VZCZCXRO4811
RR RUEHDBU RUEHPW RUEHSL
DE RUEHBUL #1574/01 1710819
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 200819Z JUN 09
FM AMEMBASSY KABUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9575
INFO RUCNAFG/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KABUL 001574 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR SRAP, SCA/FO, SCA/A, EUR/RPM 
STATE PASS TO AID FOR ASIA/SCAA 
USFOR-A FOR POLAD 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PGOV AF
SUBJECT: Jowzjan Province: Worsening Security; Mixed Reviews on 
Governance; Water, Energy Projects Underway 
 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1. Over the past six months, deteriorating security has been the 
most significant change in Jowzjan province.  Insurgents have 
demonstrated their ability to launch attacks both in remote 
districts of the province as well as along the ring road from 
Sheberghan to Mazar-e-Sharif.  While the insurgency in Jowzjan and 
neighboring provinces is not on the same scale as in other parts of 
the country, it is growing, and neither ISAF nor ANSF-led operations 
have put a dent in it.  This has strained relations between 
provincial officials and the PRT in Mazar-e Sharif, which covers the 
region.  Governor Zare is an able administrator but draws mixed 
reviews from the provincial council, whose members want to be 
consulted by the governor more frequently.  The USAID-funded testing 
of the Sheberghan natural gas fields is underway.  This project 
hopes to attract much needed private sector investment in 
construction of a power plant that would reduce Afghanistan's 
dependence on imported electricity. 
 
Security 
-------- 
¶2. The security situation in Jowzjan has been worsening in areas 
bordering the insecure districts of Faryab, Sar-e-pul and Balkh 
provinces.  While the insurgency in those areas is not as widespread 
as it is in other parts of the country, it is growing, and is not 
confined to Pashtun pockets of the north.  Worse, neither ISAF nor 
ANSF clearing operations have resulted in any kills or captures of 
insurgent leaders there.  Insurgents hiding in the lawless 
Dasht-e-Laili desert area between Faryab, Jowzjan, and Sar-e-pul 
provinces illegally tax residents of border villages with increasing 
frequency and impunity.  The Afghan National Police (ANP) are 
undermanned and outgunned throughout the province.  Nowhere was this 
more evident than in Qush Teppah district, where a brazen March 2009 
insurgent ambush claimed the lives of 11 GIRoA officials, including 
the district governor and district chief of police.  Reports from 
the Norwegian PRT in Faryab point to cooperation between Taliban and 
radical Uzbek militants in Faryab with ties to the Islamic Movement 
of Uzbekistan.  The police chief believes that these groups were 
behind the attack on Qush Teppeh authorities. 
 
¶3. The Jowzjan provincial council chairman has been very critical of 
the government's failure to respond swiftly to the attack on the 
Qush Teppeh officials, and told State PRT officer that he had 
received several calls from alarmed district residents who were 
clamoring for a strong response from the provincial government, 
especially when insurgents began collecting illegal taxes from them. 
 The chairman fears that some of those residents may have turned 
their backs on government.  Both he and the provincial governor 
advocate vetting and arming a select group of villagers to repel 
insurgent advances in Qush Teppeh and neighboring Darzab district, 
where insurgents, believed to number between 30 to 60 men, have 
effectively seized control of 15 villages.  The Darzab district 
administrator and his police force of 18 men are afraid to venture 
to some villages only a few kilometers from the district center. 
 
¶4. The Qush Teppeh incident also exposed glaring deficiencies in how 
information about the incident was shared among Afghan National 
Security Forces (ANSF).  When the German military liaison officer 
from ISAF's Regional Command North arrived at the ANSF Regional 
Operations Coordination Center (OCCR) nearly ten hours after the 
attack, he found only one ANP training officer on duty, who still 
did not have a grasp on what had actually happened in Qush Teppeh. 
It took another hour to determine how many GIRoA officials had been 
killed and wounded. 
 
