In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan

by Seth G. Jones

  Mullah Omar eventually arrived in Pakistan, and some speculated that he did so on a Honda motorcycle. As President Musharraf quipped to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, “the best advertisement for Honda would be an advertising campaign showing Mullah Omar fleeing on one of its motorcycles with his robes and beard flowing in the wind.”29

  Al Qa’ida fighters, including Osama bin Laden, escaped across the Pakistani border en masse. In November 2001, in one of his last public appearances, bin Laden gave a stirring homily to a gathering of local tribal leaders at the Islamic Studies Center in Jalalabad. He promised that they could teach the Americans “a lesson, the same one we taught the Russians.” He was dressed in a gray shalwar kameez, the long shirt and loose trousers worn by most Afghans, and a camouflage jacket. According to some accounts, he distributed cash to the tribal leaders to ensure their support, while many in the crowd shouted “Zindibad [Long live] Osama.”30 American intelligence officials believe that over the next few weeks nearly 1,000 al Qa’ida fighters escaped through Tora Bora and other areas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

  “You’ve got to give him credit,” noted the CIA’s Gary Schroen. “He stayed in Tora Bora until the bitter end.”31

  In mid-December 2001, according to some American intelligence estimates, bin Laden left Tora Bora for the last time, accompanied by a handful of bodyguards and aides. CIA forces on the ground repeatedly requested an additional battalion of U.S. Army Rangers to block bin Laden’s escape, but the U.S. military relied on local Afghan forces. Some reports indicate that bin Laden paid Afghans to let him through.32 According to one Pakistani military assessment, the fighters “hid in urban areas and mingled with the local populace by maintaining a relatively low profile.”33 While al Qa’ida leaders dispersed via a number of different routes, bin Laden journeyed on horseback south toward Pakistan, crossing through the same mountain passes through which the CIA’s convoys passed during the mujahideen years. Along the route, in the dozens of villages and towns on both sides of the frontier, Pashtun tribes allied with the Taliban helped guide the horsemen as they trekked through the hard-packed snow and on toward the old Pakistani military outpost of Parachinar. The CIA later learned that a “group of two hundred Saudis and Yemenis…was guided by members of the Pushtun Ghilzai tribe, who were paid handsomely in money and rifles.”34

  Pakistan’s Frontier Corps, the paramilitary force in the border regions, picked up some of the fighters streaming across the border. Al Qa’ida and foreign fighters were turned over to the ISI, and many were handed over to the U.S. government, which housed them temporarily in secret prisons in Kandahar, Bagram, and other locations. Al Qa’ida operatives relied on links with Pakistani militant groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure), in cities such as Lahore and Faisalabad, to hide from Pakistan and U.S. intelligence services. They didn’t want to remain in Pakistan, however, because the government was cooperating with the United States. According to CIA assessments, most of the al Qa’ida and foreign fighters were trying to get to Iran, where they could temporarily settle or transit to other areas, such as the Persian Gulf.

  By 2002 and 2003, though, the CIA began to gather intelligence indicating that al Qa’ida operatives were increasingly infiltrating back into Pakistan’s tribal areas. Many went to remote locations, such as the Shakai Valley in South Waziristan, hoping the Pakistani government would leave them alone to resettle among some of the local tribes. Sporadic Pakistani military operations in South Waziristan triggered an exodus of militants to North Waziristan. “It was harder for Pakistan government forces to get to them there,” said Grenier. “The social structure was more hospitable, and there was a heavier influence of mullahs and religious clerics.”35

  An Ideal Sanctuary

  Over the next several years, these extremists used Pakistan’s northern Baluchistan Province, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and the North West Frontier Province as sanctuaries to rest and rearm. Sanctuary was critical for all major groups that targeted NATO forces and the Afghan government. “The Taliban was a flourishing dynamic network,” according to a joint European Union and United Nations document, “which relied on a strong and unchallenged support and recruitment base in Pakistan.”36 In past insurgencies, border areas and neighboring countries have often been exploited by militants. Groups can plot, recruit, proselytize, contact supporters around the world, raise money, and enjoy a respite from the government’s efforts, enabling operatives to escape from the constant stress that characterizes life underground.37 Pakistan’s border region was an ideal sanctuary for several reasons.

