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Viewing cable 05KABUL5092, COUNTRY REPORT ON TERRORISM - AFGHANISTAN

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Reference ID Created Released Classification Origin
05KABUL5092 2005-12-15 13:02 2011-08-24 01:00 UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY Embassy Kabul
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KABUL 005092 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NSC FOR AHARRIMAN, KAMEND 
DEPT FOR SA/FO, AMBASSADOR QUINN, SA/PAB, S/CT, SA/A 
CENTCOM FOR POLAD 
REL NATO/AUST/NZ/ISAF 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958 N/A 
TAGS: PTER ASEC PTER KCRM EFIN KHLS KPAO AF
SUBJECT: COUNTRY REPORT ON TERRORISM - AFGHANISTAN 
 
AFGHANISTAN 
 
1. (SBU) In 2005, Afghanistan continued its progress 
toward building a democratic government.  The 2004 
Presidential elections were followed by national 
assembly and provincial council elections in September 
2005.  In spite of Taliban threats to disrupt the 
democratic process, only minor incidents occurred and 
the results were accepted as legitimate by the Afghan 
people.  The National Assembly will be inaugurated on 
December 19, marking the final milestone of the Bonn 
Process. 
 
2. (SBU) Programs designed to combat terrorism and 
lawlessness have continued.  The Program for 
Strengthening Peace (PTS), which reconciles former 
Taliban and Hizb-i-Islami Gulbuddin (HiG) members, 
founded six regional offices and reported that over 
800 former fighters had joined the program, as of 
December 2005.  The Disarmament, Demobilization, and 
Reintegration (DDR) program has processed over 63,000 
former combatants.  The Disarmament of Illegal Armed 
Groups (DIAG) process began work in June, focusing on 
vetting parliamentary candidates to ensure they had no 
ties to illegal armed groups (IAGs).  The DIAG 
disqualified a number of candidates, but the process 
fell short of winnowing out every candidate with such 
ties.  The GOA likely wanted to use the process to 
push compliance rather than punishing individuals for 
their past (and present) actions.  The programs next 
phase will be a province-by-province effort to disband 
the most notorious IAGs, but progress has been slowed 
by the search for a successor to the Afghan head of 
the program, who left his post in October, and to an 
apparent lack of political will to seriously confront 
the commanders. 
 
3.  (SBU)  Increasingly, the Afghan National Army 
(ANA), with over 26,000 personnel in its ranks, and 
the Afghan National Police (ANP), with 54,500, have 
taken the lead in anti-terrorism operations. Proactive 
arrests of terrorists have also continued, thwarting 
bombings in Kabul and the rest of the country. 
 
4. (SBU) In spite of this progress, Afghanistan saw an 
increasing number of violent incidents in 2005, 
compared with 2004.  Over 1500 people were killed in 
violent attacks this year, many of them a result of 
tribal, criminal, an especially narcotics-related 
activity rather than of terrorism.  Al Qaida and the 
Taliban frequently claim responsibility for attacks 
but their claims are unverifiable and sometimes 
contradictory. 
 
5. (SBU) There has been a clear increase in the number 
of suicide bombings in Afghanistan over the last year. 
There were an estimated 15 suicide attacks, compared 
to only four in 2004.  It is unclear if these bombers 
were Afghans or foreigners.  What is clear is the 
increase in sophistication of these attacks when 
compared with previous suicide operations conducted in 
Afghanistan.  While there are no indications Anti- 
Government Elements (AGE) are directly using lessons 
learned in Iraq, there does appear to be a desire to 
replicate some of those operations.  A similar pattern 
is seen in the use of Improvised Explosive Devices 
(IEDs), which have increased dramatically in frequency 
and sophistication in 2005.  This may reflect the 
desire of AGEs to move away from direct fire attacks 
against Coalition forces, thus avoiding high 
casualties. 
 
6. (SBU)  In addition to their attacks on ISAF and 
Coalition forces, suspected terrorists and anti- 
coalition forces targeted candidates and election 
workers in the run up to the parliamentary elections. 
International NGO and U.N. workers have also been a 
focus of violence, as well as, in some areas, 
recipients of NGO assistance, in an attempt to hamper 
reconstruction efforts and drive the international 
assistance community out of Afghanistan.  Thirty-three 
NGO staff members were killed in 2005, up from 23 in 
2004 and 12 in 2003.  This is in contrast to overall 
attacks against noncombatants, which appear to have 
significantly decreased since 2004. 
 
NEUMANN