LETTER FROM KANDAHAR

THE MASTER OF SPIN BOLDAK Undercover with Afghanistan’s drug-traffi cking border police By Matthieu Aikins

When I arrived in Quetta, the dressed in Western clothes, I set off ed not to introduce myself as a jour- capital of Pakistan’s restive Baluch- on foot from my hotel toward the nalist; they seemed to accept that I istan Province, I found the city’s old courthouse. Perhaps because tour- was simply a young traveler interest- bazaar shuttered in preparation for ists have become a rare sight in this ed in poking around their rough Ashura, an important day of mourn- violent city, a Toyota Land Cruiser corner of the world. ing in the Shia calendar. In the stopped just ahead of me and two A few days later, one of the men, past, Ashura had served as an occa- men in the front beckoned to me. Jahanzeb, introduced me to his sion for sectarian fi ghting in Quetta, Their plump, clean- shaven faces cousin, Sikander, who soon began and so a cordon had been erected; I were unthreatening, so I walked taking me out around the city him- had to seek police permission, I was over to chat. When they learned I self. As I had already discovered, told, in order to photograph the was a foreign visitor, they invited Pashtuns are a frank and friendly lot procession. The following day, still me for a sumptuous lunch, and later with visitors, and one night, cruis- we drove around the city’s crowded ing around in the Lexus that Sikan- Matthieu Aikins is a freelance writer and bazaars and toured a restricted area der used as a mobile offi ce, he con- photographer based in New York City. of the military cantonment. I decid- fided to me that he was shipping

52 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / DECEMBER 2009 Illustrations by Danijel Zezelj

AAikinsikins Final5Final5 rev2.inddrev2.indd 5252 110/27/090/27/09 9:04:189:04:18 AMAM forty mon, or two metric tons, of prodigious wealth, loyal soldiers, and arrived for me. The driver, tall and opium once a month from the Af- connections to top government clean-shaven with a gap-toothed smile, ghan border town of Spin Boldak. offi cials, Razik was seen as a ruth- looked me over as we accelerated The drugs were carried by a convoy, less, charismatic fi gure, a man who north. “Do you speak Pashto?” he a few dozen heavily armed men in brooked no opposition to his will. I asked me. I shook my head. “Urdu?” Land Cruisers, through the desert asked Sikander if he would take me “I speak Persian,” I offered in that into Baluchistan and then into Iran. to Afghanistan for a day to show language. Although the police in Afghanistan me Razik’s operation, and “Then just don’t say anything,” he and Pakistan were bribed to give the he agreed. muttered in Dari, the Afghan dialect convoy safe passage, the Iranian po- of Persian. He examined my half- lice were not, and encounters with Two months later, on a hazy Asian features and wiry beard, which them out in the desolate border- morning this past March, we arrived together gave me the look of an Af- lands often turned into violent, des- in the town of Chaman after four ghan from the north—an Uzbek or perate battles. Once the convoy hours on a crumbling road over the Hazara, perhaps—and then placed his made it across the border, the opium Khojak Pass. The town’s Afghan red embroidered cap, a typical Pashtun was delivered to a group of Iranian counterpart, Spin Boldak, sits just a accessory, on my head. Baluchis. Sikander didn’t accompa- few kilometers away, separated by a At the checkpoint, cutting into a ny the convoys personally, but by high concrete arch and a few dozen side lane, my driver wove, honked, and organizing and funding the opera- rifl e-toting guards. As we paused for a waved his way past the black-clad tion, he said, he was making be- break, squatting down in the dust of a Pakistani and camoufl age-clad Afghan tween $125,000 and $250,000 in truck yard for a late breakfast of bread guards. They waved back in recogni- profi ts each trip. and sour butter, the deep boom of an tion. We drove around the arch and At twenty-seven, Sikander was explosion echoed from the direction onto a wide, rough-paved highway prematurely owlish, with shaggy of the border. We all cringed at the swirling with dust and traffi c. “How coarse dark hair, a full mouth, and sound. Sikander swept up the blanket are you, my dear?” the driver asked in sly, almond eyes. His lanky frame we were eating on, and we walked Dari, grinning widely. “This moved with grace, and he handled back though the hard-packed, greasy is Afghanistan!” guns and luxury vehicles with confi - yard to the car. A consultation ensued dent ease. Sikander’s father also was a with a man dressed, like us, in a tradi- On the latest United Nations smuggler, slain by rivals when Sikan- tional long tunic; he leaned in Department of Safety and Security der was a child. But his family re- through the driver’s window to speak map, which color-codes Afghani- mained well connected with top po- urgently in Pashto. stan to denote levels of risk for U.N. lice offi cials in Baluchistan, and they, “It is confi rmed,” Sikander said after operations, we would have been, together with his ties to fellow Pash- the man left. He swiveled around to just then, in a tiny island of “high” tuns in Afghanistan, allowed him to where I sat in the back seat with Ja- orange surrounded by a wide sea of carry on his lucrative operation. hanzeb, his cousin. His lips were “extreme” red. The orange island is The most important of Sikander’s pursed together. “There was an explo- Spin Boldak and the road to Kanda- connections was Colonel Abdul sion at the border,” he told me. Jahan- har city; the red sea stretches across Razik, the leader of a tribal militia zeb, younger and with more delicate most of the provinces of Kandahar, and border police force that extends features, fi xed his eyes on me as well. Helmand, Zabul, and Uruzgan, and across Kandahar and Helmand prov- “Oh, Matthieu,” he said mournful- farther to the southeast. This sche- inces—which produce 80 percent of ly. “You are a big problem.” They had ma is illustrative of four striking Afghanistan’s opium, which in turn planned to avoid formalities by smug- facts. First and foremost, it depicts is nearly 90 percent of the world’s gling me across the border; now, be- how a ferocious and increasingly so- crop. Sikander was taking care to cause of the explosion, the guards phisticated insurgency—the “neo- cultivate his relationship with the would be on high alert. A few more Taliban,” as many now call them— colonel. “I am growing a baby tiger,” of Sikander’s friends came over to has spread across the predominantly he told me. “When it gets large, I the car, and as they began to discuss Pashtun south and southeast. Sec- will gift it to Razik.” At thirty years a plan, Jahanzeb turned to me occa- ond, that red sea also corresponds of age, Razik was the most powerful sionally to ask questions in English. with the indefinite deployment of Afghan Border Police offi cer in the Do you want to go back? Do you 20,000 additional U.S. soldiers, sent southern part of the country—a for- want to go across on a motorcycle? I here during the months leading up mer child refugee who scrambled to didn’t want to go back—it had taken to the eighth anniversary of the power during the post-9/11 chaos, his me weeks of hanging around Quetta 2001 invasion, in October. Intended rise abetted by a ring of crooked offi - to arrange the trip—so we decided to bolster the International Security cials in Kabul and Kandahar as well that Sikander and Jahanzeb would Assistance Force (ISAF), a patch- as by overstretched NATO com- go ahead and send for me later. work of different nations, the in- manders who found his control over After a few tense hours in Chaman, crease was a belated recognition of a key border town useful in their a white Corolla with a gold plastic just how badly the country has fared war against the Taliban. With his armani air-freshener on its dashboard after years of neglect and misman-

