23Anahad O’Connor, “Weak Times Sq. Car Bomb Is Called Intentional,” New York Times, July 21, 2010, https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/nyregion/21bomb.html. On Shahzad: Coll, Directorate S, 450–52; and on drones in northern Waziristan, Coll, Directorate S, 438.
24Jibran Ahmed and Yeganeh Torbati, “U.S. Drone Kills Islamic State Leader for Afghanistan, Pakistan: Officials,” Reuters, August 12, 2016, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-islamicstate-idUSKCN10N21L.
25Mujib Mashal and Fahim Abed, “After Deadly Attack on Kabul Hospital, ‘Everywhere Was Full of Blood,’” New York Times, March 8, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/world/asia/kabul-military-hospital-in-afghanistan-comes-under-attack.html.
26Ian S. Livingston and Michael O’Hanlon, “Afghanistan Index,” Brookings Institution, September 29, 2017, 4, https://www.brookings.edu/afghanistan-index/.
27“Clinton Extends Hand to the Taliban,” ABC News, July 15, 2009, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-07-16/clinton-extends-hand-to-taliban/1355022.
28On Obama’s framing of the Taliban, see President Obama, “Statement by the President on Afghanistan,” The White House, October 15, 2015, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/10/15/statement-president-afghanistan. On specific limitations of U.S. military actions, see Rowan Scarborough, “Rules of Engagement Limit the Actions of U.S. Troops and Drones in Afghanistan,” Washington Times, November 16, 2013, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/26/rules-of-engagement-bind-us-troops-actions-in-afgh/. For a detailed account of the connections between the Taliban and ISI, see Coll, Directorate S.
29On the number of Afghan soldiers wounded, see Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, “January 30, 2017, Quarterly Report to the United States Congress,” January 30, 2017, 98, https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2017-01-30qr.pdf; Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, “April 30, 2016 Quarterly Report to the United States Congress,” April 30, 2016, 94, https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2016-04-30qr.pdf. On civilian casualties, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reported 2,315 civilian deaths attributed to antigovernment elements in 2015 and 2,131 in 2016, for a total of 4,446. UNAMA, “Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict Annual Report 2015,” United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, February 2016, 33, https://unama.unmissions.org/protection-of-civilians-reports; UNAMA, “Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict Annual Report 2016,” United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, February 2017, 50, https://unama.unmissions.org/protection-of-civilians-reports.
30Coll, Directorate S, 371; “ARG (Presidential Palace),” Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Office of the President, https://president.gov.af/en/history-of-arg-presidential-palace/nggallery/image/bg1o8456-1/.
31Mark Mazzetti and Jane Perlez, “C.I.A. and Pakistan Work Together, Warily,” New York Times, February 24, 2010, https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/world/asia/25intel.html.
32George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Crown Publishers, 2010), 206.
33On the announcement of the end of major combat operations, see CNN World, “Rumsfeld: Major Combat Over in Afghanistan,” CNN, May 1, 2003, http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/central/05/01/afghan.combat/.
34On Bush’s decision to increase troop levels, see Bush, Decision Points, 207; Amy Belasco, “The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11,” Congressional Research Service, December 8, 2014, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf.
35Coll, Directorate S, 458–59. For example, after a Taliban attack on a peace Loya Jirga, Karzai summoned National Director of Security Amrullah Saleh and Minister of the Interior Hanif Atmar to his office. The president declared that the attack had been planned by the United States to undermine his peace initiative with the Taliban. Saleh and Atmar, two of the most talented men in Karzai’s cabinet, disagreed. Both men resigned at the end of the meeting.
36For more on President Karzai and Ambassador Holbrooke’s relationship, see George Packer, Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2019), 4–6.
37Alissa J. Rubin, “Karzai’s Antagonism Corners the West; Afghan President Is Seen as Only Viable Option, Even as He Alienates Allies,” New York Times International Edition, April 6, 2010, Nexis Uni.
38Frud Bezhan, “Karzai to Move Up After Stepping Down,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, October 13, 2013, https://www.rferl.org/a/karzai-finances/25135480.html.
39Coll, Directorate S, 409–10.