¶5. Despite resistance by German leadership of Regional Command North 
to supporting an Afghan National Army (ANA) operation without Afghan 
commando units, the Swedish PRT planned and executed Operation 
Shaheen with the ANSF, involving over 900 men, in the Qush Teppeh 
border areas.  The provincial governor and chief of police have 
roundly criticized the PRT for the ineffectiveness of the operation, 
which failed to capture Mullah Nadir, the main leader of the 
insurgency, or any of his subordinates.  Governor Zare told State 
PRT officer that he no longer has confidence in ISAF.  A telling 
sign of this loss of confidence is Zare's refusal to invite the PRT 
to a regional security meeting in early June to plan a joint ANP-NDS 
operation to capture Nadir.  According to Governor Zare, the Afghan 
army northern region commander has promised to send ANA units to the 
area, but for now, those units are involved in an ongoing operation 
in Ghormach district of Faryab. 
 
¶6. Qush Teppeh and Darzab are only the latest problem areas in 
Jowzjan.  An ambush of the Feizabad district governor's convoy on 
the ring road last fall left one teacher dead and the district 
administrator seriously wounded.  PRT units have had a few close 
calls with IEDs intended for them along the ring road.  The Jowzjan 
police chief believes the perpetrators of these attacks are given 
 
KABUL 00001574  002 OF 003 
 
 
safe passage in the neighboring insecure Balkh districts of 
Charbolak and Chemtal.  Police have recovered night notes warning 
people not to cooperate with ISAF, and there has been anti-ISAF 
preaching in local mosques in Aqcha, Feizabad, and Murdian 
districts.  The compound of a faith-based NGO in Acqha came under 
rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) fire last fall.  Female Turkish 
teachers at a girls' school in Aqcha also narrowly escaped harm when 
their apartment residences came under RPG attack a few weeks later. 
In these districts, many residents have lost confidence in the 
police's ability to protect them and in the courts' ability to keep 
prisoners in jail.  That said, some are still willing to take risks 
to assist the ANP.  Residents of Shisha Kana village in Feizabad 
district assisted police by detaining four insurgents on motorbikes 
following an attack that claimed the life of an ANP colonel on the 
ring road. 
 
¶7. Khwajeh do Koh district, which abuts the ring road, is the only 
Jowzjan district whose police have undergone Focused District 
Development (FDD) training.  U.S. police mentors report that 
feedback from communities in this relatively calm district toward 
the newly trained Afghan police is positive.  But no other Jowzjan 
districts are scheduled to undergo FDD training for the next few 
years.  Germany will not commit to doing FDD in Jowzjan and wants 
Sweden and Finland to share the burden of FDD training there.  That 
is unlikely to happen as both countries help fund the European Union 
police (EUPOL) force in Afghanistan, which works at the provincial - 
not district - level. 
 
¶8. Complicating the ANP's efforts to respond to security challenges 
is the recent order of the Ministry of Interior for each of the 
provinces in the north to send 100 police officers to Kabul.  The 
Jowzjan police chief, frustrated by this order, said he will only 
send new recruits to Kabul, not experienced ANP soldiers.  The 
reduction in police manpower raises doubts that even if ANP forces 
from all Jowzjan districts were to undergo FDD training, they would 
still number too few to significantly improve security in 
troublesome areas.  For example, the Aqcha district chief of police 
remarked that he has only ten men to patrol his district.  Expanding 
the ANP forces in the districts and putting them through FDD stands 
as a long term goal. 
 
¶9. The Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups (DIAG) process has 
stalled in Jowzjan, largely due to the refusal of former HiG 
commander Mallawi Ebadi in Khaneqa district to turn in the weapons 
cache he is widely believed to be concealing.  Other former 
commanders view the DIAG process skeptically, and are waiting to see 
how Afghan authorities deal with Ebadi before deciding whether to 
comply with DIAG.  Ebadi, for his part, has denied that he still has 
weapons but has also contradicted himself by reportedly saying that 
he will hand over his weapons only after deputy provincial governor 
Faquir, a former protege of General Dostum, hands over his. 
 
