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Graveyard of invaders
While the US and UK increase troop levels in Afghanistan, history shows that the nemesis of the invaders is the harsh terrain and a fiercely hostile population.
- By Abdel Bari Atwan, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:51 December 21, 2008
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US President-elect Barack Obama intends to make Afghanistan and Pakistan his focus in the "war on terror". In terms of identifying the location of his enemy, he is absolutely correct.
The region, especially the vast 'Tribal Area' - the size of Portugal that straddles the 1,500 mile border between Afghanistan and Pakistan region - has become a magnet for international jihadis.
Al Qaida, having regrouped and expanded in Iraq, was wrong-footed by General David Petraeus' 'surge' and 'awakening' campaigns. Now battle-hardened and well trained fighters are migrating back to the organisation's former safe haven in Afghanistan where they are protected by a resurgent Taliban, who control two-thirds of the country.
The renewed significance of Afghanistan in Al Qaida's global jihad prospectus is signalled by the arrival there of 'top brass' leaders such as the former emir, Abu Ayoob Al Masri, whom many believed captured or killed in May 2008 but who resurfaced in the tribal area in the summer.
Up to 50 highly trained ex-officers from Saddam Hussain's Republican Guards (who joined forces with Al Qaida in the Iraqi insurgency), including General Al Bashir Al Jabouri, who was the "defence minister" in the "Islamic State of Iraq", have also been brought over to disseminate their military expertise. Their presence is evidenced by the use of increasingly sophisticated Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in attacks in both sides of the border.
In September 2008, Osama Bin Laden's son and heir apparent, 24 year-old Sa'ad Bin Laden, also relocated (from Iran), to the "Islamic Emirate of Waziristan" on the Pakistani side of the border, accompanied by Saif Al Adl, one of Osama Bin Laden's closest aides. Al Qaida have already installed a regional commander, Mustafa Abul Yazid, in Waziristan.
The Taliban have spread to the other side of the border too with the formation of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) under Baitullah Mehsud. The number of Taliban sympathisers in Pakistan is an estimated four million with 80,000 of them armed fighters.
The Taliban-Al Qaida nexus has many friends in Pakistan, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, widely believed to have carried out the recent attacks in Mumbai.
The two groups share training camps and aspects of the attacks - simultaneous assaults in different locations for example - bear the hallmark of Al Qaida. India's 9/11 was almost certainly planned and manned in the tribal regions.
Obama is to send an additional 25,000 troops. Gordon Brown's Britain, having sensibly decided to extricate itself from Iraq, is to redeploy 3,000 soldiers to Afghanistan, adding to its already onerous financial burden of £2 million spent annually on its military efforts there.
Historians may well be asking if these two gentlemen are aware of Afghanistan's record over the past two centuries, for the country has always been the graveyard of imperial ambition.
Doomed to failure
Invasions of Afghanistan are doomed to failure by several insurmountable factors. The terrain is extremely mountainous and hostile, familiar to the insurgents but impenetrable by outside forces - exactly the scenario that allowed Algeria's National Liberation Front to defeat the French in 1962. The indigenous population is equally hostile and the majority Pashtun are notoriously fierce, bloodthirsty warriors who have a history of setting aside their tribal differences to create a united force to repel invaders.
Finally, one cannot underestimate the importance of the tribesmen's deeply ingrained code of honour, Pashtunwali, which explicitly forbids the betrayal of 'guests' or those under the tribes' protection. This is why Osama Bin Laden's location has never to date been betrayed whereas Saddam Hussain was betrayed by his own cousin. This makes an Iraq-style 'awakening' campaign unlikely to succeed in Afghanistan.
Let us look at the Soviet experience a little closer: The Red Army invaded in 1979 and established a puppet regime (first, in 1980, under Karmal then, in 1986, under Najibullah); they faced the unexpected and rapid formation of a hugely successful insurgency composed of international Mujaheddin which dragged them into a prolonged war of attrition; the Soviet economy, and empire, crumbled under the pressure of unmanageable military and security costs.
Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar have been there before. The world has been there before, except the present situation sees the additional challenge to the current invaders, US-led Nato, of the insurgency's rapid spread into Pakistan.
As long ago as 1996, when I interviewed him in Tora Bora, Bin Laden told me that his strategy was to "bleed the US to the point of bankruptcy" with prolonged wars of attrition on several fronts.
The Taliban-Al Qaida nexus is stronger and more powerful than ever. Al Qaida appears to have learnt from its mistakes in Iraq. It is operating under the authority of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan rather than assuming leadership and alienating other jihadi groups engaged in the same fight. This is likely to safeguard its stronghold as long as the Taliban remain powerful in the region.
For two centuries, Afghanistan has been the graveyard of imperialist ambition. As the US and British economy face meltdown, are Obama and Brown really in any position to change history?
Abdel Bari Atwan is Editor-in-chief, Al Quds Al Arabi pan-Arab daily newspaper.
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