Afghanistan paid 11,000

militants to lay down their

arms. Now the money has
run out.

Afghan Taliban look on after handing over their weapons as they join the Afghan government's reconciliation and
reintegration program in Herat province in 2013. Today, with no money, the program is effectively suspended.
(Mohammad Shoib/REUTERS)
By Tim Craig and Mohammad Sharif
Asia & Pacific
May 17

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/a-us-afghan-plan-to-buy-off-militants-may-befailing/2016/05/16/79ea22f8-1a65-11e6-aa55-670cabef46e0_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines

JALALABAD, Afghanistan Faridoon Hanafi says he probably killed American soldiers as a

Taliban commander in eastern Afghanistan from 2009 through 2014. And hes certainly
killed some Afghan troops.
But since then, Hanafi has joined a rare demographic here: reformed, de-radicalized Islamist
militants.
After he handed over his assault rifles and grenade launchers to intelligence agents, Hanafi
settled into a safe house and started collecting $200 a month. In return for those payments,

funded with foreign aid, Hanafi worked with local officials in Nangahar province to try to
lure other militants away from the fight.
Now, the money is drying up, and a central goal of the U.S.-led effort to rebuild Afghanistan
that Islamist militants can be rehabilitated or paid to reintegrate into the law-abiding
public is at a crossroads as the war drags into its 15th year.
If the government stops paying, these people will find another way to get money, and
negotiations will fail, Hanafi said in an interview.

Feraidoon
Hanafi, a reformed and deradicalized Islamist militant who handed over his assault rifles and grenade launchers
to intelligence agents. (Courtesy of Feraidoon Hanafi)

Two months ago, after the United States and other countries had invested about $200
million in the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program, the six-year effort was
effectively suspended while officials reassess its goals.

The suspension comes amid broader scrutiny here and in Washington of de-radicalization
efforts as the Taliban leadership shuns peace talks and parts of Afghanistan drift even deeper
into the grip of extremist ideology.
The society and symptom is just too big, and the medicine that is provided is just too little,
said Ali Mohammad Ali, an Afghan security analyst and researcher.
The program, carried out by an Afghan council set up to push for peace talks, included
payments to former militants, the hiring of hundreds of local mediators, and tens of millions
of dollars for public services in militant strongholds.
But just 11,077 militants have entered into the program, and officials of what is
called the High Peace Council cant be sure how many have remained loyal to the
government. In a country awash in weapons, only 9,800 have been handed over.
Auditors have also struggled to track how the public-works money, including $50
million from the United States, has been spent.
One important premise that underpinned the overall strategy was that peace was
imminent, said Douglas Keh, country director for the U.N. Development Program, which
oversees the effort. At the time, the international community had its reason to be guided by
this assumption, but what was hoped for did not come about.
As officials reevaluate the program this summer, they have stopped payments to the
mediators who formed the backbone of its operations. The High Peace Council is still
technically operational the United States rushed in $5 million to pay administrators but
payments to former Taliban fighters have been suspended, said Farhadullah Farhad, deputy
chief executive of the peace council.

Taliban militants join the Afghan governments reconciliation and reintegration program in Kandahar in 2011.
(Ahmad Nadeem/Reuters)

We are assessing our past to redesign our future, Farhad said.

Yet Hanafi argues that the program can point to some success. He said he joined the
insurgency as a teenager around 2008 after hearing reports of civilian casualties from U.S.
airstrikes. He met a cleric who told him that jihad was an obligation because villagers
were suffering.
Within weeks, Hanafi was leading a group of Taliban fighters in Wardak province,
ambushing American troops who were struggling to fortify bases in the area. He recalls
hiding in a bush in neighboring Logar province while directing another militant who had just
set five roadside bombs.
An [Afghan intelligence] vehicle came and stopped right on a bomb, and the guy asked what
he should do.
I said, Let him go.
Then an [Afghan] army vehicle came, and he asked again.
I told him to let him go.
Then a big American vehicle came, and I said, Do it, its time.

The blast destroyed the vehicle, Hanafi said, and intensified coalition military operations
in the area. He moved to the eastern province of Nangahar, but over time, he said, he became
unnerved by the gruesome insurgency. He was shaken by the sight of militants dragging the
body of an Afghan soldier behind a pickup truck.
He began second-guessing whether he really needed to die on the battlefield or as a suicide
bomber to be a good Muslim. And he became incensed that most of his orders appeared to be
coming from Pakistanis.
In late 2014, working with local mediators from Nangahar, Hanafi laid down his arms.
The Taliban are tired and will join if the government pays them, and if the
government provides jobs for them, Hanafi said.
But efforts to maintain Afghan reintegration and de-radicalization programs are coming up
against what Western diplomats and aid officials say is a tightening financial noose.
New funds for the program would have to be raised at an international summit in Brussels in
October. But donors are skittish amid concerns about an unstable global economy, lower oil
prices and the domestic price tag of the refugee crisis in Europe.
A question that remains unanswered, officials say, is whether an estimated 30,000 to
50,000 Taliban fighters as well as tens of thousands of sympathizers can
even be de-radicalized.
In a report last fall, the U.S. Institute for Peace concluded that moderate Afghan influences
are being outmanuevered by both violent extremist groups and nonviolent Islamist groups
and charismatic mullahs with better organizational skills and better grassroots contacts and
networks, particularly among youth.
The international effort is also struggling to achieve results because it largely overlooks the
influence that Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran wield to stir up fundamentalist
passions in Afghanistan, said Ali, the security analyst.
New madrassas and mosques supported by those countries are a pipeline

for

radical thought, he said.

De-radicalization, he said, has failed, and the reason it has failed is because we dont
go to the root causes of the radicalization, which are the policies of these
countries that support it.
But the Obama administration has appeared reluctant to take on Saudi Arabia or
Pakistan over the issue. Instead, the administration is spending some $33 million in
Afghanistan on Countering Violent Extremism programs, which sponsor cultural,
entertainment and educational efforts from a local version of Sesame Street to
skateboard lessons. But millions of dollars also go to more-shadowy initiatives that

seek to bolster moderate clerics or help Afghan politicians and media personalities draft
public messages.
Though the State Department tries to shield the identity of some grant recipients,
citing fears of militant reprisals, much of the money appears concentrated in
major Afghan cities, largely bypassing rural areas most at risk of becoming
radicalized, said Seth Jones, director of the International Security and Defense Policy
Center at the Rand Corp.
Without seeing better evidence, I am going to be skeptical these programs are having
much of an impact, Jones said.
While some Afghan officials credit the High Peace Council for de-escalating hundreds of
local conflicts, other officials question whether Afghanistans version of walking-around
money can make a lasting difference.
Its not going to convince die-hard Taliban, because these Taliban have links to
outsiders who can give even more payments, said Sayed Fazlullah Wahidi, a former
Afghan governor.
Peace council officials say even a scaled-down reintegration program would be likely to
require an additional $50 million to $75 million from international donors.
If money doesnt arrive, Hanafi says, he will look elsewhere for help maybe taking
up arms again.
But not the Taliban, he cautioned. We may have to do some sort of independent militia.
Sayed Salahuddin in Kabul contributed to this report.
Read more:
Despite billions in U.S. funding, Afghan forces have a problem with boots
U.S. troops are back in restive Afghan province, a year after withdrawal
A year of Taliban gains shows that we havent delivered, top Afghan official says
Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Tim Craig is The Posts bureau chief in Pakistan. He has also covered conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and within the
District of Columbia government.
Follow @timcraigpost