The British Media Portrayal of Local Afghan Interpreters Employed by the British Armed Forces

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Reference

The British Media Portrayal of Local Afghan Interpreters Employed by the British Armed Forces

BESSANT, Claire

Abstract

Local conflict zone interpreters occupy a precarious position between warring parties. They are often viewed as traitors by the adversaries of their employer military, and may be targeted as a result of their work. The Taliban's persecution of local Afghan interpreters employed by the British military has received considerable media attention in the UK. Through the lens of narrative theory this paper analyses the British media's portrayal of local Afghan interpreters and their situation, and looks at the role played by the media in its coverage of our topic. The findings indicate that press coverage is generally biased in favour of the interpreters.

Publications may use their sway over public opinion and government policy to assist the interpreters, assuming the role of a player rather than that of a bystander reporter. This paper increases understanding of how local conflict zone interpreters are viewed, and the concrete impact which this can have on their situation.

BESSANT, Claire. The British Media Portrayal of Local Afghan Interpreters Employed by the British Armed Forces. Master : Univ. Genève, 2020

Available at:

http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:147457

Disclaimer: layout of this document may differ from the published version.

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The British Media Portrayal of Local Afghan Interpreters Employed by the British Armed Forces

Claire Bessant

Mémoire présenté à la Faculté de Traduction et d’Interprétation pour l’obtention du MA en Interprétation de Conférence

Directeur de mémoire : Prof. Lucía RUIZ ROSENDO Juré : Prof. Kilian SEEBER

Janvier 2020

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Key Words

Interpreters, media, conflict, military, Afghanistan

Abstract

Local conflict zone interpreters occupy a precarious position between warring parties. They are often viewed as traitors by the adversaries of their employer military, and may be targeted as a result of their work. The Taliban’s persecution of local Afghan interpreters employed by the British military has received considerable media attention in the UK. Through the lens of narrative theory this paper analyses the British media’s portrayal of local Afghan interpreters and their situation, and looks at the role played by the media in its coverage of our topic. The findings indicate that press coverage is generally biased in favour of the interpreters. Publications may use their sway over public opinion and government policy to assist the interpreters, assuming the role of a player rather than that of a bystander reporter. This paper increases understanding of how local conflict zone interpreters are viewed, and the concrete impact which this can have on their situation.

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Student Information

Claire Bessant

25 Boulevard du Pont d’Arve 1205 Genève

[email protected]

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Acknowledgements

I would first and foremost like to thank my supervisor, Lucía Ruiz Rosendo, for her valuable guidance.

Thanks are also due to my friends and family for proofreading this project.

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Introduction

Mohammed Rafi Hotak was recruited as an interpreter by the British Armed Forces in 2006. Less than a year after beginning work, he was seriously injured in an improvised explosive device (IED) explosion. Even when equipped with full military body armour, an IED explosion can cause mutilation, loss of limb or loss of life. The explosion left Rafi scarred for life. In addition, his work with the British left him a marked man. He was attacked several times. The Taliban sent him regular death threats and threatened his family. Frightened for his life, Rafi applied for a UK visa.

His demand was rejected, a letter from the UK border agency telling him that his claims that he had received Taliban death threats were not accepted.

With his hopes of safe, legal passage to Britain dashed, Rafi embarked upon a journey across land and sea to the UK border, where he applied for asylum. His demand was rejected and then, after The Times newspaper printed his story, accepted. Rafi had spent all of his savings, risked his life and left his family to escape the clutches of the Taliban. He was penniless and far from his family, but safe.

Others were not so lucky; Rafi came across a video showing several friends of his, also local interpreters, being beheaded by the Taliban.

Since the withdrawal of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from Afghanistan, other stories like Rafi’s have emerged. There have been reports of local Afghan interpreters being targeted for having worked with ISAF forces, since the Taliban view them as ‘infidels’ and

‘invaders’ (Anderson, 2014, p. 1). In an interview, the spokesperson of the Taliban affirmed that

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these interpreters would be ‘targeted and executed like the foreign soldiers and other foreign occupiers. They will be put to death.’ (Anderson, 2014, p.5). Foreign governments which employed local civilians in Afghanistan have taken steps to assist their former employees, in some cases by granting them asylum. However, the measures taken by the British government have been a source of impassioned debate, which has been followed closely by the British media.

Since the situation of local Afghan interpreters is on the radar of the general public, rather than being an arcane academic topic, many different kinds of writer have taken an interest in the subject:

from academic researchers such as Tălpaș (2016) and Pederson (2017) to reporters such as Anderson (2014) and Engelhart (2015). Whilst their methodologies and focal points vary greatly, the point of convergence of a number of these studies (Anderson, 2014; Engelhart, 2015; Tălpaș, 2016) is the author’s intention to highlight the risks faced by local Afghan interpreters to draw attention to a need to remedy these risks. This implies a degree of concern in the writer for this topic, which comes through more clearly in the tone of reporters writing for the wider public (Anderson, 2014; Engelhart 2015). The tone of academic studies on this topic (Tălpaș, 2016;

Pederson, 2017), whilst maintaining a scholarly detachment, is by no means dispassionate.

Anderson’s (2014) documentary and accompanying written report, pitched in a very practical and piercing key, are based upon interviews with local Afghan interpreters working with American forces. The focus is on the dangers faced by the interpreters and the difficulty of seeking refuge in the United States. On the other hand, in his 2017 article on Afghan interpreters in Danish employ, Pederson draws upon his own experience as a Pashto-speaking military linguist and information collected from Danish Ministry of Defence reports to outline the risks faced by the interpreters,

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and the reaction of the Danish and British governments to reports of intimidation. He argues that it is a moral obligation to save Afghan interpreters from violence and intimidation, thus explicitly stating what Anderson’s study insinuates. Engelhart supports Pederson’s conclusion in her 2015 study, which was a valuable source of information for this project since it outlines the steps taken by the British government to assist their Afghan former employees. Moreover, Englehart’s (2015) study was of particular interest because the researcher gathered information from the British press.

Tălpaș (2016) goes further still by explicitly stating that the goal of her study is to present the risks faced by Afghan interpreters working for ISAF forces in order to avoid these risks in the future.

The myriad of sources drawn upon include interviews like Anderson (2014), official reports like Pederson (2017) and press reports like Engelhart (2015). She indicates that local Afghan interpreters were perceived as a potential threat by both the local community and their employers which, in turn, posed a threat to the interpreters themselves. The study concludes that the interpreters’ duties far exceeded that of interpreting speech, describing their role as that of an

‘interpreter-soldier’.

The same limitations are ubiquitous in both scholarly and journalistic contributions to this field:

the absence of official figures on violence and intimidation suffered by Afghan interpreters.

