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The Troubled Afghan-Pakistani Border
November 29, 2007
Introduction
Afghanistan shares borders with six countries, but the approximate 1500-mile-long Durand Line along Pakistan remains the most dangerous. Kabul has never recognized the line as an international border, instead claiming the Pashtun territories in Pakistan that comprise the Federally Administered Tribal Lands (FATA) and parts of North West Frontier Province along the border. Incidents of violence have increased on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the last year. Various reports in late 2007 showed militants gaining ground inside Pakistan and their influence has now spread to areas beyond the FATA. Similarly, in Afghanistan, violence has peaked since the ouster of the Taliban six years ago with a worrisome increase in suicide attacks.
Historical Conflict
The region that is today known as Afghanistan was long torn by ethnic and tribal rivalries. It started evolving as a modern state in the early nineteenth century when the British East India Company began expanding in the northwest of British-held India. This was also the time of the great gamethe geopolitical struggle between the British and the Russian empires. The British held the Indian subcontinent while the Russians held the Central Asian lands to the north. Their spheres of influence overlapped in Afghanistan. Britain, concerned about Russian expansion, invaded Afghanistan in 1839 and fought the First Anglo-Afghan War. This led to a decade of machinations between the British and the Russians and two more bloody wars, at the end of which in 1919, Afghanistan won its independence.
Durand Line
The Durand Line is named after foreign secretary of the colonial government of India, Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, who demarcated the frontier between British India and Afghanistan in 1893. The line was drawn after negotiations between the British government and Afghan King Abdur Rahman Khan, founder of modern Afghanistan. This line brought the tribal lands (now a part of Pakistan) under British control. Barnett R. Rubin, director of studies at New York Universitys Center on International Cooperation, writes in Foreign Affairs that the British established a three-tiered border to separate their empire from Russia. The first frontier separated the areas of the Indian subcontinent under direct British administration from those areas under Pashtun control (today this line divides those areas administered by the Pakistani state from the FATA). The second frontier, the Durand Line, divided the Pashtun tribal areas from the territories under Afghanistans administration. This now forms the international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The outer frontier, Afghanistans border with Russia, Iran, and China, demarcated the British sphere of influence.
The Pakistan side of the Durand Line border includes the provinces of Balochistan, the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), and the seven tribal agencies of the FATA. On the Afghan side, the frontier stretches from Nuristan province in the northeast to Nimruz in the southwest. The British devised a special legal structure called the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) to rule the tribal lands and this continues to be the legal regime in the FATA today.
Tribal Connections
The ongoing border frictions are due in large part to tribal allegiances that have never recognized the century-old frontier. Forty percent of Afghanistans population is made up of Pashtuns; in Pakistan, Pashtuns represent 15 percent to 20 percent of the countrys population. Ethnic Balochis also live on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border as well as in neighboring Iran. People on both sides of the Durand line consider it a soft border, says Husain Haqqani, director of Boston Universitys Center for International Relations. He adds: Pashtuns consider it their own land even though there is also a loyalty to the respective states along with a desire to freely move back and forth.
Frederick Grare of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace writes that the Pashtun question (PDF) is an ethnic, political and geopolitical problem. At the time of Indias partition, Pashtuns were only given the choice of either becoming a part of India or Pakistan. Many Pashtun nationalists on both sides of the Durand Line continue to demand an independent state of Pashtunistan. In Balochistan too, several organizations demand an independent state.
Neighbors Interference
A report by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) coauthored by Rubin and Abubakar Siddique points out: The long history of each state offering sanctuary to the others opponents has built bitterness and mistrust between the two neighbors. Afghanistan sheltered Baloch nationalists in the 1970s while Pakistan extended refuge and training to the mujahadeen in the 1980s and then later supported the Afghani Taliban. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Pakistans then military ruler Zia ul-Haq promoted the jihad in Afghanistan, funded thousands of Islamic madrassas, armed domestic Islamist organizations, and in the process militarized and radicalized the border region, says the USIP report.
Experts say that underlying Pakistani actions in the region is concern about bolstering security against India. The USIP report notes Pakistan sought to support a client regime in Afghanistan that would be hostile to India, giving the Pakistani military a secure border and strategic depth. By supporting Islamist militias among the Pashtun, Pakistans government has tried to neutralize Baloch and Pashtun nationalism within its borders. The International Crisis group in October 2007 reported that Pakistan still supports Pashtun Islamist parties in a bid to counter Baloch and Pashtun forces. Using Balochistan as a base of operation and sanctuary and recruiting from its extensive madrassa network, the report says, the Taliban and its Pakistani allies are undermining the state-building effort in Afghanistan. Pakistans President Pervez Musharraf has repeatedly denied this.
