Fred Kaplan at Slate, whom we always enjoy reading even when we disagree, has an interesting article about Paul Yingling who took on higher command and their handling of the campaign in Iraq (in the broader context of leadership and the associated responsibilities). As it turns out, Yingling has an interesting new duty - that of applying counterinsurgency inside of the prisons of Iraq. More specifically, these prisons are where those who have been arrested during U.S. kinetic operations are being held, somewhat outside of the Iraqi judicial system.
These prisons are becoming breeding grounds for jihadists, and COIN techniques are seen as being very important in dealing with the prison problem, lest we eject 20,000 jihadists back into Iraqi culture. Note, however, that we had noted the prison issue in The Nexus of Religion and Prisons in Counterinsurgency, five months ago. The Captain’s Journal saw the importance of this.
Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, commanding general of detainee operations in Iraq, is fighting what he has called “the battlefield of the mind.” He has instituted extensive screening of incoming prisoners and has made available about 30 training and education courses, including religion and civics, to the 25,188 prisoners under his control …
One result already seen, he said, is that moderates in the prisons are identifying extremists, thus facilitating their segregation from the rest of the population. At Camp Bucca, about 1,000 extremists were identified and pulled from among the 21,000 prisoners, and “that made a big difference,” he said.
It looks like Major General Stone who implemented this program, has a good commander in his corner. We wish them success in this endeavor and expect good things.
- March 11: Separate bombers shatter seven-story police headquarters and house in Lahore. At least 27 people killed, more than 200 wounded.
- March 4: Two bombers blow themselves up at navy training college in Lahore, killing four college employees.
- March 2: Bomber attacks tribesmen discussing resistance to al-Qaida and Taliban in Darra Adam Khel. At least 40 dead.
- March 1: Bomber on foot attacks vehicle carrying security officers in Bajur tribal area, killing one person, wounding 19.
- Feb. 29: Bomber strikes police officer’s funeral in Mingora in Swat Valley. More than 40 people killed, at least 60 wounded.
- Feb. 25: Bomber attacks car carrying Pakistani army’s surgeon general along busy road south of Islamabad, killing at least seven others.
- Feb. 16: Car bomber hits election rally in Parachinar. Some 40 people killed.
- Feb. 16: Attacker kills two civilians and wounds eight security personnel in Swat Valley.
- Feb. 11: Attacker kills seven people at election campaign rally in North Waziristan.
- Feb. 9: Bomber attacks election rally near Charsadda, killing 27 people, wounding 45.
- Feb. 2: Bomber rides explosives-laden motorbike into minibus carrying security personnel in Rawalpindi, killing at least seven people.
- Feb. 1: Car bomber rams into military checkpoint in North Waziristan, killing five soldiers, injuring five.
- Jan. 17: Attacker kills 11 people, wounds 20 at Shiite mosque in Peshawar.
- Jan. 15: Car bomber blows himself up trying to attack troops at checkpoint in Mohmand.
- Jan. 10: Bomber blasts crowd of police guarding courthouse in Lahore, killing 24, wounding dozens in first major attack since Dec. 27 assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
- Jan. 7: Bomber in pickup truck strikes in Swat, wounding eight soldiers and two civilians.
The Asia Times is reporting on an interesting jihadi recruitment pool for al Qaeda that may both give context to the recent list of bombings and give concern for future counterinsurgency efforts in the NWFP and FATA areas of Pakistan.
At the root of al-Qaeda’s strategy is the belief in the powerful ideology of Takfir, which deems all non-practicing Muslims infidels. This, al-Qaeda believes, fuels anti-Western forces in Muslim societies.
From Pakistan’s perspective, the tribal insurgencies in North-West Frontier Province are a thorn in the side of coalition troops in Afghanistan as the area is used as a staging ground for Taliban attacks into that country. But Islamabad believes these can at least be controlled, even if not tamed.
The real concern is the radicalization of Punjab, the largest Pakistani province and comprising more than half the country’s population, through banned militant organizations.
Thousands of activists are known to be affiliated with banned militant organizations in Punjab. Many were initially trained by Pakistani security agencies to fuel the insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir.