LETTER FROM KANDAHAR 53

AAikinsikins Final5Final5 rev2.inddrev2.indd 5353 110/27/090/27/09 9:04:289:04:28 AMAM agement. Third, all the red regions have shifted to the south, where se- watched him amble slowly toward on the UNDSS map serve as a curity is most tenuous. the border post. rough approximation of the areas Like much of Afghan life, drug Razik turned to me suddenly. “Do with opium under cultivation, repre- operations tend to be organized by you know what I do?” he asked. “I senting a billion-dollar industry tribal and family affi liations. Colonel am a smuggler.” He said it proudly— whose tentacles grip both the neo- Razik has built his own militia it is, after all, the natural heritage of Taliban and the fledgling Afghan around his Adozai, a prominent his tribe, which has straddled the state, from foot soldier to govern- branch of the Achakzai, a Pashtun border since the British drew it ment minister. And last, our little tribe. Historically, the Achakzai, in 1893. “I take cars and things island of “high” orange in the sea of along with a rival tribe, the Noorzai, to Pakistan.” “extreme” red is Colonel Razik’s pri- have controlled the smuggling routes Didn’t he have problems with the vate domain. Together, these four around the Khojak Pass, one of the Pakistani police? I asked. Razik facts—the intensifying insurgency, two major mountain passes that con- beamed. “No problems! I just give the massive deployment of interna- nect the Middle East with the Indian them money. You see that man?” he tional troops and assistance, the subcontinent, the other being the said, waving toward our former pas- opium, and Razik’s relatively secure more famous Khyber. senger, who had by now reached the territory—go a long way toward ex- My driver, as it turned out, was post. “He is the commander of that plaining why an uneducated thirty- Razik’s paternal cousin, also named fort.” Razik hopped out and walked year-old warlord remains fi rmly en- Abdul Razik—a twenty-nine-year- after the man, leaving me alone in the trenched as an ISAF ally and drug old lieutenant in the Border Police car. As I sat there, a small boy fl ogging traffi cker at a crucial border crossing force, whom the locals, when they a worn donkey rode by on a brush- like Spin Boldak. want to distinguish him from laden cart; out of curiosity, I opened The Afghan-Pakistani border re- his slightly older relation, call the glove compartment, and found a gion has long been awash in opium, Small Razik. Small Razik lived a garbage bag stuffed with which is grown in Afghanistan and cross-border existence: he had three Kalashnikov rounds. then generally smuggled west to the wives and two houses, one in Balkans, via Iran and Turkey, or Chaman and one in Spin Boldak, Colonel Abdul Razik’s rise ex- shipped out of the port of Karachi and he carried both a national- emplifi es a classic Afghan narrative: to the Gulf states and Africa. The identity card from Pakistan and an the sudden ascent to power through trade boomed during the Eighties, Afghan passport. violence and foreign patronage. Born in Spin Boldak around the time Soviet troops fi rst entered Af- ghanistan, Razik grew up during a period of unprecedented social dis- ruption. His family’s fortunes soared when Esmat Muslim, a warlord from the same Adozai branch of the Achakzai, came to prominence in the region. A former military offi cer who had been trained by the Rus- sians, Esmat became a mujahideen commander during the early 1980s and organized a force drawn mainly from his tribe; Razik’s uncle Man- when both the CIA and the Paki- After stopping to pick up a beard- sour became one of his principal stani government were happy to ed, heavyset man, we veered off the lieutenants. Notorious for his turn a blind eye to the drug opera- pavement, away from the screen of treachery and cruelty, Esmat shat- tions of the mujahideen fi ghters in shops that lines the highway and tered the delicate peace that had Afghanistan, since it helped fund onto a rutted dirt trail that led us out existed between the Achakzai and the war against the invading Soviet to the desert. We halted about a Noorzai smuggling clans, and he Union. After the Soviets left, the hundred yards from a squat, mud- eventually sided with the Commu- drugs remained, and since then opi- walled fort fl ying the Pakistani fl ag. nist government in return for con- um production in Afghanistan has To the south were the spindly peaks trol over the border trade. In the increased fourteen-fold, from of the Khojak Pass, which I had just end, Esmat was driven out of Spin around 500 tons in the mid-1980s traversed. To the north and west the Boldak in 1988 by a combined mu- to 6,900 tons this year. Recent desert extended in a haze-shrouded jahideen offensive, and later died of counternarcotics efforts have dra- plane stubbled with rocky outcrop- cancer in Moscow. matically reduced cultivation in the pings. “That is Pakistan,” Small Ra- With the collapse of the central north and east of the country, and zik said, indicating the fort. The government in the early 1990s, Kan- so both cultivation and traffi cking heavyset man got out, and we dahar descended into anarchy. Local

