[Senate Hearing 112-70]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 112-70
AL QAEDA, THE TALIBAN, AND OTHER EXTREMISTS GROUPS IN AFGHANISTAN AND
PAKISTAN
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 24, 2011
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts, Chairman
BARBARA BOXER, California RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey BOB CORKER, Tennessee
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania MARCO RUBIO, Florida
JIM WEBB, Virginia JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire JIM DeMINT, South Carolina
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
TOM UDALL, New Mexico MIKE LEE, Utah
Frank G. Lowenstein, Staff Director
Kenneth A. Myers, Jr., Republican Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Bergen, Peter, director, National Security Studies Program, New
America Foundation, Washington, DC............................. 5
Prepared statement........................................... 7
Fair, C. Christine, Ph.D., assistant professor, Center for Peace
and Security Studies, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.... 22
Prepared statement........................................... 24
Kerry, Hon. John F., U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, opening
statement...................................................... 1
Lugar, Hon. Richard G., U.S. Senator from Indiana, opening
statement...................................................... 3
Pillar, Paul, Ph.D., director of graduate studies and faculty
member, Center for Peace and Security Studies, Georgetown
University, Washington, DC..................................... 17
Prepared statement........................................... 19
(iii)
AL QAEDA, THE TALIBAN, AND OTHER EXTREMISTS GROUPS IN AFGHANISTAN AND
PAKISTAN
----------
TUESDAY, MAY 24, 2011
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:06 a.m., in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. John F. Kerry
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Kerry, Menendez, Cardin, Shaheen, Udall,
and Lugar.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN F. KERRY,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS
The Chairman. This hearing will come to order. Good
morning. I appreciate everybody being here. This is the fifth
in a series of hearings on Afghanistan and Pakistan, and today
we will examine perhaps one of the most important aspects of
the war, which is the enemy: Who are they? What do they think?
What are the possibilities of either dividing them or working
with some components of them? Many, many questions surrounding
the various forces that are at large in the western part of
Pakistan and in Afghanistan itself.
We're a little bit under the gun today because we have the
joint session with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel. We will
have to end this hearing punctually in order to get over to the
Senate and begin that session. So I ask each of the witnesses
if you would summarize your testimony. Your complete statements
will be placed in the record as if read in full, and that'll
give us more time to ask questions.
In order to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda and
prevent Afghanistan from becoming a terrorist sanctuary, we
clearly need to understand exactly who we're fighting, what
motivates them, what binds them together, and, most
importantly, what could drive them apart. Today we'll attempt
to gain a deeper understanding of insurgent and extremists
groups that inhabit the region and better understand the nature
of this conflict.
Osama bin Laden may have been at the center of it all, but
his death does not signal the end of terrorism. Al-Qaeda still
exists, motivated by the same vitriol and warped ideology that
has always been the organization's trademark. The Abbottabad
raid, how-
ever, did send an unmistakable message: The United States is
committed, capable, and unrelenting in its pursuit of those who
seek to do us harm.
The extent of bin Laden's operational significance will
become clear when we finish analyzing the material that was
removed from his compound. But one aspect of his legacy is
already apparent. Even after 9/11, he played a central role in
motivating disparate groups to unite against the United States
and other western nations.
Nowhere is this phenomenon more apparent than in
Afghanistan and Pakistan, where strong connections among
extremists groups exist at both the organizational and
individual levels. Terrorists and insurgents work together
against coalition forces and to indiscriminately murder
innocent civilians, aid workers, civil servants, and children.
Their motivation, which should offend all faiths, is to
destabilize the region and to establish a safe haven where they
can, and plot attacks against the United States and our allies.
People ask why we are still in Afghanistan. This is the reason.
Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are names well known to Americans.
But other groups are actively plotting, actively killing, every
day. The Haqqani network has expanded its reach beyond North
Waziristan in Pakistan and provides sanctuary to al-Qaeda and
the Afghan Taliban. The Tehrik-i-Taliban, otherwise known as
the Pakistani Taliban, and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi systematically
work to undermine the Government of Pakistan. Lashkar-e-Taiba
and Jaish-e-Mohammed continue to launch attacks that risk
sparking war between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.
So I'd like to take 1 minute, if I can, to highlight the
threat posed by Lashkar-e-Taiba. This group, responsible for
the vicious Mumbai attacks of 2008, is capable of not only
destabilizing the region with another attack against India, but
through its extensive alumni organization and network of
training camps throughout Pakistan it could threaten the United
States homeland.
We also face threats from individuals seeking to fulfill
their own personal objectives. Najibullah Zazi, a legal United
States resident born in Afghanistan, conspired to bomb New York
City's subway system in 2009 after he received training in
Pakistan. Faisal Shahzad, who attempted to detonate a car bomb
last year in Time Square, was linked to the Pakistan Taliban.
Unfortunately, these are just two examples of a new
generation of would-be terrorists who have grown up in the
shadow of extremist militancy. These lone wolves are as
potentially dangerous as any one organization.
Even though these groups and individuals have overlapping
interests, fissures do exist among them. They're separated by
ideologies, nationalities, and tribal or sectarian backgrounds.
Our focus now ought to be less on who will succeed bin Laden
and more on how to exploit those fissures and dismantle the
networks that he spawned.
So this is a critical moment in the war in Afghanistan. Our
security gains in the south--and they are real--coupled with
bin Laden's death, have, at least in my judgment and certainly
in the judgment of the people I talked with in Afghanistan last
weekend, have created some political space. So it's important
that we seize that opportunity.
Middle- and low-level Taliban fighters, many of them want
to come in from the battlefield. We need to work with the
Afghan Government in order to make sure that those who wish to
lay down their arms can in fact do so, and as reconcilable
elements of the insurgency enter into the peace process--and I
think it's possible for some of them to do that--we need to
ensure that Afghans are able to avert both Taliban rule and a
return to civil war. That is a delicate balancing act.
Of course, we can't forget the impact that Pakistan has on
the future of Afghanistan. I've many times said that Pakistan
is the key to diminishing the insurgency in Afghanistan itself.
What happens in Pakistan may do more to determine the rate at
which American troops can withdraw, the rate at which the
Afghan troops can stand up, and the degree to which governance
can be improved in Afghanistan.
We also need to remember that terrorists and insurgents are
continuing to exploit the 1,200-mile porous border that
separates the two countries. And we will have to work very
closely with Pakistan in order to deal with the problem of the
sanctuaries as purveyors of violence in both nations.
The good news here is that there is common ground between
the vital national interests of Pakistan and the United States,
even at the same time as there are some divergent interests. It
will take adroit and persistent diplomacy to convince the
Pakistani military leaders that the real threat to their
sovereignty comes not from its eastern border and not from
across the Atlantic, but from violent extremists in their own
country.
We obviously have a lot to discuss here today, and to help
us do this we have Peter Bergen, currently the director of the
National Security Studies Program at the New America Foundation
and an expert on al-Qaeda and bin Laden; Dr. Paul Pillar, a 28-
year veteran of the CIA and director of graduate studies and
faculty member at Georgetown University; and Dr. Christine
Fair, also a professor at Georgetown University's Center for
Peace and Security Studies and an expert on extremist groups in
South Asia. I thank each of you for coming in this morning.
Senator Lugar.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD G. LUGAR,
U.S. SENATOR FROM INDIANA
Senator Lugar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for
calling this hearing. I note that it is the fifth in a series
of hearings that we have had on Afghanistan and Pakistan. I
join you in welcoming our distinguished witnesses.
Like the chairman, I remain hopeful that we will soon hear
from the Defense Department and the State Department in public
session about their plans in the region going forward. At this
hearing we are attempting to define the nature of the terrorist
threats that confront us in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is
important because we are devoting enormous resources to these
two countries, with the primary goal of fighting terrorism.
Both Afghanistan and Pakistan affect clear United States
national security interests. In previous hearings, however, I
have contended that the resources being spent in Afghanistan
are far greater than the current threat warrants. The United
States has almost 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, with another
32,000 deployed in the region to support the mission. According
to the Congressional Research Service, there were an estimated
87,000 military contract personnel in Afghanistan at the
beginning of this year. More than 1,000 civilian personnel are
assigned to the United States Embassy.
The United States effort in Afghanistan is costing
approximately $120 billion a year. The question before us is
whether Afghanistan is strategically important enough to
justify the lives and massive resources that we are spending
there, especially given that few terrorists in Afghanistan have
global designs or reach. To the extent that our purpose is to
confront the global terrorist threat, we should be refocusing
resources on Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, parts of North Africa,
and other locations.
Our government should be working on an approach that allows
us to achieve the most important national security goals in
Afghanistan--especially preventing the Taliban from taking over
the government and preventing Afghan territory from being used
as a terrorist safe haven--at far less expense.
The Pakistan side of the border has a fundamentally
different dynamic. Despite the death of Osama bin Laden, al-
Qaeda and other terrorist groups maintain a strong presence.
There is no question that the threat of these groups, combined
with worries about state collapse, a Pakistani war with India,
the safety of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal, and Pakistan's
intersection with other states in the region make it a
strategically vital country worth the cost of engagement. The
question is how the United States navigates the contradictions
inherent in dealing with the Pakistani Government and Pakistani
society to ensure that our resources and diplomacy advance our
objectives efficiently.
The importance of getting this right is reinforced by the
utterances of Osama bin Laden, who called the terrorist
acquisition of nuclear and chemical weapons ``a religious
duty.'' This effort has not died with bin Laden. Al-Qaeda and
its affiliates have so far been unsuccessful in obtaining
nuclear material or a nuclear device, experts believe. But many
of our top military and intelligence officials continue to
regard the terrorist acquisition of a nuclear weapon as the
biggest threat to the United States national security.
Pakistan's military leaders have given repeated assurances
that the country's rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal is well-
secured. But we also know that the A.Q. Khan network was
enabled by members of Pakistan's nuclear establishment.
Further, if Pakistan succumbs to violent extremism or economic
collapse, confidence in the security of Pakistan's nuclear
arsenal and technology could erode rapidly.
This underscores the importance to United States national
security of a stable Pakistan and of continued engagement on
terrorism and nuclear security issues.
I look forward with you, Mr. Chairman, to the
recommendations of our expert witnesses today. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thanks, Senator Lugar. I appreciate it very
much.
We will start with Mr. Bergen, then Mr. Pillar, and Ms.
Fair. Thank you.
Mr. Bergen.
STATEMENT OF PETER BERGEN, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY STUDIES
PROGRAM, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Bergen. Thank you, Senator Kerry. Thank you, Senator
Lugar.
In my 5 minutes I wanted to focus on the issue of Taliban
reconciliation. Senator Kerry talked about the political space
that has opened up for the possibility of reconciliation.
Obviously, the death of Osama bin Laden provides an enormous
opportunity for the Taliban, one which I think if they don't
take suggests that they are unlikely to take such an
opportunity again.
As you know, Osama bin Laden swore an oath of allegiance to
Mullah Omar, a religious oath, calling him ``the commander of
the faithful.'' Now, Mullah Omar is now in the position to say:
That was a personal arrangement; I don't really need an oath of
allegiance from al-Qaeda any more. And let's see if he takes
this opportunity, because I see several problems with the idea
of reconciliation and some opportunities.
The problems, briefly, are: The moderate Taliban has
already reconciled. You know their names: Mullah Zaeef, Mullah
Muttawakil, the Foreign Minister. They've had 10 years to
reconcile. The people who aren't reconciled are pretty hard
core.
Second, they've had 10 years to reject----
The Chairman. How many hard core do you think there are?
Mr. Bergen. How many hard-core Taliban?
The Chairman. When you say ``hard-core,'' what are you
talking about?
Mr. Bergen. Well, I mean people who generally believe in
the idea that Mullah Omar is the leader of all Muslims, that
al-Qaeda is a good thing. I mean, they've had 10 years to
reject al-Qaeda. As you know, al-Qaeda's embedded with the
Haqqani Network right now.
We've also the problem the Taliban is not the Taliban; it's
the Talibans. So any negotiation will be several groups. We've
seen that peace deals with the Taliban on the other side of the
border in Pakistan--a border, by the way, that they don't
recognize--they've reneged on every peace agreement they've
been involved in. They had a peace agreement in Waziristan in
2005 and in 2006 and in Swat in 2009. They took those peace
agreements as opportunities to essentially regroup and take
over more territory.
We've run a controlled experiment on what life under the
Taliban looks like very recently in Pakistan. In Swat they
beheaded policemen, they burned down the girls' schools, and
they imposed a reign of terror, and that's the Taliban that I
think is the hard core, that hasn't really changed their spots.
We also saw, with the arrest of Mullah Baradar last year in
Pakistan, effectively arguably the No. 2 of the Taliban, that
the Pakistanis have a veto over these negotiations. So any
negotiation involves them. And that's not the end of the world,
but it is a factor that we need to consider going forward.
The Northern Alliance also has an effective veto. I mean,
Dr. Abdullah, who is well known to both the chairman and the
ranking member, isn't going to give up everything he's fought
for if there are significant territorial concessions or
concessions of principle to the Taliban. And of course, he is
likely to be the next President of Afghanistan in 2014. So the
Northern Alliance have a veto as well as the Pakistanis over
these negotiations.
Hitherto the negotiations that have gone on in Mecca and
the Maldives have amounted to nothing. I mean, one Afghan
official joked to me that the reason that people went to the
Maldives for the negotiations was simply they wanted a
vacation. But there was nothing really serious coming out of
this.
In the case of Mullah Mansour, the supposed No. 2 in the
Taliban who turned out to be a Quetta shopkeeper posing as a
leader of the Taliban, indicates that we know really very
little of what's going on inside this movement. So lack of
knowledge is not helpful when you're negotiating.
Finally and most importantly in terms of the problems with
negotiating with the Taliban, what do the Taliban really want?
Have they described what the future of Afghanistan they want, a
future that involves democracy, that involves elections, that
involves women going to work, that involves girls being
educated, that involves rights for ethnic minorities? I don't
think so.
These are all very, very big problems. Then let me now turn
to opportunities, now that I've described the problems. The
opportunities, of course, are any kinds of negotiations help
gather information about the opposition. We can create splits
in the movement. Hezb-e-Islami, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's group,
may do a deal. They're the sort of lowest hanging fruit. And
once you do a deal with one aspect of the insurgency, you
create the possibility of further splits.
Americans are tired of the war. As the chairman alluded to
and as Senator Lugar alluded to, the Taliban have taken a lot
of hits in southern Afghanistan. In any negotiation, the
recognition of a mutually hurting stalemate is sort of a sine
qua non.
The founding of the High Peace Council, yes, it has
problems, but it's brought into the tent a number of spoilers
from the Northern Alliance so that they're involved in a
potential deal is a good thing. Recent reports in the
Washington Post and Der Spiegel that negotiations are
proceeding in Germany, third party sponsors of negotiations
might include Turkey and Qatar, these are good things.
Finally, most importantly on the opportunities, three-
quarters of Afghans favor a political solution, and this is
very important. So the political context is there. That number
goes up to 94 percent in Kandahar, so an overwhelming number of
Afghans want negotiations.
Finally on a personal note, I've been visiting Afghanistan
since the civil war in 1993 and I spent a fair amount of time
under the Taliban and have a pretty good sense of what life was
actually like there. I think it's going to be quite hard for
this group. I think there's a classic problem in intelligence
circles called mirror imaging, which you're both familiar with,
which is the idea that other people will behave like us. In
fact, the hard core of the Taliban are religious fanatics. When
Mullah Omar awarded himself the title of ``commander of the
faithful,'' he's not just the commander of the Taliban; he's
the commander of all Muslims. And the history of negotiations
with religious fanatics, particularly ones with delusions of
grandeur, is not encouraging.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bergen follows:]
Prepared Statement of Peter Bergen
Senator Kerry, Senator Lugar, and other members of the committee,
thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
My testimony will attempt to answer nine questions:
1. Why should the United States continue to fight against the
Taliban in Afghanistan almost a decade after 9/11 and now that Osama
bin Laden is dead?
2. Is progress being made in Afghanistan, both generally and
against the Taliban?
3. What effect might the killing of bin Laden have on near- and
long-term U.S. global security interests, and on core al-Qaeda's goals
and capabilities?
4. What is the relationship between the Taliban and al-Qaeda?
5. How might that relationship be changed by the death of bin
Laden?
6. What are the impediments to ``reconciliation'' with the Taliban
leadership?
7. Given those impediments, why try and negotiate with the Taliban
and are there reasons to think those negotiations might eventually
work?
8. Might the Haqqani or Hezb-e-Islami (Gulbuddin Hekmatyar)
factions of the Taliban be willing to consider a settlement?
9. There is an agglomeration of extremist groups operating in the
lawless region near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, including the
Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaeda, and other affiliated and sectarian groups.
How should policymakers prioritize which of these to work against?
* * * * * * *
1. Why should the United States continue to fight against the
Taliban in Afghanistan almost a decade after 9/11 and now that Osama
bin Laden is dead?
President Obama has publicly defined the task in Afghanistan rather
narrowly, as preventing the return of al-Qaeda to the country; in
short, a countersanctuary strategy.\1\ Part of the reason for this
relatively narrow public description of the Afghan strategy is, of
course, political: there aren't many Americans who would countenance
the return of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
But there are other reasons the United States remains in
Afghanistan even if they don't have the political heft that invoking
the threat from al-Qaeda does. First, conceding the return of the
Taliban to power in part or the whole of Afghanistan would be a foreign
policy reversal for the United States. Second, when the United States
overthrows a government it has a moral obligation not to exit without
setting the conditions for a slightly more stable and prosperous
country. Third, when the Taliban were in power in Afghanistan they
played host not just to al-Qaeda, but also to many other Islamist
terrorist and insurgent groups from around the globe. Fourth, some kind
of regional settlement in South Asia that encompasses Afghanistan will
likely lower the risks of war between the nuclear-armed states of
Pakistan and India. Fifth, and this is hard for many foreign policy
``realists'' to grasp: the Taliban are the Taliban. When they were in
power in Afghanistan, their regime was characterized by its large-scale
massacres of the Shia,\2\ its incarceration of half the population in
their homes, and a country that became the world capital of jihadist
terrorism.
Evidence for what the Taliban are likely to do should they return
to power in Afghanistan in some shape or form is provided by a
controlled experiment on this question that has gone on over the past
several years in Pakistan. In the onetime Pakistani tourist destination
of Swat between 2008 and 2009 the Taliban imposed a reign of terror,
beheading policemen whose bodies were left to rot in public, burning
down girls' schools, and administering public lashings to women for
supposed infractions such as adultery.\3\ It was a formula that they
had already followed for several years in the tribal areas of Pakistan,
the home base of the Pakistani branch of the Taliban.
And the Taliban haven't changed their spots in Afghanistan either.
According to a United Nation report released in March, of the some
2,800 civilian casualties of the war in 2010, three-quarters were
caused by the Taliban.\4\ The massacre at the Kabul Bank branch in the
eastern city of Jalalabad earlier this year was emblematic of this
trend. Footage of the February 19 attack was captured by the bank's
security cameras and shows a Taliban fighter ordering Afghan civilians
to enter a room and then firing on them. At least 40 people, mostly
civilians, were killed in the assault.\5\ And for those who think that
the Taliban have lightened up on one of their signature policies--
preventing girls from being educated--consider that a concerted
campaign of chemical weapon attacks has taken place against around a
dozen girls schools across Afghanistan since the spring of 2009. Afghan
girls have been poisoned with organophosphates, a nerve agent used in
insecticides, in schools in Balkh and Kunduz in the north, and in
Kabul, Ghazni, Kapisa, and Parwan in central Afghanistan. Those attacks
have sickened and hospitalized hundreds.\6\
The recent evidence from Pakistan and Afghanistan shows that the
notion that should the Taliban come back to power in parts of
Afghanistan that they will suddenly morph into some kind of Pashtun
version of the Rotary Club is a delusion. Despite this, earlier this
year, George W. Bush's Ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, writing
in Foreign Affairs, made the argument that a modus vivendi could and
should be reached with the Taliban: ``Washington should accept that the
Taliban will inevitably control most of the Pashtun south and east''
and therefore the United States should accept that the de facto
partition of Afghanistan is ``the best alternative to strategic
defeat.'' \7\ It's strange that a diplomat who had spent years in South
Asia was advocating partition in a part of the world where it is well
known that the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan caused 1 million
civilian deaths.\8\ And not even the Taliban are calling for the
partition of Afghanistan, which is an older nation than the United
States. (The first Afghan state was founded in 1747).
The Blackwill plan was the most extreme expression of a now-common
sentiment amongst the American foreign policy establishment: Let's just
get it over with in Afghanistan, which is predicated on the belief
(hope, really) that the Taliban are jus' sum' plain' ol' country folks
who may not have the best manners in Central Asia, but nonetheless are
men we can and should do business with because they represent our best
exit strategy from the Afghan morass.
American liberals, who were vocal in their opposition to Taliban
when they imposed a theocratic reign of terror on Afghanistan before 9/
11, have been strikingly silent on the issue of what a return to power
of the Taliban in some shape or form in Afghanistan would mean for the
rights of women and ethnic minorities.
For those who say that Afghanistan is a conservative Islamic
country and that therefore the Taliban's social policies just aren't
that unusual, it's helpful to note that when the Taliban were in power
there were 1 million kids in school and almost none of them were girls,
while today there are 7 million kids in school and 37 percent are
females.\9\
2. Is progress being made in Afghanistan, both generally and
against the Taliban?
In addition to the sevenfold increase in the number of kids in
school, positive developments in Afghanistan over the past several
years have included the following: GDP growth was a robust 22 percent
between 2009 and 2010; \10\ access to some form of basic health care
was available to around 9 percent of the population a decade ago and is
now accessible to 85 percent; \11\ the phone system barely existed
before the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, now one in three Afghans has
a cell phone; \12\ the Taliban had banned almost all forms of media
other than their own ``Voice of Sharia'' radio network, while there are
now ``scores of radio stations, dozens of TV stations and some 100
active press titles,'' according to the BBC; \13\ around 6 million
Afghan refugees have returned home since the fall of the Taliban; and
so crowded with cars and people has Kabul become that the city's epic
pollution is now killing more Afghans than are dying in the war.\14\
Because of all the tangible ways that their lives are getting
better 59 percent of Afghans say their country is going in the right
direction.\15\ By comparison, that metric is exactly reversed in the
United States. In a New York Times poll released in April, 70 percent
of Americans said their country is going in the wrong direction.\16\
The positive feelings a majority of Afghans have about the way things
are going help account for the surprisingly high marks that they
continue to give the U.S. military after nearly a decade of occupation,
which scored a 68-percent favorable rating among Afghans in a BBC/ABC
poll released in December.\17\ (In Iraq at the height of the war in
2007 BBC/ABC found that only 22 percent of Iraqis voiced support for
the U.S. military presence in their country.) \18\
Afghans' faith in their future can be explained by the fact that
they know that, despite all the problems that they face today--the
corruption of the central government and the police and the resurgence
of the Taliban--their lives are far better now than during the brutal
Soviet occupation of the 1980s, the devastating civil war of the early
1990s, and the theocratic rule of the Taliban that followed.
