Security forces set up a road block in the city of Aden, 19 June, 2010, after insurgents attacked a Yemeni intelligence headquarters in this southern port city
Insurgents, possibly belonging to al-Qaida, attacked the main Yemeni police intelligence headquarters in the Southern Yemeni capital of Aden Saturday, killing at least 11 people and wounding at least nine others. Eyewitnesses report that a number of prisoners were also set free during the bloody shootout.
Insurgents wearing military uniforms stormed the main gate of the Yemeni police intelligence compound in the city of Aden Saturday, causing numerous casualties and embarrassing the government.
Eyewitnesses say the attackers fired assault weapons, mortars and grenades at those guarding the building, as well as employees and civilians inside the compound. The bloody shootout lasted for over an hour and set fire to parts of the building.
Yemeni government TV said that the attackers freed a number of prisoners. Police in Aden set up roadblocks all across the old city after the insurgents withdrew.
Yemeni security forces have stepped up attacks against southern separatist rebels, as well as al-Qaida militants, during the past month, causing numerous casualties among their ranks, as well as among civilians, according to some sources.
Yemen Post newspaper editor-in-chief Hakim Almasmari says that facial features of the assailants reveal that they were southerners, but he argues it is still not clear if they were separatists or al-Qaida militants. Al-Qaida, he points out, announced Friday that it would retaliate for government attacks against it in eastern Yemen.
"Al-Qaida last night announced that they will attack because of [government raids on its militants] in Maarib over the past month. The government killed many in Maarib, and many of those who were killed were also civilians, even though seven al-Qaida [militants] were killed. So, al-Qaida [was] on the verge of retaliation," said Almasmari.
Southern tribesmen in Maarib also recently blew up a key oil pipeline after a government airstrike accidentally killed an official trying to mediate with al-Qaida militants in the region.
Al-Qaida militants have attacked Yemeni police headquarters in the capital Sana'a, several times, in recent years, freeing a number of prisoners. Hakim Almasmari, however, insists that Saturday's attack in Aden was by far the biggest and most embarrassing for the government.
"This is massive," he said. "This is much, much bigger than what happened last year [in Sana'a]. This attack is very, very massive and the death toll is very high. The government has even fired the two main political security officials in Aden. They were fired early in the morning [Saturday]. So, the government is surprised that they were able to enter the [southern] capital and also they're questioning other officials inside the public security to see if they aided the attackers."
Yemen has prompted increasing concerns among Western governments, as al-Qaida militants and southern separatists wage battle against the central government in Sana'a. Both threats follow a protracted rebellion by Zaidi shi'ite rebels in the northern Saada province, last year.
Libya released hundreds of militants in March, including leaders of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, in hopes of rehabilitating them. (Sudarsan Raghavan/the Washington Post)
By Sudarsan Raghavan Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, May 31, 2010; A06
TRIPOLI, LIBYA -- His life as a militant began with a call to holy war. It ended inside a prison in his native Libya. In between, Sami al-Saadi orchestrated attacks against Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, moved in Osama bin Laden's inner circle and befriended Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader.
Released from prison in March after he renounced violence, Saadi and other top leaders of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group are now waging an ideological battle to de-radicalize extremists and discredit al-Qaeda.
"Let's leave Libya's dark chapter behind us," Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam said the day Saadi was set free.
Libya, itself a former sponsor of terrorism, has joined a small but growing number of Arab and African nations that are using religion-based rehabilitation programs to isolate al-Qaeda and inoculate Muslims from bin Laden's narrative. Scores of militants have been released under the program, and U.S. officials say they are watching to see whether such models can serve as a blueprint for combating extremism at a time when al-Qaeda remains a long-term strategic threat.
"It is a new frontier in the fight against terrorism," said Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore.
Yet Libya's experience also shows the limitations of efforts to reform Islamists who harbor deep-rooted grievances against U.S. policies and have spent their adult lives fighting for what they believed was just under the guidelines of Islam.
At one moment, Saadi seemed to embrace a new beginning. "Perhaps we can convince al-Qaeda not to attack the West," he said.
But he later sounded less sure: "I don't believe bin Laden is calling for the killing of any single civilian."
The scion of a wealthy religious family, Saadi dropped out of college in 1988 to wage jihad, heeding an influential Sunni theologian's call to Muslims to liberate Afghanistan from the Soviets. Saadi said he first went to Saudi Arabia and then to Pakistan along with scores of Libyan fighters. He made his way to Afghanistan, where he met bin Laden at a training camp and was impressed by his "devoutness."
After the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, Saadi helped found the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. The group's goal: to overthrow Gaddafi and turn Libya into an Islamic state. By the late 1990s, the militia had staged dozens of attacks in Libya, including three assassination attempts on Gaddafi.
"There was no way but to face the regime with force," Saadi recalled thinking, a faint smile emerging on his face, haggard and gray from years in prison.
The group thrived under Taliban rule and forged close ties to the radical regime's leaders. But it was divided on al-Qaeda. In several meetings before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, bin Laden urged the Libyan fighters to join him in confronting the West, especially the United States, Saadi and two other senior leaders said in their first extensive interviews with a journalist since their release from prison in March.
Some of the fighters were against the idea, warning that the United States might retaliate against the Taliban.
"We did not have any ambitions to export our conflict outside of Libya," recalled Khalid al-Sherif, the group's military commander.
But others embraced bin Laden's global jihad.
