War pitch belied by Taliban-al-Qaeda strife
By Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON - United States Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen argued in senate testimony last
week that the 30,000-troop increase was necessary to prevent the Taliban from
giving new safe havens to al-Qaeda.
But that argument is flatly contradicted by the evidence of fundamental
conflicts between the interests of the Taliban and those of al-Qaeda that have
emerged in recent years, according to counter-terrorism and intelligence
analysts specializing in Afghanistan.
Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee, "Taliban-ruled
areas could in short order become once again sanctuary for al-Qaeda, as well as
a staging area for resurgent militant groups on the offensive in Pakistan."
Mullen made the same assertion in even more pointed terms. "[T]o argue that
should they have ... power the Taliban would not at least tolerate the presence
of al-Qaeda on Afghan soil is to ignore both the recent past and the evidence
we see every day of collusion between these factions on both sides of the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border," he said.
"Put simply, the Taliban and al-Qaeda have become symbiotic," said Gates, "each
benefiting from the success and mythology of the other."
It is well known among government officials working on Afghanistan and
al-Qaeda, however, that serious tensions between the two organizations emerged
after the attack on the Red Mosque in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad in
July 2007.
The mosque was attacked by Pakistani troops after a siege of Islamic militants
inside calling for the overthrow of the Pakistani government. Al-Qaeda
responded by supporting the demand, and it marked the beginning of al-Qaeda's
open alignment with forces attacking the Pakistani military and government.
That created a serious conflict between al-Qaeda and the Taliban in
Afghanistan, according to specialists who followed the issue closely. The
Taliban leadership, which is based in Quetta, Pakistan, had been depending on
assistance from the Pakistani military to increase its military capabilities
and did not look kindly on that al-Qaeda policy.
Despite widespread confusion over the two, the Tehrik-e-Taliban, the Pakistani
jihadi group that has been an umbrella organization for the military campaign
against the Pakistani military, is not related to the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani group, which has now changed its name, is a close ally of
al-Qaeda, but does not see eye-to-eye with the Afghan Taliban.
Ignoring these turning points in the Taliban's relationships with both al-Qaeda
and other Pakistani jihadi groups, Gates suggested that the three groups are
closer than ever before. "What we have seen in the last year develop is an
unholy alliance, if you will, of al-Qaeda, the Taliban in Pakistan and the
Taliban in Afghanistan," he said.
Two former counter-terrorism intelligence specialists who followed the Taliban
closely until earlier this year told Inter Press Service that the facts did not
support the portrayal by Gates and Mullen of the Taliban and al-Qaeda as
ideologically united.
"We make a serious mistake in equating the two organizations," said Arturo
Munoz, who was a supervisory operations officer in the Central Intelligence
Agency's Counter-terrorism Center from 2001 to 2009 and is now a senior
political scientist at the RAND Corporation.
Munoz called the Taliban "a homespun Pashtun, locally-based revolutionary
movement with a set of goals that are not necessarily those of al Qaeda".
"It is well known that deals have been made between the Taliban and Pakistani
commanders," said Munoz. "Obviously the Quetta shura [the top Taliban
leadership organ] is located there because of a deal with the Pakistani
government."
But al-Qaeda's view has been different. "The more fanatical al-Qaeda types say
'let's tear apart Pakistani society'," he observed.
Veteran specialist on counter-terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Rick
"Ozzie" Nelson, agreed that the relationship between al-Qaeda and the Taliban
that has evolved in recent years is very different from the one they had up to
2001.
"The Taliban is a nationalist organization, which wants to govern Afghanistan
under sharia law, not attack the United States," said Nelson, who was on the
inaugural staff of the National Counter-Terrorism Center's Directorate of
Strategic Operational Planning in the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence from 2005 to 2007.
Nelson directed a joint task force in Afghanistan until early 2009 and is now
in the International Security Program of the Center for Strategic and
International Studies.
"The Red Mosque was a big deal," Nelson recalled. The al Qaeda-directed assault
on the mosque and subsequent Taliban reaction to its jihadi campaign in
Pakistan were what convinced officials that "their goals have become more
divergent", he said.
More recently, counter-terrorism analysts have noted that the gap has widened
even further, as the Taliban leadership has gone public with a "nationalist"
line that openly departs from al-Qaeda's global jihadi stance.
Taliban leader Mullah Omar's September 19 message for Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim
holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, called the Taliban a
"robust Islamic and nationalist movement" which "wants to maintain good and
positive relations with all neighbors based on mutual respect".
The message went on to assure "all countries" that a Taliban state "will not
extend its hand to jeopardize others, as it itself does not allow others to
jeopardize us".
In October, the Taliban sent a letter to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
repeating its offer of good relations, despite the fact that at least three of
its member states (China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) are the targets of armed
resistance by jihadi allies of al-Qaeda.
That line of thinking has created a firestorm among commentators associated
with the al-Qaeda global jihad worldview, according to Vahid Brown, research
associate at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. In an article
published on the Foreign Policy magazine website on October 21, Brown cited a
series of angry responses to the Taliban leader's message from jihadi
publicists across the Middle East.
One rejoinder from one of the most influential jihadi ideologues referred to
the Omar message as "dangerous utterances", likening the nationalist line taken
in it to the refusal of the Hamas leader, Khaled Mashal, to support the Chechen
jihad against the Russian government, which is anathema to the global jihadi
community.
Later discussions on several jihadi Internet forums clearly recognized that a
major rift had developed between al-Qaeda and the Taliban. One commentary even
referred to "the beginning of the end of relations" between the two.
Gates tried to minimize such evidence by suggesting that Taliban officials were
engaging in deception. He said Taliban leaders "recognize that the reason they
are not in power right now is because they allowed al-Qaeda to launch attacks
against the United States", and referred to reports that "the Taliban is
saying, 'Well let's downplay the relationship with al-Qaeda so we don't get hit
again'”.
What Gates failed to mention is that Taliban officials are furious at Osama bin
Laden's attacks against the United States, because he had given a written
pledge, referred to by Mullah Omar in a June 2001 interview with conservative
journalist, Arnaud de Borchgrave, not to attack any other country from his
Afghan base.
President Barack Obama appears to have been informed about the evidence of
divergent Taliban and al-Qaeda interests. Senior administration officials told
the New York Times in early October, evidently with the encouragement of the
White House, that the Taliban were now viewed by the national security team as
a group that did not have "ambitions to attack the United States".
Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing
in US national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book,
Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was
published in 2006.
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