The Taliban's suicide bombing campaign
Fraser Nelson 12:08pm
If you ever wondered what a Taliban suicide bomber looks like, examine the boy on the left. Aged 14, Rafiqullah was caught with a suicide vest but pardoned by President Karzai. However, this did not dent the suicide bombing campaign which yesterday claimed the lives of another three British servicemen. The suicide bombers intercepted are invariably Pakistanti – which is why an increasing number of Afghans regard this not as an insurgency but an Afghan-Pakistan war. The bombers are plucked from orphanages or madrasahs in al-Qaeda’s new bolthole, the quasi-autonomous northwest tribal areas of Pakistan. Referred to as FATA (federally administered tribal areas) this is the source of the IEDs, the Taleban agents and, alas, the suicide bombers.
Producing IEDs has become something of a cottage industry in FATA but the end result is nowhere near as deadly as the infra-red activated Iranian-made devices laid for the British in Basra. Similarly the youth of the suicide bombers means they are far more easily intercepted than their Palestinian counterparts. When I was in Lashkar Gah last month, I heard about how one suicide bomber killed himself within feet of a British serviceman who lost only his helmet: the insurgent had not put any ball bearings next to his explosive and succeeded only in killing himself. Yet for all the crudeness of the Taliban’s tactics, they have in FATA an unpoliced and seemingly neverending supply of people and weapons.
The main victim of suicide bombers are Afghans, which is why the Taliban are using this tactic in desperation. Two years ago, their strategy depended on being seen as some kind of Pashtun national liberation army. Hard to do now their bombs routinely kill, maim and terrorise Pashtunis in Helmand. The recent execution of an Afghan journalist working for the BBC World Service’s Pashto station can be seen as the Taliban’s hatred of losing the information war. The BBC connects mainly illiterate Pashtun villages to the world outside - and allows them to learn about the tactics deployed by those who claim to be the heirs to the mujahedeen.
Until four years ago, suicide bombing had never been seen in Afghanistan. It was a tactic utterly alien to even this war-addled country. Its emergence now adds to the feeling (regularly aired in the Kabul-based press) that this is not a domestic insurgency but a Pakistan-inspired attack.
This has obvious challenges for British forces in Helmand – for example, I learned that they need and have requested more anti-IED units. But the situation in Helmand is vastly better than the hellhole described in 3 Para, the brilliant account of the first Afghan deployment two years ago by Patrick Bishop. After counting 6,000 dead last year, the Taliban seem to have accepted that cannot defeat us on the ground. The IEDs and suicide bombers are a sign of their retreat, not a sign of our failure.
As I said in my post yesterday, the Taliban cannot outfight us but think they can outlast us. Their main hope – and that of al-Qaeda – is that the Western democracies will no longer tolerate the casualties which inevitably accompany long-term deployments. So these suicide bombs are aimed not so much at British soldiers – the strategic advantage is limited. The wider aim of these bombs is to erode support for the war in Britain, so that a new government is elected on a “troops out” platform. It is a credit to David Cameron and Liam Fox that they are yielding not one bit to this temptation.
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Danny Kemp
June 9th, 2008 1:13pm Report this commentI'd like to know what the source is for your assertion that the bombers are inevitably Pakistanis. I would guess that is NATO, the US military and the Afghan government. What a surprise. This makes it very easy for them to explain why the campaign against the Taliban is not working. Undoubtedly FATA is a haven for Islamist militants as the US and the Afghans allege, and the peace talks there are deeply controversial, but to blame it all on Islamabad is to overlook the central problem -- the presence of Western troops in Afghanistan. Whatever our boys have done or failed to do over the past seven years, and whether or not the invasion was justified, if you ask most Afghans (as I have had the chance to do while based in this region for nearly four years) they will say that they want the troops out as much as the Taliban and that it is the foreigners who are creating the problem. The Karzai government is always at great pains to say that these militants are not Afghans, and he is right to point out that Pakistani intelligence sponsored the Taliban during the 1990s (and maybe that elements within Pakistan's intelligence set-up still does). But this should not obscure the fact that the Taliban was an Afghan movement mainly comprising Afghans -- and that it remains an Afghan movement that still mainly comprises Afghans, especially the hordes of fighters that we see launching non-suicide attacks against foreign soldiers.
In any case, how do you propose "outlasting" the Taliban? Kill them all? Kill all the militants on the Pakistani side too? Kill everyone between Peshawar and Lashkar Gah? Will it be time to bring the troops home then? The problem can only be solved by at least taking into account the political and tribal situation on both sides of the border because ultimately the foreign troops are fighting people who live there. There is no other way.
Fraser Nelson
June 9th, 2008 6:06pm Report this commentDanny, if you're based in Afghanistan you won't need me to tell you about the nationality of the suicide bombing rings that have been disrupted by the Afghan and, yes, Nato forces. By "outlast" I mean stay in Afghanistan until the job is done - and I'm talking decades. The Afghans I spoke to in my short visit voiced concern about the West but added if we go then the warlords will restart a civil war a la 1992-96. Seriously, what do you think would happen if the West left?
David Lindsay
June 9th, 2008 6:27pm Report this commentWhat are we doing in Afghanistan? What, exactly, would constitute victory or defeat there? And why, exactly? We merrily grow opium in our country "for medicinal purposes". We are allied to Islamist smack-smugglers in Kosovo.