Today, one of the group's leaders, Abu Yahya al-Libi, is the spiritual leader of al-Qaeda's North African branch, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which has launched suicide bombings and killed Western hostages.
A deal is offered
After the Sept. 11 attacks, many of the Libyan leaders fled Afghanistan. Pakistani and CIA operatives arrested Sherif in Peshawar in 2003. Saadi was arrested in China in 2004. The group's emir, Abdullah al-Sadeq, was captured in Bangkok in 2004. All three men were handed over to U.S. soldiers and eventually returned to Libya, they and Libyan officials say.
Upon their arrival in Tripoli, each of the men were thrown into a small cell.
In late 2008, the offer from Saif al-Islam Gaddafi arrived: Give up violence and get your freedom.
The government was concerned that Libyans were joining al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in neighboring Algeria, its birthplace.
The offer was rare in the Arab world, where regimes have long used brutality to suppress political conflicts, and Libyan internal security officials opposed it. But Gaddafi convinced his father that the group no longer posed a threat.
"I want Libya to be a safe place," said the younger Gaddafi, who has no official role in the government but has emerged as an influential voice in fostering national reconciliation.
For the jailed militants, there was little choice. Their group had suffered severe military losses.
Reform efforts
A well-respected moderate Islamist, Ali al-Salabi, was enlisted as a mediator to conduct religious dialogues with the jailed militants. Unlike similar programs in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, which focused on reforming grass-roots militants, Salabi met solely with the group's top leaders, who were expected to guide the fighters under them.
Encouraged by the younger Gaddafi, the leaders wrote a 400-page manifesto renouncing violence, challenging al-Qaeda's philosophies and condemning attacks on Western civilians in Muslim nations.
But some of the leaders who split from the original fold have publicly declared that the group had joined al-Qaeda.
Many of the former fighters said they still believe in waging war against U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also consider the conflicts in the Palestinian territories and Somalia, where Islamists are fighting a U.S.-backed transitional government, legitimate forms of jihad.
"When America invades a country, the insurgency is legal and lawful. From a religious point of view, it is permissible and we have to support it," said Sadeq, the group's emir. "And U.S. policies in Israel and other places add fuel to the fire."
Salabi, the mediator, agreed. "Violence against occupation is a sacred act," he said. "It is a sacred jihad."
The U.S. ambassador to Libya, Gene Cretz, expressed concern about such comments. "I don't know how you parse jihad," he said. "If it means that, 'If you don't do it in Libya, you are free to go and do it elsewhere,' that would be a little troubling to us."
It remains to be seen how the former militants will adapt to a Libya that in recent years has moved closer to the West. Saadi said his country is not "an ideal state under Islam." Others demanded strict Islamic sharia laws, with public amputations for convicted thieves and head-to-toe coverings for women.
"I am still a Salafist," said Tarreq Muftah al-Ghunnay, the group's former commander in Jordan, referring to the ultra-strict brand of Islam espoused by bin Laden.
The younger Gaddafi said he was confident the government could keep most of the released prisoners from returning to militancy. But "nobody can guarantee anything 100 percent," he said.
By Sudarsan Raghavan Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, April 17, 2010; A01
IFO, KENYA -- Two Islamist militants delivered an ultimatum to Zahra Allawi's daughters: marry them or die. The men were from al-Shabab, a militia linked to al-Qaeda that is fighting Somalia's U.S.-backed government. The two girls were 14 and 16.
Allawi said her neighbor in southeastern Somalia received the same command. But he swiftly married off his daughter to someone else. The next day, the fighters returned with a butcher's knife.
"They slaughtered him like a goat," she recalled.
Three hours later, she and her 10 children fled. After handing their life savings of $300 to a smuggler, they crossed into northeastern Kenya last month, joining tens of thousands of Somalis in this sprawling refugee settlement. They are the human fallout from Africa's most notorious failed state, haunted by unending conflict and a quiet U.S. counterterrorism campaign.
About 2 million Somalis, roughly one-fifth of the population, have sought refuge in other parts of their country or in neighboring countries, most of them since 2007, when the fighting intensified. Nearly 170,000 have fled this year alone, according to U.N. officials, arriving in desolate camps inside and outside Somalia with barely anything except the clothes on their backs.
Many are running from al-Shabab's radical dictates and increasing savagery, as well as fears of a major government offensive.
This article is based on more than 60 interviews conducted in Somali refugee communities in Kenya and Yemen. The refugees' stories of life under al-Shabab could not be independently verified, but community leaders, refugee officials and human rights groups as well as al-Shabab spokesmen gave similar accounts of recent events in Somalia.
Allawi had plenty of reasons to flee. Al-Shabab fighters, she said, once whipped her for not attending midday prayers at the mosque. Last month, she was forced to prove that the man she was walking with was her husband.
An al-Shabab commander also sought to recruit two of Allawi's sons, ages 10 and 13. Allawi begged him not to take them. In exchange, he forced her to buy three weapons for his force.
"If they could all afford to come, not a single person would remain in Somalia," said Allawi, 37, seated with her children on the reddish, sunbaked earth a day after they arrived. "There is no freedom in Somalia, only death."
Instability since 1991
War has gripped Somalia since 1991, when the collapse of President Mohamed Siad Barre's regime plunged the country into lawlessness and clan fighting. Two years later, mobs dragged the bodies of U.S. soldiers through Mogadishu, the capital, during a U.N. peacekeeping mission, an event later depicted in the movie "Black Hawk Down."
