Afghanistan

'Obedience to the Amir', or how the Afghan Taliban govern

in , , ,
 
 

 

It’s finally out. I’m really glad that other researchers, journalists and anyone else with a bit of curiosity can read this translated volume.

In the last year of the Taliban’s government in Afghanistan, visitors to Mullah Omar’s office in Kandahar received a parting gift. As they left, the movement’s supreme leader asked them to take a slim volume from a pile beside the door. He told them that if they wanted to know how the Taliban were meant to behave, they should read the book. The books which Mullah Omar handed out were Pashto and Farsi translation of Eta’t Amir, or ‘Obedience to the Leader’. Mufti Rasheed published the original in Urdu after having toured Taliban-run Afghanistan. Mullah Omar’s endorsement indicates that he believed that Rasheed had captured the essence of the Taliban Movement. Michael Semple and Yameema Mitha have translated this important primary source and added a commentary and appraisal.

Long-time Afghan scholar and analyst Barney Rubin had this to say upon reading the manuscript:

“In war, and especially guerrilla war, the best organised party is likely to win. While numbers of fighters and weapons count, organisation determines whether the leader can use them. This book is the guide the Afghan Taliban used to organise themselves differently from other Afghan groups. Anyone who wants to defeat them or negotiate with them should understand the organisational principles that guide them.”

Michael Semple has written a useful introduction in which he outlines the context of the document, and he worked on the translation together with Yameema Mitha.

This is one of the most interesting documents coming out of the Afghan Taliban that I’ve read in terms of helping explain how power works within the movement and, accordingly, how they govern. If you’re interested in the history or the present state of the Afghan Taliban, give this book a read.

Taliban public punishments, 1996–2001

in ,
 

Executions are a recurrent motif in how historians, journalists and analysts have chosen to write about the Afghan Taliban. See the opening to Dexter Filkins’ The Forever War as one example, or this Reuters piece from May 1999. I wanted to study the role of executions and public punishments in the Taliban’s government for a while, but lacked data to place the anecdotes into some sort of context.

This short overview is a compilation of sources relating to the Taliban’s public punishments, 1996–2001. It is compiled from publicly available sources as well as from the materials gathered as part of the Taliban Sources Project. I think it is as complete an overview as is possible to get from these public sources, given that the Taliban weren’t shy about publicising their ‘public justice project’ – indeed, for them, the publicity was the point – and that we have multiple complete newspaper runs for the time they were in power. This was collated and triangulated with sources from Associated Press, Agence France Presse, BBC Monitoring and the Afghan Islamic Press news agency.

As a brief summary, I was able to find 101 incidents in total that chronicled the deaths of 119 individuals. I included some instances of public punishment not resulting in death, but this wasn’t really the focus of my search so their numbers may be underrepresented in the list. As another caveat, I was of course only looking at public executions, not anything that went on in secret as part of intelligence or domestic security operations and so on. Kabul, Kandahar and Herat were the most prominent locations for incidents and executions, with over half the total numbers coming from those three provinces alone. (Note that this may reflect a bias in whether incidents were reported from the provinces or not).

In any case, I wanted to present the raw data here alongside a timeline and another chart or two in case this is useful for other researchers/analysts. If you find I’ve missed an event, please drop me a line via email or on twitter and I’ll be sure to add it to the database.

Now head over here for an interactive timeline, charts and the raw data...

AFP covers the Taliban Sources Project

in , ,
 

A few years back I put out a call (together with Felix Kuehn and Anand Gopal) for translators to work on a new project I was trying to get off the ground. Thankfully, that project is coming to a close, but as you can read in this article, we've had some bumps along the way.

Academics have criticised the British government for creating a "climate of fear" after the national library declined to store the world's biggest collection of Taliban-related documents over concerns it could be prosecuted under terrorism laws.

