Afghans Suspect US/NATO Of Aiding Insurgents

Earlier this month, suave Tom Coughlan of London Times, broke this story about the Italian clandestine service paying insurgents in Sarobi district, near Kabul, and Herat province in western Afghanistan, not to attack their soldiers. The Times reported that Italian intelligence service gave “tens of thousands of dollars to Taliban commanders and local warlords to keep the area quiet.”

An anonymous NATO commander was quoted in that story, saying, “It was payments of tens of thousands of dollars regularly to individual insurgent commanders. It was to stop Italian casualties that would cause political difficulties at home.”

The Italian and Afghan governments strenuously denied the allegations, though the account was corroborated by a Taliban commander, as well as two Afghan military officials, in a follow up story by The Times.

Stories like these do little to change the mistrustful attitude that most Afghans have for the foreigners in their country. Rumors have begun to spread about other incidents where the coalition has supposedly helped out the very insurgents they are here to fight.

The latest talk is about helicopters. A number of eyewitnesses–one of whom I’ve spoken with, through a translator–have seen Taliban fighters being air-lifted into northern Afghanistan, specifically Baghlan province, in helicopters. Many Afghans are convinced that insurgents got the helicopters from the US.

Last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai confirmed the helicopter sightings without saying anything about their provenance. ”I hope in the near future we will find out who these helicopters belong to,” Karzai told reporters in Kabul.

But the rumor that these choppers are from the US is so pervasive, that the US ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eichenberry, released a statement denying that the US had anything to do with them.

“They are US helicopters,” said one Afghan friend of mine, over dinner at his house. “Where else could they have come from?”

The fact that they could have come from Russia, Pakistan, Iran or any of a number of countries made no difference to my friend, who is an intelligent, college-educated, progressive sort of guy. He and many other Afghans deeply mistrust the motives of US and NATO forces in this country. While most people here can’t tell me why the US would give helicopters to insurgents, when they look at what the Italians have allegedly done, to say nothing of US funding of Iranian terror groups, it is not hard for them to jump to conclusions.