Porous Borders
Both the Pashtuns and Balochis gain much of their income from cross-border smuggling, says the USIP paper. Thanks to the largely porous border and people from similar ethnic groups straddling both its sides, the borderlands already have become a land bridge for the criminal (drugs) and criminalized (transit trade) economies of the region. The transborder political and military networks between the two countries are reinforced as well as funded and armed by criminal activities such as trafficking in drugs, arms, and even people.
The long history of each state offering sanctuary to the others opponents has built bitterness and mistrust.- United States Institute of Peace
Afghanistan is the worlds largest cultivator and supplier of opium (93 percent of the global opiates market). According to the Afghanistan Opium Survey 2007 by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, opium cultivation in the country is no longer associated with poverty. In fact, quite the opposite. The report says opium is now closely linked to the insurgency and the Taliban are again using it to get resources for arms, logistics and militia pay, despite a foreign military presence.
The War on Terror
Since 9/11, there is a large asymmetry of interests between Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to Carnegies Grare. For Islamabad, Afghanistan is only one element in a larger game involving its policy toward India as well as its global standing, writes Grare. The relationship is mainly a bilateral issue for Afghanistan.
After 9/11, Pakistan allied itself with the United States in its war on terror. This created a dilemma for Pakistan, as it now had to hunt down the Taliban and the Islamic militant organizations it reportedly helped create in the first place. It also had to send its troops into the tribal lands where the Pakistani military has never been welcome. Incidents of Pakistani soldiers surrendering without a fight to militant organizations became common during 2007.
People on both sides of the Durand line consider it a soft border. Husain Haqqani
Before 9/11, especially during the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, Pakistan and U.S. policies in the border region converged; a friendly government in Afghanistan gave Islamabad strategic depth against India as well as a land bridge across Central Asia, and an open border ensured easy access to Kabul. This fit well into Washingtons strategic objective, which looked to Pakistan as a vantage ground to prevent Soviet hegemony in the region. But post-9/11, the United States wants greater controls on the border. Pakistans national interest now conflicts with its foreign policy and the most powerful state institution, the Pakistani military, is caught in the middle. Experts say that while the Pakistani army would like to continue its support of some of these militant groups to counter what it perceives as the security threat from India and its continued claim to Kashmir, it now has to appease the United States for strategic, military, and foreign aid. Hassan Abbas, a research fellow at Harvards Kennedy School of Government writes (PDF) that extremism has been rising in Pakistans border areas and they continue to provide sanctuary to militants who spread insurgency in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani army has shown it is not sufficiently equipped to fight insurgency in these areas. Former CFR Adjunct Senior Fellow Mahnaz Ispahani says there is some validity to the argument that the Pakistani army cannot entirely control or close the border with Afghanistan. Islamabad and the FATA regions have long followed a policy of live and let live, with minimal interference in one anothers affairs, but Ispahani says the United States would like to see this changed.
Looking Ahead
A classified U.S. military proposal disclosed by the New York Times outlines an intensified effort to enlist tribal leaders in the border areas of Pakistan in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. If adopted, the proposal would directly finance a separate tribal paramilitary force, the newspaper says. The United States has also started a five-year $750 million assistance program in the FATA. The State Departments Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs assists the Frontier Corps, a Pakistani federal paramilitary force stationed in the NWFP and Balochistan,with financing for counternarcotics work.
Experts say that underlying Pakistani actions in the region is concern about bolstering security against India.
To restructure the relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan, a Council Special Report, authored by Rubin, recommends recognition of an international border by the two countries and cooperative development of the tribal areas on either side. It also suggests transforming the status of the tribal areas in Pakistan and empowering the people by allowing them to participate in elections.
Ispahani says besides security and military cooperation, the two countries must focus more on economic issues. Being a landlocked country and sharing one of its longest borders with Pakistan, Afghanistans economy is incredibly dependent on Pakistan and this has moderated Afghans policy with its neighbor, she says. Marvin G. Weinbaum, a former Pakistan and Afghanistan analyst at the U.S. State Departments Bureau of Intelligence and Research, writes (PDF) that Pakistans wide-ranging exports to Afghanistan amounts to roughly $1.2 billion per year and it imports more than $ 700 million worth of goods.
Experts say tensions might ease with the new Pakistani army chief solely focused on military matters and securing the border. From 1999 to 2007, Pervez Musharraf was busy running the country in his dual role as president and leader of the military. A change in army leadership, however, by no means solves the bigger problems of limitations or the will of the army itself. Ispahani suggests in both countries, especially in Pakistan, there needs to be a greater recognition that the war against militancy is in the countrys own interests.
