Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced the holding of a consultative grand council called the Afghanistan's National Consultative Peace Jirga (NCPJ)[1] or Peace Jirga in his inauguration speech on 19 November 2009,[2] after winning elections for a second term, to end the ongoing Taliban insurgency. At the International Afghanistan Conference in London on 28 January 2010, he announced that the government would hold the event in April or May 2010, intended to bring together tribal elders, officials and local power brokers from around the country, to discuss peace and the end of the insurgency. "Jirga" is a word in the Pashto language that means "large assembly" or "council". It is a traditional method in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan of resolving disputes between tribes or discussing problems affecting whole communities.[3]
President Karzai organized the event on 2–4 June 2010, that was presided by the former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, despite the Taliban rejecting any overtures. However, after a nine-year U.S.-led war with no clear victory in sight, there were signs many Afghans, including victims of the Taliban's 1996-2001 rule, would be increasingly tempted by the idea of negotiations with the hardline islamists.[4] The event was billed as an attempt to gain consensus on how to approach peace talks with insurgents, but had already met skepticism and even a boycott from some Afghan leaders. About 1,600 delegates, including 300 women, tribal elders, religious leaders and members of parliament from all over the country attended the NCPJ. The three-day assembly represented the first major public debate in Afghanistan on how to end the war. The jirga was meant to be a consultative forum, aimed at the building of a national consensus on a peace plan, likely to be presented to the Kabul Conference on July 20, a gathering of the ministers of foreign affairs of over 70 partner countries of Afghanistan, international and regional organizations and financial institutions.
The NCPJ was expected to be comparable to the two loya jirgas that had been held in Kabul since the collapse of the Taliban regime end of 2001; the first one to confirm Hamid Karzai as a transitional leader and the second in 2003/2004 to approve the constitution of the newly founded Islamic Republic of Afghanistan after the ousting of the Taliban regime. The event was hoped to become a start of a new chapter in Afghanistan’s political life, bringing the country together and strengthening the position of President Karzai.[5]
Background
Article 110, Chapter Six, of Afghanistan's constitution recognises the Loya jirga as "the highest manifestation of the will of the people of Afghanistan". The constitution also lays down the composition of jirga in general. The Afghans trace the history of jirga to time immemorial, while historically the term "Loya jirga" has never been used before the second decade of 20th century.
On the celebrations of Nowruz, New Year's Day, of 1389 (21 March 2010, Western calendar) in Mazar-i-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan, the Afghan Vice President Mohammad Qasim Fahim reached out to militants. He declared that, with their input, the coming national conference would lay the foundations for a peace that would end the Taliban insurgency. He called on resistance forces to participate in a jirga, or assembly, planned for late April or early May. He pledged that the Afghan government "will try to find a peaceful life for those Afghans who are unhappy," a euphemism for militants, though he didn't mention the Taliban by name.[6][7] Afghans had travelled from across the country to Mazar-i-Sharif united behind the wish that the advent of a new year would bring them peace. According to the police, up to half a million people are in the city to mark the spring equinox and the first day of the traditional Persian new year and celebrated across Central Asia and Iran. Mazar is at the heart of one of the most peaceful regions of the country. City police chief Abdul Rauf Taj said that 4,000 security personnel had been deployed against insurgent attacks and that all visitors were being screened at seven check points around the city perimeter.[8]
Harun Zarghun, chief spokesman for Afghanistan's second largest insurgent group Hezb-e-Islami led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, said that a five-member delegation was in Kabul to meet with government officials and that there were also plans to meet with Taliban leaders somewhere in Afghanistan. Khalid Farooqi, a member of the parliament from Paktika province, confirmed that two delegations from Hizb-i-Islami had shown up. Zarghun, the group's spokesman in Pakistan, said that the delegation had a 15-point plan that called for the retreat of foreign forces in July 2010 - a full year ahead of President Barack Obama's intended withdrawal. The plan also called for the replacement of the current Afghan parliament in December 2010 by an interim government, or shura, which then would hold local and national elections within a year. Zarghun said that a new Afghan constitution would be written, merging the current version with ones used earlier.[9][10][11][12]
The event would bring together lawmakers, provincial council chiefs, tribal and religious leaders, and members of civil society—a total of some 1,600 Afghans—to talk about a political resolution to the insurgency.
Many Afghans said their hopes for the NCPJ were low, while organizers played down its aims by emphasizing that it is just one step in a long process. Critics said that the list of invited delegates was stacked with Karzai backers who were not representative of Afghanistan. They also said that the purpose was not clear and that talk of peacemaking means nothing if the Taliban were not present.