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AAikinsikins Final5.inddFinal5.indd 5454 110/22/090/22/09 10:15:0810:15:08 AMAM warlords divided up and pillaged the time; he was then about twenty-two province. Even the city of Kandahar years old and completely obscure. itself was split among several com- “No one knew who he was,” said Ab- manders, and throughout the prov- dul Wali, a Mohammadzai tribesman ince roads were strangled by hun- who had been a fighter with the dreds of checkpoints at which theft, group and later joined the Afghan rape, and murder were common. National Army. It was in reaction to such depreda- The Americans had given the tions by the warlords that the Tal- group cash to buy weapons in Paki- iban emerged, in 1994, from the dis- stan and directly supplied more by tricts around Kandahar city. Their helicopter—along with a group of fi rst major victory was the capture of Special Forces soldiers—once the Spin Boldak on October 12, 1994, an militia had infi ltrated Afghanistan event encouraged by the Pakistani and occupied Takht-e-Pul, a strate- trucking mafi a, who saw the group as gic pass between Spin Boldak and a means of clearing the roads north Kandahar city. With U.S. airstrikes to Central Asia. Consequently, the clearing the way, Shirzai’s forces ad- balance between the Achakzai, who vanced to the airport. The provin- were linked to the traditional aris- cial capital itself was in the process tocracy, and the Noorzai, who were of being handed over, after exten- more congenial to a radical Islamist sive negotiations between Hamid movement, swung again. Noorzai Karzai and the Taliban, to Mullah tribal fi gures such as Mullah Akhtar Naqib, a well-respected retired mu- Jan Noorzai, a former commander in jahideen commander. But Ameri- Spin Boldak, and Hajji Bashir can advisers had come to believe Noorzai, one of the region’s largest that Naqib was too close to the Tal- drug smugglers, became influential iban, and so they encouraged Gul RAZOR & TIE supporters of the Taliban. (In April, Agha Shirzai—against Karzai’s 4/C AD TK Bashir Noorzai was sentenced to life wishes—to wrest control from Naq- As seen on PBS in a U.S. prison on drug- traffi cking ib and retake the governorship of 020 charges, after having been lured to the province. Naqib, fearing U.S. The definitive biography features

New York City by federal agents.) airpower, backed off. never before seen performances. Razik’s uncle Mansour, who had sur- Shirzai, who is from the Barakzai Includes interviews with vived Esmat’s departure by rejoining tribe, had relied heavily on the the mujahideen, was hanged from Achakzai for muscle, and now they David Crosby, the gun of a tank north of Spin Bol- wanted to claim their reward. Bob Dylan, Steve Earle, dak by the Taliban. Razik’s father “There was a deal between me and the Reverend Jesse Jackson also was killed, and his family, along Gul Agha,” Fayda told me. “He went and Roger McGuinn with many Achakzai tribal leaders, to Kandahar city, and he said, ‘You fl ed into exile in Pakistan—until the and your tribe take the security of U.S.-led invasion arrived like the border.’” a thunderbolt. That summer saw the return of THREE WAYS In November of 2001, the CIA widespread opium cultivation in the TO EXPERIENCE JOAN BAEZ paid Gul Agha Shirzai, who had been south of Afghanistan, after the Tal- HOW SWEET THE SOUND: the ostensible governor of Kandahar iban had banned it the year before. during the chaos before the Taliban, With stocks running low, the price • Original Soundtrack containing to assemble an anti-Taliban militia in paid to farmers for opium shot up to 10 previously unreleased performances Quetta with the goal of capturing the $250 per kilo at harvesttime, com- province. Shirzai put together a force pared with $28 in 2000. The nascent • DVD featuring the complete that drew mainly on Achakzai tribes- central government had little infl u- American Masters biography plus bonus content men. “The Americans said, ‘We will ence; every warlord was running his help you take your country back from own small fi efdom, and the econom- • Deluxe CD/DVD includes all the terrorists,’” recalled Fayda Mo- ic incentives were clear. Fayda Mo- of the above plus 98 minutes hammad, the commander of this hammad, tasked with policing one of additional bonus content Achakzai contingent, when I visited of the world’s largest drug-smuggling him on a return trip in May at his routes, soon found his job impossible modest, somewhat dilapidated two- to do with any honor. He and his story house in Spin Boldak. Abdul men would stop trucks full of opium Razik also had been part of the unit, or hashish only to fi nd them under but few remember him from that the protection of prominent offi cials.

