of the most deadly militant attacks, in April, 27 ANA soldiers were killed by militants in northeastern Badakhstan province, eight of whom were beheaded (Pajhwok, April 27). Separately, ten police stations in Uruzgan province were overrun by Taliban militants in June after two weeks of heavy fighting (Press TV, June 7). Recent attacks are not just limited to armed security personnel, however; Hamidullah Khan, a prosecutor in a district near the Turkmenistan border, was killed by a bomb attached to his car, and in a separate incident in Uruzgan province a prison administrator was gunned down (Press TV, June 11). Attacks have also occurred in the capital, with the Ministry of Justice building in Kabul being bombed by Taliban militants in May, killing five (Press TV, May 19).

One reason for the increased attacks is due to neighboring Pakistan's year-long Operation Zarb-e-Azb against militant strongholds in North Waziristan. A side-effect of this has been to push Taliban forces across the porous border into Afghanistan. Partly as a result, the increased violence in Afghanistan is taking a toll on the Afghan-Pakistan relationship (VOA, June 10). Some Afghan politicians claim that Ashraf Ghani, the president of Afghanistan, had an agreement with Pakistani officials: they allege that Ghani pushed to increase counter-terrorism cooperation with Pakistan over the objections of other Afghani officials, and that in return, Pakistan agreed to encourage their contacts within the Taliban to push for peace talks. While talks between Taliban and Afghan officials have occurred-with many supportive statements from Pakistan-in Qatar, they were specifically not termed peace talks, and the continuing fighting season has not yet shown signs of a change of heart by the Taliban leadership (VOA, May 3).

Despite the above overall negative trends, the Afghan government is having some successes in combating militants. For instance, 41 militants surrendered to government forces on June 9 in Kunar Province, joining 419 others who have already done so there (Tolo News, June 10). The number of civilian casualties has also fallen, dropping 40 percent from April to May; there has been a corresponding increase in militant casualties indicating that perhaps the Afghan security forces are receiving and using actionable intelligence (Tolo News, June 9). The ANA and ANP have also launched an operation to reclaim Yamgan district in northeastern Badakhstan province from militants (RFE/RL, June 7). The fighting season will last for several more months until the start of the winter season again hampers militant operations, so it remains to be seen if the Afghan security forces can hold their own against militants throughout the country or if the militants prove to be too much to handle in the absence of NATO combat troops.

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