This past fall U.S. military officials publicly asserted that many
Taliban safe havens in Helmand and in Kandahar had been eliminated.\19\
This is not only the assessment of the Pentagon, but the judgment of
the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS), a think
tank that has done field work in southern Afghanistan for many years
and has long been critical of Western policies there. ICOS issued a
report in February observing, ``NATO and Afghan forces now control a
greater number of districts in Helmand and Kandahar than before,''
including key Taliban strongholds such as Marjah in Helmand and
Arghandab in Kandahar.\20\
General David Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee in
March that in one recent 3-month period 360 insurgent leaders were
killed or captured.\21\ According to a wide range of observers, as a
result the average age of Taliban commanders has dropped from 35 to 25
in the past year.\22\ Some U.S. military officials believe this is a
good thing, as the younger commanders are ``less ideological,'' while
Thomas Ruttig, one of the world's leading authorities on the Taliban,
says that the reverse is the case: the younger Taliban are more rigid
ideologically.\23\
The sharply stepped up military campaign against the Taliban has
caused some hand-wringing that Petraeus isn't following
counterinsurgency precepts, which have been grossly caricatured as
winning ``hearts and minds'' (see ``Three Cups of Tea''), as if
counterinsurgency is some kind of advertising campaign to win
loyalties. In reality, counterinsurgency is a set of commonsense
precepts about how to avoid the kind of ham-handed tactics and
repressive measures that will turn the bulk of the population against
you, while simultaneously also applying well-calibrated doses of
violence to defeat insurgents.
Another common critique of the stepped-up campaign against Taliban
commanders is that the United States should not be killing those
commanders at the same time it is saying that we should talk with them.
This critique bears little relation to the history of the last two
decades of Afghan warfare, in which all sides have constantly fought
and talked with each other simultaneously. Indeed, the Karzai
government has had substantive contacts with elements of the Taliban
since as early as 2003, according to a former Afghan national security
official familiar with those discussions.
An additional approach putting pressure on the Taliban are what the
U.S. military terms Village Stability Operations, in which small teams
of American Special Forces live permanently ``among the population'' in
remote areas of provinces such as Uruzgan and Zabul where the
insurgents once had unfettered freedom of movement. There the U.S.
Special Forces are helping to train local community militiamen known as
Afghan Local Police (ALP). The Government of Afghanistan has
technically authorized 10,000 of them, but American officers believe
that the numbers will rise to something more like 24,000.\24\ One says,
``ALP is the development that the Taliban most fear, we see it in the
intelligence.''
When Petraeus first arrived as the commander in Afghanistan last
summer setting up the ALP was his first big fight with Karzai, who was
concerned quite reasonably that arming tribal militias might replicate
some of the warlordism that has plagued Afghanistan since the early
1990s. Karzai agreed to the program in July, and there are a number of
measures in place that make it avoid some of the obvious pitfalls of
setting up even more armed Afghan groups.\25\ The program is not
administered by the U.S. military but the Afghan Ministry of Interior,
which keeps tabs on it through district police chiefs who are
responsible for issuing guns to the community policemen. Candidates for
the local police are selected by the local village shura (council),
while everyone admitted to the program has to submit to biometric
scans.
3. What effect will the killing of Osama bin Laden have on near-
and long-term U.S. global security interests, and on core al-Qaeda's
goals and capabilities?
After the fall of the Taliban, bin Laden didn't, of course,
continue to exert day-to-day control over al-Qaeda, but statements from
him have always been the most reliable guide to the future actions of
jihadist movements around the world, and this remained the case even
while he was on the run. In the past decade bin Laden issued more than
30 video- and audiotapes.\26\ Those messages reached untold millions
worldwide via television, the Internet, and newspapers. The tapes not
only instructed al-Qaeda's followers to continue to kill Westerners and
Jews; some also carried specific instructions that militant cells then
acted on. In 2003, bin Laden called for attacks against members of the
coalition in Iraq; subsequently terrorists bombed commuters on their
way to work in Madrid and London. Bin Laden also called for attacks on
the Pakistani state in 2007, which is one of the reasons that Pakistan
had more than 50 suicide attacks that year. \27\ In March 2008 bin
Laden denounced the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in
a Danish newspaper, which he said would soon be avenged. Three months
later, an al-Qaeda suicide attacker bombed the Danish Embassy in
Islamabad, killing six.
Materials recovered from the Abbottabad compound in northern
Pakistan where bin Laden was killed paint a picture of a leader deeply
involved in tactical, operational, and strategic planning for al-Qaeda,
and in communication with other leaders of the group and even the
organization's affiliates overseas.\28\
Bin Laden exercised near-total control over al-Qaeda, whose members
had to swear a religious oath personally to bin Laden, so ensuring
blind loyalty to him. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the operational commander
of the 9/11 attacks, outlined the dictatorial powers that bin Laden
exercised over his organization: ``If the Shura council at al-Qaeda,
the highest authority in the organization, had a majority of 98 percent
on a resolution and it is opposed by bin Laden, he has the right to
cancel the resolution.'' \29\ Bin Laden's son Omar recalls that the men
who worked for
al-Qaeda had a habit of requesting permission before they spoke with
their leader, saying, ``Dear prince: May I speak?'' \30\
The death of bin Laden eliminates the founder of al-Qaeda, which
has only enjoyed one leader since its founding in 1988, and it also
eliminates the one man who provided broad, unquestioned strategic goals
to the wider jihadist movement. Around the world, those who joined al-
Qaeda in the past two decades have sworn baya, a religious oath of
allegiance to bin Laden, rather than to the organization itself, in the
same way that Nazi party members swore an oath of fealty to Hitler,
rather than to Nazism. That baya must now be transferred to whoever the
new leader of al-Qaeda is going to be.
Of course, even as the al-Qaeda organization withers there are
pretenders to bin Laden's throne. The first is the dour Egyptian
surgeon, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is the deputy leader of al-Qaeda, and
therefore technically bin Laden's successor. But Zawahiri is not
regarded as a natural leader. and even among his fellow Egyptian
militants Zawahiri is seen as a divisive force and so he is unlikely to
be able to step into the role of the paramount leader of al-Qaeda and
of the global jihadist movement that was occupied by bin Laden.\31\
There is scant evidence that Zawahiri has the charisma of bin Laden,
nor that he commands the respect bordering on love that was accorded to
bin Laden by members of al-Qaeda.
Another possible leader of al-Qaeda is Saif al-Adel, also an
Egyptian, who has played a role as a military commander of the
terrorist group, and since 9/11 has spent many years living in Iran
under some form of house arrest. Adel has been appointed the
``caretaker'' leader of the terrorist organization, according to Noman
Benotman, a former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a
militant organization that was once aligned with al-Qaeda, but in
recent years has renounced
al-Qaeda's ideology.\32\
Benotman, who has known the leaders of al-Qaeda for more than two
decades and has long been a reliable source of information about the
inner workings of the terrorist group, says that based on his personal
communications with militants and discussions on jihadist forums, Adel
has emerged as the interim leader of al-Qaeda as it reels from the
death of its founder and eventually transitions, presumably, to the
uncharismatic Zawahiri.
A wild card is that one of bin Laden's dozen or so sons--endowed
with an iconic family name--could eventually rise to take over the
terrorist group. Already Saad bin Laden, one of the oldest sons, has
played a middle management role in al-Qaeda.\33\
One of the key issues that any future leader of al-Qaeda has to
reckon with now is dealing with the fallout from the large quantities
of sensitive information that were recovered by U.S. forces at the
compound in Abbottabad where bin Laden was killed. That information is
likely to prove damaging to al-Qaeda operations.
Jihadist terrorism will not, of course, disappear because of the
death of bin Laden. Indeed, the Pakistan Taliban have already mounted
attacks in Pakistan that they said were revenge for bin Laden's
death,\34\ but it is hard to imagine two more final endings to the
``War on Terror'' than the popular revolts against the authoritarian
regimes in the Middle East and the death of bin Laden. No one in the
streets of Cairo or Benghazi carried placards of bin Laden's face, and
very few demanded the imposition of Taliban-like rule, al-Qaeda's
preferred end state for the countries in the region.
If the Arab Spring was a large nail in the coffin of al-Qaeda's
ideology, the death of bin Laden was an equally large nail in the
coffin of al-Qaeda the organization.
4. What is the relationship between the Taliban and al-Qaeda?
There is plenty of evidence for the continuing cozy relationship
between al-Qaeda and important factions of the Taliban: For much of the
past decade al-Qaeda has been harbored largely by the Haqqani network,
the ferocious Taliban militia based in Pakistan's tribal regions.
According to a July 2009 WikiLeaks cable from the U.S. consulate in
Peshawar, which abuts the Pakistani tribal regions, Jalaluddin Haqqani,
the veteran jihadi commander who has been the longtime head of the
Haqqani network, is ``considered to have a close relationship'' with
Mullah Omar. Haqqani's relationship with bin Laden stretches back to
the mid-1980s, according to the Palestinian journalist Jamal Ismail who
worked with bin Laden doing this time period. Another Palestinian
journalist, Abdel Bari Atwan, who spent days interviewing bin Laden in
1996, points out that bin Laden did Mullah Omar a big favor when he
introduced the Taliban leader to his old buddy Jalaluddin Haqqani, who
later rose to become arguably the Taliban's most feared military
commander.\35\
Cooperation between the Taliban and al-Qaeda can be seen in the
suicide bombing that killed seven CIA officers and contractors in the
American base at Khost in eastern Afghanistan on December 30, 2009. The
suicide bomber, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, was a Jordanian
doctor recruited by al-Qaeda.\36\ Two months after Balawi's suicide
attack al-Qaeda's video production arm released an interview with him
videotaped some time before he died in which he laid out how he planned
to attack the group of Agency officials using a bomb made from C-4.\37\
In another prerecorded video, the chief of the Pakistani Taliban,
Hakimullah Mehsud, appeared alongside Balawi saying the attack was
revenge for U.S. drone strikes directed at the Taliban.\38\
The Taliban began to reemerge as a serious threat in Afghanistan in
2006, launching a serious campaign of suicide bombers and IED attacks.
Sami Yousafzai, a leading reporter on the Taliban, has documented that
they were taught these techniques by Arab jihadists. That same year
Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah explained his links to al-Qaeda.
``Osama bin Laden, thank God, is alive and in good health,'' he told
CBS. ``We are in contact with his top aides and sharing plans and
operations with each other.'' \39\ Three years later, Mustafa Abu Al-
Yazid, one of
al-Qaeda's founders, described his group's rapport with the Taliban
during an interview, ``We are on a good and strong relationship with
them,'' he said, ``and we frequently meet them.''
U.S. officials such as CIA director Leon Panetta have publicly said
that there are only a few dozen members of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.\40\
In addition, U.S. officials point to other ``foreign fighters''
operating in Afghanistan in particular in the east and to some degree
in the north of the county; for instance, Uzbeks affiliated with the
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which is deemed a terrorist group by
the U.S. Government.\41\
A briefing slide prepared by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency
(DIA), which leaked out in January 2010, showed a map of insurgent
groups operating in Afghanistan in which the Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan was shown to have a presence in five provinces in northern
and southern Afghanistan. The leaked DIA briefing asserts that al-Qaeda
``provides facilitation, training, and some funding'' to the Taliban in
Afghanistan, while the Taliban also maintain a ``mutually supportive
relationship'' with Chechen and Central Asian fighters.\42\
On April 26 NATO officials announced that the Saudi al-Qaeda
leader, Abu Hafs al-Najdi, had been killed in an airstrike in Kunar
province in northeastern Afghanistan. The NATO announcement noted that
Najdi was one of 25 al-Qaeda leaders and fighters who had been killed
in the past month.\43\ This suggests that there are still a small but
not insignificant number of al-Qaeda militants as well as other foreign
fighters who continue to operate in Afghanistan.
A nuanced account of the Taliban-al-Qaeda relationship is provided
by Anne Stenersen, a research fellow at the Norwegian Defense Research
Establishment. In a paper for the New America Foundation last year she
pointed out that al-Qaeda functions mostly in the east of Afghanistan
because of its longstanding ties to the Taliban Haqqani Network that is
prevalent in this region, while al-Qaeda and the Quetta Shura in
southern Afghanistan have diverged strategically in the past
decade.\44\ Some of this is an accident of geography; when al-Qaeda
leaders fled Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan after the fall from power
of the Taliban during the winter of 2001 they moved into the adjoining
tribal regions of Pakistan, many hundreds of miles from the Quetta
Shura's base in southwestern Pakistan, and into the welcoming arms of
the Haqqani network. In short, al-Qaeda is embedded with the Haqqani
Taliban, but not with the Mullah Omar Taliban.
5. How might the relationship between the Taliban and al-Qaeda be
changed by the death of bin Laden?
Now that bin Laden is dead, there is a real opportunity for the
Taliban to disassociate itself from al-Qaeda, as it was bin Laden who,
sometime before the 9/11 attacks, swore an oath of allegiance to
Taliban leader Mullah Omar as the Amir
al-Mu'minin, ``The Commander of the Faithful,'' a rarely invoked
religious title that dates from around the time of the Prophet
Mohammed.
Mullah Omar could now communicate to his followers that the new
leader of
al-Qaeda does not need to swear an oath of allegiance to him as ``The
Commander of the Faithful.'' This would be an important step for the
Taliban to satisfy a key condition of peace talks with the U.S. and
Afghan Governments; that they reject
al-Qaeda, something that hitherto the Taliban has not done. If Mullah
Omar does not take advantage of this opening in the near future, it is
hard to imagine that he ever will.
6. What are the impediments to ``reconciliation'' with the
Taliban's leadership?
There are nine significant problems.
First, who is there exactly to negotiate with in the Taliban? It's
been a decade since their fall from power and the ``moderate'' Taliban
who wanted to reconcile with the Afghan Government have already done
so. They are the same group of Taliban who are constantly trotted out
in any discussion of a putative Taliban deal: Mullah Zaeef, their
former Ambassador to Pakistan; Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, their Foreign
Minister; and Abdul Hakim Mujahid, who was the Taliban representative
in the United States before 9/11. This group was generally opposed to
bin Laden well before he attacked the United States. Bin Laden told
intimates that his biggest enemies in the world were the United States
and the Taliban Foreign Ministry, which was trying to put the kibosh on
his anti-Western antics in Afghanistan. And today the ``moderate''
already-reconciled Taliban don't represent the Taliban on the
battlefield because they haven't been part of the movement for the past
decade.
The key Taliban figure is still their leader, Mullah Omar, a.k.a.,
``The Commander of the Faithful.'' The title indicates that Mullah Omar
is not just the leader of the Taliban, but also of all Muslims,
suggesting that Mullah Omar is not only a religious fanatic, but also a
fanatic with significant delusions of grandeur.\45\ Negotiations with
religious fanatics who have delusions of grandeur generally do not go
well. Almost every country in the world--including the Taliban leader's
quasi-patron, Pakistan--pleaded with Mullah Omar in the spring of 2001
not to blow up the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan, Afghanistan's greatest
cultural patrimony. But he did so anyway. After 9/11, Mullah Omar was
prepared to lose his entire regime on the point of principle that he
would not give up bin Laden to the United States following the attacks
on Manhattan and the Pentagon. And he did.
Since his regime fell, Mullah Omar has also shown no appetite for
negotiation or compromise. He is joined in this attitude by some senior
members of his movement, such as Maulavi Abdul Kabir, a Taliban leader
in eastern Afghanistan, who said in January, ``neither has there been
any peace talk nor has any of the Islamic Emirate (the Taliban) shown
any inclination toward it.'' \46\
Second, the Taliban has had 10 years to reject bin Laden and all
his works, and they haven't done so. For this reason, Saudi Arabia,
which has hosted ``talks about talks'' in Mecca between Afghan
Government officials and some Taliban representatives,\47\ has soured
on the process. For the Saudi Government, which is squarely in al-
Qaeda's gun sights, a public repudiation of al-Qaeda by the Taliban is
a nonnegotiable demand. And it hasn't happened.
Third, ``the Taliban'' is really many Talibans, and so a deal with
one insurgent group doesn't mean the end of the insurgency writ large.
It's not clear that even Mullah Omar can deliver all of the Taliban
that he nominally controls in southern Afghanistan, because they are
often fissured into purely local groups, many of whom are a long way
from Taliban headquarters across the border in Quetta, Pakistan. As
Ambassador Richard Holbrooke commented 3 months before he died,
``There's no Ho Chi Minh. There's no Slobodan Milosevic. There's no
Palestinian Authority.'' \48\ Instead, there are several leaders of the
various wings of the insurgency, from the Quetta Shura in southern
Afghanistan, to the Haqqani Network in the east, as well as smaller
insurgent groups, such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami in the
northeast.
Fourth, the history of ``peace'' deals with the Taliban in Pakistan
shows that the groups can't be trusted. Deals between the Pakistani
Government and the Taliban in Waziristan in 2005 and 2006 and in Swat
in 2009 were merely preludes to the Taliban establishing their brutal
``emirates,'' regrouping and then moving into adjoining areas to seize
more territory.\49\
Fifth, the arrest in Pakistan last year of Mullah Baradar, the
Taliban No. 2 who had been negotiating directly with Karzai, shows that
the Pakistani military and government wants to retain a veto over any
significant negotiations going forward.\50\ That isn't necessarily a
bad thing, as certainly Pakistan's legitimate interests in the post-
American Afghanistan must be recognized, but it also demonstrates that
negotiations with the Taliban will not be as straightforward as just
having the Afghan Government and the insurgents at the negotiating
table.
Sixth, another key player in any negotiations with the Taliban are
the former leaders of the largely Tajik and Uzbek Northern Alliance who
fought a bitter several-years war with the Taliban and who now occupy
prominent positions in Afghanistan, for instance, the Minister of the
Interior, Bismullah Khan, and Dr. Abdullah, Karzai's main rival for the
Presidency in 2009, who is--at least for now--the most likely candidate
to succeed Karzai in the 2014 Presidential elections. These leaders are
not going to allow all they fought for to be reversed by a deal with
the Taliban that gives them significant concessions on territory or
principle. Dr. Abdullah is withering in his assessment of Karzai's
olive branches to the Taliban who Karzai has described as his
``brothers,'' saying to me that this simply confuses ``our own soldiers
which are fighting'' the Taliban.
Seventh, the several meetings over the past 3 years between Afghan
officials and Taliban representatives to discuss ``reconciliation'' in
Mecca and in the Maldives have hitherto produced a big zero. A senior
U.S. military officer dismissed these talks as ``reconciliation
tourism,'' while an Afghan official joked with me that in landlocked
Afghanistan, ``Everybody wanted to go to the Maldives for a meeting.''
Eighth, the debacle involving Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour last
year shows how much of a fog surrounds the whole reconciliation
process.\51\ Mullah Mansour was portrayed as one of the most senior of
the Taliban leaders who was allegedly in direct negotiations with the
Karzai government in the fall of 2010. Except it then turned out he
wasn't Mullah Mansour at all, but a Quetta shopkeeper who had spun a
good yarn about his Taliban credentials so he could pick up what a
British Government report characterizes as ``significant sums.'' \52\
Finally, and most importantly: what do the Taliban really want?
It's relatively easy to discern what they don't want: international
forces in Afghanistan. But other than their blanket demand for the rule
of sharia law, the Taliban have not articulated their vision for the
future of Afghanistan. Do they envision a democratic state with
elections? Do they see a role for women outside the home? What about
education for girls? What about ethnic minorities?
Richard Barrett, a British diplomat who heads the United Nations'
group that monitors al-Qaeda and the Taliban, pointed out at a
conference at the New America Foundation last year that ``it's
difficult to deal with an insurgent group, which doesn't actually put
forward any real policy.'' A similar point was made by Mohammad
Stanikhzai, the point person in the Afghan Government dealing with the
Taliban, when I met with him in December, who explained, ``For the
governance, I don't think they [the Taliban] have a clear plan.''
7. Given these problems, why try and negotiate with the Taliban,
and are there reasons to think those negotiations might eventually
work?
Reaching an accommodation with the Taliban is going to be quite
difficult, but that doesn't, of course, mean that it isn't worth
trying. Even if peace talks are not successful immediately, they can
have other helpful effects, such as splitting the facade of Taliban
unity. Even simple discussions about the future shape of negotiations
can help sow dissension in the Taliban ranks, while if such discussions
do move forward in even incremental steps more intelligence can be
garnered about what exactly is going on inside the shadowy Taliban
movement. Also, getting the Taliban to enter into any negotiations
means that they will no longer get to occupy the moral high ground of
fighting a supposed holy war, but are instead getting their hands dirty
in more conventional political back-room deals.
Audrey Cronin of the National Defense University has systematically
examined how and why terrorist/insurgent groups come to some kind of
peace deal and has laid out some general principles about what that
usually takes, which are worth considering in the context of
Afghanistan.\53\ First, there must be recognition on both sides that a
military stalemate has been reached. (In the early 1980s the American
academic William Zartman coined the term a ``mutually hurting
stalemate'' to describe the moment when combatants will start
considering a peace settlement.) \54\ That recognition may now exist to
some degree, given that over the past 6 months or so the Taliban have
taken heavy losses in their heartlands of Kandahar, while the U.S.
public has increasingly turned against what is already America's
longest war. In March, 64 percent of Americans said the war was ``not
worth fighting,'' up from 41 percent in 2007.\55\
An important shift in the Obama administration's stance on Taliban
negotiations was recently signaled by Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton. While giving the Richard Holbrooke memorial lecture at the
Asia Society in New York on February 18, Clinton said that previous
American conditions for talks with the Taliban--that they lay down
their arms, reject al-Qaeda, and embrace the Afghan Constitution--were
no longer preconditions that the Taliban had to meet before
negotiations could begin, but were ``necessary outcomes'' of the final
peace process.\56\ Judging by the lack of media attention in the States
at the time to this shift, this subtle but important distinction was
probably also not well grasped by the Taliban, but it does represent a
somewhat more flexible American position about dealing with the
Taliban. Indeed, U.S. officials are already in some kind of talks with
Taliban representatives, according to reports in the New Yorker and
Washington Post.\57\
Similarly the Afghan Government has now adopted ``reconciliation''
as its official policy, setting up a ``High Peace Council'' in the fall
to help facilitate those negotiations, a body that is made up, in part,
of a number of leaders from the former Northern Alliance who are less
likely to act as spoilers of a peace process if they feel they are a
part of it.
