Mediaboss Marketing

It is a question of time until terror attacks occur again with their roots in a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

The news cycle, of course, has already moved on.

As the midterm cycle heats up, the White House can be expected to intensify its domestic engagement. Biden has calculated that, provided the Democratic infrastructure package begins to show results, and the inflationary effects of these massive spending increases do not damage household budgets, American voters will move on from the Afghanistan debacle. Public opinion in democracies is fickle, but foreign policy spurs few long-term changes in American voting patterns.

Moreover, U.S. voters are unlikely to notice that the current administrations hurried departure from Afghanistan has collapsed the bridges to other NATO member states that candidate Biden promised to rebuild following Mr. Trump.

The unspoken assumption has been that Afghanistan will not become a launchpad for terrorist attacks against the U.S. and its allies, as it was when the Taliban last held power.

The fact is American capitulation in Afghanistan will embolden Salafi-Jihadist organizations globally, likely first in Iraq, where the U.S., despite maintaining a military presence, has drawn down its forces and ceded the central government to Iranian influence.

The foreign policy elite know the Taliban never severed their ties with al-Qaeda. Indeed, the organizations were never fundamentally distinct. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban both emerged from the networks the Afghan Mujahideen created. The Taliban are primarily Pashtun Afghans and Pakistani tribesmen, al-Qaeda primarily foreign fighters. The Talibans explicit political objective centered on Afghanistan, unlike al-Qaeda with its global jihadist aims but each mission furthers the other. Each radical interpretation of Islamic law comports with the other. Marriages between families of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, and the shared struggle against NATO in Afghanistan, reinforces this bond.

Moreover, the White House has overstated the divisions between the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and other jihadist groups like Islamic State (IS). IS affiliates like ISIS-K are distinct from the parent organization in Syria and Iraq; ISIL emerged as an al-Qaeda offshoot, comprised of locals and foreign fighters who had distinct tactical aims from al-Qaeda in Iraq, and found Abu Musab al-Zarqawis apocalyptic intensity appealing. But ISs affiliates typically splinter off from extant groups, rather than attracting foreign fighters, as occurred in West Africa in 2016.

ISIS-K is similar. Its leaders and members are former Taliban fighters. Thus, despite tensions between IS affiliates and other jihadist groups, significant communication still occurs by virtue of their shared social contact. The Taliban likely knew of, and perhaps even gave its blessing to, the ISIS-K suicide plot outside the Kabul airport. It is convenient, given the White Houses narrative, to pin aggressive action on ISIS-K as distinct from the Taliban. But treating these threats as distinct is foolhardy.

This issue is compounded by the unclear operational control the Taliban has over its members. A parallel is illustrative. In Iraq, the assassination of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Gen. Qassem Soleimani undermined Iranian control over Shia-affiliated militia groups. While some attacks are Iranian-backed, there have been independent attacks against U.S. forces. The Taliban, given its decentralized nature, lacks the IRGCs political capacity. And Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), despite its assertions to the contrary, has created a mortal internal threat through its support for the Taliban. The ISI has not demonstrated the capacity to restrain the Pakistani Taliban or thoroughly disrupt its coordination with the Afghan Taliban. Thus, it can be expected that Taliban units will exert some autonomy, working with other jihadist organizations as they choose.

The new Afghanistan, like the old, will become a jihadist magnet. And while China and other regional powers must be wary, the brunt of this jihadist offensive will be directed against Western Europe and the U.S.

Chinas passive acceptance of NATOs Afghanistan mission stemmed from realpolitik. Afghanistan could host Uyghurs who transit the China-Afghan border or pass through Pakistani-controlled Kashmir with jihadist assistance. Americas Afghan mission precluded that. But now that the Taliban have returned to power, China has rushed to engage with the new regime, functionally bribing them to avoid supporting jihadist reprisals in China. Moreover, Chinas relationship with Pakistan is that of a patron and client, despite Islamabads formal security ties with the U.S. China will use this alongside its bribery to restrain the Talibans actions, while permitting jihadist activity against the U.S. and its allies.