November 29, 2007
Introduction
Afghanistan shares borders with six countries, but the approximate 1500-mile-long Durand Line along Pakistan remains the most dangerous. Kabul has never recognized the line as an international border, instead claiming the Pashtun territories in Pakistan that comprise the Federally Administered Tribal Lands (FATA) and parts of North West Frontier Province along the border. Incidents of violence have increased on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the last year. Various reports in late 2007 showed militants gaining ground inside Pakistan and their influence has now spread to areas beyond the FATA. Similarly, in Afghanistan, violence has peaked since the ouster of the Taliban six years ago with a worrisome increase in suicide attacks.
Historical Conflict
The region that is today known as Afghanistan was long torn by ethnic and tribal rivalries. It started evolving as a modern state in the early nineteenth century when the British East India Company began expanding in the northwest of British-held India. This was also the time of the great gamethe geopolitical struggle between the British and the Russian empires. The British held the Indian subcontinent while the Russians held the Central Asian lands to the north. Their spheres of influence overlapped in Afghanistan. Britain, concerned about Russian expansion, invaded Afghanistan in 1839 and fought the First Anglo-Afghan War. This led to a decade of machinations between the British and the Russians and two more bloody wars, at the end of which in 1919, Afghanistan won its independence.
Durand Line
The Durand Line is named after foreign secretary of the colonial government of India, Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, who demarcated the frontier between British India and Afghanistan in 1893. The line was drawn after negotiations between the British government and Afghan King Abdur Rahman Khan, founder of modern Afghanistan. This line brought the tribal lands (now a part of Pakistan) under British control. Barnett R. Rubin, director of studies at New York Universitys Center on International Cooperation, writes in Foreign Affairs that the British established a three-tiered border to separate their empire from Russia. The first frontier separated the areas of the Indian subcontinent under direct British administration from those areas under Pashtun control (today this line divides those areas administered by the Pakistani state from the FATA). The second frontier, the Durand Line, divided the Pashtun tribal areas from the territories under Afghanistans administration. This now forms the international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The outer frontier, Afghanistans border with Russia, Iran, and China, demarcated the British sphere of influence.
The Pakistan side of the Durand Line border includes the provinces of Balochistan, the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), and the seven tribal agencies of the FATA. On the Afghan side, the frontier stretches from Nuristan province in the northeast to Nimruz in the southwest. The British devised a special legal structure called the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) to rule the tribal lands and this continues to be the legal regime in the FATA today.
Tribal Connections
The ongoing border frictions are due in large part to tribal allegiances that have never recognized the century-old frontier. Forty percent of Afghanistans population is made up of Pashtuns; in Pakistan, Pashtuns represent 15 percent to 20 percent of the countrys population. Ethnic Balochis also live on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border as well as in neighboring Iran. People on both sides of the Durand line consider it a soft border, says Husain Haqqani, director of Boston Universitys Center for International Relations. He adds: Pashtuns consider it their own land even though there is also a loyalty to the respective states along with a desire to freely move back and forth.
Frederick Grare of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace writes that the Pashtun question (PDF) is an ethnic, political and geopolitical problem. At the time of Indias partition, Pashtuns were only given the choice of either becoming a part of India or Pakistan. Many Pashtun nationalists on both sides of the Durand Line continue to demand an independent state of Pashtunistan. In Balochistan too, several organizations demand an independent state.
Neighbors Interference
A report by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) coauthored by Rubin and Abubakar Siddique points out: The long history of each state offering sanctuary to the others opponents has built bitterness and mistrust between the two neighbors. Afghanistan sheltered Baloch nationalists in the 1970s while Pakistan extended refuge and training to the mujahadeen in the 1980s and then later supported the Afghani Taliban. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Pakistans then military ruler Zia ul-Haq promoted the jihad in Afghanistan, funded thousands of Islamic madrassas, armed domestic Islamist organizations, and in the process militarized and radicalized the border region, says the USIP report.
Experts say that underlying Pakistani actions in the region is concern about bolstering security against India. The USIP report notes Pakistan sought to support a client regime in Afghanistan that would be hostile to India, giving the Pakistani military a secure border and strategic depth. By supporting Islamist militias among the Pashtun, Pakistans government has tried to neutralize Baloch and Pashtun nationalism within its borders. The International Crisis group in October 2007 reported that Pakistan still supports Pashtun Islamist parties in a bid to counter Baloch and Pashtun forces. Using Balochistan as a base of operation and sanctuary and recruiting from its extensive madrassa network, the report says, the Taliban and its Pakistani allies are undermining the state-building effort in Afghanistan. Pakistans President Pervez Musharraf has repeatedly denied this.
