Tajik dominate Afghan Army

Tajik domination of the ANA feeds Pashtun resentment over the control of the country’s security institutions by their ethnic rivals, while Tajiks increasingly regard the Pashtun population as aligned with the Taliban. This could lead to civil war.

The leadership of the army has been primarily Tajik since the ANA was organized in 2002, and Tajiks have been over-represented in the officer corps from the beginning. But the original troop composition of the ANA was relatively well-balanced ethnically.
But the latest report of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, issued Oct. 30, shows that Tajiks, which represent 25 percent of the population, now account for 41 percent of all ANA troops who have been trained, and that only 30 percent of the ANA trainees are now Pashtuns.
A key reason for the predominance of Tajik troops is that the ANA began to have serious problems recruiting troops in the rural areas of Kandahar and Helmand provinces by mid-2007.

Meanwhile, Tajiks have maintained a firm grip on the command structure of the ANA. . Marshall Fahim put commanders from the Tajik-controlled Northern Alliance in key positions within the Ministry of Defense as well as the ANA command.

Mason recalled that the United States thought it had an agreement with President Hamid Karzai under which the command structure of the ANA would be reorganized on the basis of ethnic balance, starting with the top 25 positions.

But Karzai never acted on the agreement, Mason said.

Even after Fahim was stripped of his government and military positions by Karzai in 2004, his appointee as ANA chief of staff, Gen. Bismullah Khan, remained as head of the army. Tajiks have continued to occupy the bulk of the positions in the Ministry of Defense

A United Nations official in Kabul estimated that, as of spring 2008, no less than 70 percent of all kandaks (battalions) were commanded by Tajiks, as reported by Italian scholar Antonio Giustozzi.