By Sayed Madadi, Jalil Raunaq, Sakina Amiri, and Amir Behnam
In the summer of 2021, when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban’s control, Khodarahm was busy under the blazing sun on his farmlands in a remote village in Nawur, Ghazni. For villagers like him who rely on subsistence agriculture, summer means relentless labour. It is also the season when the Kochis, nomadic tribes from the south-eastern and Eastern parts of the country begin arriving in the area in search of water and pasture.
One day during that particular summer two years ago, an armed Kochi man showed up at Khodarahm’s door, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and showed him a broken tooth. The man claimed that Khodaraham had broken that tooth 18 years ago—when Khodaraham was just a 15-year-old boy. He was asking for 52,000 Pakistani rupees (equivalent of $400) as compensation. The man threatened that he would ‘use his gun’ if Khodaraham did not comply. The accusation sounded preposterous not the least because the tooth the man had brought was not even his own. He interchangeably said the owner was either too old to make the trip from Pakistan or that he was already dead.
Neither Khodaraham nor anyone else in the village could recall a clash with Kochis in 2003. But that did not matter. Kochis had extorted villagers for decades and the Taliban’s return to power had taken away any avenue to seek justice for villagers. So, Khodaraham ran around to borrow the money and paid the Kochi man. However, his predicament was not a one-time incident, but the beginning of the village’s entanglement with bogus complaints, allegations, and conflict with Kochis. The nomadic tribes claimed that villagers had killed one of them and had to pay 1.2 million Afghanis (more than $15000) in blood money. In another case, Kochis claimed that their livestock had been stolen and a shepherd had been injured. They asked for 100,000 Pakistani Rupees in compensation.
The next year, Khodaraham left his farming in the village and turned to daily labour in the city to pay that debt to the Kuchis which the village had accumulated almost overnight.
Local conflicts between sedentary populations and nomadic tribes are over a century old. The Kochis are ethnic Pashtuns who spend the winter mostly in Pakistan’s tribal areas and the summer travelling across Afghanistan. For decades, they have relied on state support to access pastures across the country. Some of them claim that their tribes were given pasture rights by Afghan kings as early as the late 19th century. It was around the same time Amir Abdul Rahman Khan who ruled with an iron fist from 1880 to 1901 demarcated most of the borders for what is today Afghanistan and embarked a brutal military campaign to unify a geography of feudal fiefdoms that had little in common. Hazaras, an Asiatic Shia community whose suppression was at the heart of Amir’s state-building campaign populate today’s central Afghanistan where land dispute between villagers and nomads is pervasive. By some historical accounts, thousands were killed, and hundreds of thousands more were taken and sold into slavery or were displaced. Since then, the nomadic tribes have functioned as an important instrument of state policy to control population and generate revenue across the country. Most of the so-called pasture land-titles given to nomads also belong to this period.
Over multiple decades, demographic changes and conflict have displaced the local populations and disrupted the nomads’ migratory tours. Many of them also settled around cities, adopting a life of urban preoccupation. For example, more than 80 percent of the Tarakhel tribe were settled as of 2017 according to official figures of the former government. Yet, Mawlawi Tarakhel who owned numerous businesses in Kabul served as a parliament member for over 15 years representing the Kochis, a constituency whose voting district was the entire country. However, when the migration season came, the settled tribesmen continued to show up in villages, not with camels and swords, but often with tractors, pick-up tracks and the AK-47 automated rifles.
These tensions have seen renewed uptick since the Taliban’s takeover, transforming what used to be local conflicts between two sides into an extortion spree. The Kochis have continuously been filing complaints similar to the one against Khodarahm in Nawur distirct with the Taliban authorities, accusing villagers of harming their members in incidents dating back decades. The Taliban or the local dispute resolution councils under their supervision often side with the Kochis, ordering villagers to pay blood money and compensation. The trend has led to an alarming rise in extortion, displacement, property seizures and destruction of arable land, adding new layers to already complex conflict dynamics.
The Taliban’s return to power has also coincided with the peak of a multi-year drought, the most severe in decades. Effects of climate change such as crop failures, scarcity of water and pasture lands have further intensified these tensions. According to climate and agriculture experts, the country has seen a steady erosion of pasture lands at least since 1987. Snowless winters, relentless hot summers, recurrent droughts, melting glaciers, and increasing rate of desertification pose existential threats to pastures. The surge in population growth and the transformation of land for agriculture, urbanization, and habitation further strengthen the potential drivers of conflicts. In such an environment, nomadic tribes have returned to areas where they did not show up for decades such as some parts of Parwan province. Many around Afghanistan, particularly in central and northern parts rely on subsistence agriculture that leave no surplus beyond what they can barely provide for their families. The nomads’ demands for compensation, blood money, and other monetary or material payments are supported by a justice system that villagers say is biased in favor of Pashtun tribes and blind to the plight of rural populations.