Governance 
---------- 
¶10. Governor Hashim Zare is an educated, respected administrator, 
but his performance as governor has drawn mixed reviews from his own 
deputy, the provincial council, and apparently from the Independent 
Directorate for Local Governance.  He has deftly balanced 
relationships between local Arab and Junbesh Party factions and has 
even allowed Balkh Governor Atta's Jamiat Party to open an office in 
Sheberghan without any incident despite the predominance of the 
Junbesh Party in the province.  But his tenure as governor has 
coincided with a worsening security situation in the province. 
Deputy Governor Faquir - a relative of Zare's - has termed Zare 
"weak" in his handling of security matters.  Zare is not known for 
getting out and about the province, preferring to deploy his deputy 
and other officials to resolve problems.  His government's 
month-long delay in responding with a show of force to Qush Teppeh 
attack fueled the impression among residents that the government is 
unresponsive at best and impotent at worst. 
 
¶11. Governor Zare and his deputy governor Faquir have cleared the 
air since Zare arranged for the rotation of five district 
administrators in Jowzjan without consulting Faquir.  Communication 
between the two has improved since then, and Faquir is now brought 
in on important decisions. 
 
¶12. Jowzjan province remains Junbesh Party country and the 
composition of the provincial council reflects that.  The provincial 
council chairman is a strong leader but he is frustrated that the 
governor does not consult regularly with the council.  Due to the 
overburdened and often mistrusted formal justice system, council 
members routinely find themselves settling disputes among provincial 
residents.  Some provincial council members accuse the attorney 
general of corruption and blame the governor for protecting him. 
 
¶13. Good governance is lacking at the district level.  District 
governors in the ethnic Turkmen districts of Khamiab and Qarqin, 
 
KABUL 00001574  003 OF 003 
 
 
which share a border with Turkmenistan, are reportedly involved in 
drug smuggling rings linked to Kabul-based government ministers. 
The district administrator of Khaneqa district - a former HiG member 
- is under the influence of former HiG commander Mallawi Ebadi.  One 
bright spot is the Darzab district administrator.  A progressive, 
activist administrator, he has called local National Solidarity 
Program (NSP) representatives out on the carpet for allowing and 
perpetrating corruption with NSP funds. 
 
¶14. A sex scandal inside the Sheberghan female prison, which had 
been doubling as a brothel, prompted an investigation that resulted 
in the dismissal of the Jowzjan prisons chief, but only after UNAMA 
pushed for a strong response from the Kabul prisons directorate. 
Finland has decided to pull the plug on construction of a $1 million 
euro male prison in Sheberghan in the wake of the scandal.  It will 
redirect this money to build police stations in Samangan province. 
 
Development 
----------- 
¶15. (U) Jowzjan's biggest development need is potable water. 
Through two small community-based grants to a community in Murdian 
district, USAID has helped address this need by funding construction 
of two water reservoirs near schools.  Approximately 6,320 families 
in the district now have reliable and safe access to clean drinking 
water.   Additionally, USAID's Local Governance Community 
Development (LGCD) Program completed work on the largest water 
reservoir project in Jowzjan that will support four communities in 
the Mingajik District.  The water reservoir will hold 1,485 cubic 
meters of water and approximately 10,000 people will have access to 
clean potable water.  Governor Zare won support from President 
Karzai for a $50 million potable water distribution pipe scheme, but 
that approval arrived without any funding from Kabul. 
 
¶16. USAID-funded testing of the Yatimtaq and Gerquduq  natural gas 
fields in Jowzjan began in April 2009.  After determining the amount 
of reserves, USAID will issue a tender for private investment in the 
fields.  It is believed that enough natural gas reserves exist to 
fuel a power plant that could feed into the main electric grid, thus 
reducing or even eliminating Afghanistan's dependence on imported 
electricity from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. 
 
¶17. Jowzjan province received $1 million in Good Performers 
Initiative money last year for maintaining poppy-free status.  The 
province is expected to be declared poppy-free again this year. 
 
¶18. The potential for conflict over grazing lands remains high 
between Uzbek residents of Khwajeh do Koh district and Kuchi nomads. 
 The Kuchis have lived in the district for over twenty years but 
have not been given district residency cards because they are 
originally from Faryab province.  Kuchis are growing in number in 
the district but without residency cards, they have been ineligible 
to receive benefits such as development projects through the 
government's National Solidarity Progam.  The provincial government 
has not found a way to address this inequality yet. 
 
EIKENBERRY