America’s New Hope: The Afghan Tribes

A Look at America’s New Hope: The Afghan Tribes – Ruhullah Khapalwak and David Rohde, New York Times

For three decades now, Communism, civil war and Islamic fundamentalism have laid siege to Afghanistan’s tribes. In many ways, Afghanistan’s tribal structure is arguably the weakest it has been in the country’s history. Nonetheless, American civilian and military leaders are turning to some of these tribes as potentially their best hope for success against the resurgent Taliban after being frustrated by the weak central leadership of President Hamid Karzai.

Tribes have existed for millennia in the area that is present-day Afghanistan. They emerged over centuries in various sections of the country, taking form along extended kinship lines. Led by councils of elders, tribes provided their members with protection, financial support, a means to resolve disputes, and punishment of those who had committed crimes or broken tribal codes of conduct. For Pashtuns, the country’s largest ethnic group and the Taliban’s primary source of support, tribes are particularly important. Successfully turning Pashtun tribes against the Taliban – or perhaps families or sub-tribes if they deal with the government on their own – could deliver a serious blow to the insurgency and potentially create a means of stabilizing the long-suffering country…

More at The New York Times.