Good Fences, Good Neighbors:
Denying al Qaeda Sanctuary in Pakistan

It is just over half a year since the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan began.  As Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. Central Command said on the six-month anniversary of the first American and British aircraft and cruise missile strikes on al Qaeda and Taliban forces, much has been achieved in the war thus far.  However, as Franks also acknowledged, much still remains to be done.  Like the wider war on terrorism of which it is part, the current military campaign in Afghanistan will not end in a single decisive victory.  Furthermore, despite premature pronouncements by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, the recent Anaconda operation did not mark the end of the Afghan campaign.  Indeed, the United Kingdom’s recent deployment of 1,700 combat troops to Afghanistan has caused some commentators to question the degree of success enjoyed by the operation. 

According to the noted British military historian, John Keegan, the new British deployment “makes it clear […] that Anaconda “ has not wholly succeeded and that an extra push is required.”  However, leaving aside the polemics of whether any military operation can ever enjoy total success, U.S. military officials maintain that their recent efforts to eradicate al Qaeda and Taliban pockets in Afghanistan’s Shah-I-Kot region killed high numbers of enemy fighters, including many second- and third-tier enemy commanders – the equivalent of a conventional army's majors, lieutenant colonels, and colonels.  Such men are not readily replaceable.  Moreover, the battle also saw Americans successfully pass the first real (if relatively small) test of their resolve in the face of casualties.  It also saw an enemy base camp largely destroyed, even if the force using it was perhaps not totally annihilated.  As such, Anaconda, while not decisive, was a considerable success.  This does not mean that there is not still much to be achieved in Afghanistan, as the deployment of the British Commandos shows.  Moreover, recent events on the ground in Afghanistan indicate that more enemy troops may have escaped Anaconda than previously appeared to be the case.

Allied Afghan troops have long contended that most of the al Qaeda and Taliban force that the operation was intended to destroy actually escaped.  Franks has denied such claims, citing video evidence from Predator drones launched immediately after air strikes that showed heaps of rubble where previously groups of enemy fighter had been spotted.  U.S. Special Forces on the ground also reported that high numbers of al Qaeda and Taliban troops perished in these strikes, claims that may never be conclusively proven given the massive destruction wrought during Anaconda.  As such, it is equally difficult to totally dispel the doubts about exactly how many enemy forces actually died during the operation.

Such doubts have become more pronounced recently, with U.S. forces searching the area over which Anaconda was conducted finding few bodies to validate Pentagon claims that the operation killed hundreds of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.  For instance, a two-day sweep of a gorge code-named Ginger, while uncovering enough emplacements, weapons, and ammunition to sustain at least 200 enemy troops, discovered just three bodies.  In addition, according to Lt. Col. Steven Townsend, commander of the 4^th Battalion, 31^st Infantry, the unit who carried out the search, just 10 sacks of foodstuffs were uncovered – far from enough to feed the hundreds of fighters believed to have been holed up in the area.

Similarly, the radio intercepts of al Qaeda and Taliban forces calling for wooden coffins and sport utility vehicles (SUVs) to extract their dead that Franks has cited as evidence of high enemy losses has also been questioned.  Not only did the coffins and SUVs not make it through the U.S. cordon (by Franks’ own admission), but traditionally, Muslims do not bury their dead in coffins.  While it is true that some enemy dead may remain buried in the caves of Shah-I-Kot, it is also possible that the radio intercepts may have been decoys, and the messages sent to convince those eavesdropping that al Qaeda and Taliban forces suffered more casualties than was the case.  If so, this would appear to tie in with claims that large numbers of enemy fighters escaped across the Afghan-Pakistani border.

Meanwhile, the newly deployed British Royal Marines of 45 Commando, taking part in operations believed to center on the area previously cleared during Anaconda, have discovered freshly laid bobby traps, indicating enemy activity in the area since Anaconda ended.  A lack of enemy resistance points to al Qaeda and Taliban fighters again withdrawing, possibly to sanctuaries across the nearby Pakistani border.  Another recent operation by a company of Royal Marines (this time from 40 Commando) resulted in the same conclusion, with the British commander, and a U.S. officer both expressing the belief that al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives had fled across the border into Pakistan’s remote tribal areas.  This is an opinion shared by U.S. law officials, who have pressed Pakistani authorities to better patrol their country’s border with Afghanistan.

Known as the Durand line after the British diplomat who first drew it on a map in 1893, the 1, 500 mile-long Pakistani-Afghan border is among the world’s most porous.  Some 18 million Pashtun tribesmen live along it, many of them in the Pakistani tribal areas, originally created by the British to create a buffer zone between Afghanistan and what was then India.  Historically, these tribal areas have proved impossible to police effectively.  Indeed, for this reason the British allowed the region to remain largely autonomous, something that has hardly changed in the 51 years since Pakistan became independent.  The inhabitants of the tribal areas pride themselves on refusing hospitality to no one, and are thought to be sympathetic to the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan, fuelling the belief that fugitives from the U.S. led offensives in Afghanistan may have fled there.