The main political opposition bloc, the National Front, complained that its members were intentionally left off the list of invitees. "This sounds like a PR exercise to show that we are making an effort to achieve peace in this country", said Abdullah Abdullah, the bloc's candidate in the 2009 presidential election.[13]
Postponement
The NCPJ was originally scheduled to start in early May. It was pushed back until late May to allow Karzai to visit Washington and speak with U.S. President Barack Obama about the event. During May 2010, the Afghan government said "technicalities" forced it to delay the gathering again, this time until June 2. According to a spokesman for the jirga, Gul Agha Ahmadi Wardak, it was difficult trying to arrange the logistics for bringing so many local and regional delegates to Kabul from across the whole country.
A minority of about 45 of the 249 members of the Wolesi Jirga (Lower House) threatened to boycott the NCPJ unless Karzai responded to their demand to submit names of new cabinet nominees to replace those rejected by the parliament in January 2010. The president submitted his list of cabinet nominees to the parliament twice, but many of the proposed ministers did not receive a vote of confidence from the parliament. The Parliament had refused to confirm 11 of Karzai's 25 nominees.
Although no senior members of the Taliban were expected to attend the NCPJ, the gathering was meant to include some other supporters of the insurgency, including delegates with ties to extremist leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.[14]
Absence of Taliban and Hezb-i-Islami
The Taliban publicly rejected the NCPJ, terming it a phony reconciliation process aimed at securing the interests of foreign powers. They reiterated their stance of not holding peace talks until foreign troops left Afghanistan (in May 2010 NATO had 130,000 troops in the country, likely to rise to 150,000 by August 2010) and announced the launch of a new offensive against foreign and Afghan troops, diplomats, and government workers. In spite of previous openings, not only the Taliban but also the Hezb-i-Islami led by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, as well as several other insurgent leaders, dismissed the jirga. Hekmatyar announced to open talks with the Afghan government after US President Barack Obama and other Western leaders mentioned the possibility of troop withdrawal as early as July 2011. Some of Hekmatyar's demands – such as foreign troop starting to withdraw already by July 2010 and early elections – were unlikely to be accepted by the US and the Afghan government. The 15-point peace plan that his organization delivered in March included several controversial demands. The government would keep its current form after the troops left and the newly elected parliament would review the Constitution. The group hinted a promise to prevent Al Qaeda from operating in the country.[15]
Attack
Some 12,000 security personnel were on guard against attack from the Taliban, but could not prevent that attacks launched by the Taliban targeted the opening session of the NCPJ on June 2. President Hamid Karzai's speech was interrupted by gunfire and nearby rocket explosions. The first rocket attack struck near the jirga site during his opening address. A gunfight then ensued as police attacked suspected suicide bombers attempting to detonate explosives near the tent where the assembly was held, and a second rocket was later launched. There were no reported casualties among the approximately 1,600 delegates who attended the NCPJ. The Afghan police said they had shot and killed two suspected suicide bombers and taken a third into custody. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. A Taliban spokesman claimed they had sent four suicide bombers to target the assembly, and said they were shooting rockets into the tent from the roof of a nearby building. The attack marked a major failure of the security effort for the meeting. Given the presence of the country's top leaders and foreign diplomats at the venue, the attacks on the NCPJ were seen as a major security failure.
Nevertheless, Karzai called on the insurgents to give up their arms. In his speech he called the Taliban “brothers” and “dear Talibs”. He described their flight to Pakistan and their fighting as an understandable reaction to injustices done by local Afghans who had “disturbed them“ and by foreign troops. “To those Taliban compelled to flee by the government’s and foreign troops’ mistakes, they are welcome and can come and join us” he said. Not welcome were those connected to Al Qaeda and those who have harmed innocent Afghans.[16][17]
The meeting
When the NCPJ actually took place, on 2–4 June 2010, the three-day meeting's ending was marked by debate on the plan of the Afghan government to end the country's long civil war and a bombing attempt in the streets of Kabul. There was little indication that the Taliban were inclined to negotiate. Their key demand, expressed outside the jirga, is that all foreign forces withdraw from Afghanistan before any negotiations can begin.
President Karzai wanted to use the conference to enlist support for his plan to offer economic incentives to reformed militants. He has proposed offering amnesty and reintegration incentives to people who leave the organization. He also offered to negotiate the removal of some individual Taliban members from a U.N. blacklist and to give certain leaders asylum in another Islamic country to enable peace talks. Participants of the NCPJ pressed for the release of some detainees in U.S. custody.
