KABUL, Afghanistan – A military prosecutor who considered law enforcement to be the greatest honor, a doctor who inspired his family to study medicine, a journalist who wanted to hold government officials accountable and a human rights activist who sought to combat poverty in his home province : all murdered in weeks by unknown attackers as winter fell over Afghanistan.
Their deaths offer a glimpse into the selective murders of community leaders and out-of-service security forces that ravaged Afghanistan for months – the frequent echo of explosions and gunshots serving as a reminder to those in cities and towns across the country and especially in Kabul. , capital, that a generation of Afghans is being methodically cut.
The Afghan Interior Ministry did not provide the exact number of murders recorded in Afghanistan last year, but The New York Times has documented the deaths of at least 136 civilians and 168 members of the security force in such murders, worse than almost any other. year of the war.
The deaths are a worrying sign of how much remains uncertain as the United States military prepares to withdraw from Afghanistan after nearly two decades of fighting, and has heightened fears that more violence and chaos will come.
The moment makes most officials believe that the Taliban are using the killings as a complement to their coordinated attacks on government-controlled security posts and territories to cause fear and heighten the government’s despair at the negotiating table.
But some officials believe that at least some of the murders come from a different source: political factions outside the Taliban that are beginning to use chaos as a cover as the country begins to break under pressure, settling accounts in a worrying pattern that resembles disastrous civilization Afghanistan’s war a generation ago.
This new chapter of intimidation and violence began after the February 29 peace agreement between the Taliban and the United States, and continued during negotiations between Afghan and Taliban representatives in Qatar, which were interrupted last month. The next phase of the discussions, scheduled to take place again on Tuesday, will focus on solidifying the negotiation agenda with the ultimate goal of creating a political roadmap for a future government.
The aim of these current killings appears to be to terrorize Afghan society by making it subject to any terms that emerge from the negotiations, be it a peace agreement or a civil war.
In the first half of the year, targeted killings were mainly limited to religious and civilian academics in remote districts and provinces, according to data from The Times. The pattern of bloodshed followed in the cities, leaving a trail of dead judges, prosecutors, civil society activists and journalists.
Sometimes victims have received threats to pressure them to stop working; other times, there was no warning before they were killed, according to family members. The Interior Ministry advised news organizations to better arm or protect their employees or close their doors. Several Afghan journalists have fled the country and local journalism associations have asked reporters to boycott government news for three days to protest the attacks, spurred on by the murder of a radio station manager in Ghor province on New Year’s Day.
“When he told me about the threats a month before he was killed, I was worried, but he calmed me down by saying, ‘I didn’t hurt anyone, why would anyone hurt me?’ “Said Nargis Noorzai Faizan, the widow of Pamir Faizan, a military prosecutor shot by armed men in Kabul on December 6.” I was 4 years old when my father was killed by mujahedeen rebels. He was an army officer and thought he didn’t cause any problems for anyone, so he wouldn’t be the target. He was murdered.”
“I am now 30 and lost my husband to another insurgency,” she added.
These deaths were carried out mainly in two ways: shots and homemade bombs, usually assembled with high-explosive plastic and powerful magnets, a government intelligence official recently told The Times, speaking on condition of anonymity. The magnet allows the attacker to attach the bomb to a car easily and quickly.
Abdul Qayoom, brother of Dr. Nazifa Ibrahimi, interim head of the prison administration’s health department who, along with four other people, was killed by a bomb targeting his vehicle in Kabul on December 22, had alerted his sister weeks before security in your neighborhood was getting worse.
“She said to me, ‘Brother, I am the chief physician and I am not dealing directly with patients, so no one is going to try to hurt me,'” said Qayoom. “She was dedicated to work. She promised to serve her people and kept that promise. “
Although no group has taken credit for the attack that killed Ibrahimi, US and Afghan security officials say the Taliban have established a network of outsourced criminals to carry out murders across the country.
Ahmad Zia Saraj, head of Afghanistan’s National Security Directorate, recently told Parliament that his agency arrested 270 Taliban members who were part of a special unit called Obaida Karwan, which has been linked to the killings.
For the Taliban, the aim of these attacks is likely to be twofold: to degrade public confidence in the government and to eliminate those who might oppose the justice and virtue group’s interpretation, especially if it is a version of its hardline Islamic government – known as human rights violations during his government in the 1990s – he returns to power after any peace agreement.
Still, the group continues to deny allegations of its involvement.
“Civilian government officials, civil institutions, civil organizations and civil society activists and independent people have never been on our target list. Our mujahedeen are not involved in their killing, ”said Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman. “We condemn these deaths and reject any involvement in those deaths.”
Despite the Taliban’s presumed role in many of the unclaimed attacks, some Afghans are pointing the finger at government-linked factions that could also benefit from targeted killings, along with the Islamic State affiliate operating in the country.
“Drug smugglers, land grabbers, corrupt officials and those against government reform plans are also behind these attacks,” said Dawlat Waziri, a former Afghan general and military analyst. “They want peace negotiations to fail and even support civil war, because the more chaos and war in this country, the more they will benefit.”
For now, the deaths continue, with the Afghan government apparently unable to stop or slow them down, despite repeated promises to hold those responsible responsible.
Rahmatullah Nikzad, a freelance journalist who worked for the Associated Press and Al Jazeera, was shot in the province of Ghazni on December 21, as was Freshta Kohistani, a human rights activist who was shot alongside her brother on 24 December. next December his home in the province of Kapisa. Ms. Kohistani recently posted on Facebook that security officials were ignoring the death threats she had received.
“She was raising people’s problems,” said Rooyin Habibi, another Kohistani brother. “She was fighting for the rights of her people and wanted a better future for Afghanistan.”
This type of violence is reminiscent of the murders and disappearances of Afghans working in Peshawar, Pakistan, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Afghanistan turned into a civil war on the border. Women, intellectuals and political and religious figures, many of whom were opposed to the policies of the Islamic insurgent groups that came to power after the defeat of the Soviets in 1989, were either arrested or killed. And the kidnappings and murders of thousands of people who spoke out against Afghanistan’s communist regime in previous years have been well documented.
Today, what Shaharzad Akbar, chairman of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission, fears – in addition to being killed – is that these deaths will become white noise for the international community, more than they have ever done. Afghans’ lives, she said, do not appear to be valued by much of the world.
“We die, you hear a tweet and people move on,” said Akbar. “The only tangible thing that happened to the Afghans in the peace process is that they knew who their killers are, but now they don’t.”
Fahim Abed reported from Kabul and Thomas Gibbons-Neff from Geneva. Fatima Faizi and Najim Rahim contributed reports from Kabul.