Note: This is my latest submission for my parallel writing endeavour. With this, the amount of pages I've written this weekend on things that aren't my novel comes to a total of about twelve, counting my response to Gus. Good grief, I wish I could make this kind of progress on that damned book. Anyway, enjoy! I hope everyone finds this enlightening.On September 10th, 2001, average citizens around the world had never heard of a terrorist network known as al Qaeda, Arabic for "the Base". While many remembered the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, the simultaneous bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the bombing of USS
Cole in 2000, few were familiar with the name "Osama bin Laden" or the greater al Qaeda network. By the end of the next day, "Osama bin Laden" and "al Qaeda" were household names. During the subsequent months and years, the United States and a handful of allies laid out an ambitious agenda for neutralizing the al Qaeda network. More than seven years later, as the world watches and waits to see the outcome of the second American general election since the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, the direction of this ambitious task is once again a prominent question.
The two candidates in the American election have diametrically opposite views of how to continue prosecuting the war against al Qaeda and its affiliates, though both seem to agree that Islamist terrorism is a continuing threat that must be confronted. Among many other contrasts between the two, their contrasting views on how to eliminate al Qaeda, its affiliates, its support networks, and its associates have become a central issue in this campaign. In order to determine which strategy is more likely to succeed in countering al Qaeda, a review of the current state of al Qaeda can be helpful.
Although coalition military leaders are reticent to use the word "victory" to describe the status of the war against al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), al Qaeda has all but admitted defeat. Both al Qaeda and the coalition gambled a great deal in the Iraq conflict. As it stretched on, the situation became as much a public relations war as it was a competition of military force. Both the core leaders of al Qaeda, and the leaders of AQI, underestimated the coalition's endurance. In the end, a quick coalition procurement process for innovative military systems, combined with a coherent strategy as spelled out in the
Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual, has been able to counter the brutality of AQI in areas like Anbar and Diyala provinces. Now, the coalition is facilitating al Qaeda's final defeat in and around the northern city of Mosul.
Although a few isolated incidents (most notably that at Abu Ghraib prison) severely damaged the coalition's credibility with the Iraqi citizens, al Qaeda's savagery proved not only to be far worse, but systemic. Even the core leadership of al Qaeda realized this, and al Qaeda deputy commander Ayman al Zawahiri sent a message to AQI leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi in 2005. One of the most telling lines of this message was the following:
However, despite all of this, I say to you: that we are in a battle, and that more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media. And that we are in a media battle in a race for the hearts and minds of our [community]. And that however far our capabilities reach, they will never be equal to one thousandth of the capabilities of the kingdom of Satan that is waging war on us. And we can kill the captives by bullet. That would achieve that which is sought after without exposing ourselves to the questions and answering to doubts. We don't need this.
The brutality of Zarqawi, his successor Abu Ayyub al Masri, and their subordinates led the people of Anbar province to rise up against them and ally with the United States Marines. This movement, known as the Awakening, has spread throughout Iraq. Now, only remnants of al Qaeda remain in Iraq, and foreign fighters that had previously been going there are
being re-routed to Afghanistan - a tacit admission of al Qaeda's collapse in Iraq. Another telling sign of this came in early October, when the
second-in-command of al Qaeda was killed in a coalition operation, demonstrating that al Qaeda's ability to operate with secrecy and security in Iraq has been appreciably degraded. As AQI collapses, Iraq's security grows stronger with each passing week. In a recent
address to the Heritage Foundation, General David Petraeus (Commander, CENTCOM) gave a detailed report on the state of Iraq that clarified the extent of the coalition's success there.
The strategic failure of AQI is a severe blow to the network, but al Qaeda and their Taliban allies have attempted to regroup in Afghanistan and western Pakistan. It is important to understand that there are two independent (but related) conflicts occurring in Afghanistan and Pakistan at present. The larger conflict is the fight against the Taliban, a native force motivated by a combination of radical Islamist beliefs and ethnic/tribal nationalism. The majority of the fighting in the region since 2001, both by the ISAF forces in Afghanistan and the Pakistani military on the other side of the border, has been a fight against the Taliban. A smaller, more specialized hunt has been waged by Western special forces seeking al Qaeda leaders who are believed to be hiding in the dense jungles of western Pakistan. While these conflicts are distinct, they are also inexorably connected: to lose the fight against the Taliban, the West and the Pakistani government would also allow al Qaeda to maintain its ability to reconstitute itself in the Pakistani wilderness.