Successful negotiations often require a capable and trusted third-
party sponsor. This condition seems also to be lacking right now: the
Saudis are, at best, lukewarm about facilitating talks with the
Taliban; the Pakistanis are not really trusted by any of the parties in
the conflict, even by much of the Taliban, and while the United Nations
may have some role to play in negotiations, Taliban attacks on U.N.
personnel in Afghanistan last year don't suggest this avenue has much
immediate promise. (Murmurings about a role for Turkey in facilitating
a deal may have some potential given that Turkey has an Islamist
government and is also a key member of NATO.)
A peace deal also generally requires strong leadership on both the
government and insurgent sides to force a settlement. Neither Hamid
Karzai nor Mullah Omar fit this particular bill. Finally, Cronin
explains that the overall political context must be favorable to
negotiations for a deal to succeed. Here there is some real hope: While
fewer then one in ten Afghans have a favorable view of the Taliban, a
large majority is in favor of negotiating with them. Nationally, around
three-quarters of Afghans favor talks, while in Kandahar the number
goes up to a stratospheric 94 percent.\58\
All that said, the bottom line on the Taliban reconciliation
process is that nothing of any real note is currently happening.
According to a Western official familiar with the record of discussions
with the Taliban, the chances of a deal with the Taliban similar to the
Dayton Accords that ended the Balkans war in the mid-1990s or the Good
Friday Agreement that ended the IRA campaign against the British
Government are ``negligible'' for the foreseeable future. The official
says that Mullah Omar needs his council of ulema (religious scholars)
to sign off on a peace deal and there is ``no sign of this right now.''
Senior U.S. military officials tell me that it is their view that
Mullah Omar is living at least some of the time in the southern
Pakistani megacity of Karachi.
8. Might the Haqqani or Hezb-e-Islami (Gulbuddin Hekmatyar)
factions of the Taliban be willing to consider a settlement?
This is relatively plausible given that Hezb-e-Islami (Party of
Islam) has long shown a far greater inclination to engage in
conventional politics than the other insurgent groups. Hezb-e-Islami
has a more nuanced take than other insurgent groups about what its
preconditions are for talks with the Afghan Government; while much of
the Taliban want foreign forces out before real talks can begin, Hezb-
e-Islami has indicated that talks can begin in parallel with a
timetable for withdrawal being agreed upon. For the moment, the
Haqqanis are probably irreconcilable as they are too close to al-Qaeda.
9. There is an agglomeration of extremist groups operating in the
lawless region near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, including the
Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaeda, and other affiliated and other sectarian
groups. How should policymakers prioritize which of these to work
against?
Policymakers should prioritize those South Asian groups that now
threaten the West. One of bin Laden's most toxic legacies is that even
terrorist groups that don't call themselves ``al-Qaeda'' have adopted
his ideology. According to Spanish prosecutors, the late leader of the
Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, sent a team of would-be suicide
bombers to Barcelona to attack the subway system there in January 2008.
A Pakistani Taliban spokesman confirmed this in a videotaped interview
in which he said that those suicide bombers ``were under pledge to
Baitullah Mehsud'' and were sent because of the Spanish military
presence in Afghanistan.
In 2009 the Pakistani Taliban trained an American recruit for an
attack in New York. Faisal Shahzad, who had once worked as a financial
analyst in the accounting department at the Elizabeth Arden cosmetics
company in Stamford, CT, travelled to Pakistan where he received 5 days
of bombmaking training from the Taliban in the tribal region of
Waziristan. Armed with this training and $12,000 in cash, Shahzad
returned to Connecticut where he purchased a Nissan Pathfinder. He
placed a bomb in the SUV and detonated it in Times Square on May 1,
2010, around 6 p.m., when the sidewalks were thick with tourists and
theatergoers. The bomb, which was designed to act as a fuel-air
explosive, luckily was a dud and Shahzad was arrested 2 days later as
he tried to leave JFK airport for Dubai.\59\
Also based in the Pakistani tribal regions are a number of other
jihadist groups allied to both the Taliban and al-Qaeda, such as the
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the Islamic Jihad Union that have
trained dozens of Germans for attacks in Europe. Two Germans and a
Turkish resident in Germany, for instance, trained in the tribal
regions and then planned to bomb the massive U.S. Ramstein Airbase in
Germany in 2007. Before their arrests, the men had obtained 1,600
pounds of industrial strength hydrogen peroxide, enough to make a
number of large bombs.\60\
The Mumbai attacks of 2008 showed that bin Laden's ideas about
attacking Western and Jewish targets had also spread to Pakistani
militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which had previously
focused only on Indian targets. Over a 3-day period in late November
2008 LeT carried out multiple attacks in Mumbai targeting five-star
hotels housing Westerners and a Jewish-American community center. The
Pakistani- American David Headley played a key role in LeT's massacre
in Mumbai, traveling to the Indian financial capital on five extended
trips in the 2 years before the attacks. There Headley made videotapes
of the key locations later attacked by the 10 LeT gunmen.\61\
Sometime in 2008, Headley hatched a plan to attack the Danish
newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which 3 years earlier had published cartoons
of the Prophet Mohammed that were deemed to be offensive by many
Muslims. In January 2009 Headley traveled to Copenhagen, where he
reconnoitered the Jyllands-Posten newspaper on the pretext that he ran
an immigration business that was looking to place some advertising in
the paper. Following his trip to Denmark, Headley met with Ilyas
Kashmiri in the Pakistani tribal regions to brief him on his findings.
Kashmiri ran a terrorist organization, Harakat-ul-Jihad Islami, closely
tied to al-Qaeda. Headley returned to Chicago in mid-June 2009 and was
arrested there 3 months later as he was preparing to leave for Pakistan
again. He told investigators that he was planning to kill the Jyllands-
Posten's cultural editor who had first commissioned the cartoons, as
well as the cartoonist Kurt Westergaard who had drawn the cartoon he
found most offensive; the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb concealed in his
turban.\62\
One of the more predictable foreign policy challenges of the next
years is a ``Mumbai II'': a large-scale attack on a major Indian city
by a Pakistani militant group that kills hundreds. The Indian
Government showed considerable restraint in its reaction to the
provocation of the Mumbai attacks in 2008. Another such attack,
however, would likely produce considerable political pressure on the
Indian Government to ``do something.'' That something would likely
involve incursions over the border to eliminate the training camps of
Pakistani militant groups with histories of attacking India. That could
lead in turn to a full-blown war for the fourth time since 1947 between
India and Pakistan. Such a war would involve the possibility of a
nuclear exchange and the certainty that Pakistan would move substantial
resources to its eastern border and away from fighting the Taliban on
its western border, relieving pressure on all the militant groups based
there, including al-Qaeda.
The Pakistani Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harakat-ul-Jihad Islami,
the Islamic Jihad Union and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan are all
based or have a significant presence in Pakistan's tribal regions and
have track records of trying to attack Western and/or American targets
and should therefore all be considered threats to American interests.
----------------
References
\1\ Barack Obama, ``Remarks by the President on a New Strategy for
Afghanistan and Pakistan,'' Washington, DC, March 27, 2009, (http://
www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-on-a-New-
Strategy-for-Afghanistan-and-Pakistan/).
\2\ Barbara Crossette, ``Rights Group Tells of Taliban Massacres,''
New York Times, February 19, 2001, (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/19/
world/rights-group-tells-of-taliban-massacres.
html).
\3\ Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah, ``Truce in Pakistan May Not
Mean Peace, Just Leeway for Taliban,'' New York Times, March 5, 2009,
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/world/asia/06swat.html).
\4\ United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, ``Protection
of Civilians in Armed Conflict: Annual Report 2010,'' March 2011,
Kabul,Afghanistan. (http://unama.unmissions.org/Portals/UNAMA/
human%20rights/March%20PoC%20Annual%20Report%20Final.pdf).
\5\ Matthew Green and Fazel Reshad, ``Gunmen Storm Afghan Bank,''
Financial Times, February 20, 2011, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/
1745ec92-3c29-11e0-b073-00144feabdc0.html).
\6\ MSNBC.com, ``Afghan Schoolgirls Poisoned by Taliban?'' April
25, 2010, (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36766873/ns/world_news-
south_and_central_asia/t/afghan-schoolgirls-poisoned-taliban/); Rod
Nordland, ``Poison Gas Targeted Afghan Girls' Schools,'' New York
Times, September 1, 2010, (http://articles.boston.com/2010-09-01/news/
29333377_1_poison-gas-afghan-girls-new-cases).
\7\ Robert Blackwill, ``Plan B in Afghanistan,'' Foreign Affairs,
January/February 2011, (http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67026/
robert-d-blackwill/plan-b-in-afghanistan).
\8\ Crispin Bates, ``The Hidden Story of Partition and its
Legacies,'' BBC News, March 3, 2011, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/
british/modern/partition1947_01.shtml).
\9\ Morten Sisgaard (ed), ``On the Road to Resilience: Capacity
Development With the Ministry of Education in Afghanistan,'' United
Nations, 2011, (http://www.iiep.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/
Info_Services_Publications/pdf/2011/Afghanistan_Resilience.pdf).
\10\ World Bank, ``Growth in Afghanistan,'' (http://
web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/ SOUTHASIAEXT/
EXTSARREGTOPMACECOGRO/0,,content MDK:20592478
menuPK:579404 pagePK:34004173 piPK:34003707 theSitePK:579398,00.html).
\11\ USAID, ``Afghanistan,'' (http://www.usaid.gov/locations/asia/
countries/afghanistan/).
\12\ International Telecommunications Union, ``Mobile Cellular
Subscriptions,'' (http://www.itu.
int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/material/excel/MobileCellularSubscriptions00-
09.xls).
\13\ BBC News, ``Afghanistan Media Profile,'' December 16, 2010,
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12013942).
\14\ Ben Farmer, ``Kabul To Move to Five Day Week,'' Daily
Telegraph, December 1, 2010,
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8174072/
Kabul-to-move-to-five-day-week.html).
\15\ BBC, October 29-November 13, 2010, (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/
shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/06_12_
10_afghanpoll.pdf).
\16\ CBS News/New York Times Poll, April 15-20, 2011, (http://
www.pollingreport.com/right.
htm).
\17\ BBC 2010 op. cit.
\18\ BBC, February 25-March 5, 2007, (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/
shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/19_03_
07_iraqpollnew.pdf).
\19\ International Security Assistance Force, ``Afghan-Led Force
Clears Enemy Safe Haven in Kandahar,'' September 17, 2010, (http://
www.isaf.nato.int/article/isaf-releases/afghan-led-force-clears-enemy-
safe-haven-in-kandahar.html) for example.
\20\ International Council on Security and Development,
``Afghanistan Transition: Dangers of a Summer Drawdown,'' February
2011, (http://www.icosgroup.net/static/reports/afghanistan_
dangers_drawdown.pdf).
\21\ David Petraeus, Testimony before the Senate Armed Services
Committee, March 15, 2011, (http://www.isaf.nato.int/images/stories/
File/Transcript/Petraeus%2003-15-11.pdf).
\22\ Con Coughlin, ``Karzai Must Tell Us Which Side He's on in
Afghanistan,'' Daily Telegraph, November 18, 2010, (http://
www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/concoughlin/8144423/Karzai-must-
tell-us-which-side-hes-on-in-Afghanistan.html).
\23\ Thomas Ruttig, forthcoming, New America Foundation, May 2011.
\24\ David Cloud, ``Officials Aim To Establish Local Afghan Police
Force by March,'' Los Angeles Times, October 19, 2010, (http://
articles.latimes.com/2010/oct/19/world/la-fg-village-police-20101020).
\25\ Karen DeYoung and Rajiv Chandrasekaran, ``Afghan President
Karzai Approves Plan for Local Defense Forces,'' Washington Post, July
15, 2010, (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/
07/14/AR2010071406007.html).
\26\ IntelCenter, a U.S. government contractor that tracks jihadist
publications, says bin Laden released 33 tapes in the eight years
between 9/11 and January 2010. IntelCenter Breakout of as-Sahab audio/
video, 2002-26 February 2010. E-mail from Ben Venzke, February 26,
2010.
\27\ ``Istanbul Rocked by Double Bombing,'' BBC News, November 20,
2003, (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3222608.stm); Craig Whitlock
and Susan Glasser, ``On Tape, bin Laden Tries New Approach,''
Washington Post, December 17, 2004. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/articles/A3927-2004Dec16.html);'' Joel Roberts, ``Al Qaeda
Threatens More Oil Attacks,'' CBS News, February 25, 2006, (http://
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/27/world/main1346541_page2.shtml);
``Bin Laden Tape Encourages Pakistanis To Rebel,'' Associated Press,
September 20, 2007, (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-09-20-al-
Qaeda-video_N.htm).
\28\ Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, ``Data Show bin Laden Plots,''
New York Times, May 5, 2011, (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/world/
asia/06intel.html).
\29\ Substitution for the testimony of KSM, trial of Zacarias
Moussaoui, (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/
Substitution_for_the_Testimony_of_KSM).
\30\ Jean Sasson and Omar and Najwa bin Laden, ``Growing Up Bin
Laden'' (St. Martin's Press: New York, NY, 2009), p. 161 and 213.
\31\ Jamal Ismail, interview by author, July 29, 2004, Islamabad,
Pakistan.
\32\ Peter Bergen, ``Egyptian Saif al-Adel Now Acting Leader of al-
Qaeda,'' CNN.com, May 17, 2011, (http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-17/
world/mideast.al.qaeda.appointee_1_al-adel-al-qaeda-libyan-islamic-
fighting-group?_s=PM:WORLD).
\33\ Douglas Farah and Dana Priest, ``Bin Laden Son Plays Key Role
in al-Qaeda,'' Washington Post, October 14, 2003, (http://
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/20/
AR2007082000980.html).
\34\ Reza Sayah, ``Blasts Kill at Least 70 in Northwest Pakistan,''
CNN.com, May 12, 2011, (http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-12/world/
pakistan.explosions_1_drone-strikes-north-waziristan-
militants?_s=PM:WORLD).
\35\ Abdel Bari Atwan, interview by author, London, U.K., June
2005.
\36\ Richard Oppel, Mark Mazzetti, and Souad Mekhennet, ``Attacker
in Afghanistan Was a Double Agent,'' New York Times, January 4, 2010,
(http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/world/asia/05cia.html).
\37\ ``An interview with the Shaheed Abu Dujaanah al Khorshani
(Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi),'' February 28, 2010, NEFA
Foundation.
\38\ Stephen Farrell, ``Video Links Taliban to CIA Attack,'' New
York Times, January 9, 2010. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/world/
middleeast/10balawi.html).
\39\ Melissa McNamara, ``Taliban leader Vows To Force U.S. Out,''
CBS News, December 29, 2006, (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/
29/eveningnews/main2313745.shtml).
\40\ Jake Tapper, ``CIA: At Most, 50-100 Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan,''
June 27, 2010, (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/06/cia-at-
most-50100-al-qaeda-in-afghanistan.html).
\41\ State Department, Foreign Terrorist Organizations, May 19,
2011, (http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm).
\42\ MG Michael Flynn, ``State of the Insurgency,'' December 22,
2009, (http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2010/01/isaf-state-
of-the-insurgency-231000-dec.ppt).
\43\ Matthew Cole, ``Top al-Qaeda Commander Killed in
Afghanistan,'' ABC, April 26, 2011, (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/top-
al-qaeda-commander-killed-afghanistan/story?id=13459489).
\44\ Anne Stenersen, ``Al-Qaeda's Allies,'' New America Foundation,
April 19, 2010, (http://newamerica.net/publications/policy/
al_qaeda_s_allies).
\45\ Lawrence Wright, ``The Looming Tower'' (Random House: New
York, NY, 2006), 256.
\46\ ``Interview With the Commander in Charge of Eastern
Afghanistan, the Respected Mawlawee Abdul Kabir,'' January 21, 2011,
Al-Qimmah.net, accessed May 23, 2011.
\47\ Steve Coll, ``U.S.-Taliban Talks,'' New Yorker, February 28,
2011, (http://www.new
yorker.com/talk/comment/2011/02/28/110228taco_talk_coll).
\48\ Joe Sterling, ``Richard Holbrooke, Noted Diplomat, is Dead at
69,'' CNN.com, December 13, 2010, (http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-11/
us/richard.holbrooke.obit_1_richard-c-holbrooke-diplomat-bosnian-war/
4?_s=PM:US).
\49\ Mansur Khan Mahsud, ``The Battle for Pakistan: Militancy and
Conflict in South Waziristan,'' New America Foundation, April 19, 2010,
(http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/publications/policy/
the_battle_for_pakistan_south_waziristan).
\50\ Mark Mazzetti and Dexter Filkins, ``Secret Joint Raid Captures
Taliban's Top Commander,'' New York Times, February 15, 2010, (http://
www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/world/asia/16intel.
html).
\51\ Dexter Filkins and Carlotta Gall, ``Taliban Leader in Secret
Talks Was an Impostor,'' New York Times, November 22, 2010, (http://
www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/world/asia/23kabul.html).
\52\ United Kingom, House of Commons, Foreign Affairs Committee,
``The U.K.'s Foreign Policy Approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan,''
March 2, 2011, (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/
cmselect/cmfaff/514/514.pdf).
\53\ Audrey Cronin, ``How Terrorism Ends'' (Princeton University
Press: Princeton, NJ, 2009).
\54\ William Zartman, ``Ripening Conflict, Ripe Moment, Formula,
and Mediation,'' in D. BenDahmane and J. McDonald, eds., ``Perspectives
on Negotiation,'' 1986.
\55\ Washington Post-ABC News Poll, March 10-13, 2011, (http://
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll_03142011.html).
\56\ Alissa Rubin, ``Pressure Mounts on all Parties in the Afghan
War To Begin Talks,'' New York Times, March 17, 2011, (http://
query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9904EED7113EF
934A25750C0A9679D8B63).
\57\ Coll op. cit.; Karen DeYoung, ``U.S. Speeds Up Direct Talks
With Taliban,'' Washington Post, May 16, 2011, (http://
www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-speeds-up-direct-
talks-with-taliban/2011/05/16/AFh1AE5G_story.html).
\58\ BBC, December 2010, op. cit.; Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Jon
Cohen, ``Afghan Poll Shows Falling Confidence in U.S. Efforts To Secure
Country,'' Washington Post, December 6, 2010, (http://
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/06/
AR2010120601788.html).
\59\ Benjamin Weiser and Colin Moynihan, ``Guilty Plea in Times
Square Bomb Plot,'' New York Times, June 21, 2010, (http://
www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/nyregion/22terror.html).
\60\ ``Four Jailed Over Plot To Attack U.S. Bases,'' Associated
Press, March 4, 2010, (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35702791/ns/
world_news-europe/t/four-jailed-over-plot-attack-us-bases/).
\61\ USA v. David Coleman Headley, U.S. District Court Northern
District of Illinois Eastern Division, Case No. 09 CR 830.
\62\ Sebastian Rotella, ``Pakistan's Terror Connections,''
ProPublica, (http://www.propublica.org/topic/mumbai-terror-attacks/).
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Mr. Pillar.
STATEMENT OF PAUL PILLAR, PH.D., DIRECTOR OF GRADUATE STUDIES
AND FACULTY MEMBER, CENTER FOR PEACE AND SECURITY STUDIES,
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, DC
Dr. Pillar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Afghanistan-
Pakistan region has understandably been linked in American
minds with extremism and terrorism for quite some time, but
this link is not based on the inherent qualities of the region
or the conflicts that bedevil it. There is no intrinsic
connection between Afghanistan and international terrorism. In
fact, Afghan nationals have been conspicuously rare in the
ranks of international terrorists. Najibullah Zazi, whom you
mentioned in your opening statement, Mr. Chairman, is a rare
exception, but even he left Afghanistan at age 7 and lived in
the United States since he was 14.
What we know today as the Afghan Taliban constitute a
highly insular, inward-looking group that is concerned
overwhelmingly with the political and social order of
Afghanistan; the leadership, that is, is so concerned. It
concerns itself with the United States insofar as the United
States interferes with its plans for that political and social
order. The motives of the rank and file who have taken up arms
under the Taliban label are at least as locally focused as
those of the leadership, and probably hardly any of them have
any perspectives that reach beyond Afghanistan's borders.
The key point, in other words, is that the Afghan Taliban
are not an international terrorist group. The connection
between Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda is an aspect largely of
1990s-era history. Back then, before 9/11, bin Laden provided
material and manpower assistance to the Taliban as it waged a
civil war against the Northern Alliance, and of course the
Taliban provided hospitality to bin Laden in return. It was
largely a marriage of convenience, even though they both had
radical, although by no means identical, ideologies.
As for any prospect of the Taliban and al-Qaeda
reestablishing anything like that marriage that they had back
in the 1990s, Taliban leaders are acutely aware that the
biggest setback their movement ever suffered, their being swept
from power in the opening weeks of Operation Enduring Freedom,
was a direct result of an operation conducted by al-Qaeda. They
have no incentive to do anything to facilitate a repeat of that
experience.
Besides, both the Taliban and al-Qaeda are well aware of
the fact that the standards for the use of military force,
United States military force, in Afghanistan have changed
drastically since pre-9/11 days. Unlike back then, the
establishment of anything remotely resembling al-Qaeda's
earlier presence in Afghanistan would become a target for
unrestricted use of United States air power, and that would be
true whether or not the United States was conducting a
counterinsurgency on the ground.
I agree with Peter that bin Laden's death does affect the
calculations of the Taliban's leadership, mainly for the
reasons that Peter mentioned: that the previous gratitude of
Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership was more to bin Laden
personally than to the al-Qaeda group. I would just add that
probably also entering the Taliban leaders' calculations are
the implication of the raid against bin Laden for what the
United States is able and willing to do to hit targets
important to it, even targets nestled deep inside Pakistan. And
it can't have escaped the Taliban leaders' notice with regard
to what that means for what we might do in Quetta or elsewhere.
