OSAMA BIN
LADEN
Osama bin Laden first traveled to Afghanistan as one of the
25,000 Islamic militants from more than 50 countries who flocked to
the jihad (holy war) against the Soviets. The Muslim
volunteers were referred to colloquially as "Afghan Arabs,"
although many were Turks, Bengalis, or members of other ethnic
groups. Many of these foreign veterans of the Afghan war have
returned to their native countries to spearhead radical
revolutionary organizations, particularly in Algeria, Egypt,
Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen.1
Bin Laden, a Saudi, is the youngest son of a Saudi construction
magnate who built a $5 billion family fortune and left an estimated
$80 million to his son when he died in 1968. After the 1979 Soviet
invasion, bin Laden served primarily as a fund-raiser and recruiter
who publicized the jihad and helped transport Arab volunteers to
Afghanistan.
In 1984, bin Laden moved to Peshawar, a Pakistani city near the
Afghan border that served as a staging area for the Afghan
resistance. He became more involved in the logistics of supporting
the jihad, bringing earth-moving equipment from his family's
construction company to carve out roads and bunkers in the rugged
terrain of eastern Afghanistan along the border with Pakistan.
Bin Laden did little actual fighting. He worked closely with
Pakistani military officials and Saudi intelligence officials, but
he did not have a relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA), which also supported the Afghan resistance.2 Milt
Bearden, the CIA station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989,
denied cooperating with bin Laden, but he knew of his efforts:
"There were a lot of bin Ladens who came to do jihad, and they
unburdened us a lot. These guys were bringing in up to twenty to
twenty-five million dollars a month from other Saudis and Gulf
Arabs to underwrite the war."3
Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia after the 1989 Soviet
withdrawal from Afghanistan.4 He was disturbed, however,
by the dispatch of American troops to protect Saudi Arabia from
Iraq following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. He
perceived the U.S. troops not as defenders, but as occupiers, like
the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. After he became increasingly
critical of the Saudi royal family, which he denounced for
corruption, he was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991, and his
family publicly disowned him.
Bin Laden went into exile in Sudan as a guest of the radical
Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi, with whom bin Laden had met
frequently regarding the Afghan jihad. Saudi and American
diplomatic pressure led Sudan to expel bin Laden in May 1996, and
he returned to Afghanistan, where the radical Taliban was gathering
momentum. Like Lenin returning to Russia, bin Laden's return was
timely. He promptly gave the Taliban $3 million to finance the
successful capture of the cities of Jalalabad and
Kabul.5
1. James Bruce, "Arab Veterans of the
Afghan War," Jane's Intelligence Review, April 1, 1995, p.
175.
2. Frank Smyth, "Culture Clash: Bin
Laden, Khartoum and the War Against the West," Jane's
Intelligence Review, October 1, 1998, p. 22.
3. Mary Anne Weaver, "The Real Bin
Laden," The New Yorker, January 24, 2000, p. 34. Former CIA
official Vincent Cannistraro has also denied that the CIA
cooperated with bin Laden. See Vincent Cannistraro, "Holy
Terrorism," The Washington Post, February 9, 2000, p.
A20.
4. Significantly, the August 7, 1998,
bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania came on the
anniversary of the introduction of the first American troops into
Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Shield in 1990.
5. Weaver, "The Real Bin Laden," p.
37.
Such
a plan would require a major shift in American policy. Since the
Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the United States has all but ignored
Afghanistan, a poor, distant, landlocked country slightly smaller
than Texas. Washington has underestimated its geopolitical,
humanitarian, and security interests in Afghanistan. Afghanistan
historically has been a strategic crossroads controlling major
north-south and east-west land routes. It functioned as a buffer
state between the British and Russian empires in the 19th century
and was a major battleground of the Cold War. The Soviet occupation
of Afghanistan produced a humanitarian disaster: 2 million dead,
the world's largest refugee population, a limping economy,
shattered infrastructure, and a traumatized civil society. Now
Afghanistan has emerged as a breeding ground for Islamic revolution
and terrorism.
In
the critical period following the 1992 collapse of the Afghan
communist regime, the United States missed an opportunity to play a
constructive role. Afghanistan plunged into anarchy as rival
resistance groups fought a prolonged civil war. The absence of
American involvement weakened and demoralized moderate Afghan
groups and allowed Pakistan to help create and support the radical
Taliban ("Islamic students" or "seekers") movement. This
ultra-fundamentalist Muslim group, unknown before 1994, now
dominates Afghanistan both politically and militarily and provides
support to a wide spectrum of radical Islamic groups, including
Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.
The
United States must end its passive neglect of the festering
situation in Afghanistan. Rather than focusing narrowly on bin
Laden, Washington should develop a broad regional strategy and
cooperate with other countries to uproot the Taliban regime that
protects and sustains him. It should push for broad-based
international sanctions on trade and arms that would reduce the
Taliban's ability to repress the Afghan people and export
terrorism. The United States must adopt a more forceful, proactive
strategy to contain the Taliban regime, cut off its external
support, bolster internal Afghan opposition to its radical
policies, encourage defections from its ranks, and build an
inclusive Afghan government willing to live in peace with its
neighbors.
TERRORISM'S GROUND ZERO
Since 1996, Afghanistan has been ground
zero for an international terrorist network controlled by Osama bin
Laden. At the heart of the network is Al Qaeda ("the base"), an
umbrella group that functions as a clearinghouse, dispensing money,
logistical support, and training to a wide variety of radical
Islamic terrorist groups. Al Qaeda is loosely organized, but it is
broadly based and has a global reach. Al Qaeda is emblematic of a
new model for terrorism: stateless, diffuse networks of individuals
united by a radical ideology rather than common ethnic or national
origins.3 It has created cells in more than 50 countries
and has linked itself to numerous already established Muslim
extremist groups.4 Two key allies are the Egyptian
Islamic radical groups Al Jihad and Gamaat Islamiya.
