The years 2002 through 2009 highlighted Al-Qaeda A Thousand
and One Nights tales in which the organization worked its way
through sundry crises, throwing up various characters to make
Afghanistan a US nightmare. But for the final victory, Al-Qaeda had
a different game plan. Osama bin Laden and Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri
were among the veteran Arab-Afghan fighters who had orchestrated
the defeat of the former USSR. The militants kept foremost in mind
one aspect of the mujahideen victory: their success in severing the
Russian supply line from Northern Afghanistan. The spring offensive
of 2006 was the watershed for the struggle. Al-Qaeda was looking
for a strategy that could become the tipping point for NATO’s defeat
in Afghanistan. After discussion and debate, the Khyber Agency was
chosen as the theater for that.
The Khyber Pass had been the main supply line for NATO troops
since 2002. At least 80 percent of their supplies came through the Khyber Agency. The rest came through Kandahar, while small quan-
tities of supplies were dropped by air. NATO was lucky that the Khyber Agency had very few Al-Qaeda sympathizers. The area has
always been a trade route, and the majority of its inhabitants are
followers of the Brelvi school of thought, which adheres to Sufi Islam.
A member of Pakistan’s parliament of this area is also an anti-Tal-
iban Brelvi cleric. In the prevailing circumstances, making the Khyber
Agency a war front was still a huge challenge for Al-Qaeda. This was
surmounted when Al-Qaeda managed to convince the Afghan Taliban
of the need to cut NATO supply lines to force the Western alliance
out of Afghanistan. With the consent of Mullah Omar, Ustad Yasir, an
old Afghan commander belonging to the Ittehad-e-Islami Afghanistan
during the former USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan, was appointed
commander of the Khyber Agency. A small group of Taliban from
the South Waziristan, including Hakimullah Mehsud, then aged 28,
who became the chief of TTP after the death of Baitullah Mehsud,
was sent to conduct hit and run operations there, with a local tribal
group promising to facilitate them.
That was the beginning of the new war front. The organized
attack on NATO supply convoys began in January 2008, and by
April 2008, NATO could see the writing on the wall. The attacks
intensified and the situation deteriorated for NATO to the point where some aircraft engines were seized by the Taliban, along with
Humvees (military four-wheel-drive vehicles), which the Taliban
were seen to be operating freely in the tribal areas before they were
destroyed by Pakistan’s security forces.
NATO commanders knew from past experience that new Taliban
strategies were a constant factor, and so were concerned. The only
alternative supply line was through the Iranian port of Chabahar,
but to make use of that, a highway through Afghanistan was needed.
The work began almost immediately and, though delayed by Taliban
attacks to prevent its completion, it was finally completed in late
- But then there was the tricky business of persuading Iran to
allow NATO shipments through its territory.
There is another route. This comes through Europe and Russia
down to the Central Asian republics, then on to northern Afghanistan,
crossing the length of Afghanistan, to the largest NATO base in
Bagram at one end, and then across to the second largest NATO
base in Kandahar. This route is long and impractical because of
the huge cost entailed. In addition, shipments have to pass through
two landlocked regions before reaching their final destinations. But
the situation had become so desperate that NATO was forced to
negotiate an agreement with Russia and the Central Asian republics
to provide an alternative supply route. At the same time, in February
2009, on the sidelines of the 45th Munich Conference, Washington
was compelled to initiate back-channel diplomacy with Iran,
compromising all its previous positions for the single objective of
Iran allowing the NATO troops a passage through to its Chabahar
seaport from Afghanistan to oversee supplies.
Iran eventually approved non-military shipments, but only for a
few European countries in their individual capacities, not as NATO
member nations. This move was not a sustainable solution, however,
and the United Kingdom and the United States had to fall back
on Islamabad to guard their supply routes. But the monster of the
militancy in Pakistan did not allow Pakistan to address the issue
properly. With its troops engaged on several fronts, Pakistan had
no choice but to regret its inability to provide security to NATO
convoys. The success of the strategy employed to cut NATO’s supply
routes emboldened the Taliban, and they carried out relentless attacks
on the Peshawar truck terminal where NATO convoys parked for the night before going through the Khyber Pass. They simultane-
ously moved into Karachi, where NATO cargo was unloaded. They abducted the contractors employed by NATO to deliver supplies
northwards, and threatened the drivers of the vehicles with dire
consequences if they continued to work for them. As a result, by
December 2008 NATO supplies had come to a grinding halt, with
sections of the UK press reporting that in the places like Helmand
and Ghazni NATO stocks had dried up completely.
Al-Qaeda and Taliban’s successes caused concern in Western
capitals. They were beginning to realize that they had been trapped
in a quagmire. They then turned to the strategy of fighting Al-Qaeda
and its extremist Taliban allies by trying to strike a deal with the
more malleable Taliban. It was a desperate “better late than never”
type of approach.
Leading UK and US think tanks had been mulling over the
Taliban’s successes in Afghanistan and pointing out that after
the spring offensive of 2006, southern Afghanistan had become
virtually ungovernable. With that, Western capitals began to look
in the direction of alternative end-game strategies. In August
2007, a Grand Jirga (tribal council) was held in Kabul, attended
by delegates from Pakistan and Afghanistan. The then Pakistani
president General Musharraf led the Pakistan side. The Grand Jirga
decided on the need to hold regional Jirgagai (small Jirgas) from the
November 2007 onwards to attract the regional commanders of the
Taliban. The aim was to isolate the extremists within the Taliban
aligned to Al-Qaeda.
After the Grand Jirga, the United Kingdom, the United States,
and Pakistan worked jointly on this strategy. Maulana Fazlur
Rahman, the then leader of the opposition in the Pakistani parlia-
ment, was chosen as the point-man, and he made several secret
trips to Quetta, where he held negotiations with the middle
cadre of the Taliban. The new US strategy appeared to be
paying dividends with some Taliban commanders like Mullah
Abdul Salam, who even struck a deal with UK troops in
Helmand province and assumed charge as the administrator of the
province’s Musa Qala district.
Meanwhile British MI6 agents were active in the areas of
Kunar, Paktia, and Paktika, with the new British ambassador to
Afghanistan, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, working on the old Afghan
traditions of arbakai (the raising of tribal militias to fight an enemy).
The situation seemed to be improving in the southeastern Afghan
provinces of Kunar, Paktia, and Paktika in favor of Jirgagai as well,
and there were chances that if the regional Jirgas were held, it might
split the Taliban. However these efforts could have borne fruit only
if the Pakistani army had a breathing space. Al-Qaeda did not allow
that to happen.