Operation Enduring Taliban

As the US-led war against international terrorism completes five years onOctober 6, 2006, with no end yet in sight, it is uncomfortably apparent thatOperation Enduring Freedom has turned into Operation Enduring Taliban inAfghanistan.

After having re-established its presence, despite the repeated attacks of theNATO forces led by the UK, in the Pashtun majority areas of Southern and EasternAfghanistan adjoining Pakistan's Pashtun majority areas, the Neo Taliban isinexorably creeping its way up northwards to Kabul. The sporadic acts of suicideterrorism in Kabul and the anti-US and anti-Hamid Karzai demonstrationswitnessed earlier this year in Kabul following a traffic accident show thatsince the beginning of this year the internal security situation in Afghanistanexcept in the Tajik and Uzbeck areas has been steadily deteriorating. Neitherthe induction of the NATO forces nor the raising of a multi-ethnic Afghan Armyand Police has been able to stop the inexorable rise of the Neo Taliban.

The figures of the large number of fatal casualties (about 2,500), which theNATO forces have claimed to have inflicted on the Neo Taliban during the lasttwo months or so have been questioned by the Neo Taliban. It admits that about2,500 persons have been killed by the NATO forces, but asserts that only about20 per cent of them are its cadres. According to it, the remaining fatalitieswere of innocent civilians killed due to the indiscriminate use of air strikesand the heavy artillery by the NATO forces.

The NATO forces, while denying the Neo Taliban figures of civiliancasualties, do admit that civilian casualties have taken place, but in muchsmaller number. They attribute this to the Neo Taliban's practice of takingshelter in the midst of civilian population when chased by the NATO forces.

The Neo Taliban is qualitatively different from the pre-October 7, 2001Taliban. The Taliban of the past was a ragtag militia of students recruited fromthe Deobandi madrasas of Pakistan. It was a force with considerable religiousfervour, but with very little professional fighting capability. It dispersed andvanished into the villages on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border atthe first sign of confrontation with the US-led forces. Even the religiousfervour of its cadres was not strong enough to induce them to take to suicideterrorism.

The Neo Taliban is an increasingly professional fighting force ofwell-trained, well-equipped, well-motivated and well-led cadres with acapability for conventional as well as unconventional operations against theNATO forces and the Afghan Security forces. Its conventional capability,remarkably acquired over a short period of three years, is demonstrated by itsknowledge of militarycraft and tactics and its ability to use them effectivelyagainst the NATO forces.

It is also demonstrated by its ability to operate in section, platoon andcompany strengths and to stand up and fight instead of vanishing at the firstsign of contact with the NATO forces. Its unconventional capability is reflectedin its increasing resort to acts of suicide terrorism. According to oneestimate, there have been nearly 90 acts of suicide terrorism this year. Therewas more Arab than Pashtun involvement in suicide terrorism last year. There hasbeen more Pashtun than Arab involvement this year.

The suicide attacks have killed more Afghans than members of the NATO forces.One would have normally thought that Afghan anger over the indiscriminatekilling of the Afghans by these Neo Taliban suicide strikes would have turnedpublic opinion against it and come in the way of its recruitment to itsconventional as well as unconventional fighting units. It has not.

Whereas religious fervour was the main driving force of the Taliban, a mix ofreligious and nationalist fervour is the driving force of the Neo Taliban. TheNeo Taliban and its cadres view their conflict with the NATO forces not only asa jihad against the infidels, the crusaders and their Afghan surrogates, butalso as a war of national liberation against foreign occupiers of Muslimterritory. The religious fervour fuels the acts of suicide terrorism and thenationalist fervour fuels the conventional battles. The fight is viewed as ajihad to liberate the Muslim soul as well as territory.

Urban terrorism and rural insurgency are the two faces of the Neo Taliban'stactics. The increasing resort to rural insurgency by the Neo Taliban providesan opportunity to the NATO forces to make use of air and artillery strikes toinflict hopefully debilitating casualties on it. The inability of the NATOforces to prevent civilian casualties is playing into the hands of the NeoTaliban. Civilians angered by the NATO tactics are in the forefront of the newrecruits for it.

There are questions to  which correct answers could be found only in theGeneral Headquarters (GHQ) of the Pakistan Army and in the headquarters of itsInter-Services Intelligence (ISI). How many of the Pashtuns in the Neo Talibanare Pakistani nationals and how many are Afghans? How many of the AfghanPashtuns have been recruited in the Afghan villages and how many in the Afghanrefugee camps in Pakistani territory? One knows their source of funding (the ISIand narcotics), but where from are they getting their modern arms andammunition?

And the most important of all: where are they being trained and by whom? Onecan acquire unconventional suicide terrorism capabilities by watching the TV andbrowsing the Internet and in the training camps of Al Qaeda and its associates,but one cannot acquire conventional set-piece battle capabilities from the TVand the Internet.They could be acquired only in  training camps manned byexperienced conventional instructors. Neither the Al Qaeda nor the IslamicMovement of Uzbekistan nor the Pakistani jihadi organisations can impart such acapability to the Neo Taliban in their training camps in the Waziristan area ofPakistan, adjoining the Afghan border.

Everyone, who has his eyes and ears open — President Hamid Karzai and hisofficials, Western and Pakistani media, non-governmental analysts—-could seethat the roots of the Neo Taliban are in Pakistan—in the Pashtun majoritydistricts of Balochistan, the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and theFederally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Until the roots are eliminated, theNeo Taliban cannot be defeated.

The US intelligence agencies, security forces and political leadership areaware of this. The other NATO countries are equally aware of this. Dealing withthe  roots means writing off Gen.Pervez Musharraf. They do not as yet havethe courage to write him off. With Musharraf, things are bad. Without him, theycould be worse. So they think. Between the bad and the worse, they prefer to putup with the bad now, hoping they could prevent the worse. They are unlikely to.

The US' bleeding preoccupation in Iraq has made Musharraf a more confidentman—just as it has made President Ahmadinejad of Iran a more confident person.Both have concluded—each independently of the other— that Iraq has set thelimits to the US power. What the US did to Saddam Hussain in 2003, it cannot doto them. Their conclusion is reflected in Ahmadinejad's increasing defiance ofthe US on the nuclear issue and in Musharraf's increasing insensitivity to theUS concerns over his inaction against the Neo Taliban.

The US finds itself with no cards against Ahmadinejad. He is popular at homeand has no enemies. It still has cards against Musharraf if it decides to actagainst him. Musharraf has enemies within—in the political parties, in thecircle of retired military officers and in the general population. By helpingthem as the next year's elections in Pakistan approach, it can undermine him andpave the  way for the return of the political parties opposed to him. TheGovernment of the political parties may be less competent, but will be moresincere in its co-operation in the war against terrorism.

Of late, Musharraf has been projecting the Neo Taliban as more a resistancemovement than a terrorist organisation and saying that it can be tackled onlypolitically and not militarily. He wants the Neo Taliban to have its share ofpower in Kabul, if not the whole of power. His ill-concealed efforts to have theTaliban, in its new version,  re-ensconced in power in Kabul have to becountered if one has to prevent Afghanistan from sliding back to the pre 9/11days. That could be done only through a regime change in Islamabad—politically,through ensuring free and fair elections, and not militarily. The US has tostart working for it now.

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India,New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai.