Afghanistan's new intelligence chief said this week that the Taliban appeared to have the upper hand in the insurgency but could still be defeated with better cooperation between Afghan and coalition forces and a stronger government effort to build trust in the rural communities.
In his first interview since assuming the post of director-general of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) in mid-July, Rahmatullah Nabil, 42, a relatively unknown figure in Kabul, said his priority would be to demonstrate that Afghans were capable of taking charge of their own security and, above all, to show the insurgents that the government was determined to defeat them.
“When they understand that we are serious and that we will defeat them, then that will affect them, their morale, their courage, and their motivation,” Nabil said in an interview in his spacious office set amid gardens two blocks from the presidential palace. “That's very important.” Nabil was an unexpected choice to lead the intelligence service. He takes up the post at a critical time as support for President Hamid Karzai's government is ebbing inside and outside the country and relations between Karzai and Washington are strained.
No experience
Although he has little experience in intelligence work, Nabil has worked closely with Karzai for six years as the head of the guard for the presidential palace. He provides security when Karzai travels, and he is trusted by the president, Afghan government officials said. As for working with the U.S.-led coalition forces, Nabil said, “We are on the same page.”
A civil engineer, he worked for the U.N. refugee agency for nine years, much of that time while the Taliban were in power, until 2004, when he joined Karzai in taking charge of a force of 100 American-trained close-protection officers at the presidential palace and expanding it over the past six years.
He acknowledged that he took on that job with no experience and said that a professional security official told him that if he managed to keep the president alive for six months, he would have succeeded.
Friends, former colleagues and members of the presidential protection service describe him as an outstanding manager with little ethnic or political bias. Critics, including some government officials, said he was inexperienced and weak and would not be able to stand up to Karzai and the powerful interests swirling around the palace. Nabil inherits one of the better performing institutions in Afghanistan with a broad mandate to ensure internal security, combat terrorism and fight organised crime, which includes intelligence gathering inside Afghanistan and abroad, and managing tens of thousands of agents.
Yet it remains a strange hybrid, with a mixture of former Communists trained by the KGB and mujahedeen who fought the Soviet army and later the Taliban from the hills. The force is now further divided by the abrupt departure of Amrullah Saleh (the intelligence chief, who Karzai forced to resign in June) and some 40 officials loyal to him.
Although Karzai has apparently lost faith in the American-led counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, according to senior government officials, Nabil is among the ministers and senior officials, including his predecessor, who support the strategy and its emphasis on winning the support of the population by improving security and the government's performance. He talks of his native Wardak province, just southwest of Kabul, where he said 80 to 90 per cent of the insurgents were criminals, including one commander who is a known thief. “I am in touch with elders and shuras , and the local community wants to get rid of this,” he said. A shura is a traditional council of elders.
Even mullahs and principals of the big madrasas are fed up with the insurgents, he said. Yet the government is so weak that in some areas the police are hampered by a lack of ammunition and fuel. “These are areas we need to improve,” he said. Villages and towns are supportive of a new scheme for community-based policing to defend their residents and of the reconciliation plan to persuade Taliban foot soldiers to give up and join the government, he said.
The son of a farmer, he joined the jihad against the Soviet occupation as a teenager before leaving to finish his education in Pakistan. “I know my community,” he said. “I know what they are thinking about the government, and NDS organisation, and what are their wishes. That will also help me.” — © New York Times News Service