40Peter Baker and Eric Schmitt, “Afghan War Debate Now Leans to Focus on Al Qaeda,” New York Times, October 7, 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/world/asia/08prexy.html. Administration officials talking off the record in May 2010 stated that there were fewer than one hundred Al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. Joshua Partlow, “In Afghanistan, Taliban Leaving al-Qaeda Behind,” Washington Post, November 11, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/10/AR2009111019644.html.
41On the start of the peace negotiations with the Taliban, see Rathnam Indurthy, “The Obama Administration’s Strategy in Afghanistan,” International Journal on World Peace 28, no. 3 (September 2011): 7–52, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23266718?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents. BBC, “How Qatar Came to Host the Taliban,” BBC News, June 22, 2013, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-23007401; Karen DeYoung, “U.S. to Launch Peace Talks with Taliban,” Washington Post, June 18, 2013, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-to-relaunch-peace-talks-with-taliban/2013/06/18/bd8c7f38-d81e-11e2-a016-92547bf094cc_story.html.
42Rob Nordland, “For Swapped Taliban Prisoners from Guantánamo Bay, Few Doors to Exit Qatar,” New York Times, May 31, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/world/middleeast/us-presses-qatar-on-travel-ban-for-swapped-taliban-prisoners.html.
43Peter Tomsen, The Wars of Afghanistan: Messianic Terrorism, Tribal Conflicts, and the Failures of Great Powers (New York: PublicAffairs, 2013), 105–14.
44John F. Burns, “Afghan President, Pressured, Reshuffles Cabinet,” New York Times, October 11, 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/world/asia/12afghan.html.
Chapter 6: Fighting for Peace
1George Packer, “Afghanistan’s Theorist-in-Chief,” The New Yorker, July 9, 2019, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/04/ashraf-ghani-afghanistans-theorist-in-chief.
2Taraki was a leader in the Khalqi faction of the Communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan. He was part of the Communist coup following the Saur Revolution, which resulted in the murder of Mohammed Daoud Khan and the rule of a Communist faction. Taraki was overthrown and assassinated shortly after he rose to power. These events set the stage for the Soviet Union.
3Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart, Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).
4Politico Staff, “Full Text: Trump’s Speech on Afghanistan,” Politico, August 22, 2017, https://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/21/trump-afghanistan-speech-text-241882; Central Intelligence Agency, “Field Listing: Terrorist Groups,” CIA, February 1, 2018, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/397.html)
5Thomas Joscelyn, forthcoming chapter, “Chapter 9, Al Qaeda Survived the War in Afghanistan.” Modern-day Afghanistan had tremendous symbolic value to Al-Qaeda and other jihadist terrorists because it provided a cornerstone on which the caliphate could be built. Geographically, Afghanistan was an ideal place to organize and prepare for Al-Qaeda’s campaign of terror against its “near enemy,” Israel and the governments of Muslim-majority countries across the Middle East, and its “far enemy,” the United States, Europe, and the West.
6Human Rights Watch, “Pakistan Coercion, UN Complicity,” February 13, 2017, https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/02/13/pakistan-coercion-un-complicity/mass-forced-return-afghan-refugees; World Population Review, “Kabul Population 2020,” http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-citi
es/kabul-population/.
7On the parliamentary elections, see Radio Free Afghanistan, “Voting Ends in Afghanistan’s Parliamentary Elections Marred by Violence, Delays,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, October 21, 2018, https://www.rferl.org/a/afghans-cast-ballots-for-second-day-in-chaotic-general-elections/29555274.html. On voter turnout in the presidential elections, see Mujib Mashal, Mohamed Fahim Abed, and Fatima Faizi, “Afghanistan Election Draws Low Turnout Amid Taliban Threats,” New York Times, September 28, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/28/world/asia/afghanistan-president-election-taliban.html.
8On enrollment, see the following: Ian S. Livingston and Michael O’Hanlon, “Afghanistan Index,” Brookings Institution, September 29, 2017, https://www.brookings.edu/afghanistan-index/; Afghan Ministry of Education, “About Us: 7 Million in 2010 with Goal of 10 Million by 2015 USAID,” Education—Afghanistan, USAID Afghanistan, July 22, 2019, https://www.usaid.gov/afghanistan/education.