Al
Qaeda uses training camps in Afghanistan and Sudan to prepare
Islamic militants for revolutionary struggles in countries such as
Algeria, Bosnia, Chechnya, Dagestan, Egypt, Kashmir, Lebanon, the
Philippines, Russia, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and
Uzbekistan. Al Qaeda has also sent its members to Lebanon for bomb
training from the pro-Iranian Hezballah terrorist organization and
has entered into a formal "working agreement" with Iran and Sudan
to work together against the United States, Israel, and the
West.5
Bin
Laden is believed to preside over a loose network of 3,000 to 5,000
Muslim militants dispersed around the world.6 He
functions as Al Qaeda's chief financier, propagandist, and
ideological theorist, but not as a tactical planner.7
Bin Laden has hidden his personal fortune, estimated at $250
million-$300 million, in an intricate web of approximately 60
companies spread among many different countries. Ahmed Refai Taha,
an Egyptian militant, essentially functions as bin Laden's military
commander.8 In August 1996, bin Laden issued a
"declaration of war" against the United States and outlined his
goals: to drive U.S. military forces from the Arabian peninsula,
overthrow the government of Saudi Arabia, "liberate" Muslim holy
sites in "Palestine," and support Islamic revolutionary groups
around the world.9
The
results of bin Laden's efforts have been deadly. His henchmen are
responsible for hundreds of terrorist attacks including a failed
June 26, 1995, attempt to assassinate Egypt's President Hosni
Mubarak. The August 1999 incursion into the Russian province of
Dagestan, which helped trigger Russia's 1999 crackdown in Chechnya,
and the February 1999 bombings in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, are also
the work of bin Laden's network or organizations linked to it. Bin
Laden is believed to be the chief financial backer of the Abu
Sayyaf Group, which seeks to carve an independent Muslim state out
of the southern Philippines. Bin Laden was implicated in failed
plots to assassinate Pope John Paul II during a 1995 trip to
Manila, to bomb the U.S. and Israeli embassies in Manila and
Bangkok, and to perpetrate a series of Asian airline
bombings.10
Bin Laden's War
Against America
Bin Laden has been implicated in a long string of attacks
on Americans. His first terrorist attack was a December 1992
bombing of a hotel in Yemen used by American soldiers en route to
humanitarian operations in Somalia.11 Bin Laden told CNN
in March 1997 that he had trained the "Afghan Arabs" who helped to
kill 18 American soldiers in Somalia in 1993. In addition, he was
implicated as a possible unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993
World Trade Center bombing in New York City, which killed six and
wounded over 1,000.12
Bin
Laden's network remains a prime suspect in two bombings against
American targets in Saudi Arabia: a 1995 bombing that killed five
American military advisers in Riyadh and the 1996 bombing of the
Khobar Towers housing complex that killed 19 American military
personnel.13 According to U.S. government sources, bin
Laden also hatched two failed plots to assassinate President Bill
Clinton. The first was during Clinton's November 1994 visit to the
Philippines, and the second was during a planned February 1999
visit to Pakistan that was cancelled.14
Over
time, bin Laden's public rhetoric has become increasingly hostile
toward Americans. In February 1998, bin Laden announced the
formation of the "International Islamic Front for Jihad Against
Jews and Crusaders" and signed a fatwa
(religious edict) calling on all Muslims "to kill the Americans and
their allies--civilian and military." According to the CIA, this
was the first time bin Laden publicly sought to justify the killing
of American civilians.15
Six
months later, bin Laden's supporters detonated two truck bombs
outside the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi,
Kenya, killing 224 people, including 12 Americans, and wounding
more than 5,000. The United States responded on August 20, 1998, by
launching 75 cruise missiles against several of bin Laden's
training camps near Khost, Afghanistan, and against a
pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, suspected of making
chemical weapons for bin Laden.16
Washington is particularly interested in
preempting a chemical weapon strike because bin Laden has shown an
interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction since at least
1993. In November 1998, CIA officials confirmed that bin Laden
sought to acquire chemical weapons for attacks on U.S. troops in
the Persian Gulf region.17 CIA Director George Tenet
testified before Congress in March 2000 that bin Laden was the
"foremost" terrorist threat to the United States and that "his
operatives have trained to conduct attacks with toxic chemicals or
biological toxins."18
In
December 1999, bin Laden's supporters made concerted efforts to
disrupt millennium celebrations inside the United States and
abroad. The CIA received reports that operatives linked to bin
Laden would carry out as many as 15 terrorist attacks around the
world.19 In early December, American intelligence and
law enforcement agencies cooperated with several other governments
to arrest 13 men in Amman, Jordan, who were planning to attack
Americans. Shortly thereafter, the United States and Canada
arrested 26 Algerians suspected of links to bin Laden, including
Ahmed Ressam, a suspected member of the Armed Islamic Group, an
Algerian terrorist organization, who was arrested entering the
United States with explosives.
Bin
Laden's terrorist network appears to have been somewhat weakened by
arrests on three continents, infiltration by various intelligence
agencies, and electronic surveillance.20 The United
States has gained access to at least two defectors from Al Qaeda,
including its former finance director.21 Bin Laden,
fearing infiltration by U.S. intelligence agencies, has replaced
his Arab bodyguards in Afghanistan with Pakistani and Bangladeshi
militants, according to Pakistani officials.22 He also
is "placing increased emphasis on developing surrogates to carry
out attacks in an effort to avoid detection," according to CIA
Director Tenet.23 Such surrogates include Egypt's Al
Jihad organization, which was responsible for the 1981
assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and Algeria's
Armed Islamic Group. Bin Laden has funded both of these
organizations for years.
Bin
Laden reportedly has serious health problems, described variously
as kidney failure, heart and circulatory problems, or bone marrow
disease. These health reports may be a smoke screen to divert
attention away from bin Laden and his Taliban hosts. If he does
die, however, the CIA reportedly believes that the leader of the Al
Jihad group, Ayman al-Zawahiri, will assume control of his
organization.24 Other factions in the loose-knit Al
Qaeda organization, though, might launch independent terrorist
attacks to prove their own strength.
The
United States has ratcheted up the pressure on bin Laden. He is now
on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitive list, and there is a $5
million reward for his capture. The United States has pressed the
Taliban to surrender bin Laden but has been repeatedly rebuffed.
Washington imposed economic sanctions on the Taliban regime in July
1999 and prompted the United Nations Security Council to follow
suit in November 1999. Despite growing diplomatic and economic
pressures, the Taliban regime has refused to cooperate. The reasons
for this defiance--which ultimately could threaten the Taliban's
hold on power--lie in the nature of the Taliban and the Afghan
political scene.