Indeed, Pederson (2017) acknowledges this ambiguity, evoking the impossibility of investigating claims of intimidation, and the difficulty of providing robust evidence of death threats. Engelhart (2015) substantiates this conclusion, stating that some governments may not have exact figures on how many local Afghan interpreters were actually employed. The absence of an ‘official death toll’ is perhaps what leads reporters such as Anderson (2014) and Engelhart (2015) to focus on narrating the stories of individual interpreters who have been victims of violence and intimidation.

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In this sense, the absence of confirmed numbers has not hampered the reporters’ message concerning the precarity of local Afghan interpreters: narrative has the advantage of being easily understood by anyone (Baker, 2006).

Local Afghan interpreters are now seldom written about without the focus being on the violence and threats that they face. However, a number of studies do focus on other elements of the interpreters’ experience, providing a useful insight into the backdrop of the interpreters’ current situation. De Ridder, Soeters and Van Dijk (2010) studied the relations between Dutch personnel deployed in Uruzgan Province and their local interpreters. They took an interpretative approach using data drawn from surveys completed by Dutch military personnel. Similarly, Bos and Soeters (2006) also studied interpreter-user relations, with a special emphasis on (dis)trust. However, unlike De Ridder, Soeters and Van Dijk’s (2010) work, their study encompassed both user and interpreter. Their findings suggested that local Afghan interpreters were caught in a precarious position between trust and distrust, not only with regard to their foreign employers, but also with regard to the local population. Moreover, this negative reaction from their compatriots meant that interpreters ‘feared for their lives outside of working hours’ (Bos & Soeters, 2006, p. 266); a grim harbinger of what was to come. Gómez Amich, in her 2013 article on interpreters in select zones of international conflict in the 20th and 21st centuries, surmises that the role of conflict interpreters goes beyond interpreting, suggesting that the term ‘interpreter’ may not fully capture their role.

She indicates that conflict zone interpreters’ position is further complicated by the difficulty of achieving neutrality and earning trust. Ruiz Rosendo (in press) studied the situation of two categories of interpreter working with the Afghanistan Spanish Force: national interpreters recruited in Spain, and local interpreters recruited in Afghanistan. Like Bos and Soeters (2006),

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both interpreter and user were included in this qualitative study. Data collected from unstructured interviews indicated that the interpreters’ differing backgrounds influenced the way in which they processed information, their agency, and how well they were trusted by the military.

This project will explore the narratives constructed or conveyed by the British press about local Afghan interpreters. This approach was inspired by Baker’s (2006) reflection on the relationship between conflict zone interpreters and narrative, meaning the stories that we tell ourselves about the world(s) around us. Distinct from literary narrative, narrative theory refers to ‘a meta-code that cuts across and underpins all modes of communication’ (Baker, 2006, p. 19). Not only do interpreters convey and co-author narratives, they are also portrayed by narratives ‘as victims or villains, as trust-worthy allies or security risks’ (Baker, 2010, p. 217). The importance of narrative should not be underestimated; our behaviour is guided by stories that we believe (Baker 2006). In this view, how local Afghan interpreters are narrated has a concrete impact on how they are treated by different parties. As observed by Tălpaș (2016), local interpreters being viewed as untrustworthy or treacherous is a real danger for the interpreters themselves; they may be shunned or targeted by the local population, without benefiting from the protection afforded by full acceptance into the ‘us’ camp.

The implications of narrative are especially acute in the context of war, where one’s perceived position in the conflict may have fatal consequences; the interpreters have been targeted because the Taliban view them as belonging to the enemy camp.

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As far as I am aware, although press articles have been a rich source of information for studies in this domain (Engelhart, 2015; Tălpaș, 2016) no researcher has taken media coverage of this issue as their central focus. Hence, this study aims to fill this gap. Although Bos and Soeters (2006) note that an ethnographic approach based upon field work is increasingly seen as a valuable methodology in this domain, the scarcity of data on Afghan interpreters, coupled with the difficulty of investigating and documenting threats made against them (Pederson, 2017) necessitate a different approach to sourcing information for this project.

In addition to exploring the media portrayal of Afghan interpreters, this study will also assess what kind of role the British press assumes in its coverage of our topic. For many years, the role assigned to the media has been a subject of heated debate. Whilst traditional schools of thought generally argue that the role of the press should be that of an impartial, objective reporter, others contend that objectivity is not always possible, or indeed desirable (McLaughlin, 2016). As evidenced by the work of Anderson (2014) and Engelhart (2015), journalists have been known to depart from the traditional norms of objective reporting to support a given cause, stepping out of their traditional role as an objective bystander and using their reporting to raise the profile of a certain issue (McLaughlin, 2016). In light of this, it is possible that the role assumed by the British media when reporting on local Afghan interpreters will not be that of a traditional bystander reporter.

The importance of narratives carried in the media should not be underestimated given the dual role of the media both reflecting and informing public opinion (Anastasio, Rose, & Chapman, 1999).

Government policy can be swayed by public opinion (Younger, 1955), buckling to pressure or pandering to popular sympathy for a cause to win the hearts of the public. Therefore, analysing the

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British media’s portrayal of the interpreters, and the role that the media assumes in its coverage of our subject, may also give an insight into the link between public opinion, the media view and government policy regarding Afghan interpreters.

Before exploring the media narratives about local Afghan interpreters, it is important to understand the wider context of this topic. Chapter one will thus be a theoretical reflection on interpreters in conflict zones. Chapter two will explain the modern history of Afghanistan and the rise of the Taliban. Chapter three will explore the outbreak and unfolding of the war in Afghanistan before honing in on the role played by the British, especially in Helmand Province. Chapter four will focus on the local Afghan interpreters working with the British in Afghanistan, exploring their role(s) and risks that they faced. Special attention will be paid to the reprisals suffered by Afghan interpreters as a result of their work, and the assistance schemes established by the British government to help them: the Redundancy/ Ex-Gratia Scheme and the Intimidation Scheme.

Chapter five draws upon a corpus of British press articles to explore the media portrayal of local Afghan interpreters working with the British army and their situation, and the role assumed by the media in its coverage of this topic.

The purpose of this project is not to cast a moral judgement on the situation of Afghan interpreters, nor is it to draw greater attention to their situation. Rather, through the lens of narrative, this paper aims to look at how the media depicts Afghan interpreters and their situation, framed within a reflection on the role of the media and the relationship between the British press, public opinion and government policy. This research is limited in that it focusses purely on the British media. A future study could hence contextualise these findings by taking a comparative approach

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encompassing the media of other ISAF countries, or comparing and contrasting the media coverage of reprisals faced by local interpreters in other conflict zones, for example Iraq.

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Chapter 1 Local Interpreters in Conflict Zones

Over recent decades, interpreting in conflict zones has garnered increasing scholarly attention, due in part to greater media interest in this group of interpreters (Ruiz Rosendo & Barea Muñoz, 2017).

