As we have discussed before, nationalism is out of accord with both the tenets and goals of radical militant Islamism. Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezbollah, and Salafists and Wahhabists worldwide have no recognition of the legitimacy of borders. This characteristic of being a transnational insurgency coupled with Pakistan’s capitulation to them has caused problems for the so-called border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Recently The Captain’s Journal said that the most recent deals with the Taliban made Afghanistan the sacrificial lamb while intending to maintain Pakistan’s stability. Almost as if on cue, a report comes to us on current Taliban freedom to roam to and fro about the border region.
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan – In early June, about 300 fighters from jihadist groups came together for a secret gathering here, in the same city that serves as headquarters to the Pakistani army.
The groups were launched long ago with the army’s clandestine support to fight against India in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. But at the meeting, they agreed to resolve their differences and commit more fighters to another front instead: Afghanistan.
“The message was that the jihad in Kashmir is still continuing but it is not the most important right now. Afghanistan is the fighting ground, against the Americans there,” said Toor Gul, a leader of the militant group Hezb-ul Mujahedeen. The groups included the al-Qaida-linked Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, banned by Pakistan and branded terrorists by the U.S., he said …
Militants say they operate with minimal interference, and sometimes tacit cooperation, from Pakistani authorities, while diplomats say the country’s new government has until now been ineffectual in dealing with a looming threat.
“Where there were embers seven years ago we are now fighting flames,” a serving Western general told The Associated Press, referring to both Afghanistan and Pakistan’s border regions. He agreed to be interviewed on condition his identity and nationality were not revealed …
Pakistan’s Mohmand and Bajaur tribal areas are emerging as increasingly strong insurgent centers, according to Gul, the militant. His information was corroborated by Pakistani and Western officials. Both those tribal areas are right next door to Afghanistan’s Kunar province.
“Before there were special, hidden places for training. But now they are all over Bajaur and Mohmand,” he said. “Even in houses there is training going on.”
A former minister in President Pervez Musharraf’s ousted government, who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals, said insurgents were being paid between 6,000 and 8,000 rupees — the equivalent of $90 and $120 — a month in Mohmand and grain was being collected to feed them. He did not identify the source of the donations but said Pakistan’s army and intelligence were aware of them.
Maulvi Abdul Rahman, a Taliban militant and former police officer under the ousted hardline regime, said jihadistsympathizers in the Middle East are sending money to support the insurgents and more Central Asians are coming to fight. Rahman said under a tacit understanding with authorities, militants were free to cross to fight in Afghanistan so long as they do not stage attacks inside Pakistan, which has been assailed by an unprecedented wave of suicide attacks in the past year.
“It is easy for me now. I just go and come. There are army checkposts and now we pass and they don’t say anything. Pakistan now understands that the U.S. is dangerous for them,” he said. “There is not an article in any agreement that says go to Afghanistan, but it is understood if we want to go to Afghanistan, OK, but leave Pakistan alone.'”
Again, just as we had pointed out, the Pakistani deal with the Taliban has as its sole purpose to save Pakistan. It will ultimately lead to the strengthening of the Taliban and the destabilization of Pakistan as well, but given the Pashtun rejection of the war on terror and the malaise of the Pakistani Army, The Captain’s Journal expected the deals to occur.
Note that the Kunar Province mentioned above is the location of 50% casualty rate for U.S. forces in recent combat operations. As the reader might have suspected, The Captain’s Journal says if the Taliban want to fight us in the tribal region, saddle up! Send the Marines after them, border or no border. If Pakistan won’t do the job, then the U.S. can.
Admonitions to spin off factions of the Taliban or Taliban-sympathizers against the so-called “hard core” Taliban are becoming commonplace. But who are the Taliban? We have already discussed the disaggregation of the Taliban into drug runners, war lords, petty former anti-Soviet commanders, criminals, Afghan Taliban, Pakistan Taliban, al Qaeda, and other rogue elements in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Drug runners, local war lords and other criminals can be dealt with differently than the Taliban. Drug runners will likely not have strong inclinations to Islamic fundamentalism and certainly not the global expansion of the same. On the other hand, the religiously motivated fighters within Afghanistan likely number as many as ten thousand fighters, including 3000 or so full time insurgents.
Then there is the Afghan Taliban who are not located within Afghanistan but who are indigenous to Afghanistan, under the leadership of Mohammed Omar who is probably in or around Quetta, Pakistan. They continually resupply Taliban fighters and give them rest and sanctuary within Pakistan. Quetta is a revolving door of support for Afghan fighters.
This group is organizationally disconnected with the Tehrik-i-Taliban, or Pakistan Taliban. These are groups of Taliban who are led by various commanders, the most powerful of whom are Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan, and Mullah Fazlullah in the SWAT valley. The Tehrik-i-Taliban number tens of thousands more fighters. It is estimated that Mehsud alone owns 20,000 fighters.
The Tehrik-i-Taliban are different than the Afghan Taliban in that they have brought a hard core global expansionist focus to their radical religious views. It is what Nicholas Schmidle calls the Next-Gen Taliban.
Some Afghan Taliban have laid down their weapons and taken up the Taliban cause in politics. They have not changed their belief system – the same one that allied itself with the Taliban fighters and al Qaeda prior to 9/11. The Afghan fighters who remain active in both Afghanistan and Pakistan have not laid down their weapons and still harbor hopes of regaining the leadership of Afghanistan. The Tehrik-i-Taliban are hard core radicals, and shout to passersby in Khyber “We are Taliban! We are mujahedin! “We are al-Qaida!” There is no distinction.
Not a single group or subgroup listed above can be violently turned against the active Taliban fighters, mostly because their are ideologically aligned. In Anbar, Iraq, the more secular Sunni tribes had the religiously motivated al Qaeda thrust on them from the outside with all of the oppressive violence, and it didn’t take long for them to rebel. The same is not true of either Afghanistan or Pakistan. The proof is pre-9/11 history in Afghanistan where the hard core fighters – including al Qaeda – had safe haven.