AFGHANISTAN'S JIHAD AND CIVIL WAR
Islamic networks have long played a vital
role in mobilizing Afghans and implementing Pakistani foreign
policy. The Islamic rebellion sparked by the April 1978 communist
coup in Kabul mushroomed into a broad-based war of national
resistance following the December 1979 Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan. The resistance quickly took on a strong Islamic cast,
in part because the communists swiftly eradicated secular
urban-based opposition. Also, a network of local mullahs (clerics) organized, motivated,
and led the rural tribesmen that formed the core of the resistance,
while unifying disparate tribes and isolated villages in
Afghanistan's remote valleys. They declared that the war against
the Soviets was a jihad (holy war),
and the fighters called themselves mujahideen (holy warriors).
AFGHANISTAN
FACTS
Population Total: 25,824,882 (July 1999 est.)
Population Breakdown by Ethnicity:
Pushtun 38%
Tajik 25%
Hazara 19%
Uzbek 6%
Minor ethnic groups (Aimaks, Turkmen, Baloch, and others) 12 %
Population Breakdown by Religion:
Sunni Muslim 84%
Shia Muslim 15%
Other 1%
Gross Domestic Product: $20 billion (1998 est.)
GDP per capita: $800 (1998 est.)
Natural Resources: natural gas, petroleum, coal, copper,
talc, barites, sulfur, lead, zinc, iron ore, salt, precious and
semiprecious stones
Export Goods: fruits and nuts, handwoven carpets, wool,
cotton, hides and pelts, precious and semiprecious gems
Source: U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, The World
Factbook, 1999.
Neighboring Pakistan, which granted sanctuary to
more than 3.5 million Afghan refugees, became the chief sponsor of
the mujahideen. Because Afghan nationalism was a threat to
Pakistani interests, Pakistan encouraged the Afghan resistance to
organize along Islamic rather than nationalist
principles.25
From
Pakistan's perspective, an Islamic Afghan regime installed in Kabul
with Pakistani help would be a natural ally. Such an ally could
help Muslim Pakistan block Soviet expansion and give Pakistan
strategic depth with respect to arch-rival India. Yet Pakistani
President Zia al-Haq had been a military adviser in Jordan in 1970
and personally had observed the brutal fighting between the
Jordanian army and the Palestine Liberation Organization. As a
result, he was anxious to avoid a similar uprising among Afghan
guerrillas given sanctuary in Pakistan. Pakistan therefore sought
to forestall the formation of a unified Afghan resistance movement
that could operate independently of Islamabad. Pakistan's
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Agency, which controlled the flow
of supplies to Pakistani-based mujahideen, funneled aid to seven
rival resistance groups in order to divide the mujahideen and keep
them as dependent on Pakistan as possible.26 Mohammed
Yousef, former Director of the ISI, revealed that the ISI channeled
more than 70 percent of American and Saudi aid to extremist
mujahideen groups.27
AFGHANISTAN'S JIHAD AND CIVIL
WAR
Islamic networks have long played a vital role in
mobilizing Afghans and implementing Pakistani foreign policy. The
Islamic rebellion sparked by the April 1978 communist coup in Kabul
mushroomed into a broad-based war of national resistance following
the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The resistance
quickly took on a strong Islamic cast, in part because the
communists swiftly eradicated secular urban-based opposition. Also,
a network of local mullahs (clerics)
organized, motivated, and led the rural tribesmen that formed the
core of the resistance, while unifying disparate tribes and
isolated villages in Afghanistan's remote valleys. They declared
that the war against the Soviets was a jihad (holy war), and the fighters called
themselves mujahideen (holy
warriors).
Neighboring Pakistan, which granted
sanctuary to more than 3.5 million Afghan refugees, became the
chief sponsor of the mujahideen. Because Afghan nationalism was a
threat to Pakistani interests, Pakistan encouraged the Afghan
resistance to organize along Islamic rather than nationalist
principles.25
From
Pakistan's perspective, an Islamic Afghan regime installed in Kabul
with Pakistani help would be a natural ally. Such an ally could
help Muslim Pakistan block Soviet expansion and give Pakistan
strategic depth with respect to arch-rival India. Yet Pakistani
President Zia al-Haq had been a military adviser in Jordan in 1970
and personally had observed the brutal fighting between the
Jordanian army and the Palestine Liberation Organization. As a
result, he was anxious to avoid a similar uprising among Afghan
guerrillas given sanctuary in Pakistan. Pakistan therefore sought
to forestall the formation of a unified Afghan resistance movement
that could operate independently of Islamabad. Pakistan's
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Agency, which controlled the flow
of supplies to Pakistani-based mujahideen, funneled aid to seven
rival resistance groups in order to divide the mujahideen and keep
them as dependent on Pakistan as possible.26 Mohammed
Yousef, former Director of the ISI, revealed that the ISI channeled
more than 70 percent of American and Saudi aid to extremist
mujahideen groups.27
MAJOR FACTIONS IN AFGHANISTAN
Following the April 1992 collapse of
Afghan President Najibullah's communist dictatorship, a loose
coalition of resistance groups took power in Kabul. Fifty-one
political and religious leaders formed an interim ruling council
that selected as its leader Sibgatullah Mojadidi, the leader of the
National Front for the Rescue of Afghanistan, one of the smallest
mujahideen groups. Mojadidi was chosen as acting president in part
because he did not pose a threat to the power of the stronger
mujahideen organizations, who zealously guarded their
independence.
Nevertheless, the broad mujahideen
coalition rapidly dissolved into warring factions when the new
government was opposed by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The ruthless leader
of one of the largest and most radical mujahideen groups, the Party
of Islam, Hekmatyar was a virulently anti-Western revolutionary who
was determined to seize absolute power. Arab Islamic radicals,
Libya, and Pakistan gave him the lion's share of the foreign arms
supplied to the mujahideen. Hekmatyar's forces besieged Kabul from
1992 to 1996, bombarding the city with artillery and rockets that
killed thousands of civilians. Periodically he launched offensives
against the city in league with a shifting constellation of other
anti-government groups, such as the Unity Party, an Iranian-backed
umbrella coalition of Shia Muslim groups.
