TERRORISM IN AFGHANISTAN AND CENTRAL ASIA

The Taliban, led by Mulla Mohammad Omar, its Amir, and the Hizb-e-Islami (HEI), led by Gulbuddin Heckmatyar, continue to be active not only  in the Pashtun belt in the Afghan territory across Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, but also in and around Kabul. A terrorist strike in Kabul  before the  Presidential elections of October,2004, directed at the personnel of a private American company, which provides physical security to President Hamid Karzai, proved that their reach extends even to Kabul. They apparently have pockets of support even there.
2. However, the  widely-expressed apprehensions that they might be able to disrupt the Presidential elections were belied. In the months preceding the elections, they indulged in sporadic terrorist strikes   in the provinces, which used to be the stronghold of the Taliban before the US-led coalition intervened in Afghanistan from October 7, 2001, but they did not disrupt the elections and a surprisingly large number of voters exercised their franchise, without letting themselves be intimidated.
3.However, it would be incorrect to infer from the successful conduct of the elections that the Taliban and the HEI are now a declining force and hence do not pose a major threat to Afghanistan's security. Reliable sources in Pakistan indicate that the absence of major acts of terrorism on the eve of and during the elections is a testimony  not to the declining capability of the terrorist elements, but to their continuing amenability to Pakistani control and influence.
4. According to these sources, during President Pervez Musharraf's talks with President George Bush and other American leaders in New York in September, 2004, they stressed upon him the importance of Pakistan ensuring that the Taliban and the HEI did not disrupt the Presidential elections. In the weeks preceding the US Presidential elections, there were two major demands on Pakistan from the officials of the Bush Administration. The first related to the capture of Osama bin Laden and his No.2 in Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the second  to ensuring that the Taliban and the HEI did not disrupt the Afghan  elections.
5. While Musharraf did not deliver bin Laden and/or al-Zawahiri to the US, he ensured that there was no disruption of the Afghan Presidential elections and that the Pashtun  refugees from Afghanistan still staying in Pakistani territory participated in the elections in large numbers. It would be difficult to have a correct idea of the extent of the popular support enjoyed by Karzai inside Afghanistan without an assessment of how many votes he got from the Pashtuns , who were amenable to pressure from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate. It is doubtful whether  Karzai would have won in the first round itself with  more than a 50 per cent majority, without the Pashtun votes on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, including the votes of the refugees, mobilised my Musharraf and his ISI. A reward for this  promptly came from President Bush in the form of a new military package for Pakistan worth about US $ 1.3 billion. Whereas the previous post 9/11 military packages for Musharraf from the US consisted essentially of counter-terrorism items such as helicopter gun ships, communication and interception equipment etc, the latest package contains items which Pakistan would need only for possible use against India and not against the terrorists.
6. The terrorist infrastructure of the Taliban and the HEI in Pakistani territory is intact under the protection of the ISI. While helping the US to put an end to the  Taliban's rule in Afghanistan post-9/11, the ISI has ensured that the Taliban's organisational capability and terrorist infrastructure remained undecimated so that Pakistan could use them to protect its strategic interests in the future. The Amir of the Taliban, Gulbuddin and many of their senior colleagues and jihadi cadres have been given sanctuary in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistan.
7. Not only the provincial Governments of the NWFP, which is run by the fundamentalist coalition called the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), and of Balochistan,in which the MMA is an active partner in a coalition  with the Pakistan Muslim League (Qaide Azam), the surrogate political party of Musharraf,but even the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment has been providing funds, protection and sanctuaries to the dregs of the Taliban and the HEI in Pakistani territory.
8. The active involvement of the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment in keeping the Taliban and the HEI alive and active is not only attested to by independent reports coming from the NWFP and Balochistan, but is also corroborated by reports in the Pakistani media itself as well as by periodic statements from Hamid Karzai and his officials, the US diplomats in Kabul and writings by well-known Pakistani experts on Afghanistan such as Ahmed Rashid.
9. The US,with its large intelligence presence in Pakistan and large military and intelligence presence in Afghanistan, cannot be unaware of the continuing Pakistani complicity with the dregs of the Taliban and the HEI, but yet, prefers to close its eyes to it so long as the Musharraf Government is co-operating with it in the hunt for bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri and the other surviving senior operatives of Al Qaeda.
10. There is a difference in the US perceptions of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. It looks upon Al Qaeda as continuing to pose a threat to US homeland security. Is therefore, determined not to relent in its war against it, till bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and its other senior operatives are captured or killed. While it perceives the surviving Taliban as posing a threat to peace and security in Afghanistan, it does not view it as a threat to US homeland security. Its pre and post-9/11 anger against the Taliban was due to its action in giving shelter to Al Qaeda and its terrorist infrastructure in Afghan territory.