Our findings show that the Kochis directly supported by the Taliban forces have extorted hefty sums from the rural populations across Afghanistan. They have brought claims related to incidents that are decades old without presenting any evidence. In some cases, tribesmen have claimed that villagers’ grandparents owed them money that should be paid back. In other instances, they have sought compensation for their animals’ waste.
From September 2021 until August 2023, villagers have paid Kochis 15750,000 Afghanis (more than $300,000) and 21500,000 Pakistani Rupees as blood money—nearly half a million dollars. They have paid another 1166,000 Afghanis and 2500,000 Rupees as Diyya, the compensation in Islamic law for unintentional bodily harm. In seven cases of claims of property damage, villagers have paid 27,000 Afghanis and 809,000 Rupees to Kochis. Moreover, the Taliban have also issued rulings in cases totalling 2500,000 Afghani as bloody money and 40200,000 Afghani as compensation, which rural residents had not been able to pay until the summer of 2023 when preliminary investigation for this report concluded.
Additionally, the Kochis, with direct support from the Taliban, have usurped arable land, houses, and in some cases entire villages, forcing residents to vacate their indigenous habitats. In one case in Sar-e-Pul province, nomads claimed the ownership of more than 1400 acres of land. In another case in Bamyan, Kochis demanded residents in a district center to pay for two decades of water usage claiming that the water distribution system belonged to them. As a consequence of these claims, more than 1000 families have been displaced. Over 90 percent of the displaced families were in Takhar province in the northeast. Dozens of families were also displaced in three villages in Badghis province in the northwest.
Ghazni’s Nawur district, rich in flat grazing land, has become a battleground for such disputes. In September 2021, residents of Cheragh Sang village reluctantly paid 27,000 Afghanis to Kochis for two allegedly stolen sheep, following a Taliban ruling that skipped any investigation. The next month, Kochis demanded a staggering 11.5 million rupees as blood money from residents of Qoriya village, accusing them of killing a nomad in 2004 and taking 20 guns of theirs—the man was killed in a clash with security forces of the former government. When villagers refused to pay, Kochis took the matter to the Taliban who forced the villagers to comply within a month. It took residents of Qoriya over a year to pay the full amount, during which several of them were detained and tortured by the Taliban.
In September 2022, a Taliban commander named Mawlavi Abdul Ali Barlah led three councils in Nawur that issued verdicts on such disputes. The first one required the residents of Bariki village to pay 1.25 million Afghanis for the killing of a Kochi man named Jano in 2002 based on a complaint by his two sons. The verdict, a copy of which we reviewed, read: “We, the mediation council, after investigating both sides and neighboring people conclude that the killer is unknown. So, the people of Bariki must visit the home of the martyr Jano’s parents to pay respect and 1.25 million Afghanis to his children in compensation.” The second judgment mandated 100,000 Pakistani Rupees claiming, without any evidence, that Bariki residents had beaten a nomad shepherd and had stolen five sheep. In another case, residents paid the Kochis 30,000 Pakistani Rupees for destroying a well that Kochis had dug on their arable land—the well had naturally fallen. We were able to confirm that 60 families in Bariki contributed to raising the total amount in these three cases according to the size of their arable land.
Early spring in 2022, the Kochis filed a claim with the Nawur district government that a man and a woman, Sima and Akhtar Jan, from the Bazarkhil tribe had been killed in the Nawur Desert. They asked that residents of three villages, Bahayi, Emran, and Nawabad pay 10 million Afghanis in blood money. In a verdict issued on 23 September, 2022, that KabulNow has seen, the Taliban local government ruled in favor of the claimants and ordered the villagers to pay the amount and apologize to the nomadic tribe. According to multiple sources, the verdict was issued while two villagers were in Taliban detention. The document requests the Kochis to release the men in detention, implying that they were held by the Kochis rather than the local Taliban authorities. Prior to that, the Taliban had detained nine elders from the three villages in relations to these cases. Local sources said the Taliban claimed that the two individuals were killed 20 years ago. Unable to afford the sums, in October 2022, villagers sent a letter to the Hazara diaspora in Europe and Australia asking them to chip in.
