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Afghanistan has been at war for
more than twenty years. During that time it has lost a third of its
population. Some 1.5 million people are estimated to have died as a
direct result of the conflict. Another 5 million fled as refugees to
Iran and Pakistan; others became exiles elsewhere abroad. A large part
of its population is internally displaced. Afghanistan has virtually
the world's lowest life expectancy and literacy rates and the highest
rates of infant, child, and maternal mortality. It is suffering from a
devastating drought and, with Somalia, is one of the world's two
hungriest countries.
Throughout the war, all of
the major factions have been guilty of grave breaches of international
humanitarian law. Their warmaking is supported and perpetuated by the
involvement of Afghanistan's neighbors and other states in providing
weapons, ammunition, fuel, and other logistical support. State and
non-state actors across the region and beyond continue to provide new
arms and other materiel, as well as training and advisory assistance.
The arms provided have been directly implicated in serious violations
of international humanitarian law. These include aerial bombardments
of civilian targets, indiscriminate bombings, rocketing and other
artillery attacks on civilian-populated areas, reprisal killings of
civilians, summary executions of prisoners, rape, and torture.
Human Rights Watch has undertaken extensive research into the support
provided to the two major forces who, as of December 2000, were
fighting for control of the country: the Islamic Emirate of
Afghanistan (IEA), established by the Taliban movement, and the
Islamic State of Afghanistan, headed by the National Islamic United
Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan (the "United Front").
By late 2000, the IEA controlled some 90-95 percent of Afghanistan's
territory, with resistance continuing in the far northeast and other
pockets throughout the north.
Human Rights Watch research in Afghanistan and adjacent countries has
identified the major transit routes used to move arms and other
equipment, the suppliers, the role of state and non-state actors, and
the response of the international community. This memorandum
summarizes these findings, setting out basic information concerning
the provision of arms, munitions, training, and military advisory
assistance-and the systemic violation of the laws of wars by all those
receiving this assistance. This is presented as the basis for Human
Rights Watch's recommendations to the United Nations and states who
have influence in Afghanistan to stop the arms flow and other military
assistance to all parties to the conflict there.
The principal supplier of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is
Pakistan. Its official denials notwithstanding, Pakistan has assisted
the Taliban forces by facilitating the recruitment of fighters,
offering military training, and planning pivotal military operations,
while allowing arms for the Taliban to transit its territory. The
extent of this support, particularly during the Taliban's offensive in
the north in late 2000, was criticized implicitly by the U.N.
Secretary General in a report to the General Assembly in November. In
the report, he expressed his distress that "a significant number
of non-Afghan personnel, largely from Pakistani madrassahs,
are…taking active part in the fighting, most, if not all, on the
side of the Taliban," and that "there also appears to be
outside involvement in the planning and logistical support of [the
Taliban's] military operations."
Diplomatic observers interviewed by Human Rights Watch in Afghanistan
and Pakistan in July and October 2000 have also reported that
Pakistani aircraft assisted with troop rotations for Taliban forces
during combat operations in late 2000, and senior members of its
intelligence agency and army were involved in planning military
operations. Private and semi-private agencies in Pakistan, including
political parties, religious institutions and business cartels, have
provided enormous support to the Taliban with the full knowledge of
government officials even when their actions violated Pakistani law.
Finally, the Pakistani army has facilitated the recruitment of
Pakistani madrasa (religious school) students, including children, to
fight with the Taliban.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have also provided financial
support to the Taliban. At least until 1998, Saudi Arabia provided
funds and heavily subsidized fuel to the Taliban through Pakistan.
Through their relationship with traders in the UAE and in the
Pakistani province of Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier Province
(NWFP), the Taliban are also linked with local and provincial
administrators and with officials in the UAE who benefit from the vast
smuggling networks that link the three countries.
The parties that comprise the United Front obtain arms primarily from
Iran and Russia. Iran has provided rockets, ammunition, and mines.
Iran has also provided military training to United Front forces. The
Russian Federation has enabled the transportation of Iranian aid,
while providing considerable direct assistance itself, including
crucial support services and, reportedly, helicopters recently.
Tajikistan is the principal country through which assistance from Iran
and Russia to the United Front transits, including through the joint
Russian-Tajik military base at Kulab.
Though there have been numerous agreements by Afghanistan's neighbors
and other states involved in the conflict to end arms supplies as part
of a larger peace process, none of these agreements has been backed by
any enforcement mechanism. On July 21, 1999, at a meeting in Tashkent
of the Group of Six-plus-Two, comprising the countries bordering
Afghanistan plus the U.S. and Russia, the delegates signed an
agreement subsequently known as the Tashkent declaration in which they
"agreed not to provide military support to any Afghan party and
to prevent the use of our territories for such purposes," and
called upon "the international community to take identical
measures to prevent delivery of weapons to Afghanistan." Action
by the United Nations to bar military support to all parties to the
conflict could make effective the measures agreed previously by some
of the states principally responsible for the ongoing flow of training
and advisory support, weapons, and other military assistance.
Human Rights Watch holds that armed forces that commit serious
violations of human rights or humanitarian law, be they government or
rebel groups, should not be further armed by members of the
international community. When it concerns gross violations of an
ongoing nature, an international embargo with which states must be
required to comply should be imposed on all parties that commit such
violations. The objective of such an embargo is to compel the
combatants to end their abusive conduct and to obviate further
complicity by member states in the abuses. The record of all parties'
failure to abide by the standards of international humanitarian law in
the conflict is of such extreme severity that Human Rights Watch is
calling for such an embargo and appropriate enforcement mechanisms as
a matter of urgency.
THE SYSTEMIC VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL
HUMANITARIAN LAW
Both the Taliban and the parties constituting the United Front have
repeatedly committed serious violations of international humanitarian
law, including indiscriminate aerial bombardment and shelling, summary
executions, and the use of antipersonnel landmines. During the past
two years, Taliban offensives have been accompanied by the use of
scorched-earth tactics in the Shomali plains north of Kabul, summary
executions of prisoners in the north-central province of Samangan, and
forced relocation and conscription. Military setbacks have left United
Front forces defending home territories in northeastern and central
Afghanistan. There have nevertheless been reports of abuses in areas
that have temporarily been held by United Front factions, including
summary executions, burning of houses, and looting. The principal
targets in these attacks have been ethnic Pashtuns and others
suspected of supporting the Taliban. The various parties comprising
the United Front also amassed a deplorable record of attacks on
civilians between the fall of the Najibullah regime in 1992 and the
Taliban's capture of Kabul in 1996.
Examples of violations of the laws of war by the Taliban and the
United Front are set out below.
Examples of violations by
the Taliban
- August-October 2000: According to displaced persons who had fled
to United Front-held Faizabad, the Taliban bombed residential
areas of Taloqan and surrounding villages in the weeks before the
city fell to them on September 5, 2000. Bombs, shells, and cluster
munitions were heavily deployed throughout the city including
residential areas, destroying many homes. After the Taliban
consolidated control of the villages, they carried out summary
executions of suspected sympathizers of United Front commander
Ahmad Shah Massoud.
- May 2000: Taliban forces summarily executed at least 200
prisoners near the Robatak pass, northwest of the town of Pul-i
Khumri. The prisoners were men taken during sweep operations
throughout Samangan and neighboring provinces in late 1999 and
early 2000.
- 1999: After retaking the central city of Bamiyan in May, Taliban
forces summarily executed civilians, primarily ethnic Shi'a
Hazaras; burned homes; and used detainees for forced labor. The
town of Dara-i Suf was bombed with incendiary cluster munitions,
burning down the entire central market and destroying wells and
homes.
- July 1999: A Taliban offensive in the Shomali plains was marked
by summary executions, the abduction and disappearance of women,
the burning of homes, and the destruction of other property and
agricultural assets, including the cutting down of fruit trees.
According to a report by the U.N. Secretary-General dated November
16, 1999, "The Taliban forces, who allegedly carried out
these acts, essentially treated the civilian population with
hostility and made no distinction between combatants and
non-combatants."
- August 1998: After capturing Mazar-i Sharif on August 8, Taliban
troops killed scores of civilians in indiscriminate attacks,
shooting noncombatants and suspected combatants in residential
areas, city streets, and markets. In the days that followed,
Taliban forces carried out a systematic search for male members of
the ethnic Hazara, Tajik, and Uzbek communities. Scores and
perhaps hundreds of Hazara men and boys were summarily executed,
while thousands of men from various ethnic communities were
detained first in the city jail and then transported to other
cities. Altogether, at least 2,000 civilians may have been
deliberately killed in the city. Many others were killed in aerial
bombardments and rocket attacks as they fled south of the city.
There were reports that women and girls, particularly in certain
Hazara neighborhoods, were raped and abducted during the Taliban
takeover.
- September 1997: Retreating Taliban forces summarily executed
ethnic Shi'a Hazara villagers near Mazar-i Sharif, after having
failed to capture the city. According to the U.N. Special
Rapporteur for Afghanistan, in a report dated March 12, 1998,
fifty-three villagers were killed in one city, Qezelabad, and some
twenty houses set on fire. In the village of Sheikhabad, a total
of thirty elderly people are reported to have been killed.
Killings of a similar type were also reported in other villages in
the area.
Examples of
violations by United Front factions
- Late 1999 to early 2000: Internally displaced persons who fled
from villages in and around Sangcharak district recounted summary
executions, burning of houses, and widespread looting during the
four months that the area was held by the United Front. Several of
the executions were reportedly carried out in front of the
victims' family members. Those targeted in the attacks were
largely ethnic Pashtuns and, in some cases, Tajiks.
- April 1999: After taking control of Bamiyan city on April 21,
forces belonging to United Front faction Hizb-i Wahdat beat and
detained residents suspected of supporting the Taliban, and burned
their houses. Hizb-i Wahdat relinquished control of the city to
the Taliban, after heavy fighting in early May 1999.
- September 20-21, 1998: Several volleys of rockets were fired at
the northern part of Kabul, with one hitting a crowded night
market. Estimates of the numbers killed ranged from 76 to 180.
Although a spokesperson for United Front commander Ahmad Shah
Massoud disclaimed responsibility, the attacks were widely
believed to have been carried out by Massoud's forces, who were
then stationed about 25 miles north of Kabul. In a September 23
press statement, the ICRC described the attacks as indiscriminate
and the deadliest that the city had seen in three years.
- Late May 1997: Some 3,000 captured Taliban soldiers were
summarily executed in and around Mazar-i Sharif by two United
Front factions: Junbish forces under the command of General Abdul
Malik Pahlawan and Hizb-i Wahdat forces led by General Muhaqqiq.
The killings followed Pahlawan's withdrawal from a brief alliance
with the Taliban, and the capture of the Taliban forces who were
trapped in the city. Some of the Taliban troops were taken to the
desert and shot, while others were thrown down wells and then
blown up with grenades.
- January 5, 1997: Junbish planes dropped cluster munitions on
residential areas of Kabul. Several civilians were killed and
others wounded in the air raid, which also involved the use of
conventional bombs.
EXTERNAL MILITARY
SUPPORT TO THE TALIBAN
Pakistan
The principal supplier to the Taliban is Pakistan. The Taliban have
been receiving weapons on a regular basis to replenish supplies
consumed during battles with the United Front forces; these weapons
must have crossed Pakistani territory. There is strong evidence that
Pakistan has otherwise assisted the Taliban forces by facilitating the
recruitment of fighters, offering military training, and planning
pivotal military operations. Former Pakistani military officers
provide specialized forms of assistance, particularly with respect to
the maintenance and use of artillery, with a view to increasing the
Taliban forces' efficiency and effectiveness.
