After years of war in Kandahar, Taliban leaders now seek aid from former enemies
CBC
The Taliban's new police chief in Kandahar squints, steely-faced, as he mentions he "fought face-to-face" against the Canadians on the front lines of Panjwaii.
"They came here to invade Afghanistan, they destroyed villages, did nighttime attacks, with American support," said Abdul Ghafar Mohammadi, a former Taliban commander in the Panjwaii district just west of Kandahar City.
Mohammadi now holds the top enforcement job in the broader Kandahar Province, where Canadian Forces had bitterly fought the Taliban during its 13-year mission in Afghanistan.
"Our expectations now of Canadians, if they want to help Kandahar, they should send humanitarian aid," he said, a comment that ignores Canada's multimillion-dollar legacy of development projects, which the Taliban consistently tried to disrupt during the Afghan War.
During a half-hour interview with CBC News at Kandahar's police headquarters — built by the U.S. — Mohammadi answers questions methodically. But he does not look at the female journalist sitting in front of him.
WATCH | A return to Kandahar under Taliban control:
His media adviser, fluent in Pashto and English, breaks in periodically, coaching him on points for the international press.
"You've been around Kandahar — you see the security, how calm it is," said Mohammadi, echoing a Taliban claim that under its regime, security in the country has already improved.
But just 48 hours later, a powerful suicide bomb attack ripped into a Shia mosque, killing 47 people, in the biggest attack in Kandahar in years. ISIS-K — a militant group that is a sworn enemy of the Taliban — has claimed responsibility.
"When the Taliban came, we did not think that such incidents would happen in Kandahar," said the mosque's imam, Sarder Mohammad Zaidi.
Mohammadi is tasked with rebuilding Kandahar's police force after most of its former officers fled when the Taliban took control of the region in mid-August, fearing violent reprisals.
His mission is also to convince former enemies to restore the foreign assistance that propped up Afghanistan over the last two decades. According to the World Bank, 43 per cent of Afghanistan's GDP came from foreign aid and about 75 per cent of public spending was funded by foreign grants.
"We don't want to have bad relations with any country," said Mohammadi.
"Our door is open," he said. "We want a good relationship with the international community, because we want those countries to help Afghans to rebuild."
