America’s hunt for Osama

THE long-awaited US attack on Afghanistan has been launched. In a repeat of the 1991 Gulf War, the US has completed building a coalition to back its military aims.

British PM Tony Blair is acting as moral point-man to promote the campaign against Afghanistan — an interesting choice considering that his nation twice invaded Afghanistan and killed many tens of thousands of its people. Bush has been busy presenting a dossier of circumstantial evidence that accuses bin Laden and his al-Qaida organization of full responsibility for the September 11 bombing in the United States.

The US has two war aims. First, capture or kill Osama bin Laden, who is hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan. Second, overthrow Afghanistan’s de facto government, Taliban, and replace it by the US and Russian backed Northern Alliance, which will open the way for American-owned oil and gas pipelines running south from Uzbekistan.

The US apparently lacks precise information on bin Laden’s whereabouts. He may be hiding in the extensive network of caves and tunnels in the Hindu Kush mountains that he helped construct during the 1980s war against Soviet occupation. Some reports put him in the remote Wakhan Corridor, a wild, uncharted, region of high, snow-capped mountains that extends northeast to the Chinese border. I know this remote area because in the early 1980s, I had a small role in getting China to deliver machine guns and mortars across Wakhan by yak trains to Afghan mujahideen forces battling the Soviets invaders.

Washington intends to send commandos into Afghanistan, backed by 350-400 warplanes, C-130U ‘Spooky’ gunships, and helicopter gunships flying from former Soviet bases in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Delta Force, Navy Seals, Army Rangers, Marine recon units, and light infantry from the 10th Mountain Division are slated to be used — ensuring all services get a share of the action and glory. US units will work with Britain’s elite SAS, whose primary mission is reconnaissance and targeting. Russia may send in its Spetsnaz commandos, and KGB’s elite Alpha assault team.

These forces are adequate for lightning raids, but not for large-scale, sustained operations inside Afghanistan, even against Taliban’s ragtag, lightly-armed, 30,000-40,000 tribal warriors. A multi-division deployment of US and British regular ground forces would require at least 5-6 months and bases inside Pakistan.

A massive, Iraq-style bombing campaign is unlikely: medieval, famine-stricken Afghanistan offers few military targets. Bin Laden’s camp, and Taliban HQ’s in Kabul, Jalalabad, and Kandahar remain the main targets for air and ground assaults. The so-called ‘terrorist training camps’ in Afghanistan amount to no more than huts and sheds. Taliban’s handful of rusting aircraft and tanks are not worth the ammunition to blow them up.

But locating bin Laden will be difficult; capturing him, far harder. Afghanistan’s mountains are wild and jagged. Frequent dust storms pose major dangers to helicopter operations. Inserting helicopter-born troops into a narrow valley is perilous, particularly if enemy forces control the high ground and can fire down at the aircraft with heavy machine guns and RPG anti-tank rockets. This writer saw heavily armoured Soviet HIND helicopter gunships destroyed in this manner during the 1980s war.

If bin Laden can be located but not snatched, the US may attack his cave positions with still secret bombs that can penetrate up to 30 meters of rock and earth and/or deadly fuel air explosives(FAE). These ‘mini-A bombs’ release an aerosol of vaporized gasoline over a large area, then detonate. The result is huge, lethal overpressure that ruptures the lungs and other internal organs of anyone below, even those sheltered in bunkers, caves, or basements of concrete buildings. The Russians make extensive use of FAEs against Chechen independence fighters and civilians, causing large numbers of casualties and massive property damage.

Failure to swiftly kill or capture bin Laden and his few hundred armed supporters means the US may have to deploy many more troops in Afghanistan — likely from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions — and hunt for the elusive militant. Sweep operations seeking the Scarlet Pimpernel of the Hind Kush would expose American soldiers to clashes with Afghan fighters, accidents, and the 10 million or more mines left behind by the Soviets. The US could quickly get bogged down in a chaotic, lethal Beirut or Somalia-like situation where it is impossible to tell friend from foe.

Washington clearly intends to put the Northern Alliance into power. But this unsavoury collection of ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks cannot hope to rule over Afghanistan’s majority Pakhtuns. The last time a Tajik-led government held Kabul, it refused to share power. The result was civil war. The Northern Alliance may have to rely for survival on the bayonets of US and British troops. Now, old mujahideen commanders whom I knew from the Great Jihad, like Abdul Haq and Gulbadin Hekmatyar, have resurfaced, suggesting that a resumption of the Afghan civil war is not far off. Taliban’s Pashtuns say they will take to the hills and wage guerilla war against the Alliance, which is widely viewed in Afghanistan as a creature of the Russians and Americans. Deja vu. In 1983, US Marines were sent to Beirut to prop up a minority regime in the midst of civil war. Hundreds of US Marines died.