Recruitment of volunteer soldiers is organized by several Pakistani
political parties who use madrasas as natural recruiting centers. This
recruitment is performed openly, and some Pakistani government
officials have repeatedly admitted knowledge of the paramilitary
activities of the religious schools and have officially expressed
discomfort regarding them. However, significant numbers of recruits,
traveling in trucks and buses, regularly cross into Afghanistan from
Pakistan in order to fight with the Taliban against United Front
forces without any interference from Pakistani border officials. These
recruits cross the border on the main roads, where Pakistani border
controls are quite vigilant. Boys under the age of eighteen are among
those recruited.
The former Afghan Army base of Rishikor, southwest of Kabul, was until
recently the main training center for Pakistani volunteers brought to
Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban. A guarded area within the camp
held the living quarters for Pakistani military and intelligence
personnel. A typical forty-day training cycle in the camp covered
physical training, weapons maintenance, instruction in the use of
weapons, including Kalashnikovs, RPK light machine guns, ZSU
anti-aircraft cannon, 82mm and 120mm mortars, and rocket-propelled
grenade launchers, as well as religious instruction.
Pakistani private companies, often run by retired military officers,
carry out significant procurement of munitions and spare parts for the
Taliban, buying considerable quantities from Chinese manufacturers
through dealers in Hong Kong and also from dealers in Dubai, in the
United Arab Emirates. Arms purchased in this manner appear to move
primarily by ship. Sealed containers are brought into the port of
Karachi and then moved by truck to Afghanistan without inspection, as
per the trade agreement between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Afghan
Transit Trade Agreement (ATTA).
EXTERNAL
MILITARY SUPPORT TO THE UNITED FRONT
Despite its forces' relative isolation and extended lines of
communication, the United Front has nevertheless continued to receive
military assistance from outside governments. This assistance has come
in a variety of forms, ranging from the direct transfer of military
materiel to the provision of limited numbers of military advisors and
support personnel. Almost none of these transfers have been publicly
documented via submissions to the United Nations register on
conventional arms, and, in fact, much of the United Front's military
support comes from nations participating in the so-called
"Six-plus-Two" contact group, whose members have publicly
pledged not to provide military support to any Afghan combatants and
to prevent the use of their territories for such purposes. The main
culprits are Iran and Russia, with secondary roles played by
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan (at least until 1998), Turkmenistan, and
Kyrgyzstan.
Iran
Iran is known to have supplied at least the following weapons to the
United Front: 100mm and 115mm tank ammunition for the T-55 and T-62
tanks, respectively; YM-II antitank mines; D-30 122mm towed howitzers
and ammunition; 122mm rockets for the BM-21 and BM-21V
"Grad" multiple-rocket launch systems; 122mm mortar bombs;
rockets for RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launchers; F-1 hand
grenades; and 7.62mm rifle ammunition. All of these weapons systems
are in wide use in Afghanistan, where they have been seen deployed.
Both the route and the means of transportation taken by Iranian
weapons and material transfers to the United Front have shifted in the
wake of Taliban military victories. Following the fall of Herat and
Kabul (in September 1996) to the Taliban, the supply of weapons, men
and other material from Iran was redirected to other United Front-held
cities, most notably Bamiyan and Mazar-i Sharif. Both cities possess
airfields capable of handling mid-sized cargo aircraft such as the
Soviet-designed An-24 and An-32 and American-designed C-130 Hercules,
all in service with the Iranian military. Numerous eyewitness accounts
have identified Iranian military cargo planes taking off from and
arriving at the Bamiyan and Mazar-i Sharif airports during the period
1996 to 1998. Following the capture of Bamiyan and Mazar-i Sharif by
the Taliban, Iran has been forced to rely on a circuitous land route
to deliver supplies of weapons and goods to its friends in
Afghanistan. An Iranian engineering team was involved in the
construction of a new bridge across the Amu Darya river at Dasht-i
Qalah in 1999. Such a bridge would allow for high-volume traffic to
reach United Front forces in Afghanistan from Dushanbe, Tajikistan, as
well as from the Russian-Tajik military base and airfield at Kulab in
Tajikistan, a key supply transit point.
