Afghanistan: The Turkish advantage
As Turkey takes over ISAF's Kabul Command, there are hopes that Turkish sensitivities to local cultural and religious sentiments will give it an advantage in winning over the hearts and minds of Afghans.
By John C K Daly for ISN Security Watch (30/04/07)
While many countries have a larger military presence in Afghanistan than Turkey, Ankara is now responsible for the critical Kabul theater, the most important of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commands.
Turkey's cultural and religious affinities with the Afghans give its troops a unique advantage over the other ISAF contingents from 37 nations. Given the projected Taliban spring offensive, Turkish sensitivities to local cultural and religious sentiments in Afghanistan's capital may well give them an influence that far exceeds the other 36 nations' troops.
Turkish presence in the capital has deep historic roots dating back to the time of Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic, who during the 1920s and 1930s sent doctors, educators and support personnel during the reign of King Amanullah Khan despite Turkey's own problems in establishing its independence.
The country is drawing upon five years' experience in again commanding ISAF forces in the capital and building upon success from their first year of the ISAF's deployment.
Less than a month after the 11 September attacks in the US, the Turkish Grand National Assembly, in accordance with Article 92 of the Turkish Constitution, passed Resolution 722 allowing deployment of Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) to Afghanistan.
Turkey's initial contribution to the ISAF began in 2002 with 276 troops. From June of that year until February 2003, TSK General Major General Hilmi Akin Zorlu commanded the ISAF's presence in and around Kabul under UN Resolution 1413. During that time, Turkey's troop presence swelled to 1,300, with the US State Department designating Turkey as the ISAF's "lead nation."
Zorlu brought substantial international experience to the position, having previously commanded the Multinational Peace Force South-Eastern Europe Brigade (SEEBRIG) in Bulgaria as well as heading the Plans and Policy Division at TSK headquarters in Ankara. A signal of the success of the Turkish approach was the fact that on 3 November ISAF forces, after consultations with the Afghan Interior Ministry, felt sufficiently sure enough about the security situation to lift the nighttime curfew, allowing Kabulis to venture into the streets in the evening for the first time since 1979.
During its first ISAF command, the TSK tackled 175 civil service projects and trained units from Afghanistan's national guard. Under Zorlu, the ISAF also established two radio stations: Radyo Turkiyem and Sadahje Azadi (Voice of Freedom).
On April 6 this year, the TSK took over the ISAF Kabul mission from France, which had held the post since its inception last August.
During the transfer ceremony, Turkish Brigadier General Kasim Erdem, promised to continue to closely cooperate with Kabul Governor Haji Din Mohammad in the same spirit as his predecessor, outgoing commander Brigadier General Patrick de Villiers of France, who also attended.
While the Turkish forces would be guided by Ataturk's injunctions of "peace at home, peace abroad," Erdem added that "we will do our best to put another brick in the wall that has been built for maintaining security and stability in the area served by the Kabul Regional Command.
"Our duty is to expand the influence and authority of the Afghan government with the help of the Afghan national forces, to restore stability and security in Kabul, to help Afghanistan become a self-sufficient state in line with today's structuring and to sustain regional stability."
Turkey's takeover of the ISAF's capital mission comes at a critical time for NATO. Analysts are nervously predicting an upsurge in violence in a projected Taliban spring offensive. New tactics, most notoriously suicide bombings - previously unknown in Afghanistan - are complicating the picture. The country remains a myriad patchwork of competing clans and cultures, while the drug culture's profits, estimated in the tens of billions of dollars, help fuel the insurgency.
UK forces in the volatile Helmand province have already tacitly acknowledged their inability to quell poppy production, sending out a radio broadcast stating that soldiers from the ISAF and the Afghan army "do not destroy poppy fields" and that they "do not want to stop people from earning their livelihoods."
