Song and dance on the terror
trail By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - After spending billions of
dollars and devoting thousands of people to the
task, hundreds of al-Qaeda operatives have been
arrested in the past four years in the US-led "war
on terror".
Yet any assessment of al-Qaeda
is still largely based on guesswork rather than
concrete facts, and US policymakers are still very
much in the dark about Osama bin Laden, his deputy
Aiman al-Zawahiri, and the exact structure of
al-Qaeda, its financial arteries, and even its
real ideological paradigms.
Having
recently spent 21 days in the US as a State
Department guest, with al-Qaeda and the "war on
terror" as the central topics during the stay,
this correspondent's views largely stand
vindicated, that the "war on
terror" is still far from any logical conclusion.
The US failure started with its inability
to penetrate bin Laden's inner circle once he came
onto the radar screen following the attacks on US
embassies in Africa in 1998 and his subsequent
retreat to Afghanistan as a guest of the Taliban.
What information the US had came from a
few Afghans who were not closely connected with
the al-Qaeda leader or his organization. Thus,
much of the information that the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) received and passed on
to policymakers was based on conjecture or
out-of-date information.
This failing
became evident after September 11, when the US set
its sights on Afghanistan and bin Laden. It badly
wanted his head, yet had no idea where he was -
the US's information varied almost daily. One day
he was said to be in Kabul or Jalalabad, the next
he was placed in Kandahar, or somewhere in
between.
This situation was further
complicated when the US attacked Afghanistan in
late 2001. In the turmoil of the Taliban's hasty
retreat, the US intelligence network in the
country still didn't have a clue where bin Laden
was. And when it was eventually thought that he
was cornered in Tora Bora, based on information
gleaned from informants who had had their palms
greased, he had long fled the scene.
At
this stage the US realized that Pakistan was an
essential player. Having nurtured the Taliban, it
was logical that its territory would become a
backyard for the Afghan resistance, as well as a
safe haven for al-Qaeda.
Hence the
pressure on President General Pervez Musharraf to
renounce the Taliban and throw in Pakistan's lot
with the US in the "war on terror", even though
there was strong resistance from many in the
Pakistani security establishment who still had
sympathies for al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
After the fall of the Taliban, the
US-sponsored Northern Alliance approached from the
north, and US-supported former mujahideen of
Pashtun origin entered from Pakistan into
Afghanistan and captured much of the country,
along with US forces. This left little space for
foreigners, especially of Arab origin, to stay on
in Afghanistan. Many of them had been involved in
al-Qaeda jihadi training camps.
Hundreds
of Arabs and their families thus entered into
Pakistan's tribal areas on the border with
Afghanistan. Local tribesmen opened their houses,
mosques and land to accommodate the families. The
tribes collected funds and arranged for the
departure of many Arab families who wanted to
leave Pakistan. Local authorities turned a blind
eye and let the foreigners go wherever they
wanted.
A number of Arabs, Chechens,
Uzbeks and others chose to stay in the Pakistan
tribal areas to fight a guerrilla war against US
forces in Afghanistan. Local pro-Taliban tribes
arranged for their accommodation. Within a few
months, these foreign fighters not only received
residential status in the tribal areas, but in
places such as South Waziristan they established
proper bases to not only fight in Afghanistan but
also to restore their communications for global
operations. By mid-2002, displaced foreigners had
largely revived themselves and were ready for
global operations.
The US proxy networks
failed to penetrate the ranks or closer circles of
the al-Qaeda elements among these foreigners.
Therefore, information only started trickling out
in early 2003, suggesting an al-Qaeda presence in
South Waziristan. The full extent of its presence,
and how it had reorganized itself and restored
many of its global operations, only emerged a year
later.
It was at this time that Pakistan,
under intense US pressure, sent the military into
the region in an attempt to flush out the
foreigners. This caused an intense armed backlash
from fiercely independent tribespeople, and
opposition across the country.
The reason
for the US's inaccurate or inefficient access to
information was its failure to find the right
sources. Their sources were still Afghans or
Pakistani tribals who often concocted facts based
on personal feuds, or gave incorrect information
in return for a reward (shades of Tora Bora).
The best source of information would have
been the Pakistani intelligence apparatus, which
had excellent contacts among the Pakistani tribals
and Afghans in the bordering areas, but the US
believed, perhaps correctly, that the Pakistanis
hid everything from them.