This raises an uncomfortable prospect for the Biden administration, U.S. citizens, and U.S. allies. If a major terrorist attack occurs in the Western world in the next two years, it is likely that its perpetrators will have received support from the Taliban, al-Qaeda, or organisations operating within Afghanistan. In turn, this raises the prospect of re-engagement with the country, despite the end of Americas longest war.

Unlike in 2001, the U.S. will find it much more difficult to operate in Afghanistan. In 2001, the Taliban controlled most of the country, but a robust resistance existed, centered upon the Panjshir Valley. The Northern Alliance, a loose assortment of ethnic Tajiks and Hazaras, resisted Taliban rule, receiving support from neighboring Central Asian states and moderate American assistance. A small number of U.S. and allied Special Operations Forces and intelligence officers were embedded within Northern Alliance units, coordinating with U.S. carrier-based aviation and B-52 strategic bombers to provide air support against the Taliban. Once the U.S. launched its offensive, the Taliban fell quickly. The entirety of U.S. strategy was premised upon unlimited access to Afghan airspace, and the continuous provision of close air support to American and allied forces on the ground.

The U.S. no longer has the unrestricted access to Afghanistan that enabled its 2001 strategy. Biden and his team claim that over-the-horizon capabilities will allow the U.S. to strike targets as needed. This is false. The ISIS offensive in Iraq after U.S. withdrawal demonstrates the inadequacy of airpower absent a robust human and image intelligence apparatus; months passed before the U.S. could rebuild the intelligence capabilities needed for precision airpower. Those difficulties occurred despite the U.S. advantages of access to Iraqi bases, U.S. naval power in the Persian Gulf and Eastern Mediterranean, and U.S. ground and air forces based in locations throughout the Arabian Peninsula.

The U.S. has none of these advantages in Afghanistan.

The country is landlocked. Given Pakistans relationship with China, Islamabad is unlikely to grant Washington airspace or base access for strikes against its Taliban partner, especially if it can mask Taliban actions under the aegis of a consensus government one that likely will receive Pakistani, Chinese, and Middle Eastern recognition.

There is no indication that the U.S. will receive basing access in Central Asia. Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan are more reliant on Russia and China today than they were even in the early 2000s. Iran is far more powerful than in 2001. Despite its theological disputes with the Taliban and historical support for Afghan Tajiks, Iran is pragmatic, and likely has a robust unstated presence in Afghanistan. Tehran has based its grand strategy on ejecting the U.S. from the Near East and Central Asia.

An American president in retaliation for a terrorist attack may therefore be forced to choose between conducting token airstrikes that do little to disrupt operational capabilities or committing the U.S. to a major strike that will cause an international dispute involving Pakistan, likely China, and perhaps Iran and Russia.

American naval power is also far less robust than in 2001. Post-Cold War budget cuts hollowed out U.S. naval forces, but we still operated 12 supercarriers and 115 large and small surface combatants, the majority of which could carry land-attack cruise missiles. The modern fleet contains 11 carriers and 96 large and medium surface combatants the Littoral Combat Ship, while technically a small surface combatant, is a far less capable warship. The Navys Divest to Invest scheme will reduce the services large surface combatant fleet, without a clear path to replace this capability gap with smaller, more numerous warships before the late 2020s or early 2030s.

Most important, unlike in 2001, the U.S. faces the prospect of international competition, particularly in Asia, where Chinas direct challenge to American naval power continues to wax.

Not only, then, would an American president risk an international incident by attacking an Afghan-based terrorist group. The president would also be forced to choose between deploying a Carrier Strike Group to the Indo-Pacific to bolster American regional deterrence, or to the Indian Ocean, thereby creating a coverage gap in the South China Sea.

Seth Cropsey is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington and director of Hudsons Center for American Seapower. He served as a U.S. naval officer and as deputy Undersecretary of the Navy.

Harry Halem, a research associate at Hudson, contributed to this op-ed.

Originally posted here:
Betting on a 'new' Afghanistan? Forget it | TheHill

Eid Gah mosque is the second largest in Kabul

Several people have been killed by a bombing at a mosque in the Afghan capital Kabul, the Taliban have said.