Given this state of affairs, Karzai and his foreign allies will not be in a position to do much against the Taliban and its supporters unless they work on three main objectives simultaneously. One is to address their political and strategic vulnerabilities; another is to widen and speed up reconstruction. A third is to re-establish a stable Afghan-Pakistan border by pressuring Pakistan to halt all support for the Taliban.
True enough for potential future Taliban fighters whom we wish to keep in the fold, this prescription is wrong for the existing Taliban because the ailment has been misdiagnosed (and besides, pressure has already been put on Pakistan, to no avail). For the Taliban, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum has the right suggestion: “NATO forces must be united in their commitment to wage war against the Taliban.” No single group can be spun off to fight the Taliban in lieu of Western military operations against them.
While purveying propaganda, al Qaeda and Taliban spokesmen often unintentionally relinquish information that points to vulnerabilities and infighting within their organization. An interview with a jihadist is used below, along with a question and answer session by Ayman al-Zawahiri, to supply the broad outlines of two specific vulnerabilities.
Background & Report
In spite of the U.S. objections to negotiations with the Tehrik-i-Taliban, there has been enough British and Canadian support, as well as internal support within Pakistan, that the authorities were persuaded to continue the process. They want more time.
This week the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, U.S. General Dan McNeil said any deal must include stopping fighters from crossing the two countries’ shared border.
“We have gone back and looked at the data we have over a long period of time when there have been other peace deals,” he said. “And the fact is each time the talks resulted in a peace deal we have an increased level of activity.”
Pakistani officials insist that unlike previous agreements the new peace talks involve elected government representatives – not the military – and those representatives have more credibility with tribal leaders …
Pakistan’s former spy agency chief Asad Durrani says people living near the disputed border known as the Durand line who are sympathetic to the Taliban will not immediately change their behavior because of a peace agreement.
“If we expect that these people will completely prevent the crossings of the Durand line – that cannot be done, simply impossible,” he said. “If we think that we can prevent those people who feel motivated to go on the other side and help the Afghan resistance – that again is mission impossible.”
Despite U.S. criticism of the deal and pessimism even among Pakistanis about finding a lasting peace agreement, negotiator Arshad Abdullah says that after more than six years of failed policies, critics should give the new approach time.
“With these agreements hopefully Afghanistan will be better off. It is a trial. Basically we want the world community to give us a chance and see how successful we are,” he said. “It is a matter of three or four months and within six months hopefully we will have an even better situation.”
But is more time going to matter? Understanding the enemy is crucial in the struggle against the global insurgency. An Asia Times journalist gives us a glimpse into the nature of the enemy in a recent article, and it behooves us to listen as he describes a conversation with a jihadi.
Seven months ago I visited Bajaur and Mohmandagencies. As my taxi driver headed from Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province, he was played some Pashtu music on the car’s CD. Quickly, though, he changed it for jihadi songs.
“The militants have not only brought guns to the tribal areas, they have also brought a culture which has transformed tribal society,” commented a passenger traveling with me.
Syed Saleem Shahzad (with Asia Times) then goes on to describe a more recent meeting with a jihadi in the context of thinking about this “culture which has transformed” society. He talks with a fighter who converses with him under the psuedonym “S.”
S is the son of a Pakistani military officer and left his home after completing school at the age of 17. Ever since, he has been an active jihadi, and in eight years he has only seen his family once.
He joined al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan before September 11, 2001 – even serving for bin Laden – but soon after that event he went to the South Waziristan tribal area in Pakistan with Arab-Afghans such as Sheikh Ahmad Saeed Khadr and Sheikh Essa.
S said his association with Arab-Afghan militants turned him from an ordinary jihadi into an astute trainer. “In my early 20s, I was training big names of this region, including young Arabs and Uzbeks who were many years older than me,” said S.
S could have earned a monthly stipend to devote himself to being a jihad, but he chose to work as a trader in Pakistani cities to earn extra money. He then returned to the mountain vastness of Afghanistan to join the Taliban’s fight against NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in Afghanistan.
A turning point in S’s life came when, returning from Khost province in Afghanistan where he ran a training camp, he was arrested by Pakistani Frontier Corps.
“I was passed on from one security agency to another, and each time the interrogation methods changed. My pre-9/11 association with bin Laden and Zawahiri and occasional meetings with Zawahiri after 9/11 boosted me as an ‘al-Qaeda associate’ in the eyes of my Pakistani examiners. For one-and-half years I did not see a single ray of sunlight. After thorough interrogations, they concluded that I was just a fighter and a trainer against NATO troops who happened to be a ‘renegade’ son of an army officer,” said S.
“They contacted my father and despite that he had abandoned me a long time ago, when he heard about my situation all his fatherly affection returned and he agreed to become my guarantor that I would not take part in any jihadi activities.
“So I was released in front of Peshawar railway station, blindfolded, and when my blinds were removed there was my old father in front of me. I was standing with my hands and feet chained, and when my guards removed these my father hugged me and wept profusely.
“That was the only brief interaction between me and my family as I once again went into my own world of jihad. It was me and my gun, and I never looked back to see if there was any family, a father or a mother, waiting for me … though I miss them a lot,” S related in a sad, soft voice.
Syed Saleem Shahzad goes on to discuss the location of Bin Laden and other things, but a meaningful exchange occurs late in the interview.
S said he is against the use of suicide attacks. “I do not know the exact status of such attacks in Islamic law, but certainly in my manuals of war it is prohibited. I have argued with all the top commanders that any target can be hit without the use of suicide attacks,” S said.
On strategic matters, S is clear that attacks on Pakistani security forces in the tribal areas can only add up to problems. “I always argued with top ideologues like Sheikh Essa that the more success we get in Afghanistan, the more we will gain support from Pakistan. If NATO remains strong in Afghanistan, it will put pressure on Pakistan. If NATO remains weaker in Afghanistan, it will dare [encourage] Pakistan to support the Taliban, its only real allies in the region,” S said.
Analysis & Commentary
Two very remarkable vulnerabilities have been accidentally divulged in this last exchange. It is obvious that S is religiously motivated. Not only does he say so, but the hold and sway this has over him is enough to break with a weeping father to go back to his commanders. Its power is complete with this jihadist.
This same religious commitment is also causing a problem within the movement. Note what S says about the tactics of suicide attacks. “I do not know the exact status of such attacks in Islamic law, but certainly in my manuals of war it is prohibited. I have argued with all the top commanders that any target can be hit without the use of suicide attacks.”
There may be a couple of reasons for the difficulty, one of which is the certain death of the jihadist. But the most significant objection doubtless has to do with death of noncombatant Muslims due to these attacks. They would like to believe that the suicide bomb is the Taliban equivalent of the JDAM targeted with GPS. Innocents are spared, or so the claim goes. Baitullah Mehsud recently had his own press conference in which he says that suicide attacks are “our most destructive weapon … out atom bomb,” but better than the enemy’s atom bomb because our bomb targets only the enemy while the enemy’s kills innocents.
But this isn’t true, and there is work ongoing within their ranks to backfit a justification for their tactics. The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has an interesting analysis of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s recent Q&A session, and suicide tactics play a prominent role, having been brought up in the questions posed to Zawahiri. The problem is also summarized in the most recent issue of the CTC Sentinel.
In the course of defending al-Qa`ida against charges of unjustly killing innocent Muslims during his April 2, 2008 “open interview,” Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri reintroduced Hukm al-Tatarrus (the law on using human shields) into the debate.1 A relatively unfamiliar term to non-Muslims and Muslims alike, al-Tatarrus refers to God’s sanctioning of Muslim armies that are forced to kill other Muslims who are being used as human shields by an enemy during a time of war.2 Al-Tatarrus is a religiously legitimate, albeit obscure, Islamic concept that al-Qa`ida ideologues have been increasingly using in order to exculpate themselves from charges of apostasy. The method in which al-Qa`ida is promoting al-Tatarrus, however, seeks to facilitate the sacrifice of Muslim lives in contravention of 14 centuries of religious teachings.
Al Qaeda has turned to Abu Yahya for scholarly analysis, but his scholarship is nothing short of revolutionary, and he turns out not to be much of a scholar after all.
While the Qur’anic and hadith restrictions on killing innocent Muslims were appropriate during the early days of Islam, he suggests, they should have no bearing on warfare today because modern warfare is qualitatively different. Whereas early Islamic thinkers had to consider the implications of using a catapult against an enemy fortress in which Muslims were residing, or conducting night raids against an enemy household in which Muslims were likely present, the nature of contemporary warfare is one where the enemy uses “raids, clashes and ambushes, and they hardly ever stop chasing the mujahidin everywhere and all the time, imprisoning them, their families and their supporters.” What it means to be “directly engaged in combat,” Abu Yahyaargues, has changed. By positing that Islam is in a state of constant and universal warfare, he implicitly lowers the threshold for proving that one’s killing of innocent Muslims is just.
In short, the nature of today’s all-encompassing warfare means that the jihadist movement must find a “new perception of different ways of modern shielding which were probably not provided for by the scholars of Islam who knew only of the weapons used during their era.” In these few sentences, Abu Yahya attempts to wipe the slate clean of the most sacred and defining texts with regard to the issue of killing human shields.
They are obviously struggling with the justification for what Baitullah Mehsud calls his “most destructive weapon.” The brutality of al Qaeda in the Anbar province helped to turn the population against them. A well aimed information campaign outlining the noncombatant casualties and suffering resulting from suicide attacks is appropriate and would possibly be effective in weakening the enemy’s tactical position. In Anbar the U.S. had to prove themselves to be the stronger horse (to use a phrase made popular by Bin Laden). There is no magic, and the necessary context for a rejection of jihad is its battlespace defeat. But the battlespace defeat might be assisted by a good information campaign targeting this vulnerability.
The second important thing we learn from the interview of S is that the campaign in Afghanistan and Pakistan is, in the words of The Captain’s Journal, inextricably tied. “If NATO remains strong in Afghanistan, it will put pressure on Pakistan. If NATO remains weaker in Afghanistan, it will dare [encourage] Pakistan to support the Taliban, its only real allies in the region,” S said.
The corollary to the the tribal region of Pakistan being a safe haven for the Taliban is that strong action in Afghanistan will affect Pakistan. It is one campaign, a fight against a transnational insurgency, and seeing the campaign through the lens of borders and nation-states is wrongheaded. The surest way to put pressure on the tribal region within Pakistan is to continue the chase in Afghanistan. There is no replacement for kinetic operations to kill or capture the enemy. We know this not only because it is common sense, but also because the enemy has told us so.
A common misunderstanding among some on the far right or of the libertarian stripe (e.g., Patrick Buchanan, Ron Paul) is that the sole reason for the existence of the global jihad is the presence of U.S. troops on holy soil, i.e., Saudi Arabia. It is, after all, the stated raison d’etre for 9/11 hijackers. But this myth becomes muddled when it is pointed out that the Hamburg cell initially intended to wage jihad elsewhere.
Bin Ladin canceled the East Asia part of the planes operation in the spring of 2000. He evidently decided it would be too difficult to coordinate this attack with the operation in the United States. As for Hazmi and Mihdhar, they had left Bangkok a few days before Khallad and arrived in Los Angeles on January 15, 2000.
Meanwhile, the next group of al Qaeda operatives destined for the planes operation had just surfaced in Afghanistan. As Hazmi and Mihdhar were deploying from Asia to the United States, al Qaeda’s leadership was recruiting and training four Western-educated men who had recently arrived in Kanda-har. Though they hailed from four different countries-Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, and Yemen-they had formed a close-knit group as students in Hamburg, Germany. The new recruits had come to Afghanistan aspiring to wage jihad in Chechnya. But al Qaeda quickly recognized their potential and enlisted them in its anti-U.S. jihad.
Even further research proves that rather than U.S. presence in the Middle East being the raison d’etre for 9/11, it was merely the raison du jour that Bin Laden found convenient for his purposes. A far different vision is being offered at the moment.
Osama bin Laden vowed in an audio tape to mark Israel’s 60th anniversary to continue to fight the Jewish state and its allies in the West.
