Top leaders of terror organizations have fled across the Afghan border into the Pakistan tribal regions, which have become a new base for training and launching attacks. “It’s basically the epicenter of global terrorism and we can’t get in there to do anything about it,” said Drew Berquist, former U.S. intelligence officer, and author of “The Maverick Experiment.”
“I can’t tell you how many training camps we’ve learned about there, how many of the major players—or who are on the rise of being major figures is Islamic extremism—have come through or are there right now,” he said.
While coalition troops in Afghanistan hold territories and train security forces, special operations have put insurgent leaders on the run, with near-weekly reports of successful missions. Among the latest was a Taliban leader engaged in surveillance and coordinated attacks who was captured on Jan. 31, in Jalalabad City, Nangarhar Province, according to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
Berquist said although there have been successful missions, many of the top leaders in Pakistan are largely untouched. “For the most part, we haven’t been able to hit the Haqqanis and those guys who are across the border creating all this havoc in Afghanistan,” he said.
Intelligence gathering has been successful, and is pointing out locations of training camps and terrorist leaders. “All the reporting has been good. The issue is on the backend: what we’re able to do with it,” Berquist said, adding “when we get bigger guys, they’re often in Pakistan where we aren’t able to go.”
The Haqqani Network is a Pakistan-based terrorist organization with ties to al-Qaeda. The Pakistan government has played a role in rooting out insurgent groups, but those that pose no threat against Pakistan—such as Haqqani Network—are being left nearly untouched.
During a speech on the Afghan-Pakistan Annual Review on Dec. 16, 2010, President Barack Obama said, “It is the tribal regions along the Afghan-Pakistan border from which terrorists have launched more attacks against our homeland and our allies.”
Obama outlined how operations would move forward in 2011, saying the United States would put more pressure on the Pakistani government to root out terrorist groups. Obama said, “Progress has not come fast enough. So we will continue to insist to Pakistani leaders that terrorist safe havens within their borders must be dealt with.”
Berquist said, “I think they’re spot on by identifying that,” but added “My guess, based on history, is that it’s still going to be a pretty halfhearted approach to getting in there.”
Pakistani Support
The issue is complicated, much like everything else in the region. Parts of the Pakistan government work with or support terrorism and extremism, including parts of the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), according to a leaked report from a British Defense Ministry think tank in 2006, cited by a Council on Foreign Relations report.
Some experts believe that Pakistan’s housing of such groups is more of a security measure for the country. While the groups pose no perceived threat against the Pakistani government, their objectives tie into the country’s long-standing tensions with India, and uncertainty over what kind of government Afghanistan will be left with.
Pakistan has also strongly opposed U.S. operations on its soil. The country is a crucial transit route for supplies into Afghanistan.
The Pakistani government completely closed one of the main transit routes at the Torkham border crossing after an ISAF helicopter killed Pakistani frontier scouts who were firing their weapons on Sept. 30, 2010. The crossing was not reopened until Oct. 9, 2010.
“We’ve got a mess over there,” Berquist said. “Until we’re able to get across the border into Pakistan and make a dent in the tribal areas … they’re going to continue to send people into Afghanistan, and them and Iran both are going to do everything they can to destabilize Afghanistan as their neighbor.”
Targeted attacks have played a strong role in Afghanistan, however. There are two main forms of leadership taken by terrorist groups: horizontal and vertical. The vertical groups have a top-down structure with a leader and a chain of command, while the horizontal groups are more networks that anyone can join.
Al-Qaeda and the Taliban used to have strong roots in Afghanistan, but were removed from power by U.S. and coalition forces. “That essentially made the organization less vertical, less hierarchical,” said Max Abrahms, a postdoctoral fellow of the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College.
Terrorist operations of al-Qaeda and the Taliban have become more reliant on individual actors known as “grass-roots terrorists,” or “homegrown terrorists.”
He added, “I think trying to cut off the head of a terrorist group or an insurgent group, it’s not a silver bullet, but in general it tends to erode the group over time. That’s the best evidence I’ve seen.”
