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“The Afghan state needs 

to take visible, high-profile 

action to demonstrate its 

commitment to the security 

and well-being of Kunduz.”

December 2015

Security and Social Developments 

in Kunduz

Peyton Cooke

Email: pcooke@usip.org

Eliza Urwin

Email: eurwin@usip.org

PEACEBRIEF196

Why Did Kunduz Fall? 

Ongoing investigations and assessments are still trying to establish the factors that led to the 

temporary fall of Kunduz to Taliban control in late September and early October. However, at this 

point, certain key themes have begun to emerge from USIP field interviews with former government 

officials, civil society organizations, and security actors conducted throughout October.1 These 

interviews raise critical questions for Afghanistan’s future security. 

The fall of Kunduz was not, generally speaking, a surprise. The Taliban and their allies had occupied multiple districts and villages in Kunduz for months, and sources inside and outside the government had been reporting on Kunduz’s plight for some time. What was lacking was not foresight but 

rather a proactive government response. 

Social and political divisions heightened the likelihood of Kunduz falling. Poor coordination and 

communication between key political figures prevented them from implementing any joint response 

to Taliban threats. Ethnic divisions further undermined a broad-based response to the Taliban.2

 Tajiks, 

and to a lesser extent Uzbeks, tend to dominate pro-state security forces in Kunduz (including the 

Summary

• Long-standing social and political grievances, combined with an unresponsive and factionalized 

government and abusive militias, facilitated the Taliban’s capture of Kunduz. Taliban messaging 

was relatively effective in using these grievances to their advantage. 

• The Afghan government’s response seems to be largely military and security focused. 

• However, the government must rebuild trust with the people of Kunduz, including civilian 

reform alongside any military response, to prevent further deterioration; but civil society skepticism of civilian reforms remains high. 

• The government must also develop more robust anti-insurgency messaging.

• Civil society with deep roots in Kunduz should play a central role in rebuilding trust between 

communities as well as between civilian and government spheres. 

• The international community should consider providing funds for the rebuilding of Kunduz but 

only under stringent conditions. 
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Security and Social Developments in Kunduz

Page 2 • PB 196 • December 2015

police and official or unofficial militias). Several interviewees indicated that these forces—militias 

especially—had a tendency to target Pashtun communities out of a combination of ethnic chauvinism 

and suspected support for the Taliban. 

The combination of an unresponsive, factionalized government and a large number of abusive 

militias contributed to popular distrust of the Afghan state. As the Taliban took control of districts in 

Kunduz surrounding the city itself, public concern over the lack of government response was palpable. 

A significant number of people suspected state collusion with the Taliban. More prosaically, a large 

number of interviewees reported hearing instances of government forces selling equipment to the 

Taliban or coordinating the handover of checkpoints. 

Taliban messaging was relatively effective. Rather than centering its messaging around the 

creation of an Islamic state, the Taliban focused on the Kabul government’s inability to defend 

Kunduz and protect its own interests. Interviewees tended to state that these messages were notably 

effective in instilling fear and doubt in the local population, lessening their desire and capacity to 

challenge the Taliban. 

How the Government Should Respond: Views from Civil Society

There is general agreement regarding how civil society and the Afghan government should respond 

to the province’s fall. Interviewees especially emphasized the following:

To begin, respondents stated that the government needs to initiate, or continue, offensive 

operations against the Taliban. Many respondents blame the fall of Kunduz, in part, on the fact that 

key districts were allowed to become strongholds for the Taliban earlier in the year. They see renewed 

offensive operations in the surrounding districts as the only measure to ensure that the city does not 

fall again in the coming months and, crucially, as a measure to restore the credibility of the government and Afghan forces. 

The government will need to accompany any military offensives with civilian reform. This reform 

should promote coordination among provincial government officials, particularly the Chief of Police 

and Governor. It should also promote accountability between district officials and their nominal 

supervisors at the provincial level. Many respondents were skeptical that government efforts—such as 

rewarding military officers involved in retaking Kunduz, replacing regional government officials, and 

setting up a commission of inquiry chaired by Amrullah Saleh and Farooq Wardak—would send the 

necessary messages or affect the necessary changes.

