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Afghan bread basket flung into violence
AFP - Sunday, September 27
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Afghan bread basket flung into violence
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (AFP) - – Ethnic tensions, land disputes and a new US supply line have plunged Afghanistan's bread basket and northern province Kunduz into violence, putting German troops on the frontline.
The Taliban insurgency plaguing the destitute country and the 100,000 NATO and US troops fighting a war increasingly unpopular at home, has expanded and now threatens the once peaceful north.
"Westerners have concentrated their attention on the south, neglecting the north. The Taliban have had the space to move in progressively," said Mariam Abou Zahab from the Centre for International Studies and Research in Paris.
Kunduz, which shares a mountain border with Tajikistan, is awash with ethnic tension and factional fighting. It is a place where land conflicts have been exploited by Islamist militants, analysts believe.
Kunduz has Tajik, Uzbek and Pashtun populations, the latter the dominant group in Afghanistan that feeds the bulk of the Taliban ranks and generally concentrated in the scorched desert terrain of the south.
But historical inter-Afghan violence is being turned on foreign troops, according to local non-profit think-tank, Cooperation for Peace and Unity.
The German military, which has lost four soldiers so far this year, had dozens wounded and estimates that one in two patrols is attacked, believes Al-Qaeda are also a presence alongside other Islamist insurgents.
"We have several Al-Qaeda fighters, sometimes foreign, who give money and orders," said Colonel Ulrich P, who is responsible for training Afghan forces and whose family name cannot be divulged for security reasons.
The security threat has mounted ahead of Germany's parliamentary elections this Sunday, which Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives are expected to win despite plunging support for the German mission among the public.
A recent message purportedly from Osama bin Laden with German subtitles demanded Europeans leave Afghanistan and a recent German-language video threatened Al-Qaeda attacks if Germans voted Merkel back in.
The insurgents want to "influence the German parliamentary elections," believes Captain Thomas K -- after threatening to disrupt Afghan presidential elections last month, which have been marred by fraud and low turnout.
Pashtuns first arrived in Kunduz, where a moderate climate makes it possible for farmers to reap harvests several times a year, in the early 20th century as part of forced re-settlements under the Afghan monarchy.
Thousands of Tajiks and Uzbeks were stripped of their lands, sowing the seeds of localised conflicts that continue to this day.
Pashtun warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose Hezb-e Islami is fighting against foreign troops and the Afghan government, was born in Kunduz.
The province later became a Taliban stronghold when the Islamist movement ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until the 2001 US-led invasion.
"The Pashtuns who supported them have since paid dearly," said Abou Zahab, killed in their hundreds or even thousands according to human rights groups.
A new supply line for Western forces from Tajikistan to Kabul, via Kunduz, in order to limit the dependence on dangerous routes coming from Pakistan, is also whetting insurgent appetites.
It was on this road that two oil tankers destined for NATO were hijacked and against which German troops called in a September 4 air strike that the Afghan government said killed 30 civilians on top of 69 Taliban fighters.
It is also the route north for drugs. Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the world's opium and the trade finances the rebellion.
"The insurgents' strategy seems similar to the 1990s (when mujahedeen fought Soviet troops): block the routes and supply lines and besiege foreign troops in their bases," said Abou Zahab.
Afghan analyst Waheed Mujda suggested that Russia and central Asian states might increasingly ally themselves to the United States in order to counter a rising threat to their own stability emanating from northern Afghanistan.
"Central Asia countries and the Russian federation may feel the dangers close by. These countries may be obliged to further cooperate in the US war on terror, and gradually allow more American bases on their soil," he told AFP.
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