The country has vexed U.S. policymakers, who fear that Somalia could become the next Afghanistan. In December 2006, the George W. Bush administration indirectly backed an Ethiopian invasion to overthrow the Islamists, who had risen up against Somalia's secular warlords.
But within two years, the Islamists returned, more radicalized and led by al-Shabab, which in Arabic means "The Youth." The Obama administration and European nations are backing the Somali government with arms, training, logistics and intelligence.
Yet al-Shabab, which the United States has labeled a terrorist organization, now controls large swaths of Somalia. It has imposed Taliban-like Islamic codes in a region where moderate Islam was once widely practiced. Urged on by Osama bin Laden, the group has steadily pushed into Mogadishu, importing foreign fighters and triggering U.S. concerns that the movement could spread to Yemen, across East Africa and beyond. Somalia's government controls only a few blocks of Mogadishu and has little legitimacy elsewhere.
Many Somalis say they believe the United States is guiding the war.
"We expect American helicopters to strike Mogadishu at any moment," said Aslia Hassan, 40, who arrived at this refugee settlement three days ago with two small plastic bags of possessions. "This is why we are running."
Al-Shabab's dictates
The refugees say they are also escaping al-Shabab's puritanical dictates. Western and Somali music is outlawed in the areas the group controls in southern and central Somalia. Movie theaters have been shuttered, and the watching of films on DVDs is prohibited. In some areas, the refugees say, playing soccer -- and even watching it on television -- is banned. So is storing pictures on cellphones and using Western-sounding ringtones. Only Koranic music is allowed.
Al-Shabab's religious police, often led by children, order people to put out cigarettes and give haircuts at gunpoint to anyone with modern hairstyles or longish hair, the refugees say. As a warning to those who defy their dictates, al-Shabab fighters have displayed severed heads on steel poles.
Women must sheath themselves from head to toe in abayas made of thick cloth and are not allowed to wear bras. In Mogadishu, buses are segregated, with women sitting in the back.
"Even if a pregnant woman asks to sit in the front of the bus, where it is less bumpy, she will be refused," said Dahaba Duko Ali, 35.
She arrived here last month with her seven children, evading al-Shabab checkpoints. Fearing the police -- Kenya has closed its border with Somalia -- the smugglers drove along back roads and dropped the family just over the border. Under cover of night, Ali and her children walked 30 miles to Ifo.
Ali Mohamud Raghe, an al-Shabab spokesman, said that "our Islamic religion tells us" to separate men from women and for women to wear thick abayas. The militia forbids all "the evil things that infidels aim to spread" among young Muslim Somalis.
"So music is among the evil actions," he said in a telephone interview.
Even donkeys are not beyond al-Shabab's dictates. The militia has decreed that donkeys cannot wear harnesses, nor can they carry more than six sacks. They are also segregated: Women can use only female donkeys; men must use male ones. "How can I feed my children?" lamented Hassan Ali Ibrahim, 40, a gaunt donkey-cart driver who arrived in Yemen with his eight children.
Savage methods
On a Friday in October, the Ibrahim brothers -- Sayeed and Osman -- were taken from their prison cell in the coastal Somali town of Kismaayo. An al-Shabab court had convicted them of robbery, they said, adding that their imprisonment was politically motivated.
The brothers and a third inmate were driven in a minibus to a field in front of a police station. A crowd of 4,000 had gathered. Ten masked men stood in the field; one held a microphone and another clutched a knife, the brothers recalled.
The third inmate, in his early 20s, was taken out of the van. Several of the masked men held him down and his foot was chopped off above the ankle, the brothers recalled.
It took five minutes.
"God is great," chanted the fighters, drowning out the screams.
Minutes later, the brothers were taken out of the van. Sayeed looked away as his brother's leg was sliced off.
"I felt powerless," Sayeed said. "I wanted a miracle to happen."
A voice over the loudspeaker announced that Sayeed's right hand and left leg were to be amputated. By the time his limbs were hacked off, he had passed out. He woke up in a hospital. After 10 days, the brothers fled Kismaayo. In February, relatives hid them inside a crowded minibus and smuggled them into Kenya.
"What they did to us has nothing to do with Islam," said Osman, as he struggled to get up from a chair with his crutches.
But Mohammed Muse Gouled, 70, said al-Shabab had helped bring stability. For years, he said, warlords contested for power and territory, and chaos and insecurity grew. "No one can harm you under the Shabab," said Gouled, adding that he fled shelling by the regional African Union peacekeeping force.
One woman's journey
Habiba Abdi, 19, was five months pregnant and unmarried. Under the dictates of al-Shabab, she would have faced death by stoning. Fighters entered her neighborhood in Kismaayo, searching for the woman with the "illegal child."
She hid with relatives. Four days later, she begged a smuggler to take her to Kenya. A few months later, she had a baby girl. She named her Sabreen, which means "tolerance."
They live here with a cousin. Other refugees taunt her as the "one who broke the law of Islam." Some call her dhilo, or whore.
But she is more worried about al-Shabab. Last year, fighters from the militia crossed into Kenya and abducted three aid workers and a Somali cleric; last week, the group raided a Kenyan border town.
"Sometimes, I prefer to die," said Abdi, as she cradled Sabreen in her arms.