Finally, a word about what the successful U.S. operation
against bin Laden indicates regarding the role of U.S. military
forces in counterterrorism, including what this means for
collecting the necessary intelligence. The raid at Abbottabad
deep inside Pakistan illustrated that United States military
boots on the ground are not necessary for even the precise type
of intelligence required for such an operation. The same
point's been, of course, repeatedly demonstrated by the drone
strikes in the Northwest.
Collection of intelligence is certainly an important part
of counterinsurgency, but it is almost all intelligence
pertinent to the counterinsurgency itself, rather than
intelligence relating to terrorism that would hit the United
States elsewhere. The intelligence work that reportedly
underlay the successful operation was typical of the work aimed
at terrorist targets. It involved piecing together fragments of
information from a variety of technical and human sources and
following up leads through intelligence and law enforcement
resources.
Interrogation of captured detainees is often part of that
mix, but the most important detainees, such as 9/11 mastermind
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have been captured, not on a
battlefield in the course of an insurgency, but instead as the
result of themselves having been the targets of this kind of
painstaking multisource intelligence work.
Clearly, the raid demonstrated the usefulness of nearby
military assets, but those are not the large forces involved in
a counterinsurgency. Rather, they involve drone bases, bases
for launching the kind of raid that took place at Abbottabad,
and that is something far different.
Thank you and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Pillar follows:]
Prepared Statement of Paul R. Pillar
South Asia, and more particularly the portion of it encompassing
Afghanistan and Pakistan, has come to be associated strongly with
extremism and terrorism. That association is understandable, given the
connection of the area with one of the most traumatic events in U.S.
history. The lines of contention in the region are complex, however.
Different dimensions of conflict there, such as between moderation and
extremism, or what may pose a terrorist threat to the United States and
what does not, do not coincide with each other.
the afpak region and terrorism
The connection of this region with militant Islamist terrorism is
rooted in the insurgency against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the
1980s. That insurgency became the biggest and most prominent jihad,
attracting militant Muslims from many different countries. Although the
anti-U.S. terrorist group we came to know as
al-Qaeda did not develop as such until the late 1990s, its connection
with Afghanistan and South Asia is based on the earlier effort against
the Soviets. When Osama bin Laden left Sudan to take up residence in
Afghanistan in 1996, he was returning to the scene of his earlier
contribution, which was chiefly logistical, in helping the Afghan
insurgents to defeat the Red Army.
There is no intrinsic connection between Afghanistan and
international terrorism. In fact, Afghan nationals are conspicuously
absent from the ranks of international terrorists. A rare exception was
Najibullah Zazi, who was arrested in 2009 for allegedly plotting to
bomb the New York City transit system. But even Zazi had left
Afghanistan with his family for Pakistan when he was 7 years old, and
he had lived in the United States since he was 14.
Pakistan has developed its own connections with international
terrorism. This has included groups, most notably Lashkar-e-Taiba, with
some capability to operate far afield. But the primary focus is still
within South Asia, and specifically on the Kashmir dispute and other
aspects of confrontation with India.
In short, the link between this region and international terrorism
is not based on inherent qualities of the region or of the conflicts
that bedevil it. Instead it is more of a historical accident related to
an attempt by the Soviet Union to quell an insurgency in a bordering
state, with the link greatly enhanced in American minds by the
residence in Afghanistan--10 years and more ago--of people associated
with the 9/11 terrorist attack.
Current violence in Afghanistan is a continuation of an Afghan
civil war that began after a coup by Marxist-Leninists in 1978 and,
although the lineup of protagonists has changed from time to time, has
never really stopped. After the departure of the Soviets in 1989, the
fall of the pro-Soviet Najibullah regime in 1992, and internecine
fighting among the warlords who had pursued the insurgency, a new
movement known as the Taliban--benefiting from Pakistani backing and
the support of an Afghan public disgusted by the warlords' violent
squabble--asserted control by the mid-1990s over all but the northern
tier of the country. The civil war continued as a fight between the
Taliban and a mostly non-Pashtun collection of militias known as the
Northern Alliance. The intervention in late 2001 of a U.S.-led
coalition, in what we call Operation Enduring Freedom, was a tipping of
the balance in this civil war. It was enough of a tip for the Northern
Alliance to overrun Kabul and to drive the Taliban from power.
The current phase of the Afghan civil war, although commonly seen
as a fight between the internationally backed government of Hamid
Karzai and a terrorist-associated Afghan Taliban, is a far more
complicated affair with multiple dimensions. The ethnic element is a
large part of the conflict, with the Taliban largely Pashtun and other
ethnic groups having a major role in the government forces. Other
relevant divides are between Sunni and Shia and between rural interests
and the urban elite.
the afghan taliban
The Afghan Taliban constitute a highly insular, inward-looking
movement whose leadership is concerned overwhelmingly with the
political and social order of Afghanistan. It concerns itself with the
United States only insofar as the United States interferes with its
plans for that political and social order. It is a loosely organized
movement in which the leadership group known as the Quetta Shura, led
by Mullah Omar, is the most important but not the sole point of
decisionmaking.
The motives of the rank and file who have taken up arms under the
Taliban label are diverse and at least as locally focused as those of
the leadership. Those motives include assorted grievances such as ones
associated with collateral damage from military operations and
resentment over what is seen as foreign military occupation. Probably
few of the rank and file are driven primarily by a religiously based
desire to remake the Afghan political order, and hardly any of them
have perspectives that reach beyond Afghanistan's borders.
The Afghan Taliban are not an international terrorist group. They
have not conducted terrorist operations outside Afghanistan. There is
nothing in their record or their objectives that suggests that they
will.
the taliban and al-qaeda
The connection between the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda is an aspect
of 1990s-era history. As the Taliban leaders were in the midst of their
war against the Northern Alliance, and bin Laden was establishing a new
home for himself and his followers after leaving Sudan, each side had
something to offer the other. Bin Laden provided resources and manpower
to the Taliban's prosecution of the civil war. The Taliban provided bin
Laden hospitality. Although the two sides both had radical (though
hardly identical) Islamist ideologies, the relationship was largely a
marriage of convenience, and not without frictions.
The basis for the marriage is largely gone. The Taliban cannot
provide the hospitality they did when they were the government of
three-fourths of Afghanistan. Bin Laden (before his death) and what is
left of his organization within the region can provide little material
support. As U.S. officials have repeatedly observed, there is minimal
al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan, with personnel numbering only in the
scores.
Any prospect for the Taliban and al-Qaeda to reestablish anything
like the relationship they had in the years prior to 9/11 is severely
constrained by the changes (some of them irreversible) that have since
taken place in all of the parties concerned: the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and
the United States. Taliban leaders are acutely aware that the biggest
setback their movement has ever suffered--their being swept from power
in the opening weeks of Operation Enduring Freedom--was a direct
response to an al-Qaeda operation. They have no incentive to do
anything that would facilitate a repeat of that experience. Al-Qaeda
leaders are also unlikely to perceive an advantage in having more of a
presence on the northwest side of the Durand Line than they already do
on the southeast side of it. This is especially so because the Taliban
and al-Qaeda alike know that the standards for use of U.S. military
force in Afghanistan have changed drastically since pre-9/11 days.
Unlike back then, the reestablishment of anything remotely resembling
al-Qaeda's earlier presence in Afghanistan would become a target for
unrestricted use of U.S. air power. This would be true whether or not
the United States was still waging a counterinsurgency on the ground in
Afghanistan. And such use of force would be far greater than the still
major restrictions on anything the United States can do militarily in
Pakistan.
the afpak theater and terrorist threats to the united states
Bin Laden never intended whatever organization he controlled to be
the entire story as far as jihadist terrorism is concerned. The very
name of his group--
al-Qaeda, or ``The Base''--implies that it would instead be a
foundation or starting point from which bigger things would grow. This
in fact is what happened. The overall violent jihadist movement to
which the name ``al-Qaeda'' is customarily but loosely applied now goes
well beyond anything bin Laden controlled or that his surviving
associates in South Asia have been directing. Bin Laden's role in
recent years was far more as a source of inspiration, ideology, and
ideas (including operational ideas) than command and control. This role
was confirmed by what has so far become publicly known about the
material seized in the raid at Abbottabad.
Most of the initiative, planning, and preparations for terrorist
operations under the al-Qaeda label in recent years has come from
outside South Asia. Some of it has come from formally named
affiliates--most notably, though not exclusively, from the Yemen-based
group calling itself Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Some has come
from less formally affiliated groups and individuals, including during
the past few years several individuals in the United States. Even
though ``links'' are sometimes traced back to South Asia, the
initiative is largely coming from the periphery.
This pattern implies that the situation on the ground in the AfPak
region is not one of the more important factors determining the degree
of terrorist threat to Americans. To the extent that control of a piece
of real estate matters, whether that real estate is in Afghanistan is
hardly critical. Other places, such as Yemen, are available. This is in
addition to the question of how much the control of any piece of real
estate affects terrorist threats. A lesson from terrorist operations in
recent years--including 9/11, most of the preparations for which took
place well away from South Asia, including in Western cities--is that
the effect is less than that of many other factors shaping terrorist
threats, and that virtual space is more important than physical space
in planning and coordinating terrorist operations. The point is not
that terrorist groups will not use physical space when they have it--
they do--but that it is not one of the more important determinants of
how capable they are and how much of a threat they pose.
impact of bin laden's death
The demise of bin Laden ends a period of well over a decade in
which this most wanted of men was able in effect to thumb his nose at
the United States and the West merely by staying at large and alive for
so long. As such, his removal has dealt a psychological blow to his
followers. Revelation of some of the circumstances in which he had been
living and operating (or not operating) may also help to lower somewhat
his standing even in death. For reasons mentioned earlier, the overall
impact of bin Laden's death on the terrorist threat facing the United
States is not as great as the enormous reaction to this event would
suggest. The national catharsis that the killing of bin Laden involved
is understandable, however, and undoubtedly affects the political
environment in which further decisions within the United States about
the AfPak theater will be taken.
Bin Laden's departure will affect decisions within South Asia as
well, and particularly the Taliban leadership's calculations regarding
al-Qaeda and negotiations to resolve the conflict in Afghanistan. Any
sense of debt among Mullah Omar and the Taliban leaders, dating back to
the assistance that bin Laden gave them in the 1990s, was more to bin
Laden personally than to his group. With bin Laden gone, the Afghan
Taliban probably feel freer than before to renounce any prospect of
future ties with what is left of al-Qaeda. For the Taliban leaders, al-
Qaeda now means to them less a former ally in past phases of the civil
war and more a source of potential trouble, with shades of the enormous
trouble that al-Qaeda caused the Taliban in 2001.
Probably also entering the Taliban leaders' calculations are the
implications of the raid against bin Laden for what the United States
is able and willing to do to hit targets important to it, even targets
nestled deep inside Pakistan. What the United States did at Abbottabad
could be done as well at Quetta or elsewhere. This fact may also
incline the Taliban leaders more toward negotiations because of reduced
confidence in their own security during an indefinite continuation of
the conflict. Factoring in the Pakistani military's likely thinking--
following the embarrassment of Abbottabad, any reduced leverage of
Pakistan against the United States, and what this may mean regarding
future hospitality in Pakistan--would make the Taliban leaders even
less sure of being able to wage their insurgency indefinitely from
havens beyond the Durand Line. In brief, the net effect of bin Laen's
death has probably been to improve the opportunities for negotiations
to wind down the war in Afghanistan.
military forces and counterterrorism
The successful U.S. operation against bin Laden sheds additional
light on the role of U.S. military forces in counterterrorism,
including with regard to the collection of necessary intelligence.
Military force is one of several tools that can be used for
counterterrorism, intelligence being another one. It can be used in
several specific ways for counterterrorist purposes, ranging from the
elimination of a terrorist leader, as was the case with the bin Laden
operation, to striking back at a state that has perpetrated a terrorist
act. And of course, the United States maintains and uses military
forces for many other functions besides counterterrorism. Today in
Afghanistan--although Operation Enduring Freedom began as a direct and
justified response to a terrorist act--U.S. military forces and their
coalition partners are performing some of those other functions, which
involve trying to stabilize the Afghan state and waging a
counterinsurgency that is part of the current phase of the Afghan civil
war.
The raid at Abbottabad, deep inside Pakistan, illustrated that U.S.
military boots on the ground are not necessary for even the precise
type of intelligence required for such an operation. The same point has
been repeatedly demonstrated by the strikes against other terrorist
targets with missiles launched from unmanned aircraft over northwest
Pakistan. There is no reason to suppose that the forces involved in
waging a counterinsurgency, which are large in number and focused on
securing territory and defeating insurgents, will be a significant
factor in collecting intelligence on international terrorism. It is not
as if insurgents who are observed or captured on the battlefield are,
when they are not waging a guerrilla war, involved in hatching
international terrorist plots or even have access to those who do.
Collection of intelligence is certainly an important part of
counterinsurgency, but it is almost all intelligence pertinent to the
counterinsurgency itself, not intelligence having to do with the sort
of terrorism that might otherwise threaten Americans.
The intelligence work that reportedly underlay the successful
operation against bin Laden was typical of the work aimed at terrorist
targets, although obviously the very high priority of this particular
target meant that disproportionate time, effort, and resources were
devoted to it. The work entails the exploitation of fragmentary
reporting from a variety of technical and human sources. It also
entails painstaking following up of leads through intelligence and law
enforcement resources. Interrogation of detainees sometimes contributes
to the mix, although the most important detainees, such as 9/11
mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have been captured not on a
battlefield in the midst of an insurgency but instead as the result of
themselves having been the targets of the same kind of painstaking,
multisource intelligence work.
The raid at Abbottabad points to the value of nearby military
assets, but they are assets of a very specialized sort. They include
staging areas or bases for the operation of drones or the launching of
raids. They include highly skilled forces specially trained to
accomplish the sort of task the SEALs did at bin Laden's compound.
These are assets far different in size from a counterinsurgency force
charged with securing large amounts of territory.
A final consideration to remember in any discussion of the use of
military force in counterterrorism is how such use may affect broader
perceptions and emotions that in turn affect the propensity of some
individuals to resort to terrorism, including anti-U.S. terrorism. The
effects include resentment and anger in the areas immediately affected,
particularly over unavoidable collateral damage to civilians and their
property. We have seen much of this in the war in Afghanistan, and it
has been reflected in the increased numbers of those willing to take up
arms under the banner of the Taliban. The effects also include lending
credibility to the fraudulent, but unfortunately influential, extremist
narrative according to which the United States is determined to kill
Muslims, occupy their lands, and plunder their resources.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Dr. Pillar.
Dr. Fair.
STATEMENT OF C. CHRISTINE FAIR, PH.D., ASSISTANT PROFESSOR,
CENTER FOR PEACE AND SECURITY STUDIES, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY,
WASHINGTON, DC
Dr. Fair. Thank you, Senator Kerry, Senator Lugar, and
esteemed colleagues, for the opportunity to discuss Pakistan's
militant landscape, with particular focus upon Lashkar-e-Taiba
as I was requested to do.
As you know, Pakistan has raised and nurtured a number of
militant groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba being just one, to operate in
India and in Afghanistan. These are distinct from the Pakistani
Taliban, which has been ravaging the state, although part of
the Pakistan Taliban does draw personnel from rebel erstwhile
proxies. Rather than speaking of militants generally, I have
focused upon the differences across these groups, to understand
why Pakistan will not abandon Lashkar-e-Taiba in particular.
To state at the outset, none of the groups that I will
discuss will be significantly and adversely affected by Osama
bin Laden's demise. When we disaggregate this complex militant
market, we see that these Islamist militant groups differ
significantly in their theological orientations and this, as
I'm going to argue, is important.
Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and elsewhere is Wahhabi. The Afghan
Taliban are Deobandi. The Kashmiri groups actually draw from a
number of traditions, including Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, which is
Jamaat-e-Islami; a number of Deobandi groups, such as Jaish-e-
Mohammed, Hargatho Jihad Islami and so forth, and Lashkar-e-
Taiba, which is Ahl-e-Hadith in its orientation. In addition,
there are sectarian groups. This is almost exclusively
Deobandi--who are targeting Shia in Pakistan. They include the
Besa Bey Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Jhungvi.
In addition, these groups kill other Sunni Muslims, such as
Sufis or Barelvis. They also attack Ahmediyyas and non-Muslims.
Then finally, there is the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan, or the
Pakistani Taliban. They are also Deobandi. The Pakistan-based
Deobandi groups, such as Lashkar-e-Jhungvi, are important
components of this organization. It's important to note that
they are not the same as the Afghan Taliban, although at the
level of specific commanders there is some overlap.
There are a number of refinements to this gross
aggregation, which I provide in my written statement, and I
have a table summarizing the same.
To understand LeT's utility to Pakistan, we need to
understand how it differs from these other groups. First, all
of the groups that have split and rebeled under the banner of
the Pakistan Taliban are Deobandi. These groups are the closest
to al-Qaeda. Lashkar-e-Taiba is not Deobandi. It has remained
loyal to the state. It has never attacked Pakistani targets or
any international entities within the state. It exclusively
operates outside of Pakistan.
Finally, whereas the state has taken on some militant
groups in Pakistan, that is to say part of the Pakistani
Taliban and al-Qaeda, it has only marginally and cosmetically
acted against Lashkar-e-Taiba. And I have detailed the various
ways in which the state continues to support Lashkar-e-Taiba in
my written statement.
In contrast to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, these Deobandi groups
will kill anyone that they deem to be at odds with them and
their interpretation of Islam. As I explain in my written
statement, there is a specific theological term for this and
these individuals are called munafiqin. It sounds technical,
but it's important.
Understanding this antimunafiqin violence perpetrated by
the Deobandi groups is critical to understanding why Pakistan
will not abandon Lashkar-e-Taiba. Per the group's manifesto,
which I have analyzed and translated from the Urdu, Lashkar-e-
Taiba is nonsectarian and it is committed to Pakistan's
integrity. It denounces killing Pakistanis of different
confessions and it argues that jihadis should focus on the
external enemies, or kafirs; i.e., us, India, and so forth.
Lashkar-e-Taiba draws most of its recruits from Deobandis
and other sectarian groups. This allows them to indoctrinate
them into this world view, and since it deploys relatively few
people to Kashmir this is an important part of its domestic
outreach mission. Plus, Lashkar-e-Taiba will become more
important to the Pakistani state as its internal security
continues to degrade at the hands of these Deobandi groups.
What then are the options for the United States? Containing
Pakistan is not feasible and attempting to do so isn't
desirable. Pakistan simply has too many asymmetric retaliatory
options. The United States instead should work to contain the
threats of these Pakistani groups, and I lay out a number of
proposals in my written statement. Mostly they focus on
Immigration, Treasury, working with the U.N. and other partners
on intelligence operations, law enforcement, and drawing across
the different combatant commands where LeT operates, such as
EUCOM, CENTCOM, and PACOM.
The goals of this should be to deny these groups freedom of
operation in the United States and elsewhere. Admittedly, this
will be difficult to do as long as the United States retains a
large COIN footprint in Afghanistan. It will be nearly
impossible to do if the United States pulls out of Pakistan.
Finally, because the Pakistani and other diaspora
communities as well as converts to Islam remain an important
source of financial support to LeT and other groups, as well as
recruits for international operations, the United States and
others must forge sensitive policies that consider the diaspora
as an important source of insecurity while ensuring that
innocent persons are not singled out without cause.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Fair follows:]
Prepared Statement of C. Christine Fair
introduction
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is the most lethal terrorist group operating
in and from South Asia. LeT was founded in 1989 in Afghanistan with
help from Pakistan's external intelligence agency, the Inter-services
Intelligence Directorate (ISI). Since 1990 it began operations in
India. Until Thanksgiving weekend in November 2008, U.S. policymakers
tended to dismiss LeT as India's problem--hardly that of the United
States. However, on that weekend, LeT made its debut as an
international terrorist organization when it launched a multisite siege
of India's port city of Mumbai that lasted some 4 days. The attack,
which claimed 166 lives--including several Americans and Israelis--was
reported without halt on global media. It was the first time LeT had
targeted non-Indian civilians. However, the group had been attacking
U.S. troops and its international and Afghan allies in Afghanistan
since 2004.\1\ Revelations that David Headley Coleman (nee Daood
Gilani), an American citizen of Pakistani origin, facilitated the
attack has galvanized renewed fears about American homegrown terrorism
and the ability of LeT to attack the American homeland.\2\ Headley's
ties to an al-Qaeda leader, Ilyas Kashmiri, have furthered speculation
about LeT's ties to al-Qaeda.\3\ Rightly or wrongly, some American
officials believe it is only a matter of when LeT will strike a
devastating attack on U.S. soil, rather than if.\4\
Scholars of South Asian security and media analysts explain
Pakistan's reliance upon LeT--and a raft of other groups--as a response
to its enduring rivalry with India over the disputed territory of
Kashmir specifically and deep neuralgic fears about Indian intentions
toward Pakistan more generally.\5\ Lacking military, diplomatic, or
political options to resolve its security competition with India,
Pakistan has developed a series of proxies that operate in India and
Afghanistan, with presumably plausible deniability. Pakistan's
activities and use of militants in Afghanistan stems directly from
Pakistan's fears about India and a desire to prevent it from developing
influence and deepening its capabilities of fomenting insurgency along
the border I Pakistan (e.g., in Balochistan, the Federally Administered
Tribal Areas, and Khyber Pakhtunkha).
This widely held explanation for Pakistan's reliance upon LeT among
other Islamist militants results in policy recommendations that stress
resolution of the enduring rivalry between India and Pakistan as a
necessary if insufficient condition for Pakistan to strategically
abandon its Islamist proxies. Inevitably, calls are made for
international intervention to encourage both sides to reach some
accommodation.\6\ Moreover, this has led to specific arguments that
Afghanistan will be stabilized only when the status of Kashmir is
resolved as this alone will permit Pakistan to relax its aggressive
efforts to manage efforts there with Islamist proxies, including the
Afghan Taliban, the Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
networks, LeT among others.\7\
I argue in this testimony that this conventional understanding of
Pakistan's reliance upon militancy, framed within the logic Pakistan's
external security preoccupations, is dangerously incomplete as it
excludes the domestic politics of militant groups and the support they
enjoy from the state. I propose that LeT plays an extremely important
domestic role countering the other militants that are increasingly
attacking the state and that this domestic role of LeT has increased
since 2002 as the other groups began attacking the Pakistani state and
its citizens. Equally important, my argumentation--if valid--suggests
that the death of Bin Laden will have little or no mitigating impact
upon LeT or other groups operating in the region. This is true in part
because, in the view of this analyst, the evidence for LeT's tight ties
with al-Qaeda is not robust.