joanbaez.com LETTER FROM KANDAHAR 55

Aikins Final5 rev2.indd 55 10/27/09 9:04:45 AM sadullah Wafa, was a powerful offi cial in Kabul and the former governor of Helmand Province. Sikander and Jahanzeb arrived, pleased to see me. But there was a hitch: Colonel Razik had suddenly gone to Kandahar city on urgent busi- ness. Now the two had to go back to Quetta, and if I wanted to see the colonel I would have to wait here in Boldak as Samiullah’s guest. “We will be back for you in a few days,” Sikander said, “or they will bring you back. Don’t worry, you can trust these men.” During my stay, Spin Boldak with Samiullah began to seem like a the- ater of the absurd. Each day, I’d in- quire as to the whereabouts of Colo- nel Razik, only to be told he was in Kandahar, or Kabul, but would be On one occasion, he claimed, he was who presided at the jirga and is now coming very soon. And each day, our forced into releasing a truck under Spin Boldak’s parliamentary represen- routine would be the same—up early direct pressure from a powerful min- tative in Kabul. Razik was duly in the morning for breakfast, before ister in Kabul. Another driver car- crowned with a turban in the tradi- driving to the “shoram,” where I’d ried a letter from Bacha Shirzai, tional manner. spend hours swatting fl ies on the ve- Governor Shirzai’s brother. Others took a more cynical view randa while prospective buyers lan- As a result of his obstinacy, Fayda of Razik’s appointment. “They guorously conducted their business Mohammad says, he was gradually thought that Razik was nothing, that with Samiullah. marginalized by Gul Agha Shirzai they could control him,” said Mo- I was learning, however, that Bol- and other players in Kabul and Kan- hammad Naeem Lalai, a former Bor- dak is a special sort of border town. dahar. A number of influential der Police commander who was pres- The big business there is cars— Achakzais I spoke to agreed, describ- ent at the jirga. right-hand-drive cars, to be precise, ing Fayda as an honest man in the But whether the elders believed Ra- used cars bought mainly in Japan wrong job; others said that he was zik to be honest or merely naive, they and shipped in duty-free via Dubai. simply ineffective at distributing re- were wrong. Razik would quickly move Afghanistan is a left-hand-drive sources to his tribesmen, who then to expand the force’s involvement in country, but the vehicles are intend- pushed him out. In any case, about the enormous opium traffi c pouring ed for Pakistan. They are sent over- nine months after his appointment, through the region, and in the process land from Karachi in sealed con- Fayda left as the top commander of would grow powerful enough to defy tainers, unpacked in Spin Boldak, the Achakzai tribal militia. even his own tribal elders. Meanwhile, and sent right back across the bor- A grand Achakzai tribal jirga was his abilities as a commander, and his der, with forged papers and bak- convened to choose a replacement, fi ghting force that remained highly sheesh given to various officials and the group settled on the twenty- effective in the absence of a national along the way. three-year-old Abdul Razik. Since army, soon made him indispensable to This may seem like a strange the American invasion, Razik had the central government and journey, but it’s a simple matter of distinguished himself in bravery and the ISAF. comparative advantage. Under the tactical ability, and had been made a Afghan Transit Trade agreement, minor commander. As a candidate In Spin Boldak, Small Razik and I which dates to 1965, Pakistan allows for the chief position, he would dis- made our way to a dusty lot of used Afghanistan-bound goods to tra- pel any rivalry among the assembled SUVs. Entering a showroom made verse its territory duty-free. Afghan- commanders. He seemed simple and from a shipping container, with a istan is a free port with minimal du- honest, and, since his father and un- sign reading shoram, we sat cross- ties, whereas in Pakistan taxes and cle had been killed by the Taliban, legged on the fl oor to share tea and customs can double or even triple a he could be relied on to fi ght stead- bread with the owner, Samiullah. vehicle’s cost. This price differen- fastly against them. Chubby and elfi n, Samiullah had be- tial, combined with widespread cor- “I said, ‘Among you, this young man come one of the wealthiest men in ruption and ineffi cient law enforce- Razik looks innocent. We will put him Boldak by way of a string of car deal- ment in both countries, has created as the new commander,’” recalled erships, office buildings, and con- an enormous market for smuggling. Hajji Ahmad Shah, one of the elders struction projects; his father, As- In fact, the smuggling of goods may

56 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / DECEMBER 2009

AAikinsikins Final5.inddFinal5.indd 5656 110/22/090/22/09 10:15:0910:15:09 AMAM be the biggest economic sector in Afghanistan, larger even than the The literary opium trade, according to World Bank reports. As a result, places like Spin Bold- magazine ak have become markets for all sorts of goods to be smuggled back into Pakistan. Each day, new shipping containers arrived, and Samiullah by children and I would often go to watch them being cracked open and unloaded. The haul was not just vehicles. It was “The New Yorker of all the cast-off crud of the First World, anything conceivably worth the 8-to-13 set.” being shipped here: used microwave —Ms. ovens, guitars, DVD players, bicycles, car stereos, TV sets, Beta camcord- ers, keyboards, propane stoves, mo- Inspiring stories, poems, and art by children and young torized wheelchairs, generators, teens—a great gift for budding writers and artists winches, children’s toys, clothing. I watched one bent, beturbaned old 6 issues per year for $37 man hauling a tangled bundle of PlayStation controllers slung over his shoulder like a bushel of thatching. Once empty, the shipping con- tainers find a second life as work- stonesoup.com | 800-447-4569 shops and dwellings. A vast contain- P.O. Box 83, Santa Cruz, CA 95063 USA er town called Weish had grown up along the highway to Pakistan, a HP whole ecosystem of smuggling—from big dealers, like Samiullah, who also kept offi ces in Dubai and Japan; to the tamper-wallahs, who specialized arper’s Magazine is accept- in changing a car’s serial and chassis ing applications from col- numbers; all the way down to grime- lege students and gradu- covered little boys who scampered H ates for its editorial and art internship around wielding wrenches the length programs. of their skinny arms, banging away • Editorial interns serve full-time for at old Toyota transmissions. three to five months and gain Maintaining a sort of order in practical experience in critical read- this chaos was Razik’s Border Police, ing and analysis, research, fact- who protected the trade and in turn checking, and the general work- fed off it. The Border Police were so ings of a national magazine. Each involved in smuggling that the du- intern works with an editor on one ties of several commanders who fre- section of the magazine and quented the showroom, Small Razik included, seemed to consist entirely takes part in the creation of the of brokering goods. When I asked Harper’s Index. them why they were never in uni- • Art interns serve part-time for three form, they told me they suited up to five months and view current ex- only for major engagements. Their hibits at museums and galleries, days were spent sizing up cars, gos- take part in the selection of art for siping on the showroom’s veranda the Readings section, and gain skills over cups of chai, and sealing deals. in electronic page layout, and art Toward the end of each afternoon, a and photo research. group of boys would arrive with var- All interns are encouraged to gener- ious permission chits, fake registra- ate ideas, read widely, and approach tion documents, and receipts for the problems creatively. Both positions petrol taxes paid to Razik’s force, are unpaid. and the boys and the commanders For further information and an applica- tion, call (212) 420-5720. Please specify which program you are applying for. LETTER FROM KANDAHAR 57

