Blunders of Afghan intelligence

The recent resignation of Afghanistan’s intelligence chief Rahmatullah Nabil has stirred a controversy as to why he quit at a time when President Ashraf Ghani was in Pakistan for a conference on Afghanistan? In an unprecedented move, Nabil criticised Ghani’s visit in a post on his official Facebook page the day the Afghan president received a red-carpet welcome at a military airbase near Islamabad. The chief of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) also showed his anger at Nawaz Sharif’s remarks – that the “enemies of Afghanistan are the enemies of Pakistan” – at the Heart of Asia Conference.

Nabil, a loyalist of ex-president Hamid Karzai, was frustrated by the failure of intelligence on the Kandahar airport attack of December 9 that killed nearly 50 people. The Taliban, wearing military uniform, fought the Afghan security forces for nearly 24 hours. The Taliban attack coincided with Ghani’s visit and Nabil tried to use it against Pakistan.

In his resignation letter to the president, Nabil confirmed policy differences with the government. "Regrettably, over the past few months — in addition to my differences over some policies — conditions were imposed on me in a manner that restricted my work, and my work environment became foggy for different reasons that it resulted in your limitless pressure on me and in your repeated verbal demands for me to resign from my post,” wrote Nabil in the letter. President Ghani, however, played down the significance of Nabil’s resignation at a press conference upon his return from Pakistan and said the “change of personnel was a normal issue.”

The Kandahar airport attack was not the only major failure of the NDS under Nabil; the inability to obtain intelligence on the siege of Kunduz was a fatal blunder. Hizb-e-Islami chief Gulbuddin Hekmatyar described the brief fall of Kunduz to the Taliban as an ‘intelligence game’ to justify the longer stay of the US-led Nato troops. Afghanistan’s Chief Executive Dr Abdullah Abdullah, who was in the US for the UN General Assembly meet, relayed the Taliban threat during his speeches there. In yet another huge embarrassment, President Ghani sacked the NDS officials in Kunduz during his visit to the town on November 26, blaming them for failing to defend the city from the attack.

Claims that Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansoor had either been injured or killed in a gunfight also proved to be a major shortcoming on the part of the NDS under Nabil as the Taliban later released Mansoor’s audio on November 5 to prove that he was alive. Many in Afghanistan believe that Nabil was among the detractors of adopting a reconciliation policy with the Taliban, despite widespread support for the peace process in the country.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 19^th, 2015.