December 2001

War against terrorism, a never ending story

War against terrorism

The declared war on terrorism by the USA after the atrocious attacks on 11 September 2001, seem to deliver its first tangible results as the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan, a major supporter of Islam inspired terrorism, seems to be on the verge of collapse.

The opposition groups in Afghanistan organized in the Northern Alliance, or as they like to be called right now the United Front, were able with US air support and technical advice of US and British special forces, to retake large parts of Afghanistan. With the exception of some small Taliban units moving around in the countryside and the area around the city of Kandahar, the country is under control of the Northern Alliance. The situation at Kandahar is very unstable and the anti Taliban forces could have taken the city as this report is going to press.

The Northern Alliance could through military victories and especially by the defection of local groups, warlords, to their side retake much of the territory they lost in the last 5 to 6 years. All major cities with the exception of Kandahar is under their control, and the fall of Kandahar does only seem to be a matter of time. There are however still some Taliban units operating in the countryside and ocassionally killing some foreign journalists if they happen to cross their roads but the effectiveness of those Taliban forces as a fighting force is very doubtful.

The fight against terrorism is slowly impoving as some high ranking people of the Al Qaeda network have been killed by the air attacks or in combat with the Northern Alliance. The where about of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar the leader of the Taliban are not known but they are expected to be somewhere around Kandahar and Bin Laden could however also eventually be around the city of Jalalabad or Tora Bora in the eastern Nangahar province. Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda have many friends around Jalalabad and Tora Bora and they took over and have build extensive networks, caves, supplies and armaments around those two areas which are difficult to locate, to reach and to target.

The instability in Afghanistan becomes clearly visible in the the fight for Kandahar where local Pushtun and Northern Alliance forces are about to start a fight for the city. Local Pushtun groups which have defected the Taliban to the Alliance are moving towards Kandahar to fight the remnants of the Taliban regime, approximately 12.000 Aghans and 5.000 Arabs, Pakistanis and Chechens which voluntarily fought with the Taliban. The fight for Kandahar could become intensive as the Taliban promised to fight until death and they would not surrender. This is very likely the case with the 5.000 foreigners fighting at the side of the Taliban but rather unlikely for the Afghans which would most likely surrender, change sides, if the fight delivers no hope on a victory. Especially as the Afghans are most likely to get some amnesty offered if they would surrender. The international volunteers are worser off as they will face a much harder treatment if not being executed.

The city of Kandahar will therefore fall rather quickly and the Northern Alliance and the local Pushtun will take over control. The swiftness of the fall of Kandahar will become faster as the Afghan, Pushtun, fighting groups will change sides and join the Northern Alliance.

The US fight against the Al Qaeda network is moving much slower as it is difficult to unravel and at the moment they are only able to freeze some financial assets of the Al Qaeda network in a number of allied countries and make some arrests of people who allegedly supported the Al Qaeda but none to little success in eliminating parts of the network itself.

A never ending story

The war on terrorism might develop in a never ending story as the definition of terrorism is fraud, it can be used by every government to depict any group which is considered hostile to their rule. It remains valid that the terrorist for one party is a freedom fighter for the other.

The large number and diversity of terrorist groups is one of the major causes which make any war against terrorism a never ending story. Every group has its own history and sometimes even a justifiable case to fight for. This is the evil of terrorism. The bad political, economical and social situation without any chance on improvement of large groups in the world will fuel the large number of terrorists organizations. And for those people terrorism seems very often the only way for improvement.

The difficulty of defeating terrorism becomes clear with the Al Qaeda network which can not be destroyed by the operations in Afghanistan, the freezing of assets or the rather indiscriminatory arrests of suspected Arabs. Even if the leadership of the Al Qaeda is eliminated the network might be still operational in other countries and able to commit atrocious terrorist attacks in the West. The cell structure and the relatively freedom and independence of the cells make each cell a danger in itself and above all difficult to destroy.

The advantage of the operations in Afghanistan is that the support network of the Al Qaeda will be damaged and will have some difficulties, if not great difficulties, to operate as efficiently as before. The targeting of the command structures, including the leaders of the Taliban and the Al Qaeda, will make a coherent defence, fight, and the planning and execution of terrorist attacks impossible.

It is therefore very likely that the Taliban will be defeated within a couple days to about one month. The Taliban will not be able to resist the increasing pressure of the Northern Alliance and especially the US bombings of targets of importance.

The landing of US marines in the vicinity of Kandahar delivered a new outlook on the conflict. The US forces are much better trained and armed than the Taliban or for that matter the Northern Alliance. If the Taliban continues the conventional kind of warfare thing around Kandahar they will quickly learn that they are no match for the US armed forces. The Taliban will therefore, most likely, be defeated on the short term and with some luck the US forces can capture Bin Laden, terrorists of the Al Qaeda network and the leadership of the Taliban. The US will however not have infinitive time to reach those goals.