The al Qaedaleader, who has placed growing emphasis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said it was at the heart of the Muslim battle with the West and an inspiration to the 19 bombers who carried out the attacks on U.S. cities on September 11, 2001.
“We will continue, God permitting, the fight against the Israelis and their allies … and will not give up a single inch of Palestine as long as there is one true Muslim on Earth,” he said in the message, posted on an Islamist website on Friday.
Bin Laden said Israel’s anniversary celebrations were a reminder that it did not exist 60 years ago, and had been established on land seized from Palestinians by force.
“This is evidence that Palestine is our land, and the Israelis are invaders and occupiers who should be fought,” he said in the tape, which was addressed to the Western public.
The Saudi-born militant also said that decades of peace initiatives had failed to establish a Palestinian state, and the West had proved time and again that it sided with Israel.
“The participation of Western leaders with the Jews in this celebration confirms that the West backs this Jewish occupation of our land, and that they stand in the Israeli corner against us,” he said. “They proved this in practice by sending their forces to southern Lebanon.”
An important (but mostly ignored) event occurred recently in which Ayman al-Zawahiri took questions from global jihadists concerning the future of the movement.
Zawahiri highlights several specific injustices that he feels effectively demonstrate the stark contrast between Qaradawi’s decision to postpone fighting and the Jihadist movement, which advocates violence immediately. They include Arab peace accords and trade with Israel, Israel’s blockade of Palestinians in Gaza, Arab military courts for trying Muslims, Arab hosting of U.S. military forces, particularly in Egypt, the prevalence of Western “vulgar media” and the secular constitution and laws of Arab countries.
Later, he gives us yet another justification for the jihad.
Zawahiri last discussed Lebanon in his public rhetoric in January and February 2007, when he twice condemned the presence of United Nations Peacekeeping forces in Southern Lebanon.
Zawahiri has given us a list of at least nine reasons for violent jihad, only one of which has anything to do with Arab hosting of U.S. military forces. One significant issue Zawahiri addresses pertains to the strong differences between al Qaeda and HAMAS. One reason they will never see eye to eye is the lack of global vision within HAMAS.
Over the past year, Zawahiri and other senior al-Qa’ida figures have been waging a vigorous propaganda campaign against the Palestinian organization HAMAS. Although Jihadists unanimously denounce Israel they continue to disagree over whether HAMAS should be considered a legitimate Islamic movement. For Zawahiri, HAMAS’ embrace of nationalism, democracy, and its legacy in the Muslim Brotherhood—arguably the three things al-Qa’ida hates most—delegitimizes the group.
Nationalism is evil and out of accord with the global aspirations of al Qaeda. Nation-states are not just not helpful, or even a necessary evil. They are quite literally an obstacle to jihad, not because they share the loyalties of jihadists, but rather, because they fundamentally don’t acquiesce to the vision of world conquest in the name of Islam and the forcible implementation of Sharia law. What we see as a transnational insurgency is to the jihadists simply a world wide struggle. They don’t recognize nation-states as legitimate.
It doesn’t stop with al Qaeda. The most powerful man in Waziristan, Baitullah Mehsud, head of the Tehrik-e-Taliban, has global aspirations as well.
“We want to eradicate Britain and America, and to shatter the arrogance and tyranny of the infidels. We pray that Allah will enable us to destroy the White House, New York, and London.”
There are other significant revelations in this question and answer session by Zawahiri, including much discussion over the jihadist fear that Iraq is a lost cause for them; they have been defeated. The entire source document at the Combatting Terrorism Center, West Point, is worth the time to study and analyze in detail.
There is a not so fine line between trying to understand the motivations of the enemy and naively regurgitating their propaganda. Repeating the myth that U.S. presence on foreign soil caused the 9/11 hijackers ignores the other very real objection that, according to other jihadists, the U.S. was far too slow to react to protect Muslim people from the Serbs. Whether the U.S. is deployed across the globe or the U.S. didn’t deploy quickly enough, it’s all propaganda – convenient excuses used to brainwash young jihadists. It is yet another step into the danger zone to mold foreign policy based on enemy propaganda and talking points.
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.
When U.S. intelligence analysts were claiming that a Taliban offensive in Afghanistan would not occur due to focus on Pakistan, The Captain’s Journal laid out the case for dual Taliban campaigns (one focusing on Pakistan and the other on Afghanistan), and pointed out that the spring “offensive” would be waged differently than in direct, head-to-head kinetic engagements with U.S. forces. The influx of foreign jihadists into the tribal areas of Pakistan (particularly the NWFP and FATA) has brought fighters into the cultural milieu that, unlike the older Taliban fighters, have no moral inhibitions regarding suicide tactics.
The chart to the left is a simple strategic organizational chart that shows the logical connections between the direction of the Pakistani Taliban (e.g., lead by Baitullah Mehsud and others) and the Afghani Taliban (e.g., lead by Mohammed Omar). The strategy is multifaceted with dual fronts, but the campaign has as its centerpiece the interdiction of NATO supply lines. The campaign will involve guerrilla tactics (combat from the shadows), insurgent tactics (governance and winning hearts and minds), and the use of terror tactics such as suicide bombers.
After more than six years, coalition forces in Afghanistan are preparing for an all-out offensive against the Taliban centered on their safe havens straddling the border with Pakistan.
This, allied with intensive North Atlantic Treaty Organization and US operations already this year, has led to much speculation on whether the Taliban will launch their annual spring offensive, with even senior NATO officials suggesting the Taliban will instead bunker down in a war of attrition, much as they did during a rough phase in 2004.
This will not be the case, according to Asia Times Online’s interaction with Taliban guerrillas over the past few weeks. But instead of taking on foreign forces in direct battle in the traditional hot spots, the Taliban plan to open new fronts as they are aware they cannot win head-on against the might of the US-led war machine.
The efforts of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and its 47,000 soldiers from nearly 40 nations will focus on specific areas that include the Bajaur and Mohmand tribal agencies in Pakistan, as well as South and North Waziristan in that country, and Nooristan, Kunar, Paktia, Paktika and Khost provinces in Afghanistan. The ISAF is complemented by the separate US-led coalition of about 20,000, the majority being US soldiers. This does not include a contingent of 3,600 US Marine Corps who this week started arriving in southern Afghanistan. They will work under the command of the ISAF.
