That’s just what happened at the Ab Borda bridge in Herat on Aug. Militia members of Khan ’s forces beat an unseen man who they claim is a Taliban insurgent or sympathizer during a clash inside Herat on Aug. The recourse to militias, if “done in an unorganized and chaotic manner, can easily lead to gross violation of human rights,” said Weeda Mehran, an expert on conflict at the University of Exeter.” Recent history of civil wars in Afghanistan contains many examples of gross violations of human rights and victimization of civilians by various nonstate and quasi-state armed groups.”
Some analysts and activists fear the long-term consequences of arming the citizenry of a country that lacks unified political leadership and is riven with ethnic and tribal divisions. “The widespread public support of the security forces resonates in a changed Afghanistan, and people do not want the return of an Islamic emirate and Taliban dictatorship,” Najafizada said.īut there is a downside to the large-scale resurgence of militias in Afghanistan. 2 and in Kabul the next day, residents took to rooftops and marched through the streets, chanting “Allahu akbar” (or “God is great”) in support of Afghan forces and to counter the Taliban’s narrative that they have religious legitimacy. “The local uprising fighting the Taliban invasion against the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces is turning into a national resistance against the Taliban and other international terrorist organizations,” said Enayat Najafizada, founder of the Institute of War and Peace Studies, a Kabul think tank. Journalists, human rights advocates, and women’s activists all feel threatened, and many have fled either to Kabul or abroad. Citizen militias are also galvanized by reports of Taliban atrocities in districts they control, including abuse of women and girls, summary executions, and revenge killings as well as door-to-door searches for government and military employees. Many militias now receive funding from Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, desperate to boost the armed forces’ number of fighters and firepower, which has so far failed to halt the insurgent advance. But he has won newfound admiration for joining his men with Afghan security forces against the insurgents in a last-ditch effort to hold the city.Īcross the country, ordinary people have taken up arms against the Taliban as much of the U.S.-trained Afghan army has melted away after the hurried withdrawal of U.S. Khan has long been despised for alleged human rights abuses committed at the height of his power as a soldier and mujahid leader fighting the Soviet occupation and the Taliban’s 1996 to 2001 regime. The uniformed soldiers among them keep their counsel and return fire. Men sit and stand around, chat, drink tea, and stroke their weapons. For now, they are being held off by 75-year-old warlord Ismail Khan and his 2,000-person militia, which-like other civilian militias across the country-is providing the first real pushback against the insurgents.Īs the battle rages, bullets ricochet off the shuttered shops and huge sandbag fortifications around Khan’s compound.
HERAT, Afghanistan-Taliban insurgents are fighting to penetrate deeper into this historic city in western Afghanistan after already taking nearly all the districts in the province.
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