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Holding Water to Ransom
Kamal Khan Dam in Southwest Afghanistan
How the Kamal Khan Dam is causing violence and conflict between Iran and Afghanistan
In 1974 the construction of a new hydroelectric dam began on the Helmand River in the Charar Burjak District of Nimroz Province in Southwest Afghanistan.
However, due to a range of setbacks, the dam was finally inaugurated by President Ashraf Ghani on 4 th March 2021, a few months before the Taliban’s takeover of the country.
The ambition for the dam is to irrigate 75,000 hectares of agricultural land whilst producing 9 MW of electric power. It remains to be seen whether that goal has been, or will be, achieved.
Although the dam promises a solution to many of the region’s infrastructural and agricultural challenges, the dam threatens to interrupt the supply of water to Iran. As such, it has become a source of political dispute between Iran and Afghanistan and very recently, a cause for violent conflict.
The natural course of the river flows from Afghanistan into Iran before returning into Afghanistan further south along the border. The water course ends in a large natural reservoir roughly 70km south of Kamal Khan Dam back inside Afghanistan.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry acknowledged the legislature set out in 1972 by the Delta Commission, which legally defines Iran’s share of the Helmand River as 26 cubic metres per second.
However, the water supply has been a source of contention ever since. In 2017 Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani blamed the Kamal Khan Dam for the drying out of Hamoun Lakes in the eastern border province of Sistan and Baluchistan.
During the opening ceremony of the dam last year, President Ghani announced that Nimroz will become ‘a water reservoir for both Afghanistan and Iran’ and will compliment both economies. An announcement at odds to his other statements indicating a view that the supply of water into Iran has always been ‘extra’ and will no longer be provided for free. Instead, it would be bartered in exchange for oil.
Although water continued to flow into Iran from the Dam’s inauguration, this flow of water has been further interrupted through the construction of a new canal system. Recently collected satellite imagery indicates that this new canal system now diverts water from the Kamal Khan Dam reservoir directly south into the natural reservoir. This completely bypasses the supply of water into Iran and it is unclear what benefits this diversion has from an economic and agricultural perspective as this affects households downstream from the Dam on both sides of the border that have been reliant on this water supply for decades.
As the reservoir fills up, most of the water evaporates as there is no agriculture in the area of the reservoir to irrigate. In terms of recent geological and hydrological history the area of land has always been inhospitable for growing and is essentially empty. It is unclear how much this reservoir might feed subterranean aquifers and if so, whether this water source is further accessible through such aquifers elsewhere.
The most obvious explanation for the diversion appears to be political, with the aim of limiting the supply of water to Iran even further than the dam already has. Limiting and denying the supply of water to a foreign population is a deliberately aggressive and confrontational form of political posturing.
In recent months, violent clashes have broken out between the two countries. On 7 th March 2022, fighting broke out between Iranian security forces and Taliban border guards. According to media reports, an hour-long gun battle occurred around the Sekhsar canal in Kang District of Nimroz province, 8km north of the Zaranj border crossing between Afghanistan and Iran. Some media reports say that Taliban forces began firing on Iranians who were attempting to dredge the canal after crossing over the border into Afghanistan ( Reference 1 ). Conflicting reports suggest that it was Afghan farmers trying to construct a new canal who were attacked by Iranian guards in efforts to stop them ( Reference 2 ).
What seems clear is that four Iranian guards were killed in the incident and several vehicles were burnt, including an Iranian bulldozer and a Taliban vehicle. Both Taliban and Iranian officials are yet to confirm the details of this clash, calling it a ‘minor’ incident, despite video evidence showing ‘heavy weapons’ being used ( Reference 3 ).
Of ongoing concern is the potential for further violent conflict and loss of life in this area, exacerbated by seasonal reductions in the flow of water along the Helmand river now the winter season has passed.
Kamal Khan Dam's reservoir filling up
Southern reservoir beginning to fill