  First, it was close to the Taliban and al Qa’ida strongholds in eastern and southern Afghanistan, which would be convenient once they decided to launch efforts to overthrow the Karzai regime. And virtually all major insurgent leaders had spent time in Pakistan, often at one of the Deobandi madrassas. Second, Pakistan included roughly twenty-five million Pashtuns, double the number in Afghanistan, many of whom were sympathetic to the Taliban.38 Third, some insurgent groups also had close ties to individuals within the Pakistan government. The Taliban, as discussed earlier, had received significant support and legitimacy from Pakistan’s ISI back in the 1990s. Fourth, Pakistan’s mountainous terrain near the Afghan border offered superb protection.

  “The role of geography, a large one in an ordinary war, may be overriding in a revolutionary war,” wrote David Galula in his classic book Counterinsurgency Warfare. Galula served in the French Army in North Africa and Italy during World War II, and later in the insurgencies in China, Greece, Indochina, and Algeria. “It helps the insurgent insofar as it is rugged and difficult.”39 As Galula and others have pointed out, mountainous terrain can be useful for insurgent groups because it is difficult for indigenous and external forces to navigate and easier for insurgents to hide.40

  The border region was also deeply disputed. No modern government of Afghanistan had ever formally recognized the British-drawn border that divided the Pashtun territories. On November 12, 1893, Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, the British foreign secretary of India, signed an agreement with the Afghan ruler, Amir Abdur Rehman Khan, separating Afghanistan from what was then British India. The Durand Line, as it became known, divided the Pashtun tribes in order to weaken them, making it easier for the British to pacify the area. On their side of the frontier, the British created autonomous tribal agencies controlled by British political officers with the help of tribal chieftains whose loyalty was ensured through regular subsidies. The British used force to put down sporadic uprisings, but they generally left the tribes alone in return for stability along the frontier.41 In 1949, Afghanistan’s loya jirga declared the Durand Line invalid and viewed Pashtun areas as part of their country, especially since British India ceased to exist with the independence of Pakistan in 1947.

  The 1,519-mile border has continued to be a source of tension. In the June 2006 issue of Armed Forces Journal, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters suggested a radical realignment of the boundaries of the greater Middle East. Peters generously gave part of western Afghanistan to Iran, but he balanced this by giving Afghanistan the Pashtun areas of Pakistan. Peters argued: “What Afghanistan would lose to Persia in the west, it would gain in the east, as Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier tribes would be reunited with their Afghan brethren…. Pakistan, another unnatural state, would also lose its Baluch territory to Free Baluchistan. The remaining ‘natural’ Pakistan would lie entirely east of the Indus, except for a westward spur near Karachi.”42 Though considerable blood might have to be spilled to move the borders, several senior Afghan officials praised Peters and expressed their support for redrawing the colonial boundaries. Shortly after the article was published, one senior Afghan official told me, “At least one American understands Afghanistan.”43 Not surprisingly, Pakistani officials have been less than enthusiastic about the idea.

  U.S. Limitations

  The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan had aimed to overthrow the Taliban reg
ime and destroy al Qa’ida’s organizational infrastructure. It achieved the former but not the latter. Key al Qa’ida training camps, such as Tarnak Farms outside of the city of Kandahar, were destroyed. But the Taliban, al Qa’ida, and other militants simply slipped across the border into Pakistan, where they established new camps. Over the next several years, these groups recruited, rearmed, and plotted their return. The Pakistani military conducted combat operations against foreign fighters—especially Central Asians and Arabs—in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but the government refrained from conducting operations against most high-ranking Taliban leaders. 44 On September 15, 2001, President Musharraf told Ambassador Chamberlin: “We will hand over captured al Qa’ida operatives to you. But we will handle the Pakistanis and other locals ourselves.”45