Aikins Final5 rev2.indd 57 10/27/09 2:40:47 PM would round up a convoy of vehicles corpses being left, on orders, in the destined for Quetta. streets for three days. Of course, some Border Police of- Essential, too, were groups like ficers were engaged in the serious Commander Janan’s, which, relative business of securing Spin Boldak. to typical Afghan police, were The most active I met was Com- trained and paid better. Nor was Ra- mander Hajji Janan, who wore a zik the only one who found them U.S. Army combat uniform with a useful. The Border Police’s hand-in- captain’s insignia and a 1st Infantry glove cooperation with the local Division patch. Janan had been a ISAF forces in Boldak was evident police offi cer in the Taliban regime the fi rst day I met Janan. That eve- before he sensed the changing winds ning, Samiullah got a call and hand- of fortune, shaved his beard, and ed me his phone. A somewhat baf- joined his tribesmen in the new bor- fl ed-sounding American accent came der force. Today, he roams around through on the line: “Hi, yeah, is this town in a green police Dodge Rang- Matthieu? This is Captain Cowles, er, accompanied by a posse of fi ve with the U.S. Army. We heard from young soldiers carrying grenade Hajji Janan that there was a Canadi- launchers. One day at lunchtime, I an citizen alone here in Spin Boldak, watched as he set up a checkpoint and, well, we just wanted to make on the highway in front of the sure that you were all right.” showroom, where he ate and chat- I assured him that I was, but the ted with the other commanders next morning Janan came by the while his beardless, swaggering house and asked if I would come to the troops accosted drivers. Most of ISAF just outside of town. “It is op- these young men had joined the tional,” he said. FPO force when they were sixteen or sev- I got in the truck and we rode out DAEDALUS enteen, which for the oldest among with his men to Forward Operating 4/C them, Ahmad Shah, was fi ve years Base Spin Boldak, which is manned AD TK ago. Not that they were green—they by a mix of Canadian, U.S., and Af- 021 had all seen intense combat in the ghan National Army soldiers. A gruff hilly scrublands that bordered Paki- American sergeant named McDer- stan. They took their work seriously. mott drove out with an interpreter to Shah, the sergeant of Janan’s little meet us and bring us back to the squad, was particularly proud one base. I noticed that Ahmad Shah day when he caught a carful of and his crew were allowed to bring Baluchis concealing a Ka- their weapons, though McDermott lashnikov and a pistol. frisked me. Captain Cowles, a young and so- The most consistently uttered licitous type, got me a soft drink. I praise of Colonel Razik in Spin Bol- produced my passport, and the offi cers dak is that he has maintained a level started questioning me, with a combi- of security unparalleled in Kandahar nation of suspicion and concern, about Province. The town is now far safer what I was doing in the region. I than Kandahar city, an hour and a couldn’t say that I was a journalist in half’s drive north. “There is no water, front of Janan, for whom the inter- no trees, no gardens here,” one refu- preter was translating our conversa- gee from Helmand told me, “but tion, but I managed to convince them there is amniat,” pronouncing the that I wasn’t a spy, or worse. “We Persian word for security as if it were thought maybe it might be another a sacred name. Razik’s success was case of that American Taliban, what’s attributed to his prowess in com- his name, Lindh,” said Tim Bonnacci, bat—“He was always at the front of a Canadian Army captain, only half the fi ghting,” said a cousin of Sami- in jest. ullah’s—and also to his equally well- “You know, this is a battle space,” known ruthlessness. Stories abound Cowles told me. I said I was fine, of men chained to the rocks at since I was under the protection of Takht-e-Pul and then executed with the local Achakzai tribe. “Well, this rockets; of long stretches spent in is a mixed Noorzai and Achakzai Razik’s private prisons; of thieves’ area, so you should be concerned,”