11. This dichotomy in the US perceptions of Al Qaeda and the Taliban should explain its tolerance of the continuing Pakistani complicity with the Taliban. Musharraf continues to make a distinction between the bad and the not-so-bad elements in the Taliban. The not-so-bad elements are projected as no longer having any nexus with Al Qaeda and its largely Arab terrorists. They are also projected  as elements who, if properly handled, could be made to strengthen the rule of Karzai.
12. Barring sporadic incidents such as  the recent terrorist strike in Kabul, possibly involving a suicide bomber, against the personnel of the American company, the Taliban and the HEI have not come to notice for any targeted attacks on the US troops. There have been clashes resulting in  small American casualties, but these would appear to have taken place when US troops intercepted Taliban and HEI terrorist groups when they were going from Pakistani territory to attack a non-US target or returning to Pakistani territory after launching an attack.
13. The dregs of the Taliban and the HEI operating from Pakistani sanctuaries have been mainly concentrating their attacks on Afghan Government servants loyal to Karzai and workers of foreign non-governmental organisations. There have been some incidents inside Afghan territory, where individual Arabs, mainly Yemenis or Yemeni-Balochis (of mixed blood), were suspected to have operated with the Taliban and HEI  elements. Apart from these, there are no reports of any large-scale involvement of Arabs, either from Al Qaeda or from any other organisation, with the Taliban and HEI groups operating in Afghan territory.
14. Even though the US and Pakistan continue to claim that bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and other surviving senior operatives of Al Qaeda have taken shelter in the tribal areas across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, independent reports from Pakistan do not speak of any large presence of Arab terrorists in the tribal areas---either in Afghanistan or in Pakistan. After intensive operations in the South Waziristan area of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) since March, 2004, the Pakistani authorities are now reluctantly admitting that bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and others are probably not in this area. Since March, 2002, all major arrests of senior Al Qaeda operatives were made in the big urban cities of Pakistan such as Faislabad and Gujrat in Pakistani Punjab, Karachi and Rawalpindi and not in the tribal areas.
15. Independent reports indicate that while bin Laden and other senior Al Qaeda survivors of the Tora Bora battle of November-December,2001, continue to live in Pakistan with the protection of their benefactors in the fundamentalist parties, the ISI and in the community of retired intelligence officers, many of their Arab cadres have moved over to Iraq via Iran or Saudi Arabia and have been helping the Iraqi resistance fighters there. There is no credible evidence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda operating in tandem in Afghanistan. Statements emanating from Mulla Omar and other Taliban leaders, including the latest one from Omar issued on the occasion of the third anniversary of the collapse of the Taliban Government in Kabul and the end of the fasting period, hardly have any references to Al Qaeda or bin Laden.
16. It is significant to note that there have been very few incidents of suicide terrorism in Afghanistan as compared to the large number taking place almost every day in Iraq and that there has been hardly any involvement of Afghan nationals in the various post-9/11 terrorist incidents attributed to Al Qaeda in various parts of the world. As against this, there have been innumerable instances of the involvement of Pakistani nationals, not only in Pakistan itself, but also in other countries of the world.
17. From time to time, there have been reports of a split in the Taliban due to differences over the leadership of Mulla Omar and his amenability to the influence and control exercised by the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment, but these have not been confirmed. A group calling itself the Jaish-e-Muslimeen (the Army of Muslims), headed by one Mullah Sabir Momin, has recently kidnapped three UN workers from Kabul---an Irish, a Filipino and the third from Kosovo--- and has been demanding an end to the UN operations in Afghanistan and the release of 26 Taliban members captured by the US-led coalition. Some of them are stated to be held in custody in Afghanistan and some in the US detention camp in Guantanamo Bay. It is not clear whether this group has any links with the Taliban. However, it has to be mentioned that one does not find in Afghanistan what one has been witnessing in Iraq---namely, innumerable groups operating autonomously without any central command and control under different names. (Comments: The hostages have since been released)
18.Despite the action taken by many countries under the UN Security Council Resolution No.1373 to freeze bank accounts, which are suspected to be used for funding terrorism, the Taliban,  Al Qaeda and the International Islamic Front (IIF) have not been short of funds. The production  of heroin has again emerged as an important source of funds for the terrorist organisations operating from the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. There has been a steep increase in the production of opium and heroin in Southern and Eastern Afghanistan. In their hunt for the dregs of  Al Qaeda and the Taliban, the US security forces have been using Afghan warlords of the pre-1992 vintage and narcotics smugglers because of their good knowledge of the topography of the area. It has been alleged that at the request of the US intelligence agencies and security forces, many narcotics barons, undergoing imprisonment in Pakistan, were got released in order to use their services; and that  action against opium producers and heroin smugglers was given low priority.