Reform efforts cannot stop with state reform alone. There must be efforts to rebuild trust between the government and the people, as well as between population segments. Renewed military 

offensives and merit-based appointments could help, but the government would need to build on 

these efforts by increasing their messaging and other macro- and micro-level public outreach efforts. 

Interviewees described a government with essentially no outreach at all, which leaves a space for the 

Taliban and other insurgents to fill. 

Civil society also has a crucial role to play. In addition to the breakdown between state-society 

relations, many interviewees report a deterioration of social relations in Kunduz. However, a number 

of nongovernmental organizations have maintained sufficient community relations to allow them to 

operate even in areas of Taliban control. Such civil society organizations thus have a crucial role to play 

in peacebuilding, dialogue facilitation, the joint identification of community priorities, and increasing 

government understanding of popular concerns. They can also serve as a convening authority for 

state-community dialogue, helping to ensure the genuine exchange of views and the establishment 

of relations on which future cooperation can be built. 
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Security and Social Developments in Kunduz

Page 3 • PB 196 • December 2015

The Expected Response of the Afghan Government

Interviewees, however, expect the government to focus mostly on security and were doubtful 

(though not entirely dismissive) as to whether broader governance reform would come to fruition. 

Here, again, the lack of clear and consistent government messaging appears to have undermined 

confidence: Even interviewees who are well connected with government officials stated they were 

largely in the dark about what the government intended to do in Kunduz. 

Some interviewees did expect the government to begin to retake other areas of Kunduz from the 

Taliban, and operations seem to have begun at the time of writing.3 Most interviewees, however, 

expected a majority of Taliban forces to remain in Kunduz province during the winter rather than 

return to safe havens in Pakistan. In these interviewees’ estimation, the Taliban have already captured 

sufficient territory and supplies to winter comfortably in the province, and many believe that there 

may be another attempt to retake the city and possibly neighboring provincial districts. 

Features of the expected government response have already been illustrated by two recent developments: the elevation of Amanullah Guzar to zonal police commander for Afghanistan’s northern 

region4—comprising Samangan, Faryab, Jawzjan, Sar-e Pol, and Balkh provinces—and the announced 

expansion of the Afghan Local Police (ALP).5

Amanullah Guzar, a member of the Jamiat-e Islami political party, led antigovernment forces in 

northern Afghanistan during the war against Afghanistan’s Communist regime. Interviewees with a 

military or security background tended to be somewhat optimistic about this appointment, noting 

that Guzar is an effective military commander who can “get things done.” Others, particularly those 

from a civil society background, were more negative, noting Guzar’s reputation for brutality and 

expressing fear that Guzar, a Tajik, would persecute Pashtuns in the North—potentially undermining 

ethnic relations even further. 

Around the time of Guzar’s elevation, the Afghan government also announced plans to expand the 

ALP by fifteen thousand men. A government-backed militia force nominally under the command of a 

given district’s chief of police, the ALP has a mixed reputation. Some interviewees noted that the ALP 

can be an effective anti-Taliban force, praising its performance in eastern provinces, such as Nangarhar. 

Yet even those interviewees who spoke positively about the ALP questioned its appropriateness in 

Kunduz, which is already beset by innumerable militias with a nebulous relationship to the Afghan 

state.6

 They also noted that government and international forces frequently disregarded the ALP’s 

vetting procedures, allowing illegal militias to gain ALP status without background checks and other 

safeguards. They further proffered that Kunduz may lack the social, and particularly tribal, structures 

that could effectively supervise ALP forces and prevent them from preying on the local community 

when they should be protecting it. 

Recommendations

• The Afghan state needs to take immediate steps to reestablish trust with the population 

of Kunduz. While trust building is always a slow process, in the short term the Afghan state 

needs to take visible, high-profile action to demonstrate its commitment to the security and 

well-being of Kunduz. Over and over again, interviewees related how the people of Kunduz 

felt the Afghan state had abandoned them. This feeling of abandonment almost certainly 

contributed more to the fall of Kunduz than any latent support for the Taliban. 