Despite his
support for the US, Musharraf, the chief of army
staff, does not necessarily have the full support
of senior officials in his key agencies, including
nine corps commanders, the director general of the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the chief of
general staff. Thus, despite reshuffles, Musharraf
is at times forced to deviate from US interests.
During and after the invasion of
Afghanistan, US-backed Afghan commanders were
asked to provide reports on any weapons and money
supplied by Pakistan. But this was only a part of
the picture - the US had no way of knowing just
how much support Pakistan was in fact giving.
Initially, some Pakistani police and
civilians, including journalists, were hired by
the US to report on the level of Pakistan's
cooperation in the "war on terror". However, this
failed to generate first-hand information, just as
attempts to monitor bin Laden had failed.
However, by 2003 the US had established a
proxy network among some retired Pakistani Army
officials who were close to Musharraf. Either they
were his college mates from military academy days
or acquainted because of their past military
background and current affiliations with strategic
publications or institutions.
In this way
a woman who was once affiliated with civil
aviation in the US and close to the US
establishment penetrated Musharraf's circle of
acquaintances. However, she was soon exposed by
Musharraf's military intelligence and she
disappeared from the scene.
Subsequently,
the US establishment did manage, through a
civilian cousin of Musharraf, to recruit an army
brigadier. He took early retirement and joined a
US think tank, and then traveled frequently
between the US and Pakistan to stay in touch with
important decision-makers in the army. But this
channel was only acquired in 2004, when most key
post-September 11 developments in the region had
already matured.
On the basis of such
flawed intelligence, the US's "war on terror"
could not go anywhere.
Hollow
victories Kate Martin has served as
director of the Center for National Security
Studies, a civil liberties organization in
Washington DC, since 1992. She is a graduate of
Pomona College and the University of Virginia law
school. She has taught strategic intelligence and
public policy at Georgetown University law school
and also served on the general council of the
National Security Archives from 1995 to 2002.
Talking to Asia Times Online, she termed
the US strategy in the "war on terror" as
"hollow". According to her research, none of the
people arrested since September 11 has been of any
real substance in the sense of coming to terms
with al-Qaeda (this despite frequent statements to
the contrary by the Bush administration, as well
as Pakistani authorities).
In a paper,
"Secret Arrests and Preventive Detention", she
recorded that in the four months following
September 11, the US government secretly arrested
and jailed nearly 1,200 individuals, both citizens
and non-citizens. More than 600 people were
charged with immigration violations, most of whom
probably had no lawyer and were subjected to
secret hearings from which the government excluded
family and friends.
"These people were
victims of the USA Patriot Act, which included the
most controversial provisions sought by the Bush
administration and provided for the preventive
detention of non-citizens who had not been charged
with anything, on the sole say of the attorney
general," said Martin.
As many of the
people were picked up on flawed intelligence, it
only resulted in the victimization of innocents,
while the real suspects remained out of reach.
Antagonism toward the US in the Muslim world grew,
which in turn translated into local al-Qaeda
"franchises" springing up.
They hunt
him here ..... Pentagon officials claim
they know where bin Laden is. "We know exactly
where he lives, in tribal areas between Pakistan
and Afghanistan. However, a direct operation in
that area would certainly disturb the US
relationship with Pakistan as part of it is
Pakistani territory," Robert R Reilly, senior
advisor for information strategies in the office
of the US Secretary of Defense, has said.
This of course might just be bravado,
although most (Western) media reports suggest that
this is indeed where bin Laden might be ensconced.
Other Pentagon staffers are less open in
their assessments. Off the record, some admit that
the US had really expected that with the arrest of
a number of al-Qaeda operators (including those
linked to September 11) that the organization
would be exposed, and that they would be led to
bin Laden and Zawahiri. But all they got their
hands on were spent forces.
Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed is a case in point. He was arrested in
March 2003, and is said to have been the
mastermind behind the September 11 attacks. But
Pakistani officials had known about his presence
in the country (in Karachi) for a long time, as
well as that of his children.
He had been
in constant touch with the owner of a publication
that was once considered an ISI proxy publication.
Through the same person, Khalid communicated with
some Afghans. By the time he was arrested, he was
of little value beyond shedding light on past
events as al-Qaeda had cut all ties with him.
Pentagon insiders complain that huge sums
of money were allocated in the hunt for al-Qaeda
bigwigs, including for the payment of informers.
