An Afghan National Army soldier provides security along a highway during a patrol in Panjwai district in southern Afghanistan. The district has traditionally been a hotbed of Taliban support but last year saw a fragile peace settle over the area. (Josh Smith/Stars and Stripes)
PANJWAI DISTRICT, Afghanistan — In early 2013 a group of Afghan and coalition soldiers climbed a hill inside what was then an American forward operating base at Sperwan Ghar.
“Do you think you can hold it?” an American officer asked Afghan National Army Lt. Col. Ghulam Dastager, gesturing over the dusty grape farms and marijuana fields.
“God willing,” the Afghan leader said.
Two years after that meeting, residents and security forces say a fragile peace has settled over Panjwai, which has become an unlikely bright spot in the fight against the Taliban. The factors that led to this lull hold potential lessons, and warnings, for Afghan leaders and their international backers.
The good news, Dastager said, is counterinsurgency efforts seem to have succeeded in taking advantage of a local backlash against the Taliban. But Panjwai remains in the heart of one of the most continuously violent areas in Afghanistan, and with insurgents vowing to fight on, government forces must prove to residents that they are here to stay.
Panjwai and its neighboring districts are often called the “birthplace of the Taliban,” part of the area where the group’s one-eyed leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, first began to flex his political and military muscles in 1994.
But in early 2013, many of the district’s residents had finally turned on the Taliban, accusing militants of disrespecting village elders and interfering with farming. In desperation, residents turned to government officials for help.
With foreign forces already preparing to withdraw, international and Afghan military leaders tried to take advantage of this so-called “uprising” in Panjwai. Perhaps learning from previous botched reactions in places like neighboring Uruzgan province, where residents were left to fend for themselves against insurgent forces, Afghan and U.S. troops established checkpoints and other strongholds throughout Panjwai.
Despite the potshots from a sniper that came whizzing over troops’ heads while sitting in one such fort manned by Afghan local police in early 2013, the area was already quieting down compared to earlier deployments, American soldiers said at the time.
But the Taliban wouldn’t go quietly. By that summer, Panjwai was by some counts one of the most violent districts in all of Afghanistan, said Graeme Smith, an analyst with the International Crisis Group who spent years living in Kandahar.
In 2014, however, the number of violent incidents dropped drastically. “Violence in Panjwai is roughly half of what it was in 2013,” Smith said as he pored over tables of statistics in his office in Kabul.
Afghan security forces patrol a village in Panjwai district, once known as part of the “Birthplace of the Taliban.” Despite its bloody history, Panjwai and surrounding districts have become something of a bright spot with residents increasingly supporting the central government. (Josh Smith/Stars and Stripes)
That trend was confirmed by residents and security forces.
“Two years ago we stood up against the Taliban and now we can see the results: no Taliban and no problem,” said Abdul Hodod, a local police commander who helped lead pro-government militias against the Taliban during the uprising.
Afghans around the country tell of situations in which the Taliban return after foreign or Afghan forces retired to their bases. But local support appears to have changed that all-too-common equation in Panjwai.
“Even our children know how to recognize a stranger who could be Taliban,” Hodod said. “But the ANA and foreigners don’t always recognize the Taliban. We were the key,” Hodod said. Now insurgents have much less freedom to operate, he added.
“Before, people couldn’t cooperate or support the government because the area was in the Taliban control and there were no government soldiers,” said Sat Mohammed, a local council member in Panjwai. “Now we have soldiers, checkpoints and people feel safe to cooperate.”
The shift in Panjwai may offer a glimmer of hope for Afghan government forces, who have been taking a record number of casualties as fighting around the country continues. But while the trends in Panjwai itself are promising, they also hold warnings that the district could easily slide back into outright conflict, with disastrous results for residents as well as security forces, who are already stretched thin in other areas of the country.
Local support, government presence and other components of counterinsurgency that have played out favorably in Panjwai are well understood, yet much more easily stated than accomplished and maintained.
The district has long been the scene of what Maj. Gen. Robert Abrams, the former American commander in southern Afghanistan, called “a slugfest” between insurgents and coalition and Afghan troops. Years of operations had done little to break the Taliban’s hold on Panjwai. In 2006, for example, Operation Medusa saw Canadian forces inflict a serious blow to the Taliban, only to have the group retain its influence and return to the fight.
All that violence has often left residents caught in between.
Afghan National Army soldiers prepare for a patrol in Panjwai district in southern Afghanistan. Local elders and military leaders credit security forces with helping to secure the volatile area after residents turned against the Taliban two years ago. (Josh Smith/Stars and Stripes)
Panjwai is also infamous for the massacre of 16 Afghan villagers — most of them women and children — outside Camp Belambay, a small U.S. Army base, in March 2012. An American soldier, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, was sentenced to life in prison for those killings. It’s a memory that complicated efforts to reach out to Panjwai’s residents.
If residents sense a wavering in government control, they may once again look to the Taliban, who have had success in other areas by establishing judicial systems and support networks seen as an alternative to a corrupt central government.
The government in Kabul and the NATO-led coalition have seen gains like those in Panjwai go up in smoke in other areas.
Gizab district in nearby Uruzgan was the scene of a similar uprising against the Taliban in 2010 that prompted coalition leaders to label the district a “great example” of stability.
But last year militant forces returned with a vengeance.
Fighting displaced some 500 families, and local officials said the district itself was on the brink of falling completely back under Taliban control.
It’s not clear that even the tens of thousands of American and international troops sent during the troop surge of 2010 did much to blunt the insurgency, International Crisis Group’s Smith argued.
“What we’re seeing now is not so different from pre-surge numbers,” he said. “The surge was designed to expand government control. And that has failed. In many places the Taliban are massing in ways not seen since 2006.”
Holding on to potentially fleeting gains in places like Panjwai while trying to make progress in other districts will be a long process for the Afghan forces, who are fully responsible for taking on the entrenched insurgency now that NATO and American leaders have declared an end to their combat operations.
Though fighting in Panjwai may have dissipated, neighboring districts just a few miles away such as Maiwand and Ghorak have seen spikes in violence.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf dismissed accounts of government support in Panjwai as propaganda and said the group’s forces are planning new offensives.
An Afghan National Army soldier provides security along a highway during a patrol in Panjwai district in southern Afghanistan. Afghan forces established a network of checkpoints after residents turned against the Taliban (Josh Smith/Stars and Stripes)
“In these areas the government is calling anarchy peace,” he said in a phone interview. “Villagers support us. In Panjwai and other districts we will be increasing attacks with new tactics to support the villagers and help them fight against the government cruelty.”
Maj. Gen. Abdul Hamid commands the ANA’s 205th “Hero” Corps based in Kandahar city. Two years ago, the coalition officially handed him and his troops control over the fight in southern Afghanistan.
Holding court in his greenhouse-turned-conference room complete with exotic birds and pungent tropical flowers, Hamid spoke of how squashing Taliban support in areas like Panjwai won’t be enough if militants can still find havens across the border in Pakistan or in highly violent Afghan provinces.
“There was a time when we had many insurgents from Panjwai,” he said over the sound of the twittering birds. “Now most come from Pakistan or Helmand. It is like squeezing a balloon. You make progress here, the militants go over there.”
Nooruddin Bakhshi and Zubair Babakarkhail contributed to this report.