A group of international researchers spent years putting together a trove of documents related to the Afghan Taliban, including official newspapers from their time in power, poems, maps, radio broadcasts, and several volumes of laws and edicts -- digitising the estimated two-three million words and translating everything into English.

It was hoped the project, which was launched in 2012 and included members of the British Library on its advisory board, would prove an unprecedented resource for academics and officials trying to understand the movement and the ongoing insurgency in Afghanistan.

But despite hopes that the library would host a master copy of the digital collection, it got cold feet at the last minute, telling the project's organisers that they feared they could be in breach of Britain's increasingly stringent counter-terrorism laws. (LINK)

(Read the rest of the article by clicking the link above)

The project has been a digitisation and translation of the world's largest archive of (Afghan) Taliban documents (dating back to the 1980s). We hope to present this in the coming months to researchers and the general public alike.

The AFP's article on the British Library's refusal to host the project has been met with incredulity by other scholars and researchers whose work often sees them dealing with primary sources:

Thomas Hegghammer (Director of terrorism research at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI)):

Aaron Zelin (Richard Borow Fellow @WashInstitute, Rena and Sami David Fellow @ICSR_Centre, PhD candidate @KingsCollegeLon, Founder of @Jihadology_Net and @JihadPod):

Chris Woods (journalist / researcher):

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi (working with primary sources in the Middle East and a Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow at the Middle East Forum):

Graeme Smith (Senior Analyst for the International Crisis Group in Afghanistan):

The Guardian newspaper (UK) has a story out as well covering the reasoning behind our disappointment with the decision.

The New York Times (USA) also published a story with some really interesting comments on the legal aspects of the case:

"David Anderson, the independent reviewer for Britain’s antiterrorism laws, said Friday that the Terrorism Act was a broad law that could be even more broadly interpreted “by police and lawyers who want to give cautious advice.” Such interpretations could easily impinge on academic freedom, he warned.
“If this law were interpreted to prevent researchers from accessing Taliban-related material that would impact their academic work, it would be very regrettable,” he said. “That’s not how academics work.”

Al-Jazeera have followed up with a story including comments from Dr Rizwaan Sabir, an academic at Liverpool John Moores University:

"The decision of the British Library may seem far-fetched to some but the law is clear...it says that sharing information that encourages or is useful for terrorism is a criminal offence," Sabir told Al Jazeera.
"Simply holding or sharing the information is a criminal offence that can carry a prison sentence...such laws have a deeply damaging effect on the freedom of scholars to research.
"Where such offences exist, a climate of fear and self-censorship becomes inevitable, and free scholarly inquiry becomes next to impossible."
Sabir was himself arrested in 2008 while conducting research on terrorism for downloading an al-Qaeda training manual from the US Department of Justice website. In 2011, he won compensation and an apology from the British police for false impirsonment.

And two pieces in Arabic. Click here for al-Sharq al-Awsat's writeup, and click here for an article over on BBC Arabic.

UPDATE: Was just on the BBC World Service's Newshour programme talking about all things TSP/British Library. Listen here:

UPDATE: Two analysis/comment pieces have also been released:

1. "Self-Censorship in Action: The British Library Rejects Taliban Archive" by Shaheed Fatima -- offer the legal case that probably supported / lead to the British Library's decision

2. "British Library Won’t Hold Taliban Documents for Researchers Due to Anti-Terror Laws" by Peter van Buren -- summarises some of the broad issues

UPDATE: Two further commentary pieces in NYU's School of Law web journal and forum Just Security:

1. "The British Library Did Not Need to Self-Censor" by Clive Walker

2. "The British Library and the Taliban Sources Project: A Short Reply to Professor Walker" by Shaheed Fatima

UPDATE: A long article summarising much of the above in conjunction with new interviews with Felix and Mike:

"British Library Declines Taliban Archive, New Hosts Step Up" by Lisa Peet

UPDATE: A reply from Clive Walker to Shaheed Fatima's post:

"A Short (Yet Still Forlorn) Reply in the Taliban Sources Project Debate" by Clive Walker

New book: An Educator's Tale

in , ,
 
 

The publishing house that Felix Kuehn and I set up has two new books out. The first of these is called An Undesirable Element: An Afghan Memoir and it tells the story of Sharif Fayez, the man responsible for much of the progress seen in Afghan higher education since 2001. The book also includes a lot from the 1980s jihad and pre-Taliban periods where the author was forced to leave the country -- fleeing to Iran before heading for the United States. This is an extremely readable book, and the story has a fast pace to it.

