Irish officer lived through simmering Afghan conflict

The fallout from last year's US bombing of Afghanistan, one of the world's forgotten conflicts, still dominates efforts to end that country's civil war, according to a senior Irish naval officer who has just returned from UN duty in the region.

Though he doesn't make much of it, Capt Peadar McElhinney could have been a victim of that fallout himself. The commander of the Naval Base at Haulbowline, Cork harbour - who has spent many years at sea, but has also served with the UN in the Middle East - had almost completed a landlocked year's posting as military head of the UN Special Mission to Afghanistan (UNSMA) when Irish viewers of CNN caught a glimpse of him on television. He was bearing the coffin of his deputy and flatmate, Lieut Col Carmine Calo.

Lieut Col Calo, an Italian officer with UNSMA, was in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on the morning of August 21st last when gunmen approached his vehicle and opened fire. He died from his wounds, while another UN official accompanying him sustained minor injuries. It led to the withdrawal of UN agencies from Afghanistan.

The shooting was in retaliation for US air strikes on Sudan and Afghanistan. The US defended the strikes as a warning to the wealthy Saudi Islamist rebel and Taliban ally, Mr Osama bin Laden. He has been blamed for last year's attacks on US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam which claimed the lives of 257 people.

Established in 1995, the Taliban movement claims to dominate 90 per cent of Afghanistan, but control in the northern region is opposed by an alliance of Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazaras. Spawned by the fragmentation of the mujahideen after Soviet withdrawal in 1987, it is supported by both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and opposed by Iran and Russia. Some international observers believe there has been tacit US support for the Taliban, fuelled by a desire to prevent Iran from controlling oil and gas pipelines emanating from neighbouring former states of the Soviet Union. Certainly, CIA support helped to build up Mr bin Laden during the Afghan war. However, US intelligence reports now also blame him for trying to kill the Pope, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, attacks on US forces in Somalia and the bombing of the World Trade Centre.

Stuck in the middle of all this has been the UN, which gave its nine-strong team the less than optimistic mandate of "peace-seeking" - as distinct from peacekeeping or peace enforcing. Based in the Pakistan capital, Islamabad, the senior military post on the mission has been held for the last few years by an Irish nominee. Capt McElhinney succeeded Col Kevin Hogan, of the Air Corps, in 1997, and he has now been replaced by Col Mick Lucey of the Army.

The conflict has all the complexity of the Northern peace process, and Afghanistan bears all the hallmarks of a region that has suffered repeated colonisation and invasion for strategic reasons. Ruled for centuries by various powers, including the Mongol Genghis Khan, it became an independent kingdom in 1747. In the last century, it became embroiled in the "great game" played between Britain and Russia for influence in central Asia.

It finally shook off the British grip in 1921, and was governed by a succession of monarchies until Soviet military occupation almost two decades ago.

The primarily agricultural economy has supported a feudal tradition, cultural isolation and rural conservatism. The civil strife is marked by a brutality similar to that in former Yugoslavia, but without the same international interest. One of Capt McElhinney's first trips on his arrival in October 1997 was to investigate the reported slaughter of 2,000 Taliban soldiers in the north.

"We were aware that many Taliban soldiers had been lost in fighting there, so we were naturally cautious. However, the local leader, Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum, was insisting that mass graves near Shebergan, to the east of Mazar-i-Sharif in the north, contained the bodies of 2,000 prisoners. They were soldiers who thought they were going to be exchanged, but were captured again by local militias and killed.

"When I talked to other prisoners and checked the figures, it transpired that about 2,000 were unaccounted for."

A team of UN technical experts gathered further evidence. The preliminary report found that a massacre had occurred, but that an exhumation of bodies would have to take place to confirm this. "This never occurred, because the Taliban movement then overran the north - and because of the subsequent UN suspension."

The justice system has further complicated the promised Taliban investigation into the shooting of Capt McElhinney's colleague - an investigation which is still not complete. "One would have to be satisfied that the right culprits had been found. And Lieut-Col Calo's widow, Maria, is opposed to execution."

The shooting has been attributed to rogue elements within the Taliban.