Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

Concerns over Possible Backfire

On Sunday, April 08, 2012, Afghanistan and the United States reached an agreement about the night raids. Under the agreement, Afghan government has a veto over the operations to be conducted by the NATO forces and supervised by the government. The agreement was signed by Afghan Defense Minister General Abdul Rahim Wardak and NATO's top commander in the country, U.S. Marine General John Allen.

From now on, the night raids will be carried out by Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) as the Defense Minister Wardak said during a news conference, "From now on all night raids will be conducted by the Afghan national army, police and intelligence in close coordination with Afghan judicial bodies." But observers are skeptical of the capability of ANSF to conduct the raids as effectively as foreign forces have been doing.

NATO military officials have been describing night raids as the most effective tactic to dismantle the Taliban operations, kill and capture the militants. Night raids have been a bone of contention between President Hamid Karzai and NATO commanders.

President Karzai's disagreement has been grounded in the argument that they lead to civilian casualties and generate gap between local people and the government as well as international forces operating to help stabilize Afghanistan.

In addition, president Karzai has set an end to the night raids as one of the conditions for signing a strategic agreement with the US. In signing the deal, Allen said, "Today we are one step closer to the establishment of the U.S.-Afghan strategic partnership.

Most importantly, today we are one step closer to our shared goal and vision of a secure and sovereign Afghanistan." But it should be said that there is fear that such a deal may provide context for the Taliban to strengthen and operate more effectively.

They will be able to infiltrate and seep into residential areas during the nights to carry out their terrorist attacks during the days. As a result, this may produce counter-productive results in terms of civilian casualties because the casualties recorded from the Taliban's attacks are much higher than those recorded in operations carried out by the NATO and Afghan forces together or separately. Many believe that such a deal just serves president Karzai's own interests. So Afghans follow the development with deep concerns.