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December 2001, War against terrorism, a never ending story
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War against terrorism, a never ending story
War against terrorism
The declared war on terrorism by the USA after the atrocious attacks
on 11 September 2001, seem to deliver its first tangible results as
the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan, a major supporter of Islam
inspired terrorism, seems to be on the verge of collapse.
The opposition groups in Afghanistan organized in the Northern
Alliance, or as they like to be called right now the United Front,
were able with US air support and technical advice of US and British
special forces, to retake large parts of Afghanistan. With the
exception of some small Taliban units moving around in the
countryside and the area around the city of Kandahar, the country is
under control of the Northern Alliance. The situation at Kandahar is
very unstable and the anti Taliban forces could have taken the city
as this report is going to press.
The Northern Alliance could through military victories and especially
by the defection of local groups, warlords, to their side retake much
of the territory they lost in the last 5 to 6 years. All major cities
with the exception of Kandahar is under their control, and the fall
of Kandahar does only seem to be a matter of time. There are however
still some Taliban units operating in the countryside and
occasionally killing some foreign journalists if they happen to cross
their roads but the effectiveness of those Taliban forces as a
fighting force is very doubtful.
The fight against terrorism is slowly improving as some high ranking
people of the Al Qaeda network have been killed by the air attacks or
in combat with the Northern Alliance. The where about of Osama bin
Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar the leader of the Taliban are not
known but they are expected to be somewhere around Kandahar and Bin
Laden could however also eventually be around the city of Jalalabad
or Tora Bora in the eastern Nangahar province. Bin Laden and the Al
Qaeda have many friends around Jalalabad and Tora Bora and they took
over and have build extensive networks, caves, supplies and armaments
around those two areas which are difficult to locate, to reach and to
target.
The instability in Afghanistan becomes clearly visible in the
fight for Kandahar where local Pushtun and Northern Alliance forces
are about to start a fight for the city. Local Pushtun groups which
have defected the Taliban to the Alliance are moving towards Kandahar to fight
the remnants of the Taliban regime, approximately 12.000 Aghans and 5.000
Arabs, Pakistanis and Chechens which voluntarily fought with the
Taliban. The fight for Kandahar could become intensive as the Taliban
promised to fight until death and they would not surrender. This is
very likely the case with the 5.000 foreigners fighting at the side
of the Taliban but rather unlikely for the Afghans which would most
likely surrender, change sides, if the fight delivers no hope on a
victory. Especially as the Afghans are most likely to get some
amnesty offered if they would surrender. The international volunteers
are worser off as they will face a much harder treatment if not being
executed.
The city of Kandahar will therefore fall rather quickly and the
Nothern Alliance and the local Pushtun will take over control. The
swiftness of the fall of Kandahar will become faster as the Afghan,
Pushtun, fighting groups will change sides and join the Northern
Alliance.
The US fight against the Al Qaeda network is moving much slower as it
is difficult to unravel and at the moment they are only able to
freeze some financial assets of the Al Qaeda network in a number of
allied countries and make some arrests of people who allegedly
supported the Al Qaeda but none to little success in eliminating
parts of the network itself.
A never ending story
The war on terrorism might develop in a never ending story as the
definition of terrorism is fraud, it can be used by every government
to depict any group which is considered hostile to their rule. It
remains valid that the terrorist for one party is a freedom fighter
for the other.
The large number and diversity of terrorist groups is one of the
major causes which make any war against terrorism a never ending
story. Every group has its own history and sometimes even a
justifiable case to fight for. This is the evil of terrorism. The bad
political, economical and social situation without any chance on
improvement of large groups in the world will fuel the large number
of terrorists organizations. And for those people terrorism seems
very often the only way for improvement.
The difficulty of defeating terrorism becomes clear with the Al Qaeda
network which can not be destroyed by the operations in Afghanistan,
the freezing of assets or the rather indiscriminatory arrests of
suspected Arabs. Even if the leadership of the Al Qaeda is eliminated
the network might be still operational in other countries and able to
commit atrocious terrorist attacks in the West. The cell structure
and the relatively freedom and independence of the cells make each
cell a danger in itself and above all difficult to destroy.
The advantage of the operations in Afghanistan is that the support
network of the Al Qaeda will be damaged and will have some
difficulties, if not great difficulties, to operate as efficiently as
before. The targeting of the command structures, including the
leaders of the Taliban and the Al Qaeda, will make a coherent
defence, fight, and the planning and execution of terrorist attacks
impossible.
It is therefore very likely that the Taliban will be defeated within
a couple days to about one month. The Taliban will not be able to
resist the increasing pressure of the Northern Alliance and
especially the US bombings of targets of importance.
The landing of US marines in the vicinity of Kandahar delivered a new
outlook on the conflict. The US forces are much better trained and
armed than the Taliban or for that matter the Northern Alliance. If
the Taliban continues the conventional kind of warfare thing around
Kandahar they will quickly learn that they are no match for the US
armed forces. The Taliban will therefore, most likely, be defeated on
the short term and with some luck the US forces can capture Bin
Laden, terrorists of the Al Qaeda network and the leadership of the
Taliban. The US will however not have infinitive time to reach those
goals.