The US delivered the money to the government of
Pakistan, but much of it went straight into the
treasury. Informers only received small sums,
ranging from $1,000 to $3,000, despite the
multi-million dollar rewards offered.
This
seriously undermined the whole reward program and
the efforts to find bin Laden.
Follow
the money Efforts to track bin Laden's
financial network suffered from the same flawed
intelligence that dogged the "war on terror". Just
as al-Qaeda regrouped in South Waziristan, so the
money followed it to South Waziristan's local
banks.
As a general rule, accounts in this
region don't exceed a few thousand dollars.
However, a financial team found that after 2002
some accounts had rocketed to hold as much as a
million dollars. A similar trend was found in
banks in Lahore and Karachi. Eventually, the State
Bank of Pakistan directed all bank branches to
reveal their clients and sources of money. Once
serious investigations started, many accounts went
unclaimed.
By this time, millions of
dollars had already been moved around, showing how
quickly al-Qaeda was able to reorganize its
financial arteries.
Thousands of dollars
were also found on smaller al-Qaeda operators
arrested in Pakistan. They confirmed that they had
acquired the money through the hawala
system, a non-banking financial channel through
which money is transferred between countries -
often with Dubai in the United Arab Emirates as a
hub. African countries also use the system.
US intelligence also claims that Muslim
charities and funds are used as a front for
funding al-Qaeda activities. This might be true to
an extent, but al-Qaeda does invest in other
areas.
Douglas Farah has made this his
area of expertise, now as a consultant and
freelance writer on terror finance and national
security matters. In the Meridian Center,
Washington DC, he was very comfortable in his
shorts while having a light lunch with this
correspondent.
"Most of al-Qaeda's
investments are in non-traditional areas. Stones
and diamonds are just one area where al-Qaeda
invested a lot, and this is mostly in West
Africa," Farah maintained.
As West Africa
bureau chief for the Washington Post, Farah
traveled extensively in the region and became so
close to the story of "conflict" diamonds and gems
and arms smuggling that he had to leave after
receiving threats to his life.
Farah
insists that gems are the major component of
al-Qaeda's financing. The CIA rejects this on the
grounds that since Shi'ite and Jewish hegemonies
control this trade, they would not allow al-Qaeda
to penetrate their domain.
This fixed
mindset is an endless source of frustration for
many in US intelligence.
In the past 12
months, US intelligence has found an unholy nexus
between some pro-Taliban warlords in the south of
Afghanistan and Tajik and Uzbek warlords in the
north involved in the narcotics trade. This is a
marriage of convenience, as the groups have been
at loggerheads for decades, but it is a
billion-dollar source of funds. (See Opium gold unites US friends and
foes Asia Times Online, September 3.)
Which way to turn? During a
recent speech, President George W Bush claimed
that no act on the part of the US had inspired a
reaction from terrorists, and he said that
"complete victory" was the only acceptable answer
in the "war on terror".
But what he failed
to explain was how victory would be achieved in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Wade Y Ishimoto is a
senior advisor in the office of the Assistant
Secretary of Defense in the US, with emphasis on
special operations and low-intensity conflicts. He
is from Hawaii and has been involved in the field
of US-supported insurgencies since the Vietnam
War.
Wade believes that the US has
deviated from traditional methods of dealing with
insurgencies. "Libraries in this section are full
of books on how to handle insurgencies," Wade
lifted a book. "This one was written in 1969, and
is the [standard] manual for handling
insurgencies. These are the old, known ways to
handle insurgencies; even if somebody [an
insurgent] tries to adopt other ways, the result
will not be different, as [it is] in Iraq and in
Afghanistan," Wade said.
"So now things
are beyond control. Especially in Iraq, where even
if Saddam Hussein is brought back, he would not be
able to handle the situation," said Wade.
In a recent article in National Defense,
Wade was quoted as saying, "One of the biggest
lessons the United States has learned from
fighting al-Qaeda is that we cannot do it all
ourselves. Special operations forces, for example,
need other countries' assistance in collecting
intelligence and recruiting agents. When we can
rely on a foreign liaison, it decreases our need
for linguists, and increases our productivity."
After four years, the US still has much to
think about on the direction that the "war on
terror" is taking.
Syed Saleem
Shahzad, Bureau Chief, Pakistan Asia Times
Online. He can be reached at
saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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