Accounts from locals who routinely cross the Durand line indicate that al Qaeda and Taliban fighters may have regrouped at the town of Miram Shah, some 20 miles into Pakistan.  Other intelligence reports say these fighters have dispersed among the local population in a classic insurgency tactic, and are operating in units of 15 or less.  According to U.S. military officials, anonymously quoted in The Washington Post, U.S. Special Forces have been operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas for some weeks.  The American troops are reported to be deliberately exposing themselves to attack in an effort to draw al Qaeda and Taliban units out where they can be engaged and destroyed.  This strategy cedes a certain amount of initiative to the enemy.  Moreover, it may yet prove short-lived if al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, who have adapted skillfully to U.S. tactics thus far, desist from attacking their U.S. adversaries, choosing instead to play a waiting game.  As outsiders to the region it may prove more difficult for them to conceal themselves than they would like, despite the alleged sympathies of the local population.  However coalition forces may nonetheless be forced into larger scale sweeps in the region, something that may prove unpopular with Pakistani public opinion.

Indeed, Islamabad has reportedly requested that Washington remain discreet on the politically sensitive issue of American troops carrying out combat missions in Pakistan, with a Pakistani military spokesman denying such operations were occurring (even as American officials claimed these were ongoing).  The Pakistani denial also followed a report in The New York Times that a deal had been worked out allowing U.S. advisors to accompany Pakistani forces into the area after documents were seized during the March 28 capture of top Osama Bin Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaida in Faisalabad that showed al Qaeda was regrouping in the tribal areas.  According to USA Today, senior defense officials deny there have been any allied casualties in this phase of the campaign, saying that U.S., British, and Australian Special Forces have been operating in the area between Khost and Miram Shah since April 8.  Musharraf has been reluctant to let U.S. and allied forces operate within his borders lest he destabilize his own government, a consideration that was particularly pertinent in the run up to the referendum on April 30, which Musharraf hopes will secure his presidency for the next five years.  However, despite his sending 12,000 troops to the frontier, the tribal areas still remain largely beyond the control of Musharraf’s government, making the region an ideal base from which al Qaeda can conduct a guerilla campaign in Afghanistan.

As such considerations indicate, questioning the degree of success enjoyed by Anaconda in no way detracts from the performance of those who carried out the operation.  Rather, such self-criticism will help enhance any such future offensives.  Nor is the issue about how many al Qaeda or Taliban fighters were killed during Anaconda or even whether the operation was a success or not – in the strictly tactical sense it was.  A much more important question is how many al Qaeda and Taliban fighters escaped Anaconda and where they are now.  If, as seems the case, significant numbers of them have fled to the tribal areas across the Pakistan border, action must be taken, preferably before these fighters can redeploy in small guerilla units that will prove difficult and perhaps costly to track and destroy.  That such action finally appears to be taking place is a welcome if long overdue development.  Hopefully, it will not turn out to be a case of closing the stable door when the horse has already bolted.  If so, the five-year guerilla war being predicted by some British officers may well come to pass.

Selected sources

Anthony Lloyd, “British Officers Fear Five-Year War As Taleban Adopts Guerilla Tactics,” London Times, April 17, 2002.

Dana Priest and Thomas E. Ricks, “U.S. Units Attacking Al Qaeda In Pakistan,” The Washington Post, April 25, 2002.

Dexter Filkins, “Pakistanis Say U.S. Is Allowed In Border Area,” New York Times, April 24, 2002.

John F. Burns, “7 Men, Apparently Fleeing U.S. Battle, Are Seized in Pakistan,” New York Times, March 20, 2002.

John Keegan, "Afghanistan Stretches the Red and Green Lines Too Thin," The Daily Telegraph, March 19, 2002.

John Weisman and Dave Moniz, “Pakistan Allows U.S. Pursiut of Al-Qaeda,” April 26, 2002.

Rory Carroll, ‘Marines Seize al Qaeda Caves As Afghan Violence Escalates,’ The Guardian, April 9, 2002.

Sean D. Naylor, “In Search of Casualties,” Army Times, April 15, 2002.

‘UK Troops Destroy al Qaeda Caves,’ BBC Online, April 17, 2002.

“U.S. Forces Not Active On Pakistani Soil,” BBC Online, April 25, 2002.

 

By Mark Burgess CDI Research Assistant mburgess@cdi.org

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