Neither the UK nor the US started the war in Afghanistan. In the 1990s that country’s Taliban government provided a safe haven and support for al-Qaeda. In return Osama bin Laden provided the Taliban with money and fighters. Afghanistan became the incubator for the September 11 attacks. The international intervention in response to those attacks had widespread support around the world. But we never meant for our militaries to be there forever. Eight years later, with al-Qaeda pushed into Pakistan, it is not enough to explain to people why the war started. We need to set out how it will be ended—how to preserve what has been achieved and protect South Asia from a contagion that would affect us all.
The route to progress depends on recognizing the centrality of politics to issues of war and peace. Violence of the most murderous, indiscriminate, and terrible kind started this Afghan war; politics will bring it to an end. A political settlement for Afghanistan must have two dimensions. First, a new and more inclusive internal political arrangement in which enough Afghan citizens have a stake, and the central government has enough power and legitimacy to protect the country from threats within and without. And second, on which the first depends, a new external settlement that commits Afghanistan’s neighbors to respect its sovereign integrity and that carries enough force and support to ensure that they abide by that commitment.
Britain fought three wars in Afghanistan between 1839 and 1919. Each time it was defending its power base—and economic stake—in British India. And each time it suffered military reverses as it sought to establish order. Yet on every occasion, once that lesson had been learned the hard and bloody way, Britain’s imperial strategists sought—and secured—a saner and more sustainable objective: a self-governing, self-policing, but heavily subsidized Afghanistan, whose tribes balanced each other and that posed no threat to the safety of British India.
Soviet strategists reached strikingly similar conclusions. When the Soviet forces in Afghanistan withdrew in 1989, they left behind a government, led by the Afghan Communist Mohammad Najibullah, that survived for three years. It did so—in the words of advice from the Kremlin—by “forgetting communism, abandoning socialism, embracing Islam, and working with the tribes.” As with every other regime in modern Afghan history, the Najibullah government could not have existed without external subsidy. And so it fell when Boris Yeltsin’s newly independent Russia cut all aid to Kabul.
Britain’s experience in the nineteenth century, and the Soviet Union’s in the twentieth, showed that the best way, perhaps the only way, to stabilize Afghanistan in the long term is to empower the Afghans themselves in charge so that they can secure and govern their own villages and valleys. To achieve this, the Afghans need full political and military support, and generous economic subsidy, from outside. But the Afghan people neither need nor welcome our combat troops on their soil any longer than is necessary to guarantee security and set them on a course to regulating their own affairs.
A recent study of Britain’s bloody withdrawal from Kabul in 1842 concluded that the first cause of that disaster was the reluctance of junior officers to tell their superiors the truth about the dire situation the British forces found themselves in. I know from my own discussions with diplomats and commanders in the field that such “happy talk” is no longer the order of the day. Getting Afghanistan right means getting down to ground truth. These are the facts as I see them:
• The Afghan people are tired of thirty years of war. They have been traumatized by the fighting and the denial of basic rights and opportunities. The majority of them hate, for good reason, the brutality of the Taliban. But sometimes they see them as their only protection from other brutal powerbrokers or warlords.
• The Afghan government led by Hamid Karzai faces competing demands from its own people, from powerful criminal and commercial interests, and from the international community. But it lacks the capacity to govern. The concerns about its credibility run deeper than last fall’s elections, which were marred by widespread corruption and fraud. They also relate to the very structure of the political system.
• The Afghan insurgency is a broad but shallow coalition, with shifting relationships, geographical bases, and tactics. The Taliban is led by members of the former Talib regime under Mullah Omar, who has been based in Pakistan’s border areas. A variety of other factions are also operating, including the Haqqani network, Hizb-e-Islami, and a range of smaller groups. These groups all trade on the uncertainties of the people and the weaknesses of the state.
• The Taliban are still despised—one recent poll suggests that only 6 percent of Afghans want them back in power. But they do now have organized cadres that enjoy some limited support—in the south, east, and north—and are able to mount operations in Kabul and elsewhere.
• Having fled Afghanistan, al- Qaeda’s senior leadership is now also hiding in Pakistan’s tribal areas. A significant number of its leaders have been killed or arrested. Despite the historical ties between al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, their relationship is predominantly tactical and local. Yet al-Qaeda retains the capacity—including through its affiliates in other countries, such as Yemen—to plan and carry out deadly attacks around the world.
• There has been a significant change in Pakistan in the last eighteen months under President Asif Ali Zardari’s democratic government. The reality and threat of domestic terrorism has brought new purpose to civilian and military leadership, and new consensus between leaders and the Pakistani electorate. It is now realistic to talk about complementary pressure on the insurgencies on both sides of the border.
The Afghan and international strategy over the last eight years has been to focus on building up the key functions of the state and delivering better lives for the Afghan people. Despite many setbacks, there is a real record of achievement here, continuing today. The return of five million refugees in recent years is perhaps the greatest sign of the growing confidence of Afghans in their safety and security, and an important indicator of our own progress in protecting them. Still, polling shows that Afghans regard the lack of security as one of the biggest problems; last year more Afghan civilians were killed in insurgent attacks than ever.