9According to an Asia Foundation survey of the Afghan people, access to the internet among respondents increased 400 percent from 2013 to 2018, and 40 percent of respondents say their area has access to the internet. Dinh Thi Kieu Nhung, “Afghanistan in 2018: A Survey of the Afghan People,” The Asia Foundation, https://asiafoundation.org/publication/afghanistan-in-2018-a-survey-of-the-afghan-people/, 156. For statistics on the media, see government statistics cited at TOLOnews, “Explosion Targets Media Workers in Kabul, Kills Two,” August 4, 2019, https://tolonews.com/afghanistan/explosion-targets-media-workers-kabul-kills-two.
10United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, “Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict Annual Report 2018,” United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, February 24, 2019, 10, https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/afghanistan_protection_of_civilians_annual_report_2018_final_24_feb_2019.pdf.
11Ashraf Ghani, interview by Nikhil Kumar, Time, May 18, 2017, https://time.com/4781885/ashraf-ghani-afghanistan-president-interview/.
12Civil service reform was a bright spot under a talented and principled leader, Nader Nadery.
13For demographic statistics on Afghanistan, see “Afghanistan,” CIA World Factbook, CIA.gov, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/af.html. There are also many smaller minorities in Kabul, including Qizilbash (a Turkic people) and Nuristanis (also known as kafirs because they initially rejected Islam). Thomas J. Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 53.
14Steve Coll, Directorate S, 452–57.
15Ray Rivera and Sangar Rahimi, “Afghan President Says His Country Would Back Pakistan in a Clash with the U.S.” New York Times, October 23, 2011, https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/world/asia/karzai-says-afghanistan-would-back-pakistan-in-a-conflict-with-us.html; Frud Behzan, “The Eminently Quotable Karzai,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September 29, 2014, https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-karzai-quotes/26610215.html.
16United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, “Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict Annual Report 2010,” United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, March, 2011, 3–4, https://unama.unmissions.org/protection-of-civilians-reports.
17Euan McKirdy and Ehsan Popalzai, “American University of Afghanistan Reopens After 2016 Attack,” CNN, March 28, 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/28/asia/kabul-american-university-reopens/index.html; Mujib Mashal, Mohamed Fahim Abed, and Zahra Nader, “Attack at University in Kabul Shatters a Sense of Freedom,” New York Times, August 25, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/26/world/asia/afghanistan-kabul-american-university.html.
18United States Department of State, “Deputy Secretary Armitage’s Meeting with Pakistan Intel Chief Mahmud: You’re Either with Us or You’re Not,” unclassified, September 12, 2001, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB358a/doc03-1.pdf.
19World Bank Data, “Pakistan—Population, total,” World Bank, n.d., https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?end=2018&locations=PK&name_desc=true&start=2003.
20Peter L. Bergen, “September 11 Attacks,” Encyclopedia Britannica, June 21, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/event/September-11-attacks.
21Associated Press, “Pakistani Court Indicts Finance Minister on Graft Charges,” Associated Press, September 26, 2017, https://apnews.com/c96efe1cc2b24a1391860c3ebd31e223. On Sharif, see interview of Nadeem Akhtar, Shamil Shams, “Why Ousted Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif Turned Against the Powerful Military,” DW, March 13, 2018, https://p.dw.com/p/2uECV;REFL, “Pakistani Finance Minister Indicted on Corruption Charges,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September 27, 2017, https://www.rferl.org/a/pakistan-finance-minister-corruption-idictment/28759837.html.
22Two years after my visit, a car bomb killed forty Indian security personnel. The Pakistani militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed claimed responsibility, but the Indian government believed that the Pakistan Army was responsible. The countries conducted limited airstrikes. India targeted a terrorist training camp in the mountains, but Pakistan denied the camp’s existence. In the process, Pakistan shot down an Indian plane and took the pilot prisoner for a period of days before he was returned to India as a “peace gesture.” M. Illyas Khan, “Abhinandan: Villagers Recount Dramatic Capture of Pilot,” BBC, March 1, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47397418; “Article 370: India Strips Disputed Kashmir of Special Status,” BBC, August 5, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-49231619. The move drew strong resistance from many parliamentarians and raised fears that New Delhi would encourage Hindus to move to the region in order to weaken the voice of Muslims there.