However, after September 11, 2001, Pakistan, as a new partner in the “war on terror”, was forced by the Americans to shelve its support of the Kashmiri insurgency. As a result, militant training camps were shut down and militants left their parent organizations in the thousands.
These young jihadis are obviously committed fighters and have been kicking their heels for several years now. The fear is that if they fall into the hands of al-Qaeda, they could significantly escalate unrest in Pakistan, Afghanistan and even Iraq. Segments of these Punjab-based militant organizations have already been cultivated by the Takfiris, resulting in a new source of suicide bombers.
Frank Hoffman has remarked to us that The Captain’s Journal is ”rather famous” for our disagreements with Dave Kilcullen, counterinsurgency advisor to General David Petraeus. Actually, at the Small Wars Journal, Kilcullen never interacted with us - the balance of the council weighed in against our notions of religious motivation in Islamic insurgency. How nice, to be so alone all of the time.
But in the end our theories are reasonable and have been proven correct. At the heart of our system was that there were indigenous insurgents who would be amenable to efforts enveloped by nonkinetic operations, but also those who fight for religious reasons (mostly foreign, some small amount indigenous), this later group being impervious to efforts at winning hearts and minds since they don’t engage in the struggle for any reason that can be ameliorated by our actions. It pays to understand the difference between the two groups, because our strategy is a function of the target group.
WANA, Pakistan, March 16 (Reuters) - A U.S. aircraft fired missiles on Sunday at a house in a Pakistani region known as a haven for al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, killing at least 9 militants and wounding nine, an intelligence official said.
A U.S. Central Command spokesman said the missiles were not fired by any military aircraft. This leaves open the possibility it could have been a pilotless drone aircraft which the CIA has used in Pakistan.
The intelligence official said four missiles were fired at the house in Shahnawaz Kheil Dhoog, a village near the town of Wana in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border, just after 3 p.m. (1000 GMT).
“It was apparently an American plane that fired precision guided missiles at the house,” the official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.
Three foreigners, an Arab and two Turkmen, were among those killed, according to the intelligence official.
These actions are necessary since the new Parliamentary coalition is less amenable to warring with the Taliban and al Qaeda and more amenable to talking.
“We will discuss the issue of terrorism in parliament and the parliamentary committees, which will also be open to the public through live telecast, and in those meetings the PPP will lay down all the dimensions of the problems and plans to tackle it,” the PPP spokesperson disclosed.
In this context, it is learnt that Benazir Bhutto had “several thoughts” which also pertained to the issue of the dual control over the intelligence apparatus. While it is not clear yet what shape the anti-terror policy of the new government will take, indications are that the strategy and approach pursued will be a departure from the existing one. That it will be more inclusive and non-violent. More importantly, the commitment to deal with the issue will further strengthen.
In fact, the ANP has already made peace overtures to the Taliban. It is of the utmost importance that the motivations of the enemy are understood, because if our theories are correct, talking with the Taliban will succeed in nothing but further extending amnesty and allowing time for the enemy to regroup, retrain and recruit.
Back In Iraq, lest it be thought that al Qaeda were the only religiously-motivated insurgents, Moqtada al Sadr has recently told us precisely what he was working towards over these last three years. “So far I did not succeed either to liberate Iraq or make it an Islamic society — whether because of my own inability or the inability of society, only God knows. The continued presence of the occupiers, on the one hand, and the disobedience of many on the other, pushed me to isolate myself in protest. I gave society a big proportion of my life. Even my body became weaker, I got more sicknesses.” (Editorial note: Sadr seems to be in poor health, if alive at all. He is apparently in Iran where he has spent most of the last six months. He should just stay there.)
Some finite number of foreign fighters as well as Iranians (Quds) and indigenous radical Shi’a in Iraq have fought for religious reasons, while the indigenous Sunnis have generally not. Some very much larger percentage of Taliban in Afghanistan have fought for the same ideals. Literally all of the Pakistani Taliban (Baitullah Mehsud) and al Qaeda fight for these same motivations, and using the wrong strategy to combat their influence will not only be ineffective, it will also be dangerous because it will prolong their life and increase their power.