The
backbone of the provisional government was Burhannudin Rabbani's
Islamic Society, a moderate Islamist party predominantly composed
of ethnic Tajiks from northern Afghanistan. Rabbani replaced
Mojadidi as president in June 1992 and refused to relinquish the
rotating presidency in December 1994 as scheduled, because of
escalating fighting.
Rabbani's chief lieutenant, Ahmad Shah
Massoud, was the most effective mujahideen commander to emerge from
the war against the Soviets, earning the nom de guerre "the lion of the Panjshir."
Massoud engineered the final fall of the Najibullah regime in April
1992 by forging an alliance with disaffected Tajik and Uzbek army
and militia commanders who defected in place, allowing Massoud to
sweep into Kabul from his home base in the Panjshir Valley.
Massoud, a pragmatic and popular Tajik political leader as well as
an astute military strategist, became the Minister of Defense and
the linchpin of the provisional government.
The
ebb and flow of the factional fighting for control of Kabul
produced a bewildering series of shifts in factional alliances. In
general, Afghan politics from 1992 to 1996 were highly fluid, with
mid-sized factions seeking to maximize their room to maneuver by
forming a bloc against the strongest faction if it threatened their
independence. In January 1994, after Massoud's forces blocked
Hekmatyar's campaign to storm Kabul and whittled away his military
forces, the Uzbek militia defected from the provisional government.
The militia's leader, General Abdul Rashid Dostam, whose defection
had helped seal the fate of the Najibullah regime, then fought
Massoud's forces to a standstill for two years. The rise of the
Taliban forced both to put aside their differences and join forces
in the Northern Alliance in October 1996.
THE RISE OF THE TALIBAN
The
Taliban first emerged in early 1994 in the Pushtun tribal areas of
southern Afghanistan. The founder of the movement, Mullah Mohammed
Omar, reportedly recruited 30 students from his religious school in
the Maiwand district to rescue three local girls who been kidnapped
and raped by a gang of renegade mujahideen. The Taliban captured
the offenders and hung them from the gun barrel of a
tank.28 This Islamic vigilantism was widely applauded by
Pushtun tribesmen in surrounding areas who were fed up with the
anarchy and corruption that had descended on many regions as rival
mujahideen groups battled for power. Mullah Omar's message was
appealing; he preached that many mujahideen leaders were criminals
whose lust for power and wealth contributed to the suffering of
their people.
As
the Taliban's ranks swelled with new recruits, Mullah Omar
mobilized them to rout local warlords from neighboring villages. In
the summer of 1994, local brigands stopped and seized a truck
convoy owned by influential Pakistanis on the road north of
Kandahar; these brigands had exacted tribute in the form of "tolls"
for many years. Pakistan did not intervene openly but did mobilize
several thousand Afghan Islamic students studying in Pakistan to
march to the Kandahar area and free the convoy. Strengthened by the
influx of young Afghans who had been studying in Pakistani madrassas (religious schools), Mullah Omar
seized control of Kandahar, Afghanistan's second largest city, in
November 1994.
The Taliban quickly added to the territory under
its control. Fired with Islamic zeal, it rolled like a wave out of
southern Afghanistan, with members advancing from town to town
holding copies of the Koran over their heads. Armed opposition
dissolved as rag-tag mujahideen splinter groups defected en masse
to the surging movement. The Taliban's early successes cannot be
attributed solely to military prowess. Instead they can be ascribed
to its political timing, its ethnic appeals to Pushtuns who
resented non-Pushtun domination of Kabul, and its opportunistic
exploitation of the rising discontent with the bloody anarchy that
had plagued Afghanistan since the 1992 collapse of the communist
regime in Kabul.
The
Taliban also benefited from extensive Pakistani logistical and
military support. Pakistan's Interior Ministry mobilized thousands
of young Pushtun students from religious schools and transported
them to the front. These eager zealots, many of whom grew up in
teeming refugee camps in Pakistan, were indoctrinated in the strict
fundamentalist Deobandi school of Islam. Many of their schools were
little more than "jihad factories" that prepared impressionable
young men for continuous warfare.29 The Taliban's
revolutionary ardor and rural roots made them "an Afghan version of
the Khmer Rouge."30
While the overwhelmingly Pushtun Taliban
rapidly consolidated control in Pushtun areas in southern and
eastern Afghanistan, it suffered severe military setbacks in
northern Afghanistan, which was dominated by Afghanistan's Tajik
and Uzbek minorities. A large Taliban force was annihilated after
seizing the city of Mazhar Sharif in May 1998, after arrogantly
trying to disarm local Uzbeks who betrayed General Dostam by
defecting to the Taliban. Massoud's forces repeatedly have
inflicted sharp defeats on advancing Taliban columns that had more
religious piety than military skills.
The
Taliban's failed offensive in the fall of 1999 has fueled
speculation that it is declining in military strength. According to
Peter Tomsen, a leading expert on Afghanistan, "Pushtun youth are
no longer volunteering to join the Taliban, and Pushtun fighters
are leaving the Taliban's ranks, gravitating back to their southern
tribal areas."31 Tomsen estimates that more than 10,000
Pakistanis and one brigade of Arab militants assist the
Taliban.32
Julie Sirrs, an Afghanistan expert who
recently visited northern Afghanistan, confirms that the Taliban
appears to rely heavily on foreign support, given the large number
of Taliban prisoners of war that Massoud has captured who were
originally from Pakistan, China, and Yemen. Sirrs interviewed
foreign POWs who said they joined the Taliban to kill infidels from
America, Russia, and Iran; they were surprised to find out that
they were fighting Afghans who were good Muslims.33 The
Taliban's heavy dependence on foreigners, particularly Pakistanis,
is resented by many Afghans, who distrust foreign influence and
complain about a creeping Pakistani invasion.
AFGHANISTAN
CHRONOLOGY
July 17, 1973: King Zahir Shah ousted by his cousin,
Mohammed Daoud, with communist support. Zahir now lives in
Rome.
April 27, 1978: Daoud overthrown and killed in a bloody
communist coup. Communist reign of terror begins.