This is sometimes a response to violence which they have suffered during, or as a result of, their work (Takeda, 2012). Although interpreting in areas of armed conflict is no longer uncharted territory for academia, the figure of the conflict zone interpreter remains elusive (Ruiz Rosendo &

Barea Muñoz, 2017); their role itself is vast, and sometimes poorly delimited (Baigorri Jalón, 2011). This is compounded by the difficulty of researching a domain set against a backdrop of complex relations between warring parties (Ruiz Rosendo & Barea Muñoz, 2017). Far removed from the more formalised part of the profession (Allen, 2012), interpreters working in zones of armed conflict remain little known for fellow interpreters and the layman alike (Baker, 2010).

History shows us that language barriers have never confounded the outbreak of violent conflict. In a world marred by war there is no question as to the abiding importance of and need for interpreters in international conflict. They play an instrumental role at all stages of armed conflict (Baigorri Jalón, 2011), from the belligerent’s declaration of war – which would be pointless should ‘the enemy’ not understand – to the eventual peace talks (Baker, 2006). Indeed, De Ridder, Soeters and van Dijk remind us that ‘words – if well chosen – can silence guns’ (2010, p. 923).

Some scholars have put forth taxonomies of interpreters in armed conflict, such as Allen (2012) and Ruiz Rosendo and Barea Muñoz (2017), identifying subgroups including military linguists, conference interpreters, and local civilians hired by the military. The evidently wide scope of the

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term ‘interpreters in conflict zones’ means that any consideration of this group as whole would be beyond the scope of this study, which will instead focus on a major subcategory that has drawn the lion’s share of scholarly interest: local interpreters working with a foreign military.

Local interpreters, most of whom are civilians (Ruiz Rosendo & Barea Muñoz, 2017), form the largest subgroup of interpreters in conflict zones. They are often recruited by private companies on behalf of a foreign government (Allen, 2012). Crucially, many scholars stress that local interpreters do not tend to have professional interpreter training or experience (Moser-Mercer &

Bali, 2008; Allen, 2012; Gómez Amich, 2013; Ruiz Rosendo & Persaud, 2016; Ruiz Rosendo &

Barea Muñoz, 2017), nor do they necessarily have any more than a rudimentary grasp of their employer’s language (Baker, 2010; Ruiz Rosendo & Barea Muñoz, 2017; Baigorri Jalón 2019).

Whilst in conference interpreting it would be out of the question to hire an interpreter with no proper training, in armed conflict ‘the law of supply and demand rules’ (Gómez Amich, 2013, p.

15) perhaps due to the enduring dearth of interpreters in this sphere (Moser-Mercer & Bali, 2008) and the language combinations required. Moreover, Moerman (2008) suggests that armies operating abroad seldom anticipate the hiring of interpreters, and often choose to recruit ‘cheaper locals’ to evade certain legal obligations such as providing health coverage and guaranteeing safe working conditions.

Despite the considerable danger to which these interpreters are exposed in their line of work (Allen, 2012), they may only receive meagre protection (Baker, 2010) and rarely benefit from war-zone training (Ruiz Rosendo & Persaud, 2016) which could address challenges that form part of a days’

work for the interpreters, such as coping with secondary trauma and minimising risk in a violent

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setting (Allen, 2012). Local civilians may accept this dangerous work for many reasons (Ruiz Rosendo & Barea Muñoz, 2017), including for the good pay (Baigorri Jalón, 2011; Ruiz Rosendo, in press) or out of sheer desperation when unemployment is rife (Baker, 2010).

The tasks undertaken by local interpreters remain ambiguous, not just because of the difficulty of studying a figure caught between the clashing, vacillating narratives of conflict, but also because their job description is, in itself, often vaguely delimited (Baigorri Jalón, 2011). This group of interpreters cover most interpreting services in conflict, including going on patrol with troops, communicating between soldiers and local civilians, and liaising during important exchanges between leaders (Allen, 2012). They may be called upon to interpret during military operations, assist propaganda campaigns and communicate with captives (Baigorri Jalón, 2011). In addition to this, interpreters may be required to carry out multifarious tasks outside of their role as a linguistic mediator (Baker, 2010; Ruiz Rosendo & Persaud, 2016). Indeed, Gómez Amich (2013) suggests that the term ‘interpreter’ does not fully capture their role.

The role of the local interpreter when performing these tasks is not to act as a ‘neutral conduit […]

doing nothing more than a machine-like rendition of what it said in the source speech into the target language’ (Takeda, 2012), but rather to act as a ‘cultural broker’ (Van Den Noortgate, 2016;

Takeda, 2012). It is widely accepted that ‘language is interwoven with the threads of culture, and that it is difficult, probably impossible, to separate the two’ (Al-Hassan, 2013, p. 97) meaning that cultural mediation is part and parcel of interpreting. Whilst this holds true in all spheres of the profession, perhaps for local interpreters brokering between distant cultures against the tense backdrop of war, cultural mediation becomes a more central and demanding part of the

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interpreter’s role. This may be a reason for choosing locals; Anderson (2010) and Ruiz Rosendo (in print) both affirm that local Afghan interpreters played an indispensable role helping foreign soldiers understand local culture. Local interpreters present the advantage of having a full understanding of local culture and language, including being able to read non-verbal signals (Ruiz Rosendo, in press). Indeed, Ruiz Rosendo observes that a whole chapter of the manual on military strategy Advising the Command: Best Practices from the Special Operations is devoted to the importance of cultural and linguistic understanding. Moreover, one could argue that the fact that foreign militaries choose to employ local interpreters for their cultural expertise despite viewing them as a potential threat bears testament to the importance of cultural mediation in conflict zones.

Rendering both language and culture – themselves intrinsically linked – is the role of any interpreter. However, one could argue that for certain kinds of interpreter, including conflict zone interpreters, there is greater emphasis on cultural mediation. This shift has significant implications for the (in)visibility of the interpreter. Hidden from view and usually physically removed from the exchange, conference interpreters narrate themselves out of events to leave a seamless dialogue.

In theory, the interpreter’s own voice is not heard; they assume the character of the speaker. Local interpreters in conflict zones (and community interpreters), on the other hand, may be permitted, or even required, to make their own voice heard to comment on aspects of culture. Symbolically physically present in the midst of an exchange, these cultural brokers become protagonists with considerable latitude to influence the course of an exchange; ‘trusted to be selective in what they communicate’, they can give ‘the “gist” of what others say as they understand or wish to present it’ (Baker, 2010, p. 214). The interpreter’s agency when interpreting exchanges bestows them with significant power to shape the unfolding of wider events; interpreted exchanges feed into the

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overarching narratives that guide the actions of warring parties, and may ultimately alter the course of the war (Baker, 2010).

The power of local interpreters in conflict zones to co-author unfolding narratives makes the paucity of targeted training all the more concerning; Baker affirms that poor interpreting could risk fuelling the ‘streamlined, homogenizing narratives’ that sustain conflict (Baker, 2010, p. 217).

Furthermore, the immediate fallout of communication breakdowns can be grievous for all involved (Moser-Mercer & Bali, 2008).