For their part, the Taliban, according to Asia Times Online contacts, will open new fronts in Khyber Agency in Pakistan and Nangarhar province in east Afghanistan and its capital Jalalabad.
This move follows a meeting of important Taliban commanders of Pakistani and Afghan origin held for the first time in the Tera Valley bordering the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan. (Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders famously evaded US-led forces in the Tora Bora soon after the invasion in 2001.)
Pakistan’s Khyber Agency has never been a part of the Taliban’s domain. The majority of the population there follows the Brelvi school of thought, which is bitterly opposed to the hardline Taliban and the Salafi brand of Islam. The adjacent Afghan province of Nangarhar has also been a relatively peaceful area.
Conversely, the historic belt starting from Peshawar in North-West Frontier Province and running through Khyber Agency to Nangarhar is NATO’s life line – 80% of its supplies pass through it. From Nangarhar, the capital Kabul is only six hours away by road.
Over the past year, the Taliban have worked hard at winning over the population in this region and have installed a new commander, Ustad Yasir, to open up the front in Nangarhar.
The Taliban (both Pakistan and Afghanistan) have come together with al Qaeda and settled on a centerpiece for the campaign, i.e., the interdiction of NATO supply lines through the NWFP and onward towards Kabul. The tactics involve “winning the population,” which although not delineated in the Asia Times report, probably involve the disbursement of money among other things. While this tactic is successful it will be continued, but in the event of its failure, the Taliban will likely revert to terror tactics beginning with the tribal elders and then the balance of the population.
This area on the Afghanistan side of the border is already problematic. As we discussed in Taking the High Ground in Afghanistan, in Eastern Afghanistan North of the Khyber pass, the 173rd combat team has daily clashes with insurgents, but lack the forces to take the high ground. Insurgents rarely attack US fighters unless and until they have managed to position themselves at a higher altitude than their foe. “I would say that 95% of the time they hit us from the high ground – when our backs are turned,” says Tanner Stichter, a soldier serving in the Korengal Outpost. “We have a very difficult time finding these foreign fighters – as they remain hidden” … “The US forces, along with the Afghan army and police, need to go on the offensive now – before the weather breaks,” insists police chief, Haji Mohammed Jusef. “This time of year is the best time for us to take the high ground and deny it to the enemy.”
The Afghan Taliban no longer become involved in direct head-to-head engagements with the U.S. forces, but remain hidden in some of the same caves they used to drive the Soviet Army from Afghanistan. Rather than conventional or even necessarily insurgent tactics, the capability to remain hidden is more guerrilla style combat. In addition to the guerrilla tactics, the Afghan Taliban have mixed the tactics of terror and technology to the battle space, including standoff weapons such as IEDs and suicide bombers, differentiating this campaign from classical insurgency campaigns of the past (except for Iraq, where it took many more forces to be successful).
MANSEHRA, Pakistan (AP) — Long-haired gunmen burst into the white stone building and killed four charity workers helping earthquake victims, then wrecked the office with grenades and set it on fire. Police came, but did not intervene.
In a tactic reminiscent of neighboring Afghanistan, Islamic militants are attacking aid groups in the Pakistan’s volatile northwest, and local authorities appear incapable — or unwilling — to stop them.
The threat has forced several foreign agencies to scale back assistance to survivors of the October 2005 earthquake that killed at least 78,000 people and left 3 million homeless — risking the region’s recovery from the worst natural disaster in the country’s history.
The Feb. 25 attack on employees of Plan International, a British-based charity that focuses on helping children, was the worst in a series of threats and assaults on aid workers in the northern mountains where Taliban-style militants have expanded their reach in the past year.
Nearly a month later, menacing letters are still being sent to aid organizations. Although all four victims in Mansehra were Pakistani men, Islamic extremists despise the aid groups because they employ women and work for women’s rights.
Local officials in Mansehra, who spoke on condition they not be identified for fear of retaliation, said letters from extremists distributed March 13 and 14 also warned schools to make sure girls are covered from head to toe and to avoid coeducation.
The militants also may be trying to discredit Pakistan’s central government, and to enforce a radical religious agenda in a conservative region where jihadist-linked groups were themselves a source of aid after the quake.
Rawalpindi, Mar 21 (ANI): The Pakistan Government has directed law-enforcement agencies to strengthen security to counter expected bomb attacks in Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Lahore, Kohat and Multan. According to the intelligence reports, eight to 10 teenage suicide bombers have been sent from South Waziristan to target sensitive installations and security forces in different areas.
The suicide bombers sent by a Taliban leader, may crash an explosive-laden vehicle, either car or motorcycle, into their targets, the intelligence report said.The expected targets of bombers are Western diplomats, stock exchanges in Lahore and Islamabad, police rest-houses and clubs, Jamia Al-Muntazir of Model Town, Lahore, CSD stores, cinemas in Rawalpindi Cantt, Chaklala Airbase, Naval Headquarters in Islamabad and army welfare shops in Multan, Lahore and Kohat Cantonment according to the report. Security agencies have already been put on high alert across the country to foil any subversive activity. (ANI)
Rawalpindi is the home of the headquarters of the Pakistan Army, and the Taliban are aiming to strike right into the heart of their enemy. The use of suicide bombs wouldn’t be a deviation from a strategy they have already proven they are willing to employ. As of March 11, 2008, there had already been sixteen suicide attacks in Pakistan this year.
There has been speculation about whether there will be a so-called spring offensive in 2008. The Taliban and al Qaeda have settled on a strategy; their fighters have the high ground in Afghanistan North of the Khyber pass due to lack of NATO forces; teenage suicide bombers have been dispatched to the very heart of the Pakistan Army headquarters; and they are attempting to win hearts and minds in the area of the NATO supply routes. There is no question when the spring offensive will occur. It has already started, and while the desire might be for direct kinetic engagements in order to preserve the typical 10:1 kill ratio, the campaign will be harder than that. It will be a war of insurgents, guerrillas and irregular warfare. The only question will be whether there will be enough NATO forces to secure the population, kill the enemy and win the campaign.