DARRA ADAMKHEL/ PESHAWAR, March 2: A powerful blast hit a tribal peace jirga near the Zarghunkhel checkpost in Darra Adamkhel on Sunday, killing at least 42 people and wounding another 58.
The jirga of Zarghunkhel, Akhurwal, Sheraki, Bostikhel and Toor Chapper tribes had been convened to discuss the formation of a Lashkar to drive militants out of the area, sources said.
It was not clear if the blast was the work of a suicide bomber, but local officials said that a teenager had detonated explosives just after the meeting had ended.
A severed head was found at the site and the officials believed it was that of the bomber. Some people identified the teenager as a youth from the Sheraki area of Darra, a hub of militants.
Security forces, it may be mentioned, launched an operation against militants in Darra Adamkhel in January in which scores of security personnel and militants have been killed.
Izat Khan, a tribesman injured in the explosion, told Dawn at the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar that the blast took place when the tribal elders were finalising modalities for raising the tribal force.
“I fell and became unconscious just as I was about to leave the meeting,” Mr Khan recalled. He pointed out that no official of the political administration or the army was there and said he had doubts about the official statement that the blast had been caused by a suicide attack.
This is the fourth explosion during the past three days in the NWFP and Fata. On Friday, an explosion killed three police personnel and a blast in Swat during the funeral of one of the slain police personnel killed 46 people. A suicide bomber hit a vehicle of Levies Force in Bajaur tribal region on Saturday and killed two people and wounded 24 others.
The jirga was attended by over 1,000 tribesmen. It had started at about 9am and ended at two hours later after unanimously deciding to form a Lashkar and calling upon the army to withdraw troops from the area. The meeting also sanctioned action against militants, who were attacking people in the name of Islam.
Tribal elder Haji Gul Rahim said most of the people attending the jirga had dispersed and about 200 people were discussing measures for security on the Indus Highway.
Witnesses said that the blast site was littered with human flesh and severed limbs. They said that the blast was so intense that it caused severe burn injuries.
Maulana Sabir Afridi, convener of the jirga, Haji Zar Khan, Haji Nazer, Haji Jamal Hussain, Malik Mohammad Nawaz and Haji Khan Mohammad Din were among the dead.
In four separate incidents over the weekend, suicide bombers struck large gatherings in Pakistan, shattering a fragile sense of optimism that has prevailed since national elections on Feb. 18.
The hope has been that those elections, by empowering Pakistan’s moderate, secular parties, could help stem Pakistan’s rising tide of extremism, which has left about 500 people dead this year. But for the last week, the elections have not brought a much needed sense of calm and euphoria.
But in what seems to be a stepped-up effort to sow chaos and fear, suicide bombers struck on Friday in Lakki Marwat, in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province, killing a district superintendent of police, CNN reports. The following day, militants struck again during that police official’s funeral in Swat Valley – where the Army is still battling Taliban militants – killing 46 people. On Saturday, a suicide bomber targeted the vehicle of a security official in Bajaur Agency, a Taliban enclave near the border of Afghanistan, killing 21 people, the Associated Pressreports.
Perhaps the inept analysts in the MSM expected a post-election calm due to empowering secular parties in Pakistan, but readers of The Captain’s Journal knew better. In Misinterpreting the Pakistani Elections, we summarized the elections thusly: “The less ideologically driven voter abandoned the Islamist party, but then, he never voted for that party for the purposes of institution of sharia law anyway. He voted for jobs, sewers, electricity, water supply and good governance several years ago and got none of what he voted for. Hence, he overthrew the clerics this time around. The die-hards joined the Taliban. There are various colors and stripes of jihadists the world over, from Salafism to Wahhabism, from the purist Sunni radicals in Saudi Arabia to the Shi’a Mullahs and their followers in Iran. But one common element among them all is the utter rejection of democracy. Democracy is deemed to be directly contrary to Islam, and the Taliban, al Qaeda and their sympathizers and advocates sat out the election. They had no stake in it.”
The voters rejected two things: (1) Musharraf’s administration, and (2) the more moderate Islamicists (i.e., the ones who failed at administrating a state, but who also never saw Sharia law as being implemented through violence. The religious extremists didn’t vote or run for office. As to the future of Pakistan, we have consistently pointed out that there are two Taliban fronts; one in Afghanistan and the other in Pakistan. There has been a resurgence of the Taliban and al Qaeda (with the new focus on suicide missions as we pointed out), and because the Pashtun have rejected the concept of a global war on terror, U.S. and Pakistani forces find unfriendly human terrain in the NWFP and FATA, and not just due to Taliban presence. When the people do not support the campaign, the campaign finds the way hard and toiling.
The U.S. expects for there to be continued kinetic operations against the Taliban, and Musharraf soldiers on in implementing operations against them. At some point it is likely that these operations will devolve into talks with the Taliban because the Army, the regional tribes, and the population in general will not support continued kinetic operations. How long Musharraf can continue to press these operations without toppling his regime remains an open question.
The real news here is not that there is continuing Taliban violence, but that The Captain’s Journal laid out the correct scenario for you before it happened. You should continue to read TCJ for cutting edge analysis.
Admiral Michael Mullen recently made serious and ominous predictions in recent congressional testimony. “Defense Department officials told members of Congress on Wednesday that Al Qaeda was operating from havens in “undergoverned regions” of Pakistan, which they said pose direct threats to Europe, the United States and the Pakistani government itself. Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, predicted in written testimony that the next attack on the United States probably would be made by terrorists based in that region.”
In order for this testimony to be seen in its proper context, some background is necessary. Relentless kinetic and nonkinetic operations in Anbar by U.S. forces has accomplished two things throughout late 2006 and 2007. First, al Qaeda has taken a heavy toll among its numbers. The recent capture of an al Qaeda Emir’s diary catalogs the decline in fighers in one area of operation from slightly less than a Battalion to less than two squads. Prime Minister Maliki recently announced that al Qaeda had been routed from Baghdad due to the security plan the U.S. launched a year ago. The second affect of intensive U.S. operations is the co-opting of erstwhile indigenous insurgents into the concerned local citizens program. There are still ongoing operations in Mosul, but the al Qaeda campaign in Iraq is an abysmal failure.
There has also been an increased difficulty in deploying to the Iraq theater. According to General David Petraeus, the influx of foreign fighters into Iraq is down, but not just due to any actions by Syria. “Much of the fall in numbers was due to countries barring young men from flying to the Syrian cities of Damascus and Aleppo on one-way tickets.” Conversely, Admiral J. Michael McConnel recently testified before Congress that “we have seen an influx of new Western recruits into the tribal areas [in Pakistan] since mid-2006.” But Western recruits are not the only ones who have traveled to the tribal regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan to join with Taliban and al Qaeda fighters (the so-called Federally Administered Tribal Areas).
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has recently released Issue 3 of the CTC Sentinel, which includes an important article by Brian Glyn Williams entitled “Return of the Arabs: Al-Qa’ida’s Current Military Role in the Afghan Insurgency.” Within the context of the Iraq campaign, Williams sets up the coming Taliban / al Qaeda operations in Afghanistan as beginning in Iraq.
By 2007, jihadist websites from Chechnya to Turkey to the Arab world began to feature recruitment ads calling on the “Lions of Islam” to come fight in Afghanistan. It appears that many heeded the call. This was especially true after the Anbar Awakening of anti-al-Qa`ida tribal leaders and General David Petraeus’ “surge strategy” made Iraq less hospitable for foreign volunteers.
Since 2002, one of al-Qa`ida’s main roles has been diverting wealth from the Arab Gulf States to funding the struggling Taliban. One recently killed Saudi shaykh named Asadullah, for example, was described as “the moneybags in the entire tribal belt.” Men like Asadullah have paid bounties for Taliban attacks on coalition troops, provided money to Taliban commanders such as Baitullah Mehsud to encourage them to attack Pakistani troops and launch a suicide bombing campaign in that country, and used their funds to re-arm the Taliban. Local Pashtuns in Waziristan and in Afghanistan’s Kunar Province have claimed that the Arab fighters pay well for lodging and food and provide money for the families of those who are “martyred” in suicide operations. According to online videos and local reports, al-Qa`ida is also running as many as 29 training camps in the region, albeit less elaborate than those found in Afghanistan in the 1990s.
The Arabs have also played a key role in “al-Qa`idifying” the Taliban insurgency and importing the horror tactics of the Iraqi conflict to Afghanistan. Key Taliban leaders, such as the recently slain Mullah Dadullah, have claimed that they learned suicide bombing techniques from their Arab “brothers.” Al-Qa`ida has also distributed tutorial jihadist videos throughout the Pashtun regions that give instructions on how to build car bombs, IEDs and inspirational “snuff film” images of U.S. troops being killed in Iraq. The first wave of suicide bombings in Afghanistan seems to have been carried out by Arabs, and it appears clear that it was al-Qa`ida—which has long had an emphasis on istishhad (martyrdom) operations—that taught the local Taliban this alien tactic. Arabs such as Abu Yahya al-Libi have also been influential in encouraging the technophobic Taliban fundamentalists to create “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” online videos of Zarqawi style beheadings, IED attacks and suicide bombings.
Furthermore, it appears that Arab fighters have actively partaken in insurgent activities within Afghanistan itself in increasing numbers. Insurgents in the Kunar Valley in Nuristan, for example, have chosen Abu Ikhlas al-Masri, an Egyptian who speaks Pashtu and is married to a local woman, to lead a group of as many as 170 fighters. Arab operations in this area are facilitated by its cross-border proximity to Bajaur Agency and support from a local Taliban leader named Ahmad Shah and insurgent leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the latter of which has a long history of working with Arabs. Arabs have also filmed themselves attacking coalition targets in Nangarhar, Paktia, Paktika, Khost, Uruzgan, Logar and Zabul provinces.
Most recently, Arabs have also been sighted farther afield fighting in the unstable southern province of Helmand under a first generation Arab Afghan leader named Abu Haris. Local Helmandi villagers also reported seeing Arab fighters in the village of Musa Qala, a town that was occupied by the Taliban for most of 2007. They reported that the Arab fighters set up suicide bombing facilities and were extremely brutal. As in previous eras where they earned a reputation for butchery (in 1991, for example, Arab fighters hacked captured Communist Afghan Army soldiers to pieces following the capture of Jalalabad), the Taliban’s Arab allies were reported to have executed locals they suspected of being “spies.”
Such actions hardly endeared the locals to the Taliban, and there are bound to be future tensions between the Arabs and the Taliban that echo those that often caused “red on red” conflict between Afghan mujahidin and Arab Wahhabis in the 1980s. The distrust between the Arabs—who come to the “backward” lands of Afghanistan from the comparatively developed Gulf States—are said to stem from the Arab puritans’ disdain for local Afghan Sufi “superstitions,” their most un-Afghan desire to achieve “martyrdom” and their wish to lead their own fighting units.
A local Taliban commander captured the ambiguous nature of the Taliban-al-Qa`ida alliance when he claimed of the Arabs: “They come for the sacred purpose of jihad. They fight according to Shari`a law.” He then, however, added an important caveat: “No foreign fighter can serve as a Taliban commander.” Even key al-Qa`ida field commanders, such as the recently slain Libyan leader Abu Laith al-Libi (the commander who led al-Qa`ida’s retreat from Afghanistan in 2001), operated under the command of Mullah Omar.
Despite the potential for tensions, al-Qa`ida’s head of operations in Afghanistan, an Egyptian named Mustafa Abu’l-Yazid, who is said to have good relations with the Taliban, has proclaimed that al-Qa`ida in Afghanistan recognizes the authority of Mullah Omar. For its part, the Taliban has charged one Mehmood Haq Yar, a Taliban commander who has allegedly been to Iraq to learn the Iraqi insurgents’ tactics, with making sure Arabs play a role in the Afghan jihad. It appears that both sides are united in their desire to topple the Hamid Karzai government and carve out an Islamic state in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
While it is difficult to estimate the number of Arab fighters in the region, it seems obvious that al-Qa`ida central is determined to play a key role as a fundraiser, recruiter and direct contributor to the military efforts in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Moreover, unlike the earlier generation of “gucci jihadists” who made little if any real contribution to the jihad against the Soviets, the current generation seems determined to remind the West that the “Lions of Islam” have not forgotten the “Forgotten War” in Afghanistan.