Traditional warfare in Afghanistan involves bribing tribal leaders to switch sides. This is how Taliban got into power. US threats and money may induce some Pashtun tribes to ditch Taliban and, if the US is very lucky, hand over bin Laden. —Copyright Eric S. Margolis

When bombs & bread are dropped together

THE most powerful military force on earth has now begun its bombardment of the world’s poorest, most ravaged Muslim nation. And no matter how many loaves of bread are dropped with our bombs, will there be a Muslim who will approve?

Is it possible, is it conceivable - even with our most sophisticated missiles - that we are not killing the innocent as well as the guilty in Afghanistan? We may say we are punishing Osama bin Laden. We may believe it. But will the Muslim world believe it? There has been much talk of a coalition these past four weeks but it’s not a coalition that includes any Muslim nation, albeit that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and the little dictatorship up in Uzbekistan are being dragged along behind it. There are no Saudi Arabian or Kuwaiti pilots in the night skies over Afghanistan. This is not a Western-Muslim coalition. This is the West on its own, bombing a Muslim country that has a standard of living close to the Middle Ages.

The bombing, I suppose, came in time for prime-time television. But do we seriously think that Mr bin Laden and his cronies are going to be caught out by this?

President George Bush talks about “sustained, comprehensive and relentless” operations. But where does it go from here? Those of us who remember the start of the Kosovo war - or, indeed, the beginning of the air bombardment of Iraq - remember how we were assured that our opponents would sue for peace in a few days. But that did not happen and the Taliban, a monster created by our two “Alliance” friends Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, are unlikely to throw down their arms.

Of course, we will be firing missiles and dropping bombs on at least 12 of Mr bin Laden’s training camps. That won’t be difficult. After all we - or rather the CIA - built them for Mr bin Laden and his comrades just under 20 years ago.

With more time and more work, perhaps we could have cobbled together a bigger alliance but what we are doing now is plunging into the very centre of jihadi culture. The issue is not how many bombs we dropped last night or dropped today but where the cracks begin to appear in the next 24 hours. Because Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan lay on the most dangerous political tectonic plate in the world.

True, Mr Bush has done his best to find a sop, pushing humanitarian aid into the package of bombs and manhunts. As usual, we’ve been told that the Afghans are not our enemies. That’s what we said before we bombed Iraq in 1991. And it’s what we said before we bombed Libya in 1985. And it’s what the Americans said before they shelled Lebanon in 1982. And, as a matter of fact, it’s what we told the Egyptians before we bombed them on the Suez canal in 1956. But will the Muslim world believe it?

And just as a footnote to this bleak moment of 21st-century history, are we setting up any judicial process, any courts, any legislation to ensure that bad men are punished with the law? That is one answer we are unlikely to get from our leaders in the next few days. —Coutesy: The Independent, London

Afghanistan’s emerging scenario

THE forces of the US and UK launched attacks on Afghanistan on October 7, using bombers and cruise missiles to pound military targets and suspected terrorist bases in Afghanistan. These attacks were launched from the Arabian Sea, and used Pakistan’s air space. There are indications that special forces may have been landed from bases in Central Asia, for covert operations against hideouts of the Al Qaeda organization, which were the main target of the US-led operation.

The war-ravaged land of Afghanistan, whose people have suffered from five years of drought after 22 years of conflict, has been chosen as the first target in the new kind of war that America has undertaken against terrorism after the unprecedented terrorist attacks on its soil on September 11. Almost immediately after establishing the identity of the persons who hijacked four planes in the morning of that day, the US reached the conclusion that the perpetrators belonged to the Al Qaeda organization, established by Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, who was operating from the sanctuary provided to him by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

A major shift has taken place in US perceptions as a result of the terrorist outrage of September 11. Whereas its ballistic missile defence concept smacks of a “fortress America” approach, the fight against global terrorism compels engagement in many parts of the world. The Bush administration sought to establish a coalition against terrorism with virtually all countries, big or small, under the threat that those not joining it would be considered allies of terrorism.

Acting under the provocation of an “attack on America”, the Bush government got the approval of Congress to go to war in any part of the world. With Osama bin Laden as the prime suspect, the focus of US military and diplomatic activity turned to the region around Afghanistan. As the Taliban-led government there refused to hand him over to the US, despite resolutions of the Security Council, it has became the first target of a US-led “comprehensive, relentless and decisive” campaign against terrorism everywhere.

In the aftermath of the trauma of September 11, President Bush faced the difficult question of how to conduct the war he had declared on terrorism. Though initially he was under pressure to use massive force against the perpetrators of Sept 11 attacks to assuage the US public feelings of outrage and anger, he and his advisers realized that this challenge was different from earlier ones, like the Pearl Harbour attack, when the author of the aggression was known. The war now declared will require a persistent effort, spread over many years, to root out terrorism wherever it exists.

However, as evidence accumulated to show that the outrage had been masterminded by Osama bin Laden from his sanctuary in Afghanistan, where the theocratic regime of the Taliban had refused to hand him over despite demands on behalf of the international community, President Bush felt that the first operation of the war against state harbouring terrorists had to be directed against Afghanistan.

