KABUL (SW): On Wednesday afternoon (yesterday), armed militants attacked the Interior Ministry in Kabul. According to the ministry’s spokesperson, the attackers first blew up their explosives and subsequently entered the ministry’s building and started shooting at the security forces.
The new Ministry of Interior building is located at the airport road and has several belt and checkpoints to enter the building. To enter this building and breaking the security checkpoints is not an easy task; however, the attackers crossed the checkpoints easily and entered the compound of the MoI.
The terrorists attacked the MoI while the Interior Minister was on a trip with President Ghani visiting Mazar-e Sharif to open the 220 Kilowatts of electricity sub-station in Khalm district of Balkh province and the electricity distribution network in Marlim district.
Similar coincident happened on 16 May as well when on the morning of May 16, the Taliban invaded the city of Farah and seized parts of the city, in the same morning, the Interior Minister accompanied President Ghani to Logar province to open the 220 kilowatts of electricity sub-station in Arghandi in Logar province.
The question arises that what is the main responsibility of the Interior Minister; to provide security and safety to the cities or attend the inauguration ceremonies for infrastructure and developmental projects? If the duty of the Interior Minister is to attend these inauguration ceremonies for the infrastructure and developmental projects, what about the ministers of economy and energy and water? Who is responsible for the monitoring and providing security and safety to the citizens? What has made Wais Ahmad Barmak become so close to President Ghani? And…
Previously, the president called the MoI as “the heart of corruption”, and said corruption is one of the major challenges in the country under his rule and has added that strategies that were created to fight corruption were inadequate and the agencies created to fight corruption were doing corruption.
At that time, Wais Ahmad Barmak was not the Interior Minister, probably one of the reasons that the President would take the Interior Minister to the inauguration of the economic and infrastructure projects could be that the MoI might have gotten rid of the corruption inside the ministry. However, this possibility is too small, because just a few days ago, General Murad Ali Murad, the deputy security minister of MoI, at his goodbye party apologized to the police officers. He said, “police officers are in the worst condition”. He added that in Ghazni province in the south, Khost in the east, Uruzgan in the west, Daikundi in the central area, and several other provinces, the police force has no food to eat, and the MoI has not been able to do anything for them.
The sharp words of the General Murad Ali Murad showed that the corruption has not been eradicated from the MoI, therefore, the possibility that President Ghani has been taking the Interior Minister with him due to lack of corruption in the ministry to encourage other ministers, is far from the reality.
The second possibility is that President Ghani is worried about his assassination, which is why he takes the Interior Minister with him for his personal security. This possibility is also not justified because the president has guards who are professionally trained and there is no need for the Interior Minister to safeguard the President on his trips inside the country. The secret of why President has become too close to the Interior Minister is perhaps not known to anyone except to them.
Two years ago, President Ghani in his speech at the RUSI Institute in London where “Lights Movement” members called him lier and spoiled his speech, said that most of the ministers don’t know what the ministry is doing. Now, however, he himself takes a minister to projects inaugurations that have nothing to do with the responsibility of the ministry.
The absence of the minister in a ministry that is responsible to provide security and coordinate with other security sectors during the crisis can lead to lack of cooperation and lack of management during crisis.
As one of the main reasons for the fall of parts of Farah city into the hands of Taliban was the lack of coordination among the security agencies. On the same day, the interior minister went to Logar for the inauguration of the electricity projects with President Ghani instead of staying in the ministry and managing the crisis and coordinating with other security agencies in controlling the attack of Taliban. Yesterday the same vicious circle was repeated once again. The attack of terrorist on the MoI compound happened while the Minister of Interior was accompanying the President to Mazar-e Sharif for the inauguration of the electricity projects which raised much criticism of the Interior Minister on the social media networks.
One of the media owners wrote on his Twitter after the attack on the MoI, “one tells me what the interior minister is doing at the opening ceremony when the country is breaking apart”. Other users also criticized the Interior Minister’s visit to Mazar-e Sharif and twitted in criticism of him on their Twitter accounts.
It seems logical that President Ghani, instead of complicating the situation, would be better off to let the security ministers and officials concentrate on their responsibility providing security and safety to residents, and instead take the economy and energy ministers with him for the inauguration of the economic and infrastructure projects.
ENDS
