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

by Seth G. Jones

  7. David E. Sanger and David Rohde, “U.S. Pays Pakistan to Fight Terror, but Patrols Ebb,” New York Times, May 20, 2007, p. 1. There were a number of additional New York Times investigative pieces on the Coalition support funds. See, for example, David Rohde, Carlotta Gall, Eric Schmitt, and David E. Sanger, “U.S. Officials See Waste in Pakistan Aid,” New York Times, December 24, 2007, p. A1.

  8. Author interview with Dov Zakheim, January 30, 2008.

  9. On the capture of these al Qa’ida figures, see Pervez Musharraf, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir (New York: Free Press, 2006), pp. 222–63.

  10. See, for example, Intikhab Amir, “Waziristan: No Man’s Land?” The Herald (Pakistan), vol. 37, no. 4, April 2006, pp. 74–79; Amir, “Whose Writ Is It Anyway?” The Herald (Pakistan), vol. 37, no. 4, April 2006, pp. 80–82; Iqbal Khattak, “40 Militants Killed in North Waziristan,” Daily Times (Pakistan), September 30, 2005.

  11. On Operation Anaconda, see, for example, U.S. Air Force, Office of Lessons Learned (AF/XOL), Operation Anaconda: An Air Power Perspective (Washington, DC: Headquarters United States Air Force AF/XOL, February 2005); Paul L. Hastert, “Operation Anaconda: Perception Meets Reality in the Hills of Afghanistan,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 28, no. 1, January—February 2005, pp. 11—20; Sean Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda (New York: Berkley Books, 2005).

  12. Musharraf, In the Line of Fire, pp. 269–70.

  13. Ismail Khan and Alamgir Bhittani, “42 Uzbeks among 58 Dead: Fierce Clashes in S. Waziristan,” Dawn (Pakistan), March 21, 2007.

  14. Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Carl W. Ford, Jr. to Secretary of State Colin Powell, “Pakistan—Poll Shows Strong and Growing Public Support for Taleban,” November 7, 2001. Released by the National Security Archive.

  15. Author interview with Richard Armitage, October 17, 2007.

  16. Author interview with Robert Grenier, November 6, 2007.

  17. Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo, Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qa’ida (New York: Crown Publishers, 2005), p. 241.

  18. Letter from Lieutenant General James B. Vaught (U.S. Army Retired) to Secretary Rumsfeld, October 28, 2003.

  19. Author interview with Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, October 27, 2007.

  20. Author interview with Robert Grenier, November 6, 2007.

  21. General Barry R. McCaffrey USA (ret.), After Action Report, February 26, 2007.

  22. The rest of this section relies on extensive author interviews with American, European, Canadian, Afghan, and Pakistani government officials between 2003 and 2008. The interviews—which took place throughout Afghanistan and in Washington, London, Brussels, The Hague, and Ottawa—were conducted with military, political, and intelligence officials.

  23. Husain Haqqani, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005), p. 240.

  24. “Outgoing U.S. Envoy Enthusiastic about Afghanistan’s Future,” Sherberghan Aina Television, June 18, 2005. Ambassador Khalilzad’s comments were supported by President Karzai’s office in “Afghan Spokesman Calls on Pakistan to Curb Taliban Activities,” Kabul Tolo Television, June 21, 2005.

  25. Author interview with senior adviser to Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, Kabul, Afghanistan, June 24, 2004.

  26. International Security Assistance Force, Nationwide Research and Survey on Illegal State Opposing Armed Groups (ISOAGS): Qualitative and Quantitative Surveys (Kabul: International Security Assistance Force, 2006).

  27. Author interviews with three U.S. soldiers from 7th Group Special Forces, Washington, DC, May 10, 2007.

  28. Author interviews with senior U.S. officials, U.S. Embassy, Kabul.

  29. David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 57.

  30. Barnett R. Rubin, Afghanistan and the International Community: Implementing the Afghanistan Compact (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2006), p. 24.

  31. Author interviews with three U.S. soldiers from 7th Group Special Forces, Washington, DC, May 10, 2007.

  32. European Union and UNAMA, Discussion of Taliban and Insurgency (Kabul: European Union and UNAMA, April 30, 2007), p. 4.