The fight against the Taliban continues to be a great challenge for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the name for the Western coalition currently engaged in Afghanistan. Despite the presence of the members of NATO, the troops of only five countries are engaged in combat operations: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Denmark, and the Netherlands. The resolve of the ISAF member nations to stay the course has been severely shaken during the past several years.
In August, ten French soldiers were
slain by the Taliban while performing reconnaissance east of Kabul. The French public almost immediately called for a withdrawal of French forces from Afghanistan. The German government has pledged to
continue its deployments and
send additional troops; however, it was recently revealed that one hundred special forces soldiers of the German Kommando Spezialkrafte spent three years in Afghanistan
without going on a single mission. Although the Japanese government has
extended its naval mission to refuel ISAF support ships in the Indian Ocean several times, even these deployments remain controversial with the Japanese public. Recent debate in Canada, one of only five nations participating in actual combat operations, indicates that Canadian participation in ISAF may end by 2011.
The unwillingness, or inability, of NATO countries to send their troops into combat has led to both a continuous request for support from combat commanders, and a reliance on precision air strikes that has increased civilian deaths. These civilian deaths severely compromise the credibility of the ISAF forces with the local populace, making it difficult to wage a successful counterinsurgency campaign. As a result, the incoming commander of the British Army has
called for a troop surge similar to that which was successful in Iraq. A larger force, specially trained in counterinsurgency techniques, could reverse this trend. Afghans are famously loyal to whichever side they believe to be more likely to win. At present, the feelings of the Afghans are mixed: as ambivalent as they are toward the Taliban, civilian casualties and questionable resolve from ISAF have shaken the confidence of rural Afghans in the West's ability to provide security and prosperity.
While coalition diplomats claim that the Afghan mission is failing (
Guardian,
Times), NATO's Supreme Allied Commander - Europe accuses the alliance of "wavering" in their resolve (
Guardian,
Times). This internal NATO crisis has emboldened the Taliban, thus undermining the hunt for al Qaeda's core leadership.
The fight against the Taliban and the hunt for al Qaeda have been harsh, but not without their successes. ISAF forces killed Mullah Dadullah, a Taliban commander, in May of 2007. The coalition has also captured several top al Qaeda leaders in recent years, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in 2003 and Abu Farraj al Libi in 2005; and killed several more in raids or air strikes, notably Abu Laith al Libi in January of 2008. Ayman al Zawahiri has nearly been captured or killed on several occasions, though he remains at large to this day. There are also rumors that Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud
died in late September - an indication that Taliban leaders hiding in Pakistan do not have the freedom of movement needed to seek medical treatment.
The Taliban have one major advantage: while Western forces cannot openly cross the Afghan-Pakistan border, Taliban forces recognize no border. As a result, Taliban forces are able to attack from the Pakistani side with relative impunity, or stage raids in Afghanistan before escaping across the border to the safety of the Pakistani jungle. The Pakistani military, and by extension the Pakistani government, have no dominance in Waziristan, the Northwest Frontier Province, or the Federally Administered Tribal Areas that make up th Pakistani side of the border. As a result, the Taliban are able to use Pakistan as a safe haven to stage attacks, while al Qaeda is able to use the same areas as a base to reconstitute its forces and wage a propaganda war against the West.
Afghanistan's status as the world's leader in opium production further complicates the situation. Motivated by both threats from the Taliban and the need for cash to support their families, Afghan farmers cultivate opium instead of subsistence crops. Even if they wanted to, Afghans could not abandon poppy farming due to a shortage of coalition troops to provide sufficient security oversight. The coalition is also prevented from simply destroying the opium crops, because to do so would destroy the economic security of many neutral Afghan farmers. Suggestions that the Afghan opium fields be
re-tasked for pharmaceuticals have been ignored, partly because allowing any opium production would allow the Taliban to capitalize upon it, and partly because Afghan opium growing capacity exceeds global demand for opium-based pharmaceuticals. Although this year saw an
opium bumper crop, research indicates that actual opium cultivation has
declined appreciably, due in large part to Afghans
growing wheat due to shortages and rising global prices for wheat. These developments indicate progress, but crippling the Taliban and al Qaeda's financial security is contingent upon the ISAF coalition seizing control of the Afghan opium fields.