Given that this group of interpreters is present and visible in an exchange, it is important to consider their position in relation to parties involved in the conflict. Professional standards require an interpreter to remain neutral when interpreting exchanges (Beebee, 2010, p. 295). However, the role of interpreters in conflict zones is not limited to neutral linguistic and cultural mediation;

rather, the interpreter may temper utterances, make conscious omissions and volunteer their own opinion (Ruiz Rosendo, in press).

Interpreters are also traditionally required to remain impartial (Beebee, 2010, p. 295). Is it important to differentiate between an interpreter’s professional impartiality when interpreting exchanges, and the interpreter’s position in the conflict as a whole. Whilst the former may be achieved (Beebee 2010, p. 295), the latter is difficult to attain (Kahane, 2007; Gómez Amich, 2013) and – for this kind of interpreter – neither required, nor desired. Indeed, for a foreign military recruiting interpreters from a population who could be perceived as belonging to the enemy camp, loyalty is ‘sacred’ (Baigorri Jalón, 2011, p. 5) and is hence preferred to impartiality.

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Moreover, the rigidly dichotomous narratives of war leave little room for a neutral space between enemy camps. War is defined by ‘two mutually exclusive categories […] us and them’ (Baker, 2010, p. 210) meaning that interpreters in conflict zones are often unable to find a neutral space in the void that separates the good, humane ‘us’ from the savage, malevolent ‘them’ (Kahane, 2007).

This seems to be the case in Afghanistan, where ‘there are no empty of neutral spaces between the Taliban narrative and that of the coalition’ (Kahane, 2007). Even should an interpreter intend to be neutral, this may not be recognised by the warring parties (Kahane, 2007) operating in a context in which one’s identity is nearly entirely ‘constructed by other actors […] to suit the exigencies of war’ (Baker, 2010, p. 199). In armed conflict, it seems that the notions of interpreter neutrality and impartiality may be eclipsed by the more potent tradition of ‘with us or against us’.

Unable to find a neutral no-man’s-land in the midst of conflict, local interpreters may find themselves suspended between warring parties (Gómez Amich, 2013). Belonging to one culture and serving another, local interpreters are often mistrusted by both their employers and the local community (Baker, 2010). The foreign military may regard local interpreters with suspicion since they are viewed as a potential threat (Baigorri Jalón, 2011), whilst the local population may see their compatriot interpreters to be ‘sleeping with the enemy’ (Moerman, 2008) and identify them as ‘the other’ because of their work (Ruiz Rosendo, in print). This exposes local interpreters to great danger; they may be ostracised, threatened, violently assaulted or killed for their work.

To conclude, the position of local conflict interpreters is nuanced and complex in a situation which traditionally demands that one choose a side. Therein lies their precarity; belonging to the local

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culture and serving a foreign military estranges them from their compatriots, without gaining them the full acceptance, and hence protection, of their employers. Suspended in limbo, they are cast as friend or foe, collaborator or traitor, and treated accordingly. Viewed with mistrust and suspicion, they are nonetheless entrusted with the power to shape narratives that may determine the path of a war, whilst remaining powerless to resist the net of contrasting narratives woven about them. The work of local conflict interpreters places them in the line of fire, and they remain so well after the end of hostilities.

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Chapter 2 Afghanistan

2.1 The Geography of Afghanistan

Before addressing the situation of local interpreters in Afghanistan, it is useful to look at the setting in which their story begins. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is an Asian country bordered by Tajikistan and Turkmenistan to the North, Pakistan to the South and South East and Iran to the West. It shares a short border with China in the North-Western tip of the country, but this area is disputed between Pakistan and Tajikistan. The terrain of the country is very diverse (see figure 1) and has had an impact on the course of conflict in the region, as will be briefly seen in chapter 3.

Most of Afghanistan is covered by the Hindu Kush mountains, which sprawl from the North West to the centre of the country. To the North of the mountains lies a small area of fertile plains, whilst the South is dominated by an arid desert. Rain is rare, and usually falls over the Northern plains in March and April.

Figure 1: Clockwise from top left: The Band-e-Amir National Park in Bamiyan Province, in the central highlands; The Saland Pass in the Hindu Kush; The Korengal Valley in the Northern Province of Kunar; The Kajaki Dam in Helmand Province, in the Southern plateau region. Image credits: Wikimedia Commons.

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Melt water from the mountains feeds numerous rivers, streams and lakes, although much of this valuable resource flows over the border into Pakistan. Temperatures can vary widely, falling as low as -24°C in Winter, and climbing as high 50°C in Summer in the shade alone. Winter often brings snowstorms, Summer brings dust storms and drought, and the country’s location near the junction between the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates make it prone to earthquakes. Transport links and communications infrastructure are rudimentary and unreliable, which hampers the Afghan government’s ability to extend its authority over the entire area of the country – which is about sixteen times larger than Switzerland.

Figure 2: Topographical Map of Afghanistan. Image credits: Wikimedia Commons.

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24 2.2 The Population of Afghanistan

The population of Afghanistan is just shy of 40 million people. Around three million people live in the capital city, Kabul. The population of the second city, Kandahar, is approximately 400,000 – just under that of Geneva. The country hosts a large number of diverse ethnicities, including Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimak and Baloch (See figure 3). The official languages are Pashto, spoken in Pashtun areas, and Dari, spoken in Hazara and Tajik areas. Turkmen and Uzbek are also spoken in the Northern provinces. 99% of the population are Muslim, the majority of whom are Sunni. The population of Afghanistan is relatively young; a 2012 study estimated that just 2.4% of the population were aged over 65 years (‘Afghanistan Population’, 2019). Afghanistan is a tribal society, and in some rural regions the traditional clan way life has continued unchanged for centuries. Many rulers throughout Afghan history have left the tribes in far-flung regions to self govern.

Figure 3: Ethnic Map of Afghanistan. Image credits: Wikimedia Commons.

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25 2.3 The Afghan Economy

Decades of instability have taken a heavy toll on the Afghan economy. Afghanistan is a very poor country which relies on foreign aid, and living conditions in the country are ranked amongst the worst in the world (‘Afghanistan Overview’, 2019). The presence of foreign troops temporarily boosted economic growth, but since the foreign military drawdown in 2014 the economy has sagged once more. This has been exacerbated by the continued deterioration of the security situation (‘Afghanistan Economy’, 2019).

2.4 The Durand Line

The Durand Line, which separates Afghanistan from Pakistan, is the country’s longest and most controversial border. An overview of the line, including a brief history, belongs in this section since it is an extremely important geographical feature of Afghanistan. The Line dates back to an agreement signed in 1893 between Sir Mortimer Durand, Foreign Secretary of India, and the Emir of Afghanistan. The agreement represented the first time in history that the border between Afghanistan and British India (since Pakistan did not yet exist) had been officially demarcated.

The Emir accepted the border despite the fact that it cut across Pashtun and Baloch tribal land.