Twenty were also injured by the blast near Eid Gah mosque, where a prayer ceremony was being held for the late mother of a Taliban spokesman.

It is the first major explosion in Kabul since Western forces withdrew in August.

Hours later, the Taliban launched attacks on suspected Islamic State militant hideouts.

Three suspected IS militants are said to have been killed in the Taliban operation. However, these reports have not been verified.

So far no group has said it is behind the attack, but IS recently said it carried out several bombings in the eastern city of Jalalabad.

The Islamist group is violently opposed to the Taliban, which regained nearly full control of Afghanistan in a lightning offensive as international forces started to leave.

Taliban leaders are under pressure from the international community to renounce ties with IS and al-Qaeda, and they have continually denied that militants from either group operate in the country.

Zabihullah Mujahid has become one of the Taliban's most recognisable faces as the group's spokesman

While the attack happened outside the mosque, it is unclear if it was directly targeting the ceremony, which was for the late mother of Taliban official, Zabihullah Mujahid.

Mr Mujahid has become one of the group's most public faces as its spokesman

For years, he had operated in the shadows - only speaking to reporters over the phone. But since the Taliban takeover he has addressed the media at several public news conferences.

Continue reading here:
Afghanistan: Several people killed by bomb attack near a ...

At least five civilians have been killed in a bomb blast at the entrance to a Kabul mosque on Sunday, a Taliban official said, the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital since US forces left at the end of August.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suspicion fell on Islamic State extremists, who have stepped up attacks on the Taliban in recent weeks, particularly in the IS stronghold in eastern Afghanistan.

It is believed that a roadside bomb went off at the gate of the sprawling Eidgah mosque in Kabul when a memorial service was being held for the mother of the Talibans chief spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid. Five people were killed, said Qari Saeed Khosti, a spokesman for the interior ministry

Three suspects were arrested, said Bilal Karimi, another Taliban spokesman. Taliban fighters were not harmed in the attack, he said.

An Italian-funded emergency hospital in Kabul tweeted that it had received four people wounded in the blast.

The area around the mosque was cordoned off by the Taliban, who maintained a heavy security presence. Later in the afternoon the site was cleaned. Afterwards the only signs of the blast was slight damage to the ornamental arch by the entrance gate.

The explosion underlined the growing challenges facing the Taliban just weeks after they took control of Afghanistan in a blitz campaign, culminating in their takeover of Kabul on 15 August.

During their 20-year insurgency, the Taliban frequently carried out bombing and shooting attacks, but they are now faced with trying to contain rival militants who are using the same methods. The growing security challenges come at a time of economic meltdown, as the Taliban struggle to run the country without the massive foreign aid given to the US-backed government that they toppled.

IS militants have stepped up attacks against the Taliban since their mid-August takeover, signalling a widening conflict between them. IS maintains a strong presence in the eastern province of Nangarhar, where it has claimed responsibility for several killings in the provincial capital of Jalalabad.

In late August an IS suicide bomber targeted American evacuation efforts at Kabuls international airport. The blast killed 169 Afghans and 13 US service members, and was one of the deadliest attacks in the country in years.

Attacks in Kabul have so far been rare, but in recent weeks IS has shown signs it is expanding its footprint beyond the east and closer toward the capital. On Friday Taliban fighters raided an IS hideout just north of Kabul in Parwan province. The raid came after an IS roadside bomb wounded four Taliban fighters in the area.

The rest is here:
Civilians killed in deadliest Kabul attack since US ...

Members of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music on the plane to Doha. Courtesy of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music hide caption

Members of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music on the plane to Doha.

After weeks of failed attempts at fleeing the Taliban, members of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM) and Zohra Orchestra have finally escaped. On Sunday, 101 students, teachers and musicians were airlifted to Doha, Qatar.

"One hundred lives have been saved. One hundred dreams have been saved," says an emotional Dr. Ahmad Sarmast, ANIM's director and founder.