23For more on the Pakistan Army’s culture and role in society, see Christine Fair, Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014); Aqil Shah, The Army and Democracy: Military Politics in Pakistan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014).
24Salman Masood, “More Bodies Pulled from Hotel Rubble in Pakistan,” New York Times, September 21, 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/world/asia/22marriott.html; “Suicide Attack on Pakistani Hotel,” BBC News, June 10, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8092147.stm.
25Rachel Roberts, “Pakistan: Three Years after 140 Died in the Peshawar School Massacre, What Has Changed?” The Independent, December 16, 2017, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/pakistan-peshawar-school-shooting-massacre-what-has-changed-happened-three-years-a8113661.html; BBC News, “Pakistan Taliban: Peshawar School Attack Leaves 141 Dead,” BBC, December 16, 2014, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30491435.
26Omar Waraich, “Pakistan Takes Fight to the Taliban,” The Independent, December 20, 2014.
27Naveed Mukhtar, “Afghanistan: Alternative Futures and Their Implications” (master’s thesis, U.S. Army War College, 2011), 73, https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a547182.pdf.
28Neta C. Crawford, “Update on the Human Costs of War for Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001 to mid-2016,” Costs of War Project, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University, August 2016, 14, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2016/War%20in%20Afghanistan%20and%20Pakistan%20UPDATE_FINAL_corrected%20date.pdf.
29Richard P. Cronin, K. Alan Kronstadt, and Sharon Squassoni, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Proliferation Activities and the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission: U.S. Policy Constraints and Options,” Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, May 24, 2005, 8, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL32745.pdf.
30The U.S. special operations raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011 should have finally exposed the unreliability of America’s nominal allies in Pakistan. The terrorist leader’s compound was located near the Pakistani equivalent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. The Pakistan Army’s reaction, to feign ignorance and complain about U.S. violations of Pakistani sovereignty, was offensive.
31Vahid Brown and Don Rassler, Fountainhead of Jihad: The Haqqani Nexus, 1973–2012 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 20
13).
32Brown and Rassler, Fountainhead of Jihad.
33Omar Noman, The Political Enemy of Pakistan, 1988 (New York: Routledge, 1988).
34Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia (New York: Penguin Books, 2009), 22.
35On India’s projected population growth, see Hannah Ritchie, “India Will Soon Overtake China to Become the Most Populous Country in the World,” Our World in Data, University of Oxford, https://ourworldindata.org/india-will-soon-overtake-china-to-become-the-most-populous-country-in-the-world. On poverty in India, see World Bank, “Supporting India’s Transformation,” Results Briefs, October 15, 2019, https://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2019/10/15/supporting-indias-transformation; “Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2019: Illuminating Inequalities,” United Nations Development Programme, http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/mpi_2019_publication.pdf. For more on India’s demographics, see CIA World Factbook, “India,” CIA, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/in.html.
36Shreeya Sinha and Mark Suppes, “Timeline of the Riots in Modi’s Gujarat,” New York Times, April 6, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/06/world/asia/modi-gujarat-riots-timeline.html#/. By 2016, Prime Minister Modi had visited the United States four times since he was elected in 2014. Rishi Iyengar, “As India’s Prime Minister Modi Visits President Obama, Both Leaders Look to Cement a Legacy,” Time, June 7, 2016, https://time.com/4359522/india-modi-obama-visit-us/.
37House of Representatives: Committee on Foreign Affairs, “Bad Company: Lashkar e-Tayyiba and the Growing Ambition of Islamist Militancy in Pakistan,” March 11, 2010, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-111hhrg55399/html/CHRG-111hhrg55399.htm. Mehreen Zahra-Malik, “Militant Leader Hafiz Saeed Is Released by Pakistani Court,” New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/world/asia/hafiz-saeed-pakistan-militant.html.
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