My primary evidentiary bases for these claims are also new: namely,
a review of LeT's manifesto Hum Kyon Jihad Kar Rahen Hain (Why We Are
Waging Jihad) as well as a database of some 708 LeT ``martyr''
biographies. This database is derived from LeT's extensive book and
magazine publication and has been compiled in conjunction with West
Point's Combating Terrorism Center, where the author is overseeing this
effort while Nadia Shoeb is the lead analyst of these shaheed
biographies.
The implications of my argument is that a resolution of the Indo-
Pakistan dispute--howsoever improbable in the first instance--will not
be sufficient to motivate Pakistan to strategically abandon LeT.
Moreover, Pakistan's reliance upon LeT will deepen as Pakistan's
internal security situation further deteriorates. Lamentably, there is
little that the United States can do to affect this reality and must
prepare risk mitigation strategies and, perversely, attempt to deepen
engagement with Pakistan as this is the only way of ensuring maximal
visibility and exerting maximal influence, even if those opportunities
are limited.
The remainder of this testimony is organized as follows. First, I
provide an overview of the militant landscape in Pakistan, drawing
particular attention to the way in LeT differs. These differences are
important to understanding the group, Pakistan's sustained support for
it and the threat it poses to the region and beyond.\8\ Second, I
provide a brief history of LeT. Next, I present new evidence for
understanding the organization from the point of view of domestic
politics within Pakistan itself. Finally, I conclude this essay with an
overview of the implications of my arguments for Pakistan's continued
reliance upon LeT and for U.S. policy.
disagregrating pakistan's militant market \9\
There are several kinds of militant groups operating in and from
Pakistan. Drawing from the vast descriptive literature of Pakistan's
militant group, the militant milieu can be--and should be--meaningfully
disaggregated across several dimensions, beginning with their sectarian
background (e.g., Ahl-e-Hadith, Deoband, Jamaat Islami, etc).\10\ They
can also be distinguished by their theatres of operation (e.g.,
Afghanistan, India, Pakistan), by the makeup of their cadres (e.g.,
Arab, Central Asia, Pakistani, and ethnic groups thereof), and by their
objectives (e.g., overthrow of the Pakistan Government, seize Kashmir,
support the Afghan Taliban, etc.) among other characteristics.
Employing these characteristics, the following clusters of Islamist
militant groups can be discerned (summarized in Figure 1):
Al-Qaeda (in Pakistan): Al-Qaeda operatives who are based in
Pakistan are largely non-Pakistani. However, they work with and
through networks of supportive Pakistani militant groups. The
strongest ties are with the Deobandi groups such as the
Pakistani Taliban, JM, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), etc. From
sanctuaries in the tribal areas and from key Pakistani cities,
al-Qaeda has facilitated attacks within Pakistan and has
planned international attacks.\11\
Afghan Taliban: While the Afghan Taliban operate in
Afghanistan, they enjoy sanctuary in Pakistan's Baluchistan
province, parts of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas
(FATA), the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK, formerly known as the
Northwest Frontier Province), and key cities in the Pakistani
heartland (e.g., Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta). The Afghan Taliban
emerged from Deobandi madaris (p. madrassah) in Pakistan and
retain their nearly exclusive ethnic Pasthun and Deobandi
sectarian orientation.\12\
``Kashmiri groups'': Several groups proclaim to focus upon
Kashmir. These include the Jamaat-e-Islami-based HM and related
splinter groups; several Deobandi groups (JM, JUJI, LeJ, etc.);
and the Ahl-e-Hadith group LeT, which was renamed Jamaat ud
Dawa (JuD) in December 2001. With the notable exception of HM,
most of these groups claim few ethnic Kashmiris among their
cadres and most came into being as surrogates of Pakistan's
intelligence agency, the Inter-services Intelligence Directory
(ISO. Ironically, while they are called ``Kashmir groups,''
many of these groups now operate well beyond Kashmir when
possible.
``Sectarian groups'': While in the past, notable anti-Sunni
Shia groups existed with support from Iran, sectarian groups
today are mostly Sunni who violently target Shia. Those Sunni
groups targeting Shia are almost always Deobandi (Sipah-e-
Sahaba-ePakistan (SSP), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ)). In addition,
there is considerable intra-Sunni violence with Deobandis
targeting Barelvis (a heterodox Sufi order) as well Ahmediyyas,
who are considered non-Muslim in Pakistan and elsewhere.\13\
The Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP, Pakistan Taliban).
Groups self-nominating as the ``Pakistani Taliban'' appeared in
Waziristan as early as 2004 under the leadership of Waziristan-
based, Deobandi militants who fought with the Afghan Taliban in
Afghanistan and earlier in the anti-Soviet jihad. By late 2007,
several militant commanders organized under the leadership of
South Waziristan-based Baitullah Mehsood under the moniker
``Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan.'' Baitullah Mehsood was killed
in a U.S. drone strike in August 2009. After considerable
speculation about the TTP's fate, it reemerged under the
vehemently sectarian Hakirnullah Mehsood. After a brief
interlude from violence, the TTP has sustained a bloody
campaign of suicide bombings that precipitated Pakistani
military activities against their redoubt in South Waziristan.
The TTP sustained retaliatory suicide bombings to punish the
state for launching that campaign.\14\ While the TTP is widely
seen largely as a Pashtun insurgency, the Punjab-based groups
like SSP/LeJ and other Deobandi groups are important components
of this organization.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
There are a number of refinements to this gross disaggregation.
First, Deobandi groups have overlapping membership with each other and
with the Deobandi Islamist political party, Jamiate-Ulema Islami (JUT).
Thus, a member of JM may also be a member of LeJ or even an
officeholder at some level with the JUI. Second, Deobandi groups have
in recent years begun operating against the Pakistani state following
Pakistan's participation in the U.S.-led global war on terrorism. JM
and LeJ for instance have collaborated with the TTP by providing
suicide bombers and logistical support, allowing the TTP to conduct
attacks throughout Pakistan, far beyond the TTP's territorial
remit.\15\ Both LeT and several Deobandi militant groups have also been
operating in Afghanistan against U.S., NATO, and Afghan forces.\16\ In
contrast, other Kashrniri groups are operating under the influence of
the Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami, such as al-Badr and HM,
which tend to be comprised of ethnic Kashmiris and have retained their
operational focus upon Kashmir.
Pakistan has been a victim of sectarian violence by anti-Shia and
previously by anti-Sunni militias since the late 1970s. However, the
current insurgency confronted by Pakistan is different from those older
internal security threats. As is well-known, then President and General
Pervez Musharraf joined the U.S.-led global war by supporting Operation
Enduring Freedom (OEF) \17\ in September of 2001.\18\ In December 2001,
JM attacked the Indian Parliament. India held Pakistan directly
responsible for the actions of its proxies and commenced the largest
military buildup since the 1971 war. After intense diplomatic
intervention by Washington, war was averted but the military buildup
remained on both sides of the border until October 2002. Tensions again
flared when LeT attacked the wives and children of Indian army
personnel in Kaluchak in May 2002. The United States again intervened
to prevent war. The compound crisis that spanned December 2001 through
October 2002 imposed severe costs upon U.S. military operations in
Afghanistan as Pakistan moved its forces from the west to the east.
Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives easily fled into Pakistan's tribal
areas with Pakistani forces redeployed to the east.\19\
Washington compelled President Musharraf to adopt a ``moderated
jihad policy'' according to which he agreed to minimize the
infiltration of Pakistani militants into Pakistan.\20\ Tensions between
the Pakistani Government and its suite of militant proxies had already
come into focus when Musharraf abandoned the Taliban (howsoever
briefly) and cooperated with the United States in the ``Global War on
Terror." Many militant groups rejected their patron's decision and
rebelled. In late 2001/early 2002, JM split into a faction that
remained loyal to the state under its founder Masood Azhar and those
that actively began a suicide campaign against the state, including
against President Musharraf, the Karachi Corps Commander and several
civilian leaders.\21\ Since then, Pakistan's Deobandi groups continue
to factionalize and target Pakistani military installations and
personnel, political leadership and civilians alike.
It is extremely important to note that the groups that split and
rebelled are all Deobandi. In contrast, LeT remained loyal to the state
and began reorganizing in December 2001, days prior to the U.S.
designation of LeT as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. American and
Pakistani analysts alike believe that the ISI alerted LeT to this
impending designation. This advance warning allowed LeT to transfer all
of his financial assets to accounts under the new name of JuD.\22\
LeT's leader, Hafiz Saeed, declared there would be two organizations:
the militant component would be commanded by Maulana Rehman Lakhvi and
a larger umbrella organization became known as JuD, into which LeT
transferred most of its personnel. Moreover, LeT's old offices and
buildings were simply rebadged as JuD facilities. The militant cells of
the organization uses JuD's facilities for its activities and shares
phone numbers, personnel, bank accounts, and offices. Thus for all
practical purposes the organizations are really one: JuD.\23\ With this
structure, which I will elaborate below, the organization has been able
to retain its stock of cadres while also expanding its recruitment base
through its social service provision. Equally important, JuD would be
able to propagate LeT/JuD's unique doctrine and philosophy described
below.
Thus the LeT differs from the other militant groups in several
important ways. First, the LeT has never targeted the Pakistani state
or any target (international or otherwise) within Pakistan. It
exclusively operates outside of Pakistan. This is further evidence of
the tight linkages between LeT and the Pakistani security
establishment. Arguably, further evidence yet of LeT's ongoing ties to
Pakistan's intelligence agency is the simple fact that while several
LeT cells and operatives have been based in the United States, the
organization has never conspired to attack the U.S. homeland. This is
true despite operating against Americans in Afghanistan as well as in
the 2008 Mumbai attack. The ISI likely understands that this would be a
serious redline which would provoke unrelenting retaliation. Indeed,
U.S. legislation such as the ``Pakistan Enduring Assistance and
Cooperation Enhancement (PEACE) Act of 2009'' (generally known as
Kerry-Lugar-Berman) specifically focuses upon LeT by name. While the
U.S. homeland has been vulnerable to LeT attacks, such an attack would
be unlikely without an explicit nod from the ISI.\24\
Second, unlike all of the aforementioned groups, the LeT has never
experienced an exogenous leadership split of any consequence since its
founding years. The organization has at various times reorganized, as
described elsewhere in this essay. But this is not the same as
leadership quarrels that has resulted in disgruntled factions in
opposition to each other. In fact, the ISI often engineers or foments
dissent among the other Deobandi and JI-backed militant groups to
retain some control over them and to limit their ability to develop
independently of the state. The LeT is the only group that the ISI has
kept intact without significant cleavages at the apex body of
decisionsmakers. (As with all organizations, some discord has been
observed among local commanders.)
Finally, whereas the state has taken on several of the Deobandi
groups and
al-Qaeda through inept and not always efficacious military operations,
it has taken only marginal and cosmetic steps in the wake of the Mumbai
2008 attacks.\25\ The Pakistan Government has refused to ban JuD. After
several groups were banned in 2002 (including LeT), all of them
regrouped under other names with their financial assets largely
intact.\26\ After the U.S. Ambassador complained that the bans had no
consequence upon these groups, the Pakistan Government banned the
reformed groups in 2003. As before, the groups reformed without loss of
operational capabilities. JuD was the only group that was not banned at
that time. This enabled JuD to continue to expand its overt as well as
covert actions with preferential state treatment.\27\ In the wake of
Mumbai, Pakistan promised to ban JuD after the U.N. Security Council
proscribed the organization and identified its leadership as terrorist
in early 2009.\28\ However, Pakistan never honored this commitment.
While some of its leadership is in jail to appease Washington after
Mumbai, they continue to meet their associates and plan operations. JuD
convenes high-profile demonstrations including recent mobilization
around Pakistan's abrogated sovereignty with the bin Laden raid and
assignation, the fate of Raymond Davis (the CIA contractor who killed
two ISI operatives during an altercation) \29\ and to show support for
Pakistan's blasphemy law and even to demonstrate support for the killer
of the Punjab Governor, Salmon Tasseer, who wanted to reform the
blasphemy law. The LeT/JuD continues its domestic social work and
relief activities increasingly within the eyes of the Pakistani public.
Frighteningly, JuD--and other Islamist organizations--have taken the
lead in shaping public opinion about these events which necessarily
center on loathing of the United States and calls for the government
and military to sever ties across the board. This is an easy sell to
Pakistan's increasingly anti-American public.\30\
lashkar-e-taiba and jamaat ud dawa: a brief history \31\
The LeT originally emerged as the military wing of the Markaz
Daawat ul Irshad (MDI), headquartered in Muridke near the Punjabi city
of Lahore. MDI was founded in 1986 by two Pakistani Engineering
professors, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and Zafar Iqbal with the assistance of
the ISI.\32\ Abdullah Azzam, a close of associate of bin Laden who was
affiliated with the Islamic University of Islamabad and the Maktab ul
Khadamat (Bureau of Services for Arab mujahedeen, which was the
precursor to al-Qaeda), also provided assistance. He was killed in
Peshawar 2 years after the MDI was founded. MDI, along with numerous
other militant groups, was involved in supporting the mujahidin in
Afghanistan from 1986 onward, and established militant training camps
for this purpose. One camp was known as Muaskar-e-Taiba in Paktia and a
second known as Muaskar-e-Aqsa in the Kunar province of
Afghanistan.\33\ (Kunar is known to be home to numerous Ahl-e-Hadith
adherents in Afghanistan, which overall has few followers in that
country. For this reason, Kunar has been an attractive safe haven for
Arabs in Afghanistan.) Pakistan-based analysts note that MDI/LeT's
training camps were always separate from those of the Taliban, which
hosted Deobandi militant groups such as HUJI and HuM. This has led some
analysts to contend that LeT has not had the sustained and organic
connections to al-Qaeda as enjoyed by the Deobandi groups, many of
which became ``out sourcers'' for al-Qaeda operations in Pakistan.\34\
In 1993, MDI divided its activities into two related but separate
organizations: MDI proper continued the mission of proselytization and
education while LeT emerged as the militant wing. After the Soviets
withdrew from Afghanistan, LeT/MDI shifted focus to Indian-administered
Kashmir. It staged its first commando-style attack in Kashmir in 1990.
The organization has spawned a vast training infrastructure throughout
the country to support its dual mission of training militants and
converting Pakistanis to the Ahl-e-Hadith interpretative tradition. For
much of the 1990s (with few exceptions), LeT operations were restricted
to Indian administered Kashmir.
LeT's 200-acre headquarters is in Muridke (Punjab) located some 30
kilometers from Lahore.\35\ However, the organization maintains offices
in most of the major cities throughout Pakistan. (See Figure 2, which
shows a business card of Yayha Mujahid, LeT's spokesperson, with office
locations throughout Pakistan.) These offices undertake recruitment as
well as funds collection. In addition to overt offices open to the
public, JuD/LeT maintains covert training camps throughout
Pakistan.\36\ Hafez Saeed is the Amir (supreme commander) of the
organization.\37\ As noted above, since December 2001, the organization
essentially exists as JuD within Pakistan while LeT is nominally the
organization that operates outside of Pakistan although this
distinction is insignificant. In this essay, I use JuD and LeT
interchangeably because this was reorganization by the organization
itself rather than a split.\38\ Operations tend to be conducted with a
relatively small unit of few than a dozen.\39\
Figure 2. Business Card of Mr. Yayha Mujahid (c. 2004)
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Source: Mr. Yayha Mujahid gave this card to the author in 2004.
Recruits typically come from cities in central and southern Punjab
(e.g., Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Bahawalpur, Vehari, Khaneval, Kasur),
reflecting the Punjabi nature of the group and the fact that its main
infrastructure is in the Punjab. In addition, some come from
Afghanistan and Pashtun areas in Pakistan.\40\ There is no publically
available--much less accurate--accounting of the organization's end-
strength. But the State Department estimates that it has ``several
thousand'' members in Pakistan Administered Kashmir, Pakistan, in the
southern Jammu and Kashmir and Doda regions (in Indian Administered
Kashmir), and in the Kashmir Valley.\41\ In contrast, the Delhi-based
South Asia Terrorism Portal estimates that, with some fluctuation, it
has more than 750 cadres in Jammu and Kashmir, which comprise the
overwhelming bulk of the foreign militants in the Kashmir valley.\42\
A perusal of LeT literature demonstrates a commitment to targeting
Indian Hindus, Jews, and other Kafirs outside of Pakistan.\43\ LeT has
a hallmark modus operandi, which has often been misconstrued as simply
``suicide operations.'' In fact, the LeT does not do suicide
operations, per se, in which the goal of the attacker is to die during
the execution of the attack. Rather, LeT's ``fidayeen missions are more
akin to high-risk missions in which well-trained commandos engage in
fierce combat during which death is preferable to capture. While
martyrdom is in some sense the ultimate objective of LeT operatives,
the LeT selects missions where there is a possibility, however slim, of
living to kill more enemy operatives. The goal of LeT commandos
therefore is not merely to commit suicide attacks; rather, they seek to
kill as many as possible until they ultimately succumb to enemy
operations, barring their ability to survive enemy engagement.\44\
Consonant with the rigor of a typical LeT mission, LeT recruits do
not predominantly draw from Pakistan's madaris (pl. of madrassah) as is
commonly asserted. Rather, LeT recruits are generally in their late
teens or early twenties and tend to be better educated than Pakistanis
on average, or even than other militant groups such as the Deobandi SSP
or JM. A majority of LeT recruits have completed secondary school with
good grades and some have even attended college. This reflects both the
background of LeT's founding fathers who were engineering professors
and MDI commitment to technical and other education. This stands in
sharp contrast to the madrassah-based networks of many of the Deobandi
groups including the Afghan Taliban.\45\ The fraction of madrassah-
educated LeT operatives is believed to be as low as 10 percent.\46\ LeT
also actively targets women both to expand their recruitment base of
males, and reportedly, to recruit women for militant operations.\47\
Since the late 1990's, LeT has continued to develop its operational
reach into India. This has involved recruiting Indian citizens and
increasingly entails developing an indigenous Indian franchise, the
Indian Mujahedeen.\48\
domestic politics of lashkar-e-taib: an alternative explanation
As noted above, the groups that have reorganized and begun
targeting the state are all Deobandi. LeT is not Deobandi. This
theological distinction is exceedingly important if underappreciated.
First, these Deobandi groups are intimately sectarian. They have long
supported the targeting of Pakistan's Shia and Ahmediyyas. (Zulfiqar
Ali Bhutto declared the Ahmediyyas to be non-Muslim in 1974 to placate
Islamist opposition groups who demanded this.) These Deobandi groups
also began attacking Sufi shrines in Pakistan in recent years. The most
recent such attack occurred in April 2011 when suicide bombers
assaulted a shrine dedicated to a saint, Sakhi Sarvar, in Dera Ghazi
Khan.\49\ Previously, they attacked extremely important a shrine in
Lahore, Data Darbar, on July 1, 2010.\50\ These Sufi shrines follow the
Barelvi school of Islam in Pakistan. Barelvi adherents believe in
mysticism, revere saints and shrines, and frequent shrines where the
saint's descendent spiritual guide may intercede on behalf of these
worshipers. Many, if not most, Pakistanis are believed to be Barelvi
although there are no data on this question. Pakistanis generally hold
these shrines in high esteem as these Sufi saints brought Islam to
South Asia. However, Deobandi loath and denounce these mystical
practices and beliefs as un-Islamic accretions derived from Hinduism.
Deobandis also encourage attacks against Pakistan's non-Muslim
minorities, such as Christians.
In short, Barelvis, Shia, and Ahmediyyas all espouse religious
practices that Deobandis find anathema because they practice what
Deobandis deem munafiqit, or acting to spread disunity. (The term
munafiqit is sometimes translated as a hypocrite in English, implying
that they are not truthful to themselves or others.) Perpetrator of
munafiqit are called munafiq (plural is munafiqin). Deobandi militant
groups, which include the Pakistan Taliban and its constituent members
from JM, SSP, and LeJ among others, have come to conclude that anyone
who does not espouse their beliefs is munafiq. This includes Pakistani
security personnel as well civilian leadership and individuals who
oppose these groups and their sanguinary agenda. Under these pretexts,
Deobandi groups have launched a sustained campaign of violence that
first began in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), and then
expanded into the settled parts of the frontier in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
and well into the Punjab.
The results of this Deobandi campaign have been lethal. Using data
that are available from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point,
between January 1, 2004 (when the database begins) and December 31,
2010 (the last date available), there have been over 3,517 attacks by
Islamist militant groups the vast majority of which are Deobandi. These
attacks have claimed more than 25,116 victims among whom 24,796 were
injured but survived. These attacks expanded precipitously after 2006
when the Pakistani state began engaging in vigorous antiterrorism
efforts against these groups. (Yearly breakdowns of incidents and
victims are available in Figure 3.)
Figure 3. Islamist Terrorist Attacks and Victims: January 1, 2004-
December 31, 2010
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Source: Worldwide Incident Tracking System, Combating Terrorism
Center at West Point. Data accessed April 24, 2011. Like all datasets
on violence, this too is not a comprehensive database. Thus one should
not look at any one year, rather the trend over several years.
Available at https://wits.nctc.gov.
Understanding this anti-Munafiqin violence perpetrated by these
Deobandi groups is critical to understanding the domestic utility of
LeT. (A photo of Pakistan Taliban graffiti denouncing munafiqit in a
TTP redoubt in South Waziristan is available in Figure 4.)
Figure 4. Anti-Munafiqat graffiti from the Pakistan Taliban in
South Waziristan
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Source: Author photograph from a Pakistan Taliban hideout captured
by the Pakistan army in the Makeen Valley in South Waziristan, July
2011. This Pashto caption translates as ``Don't indulge in munafiqat
(hypocrisy) or you will be debased.'' This inscription is believed to
be written in blood by the Pakistan army, but the author cannot confirm
this claim.
In stark contrast, LeT does not fight in Pakistan and does not
target Pakistanis. In its manifesto ``Hum Kyon Jihad Kar Rahen Hain?''