In a separate ruling, the Taliban approved Kochis’ demands for 2 million Afghanis in compensation from residents of Oarchogo and Wagh villages in Nawur, citing the injury of a Kochi woman. When the villagers refused, some were imprisoned by the Taliban. They were released after partial payment—eventually the full amount was paid. This past summer, Kochis injured two men from Orchogho village who tried to prevent two herds belonging to the nomads from grazing on their agricultural farms. In other cases, Hazara villagers across Ghazni paid restitution in a variety of cases ranging in monetary amount from 200,000 to 1.4 million Afghanis.
In all cases, the Taliban local authorities or dispute resolution councils directed by them had ruled in favor of the nomadic tribes except in one instance where the villager accused of killing a horse was 25-year-old man. Residents appealed to the Taliban, arguing that it would have been impossible for the man to have killed the horse 22 years ago as the Kochis claimed—when he was only three years old. In other cases, the nomadic tribes asked for compensation for random claims such as burning the waste from their livestock or a woman who had died after a tractor had capsized. In none of these cases did the Kochis present evidence, claiming that the incidents in question had happened as early as in the 1980s.
The conflicts between local populations and the Kochis is not limited to Ghazni or even central highlands. Northern Afghanistan has also seen Kochis return after years, in most cases with arbitrary claims on the people’s property.
The Taliban has a draconian justice system characterized by corporal punishments such as death penalty, chopping of hands and stoning. However, in no case did the Kochis press criminal charges, nor did the Taliban punish the villagers they found guilty, even in cases of alleged murder. Our investigations show that claims were filed with the sole motive of extorting monetary benefits from villagers rather than any pursuit of justice. These claims, in most instances, have forced the rural populations to sell their livestock and leave their villages.
Timor Shah and his son, Ali Shah, were killed 26 years ago in Asimadan area of Sar-e-Pul province in factional feuds along with 13 other men. A few years before the incident, Timor Shah, a Kochi, came to Asimadan, a predominantly Hazara area, and asked the villagers to let his family spend the winter there. The winter passed by, spring came, and summer followed. Timor Shah built a small summer hut and planted a few trees in front of it. After he was killed, his family left. But his relatives kept going to Asimadan to use the pastures until the first Taliban regime collapsed in 2001. The villagers did not see them for 20 years. Last year, Timor Shah’s relatives returned to Asimadan. This time, however, they did not want to graze on the pastures. They claimed to own them, some 1452 hectares of land, to be exact. They asked for blood money for the killing of Timor Shah and Ali Shah, the destruction of trees in front of his hut, and charged the local population for using the land for two decades. In the interim, they leased the pastures to other livestock farmers, all Pashtuns. The Taliban district court ruled in favour of them and ordered the villagers to pay them 36 million Afghanis for the destruction of trees. The local court also approved the Kochis’ claim that villagers had destroyed 30 village complexes belonging to six Kochi families and had loathed the livestock there—no evidence was presented. Residents say only Timor Shah lived there briefly while their ancestors have lived on the land for over 100 years. They claim that the Taliban judge, Qari Saifullah, asked the Kochis to give him land titles in return for favourable rulings. Qari Saifullah denied the allegations.
From 1500 families living in Asimadan, half of them were preparing to leave the area by the end of summer when data for this report was gathered. One of them said, “last year, people sold their livestock. This year, they have no livestock or land. They have to leave.” Unable to pay the amount, Asimadan residents have let the Kochis lease out their pastures and farmlands. They have also gone to Kochi families to ask for forgiveness for wrongs they did not commit, the killing of Timor Shah and Ali Shah, hoping that it could return their livelihood. It did not.
Around the same time, the Taliban gave 60 hectares of land in Sar-e-Pul city, the provincial capital, to Kochi tribesmen. The land belonged to Uzbeks, one of the aboriginal populations in northern Afghanistan.
In Daikundi too, Kochis not only have claimed land and prevented local farming, they have also charged locals for using the land over the years. In the summer of 2022, Kochis from Kakar, Taimani, and Sini tribes went to Khedir district and claimed the entire Ghamqol village—the name means the village of sorrow. Village elders went to file a complaint at the provincial capital. The police chief in Daikundi, Sediqullah Abed, imprisoned the elders. Around the same time, nearly 700 Hazara families were forcibly displaced by the Taliban from two villages in Gizab district. In one document KabulNow has seen, two Kochi men have demanded 300,000 Afghanis from villagers. Local residents say nearly 100 families had to pay 50,000 Afghanis each to Kochis. They had to sell their livestock and crops to find the money. The next year, Kochis came back from Helmand and Uruzgan, asking villagers to vacate the village and pay half of their crops’ prices to them. In the Miramor district, Kochis claimed ownership of 12 villages and demanded residents to pay for harvesting the land in the past 20 years. Kochis kidnapped three men from these villages and told the residents that they will be released only when the case is adjudicated in their favour.
Similar to these cases, land disputes in Takhar, particularly in Khwaja Bahawuddin, have resulted in violent clashes between Kochis and local populations which resulted in the forced displacement of around 600 Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara families. the Taliban facilitated the relocation of nomadic Pashtun tribes from Pakistan’s tribal belt and southern Afghanistan to the area and resettled them in mosques, schools, and some in people’s houses. Kochis have claimed eight villages on the banks of the Kokcha and Amu rivers, some of the most fertile lands in Takhar. In clashes with the local population, Kochis have killed at least three men, injured around 50 villagers, and forcibly evicted at least 80 families from their properties. The Taliban prevented people from Rustaq, Chaha’ab, and Yangi Qala districts from coming to the defense of villagers in Khawja Bahauddin.
The Taliban appointed a dispute resolution delegation led by Kazim Tareq, deputy governor in Takhar. The delegation ordered 400 families to vacate their houses for tribesmen who had recently arrived. Instead, the Taliban promised to give 160 hectares of land to the displaced families. Later, the Taliban earmarked 1500 hectares to appease Pashtun tribes who had protested to the resettlement of villagers.
Last summer, after Taliban’s interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani visited Takhar, 320 members of Tahrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP) resettled in Dasht Qala district in Takhar. The Taliban and Pakistani authorities confirmed the relocation of TTP in Takhar. Before that, 300 Kochis settled in Nawabad Sajjani village in Khawja Bahauddin. In Dasht Qala, Pashtun nomadic tribes claimed villagers’ land and houses. They protested but only faced Taliban crackdown. In September 2022, the Taliban executed Masoud Mujahid, the Nawabad village council’s head. One day later, they executed another protester.
In Panjshir where the Taliban led a deadly crackdown in the name of quelling the National Resistance Front, Kochis and the Talibs have prevented villagers from accessing pastures in the Hindu Kush heights. Taliban have asked villagers to fill out a security form before going for grazing their livestock, a measure limiting subsistence for illiterate farmers. Residents in Paryan district, for example, confirmed to KabulNow that they have been prohibited from using the pastures despite filling out the form.
In the neighboring Parwan’s Shaikhali districts, Kochis showed up last spring after 45 years. In skirmish with the local people, they injured 20 villagers who tried to prevent Kochis from destroying their farmlands. In another conflict in Shaikhali, one Kochi and 10 villagers were injured. Even in western Kabul, 15 Hazara houses were destroyed by the Taliban after Kochis claimed they were built on their grazing lands. The claimants presented no evidence to establish their ownership of the land.
Faryab in northern Afghanistan is another province rich in pasture lands that has seen the return of Kochis backed by the Taliban’s iron fist. Its residents are predominantly Uzbeks. Early this past summer, Kochis attacked the residence of Sakhi Rais, a former pro-government militia commander, to apparently steal his stock of grains. They killed his mother and injured two other women. Last winter, Kochis usurped farmlands and pastures of Uzbeks in seven villages in Khawja Musa district. They attacked villagers, who had erected tents on the farmlands in protest, in the presence of Taliban’s deputy governor. Mohammad Zarif, a resident of Khawja Musa, told KabulNow that the Taliban assaulted him and his mother, and detained his father. In Spring 2023, Kochis attacked grazing lands of Turkmens in Dawlatabad district and injured eight villagers. A month later, Kochis attacked Aimaqs, a small minority, in Qaisar district. Before that, Kochis went to Qosh Tape district and barred villagers, mostly Uzbeks and Turkmens, from farming their lands for the fall harvest season. They claimed the lands belonged to them.
