Fighting talk from Osama and the Taliban By Syed Saleem Shahzad
Apr 25, 2006
KARACHI - The latest Osama bin Laden message on Sunday coincides with the deadliest phase of the spring offensive in Afghanistan, which began on Friday when the Taliban-led insurgency launched fighters in various provinces under a unified strategy.
In an audio tape allegedly of bin Laden broadcast on Sunday by Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite television network based in Qatar, the al-Qaeda leader accused average Westerners "of supporting a war on Islam" and urged his followers to go to Sudan - his former base - to fight a proposed United Nations peacekeeping force. Some 300,000 African villagers have been killed in Darfur in attacks by Arab fighters backed by Khartoum.
The Taliban offensive involved a number of groups ranging from 100-200 fighters each launched simultaneously in about two dozen places along the porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, with the main focus on the Nooristan, Ghazni, Khost, Paktia and Paktika regions.
Contacts of Asia Times Online claim that the attacks will continue on a daily basis involving many hundreds of Taliban entering Afghanistan. The fighters are primed to carry out not only hit-and-run operations, as in the past, but also to engage in sustained battles from bases they will establish with the consent of the local population.
In their most successful attack, a roadside bomb on Saturday killed four Canadian soldiers traveling in an armored vehicle in a convoy in Gomboth, a village about 40 kilometers north of Kandahar, a former Taliban stronghold. US firms as well as pro-government clerics were also targeted. On Monday, three Taliban fighters and one policeman died in a gun battle between Taliban fighters and security forces in the province of Ghazni.
Over the past year, the Taliban have steadily cemented their support among the general population, capitalizing on inflammatory issues such as the alleged desecration of the Holy Koran by US interrogators, brothels in Kabul, the burning of a Taliban body, and cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. This has brought unanimity among different tribes to support the anti-US movement and paved the way for the Taliban to pitch sustained battles in open areas against US-led forces.
The overall objective of the Taliban is that by winter they will have taken control of most of rural Afghanistan.
The strategy The latest Taliban strategy could be defined as a "netwar", as in the operations of networks, but the leadership sitting in the mountains would outline the strategy as being identical to that of the mujahideen against the Soviets in 1988, when, for the first time, the mujahideen gained complete control over the areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and over villages around the major cities.
At this point, almost 10 years after the Soviet invasion, the mujahideen were able to wage pitched and sustained battles from their bunkers, and crucially they had a stream of fresh recruits to tap, as well as money and arms.
In terms of personnel, it is estimated that in the North and South Waziristan tribal areas of Pakistan the Taliban have enough supporters to draw on to fight for a year - about 40,000 men. In North Waziristan alone there are about 27,000.
There are indications of an equally strong presence of Taliban fighters in the other five tribal agencies, beside various other districts in Pakistan.
In a figure often quoted by Pakistani intelligence, as many as 500,000 men visited Afghanistan during the Taliban rule from 1996-2001. Most of them received military training, while all of them had ideological inspiration. About 50,000 of these people are believed to be still active as members of jihadi organizations. Obviously, this is a large pool from which the Taliban could draw.
In the early to mid-1990s, Pakistan's madrassas (seminaries) were the major source of foot soldiers in the Taliban-led movement, which triumphed over bickering mujahideen factions and seized power. This was done with the tacit approval of the Pakistani establishment.
Under US pressure, as Pakistan sides with the United States in the "war on terror", a number of checks and balances have been placed on the madrassas. However, there remains a zeal among religiously motivated youths, especially from Punjab's rural areas, to join hands with the Taliban-led resistance. They know very well where to go and whom to contact to get into Afghanistan.
The five years of Taliban rule was a major inspirational force for these youths, and now there is no need, as in the past, for the Pakistani establishment to encourage them to strengthen the Taliban - the Taliban's ideology itself is a strong motivating force.
At the same time, al-Qaeda and the Taliban have focused on sharpening the divide between the West and Islam - as in bin Laden's latest tape, where he reminds the Muslim world that by withdrawing funds from the Hamas-led government in Palestine, the West is showing its grudge against Islam in general. In this way, al-Qaeda attracts both human and material resources for its war against the West.
In terms of the Taliban-led insurgency, its financial sources remain highly secretive. It is believed to be supported by various dubious sources, including the opium trade, yet observers point out that to finance an operation of the present scale for several months could only be done by states.
This is a universal law of resistance movements: once they gain a certain critical mass, they generate more support from regional players. The Taliban are fast approaching that position.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Bureau Chief, Pakistan, Asia Times Online. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.
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