Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in - United States ...

of money, narcotics, precursor chemicals, and weapons across Afghanistan’s criminal networks
have become increasingly apparent. Key figures within Afghan criminal networks are dependent
on their links to the international financial system, their capacity to invest the proceeds of their
illicit activities abroad, and their ability to travel freely outside of Afghanistan.
During the reporting period, however, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta endorsed COMISAF’s
September 2011 proposal requesting the creation of a Washington-based interagency body – the
Illicit Activities Initiative for Afghanistan – designed to develop cases and direct the application
of targeted sanctions and international law enforcement actions against criminal patronage
networks. This remains a high priority for Commander, US Force Command-Afghanistan.
ISAF is increasingly tailoring its operations to address transnational threats posed by the nexus
between the insurgency, the narcotics trade, organized crime, and corruption, which are
convergent and mutually reinforcing. The first quarter of 2012 saw the arrests of senior leaders
within narcotics-trafficking networks in Nangarhar and Helmand Provinces, as well as the
conviction of senior Nimruz trafficker Haji Eissa—demonstrating a steady rise in both sheer
numbers and the seniority of traffickers arrested and prosecuted. The insulation of the Afghan
Counternarcotics Judicial Center (CNJC) from chronic political interference and criminal
coercion has been central to the success of these efforts. Additionally, as a result of ISAF’s
mobilization of Afghan-vetted law enforcement units against the nexus of the insurgency,
narcotics trade, and criminal patronage networks, nearly half of the 29 sub-networks associated
with the ‘Top 10’ narcotics trafficking organizations have been operationally degraded.
In other countries that have struggled to overcome the interconnected challenges of terrorism,
insurgency, the narcotics trade, organized crime, and corruption, the ultimate reversal of these
threats has depended on the mobilization of civil society in support of national unity and reform.
Recognizing this, in coordination with the Afghan government, ISAF and its partners have set
out to identify and connect elements of civil society, including independent media, religious
figures, student organizations, and women’s groups, as well as Afghan civic education,
leadership development, and communications programs, in a long-term effort to generate
positive social pressure for counter-corruption reform.
AFGHAN COUNTER-CORRUPTION EFFORTS
Despite an expansive counter-corruption campaign led by CJIATF-Shafafiyat and ISAF in close
cooperation with the Afghan Government, counter-corruption efforts rely heavily on the capacity
and political will of the Afghan Government. During the reporting period, Afghan leaders –
including President Karzai – made limited progress in addressing corruption and instituting
reforms in cooperation with the international community.
Afghanistan’s principal anti-corruption institutions, the HOOAC and the Attorney General’s Office
(AGO), continue to have only minimal political support for enforcing transparency and
accountability within the Afghan Government. In response to sustained ISAF and interagency
engagement and influence, however, the Office of the Attorney General created a joint Afghaninternational
Special Cases Committee (SCC) designed to initiate and monitor the progress of
long-stalled, high-profile cases of corruption and organized crime. A HOOAC-led interministerial
investigative team, overseen by the SCC, is now making progress in the case of the
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