As the ISAF adjusts its pragmatic goals, the value of a Muslim force pacifying the capital, with a decades-old history of assistance, is worth its weight in divisions. While the volatile eastern and southern provinces are subject to a certain amount of international pressure, the capital as the center of security and reform remains key to the ISAF's success or failure. Turkey's command of Kabul gives NATO a unique opportunity to provide security from foreigners that are nevertheless "believers," quelling indigenous perceptions of "infidels" under command of the "Great Satan" interfering in local affairs. The Turkish presence is as great a publicity coup for NATO as it is detrimental to fundamentalist efforts to rally support against a "Crusader" occupation.
Tracing Turkey's Afghan role
The Afghan mission, NATO's first deployment outside of Europe or the US, is the alliance's biggest ground operation in its history with 35,000 soldiers currently in the country. The majority of these troops hail from the US and the UK. The ISAF currently has five regional commands in Afghanistan: north, south, east, west and Kabul. The ISAF's headquarters are at Camp Warehouse, 16 kilometers east of Kabul.
According to de Villiers, the ISAF's mission in Kabul is to hold Taliban insurgents in check while winning the hearts and minds of the local population by pursing small development projects in conjunction with local leaders to improve living standards while respecting local religion and culture.
The Turkish Armed Forces will lead the Kabul Regional Command mission until 6 December, when Italy takes the helm until August 2008.
Following Turkey's assumption of Regional Command-Command Kabul this April, Ankara sent nearly 400 additional personnel, including 65 officers and non-commissioned officers to support the Kabul Regional Command's logistics, intelligence and communication operations. In a military first, a female captain will also serve in the new Turkish contingent. Turkey has also dispatched two Black Hawk helicopters for transport and medical evacuation.
Each day French, Italian and Turkish ISAF Regional Command-Command Kabul troops mount 60 patrols on foot in the capital. In a sign of public trust, the Turkish troops, unlike their French and Italian counterparts, do not wear body armor.
Turkish assistance extends beyond purely military aid. Turkish Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) project, scheduled to last for five years, began operations in November 2006, providing aid in reforming the regional administrative and judicial systems, training police and infrastructure improvements.
Beyond the PRT assistance, in the aftermath of early April heavy floods and avalanches that killed hundreds and left thousands injured in Afghanistan, Ankara dispatched a team of Health Ministry and Turkish Red Crescent officials to the afflicted regions, along with 800 blankets and 80 tents.
The first Afghan-Turkish school was opened in 1996 in Afghanistan, the year that the Taliban captured Kabul; there are now six.
Advantage, Turkey
Turkey's assistance to Afghanistan extends far beyond pacifying the capital. Since 2002, Turkish assistance has built or renovated three hospitals and eight health clinics, which have treated more than 650,000 Afghans. Education has also benefited, as Turkish assistance has restored 27 elementary and secondary schools.
Private enterprise has also assumed a major role in Afghan reconstruction, with 21 major Turkish firms pumping more than US$1.5 billion into construction and investment projects since 2002. More than any other ISAF member, Turkey provides Afghans with a secular, democratic Muslim model of development based on their country's experience, which, in the end, may prove more resonant and important than tanks, bombs and missiles.
Dr John C K Daly is a Washington DC-based consultant and an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute.
Related ISN Publishing House entries
ISN Publishing House: Cultural Intelligence and the United States Military
ISN Security Watch - Afghanistan: The Turkish advantage
As Turkey takes over ISAF's Kabul Command, there are hopes that Turkish sensitivities to local cultural and religious sentiments will give it an advantage in winning over the hearts and minds of Afghans.
By John C K Daly for ISN Security Watch (30/04/07)
While many countries have a larger military presence in Afghanistan than Turkey, Ankara is now responsible for the critical Kabul theater, the most important of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commands.
Turkey's cultural and religious affinities with the Afghans give its troops a unique advantage over the other ISAF contingents from 37 nations. Given the projected Taliban spring offensive, Turkish sensitivities to local cultural and religious sentiments in Afghanistan's capital may well give them an influence that far exceeds the other 36 nations' troops.
