[As the prospect of a peace deal nears, with the United States and Taliban signaling that they are close on a preliminary agreement, the violence has only intensified. Graphic videos and images of the bloodshed circulate freely, and the rhetoric on both sides appears to be hardening.]
By
Mujib Mashal and Fahim Abed
 |
|
Afghans
selling phones at a market in Kabul in 2016. With the sheer ubiquity of
social media,
hatred and vengeance threaten to grow beyond any peace deal.
Credit Adam
Ferguson for The New York Times
|
KABUL,
Afghanistan — In recent
months, an increasing number of graphic images of atrocities in the Afghan war
have circulated on social media — raising alarm that hatred sown deep into
local communities would be difficult to resolve even if a peace agreement can be reached with the Taliban.
In one video, disheveled Taliban fighters
line up a local judge in front of their guns as they repeat a question: who is
rightful, the insurgents or the government? As the judge pleads “I serve the
people,” the fighters open fire. The man collapses, and they fire more.
In a second video, Afghan Army soldiers have
tied a couple of Taliban fighters to the hood of a military vehicle, driving
them back and forth in a desert as they take turns beating them bloody. The
Taliban wail as the soldiers curse at them and their families. One soldier
repeatedly slashes a fighter with a knife.
“Slaves of Pakistan that fell to our hands,”
the soldier filming the torture wrote on his Facebook account, referring to the
neighboring country’s support for the Afghan insurgency. “Dear friends, please
share.”
As the prospect of a peace deal nears, with
the United States and Taliban signaling that they are close on a preliminary
agreement, the violence has only intensified. Graphic videos and images of the
bloodshed circulate freely, and the rhetoric on both sides appears to be
hardening.
The videos and images seem like a deliberate
escalation, opening another battlefield online. A recent survey showed that at
least 90 percent of households have at least one mobile phone, and about 40
percent access to the internet.
The graphic content is often posted by
accounts related to, or sharing sympathies with, one side of the war. Such
flooding of images of blood and gore has raised fears of lasting hatred that
only complicates chances of a deal on paper translating to peace for local
communities.
Once it became clear that a military victory
was unlikely for either side, the war became increasingly localized — down to
villages, pitting cousin against cousin, in some cases even father against son,
the conflict often blurring to suspicion and revenge.
After a strike force mentored by the C.I.A.
raided an eastern village earlier this month, killing at least 11 civilians —
many of whom were shot from close range after being held — about two dozen
elders and relatives brought their complaint to the country’s defense minister.
“I don’t know who is killing us like this —
is this really Afghan forces, or is this a tribal rivalry using the forces?”
one relative told the minister. “We will have to find our enemy.”
[Read about how Afghanistan’s war divided one
family, with a police officer father chasing his own Taliban son.]
The fear of local vengeance was palpable last
month in the first informal talks on peace to include representatives both from
the Afghan government and the insurgents. The declaration urged both sides to
“not fuel the conflict and revenge” with their language and messages.
Habibullah Rafi, an Afghan academic and
historian, said that through 40 years of violence and war in Afghanistan, there
have been many cycles of reprisal. But the sheer ubiquity of social media now
has seemed to widen the circle of outrage over acts of violence, and to stoke
calls for revenge over and over.
In the comments section of the video where
Afghan soldiers were beating Taliban fighters, one Facebook user wrote that the
leaders of the Taliban would watch this video. “After that, it’s on you how
they treat arrested soldiers.”
Other Facebook users sympathetic to the
Taliban retaliated by posting pictures of Afghan women being searched by forces
of the American-led coalition, saying the Afghan Army facilitated such
dishonor. In Afghanistan’s conservative society, women are often kept away from
even the gaze of friends, let alone from the touch of strangers.
“Such videos will open the path for
revenge-taking and personal enmity after peace,” Mr. Rafi said. “If the
government keeps reminding of violence committed by the Taliban, and if the
Taliban keeps sharing videos of violence by government forces, even if there is
a peace deal the fighting could continue in the country because those fighting
men will go after their revenge.”
In the 1980s, the Soviet-backed communists
disappeared thousands of Afghans affiliated with, or seen as sympathetic to,
the American-backed Islamist guerrillas. When the guerrillas swept into Kabul,
they not only went after the affiliates and the property of those associated
with the former government, they also started fighting each other over the
vacuum of power, sending the country into anarchy.
The most recent wave of reprisals involved
the Taliban and the small pocket of Northern Alliance fighters that resisted
the Taliban’s sweep of the country in late 1990s.
Whenever the Taliban advanced after strong
resistance, particularly in the north, they would resort to brutal tactics of
killings and indiscriminate destruction. When their regime fell after the American
invasion in 2001, many of those who had been on the receiving end allied with
the United States military and came after the Taliban.
Rahima Jami, a member of the Afghan
Parliament, is among Afghan politicians who urge caution in a peace deal, and see
the road ahead as extremely difficult. The Taliban’s desire for the return of
the power they lost has now been wrapped in a sense of vengeance, she says.
“I personally don’t believe that there will
be peace after a deal with the Taliban,” Ms. Jami said. “The group will try to
get the whole government, and as all the other political parties are armed they
will not agree and then fighting will start — a civil war, with fighting on
each street, and it will continue for many years.”
In recent years, the war has largely become
one fought by Afghans on both sides, with tens of thousands dead. Except for
rare occasions, the United States presence has mostly been reduced to air
support. As the war has spread, most of the bloodiest fighting happens between
groups from the local community, leaving a legacy of blood feuds.
Abdul Baqi Samandar, an Afghan activist,
urged the leadership on both sides to tread carefully. He said the foot
soldiers showed a capacity for acceptance during the brief cease-fire last
year, when the Taliban and Afghan fighters mingled and posed for photos. But
the leadership needs to be careful, he added, with what kind of ideas they
drill into their fighters during the final sprint.
“Our leaders, including the government,
should create the literature of peace,” Mr. Samandar said. “They should
convince fighting men on their side that they cannot clean blood with blood.”