And the reviled "Taliban" are exactly the same people as the revered "tribal elders", depending on what we happen to think of them at the time. On the same basis, the "Ba'athists" whom we are in the process of "rehabilitating" in Iraq are exactly the same people as the "Sunni insurgents" or the alleged Iraqi branch of that non-existent organisation, "al-Qaeda".
TGF UKIP
June 9th, 2008 7:55pm Report this commentThree thoughts:
1) One of the factors that helped turn the tide for the US in central and northern Iraq was foreign fighter suicide bombings which killed Sunni as well as Shia and helped turn the majority of the Sunni polulation against al-Qaeda.
2) "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" and while the Iranians may be Shia and the tribal Pakistanis and al-Quaeda Sunni they both hate the West. I would, therefore, be amazed if Revolutionary Guards weren't already in the tribal areas and if the more sophisticated Iranian IEDs didn't start turning up in Helmand as they, apparently already have done round Herat and other areas closer to Iran.
3) With regard to the stamina and tenacity of the West there is every reason to be concerned with the possible advent of "without pre-conditions" Obama, the prior surrender of the French, Germans, Italians and Spanish and the shakiness of the Brits under either Brown or Cameron. In this latter regard, I don't, as usual, share your faith in your pal Dave. My evidence is the Berlin speech, the opportunism over Iraq and the disgraceful Tory blackguarding of and distancing from George Bush. Liam Fox should have resigned over a year ago.
BTW I wonder which of the many, many NGOs Danny Kemp represents.
Fraser Nelson
June 9th, 2008 8:55pm Report this commentTGF, unless there are two Danny Kemps this must be the (Islamabad-based) AFP journalist. If he engages us, we may learn something...
Neil MacKinnon
June 9th, 2008 8:55pm Report this commentAn interesting comment by Danny Kemp about the nationality of the suicide bombers. The trend of suicide bombing in Afghanistan is the almost the same as in Iraq whereby it is usually foreigners who volunteer and train to carry out such attacks. It is actually surprising when it is reported that an Afghan or an Iraqi detonate themselves.
As for being in Afghanistan - David Lindsay needs only to visit the country to see why the local population need the financial and military support of the west or does he think that open sewers or girls being murdered because they attend school is not enough of a reason?
As for the pacification of the Ba'athists in Iraq - it’s exactly what happened in Germany after WW2 and is the only sensible way to marginalise internal support for the insurgency and retain trained and experienced people. It should be remembered that not everyone in the Ba'ath party was a war criminal or terrorist. Doctors, for instance, had to enrol in the party to finish their education or collect their pay of they were in general practise. What was the point of NOT allowing people like this to continue working; providing them with the means to keep their families fed, supporting the community and (hopefully) encouraging them not to lay IEDs or EFPs at the roadside.
Finally, how can Al-Qaeda be non-existent when it openly advertises its exploits in the media? Are you really that naive as to suggest that it part of some global conspiracy!? Mention that in a pub in Madrid, London or New York and see what reaction you get.
TGF UKIP
June 9th, 2008 11:43pm Report this commentYeah, ok, Fraser, I may have been too hasty and too suspicious and as you clearly endorse him as an objective journo I clearly owe Danny Kemp an apology and I hope he will accept this.
Danny Kemp
June 10th, 2008 12:42pm Report this commentFraser, I doubt I have anything worth teaching anyone, but here is my second tuppence. You're right that many of the bombers are Pakistanis. But Taliban spokesmen themselves have identified several recent suicide attackers as Afghans, including two who targeted Karzai at a parade in April. Perhaps that's what one would expect the Taliban to say to make the insurgency look homegrown -- yet one might also expect Kabul, NATO and the coalition to say the opposite and shift the blame across the Durand Line.
On the wider issue, I'm sure you're right, too, that we must stay until the job is done. But the job is still often seen in terms of wasting lots of Taliban, while the longer we stay the more anger grows in Afghanistan and the Muslim world. It's a paradox -- put troops in to counter the Taliban and help Afghans and you end up making the insurgency worse, as the rising death toll in Afghanistan since 2001 shows. At some point a pull-out would, at the very least, rob the militants of their biggest cause.
The West should not leave yet, but outlasting the Taliban is out of the question. They are Afghans too (mostly). After all, how many counterinsurgency campaigns have been successful in history without some political solution? In Afghanistan, the West has again failed to follow the necessary steps to reach such a solution and let Afghans run their own country, such as: genuine attempts to foster reconciliation with Taliban and their allies on both sides of the border (with Pakistan's FATA also desperate for development and political representation to reduce the grip of the extremists there); a focus on development instead of security; providing a real alternative to opium cultivation for impoverished Afghans. Undoubtedly there have been gains for Afghans in terms of development and girls schools etc, but these are being undermined.
By the way, yes I am a journalist in Islamabad. And no apology necessary TGF. (If you believe the Afghans, I would be earning a lot more money if I worked at an NGO, and getting a plush house and a Landcruiser into the bargain...)
Fraser Nelson
June 10th, 2008 5:57pm Report this commentDanny, thanks for responding. I accept there is much propaganda on both sides here and also accept that nothing is as it first appears in Afghanistan. I suppose the question of whether we can outlast the Taliban depends on how we define them. Can I ask: what do you understand by the term, and how do you believe it is understood in Afghanistan? I had suspected it was a term used by the West to describe anyone with a beard and a gun - or is there an ideological drive which distinguishes them from other extremist groups in FATA?
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