Summer 1978: Organized resistance against communist rule
begins.
December 27, 1979: Soviets invade with 85,000 troops to
oust maverick communist dictator Hafizollah Amin and preserve
communist rule. Soviets install Babrak Karmal as new communist
leader.
January 1980: Carter Administration begins American aid
to resistance.
February 1981: Reagan Administration expands aid, often
prompted by U.S. Congress.
1985-1986: Soviet troop strength grows to 120,000. Low
point of war for resistance.
May 1986: Moscow replaces Afghan communist leader Babrak
Karmal with Najibullah, chief of secret police.
April 14, 1988: Geneva Accords signed, setting terms of
Soviet troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.
February 15, 1989: Deadline for Soviet withdrawal set by
Geneva accords. Last Soviet regular forces withdraw; more than 300
Soviet military advisers and an unknown number of KGB personnel
remain.
February 23, 1989: Afghan Interim Government (AIG) formed
in Pakistan.
April 1992: Najibullah's communist regime collapses, and
mujahideen capture Kabul.
1992-Present: Civil war fought between contending
mujahideen factions. Taliban emerges in 1994 and grows rapidly to
become strongest faction.
September 27, 1996: Taliban seizes Kabul.
August 7, 1998: Terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden bomb
U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.
August 20, 1998: United States launches cruise missile
strikes against bin Laden's terrorist training camps in eastern
Afghanistan and a pharmaceuticals plant in Khartoum, Sudan.
July 6, 1999: President Clinton imposes economic
sanctions on Taliban regime.
November 14, 1999: United Nations Security Council
imposes sanctions against Taliban regime.
From Pax
Talibana to Pox Talibana. The Taliban's peculiar
combination of ultra-fundamentalist ideology and rural Pushtun
tribal values steadily grates on the sensitivities of many Afghans,
particularly in urban areas. The Taliban's rigid and puritanical
rule is alien to the tolerant brand of Islam practiced by most
Afghans. Many Afghans regard the Taliban as a foreign movement
influenced by radical Arabs and Pakistanis that has adopted the
militant values of refugee camps rather than the traditional values
of the Afghan village. Many Taliban members are Pushtun chauvinists
who have little sense of Afghanistan's past as a multi-ethnic
society before the Soviet invasion. This has alienated non-Pushtun
minorities.
Many
Afghans and most foreigners have been put off by the Taliban's
strict limitations on women's rights. The Taliban has banned women
from most forms of work outside the home, severely restricted
women's education, and imposed a strict Islamic dress code that
requires women to cloak themselves in full-length burqas , the traditional garb of Pushtun
village women. Up to 250 women have been beaten in a single day in
Kabul for violations of the dress code.34 Men with
clean-shaven faces or short beards have been thrown in jail until
their beards grow to the requisite length.
Even
rural Pushtuns are increasingly fed up with the arrogant bullying
of the self-righteous Taliban. In early 2000, tensions over the
supplanting of local officials by Taliban carpetbaggers from
Kandahar led to disturbances in eastern Afghanistan near Jalalabad.
Traditional tribal and regional cleavages are eroding Taliban
unity, and discipline is breaking down. There are increasing
reports of armed home invasions by Taliban renegades seeking to rob
urban Afghans.35
In
addition to a backlash against the Taliban's harsh rule, there is
growing resentment of their administrative incompetence, as well as
of the failure to provide public services, repair Afghanistan's
infrastructure, and spur economic development. One farmer in
southern Afghanistan lamented, "The Taliban brought us peace. But
they have not brought us jobs. People want more
now."36
The Criminalized
Economy. According to U.S. government estimates,
Afghanistan supplanted Burma as the world's largest producer of
opium in 1999.37 Although the production and consumption
of intoxicants is forbidden in Islam, Taliban leaders allow the
opium trade and rationalize it by noting that it is intended for
export and consumption by kafirs
(nonbelievers) in the West.
The
Taliban controls 97 percent of the territory that produces illicit
opium in Afghanistan.38 It taxes opium dealers at a rate
of up to 20 percent, earning at least $20 million per year in
taxes.39 The United Nations estimates that Afghanistan
produces about 50 percent of the world's heroin supply, including
80 percent of the heroin supplied to Europe.40 Heroin
addiction is rising rapidly among Afghanistan's neighbors: Iran is
believed to have 3 million heroin addicts; Pakistan, which had
virtually no heroin addicts in 1979, had an estimated 5 million in
1999.41
THE GREAT GAME CONTINUES
The
Taliban's rapid ascent to power alarms many of Afghanistan's
neighbors, who fear that the Taliban's fierce Islamic zeal will
have destabilizing spillover effects as it spreads across
Afghanistan's porous borders. Afghanistan historically has been a
strategic crossroads, controlling major north-south and east-west
land routes. This pivotal geostrategic position has made the
Texas-sized country a regional flashpoint for colliding power
interests, earning it the sobriquet "cockpit of Asia." Afghanistan
was a focal point of the "Great Game" that Czarist Russia and the
British Empire played in the 19th century for control of Central
and South Asia. More recently, it was a Cold War arena for the
superpower rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United
States.
Afghanistan remains an arena for the
clashing interests of external powers. Iran, Russia, Tajikistan,
and Uzbekistan have sought to bolster the rickety anti-Taliban
coalition inside Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Pakistan has thrown its
weight behind the Taliban in an attempt to extend its own influence
through Afghanistan to Central Asia and to open up potentially
lucrative trade routes to the energy-rich Central Asian states.
Saudi Arabia funded the Taliban in order to encourage the spread of
fundamentalist Sunni Islam and contain its arch-rival Iran but then
grew disenchanted with the Taliban when it failed to surrender
Saudi exile Osama bin Laden.
The
United States, one of the chief supporters of the Afghan
anti-communist resistance, disengaged from Afghanistan following
the disintegration of the communist threat. This disheartened
moderate Afghans and helped to produce a power vacuum that the
Taliban, backed by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, was quick to fill. As
a result, the United States currently has little influence over a
country that probably will continue to export Islamic revolution,
terrorism, and drugs for years to come.
FORGING A NEW U.S. POLICY TOWARD
AFGHANISTAN
Afghanistan, once a decisive battleground
of the Cold War, is now a crucible for forging Islamic revolution.
