‘between the dragon and his wrath’, 1994–2017or u.s. drone strikes. In 2009 alone there were 2,586 terrorist incidents,
causing the deaths of 3,000 people. In 2011 the casualty rate more than
doubled. By the end of 2013, more than 26,800 ‘terrorists’ had died and in
excess of 5,000 Pakistani security personnel had also been killed. 12
The Bonn Agreement and Karzai’s interim governmentThe Bush administration’s single-minded focus on the military campaign
in Afghanistan meant that the issue of the future government was low on
Washington’s priority list. At the end of October 2001 Rumsfeld noted in
a draft memorandum that the usa should not ‘agonize over post-Taliban
arrangements to the point it delays success over Al-Qaida and the Taliban’,
since this could ‘interfere with u.s. military operations and inhibit coalition
freedom of action’. Rumsfeld then listed a few vague political objectives
based on a simplistic understanding of Afghanistan’s complex ethnic
and regional politics. The primary aim when it came to a post-Taliban
government, according to Rumsfeld, was ‘to relieve Pashtun [sic] fears of
domination by Northern Alliance (Tajik-Uzbek) tribes’ and ‘preserving
Kabul as a capital for all Afghans, and not one dominated by the Northern
Alliance’, while ‘the Pashtuns’ were expected to declare their intention not
to ‘establish dominion over the entire country’. Rumsfeld suggested the
usa should ‘explore the value of ties with King Zahir Shah’. 13
As the military operations got underway Colin Powell, the u.s. Secretary
of State, called a hastily convened meeting of the Six Plus Two Group on
Afghanistan – China, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and
Iran, plus the usa and Russia – urging ‘speed, speed, speed!’ when it came
to a political solution. 14 Yet it was not until the end of November that
Francesc Vendrell, the un Special Representative to Afghanistan, managed
to convene a conference of the main actors in Bonn. By this time the
Taliban had all but been defeated. Dostam won the race to Mazar-i Sharif,
though Jami‘at and Shura-yi Nizar controlled Qunduz and Badakhshan. In
the west, Isma‘il Khan took Herat, while Karimi Khalili occupied Bamiyan
and the Hazarajat. In the south, Yunus Khalis was first to Jalalabad, only
to be caught up in a gunfight with other ex-mujahidin commanders who
demanded a share of the spoils. A similarly chaotic situation unfolded in
Ghazni and Maidan Shah. Kandahar, the last urban centre to fall, fell to
Gul Aga Sherzai, who had been governor of Nangahar under President
Rabbani. It was Fahim’s Panjshiris, though, who secured the greatest prize
of all, marching into an abandoned Kabul unchallenged. By doing so he
and Jami‘at broke a pledge to the usa not to occupy the capital but to leave