  33. Pakistani officials frequently denied this assertion. As one Pakistani senator noted in testimony before Pakistan’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “Pakistan has arrested over 500 Taliban this year from Quetta and 400 of them have been handed over to Afghans.” Pakistan Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Pakistan-Afghanistan Relations, Report 13 (Islamabad: Pakistan Senate Foreign Relations Committee, March 2007), p. 38.

  34. Amir, “Waziristan: No Man’s Land?” p. 78.

  35. Author interview with White House official, Washington, DC, June 20, 2007.

  36. M. Ilyas Khan, “Profile of Nek Mohammad,” Dawn (Pakistan), June 19, 2004.

  37. Locals denied the existence of the last clause and argued that they did not agree to register all foreigners with the government.

  38. Iqbal Khattak, “I Did Not Surrender to the Military, Said Nek Mohammad,” The Friday Times (Pakistan), April 30-May 6, 2004.

  39. Ismail Khan and Dilawar Khan Wazir, “Night Raid Kills Nek, Four Other Militants,” Dawn (Pakistan), June 19, 2004.

  40. See, for example, Peace Pact North Waziristan, September 5, 2006. This agreement was negotiated by a political agent from North Waziristan representing Governor N.W.F.P. Federal Government, and tribal representatives from North Waziristan, Local Mujahideen N.W.F.P., Atmanzai Tribe.

  41. Pakistan Ministry of Interior, The Talibanisation Problem (Islamabad: Ministry of Interior, 2007). The document was subsequently leaked to the press. See, for example, Ismail Khan, “Talibanisation Imperils Security, NSC Warned: Immediate Action Urged,” Dawn (Pakistan), June 22, 2007.

  42. U.S. Department of State, Afghanistan, Autumn 2006: A Campaign at a Crossroads (Washington, DC: Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State, 2006), pp. 2–3. Unclassified document.

  43. Amir, “Whose Writ Is It Anyway?” pp. 80–82.

  44. Transcript of Martin Smith interview with General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan, June 8, 2006. I received a copy of the transcript from Frontline.

  45. In one public statement, for example, the Taliban argued that “the situation is augmenting and the Taliban in Waziristan are capturing hearts and minds. We see the tribes who were struggling for tens of years accepting arbitration by Taliban scholars.” Taliban Statement on Waziristan, April 13, 2006.

  46. Author interviews with Pakistan government officials, Washington, DC, January 2006.

  47. Lieutenant General David W. Barno, Testimony Before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, February 15, 2007, p. 21.

  48. Ibid.

  49. Author interview with senior Indian intelligence official, April 4, 2007.

  50. David C. Mulford, U.S. Ambassador to India, Afghanistan Has Made a Remarkable Transition (New Delhi: U.S. Department of State, February 2006); Amin Tarzi, “Afghanistan: Kabul’s India Ties Worry Pakistan,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, April 16, 2006.

  51. Border Roads Organisation, Vision, Mission, Role (Delhi: Border Roads Organisation, 2006).

  52. Feroz Hassan Khan, “The Durand Line: Tribal Politics and Pakistan-Afghanistan Relations,” Paper Presented at a Conference on Tribalism, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, September 2006, p. 20. As one Pakistan Senate panel concluded, India was more successful at winning Afghan hearts and minds than Pakistan. Pakistan Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Pakistan—Afghanistan Relations, Report 13, p. 9.

  53. Author interview with Sayed Fazlullah Wahidi, May 20, 2008.

  54. See, for example, Aly Zaman, “India’s Increased Involvement in Afghanistan and Central Asia: Implications for Pakistan,” Islamabad Policy Research Journal, vol. 3, no. 2, Summer 2003; Aimal Khan, “Historic Hostility,” The Herald (
Pakistan), vol. 37, no. 4, April 2006, pp. 83–85; Khan, “The Durand Line: Tribal Politics and Pakistan-Afghanistan Relations,” p. 20.

  55. Feroz Hassan Khan, “Rough Neighbors: Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Strategic Insights, vol. II, issue 1, January 2003, p. 6.

  56. Author interview with Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin, August 27, 2008.

  57. Abd Allah Mustawfi, Shahr-i zindigani-yi man ya tarikh-i ijtima‘i va idari-yi dawreh-yi qajariyeh [The Town of My Life or the History of Society and Administration of the Qajar Era] (Tehran: Kitabfurushi-yi Zavvab, 1964).

