The eye of the storm

04 May 2011, Himal Southasia

While almost the entire world reeled from the shock waves emanating from the news of the death of Osama bin Laden, Monday remained a routine day in Kabul. Afghanistan, which is still paying the price for having hosted bin Laden, carried on its business as usual. In fact, apart from the flurry of meetings and security alerts within the international organisations, Kabul city did not even appear perturbed. It exhibited none of the signs of anxiety usually evident in reactions to emotive events, such as the burning of the Koran. The eye of the storm was uncannily still.

The Afghan government reacted quickly with President Hamid Karzai welcoming the operation leading to the killing of bin Laden. Later, the Afghan media joined in reporting on perhaps the biggest news story since 9/11. Most Afghans, however, reacted not emotionally as did most Americans, but much more cautiously. ‘I don’t know whether it is good or bad,’ says Hashim, a Kabul taxi driver, referring to bin Laden’s death. ‘Some say it is good and some say it is bad. What do you think?’

Many like him weigh their words before expressing an opinion, unsure whether it is appropriate to celebrate or mourn the man whose name had become synonymous with the centre of global terrorism. They seem to be waiting to see where the dominant opinion is headed. And while they wait, they weigh the pros and cons of bin Laden’s death and the impact it might have on their country. Whatever he may have once meant to Afghans, bin Laden had long ceased to be an issue in Afghanistan. Instead, Afghans had been (and are) more concerned with events and personnel more pivotal in shaping lives and deaths inside their country.

Separate, but connected
Although the image of bin Laden is most closely associated with the rugged mountain terrain of Afghanistan, the links between the Taliban insurgency and the al-Qaeda’s global jihad are not as symbiotic as often portrayed in a large section of the western media. Bin Laden was able to use Afghanistan as well as his Taliban hosts to consolidate his movement and also launch attacks which eventually brought the Taliban crashing down. Yet through it all, the Taliban has been able to maintain autonomy over their movement as well as ideology, which has been largely confined to Afghanistan. In 2001, it was not the support to the cause of global jihad, but the Pasthunwali code of honour which speaks of safe-guarding guests – and which the Taliban had referred to – that made the Taliban refuse to hand bin Laden over to the US.

‘It has to be emphasised that the Afghan Taliban - apart from a few individuals - have never said and, more importantly, shown in their [actions] that they follow the al-Qaeda strategy of worldwide jihad. Instead, they have concentrated exclusively on Afghanistan and those parts of Pakistan where they have their logistics and fall-back positions,’ says Thomas Ruttig of the Afghan Analysts Network, a non-profit, independent policy research organisation.

Many Afghans share this view. ‘Though the Western media sees the Afghan conflict as an internationally-led one, it is led by the Taliban… The Taliban is an independent movement within Afghan borders,’ says Borhan Younus, a freelance researcher and journalist.

Of course, while the motivations and goals of the Al Qaeda and Taliban are different, no one denies there are links between the two – there are, however, differences on the extent of this relationship. ‘I do not expect that Osama bin Laden’s death will have a large impact on the Afghan war,’ says Ruttig. ‘The war in Afghanistan is not fought with al-Qaida. Even the US military admits that there are only very few al-Qaida operatives in Afghanistan. The war is fought with the Taliban who, without doubts, have links with al-Qaida, but are mainly a force of their own. The Taliban are not an al-Qaida affiliate. I doubt that they need al-Qaida fighters, trainers etc; they have their own war experience. The older Taliban generation has been fighting since the 1980s. Even the weight of al-Qaida’s financial role has lost importance for them because they can rely on domestic funding: raising taxes, the drugs trade and the big-money western contracts. I am not sure which of them is bigger.’

Mehbouba Seraj, a political and civil society activist, who contested the last parliamentary election as an independent candidate unsuccessfully, also feels that there are clear links between the two militant organisations. ‘Taliban has nothing to do with the Al Qaeda is a bunch of lies,’ she says.

Interestingly, the Taliban are also reserving their ‘reaction’ to bin Laden’s death. They argue that they have no confirmation of the information, but do not deny the news outright as is often the case in a conflict where a warring faction does not want to lose its psychological advantage. ‘This news is only coming from one side, from Obama's office, and America has not shown any evidence or proof to support this claim,’ says Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid in a statement e-mailed to journalists. ‘The other side: our sources close to Osama bin Laden have neither confirmed nor denied the news. Until there is news from sources close to Osama bin Laden, it will be too early to provide any reaction,’ Mujahid continues.

The reticence observed in the Taliban may have a lot to do with opinions divided within its leadership on how far it should go in claiming bin Laden as one of their own. This ownership reluctance might be the result of the fact that bin Laden does not resound strongly within the Afghan population, the main constituency of the Taliban.

In fact, as a symbolic figure, bin Laden had far more resonance within the US and other western countries. Within Afghanistan, however, speculations on the next al-Qaeda leadership and the time it will take to reach that decision are more pertinent. Fahim Dashty, editor of Kabul Weekly and a former associate of the Northern Alliance who was with Ahmed Shah Masood when he was assassinated two days before the 9/11 attack, agrees. So does Seraj, ‘The al-Qaeda is not one person. This may be a big blow, but it does not mean they will change what they are doing.’