  The Pakistan government’s desire to protect some of its assets was not lost on U.S. policymakers. Deputy Secretary of State Armitage argued, for example, that “Musharraf did not push hard against the Taliban” and was “only cooperative in targeting some key al Qa’ida militants.”46 The CIA’s Grenier similarly acknowledged: “The ISI worked closely with us to capture key al Qa’ida leaders such as Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, Ramzi Binalshibh, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, and Abu Zubeida. But they made it clear that they didn’t care about targeting the Taliban.” Neither did the CIA or the U.S. government more broadly. “The U.S. government was focused on al Qa’ida,” Grenier continued, “not on capturing or killing Taliban leaders. The U.S. considered the Taliban a spent force.”47

  Neglecting the Taliban, who had invited al Qa’ida into Afghanistan in the first place, was a dangerous gamble. A joint paper by the government of Afghanistan, the United Nations, Canada, the Netherlands, Britain, and the United States later warned that insurgents were directing “their campaign against Afghan and international forces from Pakistan,” and most fighters were “trained in Pakistan in combat, communications, IEDs and suicide ops.”48

  Militant Groups Resettle

  Among the groups that settled in Pakistan was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i-Islami. After the September 2001 attacks, Hekmatyar openly pledged to cooperate with al Qa’ida and Taliban forces to fight the “Crusader forces” in Afghanistan.49 Hekmatyar’s organization, which included several hundred fighters, sought to overthrow the Afghan government and install him as leader. The group’s area of operations included Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province and the northern part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, as well as the Afghan provinces of Nuristan, Kunar, Laghman, and Nangarhar.50 Despite occasional overtures to the Afghan government, one joint European Union and United Nations assessment revealed that Hekmatyar was periodically “offered funds to fill his empty coffers” by the Taliban and “agreed not to negotiate further with the Afghan government.”51

  In addition to Hekmatyar’s fighters, Yunus Khalis’s branch of Hezb-i-Islami also began to rearm in Pakistan. One of Khalis’s sons, Anwar al-Haq Mojahed, began to gather a group of Hezb-i-Islami fighters, disgruntled tribesmen, and some ex-Taliban. So did a group called Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), which was led by Sufi Mohammad, whose objective was to impose sharia law in Afghanistan and Pakistan by force if necessary. He encouraged and organized thousands of people to fight against the United States and the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan as the Taliban regime began to crumble in 2001, but the group was banned by Pervez Musharraf, and Sufi Mohammad was jailed in 2002. The group continued to rebuild, however, thanks to the untiring work of his son-in-law, Mullah Fazlullah, an influential firebrand known for his long, flowing hair. He was dubbed “Mullah Radio” because of his pirate FM radio broadcasts.

  There were also a number of groups that rested and rearmed in Pakistan’s tribal areas. As Figure 6.2 illustrates, there are seven agencies (Khyber, Kurram, Orakzai, Mohmand, Bajaur, North Waziristan, and South Waziristan). There are also six frontier regions: Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Tank, and Lakki Marwat. The Pashtun tribes that controlled this region had resisted colonial rule with a determination virtually unparalleled in the subcontinent. The tribes were granted maximum autonomy and allowed to run their affairs in accordance with their Islamic faith, customs, and traditions. Tribal elders, known as maliks, were given special favors by the British in return for maintaining peace, keeping open important roads such as the Khyber Pass, and apprehending criminals. After partition in 1947, Pakistan continued this system of local autonomy and special favors.

  FIGURE 6.2 Pakistan’s Tribal Agencies Courtesy of RAND Corporation

  Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, laid the foundation for this independence in remarks to a tribal jirga in Peshawar in 1948: “Keeping in view your loyalty, help, assurance and declarations we ordered, as you know, the withdrawal of troops from Waziristan as a concrete and definite gesture on our part…. Pakistan has no desire to unduly interfere with your internal freedom.”52 The system of administration remained fairly consistent after Pakistan’s independence, despite demands by the educated and enlightened sections of the tribal population, and Pakistani courts and police had no jurisdiction in the tribal areas.