The US forces in Afghanistan just have to be aware that they live on borrowed time in Afghanistan. At the moment they receive support from the population but this will change very fast as the majority of the Taliban units will be defeated. As quick as the Northern Alliance have defeated the Taliban as a fighting force the US will be treated as an unwelcome guest and needs to be removed from Afghan territory. And this could be done with every mean available to the Afghans,

The US government can delay the departure from Afghanistan by using an UN protection force which should protect the transition of Afghanistan to a peaceful nation or they can even use the different groups in Afghanistan in a dangerous divide and rule game but in the end they have to make the decision to leave even if their goals have not been accomplished. The British adagium on Afghanistan is still valid, to conquer Afghanistan is not that difficult but staying there or getting out is the difficult part.

Even if the best case scenario is coming through and the Afghans manage it to come together and govern the country successfully, the problem of terrorism is still present in the world and will be far from defeated. There are still many hard feelings between the extremist part of the muslims and countries which allegedly are working against the muslims or a supporting the countries which do so.

The war on terror will become more difficult as the Taliban forces have been defeated. After the victory of the Northern Alliance the US forces will be unnecessary for the Alliance and not welcome anymore. By that time they will need to have catched the people they want or become some kind of occupation force in Afghanistan. And that is not a pleasant forecast. A long term involvement with the presence of US forces in Afghanistan should be avoided. In any way the war on terror will be much less focused when the Taliban is defeated and whether or not Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda have been eliminated is not that important to the Northern Alliance.

The strength of Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda will be decimated after they have lost their base in Afghanistan as no other country will deliver the same kind of safety and support to operate. Even if Bin Laden would survive with parts of its Al Qaeda network the impact will be much lesser as their capabilities have been reduced and they will remain targeted by many countries in the world. This will be a clear victory and an advantage to the security in the world. But terrorism is still around. And any fight will be more difficult as a clear target with the same standing as Osama bin Laden will be not around.

A shift to Iraq, Sudan, Somalia and Jemen, as countries which support terrorism will be much more difficult as the international support for such operations will be lesser. It will also be much more difficult to proof that those countries support terrorism or the much used word of being a threat to the world security. It might be that those countries consider it as that they are just protecting their national interests, the terrorist-freedom fighter dilemma. It is there by difficult to make a case against one or more of those countries, e.g. that they are directly connected to the kind of terrorism as of the 11^th September and even more important without being perceived as a threat by the neighboring countries.

Another problem with those four countries is that they have little to none clear targets, in the case of Somalia, there is even no strong central government, it are relatively large countries with little infra structure and industries and it will demand a supply of forces which would possibly even overstretch US capabilities.

There are at the moment no countries which support terrorism like the Taliban controlled Afghanistan did, even not the four above mentioned countries.

The four countries did and will not support the US activities in their war against terrorism and they might even condone some organizations which are considered by some countries as terrorist organizations but those organizations are not like the Al Qaeda network. And the four groups are most likely viewed by the above mentioned countries as freedom fighters who fight for a legitimate cause.

At best there are some Al Qaeda cells in those four countries, possibly dangerous, but without support from the Al Qaeda itself much less dangerous and defeatable with other means, read political and economical pressure towards countries which do not prosecute them of even allow them to live in those countries.

What will be around are many small groups with smaller goals, smaller attacks but sometimes with much more support in the population or in the world. A number of those groups are viewed as freedom fighters, fighting for the good, by some countries.

The terrorist organizations after Al Qaeda

The terrorist organizations which remain active in the world are the familiar kind like the Hamas, Jihad and Hizbullah. Groups which have smaller goals and do not have any ambitions to become a worldplayer, e.g. start a woldwide conflict between the western world and the islamic world.

The three above mentioned groups are extremist islamic organizations which have gained a lot of influence in the Middle East. Beside their military wings which commit terrorist acts they have a social network providing education, healthcare, food and other social support services to the people living in the area. This makes them very popular with the population which do not have many hopes on any improvement.

Combatting terrorism is therefore a large part fighting the poverty in the region. And of course the political injustice in the region. The case of the Palestinians is a prime example of doing everything wrong. The creation of a Palestinian nation in the region is an absolute necessity to pacify the region and eliminate the organizations like the Hamas, Jihad and Hizbullah.

The starting point to come to a conclusion should not be the current situation but the division plan of the UN in 1948 with the creation of the state of Israel. From this plan the division should be arranged with some small changes to the division to be finalised at a summit. But this is an other story.