The Government and a War on Two Fronts

However, the country’s security officials always emphasize on having necessary preparedness for struggle against insecurity, but, freeing hundreds of prisoners from the Ghazni Jail through conducting a group assault and armed conflict that lasted for hours is an obvious sign of uncontrolled security in Afghanistan and the security forces are incompetent in dealing with security.        

This is not the first time that the Taliban become succeeded to release their imprisoned comrades through conducting armed raids; however, there is one difference in the latest operation which is having a precise plan for direct assault and achieving the goal with minimum casualties. 

If all of them were being summarized in the planning and combat capabilities of the Taliban, there was no need to have profound concerns, but the concerns are more serious than they appear; there are hidden hands in the Afghan security forces that are involved in these insecurities and also the ground for the latest prison break, to some extent, was facilitated by these hidden hands.         

The Background of Prison Breaks

On June 2008, a group of armed Taliban attacked on the Kandahar Prison, they blew the prison gates with a massive truck bomb and flooded inside, attacking the guards and freeing the inmates, they freed 900 prisoners which 350 of them were the important individuals or the warriors of the Taliban.

Moreover, the Taliban in 2011 made a world record in jail breaking by digging a tunnel of about half a kilometer and they made 475 inmates to flee through this tunnel. They were digging the tunnel for almost four months and took the necessary precautions including carrying oxygen to the entire tunnel through the pipe.

Besides that, the Taliban freed a number of prisoners by using different techniques; however, they freed the entire 400 prisoners from the Ghazni Prison as a result of a direct attack on the prison last Monday night.  

Taliban’s Fighting Techniques

The fighting of Taliban is not based only on weapons and achieving the targets by using force, but, in most of the cases, they also get use other techniques that the security sources do not want to talk about these techniques. And, the reason is that that government wants to introduce the Taliban nothing but an illegitimate group of warriors.     

One of the techniques that the Taliban uses for attracting support of the people is doing the propaganda. Taliban have a commission named “recruitment” in their administrative mechanism. The individuals related to this commission attend villages and encourage people to not send their sons to the Afghan security forces and need to mention that this commission has had achievements, also.  

The name, father name and residence of those who have left the ranks of army, national and local people as a result of the propaganda of mentioned commission is published in the official websites of the Taliban every month and sometimes, this number reaches up to hundreds, but the goal of this commission is not only to make the people leave the rank of the government. Another section of this commission is busy with recruiting those inside the armed forces of Afghanistan in order to cooperate with the Taliban, when they are needed.      

These are the truths of war in Afghanistan that are being experienced for several times during the last 35 years. Considering the special circumstances in the country and dissatisfaction of people with the government, especially due to corruption, has eased the mission of the Taliban, who are making the soldiers to leave their duties. Usage of money is also a mean to encourage the soldiers and officers to cooperate with the anti-government elements. Corruption is not limited to the civil section of the governmental mechanism, but, it is highly promoted among the military officers, also.     

The country’s security sources do not neglect the cooperation of military personnel with the Taliban in breaking the Ghazni Prison and the spokesman for the Interior Ministry talks about arresting some police officials regarding the incident.

Leaving the Ranks of the Armed Forces

There are plenty of information, videos and photos regarding the soldiers in appropriate uniforms and officers in dramatic and stylish uniforms having presence in luxury buildings. The building for Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry is called small Pentagon that has capacity of hundreds of employees and about 2500 of employees can work there at one time. This building coasted 160 Million Dollars and only the expenses for its furniture and Information Technology are estimated about 50 Million Dollars.       

However, there is a bitter truth behind the glossy appearance that both foreigners and the Afghan government are trying to hide it. The main problem is desertion among the armed forces of the country.

However, the related organs do not provide the exact statistic of desertion among the personnel of country’s armed forces, but, some other sources have published shocking reports regarding this matter.   

According to a report of SIGAR that investigate about the US expenditures in Afghanistan, 40,000 individuals of the military forces of Afghanistan have left their duty from January 2013 to January 2014. These are the individuals that the US spent huge amount on their training.   

However, the Defense Ministry of Afghanistan had rejected this report on that time and considered these statistics as they had technical mistakes and problems, but, as every American officials after his/her visit to Afghanistan insists on the presence of American force in Afghanistan, it is the sign of existence of such a problem. Even, some of these officials warn that if the foreign forces leave Afghanistan, the entire achievements of America in Afghanistan would be lost, then.      

Mohammad Omar Daudzai, the former Interior Minister talks about this issue with more clarity. A few days ago, he, on his twitter account, had expressed concerns on lack of human resources in the country’s defense and security forces and had considered it as an “alarm” for Afghanistan and had requested the President of Afghanistan to perform his duty as the supreme commander of the country’s armed forces well.    

Reason behind Weakness in Battlefield

One of the achievements of the new government after the Taliban collapsed is creating national army and police in Afghanistan. At the beginning and after the Bonn Conference I, Afghanistan was supposed to have an army consisted of 70-80 thousand individuals, however, after considering the security situation, it was planned to increase the number of army forces and equip them with modern weapons and due for this a lot of programs on training these forces have been conducted by several countries.

US were the biggest donor of the Afghan security forces during the past 14 years that spent hundred billions of dollars on equipping and training these forces. At the beginning of 2013, the number of Afghanistan’s national army reached to 352000 individuals that, according to amount, were equal to Pakistan’s armed forces, however, beside the entire expense, it looks like the army is not capable of handling the security situation in the country, and in many cases, the advancement of the Taliban is considered for lack of soldiers in the battle ground.     

Success and advancement in this war is not based on soldiers and weapons only but the morale of the soldiers in the battlefield is the first thing to be considered. Afghan soldier as a citizen of this country wants good governance and better future for his/her family and children. In a country where the families of senior governmental officials live abroad in a peaceful environment and in a system where corruption and looting rampage, how could we suppose a soldier to sacrifice him/herself for such kind of a government?      

Progress in the battlefield in the first place needs the war against corruption to be won and corruption is an infelicitous phenomenon that weakens the bases of a system from inside. The obvious sign of weakness of the system is seen in the morale of the soldiers in the battlefield. If the government of Afghanistan did not overcome on the struggle against corruption, it should never have hope of overcoming on the war against the armed opposition.

The End