58 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / DECEMBER 2009

Aikins Final5.indd 58 10/22/09 10:15:09 AM he said. While a Canadian sergeant Razik’s corruption and had tried, un- A delightful went off to photocopy my passport, successfully, to persuade him to some of the offi cers spoke privately change course. Others I spoke to told chronicle of the to Janan in a corner. I sat down next me that Lalai and Razik had simply to Cowles and asked him if perhaps quarreled over prestige and money. great, lost art Janan’s wearing a U.S. Army uni- Whatever the case, Lalai nursed his of letter writing form—with the Stars and Stripes on grudge for a few months in Kandahar it, no less—might be sending the and then moved to Kabul, where he wrong message. “Oh, the locals know decided to join the Counter Narcotics who he is,” answered Cowles. I said I Police of Afghanistan (CNPA), a rela- meant that his policies and actions tively new, centrally run police force might be interpreted as being Ameri- dedicated to fi ghting drug cultivation can. “I don’t think there’s any worry and trafficking. Lalai was well con- about that,” he said, sweeping the air nected, having spent time in prison with his hand. “Hajji Janan is one of during the Taliban regime for his our best guys. We don’t go anywhere work with Jamiat-e-Islami, the princi- without them.” pal party within the Northern Alli- The sergeant returned with my ance, and so he was offered his choice passport, and we all stood up to go. of postings. “I said, ‘Send me to my “Be careful with these guys,” he mut- province,’” he told me. tered to me, eyeing Ahmad Shah, who Sitting in a friend’s apartment in was in turn eyeing some of the gear on Kabul, Lalai spread out a sheaf of his webbing. “Some of them are pretty documents that corroborated his sto- rough.” I made a joke about how their ry: documents detailing drug busts in weapons always seemed to be loaded Spin Boldak, commendations from and switched to full auto, with the the ministry for his work, and his safeties off. “Yeah, we see them come promotion to major with the CNPA. FPO in all the time for treatment for things Pulling up his shalwar kameez, he PANTHEON they’ve infl icted on themselves,” the showed me further proof of his ef- (JESUS) sergeant said. forts—four bullet scars from an as- ÌOcdnnh\mo'rdoot4/C Cowles, McDermott, Janan, and I sassination attempt in September of AD TK got back in the pickup truck and last year. A bodyguard at his friend \i_gdq`gt\^^jpio016 rode back out to the perimeter of the Zalmay Tufon’s house had fired on rdoc`s^`mkonamjh base to say our goodbyes. “Whoa, no him as he was leaving. Tufon’s son hugs, man. I don’t do hugs,” said Mc- shot back at the bodyguard, paralyz- \ijo(t`o(`sodi^o Dermott, fending off Ahmad Shah’s ing him, and when they dragged him embrace. Cowles did return the hug, into the house, they later claimed, he gdo`m\mtb`im`rdgg though, and Janan asked if I would confessed that Abdul Razik had of- rc`ojpm\kk`odo`n take his and Cowles’s picture. The fered him $100,000 to kill Lalai. Americans shook my hand. After his recovery, Lalai contin- !!!!!!!!!!gps!qvcmjtife!dpmmfdujpot!pg! “Okay, nice meeting you,” Cowles ued hounding Razik in Spin Boldak. !!!!!!!!!!mfuufst!xijmf!npujwbujoh!vt said and then turned to his inter- But if the ways of the old Afghani- !!!!!!!!!!!!!!up!qvu!qfo!up!qbqfs!up! preter and Janan. “Now tell him to stan had failed, the ways of the new take our friend out to the desert and Afghanistan soon frustrated his plan. !!!!!!!!!!!sfejtdpwfs!b!tbujtgzjoh kill him.” He burst out laughing before According to Lalai, and to other !!!!!!!!nfbot!pg!dpnnvojdbujpo/Ôstarred the interpreter could translate. It was sources who back up his account, —Publishers Weekly, the sort of slightly hysterical laugh Razik sent Assadullah Wafa, the for- <  <  < that one probably acquires near the mer minister and governor of end of a rotation in a Helmand, to Kabul to lobby for La- place like Spin Boldak. lai’s transfer. Lalai was summoned to the capital. “Razik doesn’t have any !!Gspn!!uif!mvtugvm!cpbtujoh!pg! Mohammad Naeem Lalai, a problems with Kabul,” he told me, Mpse!Czspo!up!b!36.zfbs! thirty-five-year-old Achakzai from “because he has enough money to !dpssftqpoefodf!!cfuxffo!!Nbsz Spin Boldak, joined the Border Police pay all of them.” NdDbsuiz!boe!Iboobi!Bsfoeu- about the same time that Abdul Ra- Idling around Kabul, waiting for Uipnbt!Nbmmpo!fyqmpsft!uif zik did. He and Razik once were close his next posting, Lalai was now try- friends, but they had a bitter falling- ing to undermine Razik as best he !!!!!!!!pggiboe!nbtufsqjfdft!ejtqbudife!!!! out that led to Lalai’s quitting the could. Two months before our meet- !!!!!!!uispvhi!uif!bhft!cz!nfttfohfs-! force in February of last year. Lalai ing, he presented his evidence at a !!!!!!!qptubm!tfswjdf-!boe!CmbdlCfssz/ told me he had become disgusted with CNPA conference and also showed

PANTHEONBOOKS.COM LETTER FROM KANDAHAR 59

Aikins Final5.indd 59 10/22/09 10:15:09 AM it to his boss, the deputy minister of he knew he was talking, he said. Still, the interior for counternarcotics, he came forward because he felt that General Mohammad Daud Daud the corruption had swelled to mon- (who has himself been documented, strous proportions, and he was an- in an investigation by the Globe and guished about the worsening security Mail, as having links with drug situation that was costing the lives of smugglers), as well as to a number of more and more of his men. He said Western advisers to the CNPA. La- that even as the commander of a com- lai has received no response yet, but pany-sized force in a volatile border he remained hopeful that the advis- zone, he was powerless to stop the ers, at least, would take interest. convoys of drug smugglers that ran “They are slow,” he said. “What we through his area. Not only were they do in one day, the foreigners do in better armed than he and his men; one month.” some smugglers had shown him letters Lalai estimated that Razik pulls of protection signed by Razik himself. in between $5 million and $6 mil- Many of these convoys, the command- lion per month in revenues, money er said, were in fact made up of green he has invested in properties in Ka- Border Police pickup trucks headed for bul and Kandahar and also abroad, the heroin laboratories in Helmand in Dubai and Tajikistan. The racket Province’s Taliban-controlled areas. itself is run directly by a select group Others were unmarked Land Cruisers of his commanders, who facilitate headed south into Baluchistan. drug shipments and collect payment “These men are destroying our from the smugglers. Lalai showed country,” he said. me a list with their names—Janan Razik’s clandestine smuggling op- was among them—and the names erations have spilled over into the al- FPO of the five biggest drug dealers in lied fi ght against the Taliban, thereby DAVID Spin Boldak. He said that Razik’s bolstering the widely held perception MORGAN men also had imported shipping that the ISAF and the central govern- 4/C containers full of acetic anhydride, ment are favoring certain tribes and AD TK a chemical used in heroin manufac- marginalizing others. Soon after he 019 turing, from China. assumed power at the border, Razik Lalai was the only person I found began to feud with elements of the who would openly accuse Razik of Noorzai tribe, particularly the Sultan- drug smuggling. The conjoined men- zai, a rival smuggling clan spread be- tion of “Abdul Razik” and “drug tween Spin Boldak and Chaman. One smuggling” by a Western journalist notorious incident took place during in Kandahar was enough to cast a the summer of 2006 in Panjwaii Dis- chill over most interviews. But on trict, a volatile area just west of Kan- condition of anonymity, two other dahar city. A predominantly Noorzai Kandahari politicians—Achakzai district, Panjwaii is a lush river valley tribal elders with clean reputations crisscrossed by thick orchards and and who were widely respected— mud-walled compounds, and it pro- made similar assertions to me about vides an excellent springboard for at- Razik’s involvement in drug smug- tacks on Kandahar city. During the gling, his private prisons, his vast course of the summer, Taliban fi ghters wealth, and his entanglement in a had infi ltrated the valley, and eventu- network of corrupt high offi cials and ally the district governor, an Achakzai, major drug smugglers. An offi cial at called in Abdul Razik’s border force. the Kandahar offi ce of the Afghan What followed was a debacle. The Independent Human Rights Com- Noorzais, fearing their tribal ene- mission, who asked not to be named, mies, rose up and joined forces with agreed that Razik was operating his the Taliban. Razik and his men re- own prisons and conducting extraju- sponded to the unexpected resistance dicial executions. with brutality. “They were killing I also spoke to one of Razik’s cur- women and children,” said Ustaz Ab- rent commanders, who was initially dul Halim, a Noorzai and former mu- extremely reluctant and agreed to jahideen commander who lives in meet only on the basis of absolute Kandahar city. “After that, everyone anonymity—Razik would kill him if was with the Taliban.”