The Afghanis are learning (ideologically) from the foreigners coming in to help the campaign, and also (tactically) from the Iraq campaign.
In Afghanistan, the Taleban now claim to have influence across most of the country and have extended their area of control from their traditional heartland in the south.
They are able to operate freely even in Wardak Province, neighbouring the capital Kabul, as a BBC camera crew who filmed them recently found.
One of their commanders in Wardak, Mullah Hakmatullah, said they do not control the roads nor the towns, but they hold the countryside and have increasing support because of the corruption of the administration.
“The administration do not solve people’s problems. People who go there with problems have to give a lot of money in bribes and then they get stuck there,” Mullah Hakmatullah said.
Support from villagers is essential to their ability to continue operations through the winter months.
The overall military commander of the Taleban in Wardak, Mullah Rashid Akhond, claimed to have 2,000 active fighters.
The fighters say locals support their brand of justice.
He said that he was operating an administrative system with orders coming from Kandahar in the south, just like during the days of the Taleban government that fell in 2001.
He said that the Taleban were running their own courts. “People are taking their cases away from the government courts and coming to us. Now there is no robbery in our area.”
Many of the suicide bombers who go to Kabul come from this area, just an hour’s drive away. Mullah Akhond justified them, saying that most of the attacks are now carried out by Afghans themselves, not foreign fighters.
Afghanistan and Pakistan face the next generation Taliban, who unlike their predecessors, are more savvy concerning technology, but just as radical in ideology and without the baggage of the theological reluctance of suicide (or martyrdom) missions. Most recently, a suicide bomb was used to conduct offensive operations against Taliban enemies in Afghanistan, killing at least 80 men and boys.
A suicide bomber blew himself up at a tribal festival near the southern city of Kandahar yesterday, killing at least 80 men and boys and wounding about 90 more in the bloodiest bombing in Afghanistan since 2001.
Officials said the target was a key anti-Taleban commander who played a vital role in keeping the guerrillas out of a district they have been fighting to take over for more than two years. Abdul Hakim, who died in the attack, was a staunchly independent commander with the Alokozai tribe whose private army of 500 men had fought the Taleban and sometimes clashed with Afghan security forces as well.
Mr Hakim, a former guerrilla in his late forties who had fought the Russians before serving for a while as the police chief of Kandahar, was one of the Taleban’s oldest and toughest foes in the Arghandab district west of the city. He first fought Mullah Omar, the Taleban leader, in 1994.
Although too independent to be a formal ally of the Kabul Government, he had been credited with helping to hold back Taleban fighters in one of the most strategically important regions of southern Afghanistan. The Taleban have pledged to conquer Kandahar, their old capital, and have fought bloody battles with Canadian and Afghan forces in the Arghandab, an area of orchards and farms which is one of the main approach routes to the city.
Mr Hakim’s death could be a heavy blow to attempts to hold them back. Dozens of his Alokozai tribesmen were also killed when the suicide bomber blew himself up at the tribal festival about 15 minutes’ drive from the city.
The same tactics are in use in Pakistan, and Taliban operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan should be seen as fronts in the same war. The campaign in Afghanistan is utterly dependent upon supply routes through Pakistan. This video below shows the torturous mountain passes through which some supplies must travel and the enemy operations against these supply lines.
More recently, Baitullah Mehsud’s forces have begun effectively to target main arteries through Pakistan to interdict these same supplies. Danger is on the rise in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, and yet the Afghan government is stolid and obstinate in its denial of the need for more forces, while this same government’s corruption is hindering counterinsurgency efforts.
The campaign in Afghanistan drew down from conventional operations too soon, and yet this mistake is being repeated by drawing down from kinetic operations against the Taliban and al Qaeda in favor of military transition teams and road construction. The forces to effect both are apparently not in place, and there is an ever shrinking window of opportunity to win the campaign in the region, while also acknowledging the difficulty of drawing down in Iraq.