The Taliban forbids artistic self-expression. Even listening to music is prohibited. For weeks now, the international community, including members of Congress and leading musicians such as Yo-Yo Ma, has been trying to help the musicians and students of ANIM escape. In September, members of the all-female Zohra Orchestra made it within yards of the airport but were turned away when Taliban guards reportedly refused to wake a sleeping commander at the Kabul airport.

Sarmast, who spoke to NPR from Australia where he's visiting family, says this evacuation was successful because of "a lot of negotiations behind the scenes," and singles out "the contribution of our friends on the ground from the Qatar Embassy and also the foreign minister of Qatar." He says he cried when he learned their plane had taken off from Kabul.

"I was still fearful that something might happen. Some problem might come up," he says.

Founded by Sarmast in 2010, ANIM was held up as a great success story in the effort to renew cultural life and the arts in Afghanistan. Boys and girls studied music and academics alongside each other. Ensembles from the school, including the all-female Zohra orchestra, performed around the world. But their existence still posed a danger. During one of ANIM's concerts in 2014, a suicide bomber sitting behind Sarmast detonated an explosive. Sarmast lost his hearing for a time and had an operation to remove shrapnel from his head and body.

The Taliban's recent takeover was made clear to Sarmast when he saw "painful pictures" of ANIM's students and faculty waiting to board the plane in Kabul. He says the men had "long unshaved beards," and the girls were dressed in long black gowns, "Just the two eyes were seen." When he spoke with some of the men after their journey, he joked to them that they looked "amazing" in their long beards. Sarmast says they told him when they had their first shower in Doha, "probably everyone was busy shaving."

Sarmast and his allies on the ground are now trying to secure the evacuation of more than 180 members of the ANIM community including students, faculty and family members left behind.

Follow this link:
Afghan orchestra musicians, music students and teachers have escaped the Taliban - NPR

As U.S. military forces have withdrawn from Afghanistan, much attention has been given to the monitoring of, and possible action against, any terrorist activity inside Afghanistan. CIA Director William Burns stated in congressional testimony in April that the military withdrawal would diminish the ability to collect and act on threats in Afghanistan. In testimony last month, FBI Director Christopher Wray expressed concern that foreign terrorist groups will have an opportunity to reconstitute, plot, inspire in a space thats much harder for us to collect intelligence and operate against than was the case previously.

The heads of U.S. agencies responsible for collecting information on terrorist groups will focus, understandably and appropriately, on the challenges of such collection. But the fear of, in Wrays words, a terrorist safe haven to be recreated in Afghanistan is an artifact of Americans traumatic history with the 9/11 attacks. To the extent that a terrorist group may find a geographic haven useful, there is nothing special about Afghanistan. If such a group is looking for a conflict-ridden place with some local sympathizers where outlaws can hang out and the group can pitch a tent, there are numerous other locations in the world from which to choose.

More fundamentally, a patch of real estate is one of the less important factors that determine a groups ability to conduct international terrorist attacks, especially ones aimed at a target half a globe away. Access to real estate may be useful for a group engaged in insurgency or civil waras al Qaeda was in Afghanistan prior to 9/11. The country provided space for the training and basing of recruits, most of whom engaged in military operations inside Afghanistan in support of the Taliban during the war there in the late 1990s.

As U.S. military forces have withdrawn from Afghanistan, much attention has been given to the monitoring of, and possible action against, any terrorist activity inside Afghanistan. CIA Director William Burns stated in congressional testimony in April that the military withdrawal would diminish the ability to collect and act on threats in Afghanistan. In testimony last month, FBI Director Christopher Wray expressed concern that foreign terrorist groups will have an opportunity to reconstitute, plot, inspire in a space thats much harder for us to collect intelligence and operate against than was the case previously.

The heads of U.S. agencies responsible for collecting information on terrorist groups will focus, understandably and appropriately, on the challenges of such collection. But the fear of, in Wrays words, a terrorist safe haven to be recreated in Afghanistan is an artifact of Americans traumatic history with the 9/11 attacks. To the extent that a terrorist group may find a geographic haven useful, there is nothing special about Afghanistan. If such a group is looking for a conflict-ridden place with some local sympathizers where outlaws can hang out and the group can pitch a tent, there are numerous other locations in the world from which to choose.