(Why Are We Waging Jihad), the author details why it is that LeT ``Does
not wage jihad in Pakistan instead of Kashmir'' and other venues in the
Muslim world where Muslims are oppressed.\51\ This section above all
other sections explains the domestic importance of the organization. In
contrast to the Deobandi groups which savage the state and its
citizens, this LeT manifesto reveals LeT's fundamental non-sectarian
nature and robust commitment to the integrity of the Pakistani state
and its diverse polity.
The manifesto forthrightly addresses this fundamental accusation
waged against the government by the Deobandis. This critique has
particular salience in the post-2001 era when the Government of
Pakistan began collaborating with the United States and the subsequent
emergent of a domestic insurgency. The author explains LeT's logic by
arguing that while the state is indeed guilty of these things,
Pakistanis who are Muslim are all brothers irrespective of the
sectarian commitments.\52\ The author says that Barelvis, Sufis or Shia
not be attacked.\53\ Equally important, this document argues against
the Deobandi position that these persons are Munafiqin worthy of death
in the first place.
In contrast, the manifesto's author argues that Kafirs outside of
Pakistan (Hindus, Jews, Christians, atheists, etc.) are at war with
Muslims and should be attacked.\54\ The author urges all Muslims to
fight the Kafirs lest Pakistanis turn on each other, as indeed they
have in ample measure.
In this manifesto lie the domestic politics of LeT and its state
support. It is the only organization that actively challenges the
Deobandi orthodoxy that has imperiled the domestic security of the
state. It is the only militant organization that enunciates the
legitimate targets of jihad and the utility of external jihad to the
state in a way that the common Pakistani can understand. Thus, LeT's
doctrine works to secure the integrity of the Pakistani state
domestically even while it complicates Pakistan's external relations
with India, the United States and others.
This orientation is more important than it may seem at first blush.
Drawing from previous and current work, LeT does not primarily recruit
from adherents of the theological tradition to which it derives: Ahl-e-
Hadith for two reasons.\55\ First, because many of religious scholars
(ulema) of Ahl-e-Hadith have rejected violent jihad, LeT has split from
its sectarian roots. Given its differences of opinion with the Ahl-e-
Hadith ulema, it should not expect many recruits from Ahl-e-Hadith
adherents.\56\ Another reason is that overall in Pakistan, the Ahl-
eHadith community is quite small, perhaps less than 10 percent of
Pakistan's population of 180 million.\57\ In fact, LeT overwhelmingly
recruits Deobandis and Barelvis. In Daur-e-Aam (the basic training)
recruits are undergo rigorous religious indoctrination. This is an
important opportunity to attract those who have a taste for violence to
a pro-state militant organization rather than a Deobandi group which
may target the state. It also provides LeT the opportunity to dissuade
Deobandis (or others) who believe in attacking Pakistanis be they
civilian leaders, security forces or citizens.
Pakistan's support of LeT/JuD's expansion into providing social
services after 2002 also makes sense. By 2004 JuD was expanding schools
(not madrassahs), clinics and other social services throughout
Pakistan.\58\ In 2004, LeT/JuD raised enormous funds and relief
supplies for the victims of the 2004/2005 Asian Tsunami, it provided a
variety of relief and medical assistance in the 2005 Kashmir
earthquake, and provided social services to internally displaced
persons who fled military offensive in Swat in 2009 as well as the
victims of the 2010 monsoon-related super flood. Granted, the
organization was not at the forefront of relief as the media reported.
It is likely that Pakistan's media sensationalized LeT's contribution
deliberately to foster popular support for the organization. This is
entirely possible as many journalists are explicitly on the ISI's
payroll and routinely plant stories on behalf of the ISI or
characterize a story to suit the ISI's interests.\59\
Pakistan has sustained serious criticism for refusing to crack down
on the organization and indeed permit it to sustain an extremely public
profile. (Evidence of the organization's intent to inflame the United
States and other international observers is manifested in its various
banners in (often broken) English. Few Pakistanis can read English and
thus is likely intended to ensure that American and others can see
understand their claims.) However, when one appreciates the domestic
importance of LeT in dampening internal insecurity, the state has an
enormous incentive to encourage and facilitate this expansion of JuD
throughout Pakistan. By bolstering the organization's domestic
legitimacy, JuD becomes an ever-more effective organization in
countering the competitive dangerous beliefs of the Deobandi groups.
Pakistan's support of the organization has taken unusual turns. After
the Mumbai attack of 2008, the Punjab provincial government began
managing the organization's substantial assets in the Punjab and has
even placed many LeT/JuD workers employed in various purported
charitable activities on its official payroll. In addition, the Punjab
government has even made substantial grants to the organization.\60\
When we appreciate the important domestic role that LeT/JuD plays
in helping to counter the Deobandi violence that has ravaged Pakistan,
it logically follows that this organization will become more important
as Pakistan's domestic security situation degrades. This suggests that
no matter what happens vis-a-vis India, Pakistan is unlikely to put
down this organization as long as it serves this important domestic
political role.
implications for the united states
Implications of this evidence for LeT: It 's not going away
The implications of my argument and new evidence are important and
suggest strongly that international intervention to resolve Pakistan's
outstanding dispute with India is unlikely to be a sufficient condition
for Pakistan to abandon its reliance upon LeT/JuD. This is true despite
the increasing threat the organization poses to international security
and despite the fact that Pakistan will be held accountable for attacks
perpetrated by the group. This is true despite the fact that an LeT/JuD
attack in India may be one of the quickest route to an outright
conflict with India. Needless to say an attack by the LeT/JuD on
American soil would be a catastrophic game changer. While Pakistan's
reliance upon LeT may be a risky proposition, JuD/LeT appears to have
an enormous role in securing Pakistan's interests externally. Equally
and perhaps more importantly, LeT secures a more primal state interest:
internal cohesion and survivability of the state.
Can Pakistan Abandon Militancy as a Strategic Tool? Not Likely
Similarly, prospects are slim that Pakistan will be able to reverse
course with its proxies who have turned against the state with
devastating violence. This is in part because part of the Pakistan
Taliban have important overlaps with groups which Pakistan still
considers to be assets: namely, groups like JM who retain an interest
in targeting India rather than Pakistan. Moreover, as the army's
various attempted peace deals demonstrate, there remains a latent hope
that these groups can be rehabilitated and realign with Pakistan's
foreign interests. Pakistan's likely inability to counter the domestic
threat comprehensively is also due in part due to Pakistan's
shortcomings in countering those groups and individual commanders that
they have taken on as enemies of the state. These shortcomings are
evidenced in the armed forces, intelligence agencies, police and other
law enforcement entities, Pakistan's legal statutes, and other entities
within Pakistan's rule of law system such as the judiciary.
It is important to understand that no state will act against its
own self interests. Given that Pakistan is unlikely to be induced to
abandon its reliance upon militancy under its nuclear umbrella for both
external and internal reasons, the international community--including
the United States--should abandon its Panglossian optimism that
additional foreign assistance or security assistance will shift
Pakistan's strategic calculus away from using LeT or other militants to
service its internal and external goals. For Pakistan, LeT is an
existential asset in the same way that it is an existential enemy for
countries like India and even the United States. This suggests an
urgent need to conceptualize and implement a robust threat containment
strategy.
Mitigating the Threats? Limited But Important to Keep Trying
Containing Pakistan per se is not feasible nor is attempting to do
so even desirable. Pakistan simply has many asymmetric options which
the United States should consider heavily. Any serious consideration of
options to contain Pakistan must be gamed, regamed and multiple levels
of contingency plans must be formulated. This is an option that is
fraught with danger and should be considered only as a last resort.
However, there are means of containing the threats that Pakistan
pose even if containing the country is impossible. The United States,
India, the United Kingdom and other states victimized by LeT and
similar groups should forge closer cooperation on intelligence and
counterterrorism initiatives to interdict planned attacks and to
identify and prosecute individuals after the fact. Such prosecutions
will likely present evidence that will incriminate others who remain
active in the organization, contributing to further efforts to
downgrade their efficacy.\61\ Greater contacts must be forged with
Immigration, Treasury, and other government agencies in those states in
North America, Europe, the Middle East, South and South East Asia that
LeT/JuD uses for logistical purposes, movement of recruits into and out
of Pakistan, transfers of funds, and other materials to sustain
operations. The goal of these engagements is to deny Pakistani militant
groups freedom of movement of all assets and disrupting potential cells
and plots.
Because the Pakistani diaspora communities and converts to Islam
remain important sources of financial support to LeT/JuD and recruits
for operations,\62\ the United States and other governments will have
to forge sensitive policies that consider the diaspora as an important
source of insecurity while ensuring that innocent persons are not
singled out without cause. This has been and will remain a delicate and
fraught public policy issue.\63\ How can governments forthrightly
concede these threats without alienating Muslims at home, who are
important sources of information that have helped deter potential
attacks and catch those who have successfully executed attacks?
However, Pakistan's refusal to shut down militant training camps in
Pakistan leave few options to states seeking to protect their citizenry
and their allies from attacks by Pakistan-based groups or by
individuals who have trained with such groups in Pakistan.
National and multilateral institutions (e.g., the U.S. Department
of Treasury, the United Nations Security Council, the European Union)
should work to target specific individuals within the militant
organizations in question, as well as individuals within the Pakistani
state found to be supporting these groups. Admittedly, the latter may
be awkward. In the case of the U.N. Security Council (UNSC), this may
mean working to forge coalitions with Pakistan's key supporter on the
UNSC: China. More generally, the United States will have to reach out
to Pakistan's friends--as well as foes--to forge a consensus on the
best way to help Pakistan help itself. Indeed Washington will need to
develop broad-based engagement strategy of all countries relevant to
Pakistan (e.g., Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, China) to help forge a
parallel if not convergent threat perception of Pakistan and develop
policies to best address them.
Finally, while I understand that the United States is facing a
severe budgetary crisis and while I understand that there is a long-
simmering interest in ``cutting off'' Pakistan, these urges must be
tempered. While it is true that financial and military assistance is
not ever going to be adequate to alter Pakistan's threat perceptions
and that Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies will seek to
circumscribe U.S. engagement, the United States should make every
effort to intensify and expand engagement after the demise of bin
Laden. U.S. interests endure well beyond his death whether securing
resupply of U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan, securing maximal
visibility into and influence in Pakistan's oversight of its nuclear
weapons, and of course the myriad militant groups operating in and from
Pakistan.
Impact of bin Laden's Death on Pakistan's Militant Landscape: Likely
Little or None
Bin Laden's death does not dampen the domestic or external utility
of LeT. His death will not temper the vicious violence of the Pakistan
Taliban and their relentless attacks upon the Pakistan state. It may
even encourage ever-more sophisticated violence from the TTP, which has
ties to al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network. (Haqqani has long been close
to bin Laden.) And of course bin Laden's death does not affect enduring
and long-term U.S. concerns about nuclear proliferation, security of
peace-time positioning of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, mobilization
during a crisis with India, command and control arrangement, much less
the steepness of the escalation latter of an actual crisis with India
among other salient concerns.
Staying the Course and Seeking New Opportunities
Despite all impulses to the contrary, the United States needs to
stay the course and continue to invest in civilian institutions. The
United States must make every effort--where possible--to invest in
civilian-led security governance, provide technical and other support
to empower Pakistan's Parliament to incrementally increase its ability
to exert oversight of Pakistan's defense and intelligence agencies.
While a genuinely civilian-led Pakistan seems an impossible dream, any
progress--howsoever slim--will be important. Finding ways of providing
meaningful support to Pakistan's law enforcement agencies and judicial
system remains a critical set of activities. Admittedly, access will be
tough through the U.S. mission. Provincial assemblies also need
technical skill training and other professional development. Perhaps
U.N.D.P. (United Nations Development Program) is the best route for
such activities such as strengthening Pakistan's judicial system and
national and provincial assembly.
Devolution may present new opportunities for engagement as each
province may have specific needs and depending upon the program may be
more receptive. Provincial planning councils and ministries offer new
opportunities even if negotiating what devolution means will remain a
medium-term challenge.
Needless to say, the ways in which the United States does aid
programming is and has been deeply problematic for institutional and
other reasons. USAID does not require Pakistani matching grants. Thus
any allocation from USAID for development displaces the same amount in
Pakistan's budget. This allows Pakistan to be insouciant about the
program as the appropriate organization has no incentive to care:
Pakistan's money is not on the line. While a detailed exposition of
this concept is beyond the scope of this testimony; USAID's chronic
inability to deliver value needs to be reevaluated. In fact, perhaps
the bin Laden event and the emerging rift with Pakistan may occasion an
opportunity to reoptimize Kerry-Lugar-Berman. Such a concept of aid
will allow Washington to do more with less and will avoid the costly
and unproductive expenditures on programs for which there is no
financial or organizational buy-in.
Finally, while it seems dismaying that the U.S. investment in
Pakistan has not yielded hoped for security payoffs, this pessimism is
not entirely justifiable. Had it not been for the investments thus far,
the United States would not have been in the position to have the
assets required to identify and neutralize bin Laden as well as a host
of other al-Qaeda operatives. And, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
has recently claimed, he has seen evidence that high-level Pakistani
officials did not know about bin Laden's whereabouts. The lamentable
truth is that even if they had, the United States would make a
catastrophic error in judgment in walking away as it will forfeit any
opportunities to develop needed information on key concerns and it will
forgo any opportunity--even if limited--in helping to power civilian
institutions in Pakistan.
All of these options seem inordinately difficult given the
political priorities of the United States and other critical countries;
however, other more feasible options simply do not appear to be
available.
----------------
References
\1\ Author experience in Afghanistan between June and October 2007
as a political officer to the United Nations Assistance Mission to
Afghanistan.
\2\ U.S. Department of Justice, ``Chicago Resident David Coleman
Headley Pleads Guilty To Role In India and Denmark Terrorism
Conspiracies,'' March 18, 2001, available at (http://www.justice.gov/
usao/iln/pri/chicago/2010/prO318_01.pdf).
\3\ Carrie Johnson, ``U.S. Citizen David Coleman Headley Admits
Role in Mumbai Attacks,'' Washington Post, March 19, 2010. (http://
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/18/
AR2010031805407.html)
\4\ See discussion in Bruce Riedel, Deadly Embrace: Pakistan,
America, and the Future of Global Jihad (Washington DC: Brookings
Institution, 2011), pp. 106-118.
\5\ T.V. Paul, ``Causes of the India-Pakistan Enduring Rivalry,''
in T.V. Paul Ed. ``The India-Pakistan Conflict'' (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005), pp. 3-24.
\6\ See discussion between Paul Kapur and Sumit Ganguly in S. Paul
Kapur, ``Ten Years of Instability in a Nuclear South Asia,''
International Security 33, no. 2 (Fall 2008): 71-94 and Sumit Ganguly,
``Nuclear Stability in South Asia,'' International Security 33, no. 2
(Fall 2008): 45-70. For a critical discussion of the security of
nuclear weapons and command and control arrangements over the same, see
Christopher Clary, ``Thinking About Pakistan's Nuclear Security in
Peacetime, Crisis and War,'' IDSA Occasional Paper No. 12 (New Delhi:
IDSA, 2010); Sumit Ganguly, S. Paul Kapur, ``India, Pakistan, and the
Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia'' (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2010).
\7\ Barnett R. Rubin and Ahmed Rashid, ``From Great Game to Grand
Bargain,'' Foreign Affairs, November/December, 2008. Available (http://
www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/64604/barnett-r-rubin-and-ahmed-rashid/
from-great-game-to-grand-bargain).
\8\ For an extensive review, see C. Christine Fair, ``The Militant
Challenge in Pakistan,'' Asia Policy 11 (January 2011): 105-37.
\9\ C. Christine Fair, ``The Militant Challenge in Pakistan,'' Asia
Policy 11 (January 2011): 105-37.
\10\ This taxonomy is deduced from author fieldwork in Pakistan
from 2002 to 2011. See C. Christine Fair, ``Who Are Pakistan's
Militants and Their Families?'' Terrorism and Political Violence 20
(2008): 49-65. See also, inter alia, Arif Jamal, ``Shadow War: The
Untold Story of Jihad in Kashmir'' (Hoboken: Melville House, 2009);
Muhammad Amir Ranan (trans. Saba Ansari) ``The A to Z of Jehadi
Organizations in Pakistan'' (Lahore: Mashal, 2004); See Amir Mir, ``The
True Face of Jehadis'' (Lahore: Mashal Books, 2004), Amir Mir, ``The
Fluttering Flag of Jehad'' (Lahore: Mashal Books, 2008). For an
excellent synthesis of the sprawling Pakistani literature on the varied
militant groups based in and from the country, see Nicholas Howenstein,
``The Jihadi Terrain in Pakistan: An Introduction to the Sunni Jihadi
Groups in Pakistan and Kashmir,'' Pakistan Studies Research Unit,
Bradford University, February 2008. http://
www.humansecuritygateway.info/documents/
PSRU_JihadiTerrain_Pakistan.pdf; Jane's World Insurgency and Terrorism,
``Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP),'' July 1, 2009. wjit.james.com (by
subscription only); Manzair Zaidi, ``Pakistan's Taliban Warlord: A
Profile of Baitullah Meshud,'' The Long War Journal, September 30,
2008. www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/9/pakistans_taliban_wa.php;
Jane's Terrorism and Security Monitor, ``Pakistan's Most wanted:
Baitullah Mehsud,'' February 8. 2009. www4.janes.com (available to
subscribers only); Rahimullah Yusefzai, ``Profile: Nek Mohammed,'' BBC
News Online, June 18, 2004. news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3819871;
Hassan Abbas, ``A Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan,'' CTC Sentinel
1 (2008): 1_4; Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency, ``Tribal Tribulations:
The Pakistani Taliban in Waziristan,'' January 13, 2009. www.janes.com
(available to subscribers only).
\11\ See comments made by National Intelligence Director John
Negroponte cited in ``Al-Qaeda `rebuilding' in Pakistan,'' BBC News
Online, January 12, 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/
6254375.stm; K. Alan Kronstadt, U.S.-Pakistan Relations (Washington DC:
Congressional Research Service, 2008). http://fpc.state.gov/documents/
organization/115888.pdf.
\12\ See, inter alia, Senator Carl Levin, ``Opening Statement of
Senator Carl Levin, Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on
Afghanistan and Pakistan,'' February 26, 2009. http://levin.senate.gov/
newsroom/release.cfm?id=308740; Ian Katz, ``Gates Says Militant
Sanctuaries Pose Biggest Afghanistan Threat,'' Bloomberg News, March 1,
2009. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/
news?pid=20601087&sid=aehmlRXgKi2o&refer=home; Barnett R. Rubin.
``Saving Afghanistan,'' Foreign Affairs, January/February 2007. http://
www.foreignaffairs.org/20070101faessay
86105-p0/barnett-r-rubin/saving-afghanistan.html.
\13\ Vali R. Nasr, ``International Politics, Domestic Imperatives,
and Identity Mobilization: Sectarianism in Pakistan, 1979-1998,''
Comparative Politics 32 (2000): 170-91; International Crisis Group.
``The State of Sectarianism in Pakistan: Crisis Group Asia Report No.
95'' (Brussels, Islamabad; International Crisis Group, 2005), 12, 19-
20. Also see A.H. Sorbo, ``Paradise Lost,'' The Herald, June 1988, p.
31; Muhammad Qasim Zaman, ``Sectarianism in Pakistan: The
Radicalization of Shi'i and Sunni Identities,'' Modern Asian Studies 32
(1998):689-716.
\14\ Declan Walsh, ``Pakistan Sends 30,000 Troops for All-Out
Assault on Taliban,'' The Guardian, October 17, 2009. http://
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/17/pakistan-sends-troops-against-
taliban.
\15\ Author fieldwork in Pakistan in February and April 2009.
\16\ See C. Christine Fair, ``Antecedents and Implications of the
November 2008 Lashkar-e-Taiba Attack Upon Mumbai,'' testimony presented
before the House Homeland Security Committee, Subcommittee on
Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection on March 11,
2009.
\17\ OEF was the military operation that commenced on October 7,
2001, in response to the 9/11 attacks. Pakistan provided.
\18\ C. Christine Fair, ``The Counterterror Coalitions: Cooperation
with Pakistan and India'' (Santa Monica: RAND, 2004).
\19\ Imtiaz Gul, ``The Al Qaeda Connection: The Taliban and Terror
in Pakistan's Tribal Areas'' (London: Penguin, 2009).
\20\ C. Christine Fair and Peter Chalk. ``Fortifying Pakistan: The
Role of U.S. Internal Security Assistance'' (Washington DC: USIP,
2006).
\21\ Mir, ``The True Face of Jehadis''; Mir, ``The Fluttering Flag
of Jehad''; Howenstein, ``The Jihadi Terrain in Pakistan.''
\22\ See ``U.S. Embassy Cables: Lashkar-e-Taiba Terrorists Raise
Funds in Saudi Arabia,'' guardian.co.uk, December 5, 2010, available at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/220186.
\23\ See ``U.S. Embassy Cables: Lashkar-e-Taiba Terrorists Raise
Funds in Saudi Arabia,'' guardian.co.uk, December 5, 2010, available at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/220186.
\24\ Recent evidence provided by David Coleman Headley during his
trial for his participa-
tion in the Mumbai attacks of 2008, he claimed direct ISI involvement
in his management.
These are allegations made in court and may not be true. Sebastian
Rotella, ``U.S. Prose-
cutors Indict 4 Pakistanis in Mumbai attacks,'' The Washington Post,
April 26, 2011. Avail-
able at http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/
us_prosecutors_indict_4_pakistanis_in_
mumbai_attacks/2011/04/26/AFaDLhsE_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage.
Moreover, the Director General of the ISI, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha,
conceded some that ``rogue'' elements of his organization were likely
involved. However, he denied that this operation was ``authorized.''
Bob Woodward. ``Obama's Wars'' (New York: Simon and Shuster, 2010), pp.
46-47.
\25\ C. Christine Fair and Seth Jones, ``Pakistan's War Within,''
Survival, 51, No. 6 (December 2009-January 2010): 161-188.
\26\ Stephen Phillip Cohen, ``The Jihadist Threat to Pakistan,''
The Washington Quarterly 26 (2003): 7-25.
\27\ Stephen Tankel, ``Lashkar-e-Taiba: From 9/11 to Mumbai.''
Developments in Radicalisation and Political Violence, April/May 2009.
www.icsr.info.