In 2003 the Afghan National Army numbered fewer than two thousand. Today it is over 100,000 strong, though the ethnic balance within it—and particularly the proportion of Pashtuns—is weak. The total will grow by a third by the end of the year, and further in the years to come. Afghan soldiers are gaining frontline combat experience, including in the current Moshtarak operation in Helmand province. Plans are now being developed for the transfer of “lead security responsibility” to the Afghans—district by district and province by province—once the Afghan National Security Forces, local government, and other institutions are able to meet key conditions of effectiveness. As the Afghan National Army gets stronger, international forces will be able to withdraw from combat operations—although their training and mentoring of their Afghan counterparts will need to continue for a number of years.
Concerning education and health, in 2001 only one million Afghan children attended school, all of them boys. This year we expect to see seven million Afghan children enrolled in school—a third of them girls. Eight out of ten Afghans now have access to health care.
Poppy growing and the drug trade are major problems for Afghanistan; but during the past two years there have been successive reductions in poppy cultivation: 19 percent in 2008, 22 percent in 2009. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that cultivation will not increase in 2010. Improvements in governance and security, along with high wheat prices, have supported these results.
The achievements of the National Solidarity Programme—which aims to improve local and regional government—would be a remarkable story in any country. Over 22,000 village councils have been elected by their peers since 2003. They have not just designed but implemented almost 40,000 development projects, and are now forming, from the bottom up, district councils.
There are also areas where progress has not been so impressive. We are now stepping up our efforts to address these concerns, and the Afghan government needs to do much more:
• Justice and law and order are a critical battleground. The Afghan National Police number almost 100,000, but the biggest problem is now quality, not quantity. Part of the force is involved in the drug trade. It also suffers from illiteracy, patronage by criminals and insurgents, and corruption. The Afghan government is launching a robust and far-reaching program of reform. But the government needs, with our help, to build up the informal judicial structures for resolution of criminal and civil disputes. That is, after all, what Afghans often mean by the rule of law.
• Despite the success of the National Solidarity Programme, civil administration remains an extremely difficult and uphill struggle. In large parts of the country, district governance is almost nonexistent; half the governors do not have an office, fewer than a quarter have electricity, and some receive only six dollars a month in expenses. Over the next two years the international community has promised to help train 12,000 civil servants to serve on the district level.
• Last, there is the problem of corruption. According to January’s BBC/ABC/ARD poll, 95 percent of Afghans see corruption as a problem in their local area. In some regions Afghans are paying an average of $100 in bribes to officials every year. Such widespread abuse has deep roots. President Karzai has promised to tackle corruption and build independent institutions to monitor and drive progress. The international community will judge him by his actions, not his words. Donors are trying to provide him with incentives by promising to channel more aid through the government as certain tests are met, for example the verification and publication of the assets of senior officials and ministers; the adoption of new procedures for senior appointments; and a clear timeline for the enactment of comprehensive anti-corruption legislation.
The achievements of the last eight years would not have been possible were it not for the tireless efforts and unstinting bravery of our troops. Without them, the insurgency would have overwhelmed the Afghan government and probably overrun Kabul. Our development work would have ground to a halt. And al-Qaeda would have seized more space to plan its terrorist atrocities.
The work ahead—on each of these fronts—is both clear and pressing. The additional troops that the United States, Britain, and others are deploying are vital if progress is to be made. Britain’s commitment and determination will endure until we have achieved our shared objective—an Afghanistan that must not again be used as a basis for international terrorism.
Brennan Linsley/AP Images
A girl watching an Afghan National Army soldier searching an area thought to have been used as a Taliban firing position, Pech Valley, Kunar province, January 24, 2010
However, even on the most optimistic reading of present plans, the Afghan authorities will not be able to govern their land in sustainable or acceptable ways unless the scale of the insurgency itself is reduced. And only then will we be able to withdraw our forces confident that we will not have to return. The strengthened efforts of our military forces are an important part of this. As General McChrystal said recently, the role of the military is to “try to shape conditions which allow people to come to a truly equitable solution to how the Afghan people are governed.” This raises the core political challenge for Afghanistan, one that has been neglected for far too long.
The Bonn Agreement of 2001 and the process that followed it fell short of a truly balanced political settlement. The Northern Alliance came to Bonn as the new masters of Afghanistan. But they were not representative of the broader Afghan population, including the Pashtun majority in the south. It was right that the Taliban leaders were excluded from Bonn. But other more significant and legitimate groups were seriously underrepresented, most notably the various Pashtun confederations from which the Taliban draws its strength.
The two jirgas that followed Bonn led to a top-down, highly centralized political structure for a country whose people have always had a strong predilection for managing their own affairs at the local level. Furthermore, new arrangements in Kabul did not do justice to tribal and other informal, traditional, and community-based structures. Corruption has exacerbated these problems. The unconstrained accumulation of financial resources by malign power brokers has eroded tribal balance. Finally, from Iran in the west to Pakistan in the east, from the Central Asian Republics in the north to the regional powers of India, China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Turkey, the Bonn Agreement failed to bind Afghanistan’s neighbors into the long-term project of building a new, more peaceful country.
The lesson I draw from history is that Afghanistan will never achieve a sustainable peace unless many more Afghans are inside the political system, and its neighbors are in agreement with a political settlement.
Political Outreach
There is now an international consensus behind a program to reintegrate Taliban fighters, which the UN defines as “the process by which ex-combatants acquire civilian status and gain sustainable employment and income.” The logic behind this program is simple. As military pressure on the insurgency increases—as the dangers of continuing the fight grow and the prospects of success look more remote—those on the periphery of the insurgency will start to review their allegiances. We have seen this happening in fits and starts in recent years.