In a winter that is worse than any in recent memory in Afghanistan, Taliban operations have been kept to a minimum. We should expect to see a resurgence in operations commensurate with the number of forces and motivation of the enemy.
A Taliban commander who defected hours before British and Afghan forces retook the Taliban stronghold of Musa Qala has been rewarded with the governorship of the town.
Mullah Abdul Salaam switched sides after months of delicate secret negotiations with the Afghan government, as part of a programme of reconciliation backed by British commanders in Helmand.
In a move clearly intended to send a message to other potential Taliban defectors, the Afghan government has announced that he had become the new district governor with the backing of local tribes.
An Afghan government spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, said that the move was consistent with the policy of President Hamid Karzai’s government.
“The president has said before that all those former Taliban who come and accept the constitution and who want to participate in the political process through non-violent means … they are welcome.”
He added that Mullah Salaam had provided crucial intelligence to the Afghan government.
Mullah Salaam is a leader of one of the three sub-tribes of the Alizai, the dominant tribal group in Musa Qala.
As The Daily Telegraph reported in November, Mullah Salaam opened channels of communication with the government after a violent rift emerged in the Taliban around Musa Qala, during which he survived an assassination attempt.
Mullah Salaam told The Daily Telegraph: “There are two groups of Taliban fighters in Musa Qala and I have the backing of the major one. The Taliban who are against peace and prosperity in Afghanistan - I will fight them.”
Local people confirmed that he enjoyed the backing of a large swathe of the inhabitants of the town.
The issue of Taliban defections remains a highly sensitive one, following the expulsion of a British and an Irish diplomat from Kabul last month on charges of having “inappropriate contacts” with militants.
Afghan government officials accused the two men of holding meetings with Taliban leaders in Helmand without authorisation.
The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has ruled out direct talks with the Taliban leadership, but it is well known in Kabul that both the British and Afghan intelligence agencies are devoting considerable resources to trying to “turn” Taliban-aligned tribal leaders.
By the late 1980s it had become clear that secular pan-Arabism fused with socialist ideas was no longer a source of inspiration for some Ba’th Party activists. Many young Sunni Arabs adopted an alternative ideology, namely, fundamentalist Islam based essentially on the thought of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. A minority even moved toward the more extreme Salafi, and even Wahhabi, interpretation of Islam. The regime was reluctant to repress such trends violently, even when it came to Wahhabis, for the simple reason that these Iraqi Wahhabis were anti-Saudi: much like the ultraradical Islamist opposition in Saudi Arabia, they, too, saw the Saudi regime as deviating from its original Wahhabi convictions by succumbing to Western cultural influences and aligning itself with the Christian imperialist United States. This anti-Saudi trend served the Iraqi regime’s political purposes.
But this proves the bifurcation that was inherent in the Anbaris which led to the awakening. These radical youth were an insignificant fraction of the population and were not ever fair game in the strategy to win hearts and minds. They were the enemy, and there was never a time when they weren’t the enemy. They quickly aligned with al Qaeda, and the less radical citizens were really the ones in play in the overall strategy. Al Qaeda and those with whom they were aligned have been essentially defeated in Anbar and are losing in Diyala. Peace was sought with those from the indigenous insurgency who saw themselves as something other than jihadis. In Afghanistan, the Taliban are by very definition religiously defined. Even the casual reader might consider Afghanistan seven years ago (Taliban in charge) and compare it to the Afghanistan of today (with the Taliban in charge if the British strategy plays out) and recall that the only real change is that Hamid Karzai is at the helm, a tenuous charge and precarious perch to be sure.
While the MI6 agents who were negotiating with the Taliban have been ejected from the country, the strategy of acquiescence to the Taliban continues to be implemented by British military command. After their failed military campaign in and pullout from Basra, the British are actively negotiating the turnover of the Afghanistan government to the very enemy defeated upon the initial invasion of Afghanistan in order to end the campaign. This strategy has at least the tacit approval of Hamid Karzai, as U.S. troop presence and strategy is not sufficient to allow him to object. U.S. and NATO lack of force projection gives him no other choice.