60 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / DECEMBER 2009

Aikins Final5.indd 60 10/22/09 10:15:09 AM Capitalizing on the tribal dynam- a dozen armored Land Cruisers. Vir- ics, the Taliban installed a Noorzai, tually every household in the dis- Mullah Rauf Lang, as their com- trict had sent male representatives mander in Panjwaii District. Later to pay their respects to Razik’s fami- NEW that fall, newly arrived Canadian ly. Scores of men, neatly done up in from Da Capo Press troops in the area would launch Op- their best silk turbans and waist- eration Medusa, a large-scale assault coats, were coming and going under that killed hundreds of fi ghters and the billowing canopy. scores of civilians in weeks of close “That’s Rahmatullah Sangaryar,” combat and withering bombardments. Samiullah whispered to me, pointing Today, the area remains one of the to a heavily bearded man in a dark most violent in Kandahar Province— waistcoat. “He was a big man in the the Canadians suffer many of their Taliban. The Americans took him to casualties there and have recently Guantánamo.” Sangaryar had been abandoned two untenable forward repatriated in April of last year. operating bases in the area—and We sat down on a stone ledge anti-government senti- near the edge of the crowd. A young ments still run high. boy brought over some bottled water and asked us if we’d like tea. I On my tenth day in Spin Bold- craned my head to catch a glimpse ak, word arrived that Colonel Razik of Razik. “He’s over there,” said had returned. This fact was also evi- Samiullah, pointing to a raised dais dent from the increased security that where the elders were sitting. From appeared along the highway in front my perch I could only see a row of of Samiullah’s guesthouse, which backs. Now and then a singsong Ar- was near the main Border Police sta- abic cadence would pierce the soft tion. Samiullah, Small Razik, and I murmur of the crowd, who would drove over to Colonel Razik’s mas- cup their hands together in suppli- sive family compound, a walled mud- cation as prayers were recited for the brick warren set back from the main deceased grandmother. FPO DE CAPO road. Several heavily armed Border At last, Samiullah took me by the “Harlow Unger has rescued Police watched us alertly as we hand and, picking our way through B/W James Monroe from undeserved pulled in—Razik has been subject to the seated congregation, we ap- AD TK numerous assassination attempts. proached the dais. As we got closer, I obscurity and simultaneously023 given They waved Samiullah through, and became aware of a young man sitting us a host of new insights into the we pulled into a parking lot full of amid the whitebeards and knew im- first fifty years of the nation’s expensive SUVs. mediately that this was Colonel Ra- tumultuous history. There’s a The colonel’s grandmother had zik. The elders made space for me, surprise on almost every page just died, and the place was crammed and I got down on the dais. “This is with those angling to offer condo- Matthieu. He is a Canadian guest,” of this remarkable book.” lences. We joined the fl ow of mourn- said Samiullah. Thomas Fleming ers down a set of narrow interior Razik and I contemplated each walls, passing through several more other for a moment. He looked even cordons of security. Small Razik younger than his thirty years and “Unger presents the fifth president stopped to chat with the guards, who had a boyishly handsome, guileless as a man of independence and seemed older and harder than the face with a square jaw and clear eyes. initiative rather than merely youths I had met around town. These It was not at all the face of a fi re- a disciple of Jefferson, Madison, were Razik’s praetorians, a “rapid re- breathing warlord. A tuft of short action force” that he took around hair poked out from under his hat in and John Quincy Adams.” with him to tamp down crises. what was nearly a widow’s peak. He Library Journal At last we reached an inner com- was dressed simply, in a white cotton pound where a final set of guards shalwar kameez and a gray pinstriped was frisking the arriving guests. We waistcoat. Only his full mouth, with “A cogent reexamination were allowed to pass through unmo- its crop of slightly crooked, strong- of a relatively neglected lested, in deference to Samiullah. looking teeth, gave any hint of his American icon." Here, more than a hundred men great vigor and violence. were sitting under a canopy of raised Pausing in his conversation, Ra- Kirkus Reviews fabric, some of it camoufl age, in a zik greeted me with a reserved courtyard large enough to fit not tone, and we shook hands. I told only this sizable crowd but also half him I was a friend of Sikander’s, DACAPOPRESS www.dacapopress.com LETTER FROM KANDAHAR 61