  58. Author interview with General Dan McNeill, May 25, 2008. See, for example, John Ward Anderson, “Arms Seized in Afghanistan Sent From Iran, NATO Says,” Washington Post, September 21, 2007, p. A12; Tom Coghlan, “Iran ‘Arming Taliban with Anti-Armour Roadside Bombs,’” Daily Telegraph (London), October 4, 2007, p. 1; Robin Wright, “Iranian Arms Destined for Taliban Seized in Afghanistan, Officials Say,” Washington Post, September 16, 2007, p. A19.

  59. Author interviews with NATO officials: Washington, DC, June 4, 2007; Kabul, Afghanistan, September 15, 2007; Kandahar, Afghanistan, September 17, 2007.

  60. Author interview with Ambassador Said Jawad, August 24, 2007.

  61. Author interviews with NATO officials: Washington, DC, June 4, 2007; Kabul, Afghanistan, September 15, 2007; Kandahar, Afghanistan, September 17, 2007.

  62. Author interview with Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta, July 2006; author interview with Dr. Zalmai Rassoul, November 23, 2005.

  63. Memorandum of Conversation, From L. Paul Bremer III, June 22, 2003 Meeting with Kofi Annan, Amman, Jordan.

  64. Defense Intelligence Agency, “Iranian Support to the Afghan Resistance,” excerpt from unidentified study, n.d.; Defense Intelligence Agency, “Iranian Support to the Afghan Resistance,” 11 July 1985. Released by the National Security Archive.

  65. Thom Shanker, “Iran May Know of Weapons for Taliban, Gates Contends,” New York Times, June 14, 2007, p. 12.

  66. Bill Gertz, “China Arming Terrorists,” Washington Times, June 15, 2007, p. 5.

  67. Author interviews with NATO officials, Kandahar, Afghanistan, September 17, 2007.

  68. Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), p. 66.

  69. European Union and UNAMA, Discussion of Taliban and Insurgency, p. 5.

  70. On Saudi Arabia’s historical role in Afghanistan, see National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), pp. 371–74.

  71. Lord Curzon of Kedleston, Frontiers: The Romanes Lecture 1907 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976), p. 7.

  72. U.S. State Department, Afghanistan, Autumn 2006, p. 17. Unclassified document.

  73. Eric Schmitt, Mark Mazzetti, and Carlotta Gall, “U.S. Hopes to Arm Pakistani Tribes Against Al Qa’ida,” New York Times, November 19, 2007, p. A1.

  74. Author interview with White House official, Washington, DC, June 20, 2007.

  75. Author interview with Western ambassador, Kabul, Afghanistan, September 13, 2007; author interview with Western ambassador, Kabul, Afghanistan, January 10, 2007.

  Chapter Sixteen

  1. National Intelligence Council, The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland (Washington, DC: National Intelligence Council, July 2007), p. 1.

  2. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Annual Threat Assessment of the Director of National Intelligence (Washington, DC: Office of the Director of National Intelligence, February 2008), pp. 5–6.

  3. Author interview with FBI counterterrorism official, July 1, 2008.

  4. House of Commons, Report of the Official Account of the Bombings in London on 7th July 2005, HC 1087 (London: The Stationery Office, 2006), p. 21.

  5. Bruce Hoffman, “Challenges for the U.S. Special Operations Command Posed by the Global Terrorist Threat: Al Qa’ida on the Run or on the March?” Written Testimony Submitted to the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities, February 14, 2007.

  6. On the plot’s connection to al Qa’ida, see United States Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2006, p. 269.

  7. Author interview with Bruce Riedel, Washington, DC, June 5, 2008.

  8. Seth G. Jones and Martin Libicki, How Terrorist Groups End (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, forthcoming).

  9. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), p. 60; Daniel Benjamin and Steve Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror (New York: Random House, 2002), pp. 132, 242.

  10. “Declaration of Jihad Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Mosques,” Al Islah (London), September 2, 1996.

  11. “Text of World Islamic Front’s Statement Urging Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders,” Al-Quds al-Arabi (London), February 23, 1998.

  12. House of Commons, Report of the Official Account of the Bombings in London on 7th July 2005, p. 29.

  13. See, for example, Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam (New York: Random House, 2003), p. xi.

  14. On the establishment of a Caliphate, see, for example, Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage Through Which the Umma Will Pass, translated and published by the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University, May 23, 2006.

  15. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, translated by Laura Mansfield (Old Tappan, NJ: TLG Publications, 2002), p. 132.

