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Kabul’s expanding ‘green zone’

March 20, 2019 | Expert Insights

The ‘Green Zone’ in Kabul is the walled-off compound of embassies and newsrooms, which is set to expand dramatically. It already imposes extreme limitations on its sheltered residents and stokes resentment among Afghans living outside.

Background 

Afghanistan is a landlocked country located in South and Central Asia. Afghanistan is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east; Iran in the west; Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north; and in the far northeast, China. Its territory covers 652,000 square kilometers and much of it is covered by the Hindu Kush mountain range, which experiences very cold winters.

In December 2001, after the Taliban government was overthrown in the Battle of Tora Bora, the Afghan Interim Administration under Hamid Karzai was formed, in which process the Taliban were typecast as 'the bad guys' and left out. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was established by the UN Security Council to help assist the Karzai administration and provide basic security. Taliban forces meanwhile began regrouping inside Pakistan, while more coalition troops entered Afghanistan and began rebuilding the war-torn country.

Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan, located in the eastern section of the country. It is also a municipality, forming part of the greater Kabul Province. According to estimates in 2015, the population of Kabul is 4.635 million, which includes all the major ethnic groups of Afghanistan. Rapid urbanization has made Kabul the world's 75th largest city.

Analysis 

Kabul’s central green zone is set in the affluent Wazir Akbar Khan neighbourhood. Trees pre-dating decades of war still stretch above the razor-wire topped walls that line once-tony streets patrolled by police and private security.

This zone grew from a cluster of fortified embassies after the Taliban’s 2001 overthrow by U.S.-led forces. In 2017, a truck bomb near the German embassy, one of the green zone’s entry points, killed or wounded hundreds, prompting further enlargement. Its rapid expansion reflects the Taliban’s increasing attacks on Kabul in recent years, in a strategy shift to counter its disadvantages against U.S.-backed air power outside the capital.

Kabul police commander Sayed Mohammad Roshandil said in an interview that the green zone has been a major success. Since the Germany embassy attack, there have been no security breaches of the zone, which spans three police districts, he said. A maximum of 150 trucks is allowed inside per day, with drivers verified by biometric scanners.

Police are now preparing to create a “blue zone” to surround the green zone, stretching the fortified area by between 1.5 and four kilometres, said Roshandil. The number of closed-circuit cameras throughout Kabul would more than double to 800 within the same period, he said, helped by a $42 million contribution from the Australian government.

However, beyond the grey concrete “T-walls” that surround the green zone, some Afghans resent the dangers and hassles they say such secure enclaves create. The development of the green zone, including NATO’s military base, in the middle of a crowded city, demonstrated disrespect for the security of local people. For those on the inside, the green zone features comforts that are rare elsewhere in Kabul. Generators fire up during the city’s frequent power cuts, living quarters are well-heated in winter and, during hot summers, swimming pools offer relief.

In an officially dry country, liquor flows at most embassies. Pet peacocks stroll the grounds of a United Nations compound. However, green zone embassies offer little of the freedom common to most diplomatic postings. Even travel within the zone is regulated. Security details forbid some diplomats from walking to neighbouring embassies, making necessary absurdly slow, short-distance drives through internal gates and over speed bumps.

Assessment 

Our assessment is that the expansion of Kabul’s ‘green zone’ will pose a major security issue for the future Afghan administrations, especially after the withdrawal of NATO troops. We believe that the disparity which exists between the residents of the green zone and the rest of Afghanistan will become a major point of contention for the residents of Kabul. 

 

Image Courtesy: Masoud Akbari (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kabul_traffic_-_panoramio.jpg), „Kabul traffic - panoramio“, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode