Sudarsan Raghavan, at Washington Post, has an article about the strongmen in Afghanistan. The article focuses on Atta Mohammad Noor, governor of Balkh.
For more than a decade, Atta Mohammad Noor, governor of Balkh province, has controlled this northern region with an iron hand, imbued with the authority of the freedom fighter he was and the ultra-rich businessman he has become. Guns, militias and guile, as well as his ability to provide security, have made him one of the country’s most formidable strongmen.
To many war-weary Afghans, former warlords such as Noor — who are accused of human rights abuses yet rule with impunity — have to be marginalized for the nation to move into a new era. To their supporters, these former warlords remain a bulwark against the Taliban, al-Qaeda and, possibly, the Islamic State, more vital than ever as the U.S. military mission edges to a close.
Afghanistan’s defining fight: Technocrats vs. strongmen, Washington Post
Raghavan calls them "strongmen" and "former warlords". This is a recognition and a distinction, that their role, their sources of power, their degree of integration with a government has changed.
Last week, gunmen had attacked the attorney general's office and courts in Balkh. At least ten people were killed, with many more wounded.
Police said they rescued the attorney general from his office, which is just 200m (650ft) from the office of the governor of Balkh province.
The governor's aide told the BBC that the governor, Atta Muhammad Nur, was at home when the attack began but was taken to his office to monitor the situation.
Afghan attack: Deadly gun battle in Mazar-e-Sharif, BBC
Colonel James L. Creighton has a defense of U.S. support for Matiullah Khan of Uruzgan, who was assassinated in a suicide bombing last month, in Kabul.
He tells the story of the time Matiullah Khan saved the coalition from a spitting mullah.
At the lectern a black turbaned mullah began ranting. With flaming red eyes and profuse spit, he exhorted the Afghans in the room to defy the coalition and local Afghan leaders; to kill coalition soldiers; and to take retribution for the blasphemous act of stabbing a Koran. After 45 minutes of the mullah’s tirade, General Hamid moved forward and suggested politely that it would be best for the coalition leaders to leave.
Shades of Gray in Afghanistan, The Diplomat
Other stories, told elsewhere, include the time the United States saved Matiullah Khan from the Dutch.
In summer 2009, relations soured after the Dutch suspected him of being involved in an attack on one of their convoys on the road from Uruzgan to Kandahar. Seven Dutch soldiers were wounded in heavy fighting. There have been regular allegations (see also the NYT article) that in his role as the de facto and only protector of the Kandahar-Uruzgan highway, Matiullah sometimes creates fake enemies and fake fighting in order to stay in business and to keep the price of security high.
The US Special Forces got furious when they read these accusations in an internal document. A SF commander decided to take Matiullah with him to the Dutch Civilian Representative (he is generally not invited to visit the Dutch camp). While M was watching, the US and the Dutch ended up in a shouting match. Matiullah could leave the camp, without further questions.
The Story of ‘M’: US-Dutch Shouting Matches in Uruzgan, Afghanistan Analysts Network
Sudarsan Raghavan calls the installation of the U.S.-supported strongmen, versus a U.S.-supported technocratic government, the defining battle of Afghanistan. More defining than our 13-year war with the Taliban.
That struggle is becoming the definitive battle for the future of every aspect of the country’s affairs
Afghanistan’s defining fight: Technocrats vs. strongmen, Washington Post
It affects every aspect of the country's affairs. As the U.S. partially withdraws, the strongmen, with their militias, with their U.S.-given wealth, their power, is what we will leave.
But this was the name of game at this point. You needed the support and acceptance of powers who had the resources and access to make 'kings'. In order to rule when you did not come from a landed elite background (which Matiullah did not), you needed money to buy your constituency and patronage network. Matiullah did this skillfully.
The unofficial king of Uruzgan, The Interpreter
Atta Mohammad Noor is of the older generation of strongmen, with roots in the anti-Soviet jihad. Matiullah Khan was a newer generation of strongman. He was largely a creation of the world of security contracting and security militias, rather than someone who has adapted to it.
Yes, the crimes allegedly committed are still the same: abduction, murder and rape, torture, ‘disappearing’ people and running secret prison, raising ‘taxes’ by force. In clear detail, however, it showed an extremely worrying new trend: that Afghanistan has entered a new era of human rights violations, and that a new generation of human rights violators has emerged since 2001. Even more worrying is that they have acted, not only under the eyes of the ‘international community’, but often in connivance with it.
Impunity and Silence: The meagre reaction to the latest HRW report, Afghanistan Analysts Network
After a U.S. invasion and occupation, from the beginning giving them bricks of cash, the old warlords might have gained and wielded considerable power at any rate.
But in the defining battle of Afghanistan versus the strongmen, in the battle for Afghanistan's future, we have stacked the deck entirely in the strongmen's favor. We have given them, in a poor country, phenomenal wealth. From our wealth comes their power. We give them control, from their access to us, of handing out contracting money. We give them control of a wide variety of militias, formal and informal.
After last year's election and the vote fraud, Atta Mohammad Noor had quite bluntly blackmailed the United States, turning a threat of civil war into formal political power.
As regional strongmen and their power goes, ability to blackmail the United States is rather considerable. The people of Uruzgan, a poor and rural place, up against the concentrated wealth and military power we have brought, the system we have entrenched, would have little chance.
That entrenched system, established from a combination of our wealth and our military power, is what we will leave in Afghanistan. It affects every aspect of the country’s affairs. More that our war with the Taliban, it can be said to be the central and defining fight.