After the 9/11 attacks the U.S. made seven demands of Pakistan as a cooperative effort in the global war on terror (and specifically aimed – at that time – towards the Afghanistan campaign).
1) Stop Al-Qaeda operations on the Pakistani border, intercept arms shipments through Pakistan and all logistical support for bin Laden.
2) Blanket over-flights and landing rights for US planes.
3) Access to Pakistan’s naval bases, airbases and borders.
4) Immediate intelligence and immigration information.
5) Curb all domestic expression of support for terrorism against the United States, its friends and allies.
6) Cut off fuel supply to the Taliban and stop Pakistani volunteers going into Afghanistan to join the Taliban.
7) For Pakistan to break diplomatic relations with the Taliban and assist the US to destroy bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network.
Reportedly Richard Armitage threatened that Pakistan would be bombed back to the stone age if these demands were not accepted. The Pakistani Army has tired of battle among its own people and various ceasefires have allowed the resurgence of al Qaeda and the Taliban in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
“We will teach him [Musharraf] a lesson that will be recorded in the pages of history in letters of gold. The crimes of these murderers, who were acting at Bush’s command, are unforgivable. Soon, we will take vengeance upon them for destroying the mosques. The pure land of Pakistan does not tolerate traitors. They must flee to America and live there. Here, Musharraf will live to regret his injustice towards the students of the Red Mosque. Allah willing, Musharraf will suffer great pain, along with all his aides. The Muslims will never forgive Musharraf for the sin he committed. We want to eradicate Britain and America, and to shatter the arrogance and tyranny of the infidels. We pray that Allah will enable us to destroy the White House, New York, and London.”
Because of the influx of foreign jihadists and evolution of fighters in the area to a more global perspective, Pakistan itself is now at risk. Further, the Afghanistan campaign is in jeopardy of failure because of transnational movement and safe haven in the mountainous areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. CENTCOM realizes that the counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan and Pakistan are one and the same campaign. Thus, a more forceful U.S. presence has been proposed to Pakistan, along with eleven new demands (the story as broken by Shireen M Mazari and universally ignored by the so-called Main Stream Media).
The first demand is for granting of a status that is accorded to the technical and administrative staff of the US embassy. The second demand is that these personnel be allowed to enter and exit Pakistan on mere National Identification (for example a driving licence) that is without any visas.
Next, the US is demanding that Pakistan accept the legality of all US licences, which would include arms licences. This is followed by the demand that all these personnel be allowed to carry arms and wear uniforms as they wish, across the whole of Pakistan.
Then comes a demand that directly undermines our sovereignty – that the US criminal jurisdiction be applicable in Pakistan to US nationals. In other words, these personnel would not be subject to Pakistani law.
In territories of US allies like Japan, this condition exists in areas where there are US bases and has become a source of major resentment in Japan, especially because there are frequent cases of US soldiers raping Japanese women and getting away with it. In the context of Pakistan, the demand to make the US personnel above the Pakistani law would not be limited to any one part of the country! So the Pakistani citizens will become fair game for US military personnel as well as other auxiliary staff like military contractors.
The next demand is for exemption from all taxes, including indirect taxes like excise duty, etc. The seventh demand is for inspection-free import and export of all goods and materials. So we would not know what they are bringing in or taking out of our country – including Gandhara art as well as sensitive materials.
At number eight is the demand for free movement of vehicles, vessels including aircraft, without landing or parking fees! Then, at number nine, there is a specific demand that selected US contractors should also be exempted from tax payments.
At number ten there is the demand for free of cost use of US telecommunication systems and using all necessary radio spectrum. The final demand is the most dangerous and is linked to the demand for non-applicability of Pakistani law for US personnel. Demand number eleven is for a waiver of all claims to damage to loss or destruction of others’ property, or death to personnel or armed forces or civilians. The US has tried to be smart by not using the word “other” for death but, given the context, clearly it implies that US personnel can maim and kill Pakistanis and destroy our infrastructure and weaponry with impunity.
But Shireen M Mazari’s article resents U.S. involvement in the area, as do other Pakistani commentators. Whatever else the recent elections mean, they do not mean that there is increasing support for the U.S. led war on terror. The Pashtun have outright rejected such an idea. The idea in vogue is that the U.S. presence is the reason for the unrest in the area. The solution, they think, is to throw the U.S. out of the region and talk with the Taliban.
But herein lies the Pakistani blindness to the global jihad. The classical insurgency might be concerned about governance, representation, wealth, and power, but the global jihad has as (at least one of) its motivators religious persuasion. What the U.S. found in Anbar was that the concerns of the indigenous insurgents can be addressed by typical counterinsurgency doctrine, including military force but also other very important nonkinetic operations. But the global religious fighters had to be captured or killed. There was no other solution.
What Pakistan has yet to allow into the public consciousness is that jihadists bent on the destruction of both Pakistan and all Western influences must be eradicated. The Pakistanis are confused. It isn’t just the U.S. led global war on terror that is opposed by the jihad. It is modernity. The powers in Pakistan will soon enough wake to the peril that they are in, but by rejecting U.S. involvement to help stem the tide of dark change in the country, they are only ensuring that they will have to take the same actions against the jihadists themselves -and they will quite possibly be alone when they do. It will be a bloody affair, and dangerous for the whole world. The Pakistan military brass knows this. The nationalistic rank and file are furious, and only time will tell how bad this gets.
A few days ago saw a strange dust-up between hardened Taliban fighters – the ones who drove the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan – and young Internet jihadists (although the Taliban would not have noticed or cared even if they did).
CAIRO, Egypt — Al Qaeda supporters on the Web have unleashed an unprecedented flood of criticism of Afghanistan’s Taliban, once seen by extremists as the model of an Islamic state.
Now extremists accuse the Taliban of straying from the path of global jihad after its leader Mullah Omar issued a statement saying he seeks good relations with the world and even sympathizes with Shiite Iran.