President Bush wisely held back action for nearly four weeks as he wanted to give a chance to diplomacy before exercising the military option. Apart from the problems implicit in launching attacks on a landlocked country, he also had to take into account the desperate straits of the people of Afghanistan after over two decades of civil war. Thousands had already fled for fear of an imminent attack by the formidable armada of forces assembled in the region; most observers expect this exodus of refugees to run into millions.

The US has sought to reassure the public opinion in the Arab and other Muslim countries, which concerned about the consequences of a military attack on a Muslim country. Evidence was provided on the guilt of Osama in the September 11 outrage to key leaders. President Bush also took other initiatives, such as support for Palestinian statehood and the dispatch of Defence Secretary Rumsfeld to the Middle East.

Pakistan, the only country still having diplomatic relations with the Taliban, made repeated efforts to persuade the regime in Kabul to heed the call of the international community to turn over or expel bin Laden, failing which it would bring a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions on itself and on the helpless Afghan people. Unfortunately, the Taliban paid no heed. Pakistan was aware that while already playing host to over two million Afghan refugees, there was a serious danger of millions more seeking refugee on its territory in case of an attack by the US-led coalition.

There is historic irony in the fact that the rise of the Taliban was a response to the civil war that erupted following the withdrawal of the Soviet forces and the fall of the client regime of Najibullah in 1992. By 1994, the civil war threatened not only to create total chaos but also to precipitate the break-up of the country between warlords along ethnic lines.

In this situation, the rise of the Taliban was welcomed by Pakistan, and initially, even by the US, because of their commitment to two basic aims: to restore law and order under a shariat based government, and to safeguard the territorial integrity of the country. Sadly, the version of Islam practised by the Taliban, notably their treatment of women, did not win them international approval.

Pakistan, which has traditionally recognized any indigenous government that controls Kabul, extended recognition in 1997, one year after their capture of Kabul, when they appeared to be on the verge of extending their control to the remaining areas in the north. Only Saudi Arabia and UAE followed suit. Pakistan’s recognition of the Taliban became a diplomatic liability, especially as an impression prevailed that Pakistan had sponsored them, and therefore Islamabad had a strong influence over their policies and conduct. This impression ignored the fact that the Afghans are a fiercely independent people who do not accept the dictates of others.

Pakistan’s inability to influence Taliban was demonstrated on several occasions. When the US wanted to get Osama for his complicity in the bombing of US embassies in East Africa in 1998, the Taliban turned a deaf ear to its views or the efforts made by senior US envoys. In 2000, Pakistan sent a minister to dissuade them from destroying the Buddha statues at Bamiyan, which were precious historical relics. The Taliban remained unmoved and went ahead and destroyed the statues to the horror of the entire civilized world.

What led the Musharraf eventually distance itself from the Taliban government was its allowing sanctuary to about thirty terrorists from extremist religious groups who had been convicted by courts in Pakistan, or were wanted by the police, for serious crimes. In spite of this, Pakistan continued to play a leading role in connection with humanitarian relief for the drought-affected people of Afghanistan.

The choice made by President Musharraf to join the anti-terrorist coalition won the approval of the overwhelming majority of the people of Pakistan. It also won for Pakistan the right to influence decisions, both on the conduct of the anti-terrorist campaign and on the future policies to be adopted towards Afghanistan. The main US aims in Afghanistan are that not only Osama but also other members of the Al Qaeda organization have to be apprehended and all terrorist training camps dismantled.

The US would also like to play a leading role in the formation of a broad-based government to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan. However, the immediate situation created by the US-led attacks, notably fears of heavy civilian casualties, demanded that the nation be reassured on the country’s security, and its perceptions of the future.

President Musharraf’s press conference on October 8, not only provided a clear indication of Pakistan’s objectives, but also served to reassure the country on the implications of the anti-terrorism campaign for Pakistan and the region. He took up three aspects of the development that were of immediate concern both at home and at the international level.

Taking up the nature and goals of the military action, he made it clear that the attack was aimed mainly at terrorist camps and military installations. Every effort had been made to avoid civilian casualties. The subject of concern for Pakistan was that the military operations should not be carried out in a manner that would confer an advantage on the Northern Alliance in relation to the political dispensation that would emerge after the action.

Taking up the nature of the new political set-up in Kabul after the military operations, he underlined Pakistan’s concerns. The unity of Afghanistan had to be safeguarded and the emergence of a broad-based, multi-ethnic government facilitated, without any effort to impose a government from outside. Pakistan’s main concern was to have friendly government in Kabul, with which it could cooperate in the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the country’s war-ravaged economy and infrastructure.

This naturally brought up the third element, pertaining to the rehabilitation effort needed to put Afghanistan back on its feet after two decades of conflict and instability. In 1989, the US had simply walked away, having pushed the soviet troops out of Afghanistan, thanks largely to the fierce struggle by the people of Afghanistan.