Aikins Final5.indd 61 10/22/09 10:15:09 AM and he said I was welcome here. I make sure someone doesn’t rip their Narcotics Tribunals Appeals Court, thanked him for his guts out at night.” killed outside his house in Kabul by men’s hospitality. Military officers like General masked men—the honest Afghans Vance fi nd themselves in a peculiar will be found in the cemetery. A grim irony of the rising pro- fi x when confronted with characters As for Razik, he remains alive and Taliban sentiments in the south is like Abdul Razik. These entrenched very much the master of the border- that the United States and its allies fi gures hold posts or wear uniforms lands. Occasionally, outside forces will often returned to power the same whose legitimacy must be respected. annoy him: in July, CNPA teams, work- forces responsible for the worst peri- But many of those who maintain ing with DEA mentors, raided two od in southerners’ memory—the their power through corruption and caches of hashish in Razik’s territory, post- Soviet “mujahideen nights.” In coercion were originally installed by arresting one of his commanders in the the case of Gul Agha Shirzai (now the U.S. military—a fact not lost on process. But Razik is hardly at odds governor of Nangarhar but still a ma- Afghans, who tend to have longer with his government. After the fi rst jor force in Kandahar), the same man memories than Westerners here on round of national elections closed on occupied the exact same position; in nine- or twelve-month rotations. August 20, his men forcibly took Spin the case of Razik, nephew of the no- I asked General Vance if he was Boldak’s ballot boxes into his house for torious Mansour, it is the restoration aware that Razik was directly in- “safekeeping” overnight. It was just one of an heir. By installing these char- volved in the drug trade. “Yes,” he of the many reports of electoral fraud acters and then protecting them by said. “We are completely aware that in Kandahar Province, which polled force of arms, the ISAF has come to there are a number of illicit activities overwhelmingly for President Karzai, be associated, in the minds of many being run out of that border station.” according to the independent Election Afghans, with their criminality and He had few illusions about Razik, Commision of Afghanistan. The count abuses. “We’re doing the Taliban’s with whom he interacts directly. “He from Spin Boldak’s polling stations: work for them,” said one internation- runs effective security ops that are Karzai, 8,341; his main challenger, Dr. al offi cial with years of experience in designed to make sure that the busi- Abdullah Abdullah, 4. ■ counternarcotics here. ness end of his life runs smoothly, In the initial scramble to invade and there is a collateral effect on Statement Required by 39 U.S.C. 3685 showing the own- ership, management and circulation of Harper’s Magazine. Pub- Afghanistan in 2001, there was a public order,” he told me. “Ideally, it lished monthly (12 issues per year). Date of fi ling September 30, 2009. Publication No. 514-410. Annual subscription price: certain pragmatism to enlisting the should be the other way around. The $21.00. Complete mailing address of known offi ce of publication: mujahideen, who represented the tragedy of Kandahar is that it’s hard 666 Broadway, New York, NY 10012-2317. Complete mailing address of headquarters of general business best means of taking over the coun- to find that paragon of offi ce of Publisher: 666 Broadway, New York, NY 10012-2317. try in the absence of a substantial civic virtue.” Publisher: John R. MacArthur, 666 Broadway, New York, NY 10012; Editor: Roger D. Hodge, 666 Broadway, New York, U.S. ground presence. But those NY 10012; Managing Editor: Ellen Rosenbush, 666 Broadway, New York, NY 10012. troops were diverted to Iraq, and the Indeed, honest people in Afghani- Known bondholders, mortgagees and other security holders owning or holding one percent or more of the total amount of ISAF was cobbled together slowly, stan don’t often occupy the halls of bonds, mortgages or other securities: None. Changes during the preceding 12 months in the purpose, arriving too late and with too few power, and they don’t usually have function and nonprofi t status of the Harper’s Magazine Founda- tion and the exempt status for Federal income tax purposes: soldiers to upend the warlords’ rule. the resources to be the fi rst in line None. Canadian forces didn’t deploy to for big development contracts. Extent and nature of circulation: Average number Actual number Kandahar until 2006, and even then Should one’s security restrictions al- of copies each issue of copies of single during preceding issue published their contingent of 2,500 was low one to stroll the streets, however, 12 months nearest to fi ling stretched far too thin to control one one will find them there, pushing date A) Total number of of the most critical provinces in Af- carts of vegetables, positively begging copies printed: 284,302 284,579 B) Paid circulation: ghanistan; the base at Spin Boldak strangers to join them for a cup of 1) Paid/Requested was largely abandoned for seven tea that might cost them half their Outside-County Mail Subscriptions Stated months at the end of 2006, when day’s salary. If one looks a little hard- on Form 3541: 172,874 171,619 2) Paid In-County troops were needed for the offensive er, one will fi nd them in crumbling Subscriptions: 0 0 3) Sales through dealers in Panjwaii. little homes, so unlike the palatial and carriers, street vendors, counter sales and other “We were facing the worst-case sce- “poppy palaces” of Kabul’s new elite, Non-USPS Paid Distribution: 31,350 25,470 nario in 2006—a conventional take- dwellings such as Fayda Mohammad’s 4) Other Classes Mailed over by Taliban forces,” said Brigadier in Spin Boldak, or Hajji Ahmad through the USPS: 0 0 C) Total paid circulation: 204,224 197,089 General Jonathan Vance, the Cana- Shah’s in Carte Nau Market, a poor D) Free distribution by mail: 3,796 3,404 dian commander of ISAF forces in area on the edge of town: places of E) Free distribution outside of the mail: 1,849 1,849 Kandahar Province. He was proud exile, to which honest men have F) Total free distribution: 5,645 5,253 G) Total distribution: 209,869 202,342 that his country’s small contingent been marginalized either by force or H) Copies not distributed: 74,443 82,237 I) Total: 284,312 284,579 had been able to hold the insurgency by choice. In other cases—such as Percent Paid and/or more or less at bay. But he admitted that of Malalai Kakar, Kandahar’s Requested Circulation: 97.31% 97.40% that the life of the average Kandahari top female police officer, who was I certify that the statements made by me above are correct and had become less secure as the Taliban shot in September of last year by un- complete. began to tighten their grip on Kanda- known assailants, or that of Alim (Signed) John R. MacArthur, President & Publisher har city. “I don’t have the capacity to Hanif, chief judge of the new Central

62 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / DECEMBER 2009

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