The United States, which provided about $3 billion in economic and
covert military assistance to the Afghan resistance from 1980 to
1989,42 squandered its influence and turned its back on
Afghanistan in the 1990s.
Despite warnings that the United States
retained a strategic interest in preventing the transformation of
Afghanistan into a springboard for Islamic radicals, terrorism, and
drug smuggling,43 Washington's policy drifted after the
Soviet withdrawal. As one American diplomat said, "The attitude is,
we don't have a dog in this fight."44 American
indifference, however, allowed the extremist Taliban to emerge as
the dominant force in Afghanistan, much to the detriment of U.S.
national interests. In June 1996, the Clinton Administration
embargoed arms transfers to all Afghan factions--a policy that
favored the Taliban since it benefited from strong military support
from Pakistan.
Washington initially misjudged the depth
of anti-Western hostility within the Taliban and perceived it as a
possible ally against Iran. The State Department was overly
optimistic that the Taliban's rule would bring stability to
Afghanistan and underestimated the threat it posed to regional
stability. It urged other nations to "engage" the Taliban in hopes
of moderating its radical policies.
Washington's attitude toward the Taliban
also was affected by hopes that a stabilized Afghanistan could
provide a transit route for oil and gas produced in Central Asia.
This would have contributed to the economic development of
post-Soviet Central Asia. It also would have preempted a possible
pipeline through Iran and reduced Russian leverage over
Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, both of which were seeking outlets for
their surplus energy resources. The Clinton Administration
supported plans for two pipelines, projected to cost $2 billion
each, to transport oil and gas from Turkmenistan through western
Afghanistan to Pakistan, where the oil would be routed to an export
terminal in Karachi. These plans were suspended after the August
20, 1998, cruise missile attack on bin Laden's training bases.
For
the past two years, the primary goal of Washington's Afghanistan
policy has been to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. The United
States has pressed the Taliban repeatedly to seize or expel him.
The Taliban regime, however, maintains that bin Laden is an honored
guest who is not guilty of terrorism and cannot be handed over to
kafirs .
After repeated refusals by the Taliban to
take action, President Clinton on July 6, 1999, declared a national
emergency with respect to the Taliban. Because of the Taliban's
hosting of bin Laden, Clinton imposed sanctions, including a ban on
trade with Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan and a freezing
of Taliban assets in the United States. On August 10, 1999, the
Administration banned U.S. citizens from flying on Ariana Afghan
Airlines. Washington prompted the United Nations Security Council
to follow suit on November 14, 1999, freezing Taliban assets and
embargoing its airline.
These sanctions are designed to induce the
Taliban to abandon bin Laden, but among many Afghans, the renegade
Saudi is popular because of his efforts during the jihad against
the Soviets. Others support him as a symbol of defiance against the
West, making American public denunciations of bin Laden somewhat
self-defeating. Such denunciations rally support for bin Laden
among anti-Western Afghans, contribute to his mystique throughout
the Muslim world, and inspire donations from wealthy Gulf Arabs who
want to share in bin Laden's self-created image as a champion of
Islam. In the words of one Saudi dissident, "What Clinton is saying
is there are two superpowers again: the United States and Osama bin
Laden."45
It
is highly unlikely that the Taliban will surrender bin Laden. The
wealthy Saudi has supported the Taliban financially and is known to
be close to Mullah Omar. Bin Laden reportedly built a house for
Mullah Omar, who is rumored to have married one of bin Laden's five
daughters.
The
Saudi government, which was one of the Taliban's few foreign
supporters, reportedly sought to reach a secret deal with the
Taliban two months before the August 1998 embassy bombings. Prince
Turki al-Faisal, the chief of Saudi Arabia's intelligence agency,
met with Mullah Omar in June 1998 and believed that he had
negotiated an agreement for bin Laden's surrender.46 But
after the embassy bombings, the Taliban denied that they had made
such a promise and blamed the misunderstanding on translator
problems. Saudi Arabia retaliated in September 1998 by recalling
its Ambassador to Afghanistan and closing the Taliban embassy in
Riyadh. Given that the Taliban rebuffed Saudi Arabia, formerly a
supportive ally and one of only three countries that recognized the
Taliban as Afghanistan's ruling government, it is unlikely to bow
to American pressure.
Nor
has Pakistan been willing to offer much help in capturing bin
Laden. The Pakistanis reportedly dragged their feet on cooperating
with a planned American cross-border operation to capture
him.47 Even if the United States gained access to
excellent intelligence about bin Laden's movements, a commando raid
to capture him would be extremely risky. Bin Laden often is
accompanied by up to 100 heavily armed bodyguards, and the Taliban
is known to have anti-aircraft missiles capable of shooting down
helicopters. Meanwhile, bin Laden has gone into hiding and has
become more security-conscious.
The
United States, therefore, must hold the Taliban responsible for the
terrorism of its protected guest. Washington has stressed this
point repeatedly to the Taliban. After bin Laden's plots in Jordan
and Canada were uncovered in December 1999, Michael Sheehan, the
State Department's Coordinator for Counterterrorism, called the
Taliban's foreign minister to warn him that the U.S. military could
retaliate against the Taliban for any future bin Laden terrorism.
Sheehan told him that bin Laden "is like a criminal who lives in
your basement. It is no longer possible for you to act as if he's
not your responsibility. He is your
responsibility."48
Steps to a New
U.S. Policy. The United States should follow through on
the implications of its own rhetoric. It should not focus narrowly
on bin Laden, but instead should focus on the radical Islamic trend
he represents, which is actively supported and protected by the
Taliban. Even if the United States apprehends bin Laden, the
Taliban has given sanctuary to many other terrorists who pose
threats to Americans. In the words of one Taliban intelligence
officer, "What will the Americans do even if they find bin Laden?
There are hundreds of bin Ladens just up the
road."49
Rather than obsessively focusing on bin
Laden, the United States should develop a regional strategy to
build allies and contain the spread of radical Islamic terrorism.