When Pakistan was founded in 1947, the Afghan Shah called for self-determination in Pashtun areas on the Pakistani side of the Line. When Pakistan refused, Afghanistan stopped recognising the Durand Line and claimed that the Pashtun regions of Pakistan rightfully belonged to Afghanistan (Rahi, 2014).

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Afghanistan therefore does not accept its longest internationally recognised border. This is one of the reasons for which the border is neither fenced, nor is it widely policed1– why would any country enforce a border which, in its view, does not officially exist? Moreover, the rugged terrain which characterises the border region would make sealing the border extremely difficult, even if it were recognised.

In recent times, the Afghan people and government have suffered a great deal from problems linked to the Durand Line. Differing opinions on the border led Pakistan to justifying its bombing of areas in Eastern Afghanistan by claiming that the region belonged to Pakistan. Moreover, a declassified CIA report notes that the porous nature of the border has historically allowed militants to travel with ease between the two countries, hampering efforts to quell insurgencies. Rahi (2014) affirms that this was indeed the case for the recent Taliban insurgency, since thousands of Islamist militants were able to cross the border to support the Taliban. As will be discussed in later chapters, the Taliban – who oppose the border on principle, since they believe that there should be no divisions in the Muslim world (Rahi, 2019) – have benefited enormously from being able to easily cross the border to seek refuge in Pakistan.

The economy has also been weakened by issues linked to the Durand Line. Every year tonnes of goods are smuggled over the border into Pakistan, meaning that the Afghan economy is being subverted by the black market (Rahi, 2019) – in a similar way to how the government is being subverted by the Taliban insurgency.

1 The 2,400km long border has 235 crossing points, 20 of which are used frequently. Border controls were in place at just two of these crossings in 2017 (Osman & Muzhary, 2017).

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27 2.5 The History of Afghanistan

To fully grasp the current situation in Afghanistan it is necessary to understand its history. This is not always easy, since the narratives that we believe can be more potent than, and do not always accurately reflect, historical fact. Indeed, for Heehs (1994, p.1), ‘what we call history is, at best, mythistory’. Afghanistan could be said to be shrouded in ‘mythistory’, since its modern history is typified by misconceptions (Barfield, 2012).

New generations may have grown up hearing about Afghanistan only in the context of war. The mention of the country may therefore conjure up an image of a far-flung desert of never-ending and inevitable bloodshed. Such fatalistic views can also be found amongst political decision makers; in a television interview, Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper asserted that ‘we’re never going to ever defeat the insurgency. Afghanistan has probably had – my reading of Afghan history, it’s probably had an insurgency forever, of some kind’ (Barfield, 2012, pp. 39-40). The prevailing narratives about Afghanistan tend to be based solely on the successive cataclysms which have shaken the country’s history, eclipsing millennia of rich cultural and religious exchange, thriving trade, and peace – albeit intermittent.

This bleak view of the country is also present looking further back into its history. The successive rise and fall of empires in the region has earned Afghanistan the disparaging title ‘the graveyard of empires’ (Barfield, 2012, p. 39). This casts a gloomy light on what, in fact, helped to make Afghanistan a crucible of ethnicities, cultures and religions. From the bronze age, rich deposits of lapis lazuli fuelled trade with Mesopotamia, Pharaonic Egypt and the Indus civilisation, bringing wealth and foreign influence to the region. The Bactrian Greeks led by Alexander the Great left a

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significant Hellenistic influence before being unseated by nomadic tribes who had united to reconquer the Afghan satrapies. The Hindu Shahis, the Persian Sassanids, the Central-Asian Hepthalites, the Islamic armies, the Ghazanids, the Mongols led by Ghengis Khan, the Timurids, the Mughals of India and the Safavids of Persia ruled and left their own mark on the region before it slipped from their grasp (Barfield, 2012).

Moreover, Islam has not always been the main religion of Afghanistan. In fact, the Islamic armies experienced difficulty asserting their authority in the region; the local community would simply convert, and then reconvert once the army had moved on. Zoroastrianism thrived in early Afghan history. Hinduism was widespread under the Shahi dynasty, especially in Ghazni, where both Hindu and Buddhist relics were discovered in the same temple (Ali et al., 2019). Pilgrims travelling the silk road from the East brought Buddhism, which became so influential that in the 6th century the largest Buddha statues in the world were carved into a cliff in Bamiyan. These statues were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001 (Ali et al., 2019).

2.5.1 The Great Game: Russia and Britain

Afghanistan’s more peaceful and prosperous days have been masked by its recent turmoil, giving rise to a view of the country as a land of endemic bloodshed. However, Afghanistan should not be viewed as a place that is naturally prone to conflict. Rather, for the past two centuries it has been caught in the middle of rival foreign empires, and torn apart from within by clashing ideologies (Stewart, 2012) the roots of which lie firmly outside the Afghan borders.

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Figure 4: Map of Afghanistan and the surrounding region. Image credits: Wikimedia Commons.

The recent troubles began in the early 19th century, when the country sat at the meeting point of the Russian and British empires. The Russians were afraid of the British expanding North. The British were afraid that the Russians would win over the Afghan Shah and invade the ‘jewel in the crown of the empire’, British India (Stewart, 2012). Growing imperial paranoia pushed both empires into a match of espionage activities which would be termed, by the Russians and British respectively, the ‘tournament of shadows’ and ‘the Great Game’ (Stewart, 2012).

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Figure 5: Cartoon caption reads: ‘"If at this moment it has been decided to invade the Ameer's territory, we are acting in pursuance of a policy which in its intention has been uniformly friendly to Afghanistan.” – Times, Nov. 21.’. The Amir of Afghanistan stands between the Russian bear and the British lion. Punch, or the London Charivari. November 30, 1878. Image credits: Wikimedia Commons.

So great were the suspicions of the British that they placed an army of occupation and laboured to win over the Shah, presenting him with:

‘such gifts as muskets, double and six-barrelled pistols, watches, telescopes, full length mirrors, crystal dishes, and music boxes the like of which had never been seen by anyone in this region up to this time. They also gave him two elephants with howdahs worked in red gold and white silver and a gold-embroidered topcoat all of which they had brought on behalf of the King of England’ (Fayż, 2013(a), p. 125).

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Following this encounter, ‘the threads of friendship and harmony were tightly woven together’

(Fayż, 2013(a), p. 125). However, this amity was not to last. As the British occupation endured, the local population felt increasing mistrust towards their foreign occupiers. After hearing rumours of British soldiers philandering with local women, the Shah called for holy jihad against the British (Stewart, 2012). The situation descended into a bloodbath, sparking off a series of attacks and revenge attacks that would span over half a century. Ultimately, the Afghan Shah and the British Generals concluded a pact stating that should the Russians try to use Afghanistan as a stepping stone for invading British India, the British would give the Afghans sufficient funding and weaponry to curb the attack (Fayż, 2013). The Durand Line was established to clearly divide Afghanistan and British India.