War makes for strange alliances. Despite having nearly
gone to war with the Taliban in 1998, the Taliban has been reported on several occasions to be receiving supplies from elements within the Iranian government. (
Reuters,
AP,
BBC,
BBC. Although there are no indications that Taliban forces have received such specialized weapons as the
explosively-formed penetrators that Iran has supplied to Shii militias in Iraq, the Taliban have allegedly received special Iranian AK-47 rifles capable of firing grenades, among other weapons. Like the problem of the opium, foreign suppliers like Iran (and,
allegedly, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency) must be effectively countered if the coalition hopes to defeat the Taliban and locate al Qaeda leaders.
After the initial weeks and months of the campaign in Afghanistan, with al Qaeda's core leadership isolated in Pakistan, and its finances cut off by a concerted investigation of both international banks and Islamic charities, al Qaeda resorted to its own flavor of franchising. Al Qaeda provided public support and allegiance to the leaders of various regional terror groups, while eschewing operational ties for security reasons. The most prominent al Qaeda franchise was that of al Qaeda in Iraq, led by the aforementioned Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Additional franchise cells carried out attacks in Madrid in 2004, and London in 2005. The group also allied with groups like Jemaa Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf in Indonesia and the Philippines. (An excellent description of Operation Enduring Freedom - Philippines can be found in the fourth chapter of Robert Kaplan's
Imperial Grunts.) As law enforcement and intelligence agencies have made great progress in crippling al Qaeda's ability to operate in Western countries, specialized military units have embraced the task of fighting the rise of al Qaeda in the wildernesses of the world. At present, al Qaeda's strongest franchise is al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb - the al Qaeda branch in the Saharan nations of North Africa.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) began as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC). A regional Islamist group whose formation resulted from the events of the Algerian Civil War of 1991 to 2002, the GSPC began as an Algerian terrorist network aimed at replacing the secular Algerian government with an Islamist republic. In September of 2006, al Qaeda deputy commander Ayman al Zawahiri issued a statement announcing that
al Qaeda and the GSPC had aligned with one another. In January of 2007, the GSPC officially
changed its name to al Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM). The network was subsequently
joined by the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a cadre of Libyans who had fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan who wished to overthrow Colonel Qaddhafi's regime.
AQIM has operated primarily in Algeria, and their attacks have
focused on Algerian government and military targets. Their most noteworthy operations have included a suicide bombing in a crowd waiting for a visit from Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and a car bomb attack on naval barracks in September of 2007; and an attack on the Algerian Supreme Court and the Algiers office of the United Nations in December of the same year. Their attacks have been sporadic, but well coordinated and deadly.
AQIM forces have also carried out several high-profile attacks in neighboring Mauritania. Mauritania is one of only a few Middle Eastern nations to have full diplomatic relations with Israel. In December of 2007, gunmen
fired shots at the Israeli embassy in the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott. In February of 2008, terrorists linked to AQIM murdered four French tourists (
AP,
BBC,
Times), forcing the cancellation of the 2008 Dakar Rally. After a military junta overthrew the Mauritanian government in August of 2008, AQIM
issued a message urging Mauritanians to rise up against the coup leaders. In mid-September, AQIM gunmen kidnapped and murdered twelve Mauritanian soldiers (
AFP,
BBC), before
escaping across one of Mauritania's borders into Western Sahara, Mali, or Algeria.
Although the majority of media buzz about al Qaeda has focused on Iraq and Afghanistan, numerous articles have been written about the growth of AQIM. Articles on the subject have appeared in
der Spiegel, the
London Times, and the
Weekly Standard. Analysts have claimed that al Qaeda's global strength is strongest in
Pakistan, Somalia, and Algeria. While Algeria is considered a so-called "
new front for al Qaeda", East African nations like Somalia and Sudan are seen as a veritable "
new Afghanistan". The United States has countered al Qaeda's operations in North Africa with two divisions of the global Operation Enduring Freedom mandate: OEF-
Horn of Africa, and OEF-
Trans-Sahara. These operations are similar to the OEF missions in other nations, in that they seek to cut off the terrorism-financing drug trade, carry out counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations, and train North and East African military forces to secure their own countries. (An excellent description of Operation Enduring Freedom - Trans Sahara can be found in the fourth chapter of Richard Miniter's
Shadow War.)