Porous Borders
Both the Pashtuns and Balochis gain much of their income from cross-border smuggling, says the USIP paper. Thanks to the largely porous border and people from similar ethnic groups straddling both its sides, the borderlands already have become a land bridge for the criminal (drugs) and criminalized (transit trade) economies of the region. The transborder political and military networks between the two countries are reinforced as well as funded and armed by criminal activities such as trafficking in drugs, arms, and even people.
The long history of each state offering sanctuary to the others opponents has built bitterness and mistrust.- United States Institute of Peace
Afghanistan is the worlds largest cultivator and supplier of opium (93 percent of the global opiates market). According to the Afghanistan Opium Survey 2007 by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, opium cultivation in the country is no longer associated with poverty. In fact, quite the opposite. The report says opium is now closely linked to the insurgency and the Taliban are again using it to get resources for arms, logistics and militia pay, despite a foreign military presence.
The War on Terror
Since 9/11, there is a large asymmetry of interests between Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to Carnegies Grare. For Islamabad, Afghanistan is only one element in a larger game involving its policy toward India as well as its global standing, writes Grare. The relationship is mainly a bilateral issue for Afghanistan.
After 9/11, Pakistan allied itself with the United States in its war on terror. This created a dilemma for Pakistan, as it now had to hunt down the Taliban and the Islamic militant organizations it reportedly helped create in the first place. It also had to send its troops into the tribal lands where the Pakistani military has never been welcome. Incidents of Pakistani soldiers surrendering without a fight to militant organizations became common during 2007.
People on both sides of the Durand line consider it a soft border. Husain Haqqani
Before 9/11, especially during the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, Pakistan and U.S. policies in the border region converged; a friendly government in Afghanistan gave Islamabad strategic depth against India as well as a land bridge across Central Asia, and an open border ensured easy access to Kabul. This fit well into Washingtons strategic objective, which looked to Pakistan as a vantage ground to prevent Soviet hegemony in the region. But post-9/11, the United States wants greater controls on the border. Pakistans national interest now conflicts with its foreign policy and the most powerful state institution, the Pakistani military, is caught in the middle. Experts say that while the Pakistani army would like to continue its support of some of these militant groups to counter what it perceives as the security threat from India and its continued claim to Kashmir, it now has to appease the United States for strategic, military, and foreign aid. Hassan Abbas, a research fellow at Harvards Kennedy School of Government writes (PDF) that extremism has been rising in Pakistans border areas and they continue to provide sanctuary to militants who spread insurgency in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani army has shown it is not sufficiently equipped to fight insurgency in these areas. Former CFR Adjunct Senior Fellow Mahnaz Ispahani says there is some validity to the argument that the Pakistani army cannot entirely control or close the border with Afghanistan. Islamabad and the FATA regions have long followed a policy of live and let live, with minimal interference in one anothers affairs, but Ispahani says the United States would like to see this changed.
Looking Ahead
A classified U.S. military proposal disclosed by the New York Times outlines an intensified effort to enlist tribal leaders in the border areas of Pakistan in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. If adopted, the proposal would directly finance a separate tribal paramilitary force, the newspaper says. The United States has also started a five-year $750 million assistance program in the FATA. The State Departments Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs assists the Frontier Corps, a Pakistani federal paramilitary force stationed in the NWFP and Balochistan,with financing for counternarcotics work.
Experts say that underlying Pakistani actions in the region is concern about bolstering security against India.
To restructure the relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan, a Council Special Report, authored by Rubin, recommends recognition of an international border by the two countries and cooperative development of the tribal areas on either side. It also suggests transforming the status of the tribal areas in Pakistan and empowering the people by allowing them to participate in elections.
Ispahani says besides security and military cooperation, the two countries must focus more on economic issues. Being a landlocked country and sharing one of its longest borders with Pakistan, Afghanistans economy is incredibly dependent on Pakistan and this has moderated Afghans policy with its neighbor, she says. Marvin G. Weinbaum, a former Pakistan and Afghanistan analyst at the U.S. State Departments Bureau of Intelligence and Research, writes (PDF) that Pakistans wide-ranging exports to Afghanistan amounts to roughly $1.2 billion per year and it imports more than $ 700 million worth of goods.
Experts say tensions might ease with the new Pakistani army chief solely focused on military matters and securing the border. From 1999 to 2007, Pervez Musharraf was busy running the country in his dual role as president and leader of the military. A change in army leadership, however, by no means solves the bigger problems of limitations or the will of the army itself. Ispahani suggests in both countries, especially in Pakistan, there needs to be a greater recognition that the war against militancy is in the countrys own interests.
