KABUL – The discovery of the militant Islamic State (IS) group’s hideout,filled with explosives and suicide vests, in a poor Kabul neighbourhood,reflects the failure of Afghanistan’s corruption-wracked government toprotect the capital, analysts and residents said on Friday.
This week’s revelation that militants were operating in Kabul’s westernQala-i-Wahid district follows a recent series of horrific attacks in theheavily guarded city that killed nearly 200 people and wounded hundredsmore, including foreigners.
Security forces were led to the safe house by an insurgent who was capturedduring an attack on Monday by IS militants on a military academy in Kabulin which 11 soldiers died, according to an intelligence official.
From behind the 10-foot green metal doors, the insurgents were plotting touse the explosives, weapons and suicide vests in three more large attacksin Kabul, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity in linewith his agency’s rules and did not elaborate on the plans.
Khan Mohammed, a resident of Qala-e-Wahid, told the AP that locals rarelysee a police patrol in the neighbourhood and stay at home after darkbecause of marauding gangs of thieves. They say the government can’tprovide security.
“It is dangerous for all the people of Qala-e-Wahid that Daesh was here,but they came here because it is an insecure area,” Mohammed said, usingthe Arabic acronym for the terrorist group.
“For Daesh, this was the perfect area because you can bring everything herefrom anywhere,” added Mohammed, whose home is across the lane from the IShideout.
Political analyst Haroon Mir blamed widespread corruption throughout thegovernment and the security forces for their inability to prevent therecent deadly attacks in Kabul, which included a siege at a luxury hoteland a car bomb packed inside an ambulance. “It is the utter failure of theintelligence services. It is the utter failure of the security services. Itis the utter failure of every institution,” Mir said.
“You can’t blame it on lack of resources or lack of international support,”he said, adding that billions of dollars in international money flowinginto Afghanistan in the past 16 years has been siphoned off by those inpositions of power. That has left most Afghans feeling vulnerable.
“There is no security in this country,” said Mohammad Hajan, an elderly maninterviewed near the IS safe house. “In the morning, I wake up and I don’tknow if I will be alive in the evening.”
The streets that weave through Qala-e-Wahid are rutted and ankle deep inmud. A wide open sewer runs the length of the lanes, clogged with garbagebags, mounds of trash and human waste.
Foreigners are eyed with suspicion by some residents who refused toidentify the IS safe house. There are whispers of possible IS sympathisersin the neighbourhood. Other residents who are willing to talk say thedangerous men in their neighbourhood come from many places because thesecurity services are nonexistent.
Zikarullah, a 15-year-old who lives in a sunbaked mud-and-straw homeopposite the IS hideout, said the three men and one woman who occupied thesafe house had moved in about 25 days earlier. They had engaged freely withthe neighbours, he said.
“One of them asked me if I liked cricket and said he would buy me a newcricket ball and bat,” said Zikarullah, who like many Afghans uses only onename. The occupants were young, and the woman always wore an all-envelopingburqa.
Afghan security forces, aided by the US-led coalition, have been targetingsuspected IS hideouts in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province, wherethe militants are believed to have established their most extensive bases.Increasingly, however, the IS has gained in strength in northernAfghanistan, where ethnic Uzbeks have been recruited into their ranks.
There are an estimated 5,000 IS fighters in northern Afghanistan betweenSar-e-Pul province and eastern Badakhshan province, said Brian GlynWilliams, the author of “Counter Jihad, The American Military Experience inAfghanistan, Iraq and Syria”. He cited Afghanistan Vice President RashidDostum for the statistic.
President Ashraf Ghani, who faces pressure over the security lapses, wenton national television on Friday to blame neighbouring Pakistan forharbouring Taliban militants. Pakistan routinely denies it is a hub for theTaliban.
Ghani also said he has called for a review of security arrangements inKabul.
Corruption has poisoned Afghanistan’s security forces, said securityanalyst Waheed Mozhdah, noting that they can be bribed to “bringammunition, explosives, everything inside Kabul. This is our big problem.”
Mir, the political analyst, said terrorism is a new source of income forsome of the poorest residents of Kabul. He said some can earn up to $4,000to spirit a suicide bomber into the city.
The deteriorating security can also be blamed on the protracted feudbetween Ghani and powerful warlords, including Dostum, who currently is inTurkey and prevented by the government from returning to Afghanistan.
Ghani has fired the powerful Tajik warlord Atta Mohammed as governor ofnorthern Balkh province, but he has refused to step down. “Our nation isvery good,” said Hajan, the elderly resident of Qala-e-Wahid. “But ourleaders are bad, and our government is weak.”