It's important to keep these Afghan voices and Afghan narratives in mind whenever thinking about the country. Amidst the plethora of commentary on Afghanistan written by foreigners it is easy to forget that Afghans understand their country best. Multiple 'understandings' exist, to be sure, but a failure to privilege the lived experiences makes useful intervention and hamkari much harder.

But don't take my word for it. Here are some clever people writing about what they learned from Fayez's book:

"An Undesirable Element is a fascinating tour through the tumultuous years that helped create modern Afghanistan. Fayez survived Soviet Afghanistan and revolutionary Iran, only to find himself watching from exile as his country devoured itself. Improbably, he returns after 2001 to help resurrect Afghanistan's devastated higher education system, giving an insider account of the challenges of building education in a land dominated by warlords and fundamentalism. The result is a poignant reminder of how much Afghanistan has endured, and the flicker of hope that remains despite it all."

-- Anand Gopal, author of No Good Men Among The Living

"A compelling read, An Undesirable Element recounts an Afghanistan many have forgotten. It serves as a rallying cry to once again imagine all that country might be. It's a tale as extraordinary as the land from which it comes."

-- Elliot Ackerman, author of Green On Blue

"An Undesirable Element moves fast as flames and offers a luminous account of the last half century of Afghan conflicts and redevelopment. Trevithick's oral history of Sharif Fayez's story is a trove: from a kiss on the head by the Afghan former King Zahir Shah, Fayez's life intersected with the future leaders and quiet supporters of his country--both heroic and tyrannical--from Columbia University to a Post-revolutionary University in Mashad, Iran. Fayez is a modest but robust storyteller whose eventual position as Afghanistan's first Minister of Education after the Taliban is only one of the strange twists and turns his story offers. His deft handling in the rebuilding of Afghanistan should be read by anyone interested in how one can use patience and determination to bring hope to a country reduced to rubble."

-- Adam Klein, editor, The Gifts of The State: New Afghan Writing

"The term visionary tends to be misapplied to those who are merely headstrong. But it is a perfectly apt description for Sharif Fayez, the most important figure in education in 21st-century Afghanistan, yet one that history may have neglected without his memoir. Such an omission would have deprived future generations of Afghans from understanding how Fayez, perhaps more than any single person, created hope for the country’s young minds at the turn of the millennium and, in so doing, altered a nation's destiny."

-- Martin Kuz, freelance journalist

Links to purchase paperback and electronic copies here...

Our First Publication: "I Am Akbar Agha", Memoir of a Taliban Insider

in ,

I_am_Akbar_Agha-cover Very happy to announce the publication of First Draft Publishing's inaugural book, I Am Akbar Agha. Felix and I have been working on this initiative for a while, and it's nice to have it see the light of day.

Akbar Agha's book is the latest in an (increasingly) long line of memoirs by individuals associated with the (Afghan) Taliban. So far we have insider accounts from Zaeef, Mutawakil, Mujhda, Mustas'ad, Abu al-Walid al-Masri and rumours of works being written by figures like Mawlawi Qalamuddin and others.