\28\ Jay Solomon, ``U.N. Security Council Sanctions Lashkar
Members,'' December 10, 2008. http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB122895332614496341.html.
\29\ C. Christine Fair, ``Spy for a Spy: the CIA-ISI Showdown Over
Raymond Davis,'' Af-Pak Channel, March 10, 2011, ForeignPolicy.com.
\30\ The Pew Foundation, ``Opinion of the United States,'' 2010,
available at http://pewglobal.org/database/?indicator=l&country=166.
\31\ This section draws in part from C. Christine Fair,
``Antecedents and Implications of the November 2008 Lashkar-e-Taiba
Attack Upon Mumbai,'' testimony presented before the House Homeland
Security Committee, Subcommittee on Transportation Security and
Infrastructure Protection on March 11, 2009.
\32\ See Sikand, ``The Islamist Militancy in Kashmir: The Case of
the Lashkar-e-Taiba''; Abou Zahab, ``I Shall be Waiting at the Door of
Paradise''; Shafqat, ``From Official Islam to Islamism.''7.
\33\ See Yoginder Sikand, ``The Islamist Militancy in Kashmir: The
Case of the Lashkar-e-Taiba,'' in The Practice of War: Production,
Reproduction and Communication of Armed Violence, eds. Aparna Rao et
al. (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007):215-238; Mariam Abou Zahab, ``I
Shall be Waiting at the Door of Paradise: The Pakistani Martyrs of the
Lashkar-e-Taiba'' (Army of the Pure), The Practice of War: Production,
Reproduction and Communication of Armed Violence, eds. Aparna Rao et
al. (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007):133-158; Saeed Shafqat, ``From
Official Islam to Islamism: The Rise of Dawat-ul-Irshad and Lashkar-e-
Taiba,'' in Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation, ed. Christophe
Jaffrelot (London: Zed Books, 2002), pp. 131-147.
\34\ In 1998, the United States bombed several al-Qaeda/Taliban
training camps in retaliation for the al-Qaeda attacks on U.S.
embassies in Africa. Militants of several Pakistani Deobandi groups
were killed including operatives of HUJI and HuM among others. See
Barry Bearak, ``After The Attacks: In Pakistan; Estimates Of Toll In
Afghan Missile Strike Reach As High As 50,'' The New York Times, August
23, 1998. Also see Dexter Filkins, `` `All of Us Were Innocent,' Says
Survivor of U.S. Attack on Camp,'' The Los Angeles Times, August 24,
1998. http://articles.latimes.com/1998/aug/24/news/mn-16045.
\35\ According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, the Muridke
Markaz (center) is comprised of a ``Madrassa (seminary), a hospital, a
market, a large residential area for `scholars' and faculty members, a
fish farm and agricultural tracts. The LeT also reportedly operates 16
Islamic institutions, 135 secondary schools, an ambulance service,
mobile clinics, blood banks and several seminaries across Pakistan.''
See South Asia Terrorism Portal, ``Lashkar-e-Toiba `Army of the Pure,'
'' no date, available at http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/
states/jandk/terrorist_outfits/lashkar_e_toiba.htm (last accessed July
25, 2009).
\36\ The author has visited the Lahore office in Char Burji.
\37\ South Asia Terrorism Portal, ``Lashkar-e-Toiba [sic]Army of
the Pure.''
\38\ For more detailed information about LeT/JuD leadership, see
South Asia Terrorism Portal, ``Lashkar-e-Toiba `Army of the Pure.' ''
This source suggests the following structure: ``the LeT leadership
consisted of: Hafiz Mohammed Saeed (Supreme Commander); Zia-Ur-Rehman
Lakhvi alias Chachaji (Supreme Commander, Kashmir); A. B. Rahman-Ur-
Dakhil (Deputy Supreme Commander); Abdullah Shehzad alias Abu Anas
alias Shamas (Chief Operations Commander, Valley); Abdul Hassan alias
MY (Central Division Commander); Kari Saif-Ul-Rahman (North Division
Commander); Kari Saif-Ul-Islam (Deputy Commander); Masood alias Mahmood
(Area Commander, Sopore); Hyder-e-Krar alias CI (Deputy Commander,
Bandipora); Usman Bhai alias Saif-Ul-Islam (Deputy Commander, Lolab);
Abdul Nawaz (Deputy Commander, Sogam); Abu Rafi (Deputy Divisional
Commander, Baramulla); Abdul Nawaz (Deputy Commander, Handwara); Abu
Museb alias Saifulla (Deputy Commander, Budgam).''
\39\ For more information about this see, Muhammad Amir Ranan
(trans. Saba Ansari) ``The A to Z of Jehadi Organizations in Pakistan''
(Lahore: Mashal, 2004).
\40\ The author, working with Nadia Shoeb, Arif Jamal and the
Combating Terrorism Center, is working on a database of LeT ``shaheed''
biographies obtain from their publications. These observations are
preliminary and derived from a database of 708 biographies of
``martyrs.'' Data extraction and analysis was done by Nadia Shoeb.
\41\ See U.S. Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for
Counterterrorism, ``Chapter 6--Terrorist Organizations,'' in Country
Reports on Terrorism 2007, April 30, 2008. http://www.state.gov/s/ct/
r1s/crt/2007/103714.htm. Note that many other details in the State
Department write up do not accord with knowledgeable sources on the
organization. For example, it claims that most of the recruits come
from madrassahs, which is not confirmed by analysts with deep
familiarity of the organization who are cited throughout this article.
\42\ South Asia Terrorism Portal, ``Lashkar-e-Toiba `Army of the
Pure'.''
\43\ Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Hum Kyon Jihad Kar Rahen Hain (Why We are
Waging Jihad) (Lahore: Dar-ul-Andulus, 2004).
\44\ Abou Zahab, ``I Shall be Waiting,'' p. 138, Nadia Shoeb's
analysis of the LeT database at CTC.
\45\ C. Christine Fair, ``The Madrassah Challenge: Militancy and
Religious Education in Pakistan'' (Washington, DC: USIP, 2008).
\46\ Zahab, ``I Shall be Waiting,'' p. 140, Shafqat, ``From
Official Islam to Islamism,'' p. 142; Nadia Shoeb's analysis of the LeT
database at CTC.
\47\ Farhat Hag, ``Militarism and Motherhood: The Women of the
Lashkar-i-Tayyabia in Pakistan,'' Signs 32 (2007): 1023-1046.
\48\ C. Christine Fair, ``Students Islamic Movement of India and
the Indian Mujahideen: An Assessment,'' Asia Policy 9 (January 2010):
101-119.
\49\ See Salman Masood and Waqar Gillani, ``Blast at Pakistan
Shrine Kills Dozens,'' The New York Times, April 3, 2011. Available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/world/asia/
04pakistan.html?partner=rss&emc=rss.
\50\ ``Deadly Blasts Hit Sufi Shrine in Lahore,'' BBC.Com, 2 July,
2011. Available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10483453.
\51\ Hum Kyon Jihad Kar Rahen Hain, p. 42-45. Author's translation
from the Urdu text.
\52\ Hum Kyon Jihad Kar Rahen Hain, p. 42. Author's translation
from the Urdu text.
\53\ Hum Kyon Jihad Kar Rahen Hain, p. 43. Author's translation
from the Urdu text.
\54\ Hum Kyon Jihad Kar Rahen Hain, p. 6. Author's translation from
the Urdu text.
\55\ Nadia Shoeb analysis of 708 martyr biographies, unpublished.
C. Christine Fair, ``Militant Recruitment in Pakistan: Implications for
Al-Qa'ida and Other Organizations,'' Studies in Conflict and Terrorism
27, No. 6 (November/December 2004): pp. 489-504. C. Christine Fair,
``The Educated Militants of Pakistan: Implications for Pakistan's
Domestic Security,'' Contemporary South Asia 16, No. 1 (March 2008),
pp. 93-106.
\56\ Amir Rana, ``The A to Z of Jehadi Organizations in Pakistan,''
pp. 296-301.
\57\ There are no reliable estimates for this. The census does not
inquire of such things. Some surveys have included questions about
confessional beliefs, but respondents may not answer such sensitive
questions truthfully. C. Christine Fair, Neil Malhotra and Jacob N.
Shapiro, drawing from a nationally representative survey of 6,000
Pakistanis, report that 8 percent of the respondents said that they
were Ahl-e-Hadith. Christine Fair, Neil Malhotra and Jacob N. Shapiro,
``Islam, Militancy, and Politics in Pakistan: Insights From a National
Sample,'' Terrorism and Political Violence 22, No. 4 (September 2010):
pp. 495-521.
\58\ See ``Pakistani Group Under Fire After India Attacks,''
Associated Press, December 5, 20008. Available at http://
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/05/ap/world/main4649577.shtml.
\59\ Tahir Andrabi and Jishnu Das, ``In Aid We Trust: Hearts and
Minds and the Pakistan Earthquake of 2005,'' World Bank Policy Research
Working Paper No. 5440, October 2010. Available at http://
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1688196; C. Christine Fair,
``Not at the Forefront of Flood Relief,'' ForeignPolicy.com, September
20, 2010.
\60\ ``Punjab Govt. Gave Rs 82m to JD: Papers,'' The Dawn, June 16,
2010, available at http://news.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-
library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/punjab-govt-gavers82m-to-jd-
papers660; ``Punjab Govt. Appoints Administrator for JuD,'' GeoTv,
January 25 2009, available at http://www.geo.tv/1-25-2009/33491.htm.
\61\ This has been the case with the prosecution of LeT operative
from Chicago, David Coleman Headley. See Rotella, ``U.S. Prosecutors
Indict 4 Pakistanis in Mumbai Attacks.''
\62\ Abou Zahab, ``I Shall be Waiting at the Door of Paradise.'' p.
135.
\63\ The March 2011 U.S. congressional hearing on this topic
generated a storm of controversy from both liberals and conservatives
alike. See David A. Fahrenthold and Michelle Boorstein, ``Rep. Peter
King's Muslim hearing: Plenty of drama, less substance,'' The
Washington Post, March 11, 2011. Available at http://
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/10/
AR2011031002045.html.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Dr. Fair. I have to tell
you, I read your testimony and my head is spinning.
Dr. Fair. Sorry about that.
The Chairman. No. It's really fascinating, and it's
incredibly important to understand what our options are. And I
was particularly struck by your conclusion, that: ``The
implications of my argument is that a resolution of the Indo-
Pakistan dispute, however improbable in the first instance,
will not be sufficient to motivate Pakistan to strategically
abandon LeT.''
Where does that leave us? I mean, my instinct as I listened
to your explanation was: of these groups let's not get in the
middle of that, there's not a lot we can do about it.
So are we chasing ghosts in this negotiating process, or
are there individuals with enough command and control over
these various groups with whom we could negotiate a political
settlement that would allow American forces to begin to
withdraw from Afghanistan?
Can each of you tackle that question? And I'd like your
reactions to Dr. Fair's description of the multiplicity of the
different beliefs and components of these groups. Can they be
brought together by a common interest or are we--and the
Pakistanis--just going to have to struggle with this to resolve
it?
Mr. Bergen. Senator Kerry, if we'd had this conversation 4
years ago, there are some things that have happened in Pakistan
that would have been pretty unpredictable. I mean, a major
operation in southern Waziristan in 2009 going after the
Taliban, involving 30,000 men, several months of air
operations, a really serious military operation; also a serious
military operation in Swat. They weren't done to American
counterinsurgency standards, but they were done.
So the point is the Pakistani state is willing to do
certain things and, as Chris pointed out, they're particularly
willing to do things against organizations that are damaging
them.
I think it's going to be very, very, very difficult for the
Pakistanis to abandon the Haqqani Network, although perhaps not
impossible. At the end of the day----
The Chairman. Is it possible for them to reach some kind of
understanding with the Haqqani Network if they bring them into
the reconciliation process?
Mr. Bergen. To me that would be a very rational thing for
them to do at the end of the day, and they are capable of doing
that. And that would be an enormous way forward because, while
Dr. Pillar is correct that the Afghan Taliban doesn't have much
of a relationship with al-Qaeda in the sense that Mullah Omar
Taliban, as you know, al-Qaeda is being protected by the
Haqqani Network. So the biggest key to moving forward is
getting the Haqqani Network to basically change sides, and I
don't think that's out of the question.
But if I'm General Kayani, my main concern remains India,
and as long as he sees India--Afghanistan as a source of Indian
strength, he may not want to take the Haqqani card off the
table.
It's not a very good answer to the question, but that's my
answer.
The Chairman. Dr. Pillar, would you respond also?
Dr. Pillar. Pakistan's basic interests as they see them are
fairly constant. But the strategy and tactics--and we're really
talking more about strategy and tactics here when we talk about
relationships with the groups--are quite changeable. And I
think they're changeable under circumstances short of what we'd
all like to see, which is some kind of resolution of the
Kashmir problem and the conflict between India and Pakistan.
If Pakistan can be part of a process in Afghanistan in
which they see their interests vis-a-vis India and all their
concerns about Afghanistan being their so-called strategic back
yard sufficiently satisfied, then I think there is more
changeability with regard to their relationships with any of
these groups, be it the Haqqani group or LT or anyone else.
The Chairman. Do you agree with Dr. Fair's conclusion that
even if there were an India-Pakistan rapprochement, resolution
of that east border issue, that Lashkar-e-Taiba would continue
to be present in Pakistan?
Dr. Pillar. I am somewhat more optimistic than Dr. Fair
about what the implications would be if we could see
substantial progress in the Indo-Pakistani equation.
Unfortunately, it's a bit of an endless vicious circle in that
groups like LT and other groups have their own incentives to
disrupt a peace process and a rapprochement between India and
Pakistan, and I think that's the main danger we face as the two
sides have tentatively tried to get that process back on track.
The Chairman. Dr. Fair, I didn't give you a chance to
answer the question I originally asked you. You've heard Dr.
Pillar suggest that perhaps improvements in the India-Pakistan
relationship would have an impact on Lashkar-e-Taiba. Why do
you feel it wouldn't?
Dr. Fair. Well, for a number of reasons. One, I've really
spent a lot of time investigating their literature. I also have
at the Combating Terrorism Center an 810-size database of
Lashkar-e-Taiba activists, and I've been following this group
since 1995. I speak Urdu. I spend a lot of time in the region.
So my assessment--I concede that if Lashkar-e-Taiba only
had external utility then resolving the Indo-Pakistani security
competition would be necessary, probably insufficient, to put
that group down. But when you understand the domestic politics
of the organization, when you understand that Lashkar-e-Taiba
is a buffer and a bulwark to the Deobandi groups ravaging the
state, you realize that it also has domestic utility.
I believe I'm the first analyst to have gone through their
materials in this way to discern this domestic utility. So I
mean, that's what I bring to the understanding of Lashkar-e-
Taiba.
If you'd like to know some of my thoughts about where that
leaves us and what the options are, I'm happy to elaborate upon
that.
The Chairman. I would indeed.
Dr. Fair. Well, the first thing is, not only are the groups
themselves a spoiler, but the Pakistan Army is itself a
spoiler. If it didn't have the security competition with India,
it wouldn't justify its enormous claim to the resources in
Pakistan and its central claim to being the only institution to
protect the place would be substantially diminished. So the
Pakistan Army is a huge spoiler and we have to keep that in
mind.
But we are incredibly constrained. There are potentially
opportunities to work with the Pakistanis where we have joint
threats--al-Qaeda, the Pakistan Taliban--but for a number of
reasons over the last year they want us out, and so our space
to operate with them is very, very low.
In particular, they want us out because their assets--
Haqqani, Lashkar-e-Taiba--are our enemies, and they know that
partly we're there to deal with those threats and they want us
out. So we're very constrained.
I would say even----
The Chairman. When you say they want us out, is that
because they perceive us as contributing to their problem?
Dr. Fair. There are multiple answers to that. First, they
know we're there because we want to take out their assets.
Would we not like to take out Haqqani with a drone? Would we
not like to have cells going after Lashkar-e-Taiba? They know
that's what we're up to and they don't want that to happen.
That being said, their interpretation of why they're having
an insurgency is not proxies gone bad or blowback. They see
that they have this internal militancy because we have forced
them to turn against these groups in a moderated jihad
strategy, making them rebel against the state. So no matter
what Kayani says--I've spent a lot of time with Pakistani
military officers, particularly below the rank of lieutenant
colonel, so you have a different optic--they want us out of
Afghanistan because when this happens they will see in their
view that the alignment between the military, the mullah, and
the militant groups will come back into alignment and those
groups will go back to business fighting in India and
Afghanistan.
The Chairman. But if you accept that--and I'm not arguing
with you; I think that there are clearly divergent interests to
some degree. But that actually provides a rationale for why
they should want to contain Haqqani and bring him into the
peace process: it would get the United States out of
Afghanistan faster.
Dr. Fair. So I'm not--I wasn't asked to speak on the impact
of reconciliation on Pakistan.
The Chairman. Well, what about the reality of that?
Dr. Fair. But I think--here's the thing about Pakistan. We
talk about the Taliban with some kind of historical continuity.
That's not a proper approach. We've been eliminating a lot of
the mid-level commanders and they're replacing them.
The Pakistanis know that many of these commanders that have
come in to fill those empty slots are not only much more
international focused--they're no longer simply focused on
Afghanistan. They're much more ideological, and they also hate
the ISI. They rightly understand that the ISI is trying to use
them to project Pakistan's interests.
So Pakistan actually has a much more sophisticated approach
to these groups than we perhaps appreciate or we do ourselves.
They're trying to deal with the Quetta Shura. They're putting
pressure on their families to get them to tow the line. But
they're really trying to find a way of dealing with these
commanders that are no longer within their ambit.
So Pakistan has a multipronged strategy of dealing with the
splintering that's taken place in the Taliban. And they have
the advantage of geography. They have the advantage of language
skills and longstanding ISI assets that have been working with
these guys.
The Chairman. Well, there's more to follow up on that. But
I don't disagree with you that they have a better sense of
their own interests and strategy than we sometimes give them
credit for, and that is a reality in both Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
Senator Lugar.
Senator Lugar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Pillar, I don't want to oversimplify your analysis, but
I just want to mention that I made notes that you suggested the
Taliban will persist in Afghanistan in one form or another, and
that the Taliban will continue to not want al-Qaeda in
Afghanistan because their presence induced the United States to
come in and remove the Taliban from power after the September
11 terrorist attacks. But in any event, I believe it is
important to note the assertion that if the Taliban keep al-
Qaeda out and continue to make their way in the Government of
Afghanistan, they would not constitute a strategic threat to
the United States. While they may have a miserable existence in
Afghanistan, this would not present an external threat to us.
Now, next door, however, with regard to Pakistan, I was
just simply making notes of the panel's assertion that it is
unlikely the United States is going to be able to help
reorganize Pakistan into a situation that we believe is good
for the Pakistanis and good for us. All of you, including Dr.
Fair, have gone through the cross-currents of actors that are
currently there and are likely to remain.
We touched briefly on the fact that, as miserable as the
situation in Pakistan may be for Pakistan itself, India, and
maybe its other neighbors, the strategic threat this poses to
the United States still is not always apparent. Now, the
exception to this is the point made from time to time of the
threat this state of affairs poses to Pakistan's nuclear
weapons complex. Specifically, should instability enable
terrorists to gain access, whatever be their nationality, to
fissile material or other sensitive nuclear assets, this could
pose a strategic threat to the United States, as their
proliferation through the Khan network has before.
Again, I don't want to oversimplify the problem, but it
seems to me that I started with the thought that a lot of the
debate outside of this committee revolves around why we have
100,000 troops in Afghanistan, whether or not such a presence
should be sustained, and why some predict that our presence
will continue for a long time.
Is this debate continuing because of humanitarian impulses
on our part? How do you respond to those in the United States
who ask: ``What goes on here and why does it continue?''
Dr. Pillar. Senator Lugar, I agree very much with the
perspective that you offered in terms of Pakistan versus
Afghanistan. In direct response to your question, I think it
partly is the humanitarian consideration. There are a lot of
questions raised about the status of women, about human rights
issues. And I think it's partly just because we haven't found
an appropriate off-ramp.
In my judgment, Operation Enduring Freedom in late 2001 was
a just and appropriate response to the terrorist outrage of 9/
11. It was a military action aimed directly at the group that
did that and the movement that at the time was hosting it. We
accomplished the objective in the opening weeks and months of
Operation Enduring Freedom of ousting the Taliban from its
position of power over three-fourths of Afghanistan and
rousting Taliban from its then-safe haven. And then we just had
a hard time finding the off-ramp.
I think in these discussions of Afghanistan versus Pakistan
and much of the discourse in this country we've tended to lose
sight of what is the end and what is the means. I agree with
everything you said, sir, about the vulnerabilities and
concerns in Pakistan, particularly with regard to nuclear
weapons. But if we were to zero-base this problem we would not
address it by conducting a counterinsurgency in Afghanistan.
Senator Lugar. All right, let's say we were to perceive a
proliferation threat posed by an unstable Pakistan and move to
address this threat. Is there a way of handling this without
tens of thousands of boots on the ground? In other words, some
have suggested what we ought to be doing is a much more
concentrated intelligence operation that would touch not only
upon Pakistan, but also a good number of other situations in
the Middle East and Africa. Do any of you have a response as to
why we should be involved in Pakistan?
Dr. Fair.
Dr. Fair. Well, frankly, if it weren't for those nuclear
weapons Pakistan would have been sorted out, with far less
complexity. It's under their nuclear umbrella that they use
their militant groups safely. So this is the crux of the
problem.
I do fear that we misframe the nuclear scenario. So for
example, if their nuclear establishment could be infiltrated
undesirably by Islamist elements, others could presumably do
so, the Indians, us, Mossad. So when it comes to undesirable
infiltration, our incentives are quite aligned.
There are periods when those weapons become much more
vulnerable. So during their peacetime deployments the warheads
aren't assembled and they're not mated to the delivery systems,
but as a conflict with India begins to escalate they begin
mating the warheads and they begin mating them and forward-
deploying them with their delivery assets, and that's when
command and control becomes really murky.
So if I were a terrorist and I understand how the Pakistani
security establishment deals with nuclear weapons, that's when
I would try to do something nefarious.
The other issue that I am worried about is, just as Aslam
Beg in the 1980s deliberately chose to proliferate to Iran to
undermine our security interests, we cannot rule out the
possibility that the Pakistani state would deliberately do
that. Now, I'm not saying it's immensely probable, but things
are pretty tough, and Aslam Beg certainly did that to undermine
us strategically.