In February, the Taliban announced it wanted to maintain good and “legitimate” relations with neighboring countries. Then, last week online militants were outraged when the movement expressed solidarity with Iran, condemning the latest round of sanctions imposed on Tehran by the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear enrichment.
The Shiite Islamic state of Iran is viewed as anathema by the Sunni militants of the Al Qaeda and other extremist movements.
“This is the worst statement I have ever read … the disaster of defending the (Iranian) regime is on par with the Crusaders in Afghanistan and Iraq,” wrote poster Miskeen, whose name translates literally as “the wretched” and who is labeled as one of the more influential writers on an Al Qaeda linked Web site …
“The Taliban seeks to be a respected political movement that can at the same time govern Afghanistan and be at limited peace with its neighbors,” said Rita Katz, the director of the Washington-based SITE Intelligence Group which monitors militant Web traffic.
But she cautioned that the “Taliban’s surprising call to support Iran in the face of new U.N. sanctions does not mean that the group is suddenly offering unequivocal support to Iran,” though it shows readiness to coexist with the neighbor.
Cairo-based expert on Islamic movements Diaa Rashwan linked the Taliban’s quest for international legitimacy to possible future negotiations with the Afghan government.
“Mullah Omar’s statement about good relations are in response to accusations from the West that the Taliban is radical and does not accept dialogue or negotiations with others,” he said.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in September he was ready to negotiate with the Taliban, including Mullah Omar himself, to put an end to the insurgency, while U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan William Wood said in December he would support reconciliation talks, with some conditions.
“The only problem about an eventual compromise with the Taliban is the fate of Al Qaeda, whether it will be expelled from Afghanistan or commit itself to the Afghan government,” Rashwan said.
“We will teach him [Musharraf] a lesson that will be recorded in the pages of history in letters of gold. The crimes of these murderers, who were acting at Bush’s command, are unforgivable. Soon, we will take vengeance upon them for destroying the mosques. The pure land of Pakistan does not tolerate traitors. They must flee to America and live there. Here, Musharraf will live to regret his injustice towards the students of the Red Mosque. Allah willing, Musharraf will suffer great pain, along with all his aides. The Muslims will never forgive Musharraf for the sin he committed. We want to eradicate Britain and America, and to shatter the arrogance and tyranny of the infidels. We pray that Allah will enable us to destroy the White House, New York, and London.”
Pakistan is seeing and has seen since 2007 an influx of global jihadists into the NWFP and FATA areas of Pakistan, so there is no paucity of international fighters who will participate in a global war. The so-called “nationalistic” tendencies of the Afghan Taliban are just that – political machinations intended to place them in the best possible position to regain power in the area. They haven’t change their core values any more than al Qaeda has.
The picture of reactionary boy-jihadists and computer jocks presuming to chastise hard core Afghan Taliban would otherwise be humorous if not for the fact that these forums and chat rooms are recruiting grounds for future jihadists. In case anyone doubts the ongoing threat of a transnational insurgency, this incident should remind us all just what General Abizaid intended when he coined the phrase “the long war.”
Al Qaeda finds it difficult to emplace IEDs because of the population (which points them out to U.S. forces) and UAVs operating discretely above. Further, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, direct kinetic engagements are being avoided. The kill ratio which has been maintained throughout both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom is approximately 10:1. This has caused huge losses for al Qaeda (and the Taliban in Afghanistan), and they have largely transitioned to a tactic which is much more surreptitious and difficult to stop: the suicide bomb. Eight U.S. soldiers died Monday due to this tactic.
A man walked up to a group of American soldiers on foot patrol in an upscale shopping district in central Baghdad on Monday and detonated the explosives-filled vest he was wearing, killing five soldiers and wounding three others and an Iraqi interpreter who accompanied them.
In eastern Diyala Province, north of the capital, three more American soldiers and an interpreter were also killed Monday when they were attacked with an improvised bomb, according to the military, which did not release any more details.
Another soldier was wounded in the blast.
The suicide bombing in Baghdad was the deadliest single attack on American soldiers in the capital since the height of the troop buildup here last summer. Nine Iraqi civilians were also wounded in the blast, according to officials at Yarmuk Hospital, where the victims were taken.
Reports from Iraqi witnesses suggest that the soldiers may have let down their guard because of the relative quiet of the last few months, leaving the safety of their Humvees and chatting with residents and shopkeepers.
Hours later, a car bomb exploded outside a hotel in the northern Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya, killing two people and wounding 30 in the first significant attack in that city in several years.
Noncombatants have also been targeted with the violence in other parts of Iraq.
A roadside bomb has killed at least 16 people travelling on a bus in southern Iraq, reports say. At least 22 people were also wounded in the attack.
The civilian passenger bus was travelling on the Basra-Nasiriya road some 80km (50 miles) south of Nasiriya, police said.
The attack came a day after eight US soldiers and an interpreter were killed in two separate incidents, the US military said.
One attack took place in Diyala province, killing three soldiers and an interpreter, while five other soldiers were killed in a suicide attack in Baghdad.
A new United Nations report says insurgent and terrorist violence in Afghanistan sharply increased last year, with more than 8,000 conflict-related deaths …
His report also highlights the way the conflict has changed from a conventional war between western forces and the Taliban to an insurgency using suicide attacks, assassinations, abductions and roadside bombings.
Suicide attackers detonated two huge truck bombs in Pakistan Tuesday, killing 26 people, partly demolishing a police building and deepening a security crisis facing the new government.
Another 175 people were wounded in the attacks in the eastern city of Lahore, which came just minutes apart in the morning rush-hour and left rescue workers scrambling through rubble in a bid to find survivors.
It is ultimately ineffective to fight these tactics within the battlespace itself. By the time the suicide weapon (the ordnance and the human) has made its way to the population it is too late to stop it. There is no incentive to stop these tactics on the part of the jihadists, because they can directly reverse the kill ratio to their own advantage. These tactics have to be fought at their proximate birthplace, which in this case is Iran and Syria for Iraq, and Iran and Pakistan (NWFP and FATA) for Afghanistan.