As for what's in the book, I'll refer you to the blurb on the back:

Following in the tradition of Mullah Zaeef’s My Life With the Taliban, Akbar Agha’s memoir tells a story of war, friendship and political intrigue. Starting in 1980s Kandahar, the difficulties and successes of the mujahedeen come through clearly as Akbar Agha struggles to administer a group of fighters. He details the different groups fighting in Kandahar, their cooperation and the scale of the Soviet Union’s efforts to crush them. Not directly a participant in the Taliban government that ruled post-1994, Akbar Agha offers a sometimes-critical account of the administration built by many of his former fighters. After the fall of the Islamic Emirate in 2001, Akbar Agha was involved in the Jaish ul-Muslimeen opposition group and for the first time he has revealed his account of what happened in the kidnapping of UN aid workers. I Am Akbar Agha ends with an analysis of the problems afflicting Afghanistan and outlines a vision for the political future of the country post-elections and post-2015. Anand Gopal has written an introduction to the book.

 

If you're interested in Afghanistan and want to delve a little deeper into the Taliban's (pre-)history, you'll enjoy this book. Lots of new material.

We also published an exclusive interview with Akbar Agha over on our blog.

Anand Gopal has written a great foreword to introduce and contextualise the book. If you're interested in learning more about the book but don't know whether to commit to buying it, I'd recommend downloading the free preview/sample of the text via iBooks or the Amazon Kindle Store where you can read the full text of Anand's foreword.

If you end up reading it, please leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads as a way of supporting our publishing initiative to get more of these primary source texts translated and made available to a wider audience.

Buy a paperback or electronic copy here: LINK

Find out more about First Draft Publishing here: LINK

Two new co-authored reports on Afghanistan

in ,

21 Just a short post. Two reports that I co-authored have just been published. They were both finished a few months back, but they're not so time-sensitive that this will make much of a difference.

The first is for Chatham House, written together with Felix Kuehn. You can read the executive summary here, and download the full report here. The central point we were trying to get across is that a political settlement in Afghanistan must be about more than just 'talks with the Taliban'. That ship has sailed, and new realities mean it's important to bring all parties into a discussion about the future. I remain skeptical as to internal and external parties' ability to make this happen, but here's hoping...

The second report, much longer, was mainly an effort of Felix Kuehn and Leah Farrall but I contributed some things on the sidelines. This was expert witness testimony in the case of US vs. Talha Ahsan and US vs. Babar Ahmad. You can read some of the background to the case here and here. The report we were tasked with writing related to Talha and Babar's activities in Afghanistan during the 1990s, and the extent to which this equated with support for or 'membership' in al-Qaeda. Felix and I have already written a decent amount on the topic, but it was great to team up with Leah to dive into the foreign fighters' side a great deal more.

You can read our report here, starting on page 148. It's a long report, but there's a lot of new material in there which has never been published (as far as I'm aware).

I'd also recommend reading through the judge's statement Talha's sentencing memo. I don't quite understand why there hasn't been more media coverage of this trial, and how the government were more or less told their case was extremely rickety. Perhaps it's because of all the other things going on at the moment.

UPDATE: Edited on August 11 to reflect error in identifying the sentencing memo.

Taliban Time Travel, or How Our Understanding Is Almost Always Two Years Old

in ,

I've been noticing something on twitter and in the public debate surrounding the Afghan Taliban over the past few days. An interview of Motassim in the Guardian last week was shared widely online, and people particularly seemed to find his comments about Mullah Mohammad Omar's loss of control of the Taliban interesting. To those following the Taliban closely this isn't news. It's been the case for two or three years at least. What is interesting is that it has taken that long for that kind of analysis and comment to become accepted by mainstream commentators and to become part of the public debate on the Afghan Taliban.

My very unscientific guess is that there's usually a lag of 6-18 months from a trend starting to emerge within the Taliban to the point where those outside the movement start to notice it. And from there there's another 1-2 years before a particular feature or analytical point becomes accepted and part of public discourse.

Needless to say, this incredibly slow dispersal of understanding makes it hard for analysis and action to mesh together usefully.

Book of the Week: 'Al-Shabab in Somalia'

in , ,

shabab An excellent overview of the history of the Somali al-Shabab group, one with many lessons or reminders of Afghanistan (at least for this reader).