Iran provides military training to United Front forces via small teams
of approximately five to eight military instructors who arrive from
Iran periodically to lead courses at a training center near the
village of Farkhar in Takhar province in northern Afghanistan. An
estimated 80-150 men-roughly the equivalent of junior-level
officers-train at the camp at any given time, receiving instruction in
tactics, leadership skills, logistics, and other military skills.
Russia
Russia has played a crucial enabling role in the resupply of United
Front forces by arranging for the transportation of Iranian aid, while
providing considerable direct assistance itself, including crucial
support services.
Military assistance to United Front forces crosses the
Tajikistan-Afghanistan border with the active collusion of the Russian
government, which maintains border forces there and leads the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) peacekeeping forces (201st
Division) within the country. Witnesses have described seeing stores
of rocket and artillery rounds awaiting delivery at the border ferry
crossing at Dasht-i Qalah, stacked in plain view of the Russian Border
Guard troops manning the Tajik side of the crossing. The rocket
projectiles were most likely 122mm rockets for BM-21 truck-mounted
multiple-rocket launch systems, while the artillery shells were most
likely for M-30/D-30 towed howitzers. Other witnesses have observed
BM-21 and BM-21V truck-mounted multiple-rocket launch systems, as well
as wooden crates with hand grenades and large-caliber rockets stacked
up on the Tajik side of the crossing, partially covered by tarps. On
one occasion a witness described seeing a BM-21 being ferried across
the river on the barge ferry at Dasht-i Qalah. The consistency,
volume, and lack of subterfuge or concealment of shipments crossing
the border strongly imply that the Russian role is not the result of
isolated, unit-level agreements or arrangements, but rather the result
of a broader government policy. A high-level Russian government
commitment to resupply the United Front is further confirmed by
reports that many of the supplies crossing into Afghanistan at Dasht-i
Qalah originated from the Russian military base at Kulab, Tajikistan.
The Russian base at Kulab serves as the linchpin for United Front
forces in the Panjshir Valley and northern Afghanistan. The base has
been an assembly point for military supplies headed to the de facto
United Front capital at Taloqan (until September 2000) via the
crossing at Dasht-i Qalah. The base also has provided logistical
support and maintenance services for United Front aircraft and
helicopters. In 1997 and 1998, Antonov-12 cargo planes based in Kulab
were being used to ferry military supplies from Mashhad, Iran to the
United Front via Kulab. Supply flights of Mi-17 helicopters, ferrying
ammunition and weapons from Kulab to Takhar province, Panjshir Valley,
and other areas under United Front control, are commonplace. Moreover,
Western military experts in the region have alleged that Russia
recently provided helicopters to the forces of United Front commander
Ahmad Shah Massoud.
Another resource employed by the Russian government to expedite
shipments of military materiel to anti-Taliban forces is the Russian
Army's transportation battalion based in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. The
battalion is responsible for road maintenance and security during the
final portion of the trip that brings arms cargos from Mashhad to the
rail terminus at Osh, and from there to Afghanistan via trucks. Not
only does it appear that bulk arms shipments are sent into Afghanistan
from Tajikistan across the Amu Darya river with Russian cooperation,
it is unlikely in the extreme that the one hundred to 140 (or more)
heavy trucks required to transport the 700 tons of arms and 300 tons
of flour arrived by train in Osh in October 1998 (see section on
Kygyzstan) could travel from Osh to Khorog or Ishkashim without the
knowledge and permission of the Russian military and foreign ministry.