Those who see closer linkages between the two organisations fear retaliation in reaction to bin Laden’s death. ‘They will want to prove themselves’ says Seraj. ‘There will be some repercussions and the main place for that will be Afghanistan.’

‘The disappointment, the loss of credibility will push the al-Qaeda and the Taliban to react strongly. There will be a push to raise the level of violence in Afghanistan as much as they can,’ says Dashty.

Danish Karokhail, the managing director of Pajhwok, Afghanistan’s first independent news agency, feels the revenge attack might be an excuse for the Talibans to step-up violence, which will result in more civilian casualties.

Fear of abandonment
In the next three to five months, a spike in violence is expected for several reasons and it may be difficult to separate whether it related to bin Laden’s death or not. The ‘fighting season’ associated with the ease of movement in summer months has already begun. On 30 April, the Taliban announced the beginning of their ‘spring military operations’ named Badar, a day ahead of the US military operation resulting in bin Laden’s death.

In fact, the timing of the US operation lends itself a great deal of speculation. Obama’s bid for the second term; his domestic travails, including the doubts about his birth certificate; and the quagmire that US troops continue to be mired in in Afghanistan – all lend themselves to theories of a planned timing rather than a sudden discovery. It is not lost on any Afghan that the bin Laden operation came weeks ahead of the scheduled drawdown of US troops in the country, slated to begin in July. The successful operation has, in fact, re-raised fears of abandonment that Afghans have carried within them since the 2001 intervention. These fears are not just the result of past experiences of being used and dropped, as in during the Cold War, but also of the stated strategic goals of the US in their current war against terror.

‘I hope the international community will not abandon Afghanistan saying “mission accomplished”,’ says Shahmahmood Miakhel, chief of party of United States Institute for peace (USIP). Amir Foladi, a political analyst, echoes similar fear: ‘I have concerns that the United States may think that their mission is done and that there is no need to be heavily involved.’

Their concerns are not misplaced. As reported earlier by Himal, the US has been clear about its limited interests in Afghanistan with President Barack Obama saying: ‘From the start, I’ve been very clear about our core goal. It’s not to defeat every last threat to the security of Afghanistan, because, ultimately, it is Afghans who must secure their country. And it’s not nation-building, because it is Afghans who must build their nation. Rather, we are focused on disrupting, dismantling and defeating al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and preventing its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future.’

So far, debate over the ‘withdrawal’ of US troops has been largely framed in black and white, with one section swearing by the US interest in permanent bases and the other predicting a complete withdrawal of troops. The more likely scenario, however, is a drawdown of some troops in July while will meet the promise Obama made to his domestic audience. The initial reduction in numbers will be followed by more gradual ones and then a switch to non-combat operations, rather than an exodus of all American troops from Afghanistan.

As far as the future role of the US in Afghanistan is concerned, it will most likely be shaped by the former’s complex relationship with Pakistan. This is also where the multiple theories on Pakistan’s role in bin Laden’s capture come in. Was Pakistan complicit in providing safe haven to bin Laden in the garrison town of Abbottabad or was it collaborative in yielding him to the US forces? It is difficult to conceive that the Pakistan’s state apparatus, which is strong as opposed to in Afghanistan, did not have an inkling of the set-up so close to an important military installation. On the other hand, it is also inconceivable that all components of the Pakistani state structure, fragmented as it is between the civilian and the military, were in full knowledge of their most hunted guest. Hamid (name changed on his request), a young and politically aware Afghan working in an international organization, thinks that Pakistan’s intelligence agencies kept bin Laden alive until his survival was no longer useful. That may be closer to the truth than the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ theories currently dominating the debate. It could also help explain a number of seeming contradictions in the Pakistani position, as well as in the even more confusing details given on the US operation. It could be that towards the end of his stay, bin Laden may indeed have been ordered to be a ‘guest’ rather than accorded sanctuary by the Pakistani establishment.

‘[The operation] could not have happened without the cooperation of the Pakistani government,’ Younus says. ‘The timing coincides with Pakistan’s own intent to carry out operations against the Pakistani Taliban, who have very different goals from the Afghan Taliban.’

Speculations on whether the US will now use Pakistan as a proxy in Afghanistan to help itself disengage from an unpopular war are rife. So are opinions on whether Afghanistan is now willing to abandon its former allies in return for a closer relationship with Pakistan. Much depends on the reading of Pakistan’s role regarding bin Laden’s stay and death within its borders. Pakistan has formally denied any knowledge about bin Laden. However, if it is able to demonstrate that it was actually able to track down and control the whereabouts of the terrorist, it might establish its credentials to ‘manage’ the insurgency in Afghanistan. As Ruttig says, ‘After Sunday night's events, it is the link between al-Qaeda and the ISI that needs to be explored, not so much the one between al-Qaeda and the Taliban’.

While conspiracy theorists, analysts, pundits will all have their say in the coming days, the reality will be far more complex and containing too many variable factors for anyone to present and predict a concrete scenario. Judging by their reactions to bin Laden’s death, however, ordinary Afghans seem to have grasped this; for as long as they can remember, their realities have been, and are being, shaped by uncertainties.

Aunohita Mojumdar is a contributing editor (Kabul) to this magazine.