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Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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29May14
Al Qaeda remains in Afghanistan despite drawdown plans
Eli Lake's report at The Daily Beast, titled "As Obama Draws Down, Al Qaeda Grows in Afghanistan," is today's must read article. A quick excerpt:
As President Obama outlines what he promises to be the end of the war in Afghanistan, new U.S. intelligence assessments are warning that al Qaeda is beginning to re-establish itself there.
Specifically, the concern for now is that al Qaeda has created a haven in the northeast regions of Kunar and Nuristan and is able to freely operate along Afghanistan's only major highway--Route One, which connects the airports of Kandahar and Kabul.
"There is no doubt they have a significant presence in northeast Afghanistan," Mac Thornberry, the Republican vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told The Daily Beast. "It's a lot of speculation about exact numbers, but again part of the question is what are their numbers going to be and what are there activities going to be when the pressure lets up."
If Thornberry's warnings prove correct, then Obama is faced with two bad choices. He either breaks his promise to end America's longest war or he ends up losing that war by withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan too soon, allowing al Qaeda to re-establish a base of operations in the country from which it launched 9/11.
For years, the official intelligence community estimate was that a little more than 100 al Qaeda fighters remained in Kunar Province, a foreboding territory of imposing mountains and a local population in the mountains at least that largely agrees with al Qaeda's ascetic Salafist philosophy.
But recent estimates from the military and the U.S. intelligence community have determined that al Qaeda's presence has expanded to nearby Nuristan and that the group coordinates its operations and activities with allies like the Pakistan-based Taliban and Haqqani Network.
Read the whole thing. Long War Journal readers will know that for years we have reported on al Qaeda's extensive presence in Afghanistan; al Qaeda's collusion with the Taliban, Haqqani Network, the Pakistani Taliban, and other groups; and US and Coalition efforts to dismantle the network using targeted raids.
And we've repeatedly criticized the often-repeated meme that al Qaeda has just 50-100 fighters in Afghanistan. Using press reports, press releases from the International Security Assistance Force, and al Qaeda's own statements, we have detected the presence of al Qaeda and allied groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Islamic Jihad Group, and Lashkar-e-Taiba in 17 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces. Sadly, in June 2013 ISAF stopped issuing press releases on its raids that targeted al Qaeda, cutting off one important source of information that detailed al Qaeda's presence.
Now, I'd argue that al Qaeda isn't expanding into Kunar and Nuristan, but has merely capitalized on the US pullback from Kunar that took place beginning in 2009 [see this report from 2011 for some background on the withdrawal]. Keep in mind that the US began this withdrawal even as special operations forces were actively targeting what ISAF identified as al Qaeda "camps" in the province. For more on this, see LWJ report, ISAF captures al Qaeda's top Kunar commander, from April 2011.
It seems that some US officials are finally starting to come around to the analysis of al Qaeda's presence that has long been provided by The Long War Journal. Unfortunately, that may be too little and too late, as President Obama has set the stage for the US to exit Afghanistan and significantly reduce, if not end, its capacity to target al Qaeda and allied groups in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
[Source: By Bill Roggio, Threat Matrix, The Long War Journal, NJ, 29May14]
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