  16. Osama bin Laden, “Message to the Peoples of Europe,” released in November 2007.

  17. Fawaz A. Gerges, The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 49.

  18. Zawahiri’s reference to the Afghan jihad in this context was the Soviet War in the 1980s. He argued that it provided a critical opportunity for training Arabs against the forthcoming war with the United States. Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, p. 38.

  19. This section adopts the framework laid out by Bruce Hoffman. See, for example, Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), pp. 285–89; Hoffman, “Challenges for the U.S. Special Operations Command Posed by the Global Terrorist Threat.”

  20. Indeed, six months after September 11, 2001, al Qa’ida had lost sixteen of twenty-five key leaders on the Pentagon’s “Most Wanted” list. Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qa’ida: Global Network of Terror (New York: Berkley Books, 2002), p. 303.

  21. “Pakistan: Villagers Start Rebuilding Seminary Destroyed in Bajaur Airstrike,” The News (Pakistan), November 18, 2006.

  22. Hoffman, “Challenges for the U.S. Special Operations Command Posed by the Global Terrorist Threat” Jason Burke, Al-Qa’ida: The True Story of Radical Islam (London: Penguin, 2004); Peter L. Bergen, Holy War, Inc: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden (New York: Touchstone, 2001); Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Knopf, 2006).

  23. Greg Miller, “Influx of Al Qa’ida, Money into Pakistan Is Seen,” Los Angeles Times, May 20, 2007.

  24. United States Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2006 (Washington, DC: United States Department of State), p. 269; Hoffman, “Challenges for the U.S. Special Operations Command Posed by the Global Terrorist Threat.”

  25. House of Commons, Report of the Official Account of the Bombings in London on 7th July 2005, pp. 24–27; Hoffman, “Challenges for the U.S. Special Operations Command Posed by the Global Terrorist Threat.”

  26. New York Police Department, Threat Analysis: JFK Airport/Pipeline Plot (New York: New York Police Department, June 2, 2007).

  27. Juzgado Central de Instrucción Numero 5, Audiencia Nacional, Sumario (Proc. Ordinario) 21/2006 L, Madrid, 23 Octubre 2007.

  28. The Information Center for the Support of the Iraqi People, Iraqi Jihad, Hopes and Risks: Analysis of the Reality and Visions for the Future,
and Actual Steps in the Path of the Blessed Jihad (The Information Center for the Support of the Iraqi People, December 2003).

  29. Lorenzo Vidino, “The Hofstad Group: The New Face of Terrorist Networks in Europe,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 30, no. 7, pp. 579–92; Algemene Inlichtingen en Veiligheidsdienst, From Dawa to Jihad: The Various Threats from Radical Islam to the Democratic Legal Order (The Hague: Algemene Inlichtingen en Veiligheidsdienst, December 2004).

  30. U.S. Department of Defense, Background and Activities of Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, 2007). Also see U.S. Department of State, Wanted Poster for Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi (Washington, DC: Rewards for Justice Program, U.S. Department of State, 2006).

  31. Dipesh Gadher, “Al-Qa’ida ‘Planning Big British Attack,’” Sunday Times (London), April 22, 2007.

  32. On Wadi al-Aqiq, see, for example, Wright, The Looming Tower, pp. 166, 192.

  33. See, for example, “Bin Laden’s Treasurer Appointed New Afghan Qa’ida Leader,” Daily Times (Pakistan), May 30, 2007.

  34. General Michael V. Hayden, The Current Situation in Iraq and Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2006), p. 2.

  35. Raffi Khatchadourian, “Azzam the American: The Making of an Al Qa’ida Homegrown,” The New Yorker, January 22, 2007.

  36. Lieutenant General Michael D. Maples, The Current Situation in Iraq and Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Defense Intelligence Agency, 2006), p. 6.

  37. Alex Alexiev, “Tablighi Jamaat: Jihad’s Stealthy Legions,” Middle East Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 1, Winter 2005. On zakat and jihad, also see Marc Sage-man, Understanding Terror Networks (Philadelphia: University of Pennyslvania Press, 2004).

  38. See, for example, Alfred B. Prados and Christopher M. Blanchard, Saudi Arabia: Terrorist Financing Issues (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2004); The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 55.

  39. General Michael V. Hayden, The Current Situation in Iraq and Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2006), p. 2.