Turkish presence in the capital has deep historic roots dating back to the time of Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic, who during the 1920s and 1930s sent doctors, educators and support personnel during the reign of King Amanullah Khan despite Turkey's own problems in establishing its independence.
The country is drawing upon five years' experience in again commanding ISAF forces in the capital and building upon success from their first year of the ISAF's deployment.
Less than a month after the 11 September attacks in the US, the Turkish Grand National Assembly, in accordance with Article 92 of the Turkish Constitution, passed Resolution 722 allowing deployment of Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) to Afghanistan.
Turkey's initial contribution to the ISAF began in 2002 with 276 troops. From June of that year until February 2003, TSK General Major General Hilmi Akin Zorlu commanded the ISAF's presence in and around Kabul under UN Resolution 1413. During that time, Turkey's troop presence swelled to 1,300, with the US State Department designating Turkey as the ISAF's "lead nation."
Zorlu brought substantial international experience to the position, having previously commanded the Multinational Peace Force South-Eastern Europe Brigade (SEEBRIG) in Bulgaria as well as heading the Plans and Policy Division at TSK headquarters in Ankara. A signal of the success of the Turkish approach was the fact that on 3 November ISAF forces, after consultations with the Afghan Interior Ministry, felt sufficiently sure enough about the security situation to lift the nighttime curfew, allowing Kabulis to venture into the streets in the evening for the first time since 1979.
During its first ISAF command, the TSK tackled 175 civil service projects and trained units from Afghanistan's national guard. Under Zorlu, the ISAF also established two radio stations: Radyo Turkiyem and Sadahje Azadi (Voice of Freedom).
On April 6 this year, the TSK took over the ISAF Kabul mission from France, which had held the post since its inception last August.
During the transfer ceremony, Turkish Brigadier General Kasim Erdem, promised to continue to closely cooperate with Kabul Governor Haji Din Mohammad in the same spirit as his predecessor, outgoing commander Brigadier General Patrick de Villiers of France, who also attended.
While the Turkish forces would be guided by Ataturk's injunctions of "peace at home, peace abroad," Erdem added that "we will do our best to put another brick in the wall that has been built for maintaining security and stability in the area served by the Kabul Regional Command.
"Our duty is to expand the influence and authority of the Afghan government with the help of the Afghan national forces, to restore stability and security in Kabul, to help Afghanistan become a self-sufficient state in line with today's structuring and to sustain regional stability."
Turkey's takeover of the ISAF's capital mission comes at a critical time for NATO. Analysts are nervously predicting an upsurge in violence in a projected Taliban spring offensive. New tactics, most notoriously suicide bombings - previously unknown in Afghanistan - are complicating the picture. The country remains a myriad patchwork of competing clans and cultures, while the drug culture's profits, estimated in the tens of billions of dollars, help fuel the insurgency.
UK forces in the volatile Helmand province have already tacitly acknowledged their inability to quell poppy production, sending out a radio broadcast stating that soldiers from the ISAF and the Afghan army "do not destroy poppy fields" and that they "do not want to stop people from earning their livelihoods."
As the ISAF adjusts its pragmatic goals, the value of a Muslim force pacifying the capital, with a decades-old history of assistance, is worth its weight in divisions. While the volatile eastern and southern provinces are subject to a certain amount of international pressure, the capital as the center of security and reform remains key to the ISAF's success or failure. Turkey's command of Kabul gives NATO a unique opportunity to provide security from foreigners that are nevertheless "believers," quelling indigenous perceptions of "infidels" under command of the "Great Satan" interfering in local affairs. The Turkish presence is as great a publicity coup for NATO as it is detrimental to fundamentalist efforts to rally support against a "Crusader" occupation.
Tracing Turkey's Afghan role
The Afghan mission, NATO's first deployment outside of Europe or the US, is the alliance's biggest ground operation in its history with 35,000 soldiers currently in the country. The majority of these troops hail from the US and the UK. The ISAF currently has five regional commands in Afghanistan: north, south, east, west and Kabul. The ISAF's headquarters are at Camp Warehouse, 16 kilometers east of Kabul.