We were also able to confirm land grabbing and extortion in Jawzjan, Balkh and Badghis provinces. In Jawzjan province, Kochis, supported by the Taliban, destroyed the pastures and farmlands of locals in Sheberghan, Darzab, and Khwja Dokoh. The Taliban officials in the region, including Deputy Governor Mawlavi Gol Mohammad and the group’s judge named Mufti Zalmai were particularly involved. In Balkh’s Sholgara district, Kochis claimed ownership over Aqchadalan, a Hazara populated area, and Rahmatabad, populated by ethnic Uzbeks. A villager told us that Kochis destroyed their farmlands last year and prohibited them from using the grazing lands this year. He said the people had to pay Kochis in return for accessing pasture lands. In Rahmatabad, Kochis began ploughing farmlands, which faced local protest and resistance. At least ten villagers were injured by Kochis.
Residents in Ghor and Maidan Wardak provinces also reported cases of Kochis claiming ownership of their property. In almost all of these cases, the Taliban either directly intervened in favour of the nomadic tribes, prevented sedentary people from taking legal actions against them, or remained silent in the face of local complains. In Ghor’s Lal-o-Sarjangal district, Kochis have claimed that villagers’ deceased parents and grandparents’ had outstanding debt with them that should be paid. One resident said that he had paid 150,000 Afghani ($2000) on behalf of his deceased grandfather who had no transaction with Kochis. Such practices have decades-old history in Hazara villages. Kochis used to come and leave textile behind people’s doors or inside their houses. The next year they came and claimed exorbitant debts and forced Hazaras who had no means of seeking justice to comply. Hazara folk music is abundant with songs talking about their plight in the hands of Kochis.
Similar to other instances, Kochis have also claimed ownership of grazing and arable lands in Lal-o-Sarjangal and have asked villagers to pay them for the land usage in previous years. The Taliban have supported them in grazing their livestock on people’s wheat farms.
In the neighbouring Waras district, in Bamyan province, Kochis last year claimed that they owned the local water management system and demanded that villagers pay them for using water in previous years—outstanding utility bills in modern terms. Taliban resolved the dispute in favour of the nomadic tribes. In Panjab district, Kochis asked the villagers to pay for land use in the past 43 years and half of their crop yields.
In 2022, the Taliban stationed two security units in Maindan Wardak and Bamyan in the name of managing the conflict and preventing clashes. Their dispute resolution mechanism told villagers that they will not allow Kochis to destroy their farmlands or harm them otherwise and that the regime’s fighters will check land titles and documents of Kochis. In practice, however, none of those measures materialized. Behsud, Jarliz and Daimirdad districts of Maidan Wardak have historically been the epicenter of these conflicts between nomadic tribes and sedentary populations. According to a member of the Taliban’s dispute resolution commission we spoke to, in 2023, Kochis destroyed nearly 60% of crops in over 100 villagers in these districts and injured more than 30 villagers. The decision to station their fighters in these areas came after visits by Taliban’s governor in Wardak, Hafiz Amin Omari, and their Minister of Tribal Affairs, Noor Jalal Jalali, to Behsud.
Uruzgan province is where the military campaign against Hazaras began in 1890s that killed more than 60% of their population. The community activists and international experts and researcher believe the atrocities amount to genocide in modern international legal terminology. Nearly one and a half centuries later, there are still Hazara villages in the area, particularly in Uruzgan-e-Khas, a district where the native communities still hold their grounds. Since the Taliban’s takeover, however, threats and atrocities against them have increased exponentially. We were able to review and confirm evidences of property destruction including burning houses and destroying farmlands, as well as murder cases of villagers by unknown men. KabulNow and its affiliate Etilaatroz were able to confirm the authenticity of videos showing Kochis setting fire at night to farms, homes, and vehicles. Local witnesses also recounted several incidents of villagers disappearing at night.
These local conflicts have been overly politicized over the years as national governments have tried to use them for scoring points against opponents or cementing their power. Legal experts believe that pasture ownership remains an enigmatic issue around the country. The government, Kochis, and native residents all stake their claims. The absence of a clear legal framework for defining pasture rights complicates these dynamics. Experts argue that unless there is a comprehensive legal framework that transforms Kochis’ unlimited grazing rights into contractual agreements, coupled with the payment of fodder fees, the conflict will only continue to deepen and complicate. The conversation, they hold, should become one about resource management rather than power politics.
Achieving this with the Taliban, however, seems unlikely as the group sees the tensions as an opportunity to oppress the communities they consider unfavourable by instrumentalizing the nomadic tribes as a long arm of their emirate.
Fatima Framarz contributed to this reporting.