As mentioned by Ayman al Zawahiri himself, a great deal of the war between al Qaeda and the West is being waged in the form of propaganda and public relations releases. During the course of the Iraq War, AQI initially made a point of showing brutal killings in their propaganda videos. When AQI developed a reputation for indiscriminate mass killings of civilians with suicide bombers and vehicle-borne IEDs, the AQI propaganda wing responded by perpetuating the image of the so-called "al Qaeda in Iraq Baghdad Sniper" - aimed at painting al Qaeda as a precision force, aimed only at killing American troops. In the wider, global war, al Qaeda benefited from the talents of the American takfiri Adam Yahiye Gadahn, otherwise known as Azzam the American/Azzam al Amriki. Using his talents, and his native English fluency, the al Qaeda propaganda wing (known by the name as Sahab, Arabic for "The Clouds") has made a name for itself by producing multimedia products aimed at spreading al Qaeda's radical message.
If one of al Qaeda's greatest strengths is propaganda, a collapse of its propaganda wing would likely signal serious dysfunction within the organization as a whole. Such a collapse has become noticeable in 2008. Following the January air strike that killed Abu Laith al Libi and others, the quality and frequency of as Sahab productions declined noticeably. Officials began to wonder at the possibility that
Gadahn had died in the same air strike until he appeared in an
October video that referenced recent events.
Even with the re-emergence of Gadahn, al Qaeda's propaganda machine has suffered dramatically in recent weeks and months. The editors of the Wired.com Danger Room blog
noted this as early as September. In October, Fox News reported that al Qaeda's network of propaganda websites and forums was
hanging by a thread. This was subsequently reported by both the
Guardian and the
BBC several days later. The combined decline in as Sahab's production quality and language translations, and the collapse of al Qaeda's Internet resources, suggest that al Qaeda's core may be succumbing to pressure from outside.
For all of the political and media rhetoric claiming that al Qaeda is stronger than ever, there are multiple indications that al Qaeda is enduring great turmoil. As early as February of 2008, American military analysts believed that AQI's attempt to defeat the coalition in Iraq had
become a lost cause. A gallup poll of Muslims around the world showed that while most Muslims take issue at having Western ideals imposed upon them, they
still want democracy - a system that al Qaeda claims to be against Islam, leaving little room for compromise.
On the occasion of the seventh anniversary of the September 2001 terror attacks, the Jerusalem Post carried an article highlighting the fact that, while
al Qaeda itself was in disarray, the "idea and franchise remains healthy and is still a threat". Meanwhile, al Qaeda appears to be losing support and facing a backlash against the Islamist militants that once supported the movement (
BBC,
Digital Journal,
New York Daily News). In a development that few would have hoped possible seven years ago, former bin Laden allies have
come together to denounce the movement, a major blow to al Qaeda's credibility in the Middle East. In Afghanistan, there are indications that increasingly effective security operations by coalition and Pakistani forces on opposite sides of the border
may be reducing foreign fighters' ease of movement into and out of Afghanistan. There have even been rumors that moderate figures among the Taliban
may be negotiating with Afghan authorities - a development that could leave al Qaeda bereft of allies in the region.
Osama bin Laden and his movement are far from defeated. Indeed, while the rest of the world suffers through the global economic crisis, al Qaeda is allegedly
insulated from the effects of the turmoil. Whether al Qaeda is weakening or not, a BBC poll indicates that many around the world
believe that al Qaeda is as strong as ever. As is the BBC's style, they recently released a documentary
asking this very question without coming to any particular conclusion.
The bottom line is that although the Global War on Terror has been effective on many levels, only continued resolve will finish this campaign. Beyond this resolve, victory requires a comprehensive and coherent counterinsurgent approach: security and prosperity for those who are friendly or neutral to the cause of defeating terrorism, and overwhelming force against the true believers who can not be convinced to abandon violence against their neighbors and the West. The survival of Western civilization will almost certainly depend upon such a strategy. And lest one make the mistake of believing that apprehending and prosecuting Osama bin Laden, and completing the campaign in Afghanistan, will herald the final conclusion of this global challenge, Americans would do well to heed the words of
independent journalist Michael Totten:
Hardly anyone wants to think about the monumental size of this task or how long it will take. The illusion that the United States just needs to win in Afghanistan and everything will be fine is comforting, to be sure, but it is an illusion. Winning the war in Iraq won’t be enough either, nor will permanently preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons or resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. The war may end somewhere with American troops on the ground, or, like the Cold War, it might not. No one can possibly foresee what event will actually put a stop to this war in the end. It is distant and unknowable. The world will change before we can even imagine what the final chapter might look like.
So stand fast. The war won't end with the impending victory in Iraq, nor will it end with an eventual victory in Afghanistan. Depending upon which strategy the next American president embraces, the West could be in for a long and exhausting struggle, well into the future.