For such realignments to be sustained there needs to be not just employment but protection from retaliation by former allies. That is the significance of President Karzai’s proposed National Council for Peace, Reconciliation, and Reintegration, and of the $150 million the international community has already pledged to fund it.
But I would emphasize that a re-integration program will have a major impact only if it is coupled with a serious effort to address the grievances of those whom President Karzai describes as his “disaffected compatriots”—i.e., the Taliban and other insurgents. Without a genuine effort to understand and ultimately address the wider concerns that fuel the insurgency, it will be hard to convince significant numbers of combatants that their interests will be better served by working with the government than by fighting against it.
Some insurgents are committed to al-Qaeda’s violent extremist agenda. There will never be reconciliation with them—they must be beaten back. But the majority are not. They share conservative Islamic beliefs and, linked to that, strong views about what is a just social order. Their rallying cry is the expulsion of international forces. But they are also motivated by their intense dissatisfaction with the Afghan government and Afghan politics—which they see as corrupt and incompetent.
The idea of anyone reaching out to political engagement with those who would directly or indirectly attack our troops is difficult. We have no more right to betray our own values than those of the Afghan people who pray that the Taliban never come back. But dialogue is not appeasement; nor is allowing political space for discussion with opposing forces and politicians.
The Afghans must own, lead, and drive such political engagement. It will be a slow, gradual process. But the insurgents will want to see international support for it; and international mediation—for example under the auspices of the UN—may ultimately be required. So there needs to be clarity about the preconditions for any agreement: those who want a political say in their country’s future must permanently sever ties with al-Qaeda, give up their armed struggle, and accept the Afghan constitutional framework. In doing so their interests would be recognized and given a political voice but would be constrained by the nation’s laws and balanced by the interests and views of others.
In his repeated offers to talk directly to insurgents, President Karzai has made clear that while such preconditions should set the terms of any eventual agreement, they should not prevent a dialogue from developing. The build-up of international and Afghan military forces should concentrate everyone’s mind. Dialogue provides an alternative to fight or flight. Any such process of political outreach will take time and effort to prepare, let alone conclude. But the time to start laying the foundations for dialogue is now, so as to take advantage of the growing Afghan and international military presence.
President Karzai has proposed for April 29 a great consultation—a grand peace jirga—involving around 1,400 members and guests. They are to include parliamentarians, provincial councils and governors, religious and tribal leaders, and representatives from civil society organizations and women’s groups. This should be the start of a process of building a new national political settlement. He has said:
The objective will be to get guidance from the Afghan people on how to move forward towards reintegration and reconciliation —where reconciliation may be possible—and chart out an action plan in consultation with the Afghan people.
What might such a political settlement look like? An outsider can only offer suggestions.
First, there should be arrangements, whether formal or informal, to ensure that the legitimate tribal, ethnic, and other groups that feel excluded from the post-Bonn political settlement are given a real stake in the political process and are able to compete for political representation. A peace settlement must include the vanquished as well as the victors. To do this, the new arrangements should give voice to the different blocs of opinion and influence. Access to political office and government jobs should be opened up. And efforts should be made to broaden the ethnic base of the Afghan National Army. All of this would encourage Afghans to address their grievances, and those of their broader community, from within the system. And it would offer them a part in building stability and security in Afghanistan so that—and this is a key objective of many of the insurgents—the international forces will be able to withdraw from combat, initially into a training and support role, and then altogether.
Second, the provincial and district governors and their associated assemblies of elders should be given new governing powers, so that the walis (or provincial governors) and the uluswals (district governors) have the confidence, competence, and capacity to govern in the best interests of those they represent. Recruiting the right people for these jobs is essential—and in view of the challenges of upholding justice and the rule of law, the police chief and local magistrates are equally important. Local governors and local assemblies also need to be given more direct responsibility for overseeing development, adjudicating disputes, providing local security, and reintegrating local insurgents and their sympathizers.
Third, a new legislative process should be established—not necessarily involving constitutional change—between president and parliament, in order to give parliamentarians a real stake in the success of the political settlement. Such a stake would encourage them to participate as well as to criticize, and would ultimately lead to the development of something completely alien in Afghanistan today, but critical to democracy—a constructive or loyal opposition.
Fourth, underpinning all this must be a more concerted effort to prevent and eradicate corruption. President Karzai’s promises to tackle the culture of impunity and to establish a new anti-corruption unit are important. Emphasis must also be put on how the Afghan government—with international help —can counter the extensive drug trade. This goes to the heart of ordinary people’s concerns about corruption and lack of the rule of law. Part of this is about ensuring that the new political settlement includes many more checks and balances—such as independent courts—and much greater emphasis on transparency and accountability to ensure that government at all levels and in all guises is the servant, not the master, of the Afghan people.
The External Political Settlement
No country’s politics can exist in a vacuum, least of all Afghanistan’s. For too long it has been the victim of external meddling and interference. Today competing regional interests are being pursued in Afghanistan, and the country’s tribal and ethnic groups—in the south, the east, and the north—still roam freely and find refuge across its borders. Those who oppose the government still draw on funding, support, and shelter from abroad. If Afghanistan is to have a more peaceful and prosperous future, it needs not just a new internal political settlement but also a new external political settlement.