So I would suggest that we think about the nuclear problem
in a much more wider capacity, and this requires different
kinds of intelligence. So for example, if there were to be a
state transfer that again would be another opportunity where
nefarious elements could interdict them. So this does require
us to be on the ground, which is why when I hear people talking
about pulling out of Pakistan I'm very apprehensive, because we
can't monitor the situation without assets in Pakistan.
Senator Lugar. Do any of you have any comment on the
Pakistanis working with the Chinese recently and the thought of
a naval base for the Chinese in Pakistan? Is this simply a
reaction against Osama bin Laden's killing or do the Pakistanis
see this as fulfilling their broader interests?
Yes, Dr. Fair.
Dr. Fair. Well, actually the base at Gwadar has been built
with Chinese assistance, as is well known, and there's not a
lot of speculation about the nature of that port. It's a
deepwater port.
We also have to understand the context of what China wants.
China wants to have access to move its ``dangerous goods'' in
and out of and through Pakistan. But it also should be seen in
context of India's security competition with Pakistan. I'm not
sure if you're aware of the Indian port that's being built in
Iran in Chabahar, which is just a few hundred kilometers along
the Makran coast of Gwadar. So there is an element of this
which cues off of the Indo-Pakistan security competition.
Senator Lugar. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Senator Cardin.
Senator Cardin. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I
thank our three witnesses.
Clearly the United States has a great interest in Pakistan.
Dr. Fair, I don't think any of us are suggesting that we ignore
Pakistan, but there are mixed signals here that are very, very
troubling, and that the United States needs to be able to have
alternatives for carrying out its foreign policy in that
region. I know that that's part of our strategies.
Let me sort of underscore this. Pakistan's critically
important for many reasons, not the least of which its nuclear
capacity and the current safe haven for terrorist organizations
and the importance of staging for us in Afghanistan. But it's
also clear that LT is a terrorist organization. The United
States should have a pretty clear position as to how we deal
with terrorist organizations and we should leave no ambiguity.
Pakistan has to choose sides on what side it is on the war
against terror. And they're giving mixed signals today, not
just the bin Laden circumstances.
But yesterday in Chicago, at the David Headley trial a
confessed Pakistan-American terrorist testified that ISI and LT
coordinated with each other and ISI provided assistance to
Lashkar, financial, military, and moral support. Now, I don't
know how the United States can just ignore this. It seems to me
that we need to be able to confront Pakistan's support for
terrorist organizations. And United States taxpayers are
providing support to Pakistan today, and that's an issue that
will come to the attention of the United States Congress.
So it's going to hit a crisis point if we cannot get
Pakistan to support the war against terror, including terrorist
organizations which are in their own state. So what are our
choices? What do we do about that?
Dr. Fair.
Dr. Fair. First of all, we need to take some
responsibility. Pakistan has never given us anything but these
signals. We dismissed Lashkar-e-Taiba for years as India's
threat. Pakistan never turned its back on Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Pakistan did a u-turn on its u-turn with the Taliban very early
in the conflict and there were no consequences because we had
other preoccupations that did not allow us to have the
fortitude that we should have had to be more forthright with
Pakistan.
I'll point out that, to my utter astonishment--I wasn't
astonished; I was disappointed--the Secretary of State
certified that Pakistan was in compliance with the
conditionalities on security assistance vis-a-vis Kerry-Lugar-
Berman. This was done on March 18, despite full knowledge that
we were engaging in an operation to get bin Laden, despite full
knowledge that the Pakistani state has continued to harbor and
assist Lashkar-e-Taiba, among other elements.
So we have to, I think, be honest and self-reflective. Why
is it that we have been unable to actually enforce what already
is in our own legislation? The reality is, however, we don't
have a lot of options with Lashkar-e-Taiba. We know from the
Raymond Davis affair it's very difficult to operate in that
terrain. The ISI knows what we're up to and they're seeking to
undermine it.
I do think we have options to contain it. Let me put
something somewhat obnoxious on the table. Lashkar-e-Taiba's
largest theater of operations for its support is in Pacific
Command, where we actually have a lot of assets and we have a
lot of partners. We should be aggressively targeting Lashkar-e-
Taiba's assets in the Pacific Command, in Europe, in North
America. They can't do what they do without outside support.
So while it may sound somewhat disappointing that we don't
have more aggressive options, I think we have more options than
we believe. I think we should also think about targeting
specific individuals for which we have evidence that are
directly supporting Lashkar-e-Taiba, as opposed to taking a
broad stroke brush and going after the entire organization. I
think this requires us to be more collaborative with our
allies.
And Pakistan, if we were to go after Lashkar-e-Taiba and
their network of support in Thailand, what could Pakistan
credibly say? Shame on you for going after our network in
Thailand?
Senator Cardin. I want to go against terrorist
organizations, don't get me wrong. My question is Pakistan's
complicity here----
Dr. Fair. Well, what are our----
Senator Cardin [continuing]. And the United States, and
we're providing aid to Pakistan. We have a pretty strict rule
about not providing aid that can be filtered off to support
terrorist organizations. If ISI and LT really have a close
relationship, then there's a real concern as to whether U.S.
funds are being used to support terrorist organizations.
Dr. Fair. But if we didn't have that engagement, sir, we
would----
Senator Cardin. I understand we always need to have
strategic partners. But we have a clear rule on terrorism.
Dr. Fair [continuing]. We wouldn't have been able to have
our CIA assets in place in Pakistan to, for example, kill Osama
bin Laden. So there's no other country like Pakistan, that
represents such a convergence of severe national security
threats that we're really operating in a trade space. I would
argue that we are limited in Lashkar-e-Taiba----
The Chairman. A trade space?
Dr. Fair. In other words, we're constantly making
tradeoffs----
The Chairman. Trading space.
Dr. Fair [continuing]. With Pakistan. It's a unique
country. There's no other country--I will add, Iran might be
one in the future--that operates with militant groups under its
Islamic--under its nuclear umbrella.
But we are constantly having to make tradeoffs with
Pakistan. Our only long-term hope, quite frankly, is that we
can continue to provide investments that will allow the
civilians over the secular time period to take control of
security governance. We need to be at every opportunity helping
Pakistan's parliamentarians, their various committees in the
Parliament on defense and intelligence, to do their job. Our
only hope, howsoever slim, that Pakistan will reverse course is
if the civilians can exert control over security governance,
and that means staying in there.
Senator Cardin. Is ISI in your view supporting and
coordinating its activities with LT?
Dr. Fair. It certainly is. Pakistan is the arsonist and
it's the fireman. It will help us on groups that it shares the
sense that it is a threat, but yes, it is my assessment it is
continuing to work with LeT in a very close way.
Senator Cardin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Cardin.
Senator Udall.
Senator Udall. Thank you, Chairman Kerry, and thank you for
holding this hearing. I think it's been a very, very good
discussion so far.
Let me focus in a little bit on a little bit different
tack, but the trial in Chicago that's going on. That hasn't
been mentioned yet, and obviously the testimony as it comes out
I think is going to show the ties with the ISI and I think has
the potential to once again erupt into a problematic situation
for United States and Pakistani relations. Could you all talk a
little bit about that and where you think that's going?
Obviously, you may not know all of the trial testimony, but I
think a lot of that is out there right now. Any of you that
want to jump in is fine.
Dr. Pillar. Well, obviously when you have a trial with
public testimony some things are forced into the open that
might otherwise have been dealt with behind closed doors. But
in response to your question, sir, and also Senator Cardin's
issues, I think after the raid at Abbottabad the United States
has some additional leverage over Pakistan. It was a huge
embarrassment to the Pakistani military. I think the
administration, our administration, played it about right in
not publicly rubbing the Pakistanis' nose in that bit of dirt.
I would hope and assume that behind closed doors there are
conversations going on that do take the form of confrontation,
as Senator Cardin mentioned. So that would be the main point I
would add, that behind closed doors, out of the public, we take
a rather tough line and don't shy away from confrontation. But
to publicly make an issue of it is not going to advance our
cause.
Senator Udall. Just to stop you there, I think that's a lot
of what Senator Kerry was doing in the last couple of weeks
over there, my understanding. Go ahead, please.
Dr. Fair. One thing about the trial with David Coleman
Headley taking the stand, we have to also remember that what he
says, howsoever inflammatory, may not be true. So I've been
concerned about the injudicious reporting of what he said.
Obviously, he's a terrorist. He's unreliable. The basis of the
plea bargain was that he was going to make these claims.
That being said, I also believe that the fundamental
lineaments of his claims are true. But I believe it's a
marginal revelation. We already knew the ISI was behind this.
But I'm going to basically take the point that Senator
Kerry made, that Lashkar-e-Taiba is so close to the Pakistan
ISI and to the army that this is a very serious redline for
them, and meaningful steps to go after that group along with
Haqqani, as long as we have this large counterinsurgency
footprint that has to be resupplied--I think it's going to be
very difficult to make consensus across the interagency process
to do something where the Pakistanis would try to inhibit our
resupply of those troops. The Northern Distribution Route's not
a viable options.
So this is one of the numerous reasons why I was a
proponent of counterterrorism plus, if for no other reason than
to diminish our dependence on Pakistan, where we have a greater
space to be much more forceful on this particular issue. But
when we are trying to deal with our troops and keep them safe
in Afghanistan, I think it's going to be very difficult to
stomach the kinds of things that we would have to do to get
Pakistan to be aggressive on Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Senator Udall. Peter, do you have any thoughts on this?
Mr. Bergen. No.
Senator Udall. Thank you, Senator Kerry. I appreciate it.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Udall.
This is really a very complicated set of choices and
interactions. Dr. Pillar, from your experience within the
agency tell us how we ought to be looking at the ISI. People
sometimes refer to the ``three governments'' in Pakistan, in
the following order: the army, the ISI, and the civilian
government. Would you say the ISI has that much independence,
and does it have the autonomy and capacity to affect things on
its own? Or can the army control what the ISI does and, if so,
what are the options with respect to the ISI and these splinter
groups that serve their purposes?
Dr. Pillar. I don't think we should talk about the ISI and
the army as if they were two entities. The ISI is part of the
military establishment and there has been a fair amount of
cross-assignment, if you will, at the top, including chiefs of
the general staff who have been themselves directors of ISI.
With regard to the first part of your question, Mr.
Chairman, the relationship with ISI is perhaps a particularly
outstanding example of one that we do see elsewhere around the
world, of an intelligence and security service that--and this
is generally true of the more authoritarian governments that we
have to deal with--has enormous clout. So the service-to-
service relationship is not just a mundane, let's exchange
information every Tuesday kind of thing, but rather one in
which we realize and they realize this is an important channel
for intergovernmental relations. From our standpoint we are
talking to people who really matter.
So I agree with Christine Fair that having the presence,
having the relationship, is important for our purposes. It's
always a matter, and it's certainly a matter between us and the
ISI, of both shared interests and conflicting interests. It is
a game, if I may use that word, not to trivialize it, in which
both sides are trying to get as much as they can from the
other, realizing that it is partly on matters in which our
interests are shared, but also on which they conflict.
You can never trust entirely the other side, but you can't
fail to do business with them, either. We are highly dependent
on liaison services in general, particularly on
counterterrorism, even though there is not a single one that we
can say we trust totally.
The Chairman. Can the Pakistanis take the actions they need
to take in order to deal with the Pakistani Taliban, without
upsetting their relationships with Lashkar-e-Taiba, with
Haqqani, and the other groups?
Dr. Pillar. That's an example of where our interests do run
parallel. Neither we nor the Pakistani establishment wants to
see those forces become more of a problem than they already
are. I think the way you handle it is the way in effect we and
the Pakistanis have handled it with some of the drone strikes,
where we have this charade in which we have used some of that
capability against Pakistani Taliban targets. That's in our
interest, that's in the Pakistani military's interest as well.
But part of the charade is they protest and pretend that it was
all our business and they don't like it. I'm afraid that's the
kind of game we'll have to continue to play.
The Chairman. Well, let me perhaps differ with you slightly
on that, having conversations with them recently. I think
they're more perturbed about those drone strikes than you
think, and I think it goes beyond being a game, as you call it.
I think they are paying a high political price for the strikes.
I think that, depending on the targets, they're not that
thrilled. And I think there's a lot more serious pushback to
the drones now than we've seen in any recent time.
Dr. Pillar. I did not mean to minimize the genuine
resentment that certainly is felt among parts of the
population, and that then gets transmitted as well through the
government. I was only trying to make the point that this is
another area where the interests are partly conflicting and
partly shared.
The Chairman. Well, I agree with that.
Mr. Bergen, what about the capacity for them to move
against the indigenous insurgency and work hand in hand with us
as a consequence? To what degree do these splinter groups pull
them away from that on a constant basis?
Mr. Bergen. As you know, sir, the Pakistani Taliban mounted
a 20-hour attack on the equivalent of their Pentagon in October
2009. That was all carried live on Pakistani television.
Imagine if there was a 20-hour attack by a group of terrorists
on the Pentagon here carried live on CNN. That really got the
attention of the military.
There have been also four, by the way, attacks on ISI
buildings by these militants. So the ISI itself is a target of
some of these militants.
So I think that has been an opportunity. As you know, more
Pakistani soldiers have died fighting these militants than
United States and NATO soldiers combined. So everything that we
said today is true----
The Chairman. I think that's an important thing to put on
the table here.
Mr. Bergen. Yes.
The Chairman. Some 30,000 Pakistani civilians have died at
the hands of their insurgency and over 5,000 troops have died
in the Swat Valley and in Waziristan fighting the insurgency.
People don't either know about these losses or they discount
them as they think about the relationship.
Mr. Bergen. I couldn't agree with you more, sir. And as a
result of which, the Taliban had a sort of religious Robin Hood
image until several years ago, but support for the Taliban's
suicide bombing and al-Qaeda has cratered. So that's what makes
this a very complex picture.
The Chairman. Senator Lugar. I know we only have about 10
minutes before we need to go to the floor.
Senator Lugar. I defer to Senator Menendez.
The Chairman. Senator Menendez.
Senator Menendez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
all. I'd been catching snippets from my office while meeting
with constituents, and heard some incredibly thoughtful
answers.
Despite our incredible military presence in Afghanistan,
there are supposedly only between 50 and 100 or some odd al-
Qaeda fighters in the country. Nevertheless, General Petraeus
has warned that if the United States abandons the
counterinsurgency approach and significantly draws down forces,
various international terrorist organizations would exploit
that opening and flood into Afghanistan.
Do you believe that to be the case? What is the nature of
the threat of the Afghan Taliban? Is it a terrorist threat to
the United States? Is it a threat limited to the potential
destabilization of a weak Afghan Government? What's your view
of that?
Mr. Bergen. I think getting focused on the numbers of al-
Qaeda is kind of a red herring. On 9/11 there were 200 members
of
al-Qaeda and they inflicted the most devastating terrorist
attack in history on the United States.
It's not just about al-Qaeda. The President, for very
obvious political reasons, has defined it thusly, but there are
a lot of other reasons we're there. When the Taliban ran
Afghanistan, every Muslim insurgent and terrorist group in the
world was either headquartered or based there, and that
alphabet soup has just migrated across a border that they don't
recognize into Pakistan.
So the idea that somehow the Pakistani Taliban is very
different from the Afghan Taliban doesn't make a great deal of
sense to me. After all, Mullah Omar, the leader of the Afghan
Taliban, lives in Pakistan. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of
another Taliban group, lives in Pakistan. The Haqqani Network,
which is the Afghan Taliban, so-called, is in Pakistan.
So I think that General Petraeus and others who have made
the point are not saying it's just about the al-Qaeda--it's
about preventing a return to the pre-9/11 Afghanistan, where it
was basically a sort of Woodstock for every jihadist group from
around the globe. And that is a reasonable concern.
I think that there are just two or three quick other points
that I want to make. We also have a sort of moral obligation
when we overthrow somebody else's government to kind of not
leave the place, to kind of pick up the pieces. And we've
already done this twice in Afghanistan. We closed our Embassy
there in 1989. Into the vacuum came the Taliban allied with al-
Qaeda. We did it again in 2002 because of an ideological
opposition to nation-building by the Bush administration. There
were only 6,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan in 2003.
That's the size of the police department in Houston, in a
country the size of Texas, with a population 10 times larger.
So we've run the counterterrorism do-it-light approach.
We've done that already. And it's not just about al-Qaeda or
other groups we need to be concerned about. An unstable
Afghanistan makes an unstable Pakistan. We've already discussed
why that's important.
Finally, the Taliban are the Taliban. You know, these are
not a bunch of Henry Kissingers in waiting who are going to
preside over some sort of wonderful settlement in Afghanistan.
These are people who incarcerated half the population in their
houses, who continue to poison girls going to school in
Pakistan and Afghanistan, who have massacred Shias and others,
and who imposed a theocratic reign of terror on a population.
So it's not just about 65 members of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Dr. Fair. I would like to offer a dissenting view. I get
very frustrated when people say, well, we did counterterrorism
early on and therefore it didn't work and therefore it won't
work now. It's a disingenuous argument, because all of the
material conditions between then and now have changed. So if
you're going to evaluate counterterrorism in 2002 and
counterterrorism today, you need to consider all these
intervening variables.
Moreover, we're not talking about 2,000 people in
Afghanistan with a counterterrorism-plus footprint. We're
talking about remaining in a position to continue training the
Afghan National Security Forces. There are 300,000 Afghan
National Security Forces, of varying degrees of capacity,
mostly not that terribly impressive. But the idea that the
Taliban are going to roll back into Kabul under the current
conditions I think is somewhat ridiculous.
I think President Karzai would like us to stay there for
the training. I think he'd be happy to let us have access to
bases to continue gathering intelligence on al-Qaeda. He
doesn't want al-Qaeda there, either.
I also think that the contemporary argument that says that
if we don't have a 130,000-person footprint in Afghanistan that
our intelligence will decrease--there is no evidence to believe
that that's correct. In fact, we could argue equally that when
we're no longer engaging in operations that Afghans despise
because it hasn't brought them a personal security dividend,
maybe our intelligence will actually improve.
So I think that we really need to put into the public
debate questions: How tied are they to al-Qaeda? As Dr. Pillar
said, we can't rely upon the historical narratives of the 1990s
to assume this relationship persists. Things have changed; so
have they. Our analysis has to change. We have to ask, what is
the nature of our intelligence? Is it so great today? Probably
not. Might it improve if we weren't alienating the Afghans with
this counterinsurgency footprint? Possibly.
So I'd like to put on the table a very strong dissent from
the picture outlined by Mr. Bergen.
Dr. Pillar. The Afghan Taliban, as I mentioned before, is
not an international terrorist group. It's concerned about
events inside Afghanistan. It has no support for the whole
transnational terrorist idea as represented by bin Laden.
The one other point I want to emphasize follows on
Christine's comments about how things have changed and how the
1990s is not today. When I was working on counterterrorism in
the 1990s and we were worried about bin Laden in Afghanistan--
and this goes back before 9/11, before even the Embassy
bombings in 1998; we're talking about the 1997 era--and the
Clinton administration was wrestling with this, well, we still
had the gloves on then. And we knew where bin Laden was, but
there wasn't the public support for using military force.
When we had our Embassies bombed in 1998 and President
Clinton responded with a cruise missile strike--which seems
like a pinprick now, doesn't it--he was criticized for using
excessive military force, for trying to divert attention away
from domestic political matters. Now, clearly, ever since 9/11
the gloves have really come off.
So if there was anything even remotely resembling the kind
of foreign terrorist presence in Afghanistan that we saw in the
1990s, we'd do a lot more than just one cruise missile strike,
even if we weren't waging a counterinsurgency on the ground. We
would basically bomb the heck out of it, and everyone knows
that and the Taliban knows that.
Senator Menendez. These are very thoughtful answers.
Listening to Mr. Bergen, I ask, do we have a real partner in
Afghanistan to meet our goals as you describe them? And at what
cost and for how long, seems to me to be a really significant
question to decide where we go at the end of the day.
Mr. Bergen. Since our time is short, let me just give you a
very quick answer to that. Our partner is the Afghan people,
not the Afghan Government as represented by President Karzai.
The most common----
Senator Menendez. But we don't get to work directly with
the Afghan people. We get to work with their elected
representatives.
Mr. Bergen. Well, Karzai, his time is limited. He's going
to be out of office in 2014, and there are people already
forming, very effective politicians, to challenge him. So the
most common polling question you can ask is: Is your life
getting better? In America only 30 percent of Americans think
their country's going in the right direction. Fifty-nine
percent of Afghans think their country's going in the right
direction, because they know life is better than it
was under the Taliban during the civil war, during the Soviet
occupation.
So our partnership is with the Afghan people, who know that
their lives are getting better, can see the advantages of not
living under the Taliban. And they want us to stay. They were
very concerned about us leaving in July of this year and the
fact that we put December 2014 on the clock is something that
they're very happy about.
Senator Menendez. One last question if I may, Mr. Chairman.
Now that bin Laden is dead, is al-Zawahiri or anyone else
able to bring al-Qaeda together?
Mr. Bergen. When you joined the Nazi Party, you swore a
personal oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler, not to Naziism.
When Adolf Hitler died, Naziism basically died with it. It's
not an exact analogy, but when you joined al-Qaeda you swore a
personal oath of allegiance to bin Laden. No one else can fit
into his shoes.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, if he took over, would be great because
he would drive what remains of the organization into the
ground.
Senator Menendez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Thank you, all of you. I've been trying to fit this image:
Given the Taliban attitude about music, I'm trying to work out
this Woodstock analogy. [Laughter.]
But it's an interesting challenge.
That said, this is fascinating and tough and complicated,
and we need to talk more. What I want to do is what we did with
another panel, which is to ask you if you would make yourselves
available so we could have some sessions just with the
committee to quietly dig into these issues.
But it's been enormously helpful and I thank all of you.
The dissent on the panel is equally helpful. We want you here
because you do have different points of view about it, and it
tests our thinking. So we're very appreciative to all three of
you.
As I said, your full testimonies really are exemplary, each
of you. Thank you for putting the time into them, and they're
important and are now part of the record. And we look forward
to following up with you in other venues as we go forward in
these next weeks and months thinking about this.
It's a critical issue to the country and it's not going to
go away quickly, either. So we've got a lot of thinking to do
and a lot of work to do.
Thank you very much for being here today. We stand
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 10:23 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]