The stream of jihadists has to be dried up. The enemy has adapted his tactics to reverse the kill ratio in the battlespace. Without adaptation by U.S. forces, we cannot long sustain this reversal of effectiveness. The hard choices must be made about black operations against known facilitators and handlers in Syria, air strikes against training camps in Iran, strikes into the NWFP and FATA areas of Pakistan, and other options that should be available to stem the flow of global fighters. It’s a matter of winning or losing the campaigns.
With Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s allies routed in last month’s parliamentary elections and civil society led by lawyers aggressively calling for his dismissal and trial for his actions in the “war on terror” over the past eight years, Musharraf has received a boost with the top military brass putting their weight behind the presidency.
Faced with rising militancy, the military did not have much option but to close ranks and back the US push to tackle Taliban and al-Qaeda militants head-on.
At a Corps Commanders conference in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Thursday, army chief Lieutenant General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani rejected suggestions of “distancing of the army from the president”, adding that “any kind of schism, at any level” wouldn’t be in the national interest, according to a statement
Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami party and a leader of the All Parties Democratic Movement, called the Corps Commanders’ proclamation “disappointing”. In a statement released to the national press, he said the move was an intervention by the military in politics.
The Corps Commanders’ meeting took place soon after Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, US Armed Forces, had met in Pakistan with top military leaders, as well as with Musharraf.
The Pakistani brass knows that the NWFP and FATA of Pakistan has become an ad hoc sovereign state that threatens both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The generals might be the only glue that both holds Pakistan together and continues to support the counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan. However, this support may be irrelevant, as Musharraf’s political opponents may be on the verge of a coalition which would remove him from power.
Pakistan’s two largest political parties — which won last month’s national elections — sealed a power-sharing deal yesterday, raising doubts about President Musharraf’s political future.
The accord between Asif Ali Zardari, the de facto leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and widower of the murdered former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and the Pakistan Muslim League (N) led by Nawaz Sharif, another former Prime Minister, cleared the way for the formation of an anti-Musharraf government.
“We feel that the country is on the verge of making history,” said Mr Zardari. “This was also the desire of Benazir Bhutto and we also intend to stick to the road to democracy; we are aware of the problems that the country is facing.”
Mr Sharif said that his party would be part of a federal coalition led by the PPP, which is expected to name its prime ministerial candidate this week. The PPP has won 120 seats in the new 342-seat National Assembly, and the Muslim League 90, bringing them close to the two-thirds majority required to strip Mr Musharraf of his powers to dismiss Parliament. The Assembly is expected to meet in ten days’ time.
Mr Zardari said that he had nothing personal against the President but Mr Sharif suggested that he had no future once the new government was formed. “I do not think we have recognised Musharraf’s existence; we consider him an unconstitutional and illegal president and would not like our sacrifices that we made during the last eight years to go down the drain,” said Mr Sharif, who was ousted by Mr Musharraf in a military coup in 1999.
This power move will play directly into the hands of the Taliban and al Qaeda. We’ve previously discussed the nature of the Pakistani elections, and how they weren’t the rejection of the Islamic parties and sharia law that they have been made out to be. Rather, the elections were a rejection of [a] Musharraf, and [b] the inability of the moderate Islamists to govern. The Taliban and other extremists didn’t participate because democracy runs directly contrary to their ideology. The Pashtun have rejected the global war on terror, and the Taliban are using this lever in their public relations efforts.
KHAR, March 9: Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Maulana Faqir Mohammad has said that the United States is the “number one terrorist” and the entire Muslim Ummah, in particular Pakistan, has been suffering because of its hegemonic policies.
Addressing a gathering in Bajaur Agency’s Aanayat Kalley area, the Maulana said that Pakistan had been turned into a battlefield because of President Pervez Musharraf’s pro-US policies.
“Waging jihad (holy war) against the US and its allies is an obligation of every Muslim, irrespective of state boundaries,” he said.
“Pakistan is our country. We love it. Osama bin Laden and Mulla Omar are also sincere to Pakistan and its people and they don’t want war with them,” he said.
“Bush is our enemy number one and till his defeat everywhere in the world, we will continue our war.”He said the “Taliban have every right to attack troops and installations” because of Pakistani rulers’ anti-Mujahideen policy.
He told the gathering that no person would be pardoned for “spying for the US forces”.
The Taliban leader warned the Afghan refugees in Bajaur “to leave their jobs in the Afghan government or vacate the area”.
Musharraf has only the generals in his corner, and this won’t be enough. As for the boast that no person will be pardoned for spying for the U.S. forces, the Taliban recently proved once again their willingness and capability to conduct terror operations to be true to their threats.
Taliban militants have shot dead a spy chief in southeastern Afghanistan, officials said on Sunday. The district intelligence chief Habib Khan was kidnapped from his house by unidentified gunmen, late on Sunday.
His body was found in Dwa Manda district in the morning, local officils confirmed. Purported Taliban spokesman Zabeehullah Mujahid said their men were responsible for killing the district intelligence chief.
The killing of government officials, especially those working with police, Afghan national army and intelligence agencies, is rampant in the southern and southeastern parts of Afghanistan.
The top military commander in the Mideast said Wednesday that he does not expect Taliban forces in Afghanistan to launch a spring offensive this year. If anything, he said, he sees the momentum continuing to swing in the direction of coalition forces.
“The spring offensive is going to be by our people, as they move out and take advantage of the situation that they helped create through their good works there in the fall of last year,” Adm. William Fallon told the House Armed Services Committee.
The leader of al Qaeda in Afghanistan has urged more Muslims to join and finance the group’s war there, saying Western troops are close to defeat.
“Your brothers in Afghanistan are waiting for you and longing to (welcome) you,” Mustafa Abu al-Yazid said in an audio recording posted on an Islamist Web site.
“The time for reaping the fruit of victory and empowerment has come … The infidel enemy has been badly wounded at the hands of your brothers and is close to its demise so assist your brothers to slaughter him,” added the militant leader, speaking with an Egyptian-sounding accent.
As long as NATO and U.S. command doesn’t get in the way of the campaign or relegate them merely to a training role, 3200 Marines should have a great opportunity to kill the enemy this summer.
15 years, 9 months ago
