ABSTRACT
The occupation of Afghanistan in 2001 has confronted the West with a variety of ethical issues. As always with security and intelligence operations, there are moral implications, with specific challenges in terms of accountability, the exercise of power and justice. However, whilst much of the focus in Western literature has been on actions of American and NATO forces, and in particular the more disturbing aspects of detainment and interrogation practised by American agencies, there has been less analysis of the ethical conduct of regional intelligence agencies such as Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) and the Taliban’s Amar bil Maruf wa Nahi an Al-Munkar (AMNAM). Furthermore, there has been insufficient consideration of the legacies of the Soviet occupation and civil war on the ethics and conduct of the various protagonists in the conflict since 2001. There have been some extreme examples of unethical behaviour by Afghans, but little acknowledgement of how the population were brutalised by the Soviet and old communist regime’s activities, their desperate attempts to preserve honour and position within tribal society, and their specific interpretations of the military ethics of Islam. The intention here is to offer a contrast between theoretical military ethics in Islam and the West, the Jihadist interpretation of those ethics, and the actual conduct of two agencies, the ISI and the Taliban (including the AMNAM), in the fields of security, intelligence and justice.