  One of the most significant groups harbored in this region was led by the legendary mujahideen warrior Jalaluddin Haqqani. Born in 1935 into the Jadran tribe, he was educated at a madrassa in Peshawar, Pakistan. With penetrating eyes and a thick black beard that became tinged with gray over time, Haqqani was described by a Soviet intelligence report as a “cruel and uncompromising person.” The report said he had close ties to Saudi Arabia and was a committed Islamist. “Jelaluddin regularly visits Saudi Arabia, where he holds direct talks with representatives of the government of that country…. He wages armed combat on a platform of establishing an Islamic republic on orthodox Islamic principles.”53 Upon returning to Afghanistan, he opened his own madrassa in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Paktia, along the Pakistani border, and became active in the Muslim Brotherhood during the rule of Zahir Shah and Daoud Khan. During the Soviet War, Haqqani operated south of the Parrot’s Beak in Paktia Province, near bin Laden’s territory. He was viewed by some CIA officers in Islamabad as perhaps the most impressive battlefield commander in the war.

  As a prominent jihadi leader, Haqqani sponsored some of the first Arab fighters who faced Soviet forces in 1987, and he was in frequent contact with bin Laden and ISI. Pakistan intelligence and the CIA relied on Haqqani to experiment with new weapons systems and tactics. The CIA officers working from Islamabad regarded him as a proven commander who could put a lot of men under arms on short notice.54 It was with Haqqani’s militia that U.S. Congressman Charlie Wilson traveled in Afghanistan in May 1987; Wilson was one of the few American government officials to step foot in the country during the Soviet War. He had wanted to fire a Stinger missile at a Soviet aircraft during the trip, but Haqqani’s men couldn’t pull it off. Milton Bearden, then the CIA’s station chief in Pakistan, recalled, “Though he never got to fire his Stinger—Haqqani’s people had actually dragged chains and tires on the dirt roads in a futile attempt to attract enemy fighter aircraft to the clouds of dust—he did manage to have a memorable combat tour at the front.”55

  After the overthrow of the Taliban, Haqqani’s network regrouped in towns such as Miramshah and Mir Ali in Pakistan’s tribal areas, as well as in a swath of territory in the Afghan provinces of Khowst, Paktia, Ghazni, and Paktika.56 Haqqani was loosely allied with the Taliban leadership at this time, but he separately commanded several hundred fighters. Moreover, he had close relations with the Pakistani government, including the ISI.57 Given the risks of traveling to Afghanistan, Haqqani spent this period expanding his base in Pakistan’s tribal areas.58 His most ambitious son, Sirajuddin, known as “Siraj,” also became involved as the group prepared to fight the Americans in Afghanistan and overthrow the Karzai government. Siraj, the oldest of Haqqani’s sons, had a strong resemblance to his father, with a jet-black beard and similar facial expressions. He bragged that “we are waging jihad against the U.S. forces
and our objective is to tire them out.”59

  Several of al Qa’ida’s key leaders also began to regroup in this area, along with a variety of other foreign groups, such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. The foreign jihadist contingent included two major types: those from the Caucasus and Central Asia (such as Chechens, Uzbeks, and Tajiks) and Arabs (such as Saudis, Egyptians, Somalis, and Yemenis). Many had settled in North and South Waziristan during the mujahideen wars against the Soviets; others streamed over after the collapse of the Taliban. A number of these foreigners were directly or indirectly affiliated with al Qa’ida, though some were simply inspired by the broader jihadist goal of pushing U.S. and other Western forces out of Afghanistan.60

  Much of al Qa’ida’s fighting force was located in an area that began around the Bajaur tribal agency in Pakistan. The leaders were mostly Arabs. Ayman al-Zawahiri was an Egyptian. Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, bin Laden’s former treasurer, who headed al Qa’ida’s operations in Afghanistan, was also an Egyptian.61 Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a senior al Qa’ida operative who was captured in 2006 in Turkey, was born in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. He served in Iraq’s army under Saddam Hussein and rose to the rank of major. He then joined the Afghan muhajideen and fought the Red Army in the 1980s. Finally, Abu Ubaydah al-Masri, who headed al Qa’ida’s external operations from Waziristan and died in 2007 of hepatitis, was yet another Egyptian.