2.5.2 Tradition and Modernity

After World War One, with the threat of Tsarist Russia gone, Britain fully relinquished its hold on Afghanistan (Stewart, 2012) and in 1919 King Amanullah ascended to the throne in a newly independent country. Inspired by his travels in Europe he quickly set about making reforms, from modernising the constitution and abolishing the obligatory wearing of the veil to decreeing that tribal leaders should wear pinstripe trousers (Stewart, 2012). However, these radical reforms, along with rumours of him consuming pork and alcohol, provoked a violent backlash from conservative parts of society (Stewart, 2012). A civil war broke out during which the King was exiled in Zurich.

The fate of King Amanullah points to a feature of Afghan society which must be understood to fully appreciate its current troubles. In the western idea of the state, ‘lines on a map denote precise boundaries’ within which ‘the state’s authority is presumed to be universal and absolute’ (Barfield,

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2012, p. 40). Afghanistan, on the other hand, has traditionally been based on a different model of the state; over history, rulers contented themselves with controlling cities, towns and the most fertile farm land, leaving the isolated villages of the hinterlands to self-govern (Barfield, 2012).

The authority of modern leaders trying to impose centralised rule was therefore seen by self- contained rural communities as ‘illegitimate if it transgressed established barriers of autonomy’

(Barfield, 2012, p. 40). By bringing 20th century Europe to rural Afghanistan, reformist King Amanullah crossed the established line.

In rural and mountainous areas of Afghanistan there are still over 20,000 isolated villages (Stewart, 2012). These places are difficult to reach and well beyond direct governmental rule (Barfield, 2012). The apparent impossibility of consolidating central authority over the whole of Afghanistan could partially explain the fragility of the current government in Kabul; urban and rural Afghanistan exist side by side, but remain poles apart (Barfield, 2012).

2.5.3 The Cold War in Afghanistan

Despite Afghanistan being in a state of disunity, peace prevailed for several decades until the country was once again caught in the middle of two grappling superpowers. When the Cold War was at its height, Afghanistan sat between the USSR and two allies of the USA, Iran and Pakistan.

The USSR was afraid that the USA would cause trouble on their Southern border. The USA feared that the Russians would try to expand South in search of a warm water port (Stewart, 2012). Both superpowers therefore set about trying to gain influence in Afghanistan, the Soviets supporting communist bodies and projects and the Americans supporting a counter-narrative. The country was left deeply polarised and ultimately descended into a state of violent political upheaval. This prompted the 1979 Soviet invasion, which, for the USA, was a golden opportunity to strike out at

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the USSR. In the largest covert operation in American history, accurately portrayed in the film Charlie Wilson’s War, billions of dollars-worth of weaponry were channelled to the mujahideen, Islamist warlord units fighting the Soviets. After a decade of bloodshed, the USSR withdrew having suffered a resounding defeat. Two years later, the Cold War came to an end. Afghanistan, however, was left to descend into a bitter civil war between warlords with stockpiles of leading- edge weaponry. It was in 1994, in the midst of this chaos, that a new power rose to prominence, promising to restore order: the Taliban.

2.5.4 The Rise of the Taliban

At the end of the Soviet War, the one-eyed Pashtun former mujahid Mullah Omar founded and taught at a religious school, or madrasah, in the Southern Afghan province of Kandahar. Claiming to have had a vision commanding him to bring peace to Afghanistan, he led his madrasah students – his ṭālibān, the Arabic word for students – in a campaign promising to restore law and order to a war-weary country (Ghufran, 2001).

In the beginning, the Taliban were immensely popular (Rashid, 1999). There was no shortage of new recruits, most of whom were young refugee men fresh from Pakistani religious schools preaching a radical form of Islam (Rashid, 1999). Taliban rule swept over the country, sinking any opposition. The group seized Kabul in 1996 and Mullah Omar was named Emir of Afghanistan.

By 1998 the Taliban had conquered most of the country. Their last remaining rivals, the Northern Alliance, a militia of non-Pashtun minorities, were cornered in a small scrap of strategic mountainous territory in the North (Rashid, 1999). Formally recognised by the governments of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the Taliban held all the cards in their hand:

political legitimacy, military clout and religious authority.

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It was hoped that the Taliban would bring peace to Afghanistan, but this was not to be (Carlisle, 2010). They ruled the country with an iron fist. Reports of ethnic cleansing, massacres and medieval styles of punishment soon emerged. Disobedience was punishable by flogging, stoning to death, amputation of hands, and public execution in the national sports stadium, including death by hanging from a slowly rising crane (Azzi, 1999). A strict dress code was enforced for both women and men. Women were not allowed to go out in public without a chaperone, attend school, or work (Carlisle, 2010). Activities such as kite flying and playing chess were banned, making the Taliban regime as incomprehensible as it was cruel in the eyes of outsiders.

Reports of Taliban atrocities brought to the fore negative stereotypes about Islam that have soured relations between states and peoples around the world (Carlisle, 2010). The Taliban’s extremism has whitewashed Afghanistan’s image with that of Islamic fundamentalism, birthing the assumption that intolerant, dogmatic Islam has always been widespread in Afghanistan. However, this is not the case.

It is true that Afghanistan has long been a deeply conservative Muslim country, but historically the Islam practiced was philosophical and open in nature (Gunn, 2003). When Islam arrived in Afghanistan, unlike in the other conquered lands the fledgling religion blended with Buddhism, Zoroastrianism and local cult practices (Azad, 2017). In medieval Afghanistan Islam shaped itself around pre-existing religious rituals and customs (Lenz-Raymann, 2014), setting a precedent for a long tradition of religious tolerance. Indeed, until the outbreak of the civil war Islamic sectarianism was not a problem, and Afghan Hindus, Sikhs and Jews coexisted (Rashid, 1999). This is partially

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explained by the dominance of the tolerant Hanafi school of thought (Lenz-Raymann, 2014) and the enormous popularity of non-dogmatic Islamic mysticism, Sufism (Chakravarty, 2002; Rashid, 1999).

Moreover, the Hanafi school of thought is non-hierarchical and decentralised (Chakravarty, 2002), akin to Afghanistan’s traditional political custom of allowing for tribal self-rule, which Chakravarty aptly describes as ‘a watchman’s concept of state with little interference in the daily lives of the constituent tribes’ (2002, p. 68). Traditional Afghan Islam does not work in favour of centralised totalitarian rule like that enforced by the Taliban (Chakravarty, 2002). This raises several questions: how did such an extreme group emerge in a country with a long history of religious tolerance? And how did they gain support in a country torn asunder by religious, ethnic and tribal divisions?

