Almost Half Of Afghanistan Under "High Risk" Of Attack During Election

By Steve Hynd

The map above, obtained by Reuters, is a secret Afghan government map prepared with the help of United Nations Department of Safety and Security and shows that almost half of Afghanistan, 133 out of 356 districts, are regarded as high-risk areas with at least 13 under "enemy control".

The map was prepared before the recent increase in violence to help Afghan authorities assess security risks for the upcoming presidential elections and:

shows virtually the entire south of the country under extreme risk of attack, a vast swathe stretching from Farah in the west through Helmand province in the south and east towards provinces such as Paktia and Nangarhar near the Pakistan border.

That's a massive "clear, hold and build" exercise in prospect. Although Taliban numbers are relatively small - most official U.S. estimates guess at around 20,000 fighters in the whole country - the decade of Western occupation and a central Afghan government that is riddled with corruption and unable even to deliver honest policemen has given them a massive ability to infuence events. Even so, the Very Serious People are talking about sending even more troops and increasing Afghan security forces by around 300% - something the Afghan government has no chance of paying for on its own.

Yet American military leaders already admit that there's no Al Qaeda in Afghanistan anymore.

As Rory Stewart told the Financial Times:

�The policy of troop increases will look ridiculous in 30 years,� he says. �They�re not going to make America safer from al-Qaeda. The theory of state-building is suspect. I�m not sure that the state they aim for is conceivable, let alone achievable. We should be pursuing a much more conventional development strategy in Afghanistan. And, if you want to combine that with a Special Forces unit that would make things uncomfortable for Osama bin Laden, then so be it.� He sighs. �But you can�t say that sort of thing to the policymakers. They�re grand, intelligent, busy people who have no interest in this kind of abstraction. They�re not interested in values, virtue, outlook ...

Meanwhile, Afghans have no confidence that all the violence is for their benefit either.

Though increasingly unpopular here and abroad, President Hamid Karzai is still the front-runner in a field of about 40 candidates, and only one, Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister for Mr. Karzai, has emerged as a serious challenger. Many Afghans are convinced that foreign powers will choose the winner and fix the result.

But no matter who prevails, the multitude of problems and what is expected to be a low turnout in conflict areas are likely to reduce the next president�s mandate.

Western officials and Afghans alike worry that the election could be so flawed that many Afghans might reject the balloting and its results, with potentially dangerous consequences.

If they cannot vote because of insecurity in the south, Pashtuns, the country�s largest ethnic group and the one most closely associated with the Taliban, could become even more alienated from the government and the foreign forces backing it, political analysts say.

...�The people are not that interested in the elections,� said Abdul Hadi, the election commissioner in the adjoining province of Helmand, where thousands of Marines have been deployed to regain towns from the Taliban in time for the elections.

�They voted before, and they did not see any result from that,� Mr. Hadi said. �And they don�t want to put their lives in jeopardy for one vote.� An estimated 70 percent of Afghan voters turned out for the country�s first presidential election, in October 2004.

In Helmand, in southern Afghanistan, the election will take place only in safe zones in the main towns, Mr. Hadi said. One third of districts are under Taliban control and will not be able to take part, he said.

The violence continues and America is involved not for national interest, but because of the hubris of the Serious People. For Afghans, the face of America has shark's teeth printed on the nosecone.

The Bagram Airbase website is currently celebrating the unleashing of "hundreds of 500-pound bombs, 2.75-inch rockets and more than 54,000 30-mm high explosive shells" from the A-10 'Warthog' aircraft of the 74th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron upon Afghan soil and Afghan lives.