More fundamentally, a patch of real estate is one of the less important factors that determine a groups ability to conduct international terrorist attacks, especially ones aimed at a target half a globe away. Access to real estate may be useful for a group engaged in insurgency or civil waras al Qaeda was in Afghanistan prior to 9/11. The country provided space for the training and basing of recruits, most of whom engaged in military operations inside Afghanistan in support of the Taliban during the war there in the late 1990s.

But territory is less relevant to the planning and preparing of an international terrorist attack. An example is the 9/11 operation itself. It obviously had an Afghanistan connection, but not in ways that were unique to Afghanistan, and preparations for the attack were geographically dispersed. Financing of the hijackers activities, for example, was centered in the United Arab Emirates and Germany. Plot mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed used long-distance electronic communication for coordinating those activities. The most important preparations for the attack took place more in apartments in Europe, flight schools in the United States, and cyberspace than in Afghanistan.

The fact is that many factors affect the likelihood of Americans falling victim to international terrorism. These include a host of economic and political circumstances in the places where would-be terrorists live. Research by the scholar Robert Pape, for example, has found that the single most frequent motivation for suicide terrorism is foreign military occupation.

That finding is highly relevant to the United States and Afghanistan. Like the Soviets before them, U.S. forces in Afghanistan came to be seen by many Afghans and those who sympathized with them as occupiers, not liberators or stabilizers. It was as perceived occupiers that Americans most recently fell victim to international terrorismin an August suicide bombing by the Islamic State that killed 13 U.S. service members outside the Kabul airport.

It is not only military occupation but also the harm to civilians from military operations that motivates terrorism. The killing of 10 innocent Afghan civilians, including seven children, in late August by a missile fired from a U.S. drone exemplifies the kind of harm inflicted all too often in the so-called war on terrorbecause of either mistaken identification, as in this instance, or seemingly unavoidable collateral damage from operations aimed at legitimate targets. The military operations, including in Afghanistan, may have bred at least as many anti-U.S. terrorists, through the anger and desire for revenge that such operations incite, as they have eliminated.

Even if a safe haven were important, the notion that one would be available to international terrorists in Afghanistan rests mostly on the past partnership between the Taliban and al Qaeda. Mentioned less often is how that partnership was a wartime alliance, at a time when the Taliban were struggling to defeat the opposition Northern Alliance and conquer the portion of Afghanistan it did not control.

If civil war were to resume in the months ahead, the Taliban conceivably might find use for assistance from even the much weaker al Qaeda of today. But to the extent that the Taliban secure their position as the new ruler over all of Afghanistan, the old alliance loses its relevance.

The history of that alliance, along with various personal and familial relationships, will sustain ties between elements of the Taliban and what remains of al Qaeda. The question is notas it is too often phrasedthe either/or one of whether the Taliban will cut all such ties. What matters instead is the direction in which the Taliban will exercise influence, including on al Qaeda, that is relevant to possible international terrorism.

Whatever one thinks of the Taliban, they can be counted on to pursue their overriding interest in maintaining political power in Afghanistan. They are highly insular and have no interest in international terrorism. Among their strongest memories is how al Qaedas 9/11 operation resulted in the biggest disaster the Taliban have ever sufferedbeing ousted from power and setting back by two decades their quest to rule all of Afghanistan. They have every interest in not letting that happen again, as well as continuing to be the archenemy of the Afghan branch of the Islamic State.

Because of the trauma of 9/11, fear of terrorism emanating from Afghanistan will forever lurk in American minds. Fear of the political fallout from a future terrorist incident somehow connected, however tenuously, to Afghanistan probably is part of what led three U.S. presidents to keep troops there before Joe Biden finally pulled the plug on the operation. There are no guarantees about how policies toward Afghanistan will affect the danger of terrorism against Americans. But considering all the relevant factors and not just one or two, that danger is less with the U.S. military out of Afghanistan than it would be if U.S. forces remained there.

Continued here:
Afghanistan Won't Be a Safe Haven for Al Qaeda, ISIS, or Other Terrorists - Foreign Policy