According to de Villiers, the ISAF's mission in Kabul is to hold Taliban insurgents in check while winning the hearts and minds of the local population by pursing small development projects in conjunction with local leaders to improve living standards while respecting local religion and culture.
The Turkish Armed Forces will lead the Kabul Regional Command mission until 6 December, when Italy takes the helm until August 2008.
Following Turkey's assumption of Regional Command-Command Kabul this April, Ankara sent nearly 400 additional personnel, including 65 officers and non-commissioned officers to support the Kabul Regional Command's logistics, intelligence and communication operations. In a military first, a female captain will also serve in the new Turkish contingent. Turkey has also dispatched two Black Hawk helicopters for transport and medical evacuation.
Each day French, Italian and Turkish ISAF Regional Command-Command Kabul troops mount 60 patrols on foot in the capital. In a sign of public trust, the Turkish troops, unlike their French and Italian counterparts, do not wear body armor.
Turkish assistance extends beyond purely military aid. Turkish Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) project, scheduled to last for five years, began operations in November 2006, providing aid in reforming the regional administrative and judicial systems, training police and infrastructure improvements.
Beyond the PRT assistance, in the aftermath of early April heavy floods and avalanches that killed hundreds and left thousands injured in Afghanistan, Ankara dispatched a team of Health Ministry and Turkish Red Crescent officials to the afflicted regions, along with 800 blankets and 80 tents.
The first Afghan-Turkish school was opened in 1996 in Afghanistan, the year that the Taliban captured Kabul; there are now six.
Advantage, Turkey
Turkey's assistance to Afghanistan extends far beyond pacifying the capital. Since 2002, Turkish assistance has built or renovated three hospitals and eight health clinics, which have treated more than 650,000 Afghans. Education has also benefited, as Turkish assistance has restored 27 elementary and secondary schools.
Private enterprise has also assumed a major role in Afghan reconstruction, with 21 major Turkish firms pumping more than US$1.5 billion into construction and investment projects since 2002. More than any other ISAF member, Turkey provides Afghans with a secular, democratic Muslim model of development based on their country's experience, which, in the end, may prove more resonant and important than tanks, bombs and missiles.
Dr John C K Daly is a Washington DC-based consultant and an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute.
Related ISN Publishing House entries
ISN Publishing House: Cultural Intelligence and the United States Military
ISN Security Watch - Afghanistan: The Turkish advantage
While Islam may be a common denominator and closer to the Afghanis compared to the western troops, yet, notwithstanding what Daly has to state, the culture, language and habits would be totally different. It is only a western eye that feels that because a nation is Islamic, all factors must be common. That is not so. The Bangaldeshis have a totally different mindset to the Pakistanis and that is why they split. Likewise, the Mohajirs of Pakistan, though of the same country ie British India are no way liked (except grudgingly by the Punjabi Pakistanis and that is why they are still referred to as Mohajirs or refugees! Of course, the Pakistanis will give a religious connotation to the word Mohajir, but in actuality it is to indicate that they are different and refugees to boot! )
The Afghans would be closer in ethnicity and ethos to the Persians and Arabs. Would the historical issue of the Turks having ruled over these people and not always in a benevolent way play on the minds of the Afghanis or worse still, exploited by the Taleban and other cahoots to negate the advantage of an Islamic force being in position?
This article again highlights the issue that western author see a silver lining in a black cloud and go ecstatic and close their mind to the actual problems that are there to be solved.
The issue is economic.
Take the example of India. The economy is booming and encouraged by western perceptions which is going gaga over it, many Indians are seeing a superpower status, forgetting that there are many who are still being left out of the pie and who can become millstones. It is only when everyone is taken along can India become what it can become.
Likewise, unless Afghanistan's economic backwardness is addressed and solved, one could bring in all the Islamic powers to bear on it and still there will be the problems that manifest itself there.
Islam is only a part of the problem. It is not the Main problem.
Islam cannot fill the stomach.
It can only fill the minds and divert it from the stomach!
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