Geopolitics

The Jihadi War - II
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Issue Vol 23.2 Apr-Jul 2008 | Date : 01 Nov , 2011

Operation Enduring Freedom

Operation Enduring Freedom is the official name used by the US government for its military response to the 11 September 2001 attacks on the country. Holding the Taliban Government in Afghanistan responsible for sheltering Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the attacks on its soil, on 7 October 2001, American and British forces began an aerial bombing campaign targeting Taliban forces and al-Qaeda.

Most of the Taliban fled to Pakistan. The war continued in the south of the country, where the Taliban retreated to Kandahar. After Kandahar fell in December, remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda continued to mount resistance.

The Northern Alliance, fighting against a Taliban weakened by US bombing and massive defections, captured Mazar-i Sharif on November 9. It rapidly gained control of most of northern Afghanistan and took control of Kabul on November 13 after the Taliban unexpectedly fled the city. The Taliban were restricted to a smaller and smaller region, with Kunduz, the last Taliban-held city in the north, captured on November 26. Most of the Taliban fled to Pakistan. The war continued in the south of the country, where the Taliban retreated to Kandahar. After Kandahar fell in December, remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda continued to mount resistance.

The Battle of Tora Bora, involving US, British and Northern Alliance forces took place in December 2001 to further destroy the Taliban and suspected al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. In early March 2002 the United States military, along with allied Afghan military forces, conducted a large operation to destroy al-Qaeda in an operation code-named Operation Anaconda. After managing to evade US forces throughout the summer of 2002, the remnants of the Taliban gradually began to regain their confidence.

The ISAF is an international stabilisation force authorised by the UN Security Council on 20 December 2001. It consists of about 40,000 personnel from 34 nations. The United States military also conducts military operations, separate from NATO, as part of Operation Enduring Freedom in other parts of Afghanistan. ISAF has proceeded in stages to stabilize the country. Initially, ISAF took control of Kabul and northern Afghanistan. Then, it moved into western Afghanistan. On 31 July 2006, ISAF assumed command of the restive south of the country, and by 5 October 2006 of east Afghanistan also, thus covering the entire country. ISAF’s principal mechanism for rebuilding Afghanistan is the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). PRTs, composed of military and civilian officials, are charged with extending the reach of the Afghan government by improving governance and rebuilding the economy. There are significant differences in how individual NATO governments run their PRTs.

The greatest barrier to the militarys capacity to undertake its stabilisation role in Afghanistan is a lack of adequate forces-on-the-ground.

In November of 2006, the UN Security Council warned that Afghanistan may become a failed state due to increased Taliban violence, growing illegal drug production, and fragile state institutions.9 From 2005 to 2006, the number of suicide attacks, direct fire attacks, and use of improvised explosive devices increased. Al Qaeda, Taliban, the Haqqani Network and Hezb-i-Islami sanctuaries have increased fourfold in the last year. The campaign has been significantly less successful at achieving the primary policy goal of ensuring that Al-Qaeda can no longer operate in Afghanistan. The troop strength is less than a quarter of the deployment of international troops to Iraq, whereas the rugged terrain of Afghanistan is more populated, and has an area almost 50 per cent larger than Iraq. To prevent NATO’s defeat at the hands of the Taliban, a rejuvenated NATO force is needed for Afghanistan.

The greatest barrier to the military’s capacity to undertake its stabilisation role in Afghanistan is a lack of adequate forces-on-the-ground. This has led to an over-reliance upon air strikes, leading to increased civilian casualties and lower levels of support for the Karzai Government and the West’s presence in the country. The Taliban are increasingly able to fill the political space, and once rooted within the new community, are proving impossible to remove.

The troop strength is less than a quarter of the deployment of international troops to Iraq, whereas the rugged terrain of Afghanistan is more populated, and has an area almost 50 per cent larger than Iraq. To prevent NATOs defeat at the hands of the Taliban, a rejuvenated NATO force is needed for Afghanistan.

NATO’s ability to undertake a successful mission in Afghanistan is hamstrung by restrictive caveats. If NATO is to truly be able to project itself on a global scale, then its member states must bear the war fighting burden in equal measure, and national caveats must be lifted. The alliance is fading.  The different threat perceptions among alliance members, affect the degree of willingness among the members’ publics, and their governments, regarding the appropriate conditions in which to use force among other political instruments, and to provide sufficient financial resources to support the military instrument of that mix.  It is such disparities which affect public inclinations and political decisions on defense spending. Different historical experiences are critically important in understanding the attitudes regarding the propriety, threshold and utility of the use of force in international conflict in the 21st century.  These differences lead to difficulties regarding rules of engagement, area of operations, and related factors in Afghanistan.