The jirga said that insurgent prisoners should be released, as a goodwill gesture that would precede peace talks with the Taliban. It also emphasized that insurgents who want to participate in the peace process had to cut their ties with foreign terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda.
Karzai's plan to seek a truce with the Taliban drew support of the Afghan leaders present at the NCPJ, but no solid negotiation blueprint emerged. The delegates also called for the international force to take greater steps to avoid civilian casualties.[18][19]
After the NCPJ, President Karzai ordered a review of all cases of Taliban suspects being held in Afghan jails and said that those being detained on doubtful evidence should be released. This step was his first official response to the council, that had recommended that Taliban prisoners being held in Afghan custody and by the U.S. military should be released if they were being held on "inaccurate statements or unsubstantiated allegations." At the moment of the jirga, hundreds of Taliban and other militant suspects were being held in Afghan jails across the country. Hundreds more, including al-Qaeda operatives suspected of involvement in terrorism, were being held in U.S. military jails in Afghanistan and Cuba.
Karzai ordered the formation of a special delegation including officials from the Afghan Supreme Court, a government-backed reconciliation commission, the Justice Ministry and other judicial officers. The delegation had to "identify those prisoners who are in jails with not enough evidence".[20]
Since October 15, 1999, UN Security Council Resolution 1267 had blacklisted 142 Taliban figures as well as 360 others with ties to Al Qaeda, ordering their bank accounts seized and prohibiting them from crossing international borders.[21] On 27 January 2010, five Taliban insurgents were de-listed before the London Conference on Afghanistan,[22] leaving 137 still blacklisted.[23] Since then, President Karzai had been arguing to remove all Taliban names from the blacklist. He suggested that de-listing should include even the Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar and the warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
On 12 June 2010, at a news conference, Staffan di Mistura, the secretary general’s special representative to Afghanistan, said the United Nations was responding to the call to remove the names of Taliban leaders from the international terrorist blacklist, A delegation from the Security Council’s Al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee would study the composition of the terrorist blacklist and make recommendations to the Security Council about possible changes.
American officials had argued for removal from the blacklist on a case-by-case basis; Russia and China had objected as well to a broad de-listing of the Taliban.[24][25][26]
In July 2010, Richard Barrett, since March 2004 the coordinator of the monitoring team of the so-called 1267 Committee on al-Qaida and the Taliban, said that removing former Taliban members from the sanction list was a key issue for both the Afghan government and the Taliban. There was a list of 10 candidates to be removed.[27]
Already in June, several Taliban suspects were actually released. A new commission was formed to release suspected Taliban prisoners. This commission set free 14 detainees primarily from U.S. custody, two of them boys, and more than two dozen more releases became imminent. The five-member committee had no representation from the intelligence service or any other security agency. Thousands could be freed under the deal, with the warden of Afghanistan's notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison saying 1,000 Taliban could now be freed from his jail alone.[28]
On the same day that the review of cases of detained insurgents had been ordered, the chief of the National Directorate of Security Amrullah Saleh and interior minister Hanif Atmar resigned, to take responsibility for their failure in the security of the event,[29] as militants had been able to launch an attack during the opening speech of Karzai.[30] Saleh, considered as a hardliner who has railed against Karzai’s desire for reconciliation efforts to bring the Taliban to the table, was temporarily replaced by Engineer Ibrahim Spinzada.[31] The Interior Ministry revealed that the Taliban had been planning a much larger attack against the NCPJ, that entailed 14 suicide bombers and three other militants. Nine militants equipped with suicide bomb vests and other weapons were arrested before they could enter Kabul. Before the jirga started, police also arrested three other insurgents, one of whom was from Tajikistan and another from Russia, who allegedly were planning suicide attacks.[32][33]
A few days after the jirga, Karzai summoned Hanif Atmar and Amrullah Saleh to explain why they were not able to prevent the attacks but Saleh and Atmar could not come out with a good answer so they decided to resign.