Uzbekistan
Until the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif to Taliban forces in August 1998,
Uzbekistan supplied its main Afghan ally, the National Islamic
Movement of Afghanistan (NIM), or "Junbish," forces under
General Dostum, with arms, ammunition, and fuel. The garrison town of
Termez, home to a large Uzbek military air and land presence, was the
main base for this assistance, serving both as a supply point for arms
transfers as well as a maintenance depot. From Termez supplies were
transferred across the bridge over the Amu Darya river to Mazar-i
Sharif and elsewhere. Moreover, Junbish combat aircraft-both
fixed-wing jet aircraft and helicopters-used to receive maintenance
and servicing at Termez airport.
With the destruction of the Junbish forces in 1998, Uzbekistan's
leaders apparently decided upon a strategic shift, giving up active
support of any faction in Afghanistan in favor of fortifying the
border and a more energetic pursuit of a diplomatic solution to the
conflict. And on at least one occasion, in September 1998, Uzbekistan
allowed a large shipment of Iranian military goods for United Front
forces to cross its territory. Uneasy about the prospects for an
increased Russian influence in the area, Uzbek officials have recently
increased their diplomatic contacts with the Taliban. They remain
concerned about possible Taliban support for the radical Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).
Turkmenistan
Although Turkmenistan is not known to have provided direct military
assistance to any of the warring parties in Afghanistan, it has
allowed its border to be violated by both sides in the Afghan civil
war. In July 1998, Taliban forces transited Turkmen territory to
attack the Junbish-held towns of Andkhvoy and Maimana from the rear.
And on at least one occasion, in September 1998, Turkmenistan allowed
a large shipment of Iranian military goods for United Front forces to
cross its territory. Turkmenistan has recently increased diplomatic
contacts with the Taliban but appears to favor neither side in the
war.
Kyrgyzstan
Although there is no indication that Kyrgyzstan provides direct
military assistance to any warring factions in Afghanistan, there is
evidence that suggests the Kyrgyz government, at least until October,
1998, gave its permission for weapons cargos to transit through its
territory to United Front forces in Afghanistan. These cargos arrived
by train in the town of Osh and were then loaded onto trucks and
transported to Afghanistan. Between October 4 and October 6, 1998, two
shipments from the Iranian city of Mashhad arrived at the Osh-1
station by train, one shipment carried by six wagons, the other ten.
Another wagon with identical documentation arrived as part of a train
during the night of October 12-13. The seventeen boxcars contained 700
metric tons of armaments, hidden amidst humanitarian aid supplies (300
tons of flour). The weapons included anti-tank mines, F-1 grenades,
122mm artillery shells, mortar bombs, and 122mm rockets. It is highly
unlikely that a shipment of this size, involving both train and truck
transport, could have occurred without the knowledge of Kyrgyz
authorities.
Tajikistan
The government of Tajikistan itself does not appear to be providing
direct military assistance to United Front forces in Afghanistan.
Where Tajikistan has extended assistance to the United Front forces,
it has done so with a distinctly commercial flavor. The United Front
forces have contracted with Tajik Airlines, a state-owned concern, to
provide servicing of United Front Mi-17 helicopters at the civil
airport at Dushanbe. In addition, the Tajik authorities sell aviation
fuel to the United Front at the rate of U.S.$400/ton. Helicopter
flights from Dushanbe to Taloqan (until Taloqan's capture by the
Taliban in September 2000), although primarily used for the carriage
of civilian passengers, have carried a variety of military equipment,
including rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and small arms
ammunition. Return flights from Taloqan to Dushanbe have carried
seriously wounded United Front soldiers for treatment in Tajik
hospitals.
On the whole, Tajikistan's role has been more of a facilitator of
military assistance from Russia and especially Iran intended for the
United Front forces, including by not preventing Russian forces on its
territory from expediting resupply and other operations for United
Front forces. The latter is done primarily from the Russian-Tajik
military base and airfield at Kulab.
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