The Way Forward

Counter-insurgency operations have been anathema to the American military establishment for at least three decades. It appears that the US has a greater propensity to destroy than to build societies in Asia. Reliance on their strength in technology rather than massive manpower have led US military forces to lay down rules of engagement that are wholly inappropriate to the situation at hand. In the first instance the campaign is not a war on terror but a counterinsurgency effort.

Insurgencies are enormously stressful and frustrating for forces combating them. The use of improvised explosive devices, booby-traps, snipers, by an adversary who hides among civilians, creates a vicious and explosive environment to the point where most soldiers forget that non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect. Given such attitudes, preventing future incidents is extremely difficult despite all efforts. The conflict for Afghanistan should, therefore, focus upon the following:

In effect, the insurgents have an unfair advantage. The government can lose if its forces lose on the battlefield, but the government does not necessarily win if its forces win on the battlefield.

Treat the conflict as a counterinsurgency campaign and not an anti-terror war. Terrorism is a tactic, which contributes to an insurgent aim. An insurgency is an armed revolution against an established political order, which is sustained by external support. The struggle against insurgents is protracted against the central role of the insurgent political infrastructure, the subsidiary role of insurgent military forces, and their use of guerrilla tactics. All these issues need to be addressed in tandem.   Without question, rebel military actions play a primary role in an insurgency. But the success of rebels on the battlefield is not crucial to the success of the insurgent movement. Insurgent forces can lose virtually every battle and still win the war. In effect, the insurgents have an unfair advantage. The government can lose if its forces lose on the battlefield, but the government does not necessarily win if its forces win on the battlefield.

The counterinsurgency force should establish secure areas. It should focus upon bringing security to a densely populated or strategically important town, enabling non-military agencies to undertake developmental projects in a secure environment. It requires one set of troops to be engaged in static security tasks, with a strong forward mobile presence aimed at preventing the insurgency from disrupting the development work.

Reduce the use of air power to strike at civilian targets. One of the most controversial issues today is the role of airpower in counterinsurgency operations. While no one advocates the use of force except when truly necessary, killing insurgents…cannot itself defeat an insurgency. Bombing, even with the most precise weapons, will cause unintended civilian casualties and its euphuism of “collateral damage” turns people against the military and government and provides insurgents with a major propaganda victory. Even when justified under the law of war, bombings bring media coverage that works to the insurgents’ benefit.

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Reintegration of ‘marginal insurgents’. A significant proportion of the Taliban are fighting for economic as opposed to ideological reasons. Establishing viable, sustainable alternative income sources in secure environments will deprive the movement of their support.

As difficult and long as this process may be, it will be the only way to get trustworthy information from an insurgency that relies on human relations to operate.

A greater emphasis be placed upon intelligence, in particular, human intelligence. Intelligence gathering is a key factor in the implementation of a successful counterinsurgency strategy. Insurgents are exceedingly difficult to find and engage in battle, a fact which places more emphasis on superior intelligence operations. Additionally, the identification and destruction of the covert insurgent infrastructure requires criminal intelligence operations (identification, correlation, tracking, and apprehension).  It is imperative to operate at the grass-roots level, establishing a relationship of trust with the locals, who are historically suspicious of any outsiders. As difficult and long as this process may be, it will be the only way to get trustworthy information from an insurgency that relies on human relations to operate.

Electronic intelligence, overhead imagery, and other technologically sophisticated techniques often are not very useful in finding soldiers who make minimum use of electronic communications, move in very small groups on foot, and are difficult to distinguish from the general population. The same holds true for the identification of members of the covert infrastructure-the problem is to separate the wheat from the chaff, a task not well suited to technologically-sophisticated intelligence-gathering means.

The intelligence task is much more difficult if population movement is not tightly controlled. A key ingredient when working against the infrastructure is the knowledge of who is who and identifying aberrations to the pattern.

The military has a central role to play in supporting the activities of development agencies. As such, it should be tasked to deliver aid to ravaged areas of the south and east, and be granted control of development aid budgets. Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) mean well but are not the right channel to provide assistance in strife-torn areas, where insurgencies are raging.

