KABUL: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani plans to fire senior civilian and military leaders in the country’s most volatile provinces to reinvigorate the battle against militants as a suicide attack on Monday left nine people dead, officials said.

With Afghan security forces suffering high casualties in the run-up to the official Dec 31 end of the US and Nato combat mission, the newly elected president is eager to chart a new course. But the question remains what effect the shake-up will ultimately have in a war-torn country mired in corruption and riven by complex ethnic and tribal rivalries.

“Ghani feels there is a need for reform within the armed forces,” said Franz-Michael Mellbin, the special representative in Afghanistan for the European Union. “There is an inherent weakness in the way the armed forces have been managing their personnel that didn’t allow the best and brightest to step forward.”

Mr Ghani plans to replace officials in the northern provinces of Kunduz and Baghdis, Ghazni and Nangarhar provinces in the east bordering Pakistan and Helmand in the south, presidential spokesman Nazifullah Salarzai told the AP.

The provincial sweep will roll out over the next two to three months and will begin soon, he said.

“Senior government officials will be replaced,” Mr Salarzai said. Areas of all five provinces have been under Taliban control for years and security forces have suffered record-high casualties as they come under regular attack by insurgents.

A Nov 23 suicide bombing at a volleyball tournament in eastern Paktika province killed at least 50 people, making it Afghanistan’s deadliest terrorist attack this year.

The attacks put pressure on Mr Ghani’s administration, which earlier this month ordered a top-to-bottom review of the country’s military and security strategy. The review, which officials say will examine everything from battlefield strategy to the rules of engagement for Afghan security forces, is expected to be completed within six months.

One major resignation came on Sunday when Kabul police chief Gen Mohammad Zahir stepped down following a string of attacks in the capital over three days that killed four foreigners and several Afghan civilians.

On Monday, however, police spokesman Obidullah said that the Interior Ministry had rejected Gen Zahir’s resignation.

Already, President Ghani has signed a bilateral security agreement with Washington and a status of forces agreement with Nato that his predecessor Hamid Karzai declined to sign.

US President Barack Obama also has approved an expanded combat mission authorising American troops to engage Taliban insurgents – not just Al Qaeda – and to provide air support when needed.

SUICIDE BOMBING: Monday’s suicide blast that claimed nine lives ripped through a funeral in northern Afghanistan, officials said.

“A suicide bomber on foot detonated his explosives among people who were attending a funeral...in Burka district this morning,” Aminullah Amarkhil, police chief of Baghlan province, told AFP.

“Initial reports show nine people, including two police, were killed and around 18 wounded.”

Mr Amarkhil said the funeral was for a tribal elder in Baghlan, a province on the main road from Kabul to Mazar-i-Sharif that has suffered worsening security in recent years.

Taj Mohammad Taqwa, the district chief of Burka, said, “The target was probably a number of high-ranking police officials and provincial council members who were attending the [funeral] ceremony,” he said. “They are unharmed.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

President Ghani has reacted to the spate of attacks by describing the Taliban as “a small minority who want to hijack the nation”. “We won’t allow that,” he vowed.

Afghan soldiers and police have suffered soaring casualties on the battlefield, with more than 4,600 killed this year as they take on the Taliban with less assistance from the US military.

Afghanistan faces a fragile economy and declining aid funds as well as worsening violence.

Mr Ghani and chief executive officer Abdullah Abdullah, who signed a power-sharing deal in September, headed to a Nato meeting in Brussels on Monday before attending a conference in London on Thursday.

Their “national unity government” has struggled to get off the ground, with no ministers yet confirmed two months after Mr Ghani was inaugurated.

The then Afghan president Karzai opened preliminary contacts with the Taliban but they collapsed acrimoniously last year.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2014