The sad truth is that the United States will face terrorist threats
emanating from Afghanistan as long as the Taliban dominates that
country. Moreover, the Taliban presents even greater threats to
Afghanistan's neighbors in terms of terrorism, subversion, and drug
smuggling. Therefore, the United States should work to end the
Taliban's harsh rule over Afghanistan and replace it with a stable,
inclusive government that will live in peace with its neighbors and
respect the human rights of Afghan minorities and women.
To
this end, the United States should:
- Maximize
international pressure on the Taliban to halt its support of
terrorism. The U.S. has little leverage with the Taliban.
Therefore, Washington should work with a broad international
coalition of states to ratchet up the political, economic, and
diplomatic costs that the Taliban must pay to continue its support
of terrorism. Because all five permanent members of the United
Nations Security Council--the United States, the United Kingdom,
France, Russia, and China--have seen their citizens attacked by one
or more groups supported by the Taliban, the United Nations could
be a useful forum for applying pressure. Washington should press
the Security Council to follow up its November 1999 sanctions with
a total trade and arms embargo against the Taliban. This would help
create a cordon sanitaire around
Afghanistan that would prevent arms and fuel from entering the
country while making it more difficult to export drugs under the
cover of other legal goods. Areas controlled by opposition forces
would be exempt from the embargo.
Broad-based international sanctions also
would impress upon the Afghan people the costs of the Taliban's
misguided policies and make clear that most of the world, not just
the United States, shuns and penalizes the Taliban. They would also
escalate the pressure on Pakistan to end its support for the
Taliban, or at least raise the cost of continuing that support.
- Pressure
Pakistan to end its support for the Taliban. The United
States historically has deferred to Pakistan, an important Cold War
ally, when crafting its policy toward Afghanistan. This was
sensible during the Soviet war in Afghanistan because Pakistan was
an indispensable front-line ally that took considerable risks in
opposing the Soviet invasion of its neighbor. Since the Soviet
withdrawal, however, Pakistani and American interests have diverged
significantly. Pakistan has sought to put a client regime in Kabul
that will help it tilt the balance of power against India. It wants
a friendly Afghan government that will allow it to use Afghan
territory for strategic depth in the event of war with India.
Furthermore, Pakistan favors a radical pan-Islamic regime in Kabul
that will downplay Pushtun nationalism and help escalate the Muslim
separatist insurgency in Kashmir--driving India out of Kashmir just
as Pakistan helped to drive the Soviets out of
Afghanistan.50
The United States must play hardball to
convince Islamabad to drop its high-risk strategy of using the
Taliban to weaken India and consolidate its influence in
Afghanistan. Washington has little direct influence with Islamabad
since eliminating its foreign aid program in 1990 because of
Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. The U.S. can enhance its
leverage by exploiting Pakistan's preoccupation with arch-rival
India. Washington should make clear that if Pakistan continues to
support terrorism in Afghanistan and Kashmir, the United States
will tilt toward India, which is eager to expand military ties.
This threat will have significant resonance among the Pakistani
military elite, who are the backbone of the state.
The United States should also exploit
Pakistan's disastrous economic situation and growing international
isolation. General Pervez Musharraf's regime, which seized power in
a bloodless military coup in October 1999, has few friends abroad.
Yet Pakistan requires a huge influx of foreign loans to refinance
its burdensome $38 billion national debt. Absent generous foreign
help, Pakistan is likely to default on existing loans early next
year.51 Washington should agree to use its influence
with the International Monetary Fund to help Pakistan only if
Islamabad ends its dangerous experiment with the Taliban and throws
its support behind alternative Afghan leaders who do not pose a
grave threat to their neighbors or their own people. If Islamabad
continues its support of the Taliban, Washington should block
further IMF loans to Pakistan.
Finally, Washington should make the
Taliban less attractive to Pakistan as an ally. By helping to
defuse tensions with India and by brokering a compromise settlement
on the thorny Kashmir dispute, the United States would encourage
Pakistan to see Afghanistan less in terms of strategic depth
against India and more as a conduit for trade to Central Asia.
American support for Afghan opposition groups could preclude a
Taliban military victory and help convince Pakistan that the
Taliban will become an increasing drain on Pakistan's limited
economic resources, as well as a long-term foreign policy
liability. Once Washington has firmly made clear that it is serious
about ousting the Taliban, it can appeal to the Musharraf regime's
own self-interest. It can point to the economic, strategic, and
political benefits Pakistan stands to gain by helping to build a
non-radical Afghanistan.
- Provide
military, diplomatic, and economic support to the Taliban
opposition. Throughout most of the 1990s, the United
States abstained from supporting one Afghan faction over another
and hoped for a power-sharing agreement that would end the
fighting. It has become clear, however, that the Taliban's arrogant
self-righteousness makes power sharing unrealistic. Moreover, as
long as the Taliban dominates Afghanistan, there will be no peace
inside the country or on its borders.
The United States should cooperate with
Russia, Turkey, and Afghanistan's Central Asian neighbors in
supporting the Northern Alliance, the chief obstacle to the
Taliban's total victory. Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Tajik leader who
is the Taliban's chief nemesis, is particularly deserving of
support. But Washington should identify, approach, and support any
Afghan group that opposes terrorism and cooperates to build a
stable, tolerant Afghanistan that does not pose a threat to its
neighbors. If possible, aid should be channeled through Massoud's
effective organization to strengthen the coordination within the
anti-Taliban alliance and prevent corruption.
Massoud's battle-hardened forces need
anti-tank weapons, light artillery, mortars, and anti-aircraft
guns. Transport also is scarce. The United States should provide
trucks to help move men and supplies, as well as transport
helicopters capable of operating over rugged mountain terrain.
Financial aid is also needed to help Massoud's forces purchase
local supplies in Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
The goal of such support should not be
total victory over the Taliban forces, for victory by the Northern
Alliance over the Taliban's much larger forces is not realistic in
the foreseeable future. Instead the goal should be to wear down the
Taliban, encourage defections, and set the stage for a negotiated
settlement that most factions and their foreign sponsors will have
an interest in sustaining.