The National Caveats have to be revised. Some allies commit forces to a NATO operation, then impose restrictions – “national caveats” – on tasks those forces may undertake. These restrictions, for example, may prohibit forces from engaging in combat operations or from patrolling at night due to a lack of night-vision equipment. In addition to caveats, some governments do not permit their forces to be transferred to other parts of Afghanistan. Caveats pose difficult problems for force commanders, who seek maximum flexibility in utilizing troops under their command.

The French government reduced its caveats and agreed to allow its forces in Kabul and elsewhere to come to the assistance of other NATO forces in an emergency. Turkey, in contrast, refused to change its proscription against its forces use in combat.

At the alliance’s summit in Riga, Latvia, in late November 2006, NATO leaders sought to reduce the caveats in Afghanistan. The United States, Canada, Britain, and the Netherlands have forces in southern and eastern Afghanistan, highly unsettled areas, and have appealed to other governments to release combat forces to assist them in moments of danger. The French government reduced its caveats and agreed to allow its forces in Kabul and elsewhere to come to the assistance of other NATO forces in an emergency. Turkey, in contrast, refused to change its proscription against its forces’ use in combat. The Italian and Spanish governments said that their force commanders in the field could make the decision to send forces to assist in an urgent situation. It remains unclear whether and when these commanders would have to request permission from their capitals to do so, a complicating factor that could delay a decision.

Some allies have singled out Germany for special criticism, given that Germany has a large contingent of 2,800 troops in a relatively quiet area of northern Afghanistan and it is unclear whether it will send combat forces to assist in an emergency. The issue moved into the public arena in November 2006 in meetings of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Quebec City. One British Member of Parliament asked his German colleagues, “If the situation was reversed and German soldiers were in imminent danger, how would you feel if the British commander responded to a German request for urgent assistance with the answer, ‘Sorry, we can’t come across the line to help you.’”10

The Counter-Narcotics Policy needs to be objectively reviewed. The allies are struggling to combat Afghanistan’s poppy crop. Afghanistan supplies 92% of the world’s opium as of 2006. The crop is a major factor in the economic life and stability of the country, and by one estimate accounts for 40% of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product (GDP).11 Opium poppy farmers are heavily concentrated in the southern part of the country. The repercussions of Afghanistan’s poppy crop for the future of the country and for ISAF operations are extensive and complex. The Afghan government lacks the law enforcement apparatus, including a well-functioning judicial system, to combat the narcotics trade successfully. Narcotics traffickers can exploit the country’s primitive transportation network, as an extensive road system is not needed to move opium to market; a small load of opium can yield a high financial return.

“¦crops cannot compete with poppies; income from a hectare of poppies can reach $4600 a year, while wheat, one of the suggested substitute crops, can bring only $390.

The opium trade has a corrosive effect on Afghan society. At the same time, farmers in parts of the country view the poppy as their only source of income. Eradication of crops without a substitute source of income would throw these farmers into destitution, and they violently resist any effort to destroy their crops. ISAF has decided against the destruction of poppy fields, but they provide training, intelligence, and logistics to Afghan army units and police who destroy opium labs.

The Afghan government’s destruction of poppy fields is too random to be effective. Another component of the counter-narcotics effort is to persuade farmers to switch to alternative crops. Such crops cannot compete with poppies; income from a hectare of poppies can reach $4600 a year, while wheat, one of the suggested substitute crops, can bring only $390. Licensing poppy cultivation for medical purposes is the only way to break the Taliban’s growing control and bring Afghan farmers into a supportive relationship with the Karzai government.

The licensed poppy cultivation systems in India and Turkey are an example for Afghanistan. India has licensed poppy cultivation for export of raw poppy materials and for the internal manufacture of medicines since independence in 1947. Controlled by the Indian Government, the controlled exploitation of this natural resource brings the country a gross profit of $ 40 million each year. Apart from the obvious benefits to the national economy and to the pharmaceutical industry, which produces cheap poppy-based medicines for severe pain relief, licensed poppy cultivation has also had significant benefits for Indian farmers. Sustainable attractive incomes have resulted in economic diversification and an improvement in socio-economic conditions in rural villages.12

Conclusion

The mission of NATO-ISAF in Afghanistan is a test of its political will and military capabilities. A “new” NATO has been created, able to go beyond the European theatre and combat new threats such as terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Afghanistan is NATO’s first “out-of-area” mission beyond Europe. Its purpose is the stabilisation and reconstruction of Afghanistan. The mission is a difficult one because it must take place while combat operations against Taliban insurgents continue.