This is a short book, based on some reports written for FFI and others, and in that it has the virtue of concision. Hansen covers al-Shabab's history starting with early proto-Islamist movements and groups started several decades ago. It was the best explanation of where the networks that make up al-Shabab come from that I've read, although it may just be that I haven't been following this too closely since the last time I was last in Mogadishu a couple of years ago.

It was packed with stories and trends that reminded me of Afghanistan, both in the way the international actors chose to respond and intervene, and also in the development of al-Shabab itself. For this reason I'd strongly recommend this book to those working in and on Afghanistan. You'll find a rich vein of material that you can bring back to enrich your understanding of the Taliban and/or the past decade or three. (Needless to say, I'm the last person to suggest that everything is the same in every country, and that there aren't hundreds of reasons why comparisons aren't useful in a this-happened-in-somalia-so-it-must-be-the-same-in-afghanistan.)

There are lots of names and places mentioned, and if you're not familiar with at least the bare outlines of the plot so far as well as some of the key players, you might find it confusing. I wish there was some sort of reference in the back to allow you to keep track of all the different people mentioned.

As always, I wasn't really sure I got a sense of the leaders of al-Shabab (or their fighters) as people in this book, but maybe that's one step too far and one in which it's harder to offer anything that isn't highly subjective or just unrepresentative. Perhaps we can look forward to a book of al-Shabab's songs and poems from Hurst in the future?

Overall, though, an impressive collation of information. Hansen has done us all a service in spending time in Somalia doing fieldwork and in taking the time to put this book together.

Buy it here.

Catching Up: Poetry of the Taliban

in ,

Poetry of the Taliban - Cover The second book that came out this year -- I co-edited it together with Felix Kuehn -- was Poetry of the Taliban. Some people weren't entirely happy with that idea, but on the whole the reviews were pretty positive, both about the collection and about the idea of publishing these translated songs.

The very existence of these cultural artefacts provoked a discussion -- ultimately one of the things we had hoped would happen -- and if you browse through the list of responses you can get a sense of the diversity of that debate.

If you haven't managed to get hold of a copy, it should be available in most good bookshops (or on online retailers).

(Hint: this would make an excellent Christmas stocking filler.)

Catching Up: An Enemy We Created

in ,

aewc cover It's been a while now that An Enemy We Created has been out now. You can get it from all decent bookshops, as well as on kindle (finally), both in the UK and in the USA.

The reviews that have come in have been almost entirely positive. You can read clippings and mentions and browse through the full list over here.

I was invited to talk at the University of Oklahoma (Norman, Oklahoma) and at Creighton University (Omaha, Nebraska) where An Enemy We Created is being assigned as required reading for some courses. The students had many (many) questions and it was great to be able to interact with an audience that had read the book.

If you haven't had a chance, perhaps take a look next time you're in a bookshop. It's about a lot more than just the Taliban-Al-Qaeda relationship. You can read some excerpts from the reviews over here.

Catching Up: AAN Report on ISAF Night Raids

in

I haven't blogged in a really long time. Expect that to change. Before I get round to writing something new, I have some long overdue announcements and posts relating to writing work I was busy with last year. Most of you will be aware of the publications. If so, carry on. If not, perhaps take a look. In October 2011, I wrote a report together with Felix Kuehn on ISAF's night raids and other operations described in their press releases over a 2+ year period. That was for the Afghanistan Analysts Network; if you're not reading their blog, you're missing a lot. (Seriously, subscribe to their RSS feed and save yourself the headache of having to check back.)

We partnered with The Guardian's DataBlog team, who offered visualisations of some of the data presented in the report. Check out their stories here, here and here.

Our report was met with an extremely forceful response from ISAF, to which AAN issued a collective reply. We never heard back from ISAF after that.

We're currently at work on an update to this report which will be published by AAN relatively soon (most likely early next year). Watch this space.