Sullivan notes that the Taliban are frequently described as appearing ‘from thin air’ or ‘emerging from nowhere’ (2007, p. 93). Indeed, during the 1980s, tolerant Islamic schools of thought still prevailed; it was the influential Sufi orders Naqshbandiyah and Qaderiya that rallied the mujahideen, not the radical Islamists (Chakravarty, 2002). However, external influences soon tipped the scales in favour of more radical factions. The Pakistani secret services, charged with distributing covert American support for the mujahideen, channelled the lion’s share of aid to Jamiat-e Islami, the radical Islamic party. Over time these fundamentalist fronts ‘ossified into a hardened camp of intolerance’ (Chakravarty, 2002, p. 68) laying the ideological foundations for the birth of the Taliban.

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There is a common misconception that Pakistan created the Taliban. Whilst it is true that Pakistan fuelled radical Islam, they did not directly create the Taliban, nor did they manage to create a puppet regime by funding the radical Islamic party. In fact, the Pakistani-funded group later joined the Northern Alliance, who were the Taliban’s enemies. Crucially, the Jamiat-e Islami were able to seize control of Kabul, founding a government which Pakistan suspected of being anti-Pakistan and pro-India. When Mullah Omar and his students began conquering the country with a view to overthrowing the pro-India Kabul government, they attracted Pakistan’s interest (Rashi, 2019).

The Taliban were by no means the ideal solution for Pakistan; the Taliban do not recognise the Durand Line, and by extension oppose Pakistan’s control of Pashtun regions between the Line and the Indus river. But they were the lesser of two evils. Pakistan put its money on the Taliban in the hope that they would restore law and order – opening overland trade routes to Central Asia – and provide them with a strategic depth against India2.

However, the extent to which the brief window of Taliban rule served Pakistani interests is questionable. Rashi (2019) argues that contrary to popular belief, Pakistan were not able to take advantage of the Taliban to further their strategic goals. Rather, the Taliban were able to take advantage of Pakistan, using the country as a strategic depth against the international coalition.

This view is supported by Osman and Muzhary’s (2017) study based on interviews with Taliban militants and commanders, which affirms that the Taliban ‘use Pakistan as a sanctuary’ and ‘rear base’. The majority of Taliban leaders are settled in Pakistan, and it is the group’s preferred location for convening and training (Osman & Muzhary, 2017).

2 Strategic depth is a military term coined in the 1980s. It refers to the distance between a country’s main industrial

centres, which fuel its military, and the front lines. It can also mean the distance to which an army would be able to retreat in the event of an incident on the front lines (Hakimi, 2010). The greater the strategic depth, the better.

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Madrasas were also central in the emergence of the Taliban (Rashid, 1999). With the Soviet invasion, a flood of refugees surged over the Pakistani border. In refugee camps, hard-line madrasas funded by Saudi Arabia were often the only source of formal education (Sullivan, 2007).

Scores of madrasas were founded, teaching Afghan boys the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islam, the Deobandi school of thought (Farrell, 2017). From the mid to late nineties, these young men and teenagers returned in droves to Afghanistan (Carlisle, 2010).

Rashid (1999) argues that the timing of the Taliban’s return was another a key factor of their rapid success. Exhausted by years of bloody internecine fighting between warlords, many people lent their support to the Taliban simply in the hope that they would check the power of despotic warlords and put an end to the bloodshed. In addition, the civil war had destroyed the country’s tradition of tolerance, pitting ethnic, religious and tribal groups against each other like never before (Rashid, 1999). Islam was thus transformed from a pacifying influence to ‘a lethal weapon in the hands of extremists and a force for division and fragmentation’ (Rashid, 1999, p. 25).

At the outset, the rise of the Taliban stirred up hope that peace could be on the horizon in Afghanistan. When the Taliban showed their true colours, these hopes were dashed and it became clear that Afghanistan would continue to be a pariah state where human rights abuses were rife.

2.5.5 The Taliban and al Qaeda

Towards the end of the 1990s, the Taliban threat took on a new dimension. Taliban human rights abuses, whilst reprehensible, had been confined within the Afghan borders. By providing a safe

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haven for the al Qaeda network3, also born from the Soviet War, the Taliban were incubating a threat of global proportions.

Indeed, Azzi (1999) notes that in the late 1990s, Taliban atrocities were pushed from centre stage in the Western media by reports of the regime hosting al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. The United States demanded his extradition because he had been linked to the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. The Taliban did make a token effort to cooperate, offering to hold a trial for bin Laden in which American evidence would be heard. Writing in 1999, Azzi goes on to assert that:

‘By not taking advantage of this opportunity, the United States ensured that bin Laden would remain free from extradition while in Afghanistan. Indeed, the United States’

opportunity to capture bin Laden may be completely lost now, as reports in February of this year indicate bin Laden may have covertly fled from Afghanistan in order to organize terrorist activity more easily’ (1999, p. 14).

The Taliban continued to host Osama bin Laden, who went on to organise the September 11th

terrorist attacks, the deadliest act of terrorism to date.

3 Al Qaeda, meaning ‘the base’ in Arabic, is a militant Sunni Islamist organisation led by Ayman al-Zawahiri. It was founded in the 1980s to act as a support network for the mujahideen. In the midi 1990s the Taliban regime allowed the al Qaeda network to establish its headquarters in Afghanistan, from which place the group planned and executed the September 11^th terrorist attacks.

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Chapter 3 The War

3.1 The Invasion and ISAF

It was the Taliban’s refusal to extradite Osama bin Laden following the September 11th terrorist attacks that led to the invasion of Afghanistan. The horror of the attacks prompted the then US Secretary of State to send the Taliban an ultimatum: give up bin Laden or ‘suffer the full wrath of the US and its allies’ (Carlisle, 2010). When the Taliban refused, the United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom, aiming to crush al Qaeda and their Taliban hosts without becoming embroiled in a long-term conflict (Ware, 2011). The American strategy was to wage ‘war lite’, preferring intelligence operations and strategic alliances to ‘boots on the ground’. CIA officers were deployed to persuade the ‘ragtag militia’ Northern Alliance, which had been able to maintain control of strategic mountainous terrain in the North (see figure 6, p. 41), to join forces with the sophisticated US Army (Ware, 2011). Despite the incongruous nature of the coalition, the Taliban were shattered within months and the campaign was hailed as a ‘stunning success’ (Veit, 2002, p.

4). The outcome of the early campaign created a feeling of ‘mission accomplished’ (Ware, 2011).

Over the following months the US and an international coalition continued to conduct military operations to wipe out the remaining Taliban presence. With the Taliban threat apparently neutralised (Carlisle, 2010), the focus shifted to rebuilding Afghanistan (Rabasa et al., 2011). The Bonn Conference in 2001 saw the creation of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), an international coalition aiming to support and provide security for the new Kabul government led by Hamid Karzai (Rabasa et al., 2011). Military operations were scaled down since the Taliban

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seemed to have been defeated, and there was no indication that an insurgency was nigh (Rabasa et al., 2011).

