Smoke billows above coils of razor wire after an earth-shaking explosion kills one of Afghanistan’s most powerful generals. The next day, a young officer with a neatly trimmed beard accepts a new job during a brief ceremony in the wood-panelled office of a southern governor.
A strongman dies and another rises. The bloody politics of Afghanistan travelled full circle with the death of General Daud Daud in the north and the promotion of Brigadier-General Abdul Razik in the south. The fall of one mirrored the rise of the other, marking the loss of an older generation of warlords and the birth of a new class of often brutal allies to whom NATO intends to start transferring power this summer.
The success of that transition depends on characters who might be too unpleasant to deal with under other circumstances. Having failed to establish a working government in many parts of Afghanistan, NATO is increasingly dependent on so-called strongmen, commanders whose power comes not only from their affiliation with Kabul but from militias, tribes and, often, the narcotics trade.
The two generals, Daud and Razik, exemplify that strategy. Though from different ethnic groups – Gen. Daud was a northern Tajik while Gen. Razik is a southern Pashtun – much united them. Each gained fearsome authority in his respective territory. Both have been accused of – and denied – drug dealing and heavy-handed tactics. Staunch enemies of the Taliban, both were embraced by the U.S. military and intelligence agencies.
When an insurgent’s bomb killed Gen. Daud inside a high-security compound on May 28, his supporters protested in the streets and analysts described his death as a blow to the stability of northern Afghanistan.
The next day, when Gen. Razik was named acting police chief for Kandahar province while retaining his old job as the head of the border police in the Spin Boldak district, many welcomed his arrival as a sign that somebody was finally going to take vigorous action to curb the rising insurgency.
The cycle of death and promotion suggests a sort of continuity, analysts say. Western-backed strongmen will continue to be set against the Taliban, and the war will continue its trajectory of worsening violence.
For those hoping to end the conflict with a negotiated settlement, Gen. Razik’s appointment was discouraging. In his early 30s, wiry and energetic, he is precisely the opposite of an appeasing figure. A member of the governor’s staff in Kandahar once referred to him as an “attack dog” for the government, dispatched for the toughest assignments. When the governor felt himself losing control of Panjwai district in 2006, he sent Gen. Razik’s men on a sweep that left bodies rotting on the main road.
He has boasted that he prefers to avoid taking prisoners. Those captured alive who have survived detention in Spin Boldak have complained of grave mistreatment. Abdul Ghafar, a 25-year-old farmer, said he was returning home in 2006 when police halted his bus. They singled him out among the passengers and threw him into an unofficial dungeon in Spin Boldak, where he claimed to have been strung up by his ankles and suspended upside-down for long periods.
Gen. Razik could not be reached for comment on the prisoner’s allegation. The Afghan government denies torturing prisoners, and argues that Taliban suspects cannot be trusted to give honest accounts of their time in custody.
It is a testament to Gen. Razik’s burgeoning career that few people are now willing to repeat such stories. Haji Mohammed Qassam, a tribal elder and former member of Kandahar’s provincial council, offered nothing but praise for Gen. Razik when reached by telephone this week.
“The Taliban are very afraid of Abdul Razik,” Mr. Qassam said. “Even the Noorzai like him now, because he brings security.”
