Local Turf-Sharing Accord With the Taliban Raises Alarm in Afghanistan
By AZAM AHMED and TAIMOOR SHAH, NYT
KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan Army commander stationed in the deadliest corner of Helmand Province brokered a cease-fire and turf-sharing deal with local Taliban insurgents there, according to government and police officials, in an example of the sort of ground-level bargaining that some see as increasingly likely once international troops withdraw next year.
Details of the accord, which took place in the district of Sangin, remain murky. But the issue was fraught enough that the army scrambled to send a delegation there to investigate on Tuesday, officials said. And local residents say that commanders were promising that the deal would halt immediately and never happen again.
The alarm was in part because of what Sangin has come to symbolize. It is one of just a few areas of Afghanistan where the Taliban have never been dislodged, and it was one of the deadliest battlegrounds in the country for American Marines and British troops who waged several offensives there over the years. It was handed over to Afghan security control early this year, and any appearance that the Afghans would be willing to essentially give back hard-won gains to the Taliban would be politically problematic, at best.
According to several people familiar with the details, including the deputy district governor and the local police commander for Sangin, the deal involved a company commander’s ceding at least two checkpoints to the Taliban. It was unclear whether more senior officers in the area condoned the move.
(More here.)
KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan Army commander stationed in the deadliest corner of Helmand Province brokered a cease-fire and turf-sharing deal with local Taliban insurgents there, according to government and police officials, in an example of the sort of ground-level bargaining that some see as increasingly likely once international troops withdraw next year.
Details of the accord, which took place in the district of Sangin, remain murky. But the issue was fraught enough that the army scrambled to send a delegation there to investigate on Tuesday, officials said. And local residents say that commanders were promising that the deal would halt immediately and never happen again.
The alarm was in part because of what Sangin has come to symbolize. It is one of just a few areas of Afghanistan where the Taliban have never been dislodged, and it was one of the deadliest battlegrounds in the country for American Marines and British troops who waged several offensives there over the years. It was handed over to Afghan security control early this year, and any appearance that the Afghans would be willing to essentially give back hard-won gains to the Taliban would be politically problematic, at best.
According to several people familiar with the details, including the deputy district governor and the local police commander for Sangin, the deal involved a company commander’s ceding at least two checkpoints to the Taliban. It was unclear whether more senior officers in the area condoned the move.
(More here.)
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