U.S. national security officials, concerned that President
Barack Obama might be abandoning the strategy of full-fledged
counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan, are claiming new intelligence
assessments suggesting that al Qaeda would be allowed to return to
Afghanistan in the event of a Taliban victory.
But two former senior intelligence analysts who have long followed
the issue of al Qaeda's involvement in Afghanistan question the alleged
new intelligence assessments. They say that the Taliban leadership
still blames Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda for their loss of power after
9/11 and that the Taliban-al Qaeda cooperation is much narrower today
than it was during the period of Taliban rule.
The nature of the relationship between al Qaeda and the Taliban has
been a central issue in the White House discussions on Afghanistan
strategy that began last month, according to both White House spokesman
Robert Gibbs and National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones.
One of the arguments for an alternative to the present
counterinsurgency strategy by officials, including aides to Ambassador
Richard Holbrooke, is that the Taliban wouldn't allow al Qaeda to
reestablish bases inside Afghanistan, The Wall Street Journal reported
Oct. 5. The reasoning behind the argument, according to the report, is
that the Taliban realises that its previous alliance with al Qaeda had
caused it to lose power after the Sep. 11 attacks.
Officials in national security organs that are committed to the
counterinsurgency strategy have now pushed back against the officials
who they see as undermining the war policy.
McClatchy newspapers reported Sunday that officials have cited what
they call "recent U.S. intelligence assessments" that the Taliban and
other Afghan insurgent groups have "much closer ties to al Qaida now
than they did before 9/11" and would allow al Qaeda to re-establish
bases in Afghanistan if they were to prevail.
McClatchy reporters said 15 mid-level or senior intelligence,
military and diplomatic officials they interviewed had agreed with the
alleged intelligence assessments.
But John McCreary, formerly a senior analyst at the Defence
Intelligence Agency, wrote last week on NightWatch, an online news
analysis service, that the history of Taliban-al Qaeda relations
suggests a very different conclusion. After being ousted from power in
2001, he wrote, the Taliban "openly derided the Arabs of al Qaida and
blamed them for the Taliban's misfortunes".
The Taliban leaders "vowed never to allow the foreigners –
especially the haughty, insensitive Arabs – back into Afghanistan,"
wrote McCreary. "In December 2001, [Mullah Mohammad] Omar was ridiculed
in public by his own commanders for inviting the 'Arabs' and other
foreigners, which led to their flight to Pakistan."
McCreary concluded, "The premise that Afghanistan would become an al
Qaida safe haven under any future government is alarmist and bespeaks a
lack of understanding of the Pashtuns on this issue and a superficial
knowledge of recent Afghan history."
The Central Intelligence Agency's former national intelligence
officer for the Middle East, Paul Pillar, expressed doubt that the
Taliban's relations with al Qaeda are tighter now than before the
Taliban regime was ousted.
"I don't see how you can say that," Pillar told IPS. "If you look at
the pre-9/11 relationship between the Taliban and al Qaeda, in many
ways it was far more extensive."
In the civil war between the Taliban regime and its Northern
Alliance foes from 1996 through 2001, Pillar observed, "bin Laden's
Arabs and money" represented a far bigger role in supporting the
Taliban than the one al Qaeda is playing now.
"You can say that there are more groups which have relationships
with al Qaeda now, but I don't see any as close as that which existed
before 9/11," said Pillar.
The role played by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda in the Taliban's
struggle against its rival the Northern Alliance from 1996 to 2001 has
been documented by journalist Roy Gutman, now foreign editor of
McClatchy newspapers, and other sources.
As early as 1997, 300 Arab troops trained by bin Laden troops were
fighting alongside the Taliban on the front line north of Kabul,
according to Gutman's book, "How We Missed the Story", published in
2008. Later, they were reported to have taken over large sections of
that front line.
Bin Laden's military and financial support became an even more
important crutch for the Taliban regime in its final years in power.
Gutman says the Taliban's mid-summer 1998 offensive in northern
Pakistan was largely financed by bin Laden.
In the last stage of the conflict, Gutman writes, al Qaeda troops
consisted of 1,500 to 2,500 Arabs and Central Asian "Frontline
fighters", and Ahmed Shah Massoud, the commander of the Northern
Alliance forces seeking to overthrow the Taliban, regarded them as his
toughest and most committed opponents.
Gutman quotes Massoud telling CIA operative Gary Schroen, "Every
time I fight the Taliban, the glue that holds them together is the Arab
units."
Osama bin Laden also financed Taliban military equipment and
operations, according to Gutman's account. A summer 1998 Taliban
offensive was fought with hundreds of new Japanese pickup trucks –
Massoud claimed a total of 1,200 vehicles - bought with bin Laden's
money.
Today, however, al Qaeda is cash-strapped and has very few foreign
fighters in Afghanistan, whereas the Taliban appear to be well-financed.
The U.S. Treasury Department's expert on terrorist financing, David
Cohen, said al Qaeda is "in its weakest financial position in several
years" and "its influence is waning", the BBC reported Tuesday.
Gen. Jones told CNN interviewer John King Oct. 4 the presence of al
Qaeda in Afghanistan today is "minimal", adding the "maximum estimate"
is 100 foreign fighters. One official critical of the White House
position quoted in the McClatchy story suggested the number might be as
high as 200 or 250.
Both figures appears to be consistent with the estimate by Western
officials of a total of only 100 to 300 foreign fighters in Afghanistan
cited in the New York Times Oct. 30, 2007.
Of that total, however, only "small numbers" were Arabs and
Chechens, Uzbeks or other Central Asians, who are known to have links
with al Qaeda, Seth Jones of the Rand Corporation told Voice of America
the following month.
The bulk of the foreign fighters in Afghanistan are Pashtuns from
across the border in Pakistan. Those Pashtun fighters are recruited
from religious schools in Pakistan, but there is no evidence that they
are affiliated with al Qaeda.
Just this month, U.S. intelligence has increased its estimate of
Taliban armed insurgents to 17,000, compared with 10,000 in late 2007.
Even if all foreign fighters were considered as al Qaeda, therefore,
250 of them would represent only 1.5 percent of the estimated total.
Inter Press Service