How Western Forces Armed Brutal Warlords in Afghanistan: An Interview with Nagieb Khaja
As the 25th anniversary of the October 7, 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan approaches, documentary filmmaker Nagieb Khaja reveals how international military forces allied with local drug cartels and brutal commanders in rural regions, alienating local populations and paving the way for the 2021 Taliban return to power.
The Fallacy of Winning Hearts and Minds in Helmand Province
The strategic framework of the international intervention in Afghanistan centered heavily on winning the hearts and minds of local populations. According to documentary filmmaker and award-winning journalist Nagieb Khaja, reality on the ground in southern and eastern Afghanistan proved to be the exact opposite. Rural populations found themselves squeezed between insurgent forces and state-backed actors who engaged in systemic abuse.
Khaja addressed these dynamics in an interview on Democracy Now! alongside host Amy Goodman, discussing his investigative documentary Winning Hearts and Minds. Produced in collaboration with fellow filmmaker and former Danish soldier Martin Tamm Andersen, the film investigates the deployment of Danish and British troops to Musa Qala in Helmand province in 2006. The foreign forces were sent to defend local police against Taliban insurgents, operating under the assumption that the police represented legitimate local law enforcement.
Instead, local communities viewed those same police forces as a ruthless drug cartel.
Uncovering Warlord Atrocities and the Musa Qala Snowball Effect
During the production of the documentary, Khaja and Andersen embedded themselves with the forces of local leaders in Helmand province, including police chief Abdul Wali Koka and Issa Khan. While the commanders initially believed the filmmakers were creating a propaganda piece highlighting international cooperation, the journalists secretly investigated reports of severe human rights violations.
Interviews with local victims and verified sources detailed a pattern of violence. Lars Ulslev Johannesen noted in the film that his initial impression of Chief Koka was positive, while Mike Martin acknowledged the underlying reality that the allied commanders were frequently perceived as murderers, rapists, and drug traffickers. Testimonies featured in the documentary outline acts of collective punishment against villages and sexual violence, including the exploitation of young boys as sex slaves and chai boys.
Khaja described the alliance in Musa Qala as the starting point of a snowball effect. Because rural Afghans experienced the U.S., Danish, and British-backed police and warlords as significantly worse and more tyrannical than the Taliban, local support for international forces eroded completely. That loss of local backing accelerated across the southern provinces over the nearly twenty-year occupation, ultimately culminating in the collapse of the Western-backed government and the Taliban’s resurgence in 2021.
Confronting the Legacy of Multilayered Conflict
The historical record of the Afghan war demonstrates that ordinary citizens have borne the brunt of violence from multiple factions over decades of continuous warfare, including international military operations, Taliban insurgencies, and criminal cartels operating under the guise of state authority.
As the international community reflects on two and a half decades since the initial military intervention, the findings documented by journalists on the ground highlight the complex consequences of foreign military alliances with unverified local security forces.