Taleban Create Diversion in Northern Afghanistan

By Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi (ARR No. 253, 17-May-07)
Insurgent attacks are on the rise in northern Afghanistan, in parts of the country not normally associated with Taleban activity.

Some say it is a diversionary tactic designed to draw the international military forces away from the south, where the Taleban have come under pressure in recent weeks. But others caution that there also is a home-grown element to the violence, partly sponsored by local drug barons and partly the product of desperation and poverty.

Security has generally been better in the northern provinces than in the south since the collapse of Taleban regime in 2001, but increased level of attacks are ringing alarm-bells. Since the beginning of spring, which officially starts on March 21, there has been a spate of killings, roadside bombs and suicide attacks.

Assassinations – successful and attempted – have targeted local officials and Afghans and foreigners working for aid groups.

Towards the end of March, a district governor was killed in Qaram Qul in the western Faryab province, and the head of Khan Charbagh district was injured in a separate attack in the same province.

Two bomb attacks targeting the governor of Saripul province, east of Faryab, injured five civilians at the beginning of April.

Also in Saripul, armed men killed an engineer with the German Agro Action aid group in March, and at the end of April, an Afghan truck driver working for the same organisation was shot dead in the Kunduz region in the northeast.

Another attack on an aid group called Rukay left a foreigner and two local staff injured in Mazar-e-Sharif in mid-April.

At the end of the month, a man who officials later said was a Taleban member ran into a group of policemen while attempting to kidnap the son of a local businessman. One police officer was killed and a second was wounded in the firefight that followed.

The regional headquarters of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, in the northeastern province of Badakhshan came under rocket attack four times in March and April. A former Taleban commander in the area, Mullah Abdul Azim, was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the attacks.

Suicide bombings, a relatively new component of Taleban tactics, have also spread to the north. On April 16, one such attack at police headquarters in the north-western city of Kunduz killed nine policemen and injured 30.

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