Ghazni Province - Political and Security Situation

Political and Security Situation

Like many southern Afghan provinces, Ghazni has a precarious security situation. The Taliban are reported to control most of the rural areas outside of the capital, and are heavily involved in attacks on provincial schools and government infrastructure. The province has avoided the outright warfare seen in other areas of Afghanistan such as Helmand Province and Kandahar Province, but that is due more to political expediency and the tactical plans of the NATO ISAF force than the existence of a stable security situation in the province. Ex-Governor Taj Mohammad was killed by terrorists in 2006 after being appointed police chief of the province with a mandate to quell the power of the Taliban. On the same day there was an unsuccessful attempt on the life of the governor at the time, Sher Alam Ibrahimi. There is a Polish and American Provincial Reconstruction Team base located in Ghazni City.

Since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, there has been a Provincial reconstruction base and a Nato forces base. These western forces (mostly Polish Armed Forces) are hunting Taliban militants and al-Qaida, who are still active in the area causing deaths to Afghan government employees and local civilian population of the province as well. Ghazni has seen a steady increase in violence. NATO and Afghan forces fight regularly with insurgents in the area, but there has not been a push to roll back their gains comparable to efforts in the southern Taliban heartlands of Kandahar and Helmand.

• In late April 2007, news agencies reported that Taliban fighters had taken control of Giro District in the province. The Taliban reportedly killed the district administrator, chief of police (who had been on the job for only one month) and three police officers. The Taliban withdrew from the district center one day later.

• In July 2007, 23 South Korean volunteers were kidnapped in the Ghazni province by the Taliban. Two of them were killed and their bodies were dumped in various places. As of August 1, security force was planned to be deployed to secure the release of those kidnapped.

• On September 28, 2010, the Deputy Governor of Ghazni and five others were killed after a suicide bomber on a motorized rickshaw attacked their vehicle. Deputy Governor Mohammad Kazim Allahyar and several men travelling with him were killed instantly when the attacker detonated his explosives at the back of their car near the airport in Ghazni City. The bodies were so badly burnt that there was some confusion about the identity of the other victims. Provincial police chief Delawar Zahid reported Allahyar's son, nephew and driver died, along with two civilians passing by on a bicycle.
• In early December 2010, Afghanistan's election commission, defying President Hamid Karzai, certified the final tally from the September 18 elections with a controversial decision to give all 11 seats in Ghazni Province, where Taliban kept the Pashtun majority from the polls, to members of the ethnic Hazara minority. The Afghan attorney general declared the publication of election results illegitimate and opened a criminal probe against officials at both election commissions (Afghan and international), accusing them of accepting bribes and falsifying vote tallies.