• The Afghan state must take measures to improve its strategic communications. Before 

the Taliban took Kunduz, the government had neither communicated clearly that it was 

taking the situation seriously nor that it had developed a plan for the city. To the contrary, 
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Security and Social Developments in Kunduz

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it seems to have conducted virtually no messaging at all—allowing even simple Taliban 

messaging to dominate. In a situation where many people in Kunduz seem to have viewed 

the state as badly uncoordinated and blatantly self-interested, communicating state plans 

and accomplishments becomes even more vital. 

• Afghan civil society should begin designing trust-building and peacebuilding initiatives 

locally tailored to the Kunduz context. Given its technical expertise and relatively good 

reputation, Afghan civil society should, at this time, lead on trust-building initiatives with 

the sometimes antagonistic sections of the Kunduz population. Civil society organizations 

can also support the government in improving its messaging, in outreach to various Kunduz communities, and in providing the government with ground-level social and political 

information. Funding should focus on those civil society organizations with significant 

history in the province and a proven ability to operate safely and effectively.

• The international community should consider making conditional funding available for 

the rebuilding of Kunduz. Because of its current fiscal position, the Afghan government 

probably does not have sufficient funding for trust-building or peacebuilding initiatives in 

Kunduz. However, any international funding should be conditional upon recipient organizations having deep roots in Kunduz and a genuine connection with the local population. 

Additional funding for security forces should be conditioned on those forces following 

rigorous vetting procedures and agreeing to abide by international human rights standards. Finally, international funding of militia-type forces should support plans for their 

integration with Afghan security forces more generally.

• Any response must focus on the northeast region and not Kunduz alone. Neighboring 

provinces display different power structures, and lessons learned from Kunduz are not 

necessarily applicable. Nevertheless, a response focused exclusively on Kunduz may permit 

surrounding areas to become Taliban strongholds as insurgent forces vacate Kunduz, recreating the conditions of the latter province’s recent fall. Both the government of Afghanistan 

and the international community must take broader regional issues into consideration when 

elaborating their response.

Notes

1. All interviews were conducted anonymously given the sensitivity of the subject.

2. Jonathan Goodhand and Aziz Hakimi, “Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, and Statebuilding in 

Afghanistan,” Peaceworks no. 90, United States Institute of Peace, January 2014, www.usip.org/

sites/default/files/PW90-Counterinsurgency-Local-Militias-and-Statebuilding-in-Afghanistan.pdf.

3. See Sayed Sharif Amiri, “Taliban Loses Key Kunduz Base In Dasht-e-Archi District,” Tolo News,

November 16, 2015, www.tolonews.com/en/afghanistan/22363-taliban-loses-key-kunduzbase-in-dasht-e-archi-district.

4. At the time of interviews for this Peace Brief, rumors circulated widely that Amanullah Guzar 

would be elevated to be security commander not of the North, but the Northeast, including 

Kunduz—thus interviewees’ focus on this appointment in particular. 

5. Mujib Mashal, “Afghan Plan to Expand Militia Raises Abuse Concerns”, New York Times, October 

16, 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/10/17/world/asia/afghan-local-police-taliban.html. 

6. On this issue, see Goodhand and Hakimi, “Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, and Statebuilding,” noting, amongst other points, that Kunduz has been unusually prominent in the foundation and expansion of Afghan militias. 

About This Brief

The Taliban capture of Kunduz in 

September 2015 raised questions 

regarding future political and 

security implications across the 

northeast region of Afghanistan. 

This Peace Brief highlights views 

from a range of actors comparing 

what the government’s political and 

security response should look like 

and what it’s expected to look like, 

as well as offering recommendations for government, civil society, 

and the international community. 

Peyton Cooke and Eliza Urwin are 

the senior program officers at USIP’s 

Kabul office.