Given the scale of the geopolitical challenges in this region—including the long-running tensions between India and Pakistan and the presence of Iran—it can seem that Afghanistan is fated to remain the victim of a zero-sum scramble for power among hostile neighbors. The logic of this position is that Afghanistan will never achieve peace until the region’s most intractable problems are solved. But there is an alternative and ultimately more promising possibility, by which Afghanistan poses so many dangers that it becomes the place where more cooperative regional relations are forged.
The first step is a greater recognition by all of Afghanistan’s neighbors and the key regional powers of two simple facts. Fact one: no country in the region, let alone the international community, will again allow Afghanistan to be dominated, or used as a strategic asset, by a neighboring state. Fact two: the status quo in Afghanistan is damaging to all. Crime, drugs, terrorism, and refugees spill across its borders when Afghanistan’s great mineral wealth and agricultural land should instead be of benefit to the region. These two facts can and must provide the basis of a shared interest around which the countries of the region can coalesce.
Second—and this point is more complex—there needs to be a more honest acknowledgment of the different interests and concerns of Afghanistan’s neighbors, so that efforts can be made to provide reassurances. Pakistan is essential here. It holds many of the keys to security and dialogue. It clearly has to be a partner in finding solutions in Afghanistan.
Pakistan is a country of 170 million people. It is a nuclear power. Pakistan will act only according to its own sense of its national interest. That is natural. Its relationship with Afghanistan is close to the core of its national security interests. Pakistan fears the build-up of a non-Pashtun Afghan National Army on its doorstep, and it is perpetually worried about India’s relationship with Afghanistan.
It has also had a difficult relationship with the US for a generation. That is the significance of the Obama administration’s determination to pursue a new security, economic, and political relationship with Pakistan. This policy opens up a vital opportunity to address Pakistan’s concerns—and ours. The Kerry-Lugar Act—which provides for over $7 billion in nonmilitary aid over the next five years, but makes the support conditional on the Pakistani government taking effective action against militants in its territory—is an important down payment in this regard.
But progress cannot be achieved simply by a more serious, more equal US–Pakistan strategic security understanding, crucial though that is. Alongside Pakistan’s fears about its western border, fears about Pakistan’s own involvement in Afghanistan need to be addressed. Every country needs to accept that, just as there will be no settlement in Afghanistan without Pakistan’s involvement, so there will be no settlement in Afghanistan unless India, Russia, Turkey, and China are also involved in the search for solutions. China is Afghanistan’s largest foreign investor. India has already pledged $1.2 billion for reconstruction in Afghanistan. It has a big part to play. Moreover, the Iranian regime—whose nuclear policies have flouted the UN and that has a record of attempting to destabilize its neighbors—must acknowledge that the best way to protect its investments or promote the interests of Afghans that share its Shia faith is to work to promote peace, not undermine it. The Iranian government’s refusal to take part in the recent London Conference on Afghanistan was completely shortsighted.
Third—and this is where the external settlement connects most clearly to the internal political settlement—there needs to be greater transparency with respect to the future direction of Afghan foreign policy. It is for the Afghans to decide how to do this, but their involvement is critical in building confidence and reducing miscalculation. Linked to this, there will need to be consistency and clarity about the presence, activities, and future plans of the international forces in Afghanistan.
Fourth, economics should be the great lubricant for better regional relations. Afghanistan can benefit all its neighbors if it becomes the land bridge of Central Asia, South Asia, and the Gulf. After all, the Silk Road was the passage for trade for many centuries. There are common interests not just in trade and transport, but in managing and sharing water and electricity and harnessing economic growth for the benefit of Afghanistan and the neighboring countries.
Fifth is the question of the forum in which this work should move forward. The process must be led by the countries in the region. Only these governments can decide whether the multitude of existing bodies such as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference can provide the basis for the serious and sustained regional engagement that is now needed. The Afghans should take the lead, in partnership with the UN. In time perhaps this could lead to a standing Conference on Stability, Security, and Cooperation in South Asia. Above all, Afghan citizens must decide the future political process in their country. Important as the neighbors’ legitimate interests are, they cannot supplant, nor will we allow them to supplant, the Afghan government and the Afghan people. The days are long gone when powerful countries would dispose of a smaller, vulnerable neighbor to suit their own ends.
Conclusion
If we successfully implement the strategy I have outlined, a better future for Afghanistan is not a utopian goal. Within two to five years it is realistic to aspire to see the country still on an upward trajectory, still poor but stable, with a just peace, with democracy and inclusive politics taking hold at all levels, and with incomes growing. The urban population should have access to electricity. More shops will be open in the local bazaars and more children—in particular more girls—will be going to schools. Most grassroots insurgents —the so-called ten-dollar-a-day Taliban—should be resettled in their villages with at least some of the insurgent leaders taking part in the legitimate political process. Communities will be increasingly able to rely on the Afghan National Security Forces for protection—or to protect themselves. International troops will have stepped back from the front line—though they will still have a role, and sometimes a dangerous role, in training and mentoring their Afghan counterparts. The neighbors will be working together, preventing trouble, not fueling it. And above all, al-Qaeda will be kept out.
I have been to Afghanistan six times as British foreign secretary. On my first visit in July 2007 I attended the funeral of its last king, Mohammed Zahir Shah. The grief I witnessed was palpable and deep, but so too was the sense of national unity. Ethnic allegiances and historic feuds were put aside to mourn the passing of the “father of the nation.”
