Helmand on the Brink, Again. With ANA Lt. Gen. Ahmadzai

Afghanistan After America

This episode, the second from my recent trip to Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, I speak with the most senior Afghan National Army (ANA) officer in the province, the commander of the Afghan National Army’s 215th Corps’, Lt. Gen. Wali Mohammad Ahmadzai.

I interviewed Gen. Ahmadzai on October 17, where, in the exact same guesthouse on the exact same day, two years earlier, one of his old army comrades, Abdul Jabar Qarahman, who President Ghani had sent to the city to oversee an effort to prevent its fall in 2016, was killed during a meeting by a bomb that had been placed under his chair. Both Ahmadzai and Qarahman were sent to Helmand in late 2016. At that time, the Taliban had virtually surrounded Lashkar Gah. The situation was much the same this October this year, only this time the Taliban had rolled government forces in the districts surrounding Helmand’s capital in a matter of days, not months.

General Ahmadzai and I spoke about the orders he received following the February signing of the U.S. - Taliban Doha agreement, about how he personally felt about the orders and about how things have played out on the battlefield since then, with Ahmadzai repeatedly raising the Taliban’s refusal to adhere to the terms that were supposedly laid out in the Doha agreement.

I asked him whether his orders to halt the ANA’s offensive operations and stay in their bases since Doha led to situations where his forces retaliated carelessly to Taliban attacks as reportedly happened in one incident in June where 50 civilians were killed or wounded in Sangin district.

Gen. Ahmadzai told me about the relationship with the U.S. forces he’s worked with since taking command of the 215th corps and the conditions that led to the near-collapse of the province which led to his appointment in 2016.

We also talked about what led to the repeat of 2016 last month and about the suspicion that some government outposts and checkpoints whose commanders had been appointed by officials in the government and were beholden to them rather than their military commanders had been surrendered without a fight.

I should note that, had I interviewed Ahmadzai a day or two later, after having spoken to more Helmandis who’d been caught up in the government’s retreat, such as my guest on Episode 7, I’d have had more questions about the strength of the defence provided by forces under his command.

Afterword

With regards to Gen Ahmadzai's mention of the 125 Order, a representative of the National Security Council told Afghanistan After America there is no such thing, but that the decision to adopt a posture of active defensive after Doha was an Afghan government initiative. The deputy spokesperson from the Ministry of Defence (MOD) would not acknowledge the existence of the 125 Order, either, instead, also repeatedly referring to the ANSF’s posture of active defense, which, he said, was a demonstration of the government’s “will for peace.”

With regards to the investigation into the events surrounding the June 29 incident in Sangin, the MOD’s deputy spokesperson told me that he would have to look into the matter and is yet to come back to me.

Also on the topic of the Sangin incident, General Ahmadzai said in the interview that ANA mortars are incapable of reaching a target 5km away, which he says was the distance from the ANA base in Sangin to the bazaar that was struck. According to the U.S. Army’s website, however, and I quote: "81mm [mortar] rounds have a maximum effective range of 5,608 meters… [while] 120mm rounds can reach 7,200 meters…”