Figure 6: Map showing the changing territory of warring parties in Afghanistan from 1992 to late 2001, after the initial offensive against the Taliban. Notice how the mountainous terrain in the North-West creates a perfect defensive stronghold (see topographical map to the left); Jamiat-e Islami (later part of the Northern Alliance) was able to resist the Taliban in the mountains, but lost control of the less mountainous terrain around Herat. This illustrates the fact that Afghanistan’s mountainous terrain makes the country difficult to fully conquer. Perhaps this goes some way to explaining why so many empires throughout history have failed to consolidate their power over the region. Image credits: Wikimedia Commons.

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However, the Taliban had not been fully defeated. During the initial offensive Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar had taken refuge in the Tora Bora caves in the Eastern White Mountains before slipping over the border into Pakistan (Ware, 2011). Other Taliban fighters had also fled to Pakistan, where they were slowly but surely regrouping (Rabasa et al., 2011).

3.2 The Taliban Insurgency

Barely a year later, with the support of al Qaeda fighters, the Taliban were preparing to counterattack the coalition (Rabasa et al., 2011). Violence spread over the country. NATO-led ISAF operations were initially restricted to Kabul, but faced with a growing insurgency they had been expanded across the whole country by mid 2006. Over the following years the violence continued to escalate, scuppering development projects and drawing ISAF troops into a fierce battle against an insurgency that could not be fully quelled (Rabasa et al., 2011).

The Taliban insurgency has been described by a former CIA officer as ‘one of the most brilliant military comebacks of modern times’ (Ware, 2011). Their return turned the tide of the conflict, and US and ISAF forces proved unable to contain the insurgency. Some attribute this to the fact that after the initial defeat of the Taliban, the coalition no longer had clearly defined goals; states with troops deployed in violent areas believed that the main goal was to conquer the Taliban, whereas countries operating in more peaceful provinces saw ISAF’s main goals to be peacekeeping and nation building (Grenier & Mattox, 2015).

Further explanation for the unbridled growth of the insurgency can be found in the weakness of the Kabul government. Speaking at the Naval War College in the sixties, counterinsurgency expert

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Bernard Fall stated ‘when a country is being subverted, it is not being outfought; it is being out administered… [W]e can win the war and lose the country.’ (Ricks, 2010). This is why American and ISAF forces endeavoured to support and provide security for Karzai’s fledgling government.

Paradoxically, Karzai’s close relationship with the coalition forces may have weakened his authority; some came to seen him as a foreign puppet, and Afghanistan has a long tradition of defying foreign rule (Carlisle, 2010).

Moreover, as discussed in previous chapters, Afghanistan has historically resisted centralised rule based on Manichaean Western concepts of state and governance, instead operating on an implicit understanding that rural tribes would be left to self-govern. Many resented interference from the distant government in Kabul (Carlisle, 2010). Indeed, Karzai experienced great difficulty extending his authority into other provinces, earning him the disparaging nickname the ‘mayor of Kabul’ (Carlisle, 2010).

Furthermore, it became clear that Karzai’s government was steeped in corruption, legitimising the Taliban’s subversion of the central powers and gaining support for the insurgency amongst those who felt exasperated by the continued presence of venal civil servants (Farrell, 2017).

3.3 The End in Sight?

The beginning of 2015 marked the transition from ISAF to NATO’s Resolute Support mission, designed to provide support and training to the Afghan Security Forces and government. Since then, the security situation has continued to deteriorate, with civilians bearing the brunt of the conflict. War exhaustion has made a political settlement seem an increasingly viable option (‘The

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Current Situation in Afghanistan’, 2019). A three-day cease fire between the Taliban and the Afghan Security Forces, and the holding of US led peace talks, also lean in this direction. However, in light of President Trump’s decision to suspend peace talks with the Taliban in September 2019, it remains unclear when the Afghan people can hope for some respite after nearly half a century of war (Wilder, 2019).

3.4 The British Campaign in Afghanistan

In early January 2002, a plane carrying British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, flew into Bagram air base in North East Afghanistan. A red carpet was rolled out in Blair’s honour - which he was warned not to step off, since large swathes of the airfield were mined. Meeting with the newly inaugurated President Karzai, Blair promised that ‘Britain would stay with them for the long term’ (Farrell, 2017, p. 116).

Blair believed that Britain was morally obligated to help restore peace and security to Afghanistan (Farrell, 2017). Britain therefore supported its American allies from the very beginning by launching Operation Veritas in October 2001. Small numbers of British Special Forces troops were dispatched, followed by ground troops to root out the remaining Taliban fighters. Operation Veritas was succeeded by Operation Fingal, the code name for Britain’s contribution to early ISAF efforts. All subsequent military operations, including the operations in Helmand province, were led under Operation Herrick, which replaced Operation Fingal in 2002. The British military presence in Afghanistan spanned from October 2001 to October 2014 after Prime Minister David Cameron announced the withdrawal of British troops. In January 2015 Operation Herrick was replaced by Operation Toral, the UK’s contribution to NATO’s Resolute Support Mission. During

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the war, 456 British soldiers were killed, and hundreds more were wounded or sustained life changing injuries. Nearly £40 billion were spent on the campaign, which has since been deemed

‘unwinnable’ (Farrell, 2017).

In Spring 2006, when ISAF countries divided up operations in the different Afghan provinces, the UK assumed responsibility for Helmand province. The remote Southern province was economically dependent on opiates, with poor infrastructure and public services (Ware, 2011).

Corruption was rife and drug gangs operated unchecked in the absence of any working security or justice system (Ware, 2011). Undaunted, Blair had an ambitious vision for rebuilding – or indeed building – the medieval province, establishing a link between the people of Helmand and the Kabul government, and promoting economic development (Egnell, 2011). It was a bold endeavour, and has been likened to attempting to fully form Belgium in a few years (Ware, 2011). A planning team sent to Helmand in 2005 judged the goals to be unrealistic, but the mission went ahead. 3,300 troops were deployed to the main British base in Helmand Province, Camp Bastion. Just 800 of these troops were to be engaged in combat. Because of the small number of troops, the mission was to be limited to central Helmand around the provincial capital Lashkargah (Ware, 2011).

When the British army arrived in Lashkargah, the governor of the province informed them that lawless gunmen were roaming unchecked in Northern Helmand, and implored them to intervene.

Despite their strong reservations, the army was strong-armed into spreading its limited forces over four more districts than planned: Musaqala, Nowzad, Kajakidam and Sangin. The arrival of the army in these areas ‘stirred up a hornets’ nest’ (Ware, 2011). The British were drawn into a fierce conflict against Taliban fighters, drug groups and locals who resented the foreign military

The British Media Portrayal of Local Afghan Interpreters Employed by the British Armed Forces

Master

Reference

The British Media Portrayal of Local Afghan Interpreters Employed by the British Armed Forces

The British Media Portrayal of Local Afghan Interpreters Employed by the British Armed Forces

Claire Bessant

Key Words

Abstract

Student Information

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1 Local Interpreters in Conflict Zones

Chapter 2 Afghanistan

Chapter 3 The War