This unity is not expressed today through allegiance to a monarch. Instead it is founded on a deep desire among the people to live life as they see fit. The military surge is vital to success; so is investment in the civilian economy; but now is the time for Afghans to pursue a political settlement with as much vigor and energy as we are pursuing the military and civilian effort. That is how to end the war in Afghanistan.
By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly
FYI: White House warns state and local governments to expect no "significant federal response" for 24-72 hours after a terrorist nuke blast . . . Release the Kraken: A.G. Holder says New York City "not off the table" as venue for 9/11 plotter trials . . . Victimizing the blamer: After 9/11, American Muslims somehow "became prime victims of those terror attacks -- isolated, fearful, targets of hostility," columnist scoffs. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage.
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The White House has warned state and local governments to expect no “significant federal response” at the scene of a terrorist nuclear attack for the first 24-72 hours, USA Today’s Steve Sternberg learns from a planning guide. By skimping on details, President Obama has contrived to make nuclear terror seem a more immediate danger than it really may be, The Associated Press’ Anne Gearan fact checks — and see The Washington Times’ Bill Gertz and Eli Lake on the same. Even as Obama rings the tocsin on an al Qaeda nuke strike, “emergency public health preparedness for a catastrophic, mass casualty attack . . . continues to deteriorate,” Homeland Security Today’s Anthony L. Kimery adds.
Feds: “In contrast to the Bush administration’s record on protecting the public, we are less safe under the Obama administration,” J.D. Gordon opines for FOX News, offering five reasons why so — while an exercised Bay Area IndyMedia poster sees Obama “evidently seeking a new pseudo-legal justification for the policy of state murder.” A.G. Eric H. Holder, meanwhile, reignited debate by telling a Senate panel yesterday that NYC is “not off the table” as a venue for 9/11 trials, The Washington Post’s Spencer Hsu reports. The CIA deputy director who has overseen agency counterterror efforts since 9/11 will retire next month, to be replaced by a career analyst, the Post’s Greg Miller also mentions.
State and local: “After a year of waiting for that initial interview,” a longtime Buchanan County (Mo.) sheriff’s deputy is on his way to becoming an officer in DHS’s Federal Protective Service, The St. Joseph News-Press proudly profiles. (“Should Congress federalize the building security force, much like it did to airport screeners in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks?” Federal Times, relatedly, polls readers.) “The best thing the Obama administration can do with 287(g) is abandon it. Let cops be cops and let [ICE] do the job that it was created to do,” a Palm Beach Post editorial adjures in re: immigration enforcement outsourcing — as The Chicago Tribune notes that the names of suspects booked at most major suburban Chicago jails now will be run through ICE databases to deport those here illegally.
Coming and going: Instead of playing a canned notice urging Yankees fans to “take the plane to the game” on Tuesday, Metro-North sparked no small alarm with a miscued message urging commuters “to leave the station immediately and maintain a distance of at least 300 feet,” The Norwalk (Conn.) Hour relates. “One southbound lane of Flatbush Avenue that was eliminated after 9/11 to provide a security zone around the city’s emergency call center will soon be returned to drivers,” The Brooklyn Paper reports. The Ryder transport firm is pushing for greater government-private cooperation on U.S.-Mexico border security “to help beef up the integrity of cross-border shipments,” Fleet Owner recounts — while Canadian Transportation & Logistics sees truckers, law enforcers and insurers examining cargo crime activity in Canada for possible solutions.
Over there: Obama has given Treasury broader power to deal with pirates and Islamist insurgents as security deteriorates in Somalia, AP reports. Having termed the 9/11 terrorist attacks “a big fabrication,” Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has now formally asked the U.N.’s secretary general to investigate that day’s events, The New York Times notes. According to a survey, less than half of Singaporeans polled know the practical steps to take in event of terrorist attack, Channel NewsAsia notes. The al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf Group killed 11 people in a terror assault on a southern Philippines city, The Long War Journal relates.
Over here: The lead suspect in last year’s alleged plot to bomb Bronx synagogues said he wanted to shoot President Bush “700 times” and repeatedly called Osama bin Laden “my brother,” NBC New York quotes prosecutors. DHS officials and lawmakers have been warning for months that law enforcement agencies are unprepared to deal with a mounting threat from homegrown terrorists and extremist groups, The Detroit News notes. “Since the events of Sept. 11, we’ve seen the growth of a view that American Muslims became prime victims of those terror attacks — isolated, fearful, targets of hostility, The Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz rebukes. Imagine if the would-be cop-killers of the Hutaree militia “were not Christian extremists, but American Muslims?” the American Muslim mag Illume instructs.
Shoes, shirt, no service: “The U.N. Security Council has adopted a resolution banning wearing shoes on board of planes and while attending press conferences and speeches — it is known as ‘the shoes resolution,’” The Spoof spoofs. “America and Israel have wanted a tougher resolution compelling people to be barefoot, but after the intervention of human rights and civil rights pressure groups, the resolution allowed the wearing of slippers. A U.N. official has commented on the resolution: A bomb can’t be hidden in a slipper and a slipper can’t inflict serious injury when thrown at someone. Also being light, a slipper may fall short of its target. And at least one reporter sees the slippers manufacturers lobby is behind the resolution and says the shoe manufacturers have tried to veto it.” Read, also, in The Onion: “Post Office Extends Hours To 3 A.M. To Attract Late-Night Bar Crowd.”
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