Newsweek: The Afghan War Comes Home (terra terra terra! More troops, more treasure, more death)

[laststeamtrain]

The Afghan War Comes Home
Afghans haven't been the main engine of global Islamist terrorism. That may be about to change.

By Paul Cruickshank | Newsweek Web Exclusive

Sep 24, 2009

The most spectacular acts of terrorism in the last decade have not been committed by Afghans. The September 11 attacks were perpetrated mostly by Saudis, the Madrid train bombings by North African immigrants, the London Underground bombings mostly by British citizens of Kashmiri descent, and even the Bali bombings by homegrown Indonesian Islamists. The Taliban's ethnic Pashtuns were not generally like the group they chose to shelter, Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda. They were mostly partisan locals, not international terrorists. But that may all be about to change.

Last weekend, agents in Denver and New York arrested three men of Afghan decent—including Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old Afghan national suspected of involvement in a Qaeda plot to blow up targets like Grand Central Terminal—raising the question: is the Afghan war now coming to American shores? Zazi is beginning to look like part of a trend.

For most of its 20 years, Al Qaeda's commanders recruited very few Afghan militants into their ranks because their parochial world views, their lack of international travel experience, and their poor education made them useless as global operatives. But when the Taliban was forced from power across the border in Pakistan—where it became a target in what the Bush administration called "the global war on terrorism"—its members became much more worldly. As they came to see the United States, rather than rival Afghan tribes, as their enemy, Pashtuns were radicalized in the border region, where they had easy access to Al Qaeda's training facilities. The war in Iraq, the mushrooming of Internet cafés in the region, and Al Qaeda's relentless propaganda efforts have widened the horizons of Pashtun militants who, a decade ago, had little concept of the outside world, let alone global jihad.

A sense of grievance against the United States has risen sharply (not least because of Washington's alliance with the Punjabi-dominated government in Islamabad) among the 40 million Pashtuns living in the mountain terrain between southeastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan, lands that many Pashtuns want to become an independent state. Airstrikes against militants in these mountains—by coalition forces in Afghanistan, by U.S. Predator drones in Pakistan—have also killed many Pashtuns, adding fuel to the flames. Pakistan's infrequent but heavy-handed military forays to retake control of these disputed territories have also claimed many innocent lives.

Al Qaeda has exploited this anger to establish a safe haven in the Pashtun heartlands and to spread its vision of global jihad among the inhabitants. The Pakistani Taliban (a conglomeration of Pashtun tribes formed in December 2007) and the Haqqani network (a Pashtun group loyal to veteran Afghan mujahedin commander Jalaluddin Haqqani) have struck a particularly close relationship with bin Laden's terrorist network. Suicide bombings, which as late as 2004 were anathema to Pashtun fighters—the first suicide attack carried out by a Taliban fighter is believed to have taken place in January of that year—have now been fully embraced, resulting in incredible bloodshed in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There were only five suicide bombings in Afghanistan between 2001 and the end of 2004, but there have been more than 100 per year since 2006, mostly carried out by the Taliban against targets ranging from Afghan police to Western installations. In the last two years, the tactic spread to Pakistan, where in 2008 there were more than 60 suicide bombings—a record number—mostly carried out by Pashtun militants against targets like police stations, Army barracks, and Western embassies and hotels. The importing of insurgent tactics from Iraq has also boosted their terrorist skills.

Meanwhile, the emigration of thousands of Pashtun refugees to Western countries has given a greater number of Pashtuns the capacity most coveted by Al Qaeda—a knowledge of how to operate in the West. Until recently, these emigrants seemed largely immune to Al Qaeda's recruitment efforts. In the U.K., for example, the British South Asians convicted of plotting terrorist attacks in the years since 9/11 have been almost exclusively of Kashmiri or Punjabi descent. But elements inside the Pashtun diaspora are now cultivating a violent hostility toward the West. That is causing significant worry for counterterrorism officials, according to background interviews, because they know it is quite simple for these emigrants, on visits home, to get access to Qaeda and Taliban training facilities in Pakistan's Pashtun tribal areas, where they can learn crucial bombmaking skills.

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http://www.newsweek.com/id/216082

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Terra terra terra !!!

We gots to blow'd 'em up real good, Gomer.

What part of PERMANENT war economy don't you understand, private?

[polichick]

1. Gee, maybe we should actually protect our borders and ports...

...instead of going around the world creating enemies.

[bvar22]

2. Gosh, Ya think?

What a wonderful idea.
Quick, someone call the White House.

[polichick]

3. Maybe they're figuring it out on their own...

And soon they'll stand up to the MIC and do what's really in the country's best interest.