Two cities and the Afghan insurgency
By Brian M Downing
In the past week, American, British and Afghan troops launched a major campaign
around the southern Afghan city of Marjah in Helmand province - part of the
counter-insurgency program begun in earnest last year. Shortly thereafter, far
to the south in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, a major Taliban figure was
taken into custody. The two events may help bring about a negotiated
settlement.
All go in Marjah Operations began near the central Helmand town with little prospect of a
large-scale battle with Taliban bands that had operated freely there. The
much-publicized buildup to the operation might have been throwing down the
gauntlet and challenging the Taliban to a major battle, but the Taliban know
such engagements go badly for them as their levies are no match
for a Western unit's cohesion and firepower - a lesson learned repeatedly over
the years.
Marjah is not a large city but it is a large town. The 80,000 inhabitants lived
under Taliban rule - an embarrassment to Kabul and Washington alike. Further,
it is a major center of the opium trade - a source of Taliban revenue, though
one often exaggerated. The town will become a logistical and administrative
center for counter-insurgency programs: school construction, well-digging,
medical and veterinary services, agricultural support, and the like.
The operation seeks to demonstrate the combat efficacy of the Afghan National
Army (ANA). The West has made great efforts to build the ANA but has been
disappointed by its performance in the field, which unfortunately ranges from
desultory skirmishes with local insurgents to negotiated truces with them.
Perhaps most importantly, the Marjah operation is designed to stop the momentum
the Taliban has been building over the past several years, which leads many
Afghans to believe that the Taliban will once again rule the country and that
they must sooner or later settle with them. Taliban success has come less from
craft in the field than from blunders in Kabul and distractions in Washington,
which left the country open to Taliban parleys with various tribal leaders.
Success over the years has left parts of the Taliban leadership with confidence
that they can conquer most of Afghanistan, as they did in the mid-1990s. The
campaign into Marjah, in conjunction with counter-insurgency programs and
tribal diplomacy elsewhere, will seek to break that confidence and force the
Taliban to a negotiated settlement.
Thus far, fighting has been relatively light. Most Taliban fighters fled the
town during the buildup; others are putting up sporadic resistance, setting up
explosive devices, and preparing to melt into the population if need be. They
will also seek to bring Western firepower down upon civilians - a tactic in
which the Taliban have developed expertise over the years - making
counter-insurgency programs in coming months less likely to take hold in
aggrieved people.
Action in Karachi
More significant news comes out of Karachi, the Pakistani port city that has
filled with Pashtun refugees over the years and to which the Taliban's chief
council, fearing drone strikes, has fled from Quetta, the capital of
Balochistan province. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, second to Mullah Omar in the
Taliban leadership, was captured by Pakistani and American intelligence
officials. Reports indicate that he is providing intelligence, though his
colleagues would have changed locations on his disappearance.
Though Baradar's capture is a welcome event in the fight with the Taliban, his
importance is well below that of Mullah Omar, who leads the movement and
settles disputes through charismatic power, and perhaps even below that of the
regional commanders, who direct local operations in Afghanistan. A few of these
regional commanders have been killed in ambushes or by drones, but replaced
without the movement suffering badly. French General Charles de Gaulle once
noted that cemeteries were filled with irreplaceable people. The same might be
said of Pakistani prisons.
More important than Baradar's capture is Pakistani intelligence's
(Inter-Services Intelligence) apparent cooperation. Heretofore, the ISI has
helped capture or assassinate mid-level al-Qaeda personnel and leaders of the
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistani Taliban). The former are expendable; the
latter were so unwise as to launch an attack toward Islamabad. But the ISI has
been protective of the Taliban. Pakistani generals have long seen the Taliban
as allies against their traditional enemy of India, which for its part has been
extending its influence in northern Afghanistan.
This comes after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Joint Chiefs of Staff
head Admiral Mike Mullen and CENTCOM commander General David Petraeus had
criticized Pakistan, often surprisingly publicly, for its less than forthcoming
help in finding Taliban leaders, who have enjoyed sanctuary in Pakistan since
their expulsion from Afghanistan in 2001.
Pressure might also have been placed, in private, by China, which though allied
to Pakistan by common opposition to India, is worried about the spread of
Islamist militancy from its hub in Pakistan to China's western provinces, where
Islamic peoples such as the Uyghurs chafe under Beijing's distant and
insensitive rule. And Uyghur fighters are reported to be serving with al-Qaeda
bands along the Af-Pak frontier in eastern Afghanistan, acquiring skills they
might use back home.
Pakistan might have calculated that its support for the Taliban was endangering
relations with the US and China, which supply them with modern arms, lavish aid
and favorable trade policies. But Baradar's capture is by no means evidence of
any such strategic reappraisal.
Pakistan likely, and probably correctly, sees the US and the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization withdrawing most of their forces from Afghanistan over the
next few years - an assessment made only more probably by President Barack
Obama's stated intention to begin leaving in 2011. Baradar might simply be a
token betrayal - a sacrificed pawn - to soothe American frustration over an
intractable war.
Baradar's capture, however, might be part of a Pakistani effort to press the
Taliban, who now have cause to fear their sanctuaries and support, into a
negotiated settlement in which Pakistan sees itself playing a major role. The
Taliban would get a few portfolios in the Kabul government and control over
parts of the Pashtun regions, which from the perspective of Pakistani generals,
would constitute a serviceable defensive glacis.
The Taliban are thought to be split over a negotiated settlement. Some see a
powerful but weakening West but know that just behind it are regional powers
India, Iran, and Russia who will back the northern peoples of Afghanistan and
fight the Taliban endlessly - to the last Afghan if need be. Others in the
Taliban, buoyed (perhaps unreasonably) by recent success, are less amenable to
negotiations and seek to reconquer the country.
Taliban leader Mullah Omar has consistently said he would not negotiate until
all foreign troops withdrew from Afghanistan. But he is an odd combination of
mysticism and political savvy, and is known to settle major disputes in
strategy and politics through the force of his own charismatic authority. His
capture or death would fracture the movement and move many parts of it toward a
negotiated settlement.
Brian M Downing is a political/military analyst and the author of
The Military Revolution and Political Change and The Paths of Glory: War
and Social Change in America from the Great War to Vietnam. He can be reached at
brianmdowning@gmail.com.
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