I accept my failure for not being able to stop terrorists from sabotaging the event and thus resign on moral grounds... My resignation was associated with some other reasons and sensitivities as well.[34]
—Amrullah Saleh
He said later that the main reason for his disagreement was Karzai's ordering of the remission of Taliban prisoners.[35]
Discussion on women's rights
Before the event, gender activists pressed the administration of President Karzai for a part in any deal-making with Taliban fighters and leaders. "We have not been approached by the government," said Samira Hamidi, director of the Afghan Women's Network. The Taliban's repression of women helped galvanize international opposition in the 1990s, and by some measures democracy had revolutionized Afghan women's lives. They feared that behind closed doors and desperate for a peace settlement, the Afghan government might not be able to force Taliban leaders to accept women's rights.[36]
Ahmad Shah Massoud was an Afghan politician and military commander. He was a powerful guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation between 1979 and 1989. In the 1990s, he led the government's military wing against rival militias; after the Taliban takeover, he was the leading opposition commander against their regime until his assassination in 2001.
Hamid Karzai is an Afghan politician who served as the fourth president of Afghanistan from July 2002 to September 2014, including as the first elected president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan from December 2004 to September 2014. He previously served as Chairman of the Afghan Interim Administration from December 2001 to July 2002. He is the chief (khān) of the Popalzai Durrani tribe of Pashtuns in Kandahar Province.
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is an Afghan politician, former mujahideen leader and drug trafficker. He is the founder and current leader of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin political party, so called after Mohammad Yunus Khalis split from Hezbi Islami in 1979 to found Hezb-i Islami Khalis. He has twice served as Prime Minister during the 1990s.
This article on the history of Afghanistan covers the period from the fall of the Najibullah government in 1992 to the end of the international military presence in Afghanistan.
The Northern Alliance, officially known as the United Islamic National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, was a military alliance of groups that operated between early 1992 and 2001 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. At that time, many non-Pashtun Northerners originally with the Republic of Afghanistan led by Mohammad Najibullah became disaffected with Pashtun Khalqist Afghan Army officers holding control over non-Pashtun militias in the North. Defectors such as Rashid Dostum and Abdul Momim allied with Ahmad Shah Massoud and Ali Mazari forming the Northern Alliance. The alliance's capture of Mazar-i-Sharif and more importantly the supplies kept there crippled the Afghan military and began the end of Najibullah's government. Following the collapse of Najibullah's government the Alliance would fall with a Second Civil War breaking out however following the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan's (Taliban) takeover of Kabul, The United Front was reassembled.
The Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin, also referred to as Hezb-e-Islami or Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), is an Afghan political party and paramilitary organization, originally founded in 1976 as Hezb-e-Islami and led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In 1979, Mulavi Younas Khalis split with Hekmatyar and established his own group, which became known as Hezb-i Islami Khalis; the remaining part of Hezb-e Islami, still headed by Hekmatyar, became known as Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin. Hezbi Islami seeks to emulate the Muslim Brotherhood and to replace the various tribal factions of Afghanistan with one unified Islamic state. This puts them at odds with the more tribe-oriented Taliban.
The Taliban insurgency began after the group's fall from power during the 2001 War in Afghanistan. The Taliban forces fought against the Afghan government, led by President Hamid Karzai, and later by President Ashraf Ghani, and against a US-led coalition of forces that has included all members of NATO; the 2021 Taliban offensive resulted in the collapse of the government of Ashraf Ghani. The private sector in Pakistan extends financial aid to the Taliban, contributing to their financial sustenance.
The following lists events that happened during 2002 in Afghanistan.
The following lists events that happened during 2004 in Afghanistan.
The War in Afghanistan was an armed conflict from 2001 to 2021. It was the direct response to the September 11 attacks. It began when an international military coalition led by the United States launched an invasion of Afghanistan, declaring Operation Enduring Freedom as part of the earlier-declared war on terror; toppling the Taliban-ruled Islamic Emirate and establishing the Islamic Republic three years later. The Taliban and its allies were expelled from major population centers by the US-led forces, supporting the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance; however Bin Laden relocated to neighboring Pakistan. The conflict officially ended with the 2021 Taliban offensive, which overthrew the Islamic Republic, and re-established the Islamic Emirate. It was the longest war in the military history of the United States, surpassing the length of the Vietnam War (1955–1975) by approximately six months.
The Haqqani network is an Afghan Islamist group, built around the family of the same name, that has used asymmetric warfare in Afghanistan to fight against Soviet forces in the 1980s, and US-led NATO forces and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan government in the 21st century. It is recognized as a terrorist organization by the United Nations. It is considered to be a "semi-autonomous" offshoot of the Taliban. It has been most active in eastern Afghanistan and across the border in north-west Pakistan.