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UN Security Council resolutions govern NATO’s responsibilities. The NATO-led ISAF faces formidable obstacles: shoring up a weak government in Kabul; using military capabilities in a distant country with rugged terrain; and rebuilding a country devastated by war and troubled by a resilient narcotics trade. NATO’s mission statement lays out the essential elements of the task of stabilising and rebuilding the country: train the Afghan army, police, and judiciary; support the government in counter-narcotics efforts; develop a market infrastructure; and suppress the Taliban.

One British Member of Parliament asked his German colleagues, “If the situation was reversed and German soldiers were in imminent danger, how would you feel if the British commander responded to a German request for urgent assistance with the answer, “˜Sorry, we cant come across the line to help you.

The mujahideen’s war against the Soviets in Afghanistan shaped the current Pakistani army-particularly its intelligence apparatus, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). It created the jihadi force in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. In turn, the Pakistani army and ISI are now heavily influenced by their Afghan clients’ values and are now extremely unreliable from the US viewpoint. Adding to the complexity of the situation is the desire of the military to continue to hold the reins of power in Pakistan. How long they can walk this tightrope and the Pakistani army remains a cohesive, non-Islamist force, is uncertain.

Although the allies agree on ISAF’s mission, they differ on how to accomplish it. Some do not want their forces to engage in combat operations. None wants to engage directly in destruction of poppy fields in countering the drug trade. Supporting the Afghan government in this task – largely through training the police – is difficult. In the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal and criticism of US practices at Guantanamo, insisting on close observation of international law in dealing with prisoners is also an issue.

Most observers predict that ISAF’s efforts to stabilise Afghanistan will require five years or more. An exit strategy has multiple components: suppressing the Taliban; rebuilding the economy; and cajoling Afghan leaders to put aside tribal and regional disputes and improve governance. Above all is the jihadi or Taliban angle. In an environment where ethnic identity transcends national identity there is a need to tread carefully but decisively. In this equation, Pakistan represents both – an opportunity and a challenge.

Notes

  1. Dawn, 10 January 2008
  2. International Crisis Group; Afghanistan’s Endangered Compact, Asia Briefing n. 59, 29 January 2007
  3. The Pashtun people are considered the largest tribal grouping in the world. They are understood to be descendants of Qais Abdur Rashid, the first Pashtun who traveled to Mecca and Madina and met the Prophet during the early days of Islam. Qais Abdur Rashid died leaving three sons: Sarban, Baitan and Ghourghusht. From these three sons, as well as Karlan (adopted son), we get the majority of Pashtun tribes known today.
  4. Husain Haqqani, ´The Wind Blows Another Way at the Durand Line´ The Indian Express, 15 March 2006. See: the article on the Carnegie Endowment’s website at: http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=18267&prog=zgp&proj=zsa,zus
  5. See the official website of the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas at: http://www.fata.gov.pk/index.php?link=2
  6. The Durand Line is the poorly demarcated 2,640 kilometre border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is named after Sir Mortimer Durand, the foreign secretary of the British Indian government. After reaching a virtual stalemate in two wars against the Afghans, the British forced the Amir of Afghanistan, Amir Abdur Rahman Khan, in 1893 to come to an agreement under duress to demarcate the border between Afghanistan and what was then British India. The treaty also granted Abdur Rahman Khan an annual salary from Britain along with shipments of weaponry.
  7. Pashtuns constitute 42% of Afghanistan’s population of 29,928,987 (2005). This totals 12,570,000. Pashtuns constitute 15.42% of Pakistan’s population of 162,400,000. (2005). This totals 25,042,080. Total Pashtun Population: 37,612,000
  8. Bernt Glatzer; The Pashtun Tribal System; from Chapter 10 in: In G. Pfeffer & D. K. Behera (eds.): Concept of Tribal Society (Contemporary Society: Tribal Studies, Vol 5). New Delhi: Concept Publishers, 2002, pp 265-282.
  9. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=20702&Cr=afghan&Cr1=
  10. Paul Gallis; NATO in Afghanistan: A Test of the Transatlantic Alliance; CRS Report for Congress; Updated July 16, 2007
  11. See CRS Report RL32686, Afghanistan: Narcotics and U.S. Policy, by Christopher Blanchard; Pankaj Mishra, “The Real Afghanistan,” New York Review of Books, March 10, 2005, p. 44-48.
  12. See “India’s Experiences in Licensing Poppy Cultivation for the Production of Essential Medicines; Lessons for Afghanistan by Romesh Bhattacharji, June 2007. Available at http://www.senliscouncil.net/documents/india_case_stud
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Col Harjeet Singh

Col Harjeet Singh

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