- Forge a regional
coalition to support anti-Taliban opposition and an Afghan peace
settlement. The conflict in Afghanistan is a transnational
one, not a purely internal conflict. Various ethnic and religious
groups straddle Afghanistan's borders. While Pakistan has tried to
mobilize Afghanistan's Pushtuns, Uzbekistan has supported militias
drawn from northern Afghanistan's more than 1 million Uzbeks. Iran
has cobbled together a coalition of Hazaras in central Afghanistan
who share its Shiite faith. Russia, Iran, Uzbekistan, and
Tajikistan all have funneled aid to various elements of the
Northern Alliance to prevent the Taliban from consolidating its
control over Afghanistan. The United States should cooperate with
this incipient coalition and encourage China and Turkey, both of
which are concerned about Taliban meddling in their internal
affairs, to add their weight to this group. The short-term goal
should be to strengthen resistance to the Taliban inside
Afghanistan and encourage the emergence of a more moderate Pushtun
leadership.
The long-term goal should be to prepare
for an internal Afghan peace settlement that will protect the
interests of all of Afghanistan's ethnic groups and ease the
security concerns of Afghanistan's neighbors. Afghanistan should be
reconstructed as a neutral buffer state similar to Austria. The
United States, Russia, and Afghanistan's six neighbors should
negotiate a treaty similar to the 1955 State Treaty that set the
ground rules for Austrian neutrality. All of these countries, and
the new Afghan government, should pledge not to use Afghan
territory as a base for military attack, terrorism, or subversion
against one another.
Pakistan, which retains hope that it can
cement its hegemony over Afghanistan through the Taliban, is likely
to be the immediate obstacle to such a settlement. The United
States should work closely with Pakistani allies China and Saudi
Arabia to convince Pakistan of the benefits of a compromise
solution. It also should cooperate with the other members of the
anti-Taliban coalition to support the Afghan opposition and
convince Islamabad that a Taliban military victory is unlikely.
-
Build an
internal Afghan consensus for peace. A stable Afghan
settlement requires cooperation from external powers, but those
powers cannot merely impose a settlement. A settlement must be
based on genuine Afghan self-determination. The United States
should promote an inclusive political dialogue between
representatives of the warring Afghan factions and all ethnic,
religious, and political groups. Afghans traditionally have
convened a loya jirga (grand council)
in times of crisis to forge a consensus on vital issues. Such a
council could help determine the leadership and structure of the
future Afghan government. King Zahir Shah, who has been in exile
since a 1973 coup, could play a role in convening a loya jirga and in facilitating a national
reconciliation. All factions, except the Taliban, have indicated
they would consider participating in a loya
jirga .
-
Designate the
Taliban as a terrorist organization. Because the United
States does not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government
of Afghanistan, it should not place Afghanistan on the State
Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism. Washington
instead should designate the Taliban as a terrorist organization
under the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996
(P.L. 104-132). This would empower U.S. financial institutions to
freeze Taliban assets, block fund-raising activities inside the
United States, and deny visas to Taliban officials. It also would
set the stage for declaring Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism
if it stubbornly continues to support the Taliban.
- Provide
humanitarian aid. Afghanistan has suffered one of the most
severe and sustained humanitarian crises in world history. The
Soviet war and subsequent civil war have left up to 2 million dead,
700,000 widows and orphans, and 2.6 million refugees still camped
in Pakistan and Iran.52 A recent visitor to northern
Afghanistan reports that "A humanitarian disaster was narrowly
averted in the non-Taliban areas due to a relatively mild
winter."53 This allowed convoys carrying food to
traverse the high mountain passes that usually are snowed in. The
weather may not be so favorable next winter.
The United States should revive its
cross-border aid program, in effect from 1985 to 1994, but base it
in Tajikistan rather than Pakistan. The program should provide aid
to non-Taliban areas to reduce the threat of Taliban interference
and to increase the incentives of local leaders to defect from the
Taliban. This would help ease the humanitarian crisis and rebuild
Afghanistan's shattered civil society. The United States currently
provides about $80 million annually in humanitarian aid through the
United Nations. Most of this multilateral aid should be shifted to
the bilateral cross-border aid program to help counter the
perception that the United States has abandoned the Afghan
people.
- Appoint a
special envoy for Afghanistan. The American embassy in
Kabul has been closed since 1989 because of security
considerations. This has forced the State Department to depend on
the embassy in Islamabad, which often has reflected the Pakistani
viewpoint on Afghan affairs. The lack of high-level attention paid
to Afghanistan has contributed to policy drift and shifting
priorities--containing the Soviet Union, containing Iran, building
pipelines to Central Asia, women's rights, and capturing Osama bin
Laden--that have hampered the effectiveness of U.S. policy.
The President should appoint a
high-ranking special envoy, with direct access to the Secretary of
State, to coordinate Afghanistan policy. This official, with the
rank of Ambassador at Large, should interact with the whole
spectrum of Afghan groups and formulate a coherent strategy for
building a stable, tolerant, and peaceful Afghanistan. The envoy
should coordinate the implementation of Afghanistan policy by the
executive branch, help shape public opinion through the media, and
coordinate with foreign governments on Afghanistan-related
issues.
CONCLUSION
Washington's neglect of Afghanistan's
festering problems has allowed the Taliban to dominate Afghanistan
and export terrorism, revolution, and opium. Through disengagement,
America squandered its influence in the region and left itself with
few options besides hurling cruise missiles at Osama bin Laden's
easily replaceable training camps and bracing for further terrorist
attacks.
This
"chuck and duck" approach is doomed to failure. Even if the United
States were fortunate enough to eliminate bin Laden by military
means, other Islamic radicals will continue to threaten American
security and American allies from Afghan bases as long as the
Taliban prevails there.
Rather than focusing narrowly on bin
Laden, the United States should focus on uprooting the Taliban
regime that sustains him and others like him. Washington should
develop a regional strategy to halt Pakistan's support of the
Taliban, build up Afghan opposition to the Taliban, and encourage
defections from its ranks. The ultimate U.S. goal should be a
stable, tolerant, inclusive Afghan government that poses no threats
to its neighbors or to its own ethnic and religious minorities. To
accomplish this, Washington should cooperate with the broad
anti-Taliban coalition that surrounds Afghanistan and help to forge
a broad anti-Taliban coalition inside Afghanistan.
James Phillips is a Research Fellow in
Middle Eastern affairs in the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis
Institute for International Studies at The Heritage
Foundation.
Endnotes