Abdullah Abdullah is an Afghan politician who led the High Council for National Reconciliation (HCNR) from May 2020 until August 2021, when the Afghan government was overthrown by the Taliban. The council had been established to facilitate peace talks between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Taliban insurgents. Abdullah served as the Chief Executive of Afghanistan from September 2014 to March 2020, and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from December 2001 to April 2005. Prior to that, he was a senior member of the Northern Alliance, working as an adviser to Ahmad Shah Massoud. He worked as an ophthalmologist and medical doctor in the 1980s.
On 28 January 2010, an International Conference on Afghanistan was held at Lancaster House in London, where members of the international community discussed the further progress on the Petersberg agreement from 2001 on the democratization of Afghanistan after the ousting of the Taliban regime. The one-day conference, hosted by the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and the Afghan government, meant to chart a new course for the future of Afghanistan and brought together foreign ministers and senior representatives from more than 70 countries and international organizations. The conference was attended by the Afghan president Hamid Karzai, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, EU High Representative Catherine Ashton, President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy, British prime minister Gordon Brown, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, as seen at right. Participants also included the Afghan Minister of Foreign Affairs Rangin Dadfar Spanta, UN envoy Kai Eide and the British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, as well former Afghan minister of finance Ashraf Ghani. Afghanistan agreed to timetables to take control of certain military and police functions, and launched a program to lure Taliban insurgents back to mainstream life with financial incentives.
The Karzai administration was the government of Afghanistan under President Hamid Karzai, who became the head of state of Afghanistan in December 2001 after the Taliban government was overthrown. Karzai was appointed at the 2002 Loya Jirga as the Interim President of the Afghan Transitional Administration. After the 2004 Afghan presidential election, he became the President of Afghanistan.
Amrullah Saleh is an Afghan politician who served as the first vice president of Afghanistan from February 2020 to August 2021, and acting interior minister from 2018 to 2019. He was the head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) from 2004 to 2010.
The Afghan conflict refers to the series of events that have kept Afghanistan in a near-continuous state of armed conflict since the 1970s. Early instability followed the collapse of the Kingdom of Afghanistan in the largely non-violent 1973 coup d'état, which deposed Afghan monarch Mohammad Zahir Shah in absentia, ending his 40-year-long reign. With the concurrent establishment of the Republic of Afghanistan, headed by Mohammad Daoud Khan, the country's relatively peaceful and stable period in modern history came to an end. However, all-out fighting did not erupt until after 1978, when the Saur Revolution violently overthrew Khan's government and established the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Subsequent unrest over the radical reforms that were being pushed by the then-ruling People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) led to unprecedented violence, prompting a large-scale pro-PDPA military intervention by the Soviet Union in 1979. In the ensuing Soviet–Afghan War, the anti-Soviet Afghan mujahideen received extensive support from Pakistan, the United States, and Saudi Arabia in a joint covert effort that was dubbed Operation Cyclone.
Events from the year 2011 in Afghanistan.
Ghairat Baheer is a citizen of Afghanistan who served as a Senator in the House of Elders of Afghanistan. He is also the Chairman of the Political Committee of Hezbi Islami in Afghanistan. Ghairat Baheer was held by American forces in extrajudicial detention for over six years. The BBC News reported Pakistani officials took him into custody during a pre-dawn raid on his home in Islamabad on October 30, 2002. The BBC said no reason was offered for his apprehension, and that there were rumors US security officials participated in the raid.
2003 in Afghanistan. A list of notable incidents in Afghanistan during 2003
The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) intelligence agency of Pakistan has been accused of being heavily involved in covertly running military intelligence programs in Afghanistan since before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The first ISI operation in Afghanistan took place in 1975. It was in "retaliation to Republic of Afghanistan's proxy war and support to the militants against Pakistan". Before 1975, ISI did not conduct any operation in Afghanistan and it was only after decade of Republic of Afghanistan's proxy war against Pakistan, support to militants and armed incursion in 1960 and 1961 in Bajaur that Pakistan was forced to retaliate. Later on, in the 1980s, the ISI in Operation Cyclone systematically coordinated the distribution of arms and financial means provided by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to factions of the Afghan mujahideen such as the Hezb-e Islami (HeI) of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the forces of Ahmad Shah Massoud whose forces would later be known as the Northern Alliance. After the Soviet retreat, the different Mujahideen factions turned on each other and were unable to come to a power sharing deal which resulted in a civil war. The United States, along with the ISI and the Pakistani government of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto became the primary source of support for Hekmatyar in his 1992–1994 bombardment campaign against the Islamic State of Afghanistan and the capital Kabul.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