The US forces in Afghanistan just have to be aware that they live on
borrowed time in Afghanistan. At the moment they receive support from
the population but this will change very fast as the majority of the
Taliban units will be defeated. As quick as the Northern Alliance
have defeated the Taliban as a fighting force the US will be treated
as an unwelcome guest and needs to be removed from Afghan territory.
And this could be done with every mean available to the Afghans.
The US government can delay the departure from Afghanistan by using
an UN protection force which should protect the transition of
Afghanistan to a peaceful nation or they can even use the different
groups in Afghanistan in a dangerous divide and rule game but in the
end they have to make the decision to leave even if their goals have
not been accomplished. The British adagium on Afghanistan is still
valid, to conquer Afghanistan is not that difficult but staying there
or getting out is the difficult part.
Even if the best case scenario is coming through and the Afghans
manage it to come together and govern the country successfully, the
problem of terrorism is still present in the world and will be far
from defeated. There are still many hard feelings between the
extremist part of the muslims and countries which allegedly are
working against the muslims or a supporting the countries which do so.
The war on terror will become more difficult as the Taliban forces
have been defeated. After the victory of the Northern Alliance the US
forces will be unnecessary for the Alliance and not welcome anymore.
By that time they will need to have catched the people they want or
become some kind of occupation force in Afghanistan. And that is not
a pleasant forecast. A long term involvement with the presence of US
forces in Afghanistan should be avoided. In any way the war on terror
will be much less focused when the Taliban is defeated and whether or
not Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda have been eliminated is not that
important to the Northern Alliance.
The strength of Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda will be decimated after
they have lost their base in Afghanistan as no other country will
deliver the same kind of safety and support to operate. Even if Bin
Laden would survive with parts of its Al Qaeda network the impact
will be much lesser as their capabilities have been reduced and they
will remain targeted by many countries in the world. This will be a
clear victory and an advantage to the security in the world. But
terrorism is still around. And any fight will be more difficult as a
clear target with the same standing as Osama bin Laden will be not
around.
A shift to Iraq, Sudan, Somalia and Jemen, as countries which support
terrorism will be much more difficult as the international support
for such operations will be lesser. It will also be much more
difficult to proof that those countries support terrorism or the much
used word of being a threat to the world security. It might be that
those countries consider it as that they are just protecting their
national interests, the terrorist-freedom fighter dilemma. It is
there by difficult to make a case against one or more of those
countries, e.g. that they are directly connected to the kind of
terrorism as of the 11th September and even more important without
being perceived as a threat by the neighboring countries.
Another problem with those four countries is that they have little to
none clear targets, in the case of Somalia, there is even no strong
central government, it are relatively large countries with little
infra structure and industries and it will demand a supply of forces
which would possibly even overstretch US capabilities.
There are at the moment no countries which support terrorism like the
Taliban controlled Afghanistan did, even not the four above mentioned
countries.
The four countries did and will not support the US activities in
their war against terrorism and they might even condone some
organizations which are considered by some countries as terrorist
organizations but those organizations are not like the Al Qaeda
network. And the four groups are most likely viewed by the above
mentioned countries as freedom fighters who fight for a legitimate
cause.
At best there are some Al Qaeda cells in those four countries,
possibly dangerous, but without support from the Al Qaeda itself much
less dangerous and defeatable with other means, read political and
economical pressure towards countries which do not prosecute them of
even allow them to live in those countries.
What will be around are many small groups with smaller goals, smaller
attacks but sometimes with much more support in the population or in
the world. A number of those groups are viewed as freedom fighters,
fighting for the good, by some countries.
The terrorist organizations after Al Qaeda
The terrorist organizations which remain active in the world are the
familiar kind like the Hamas, Jihad and Hizbullah. Groups which have
smaller goals and do not have any ambitions to become a worldplayer,
e.g. start a woldwide conflict between the western world and the
islamic world.
The three above mentioned groups are extremist islamic organizations
which have gained a lot of influence in the Middle East. Beside their
military wings which commit terrorist acts they have a social network
providing education, healthcare, food and other social support
services to the people living in the area. This makes them very
popular with the population which do not have many hopes on any
improvement.
Combatting terrorism is therefore a large part fighting the poverty
in the region. And of course the political injustice in the region.
The case of the Palestinians is a prime example of doing everything
wrong. The creation of a Palestinian nation in the region is an
absolute necessity to pacify the region and eliminate the
organizations like the Hamas, Jihad and Hizbullah.
The starting point to come to a conclusion should not be the current
situation but the division plan of the UN in 1948 with the creation
of the state of Israel. From this plan the division should be
arranged with some small changes to the division to be finalised at a
summit. But this is an other story.
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