In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan

increasingly infiltrating back into Pakistan’s tribal areas. Many went to remote locations, such as the Shakai Valley in South Waziristan, hoping the Pakistani government would leave them alone to resettle among some of the local tribes. Sporadic Pakistani military operations in South Waziristan triggered an exodus of militants to North Waziristan. “It was harder for Pakistan government forces to get to them there,” said Grenier. “The social structure was more hospitable, and there was a heavier influence of mullahs and religious clerics.”³⁵

An Ideal Sanctuary

Over the next several years, these extremists used Pakistan’s northern Baluchistan Province, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and the North West Frontier Province as sanctuaries to rest and rearm. Sanctuary was critical for all major groups that targeted NATO forces and the Afghan government. “The Taliban was a flourishing dynamic network,” according to a joint European Union and United Nations document, “which relied on a strong and unchallenged support and recruitment base in Pakistan.”³⁶ In past insurgencies, border areas and neighboring countries have often been exploited by militants. Groups can plot, recruit, proselytize, contact supporters around the world, raise money, and enjoy a respite from the government’s efforts, enabling operatives to escape from the constant stress that characterizes life underground.³⁷ Pakistan’s border region was an ideal sanctuary for several reasons.

First, it was close to the Taliban and al Qa’ida strongholds in eastern and southern Afghanistan, which would be convenient once they decided to launch efforts to overthrow the Karzai regime. And virtually all major insurgent leaders had spent time in Pakistan, often at one of the Deobandi madrassas. Second, Pakistan included roughly twenty-five million Pashtuns, double the number in Afghanistan, many of whom were sympathetic to the Taliban.³⁸ Third, some insurgent groups also had close ties to individuals within the Pakistan government. The Taliban, as discussed earlier, had received significant support and legitimacy from Pakistan’s ISI back in the 1990s. Fourth, Pakistan’s mountainous terrain near the Afghan border offered superb protection.

“The role of geography, a large one in an ordinary war, may be overriding in a revolutionary war,” wrote David Galula in his classic book Counterinsurgency Warfare. Galula served in the French Army in North Africa and Italy during World War II, and later in the insurgencies in China, Greece, Indochina, and Algeria. “It helps the insurgent insofar as it is rugged and difficult.”³⁹ As Galula and others have pointed out, mountainous terrain can be useful for insurgent groups because it is difficult for indigenous and external forces to navigate and easier for insurgents to hide.⁴⁰

The border region was also deeply disputed. No modern government of Afghanistan had ever formally recognized the British-drawn border that divided the Pashtun territories. On November 12, 1893, Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, the British foreign secretary of India, signed an agreement with the Afghan ruler, Amir Abdur Rehman Khan, separating Afghanistan from what was then British India. The Durand Line, as it became known, divided the Pashtun tribes in order to weaken them, making it easier for the British to pacify the area. On their side of the frontier, the British created autonomous tribal agencies controlled by British political officers with the help of tribal chieftains whose loyalty was ensured through regular subsidies. The British used force to put down sporadic uprisings, but they generally left the tribes alone in return for stability along the frontier.⁴¹ In 1949, Afghanistan’s loya jirga declared the Durand Line invalid and viewed Pashtun areas as part of their country, especially since British India ceased to exist with the independence of Pakistan in 1947.

The 1,519-mile border has continued to be a source of tension. In the June 2006 issue of Armed Forces Journal, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters suggested a radical realignment of the boundaries of the greater Middle East. Peters generously gave part of western Afghanistan to Iran, but he balanced this by giving Afghanistan the Pashtun areas of Pakistan. Peters argued: “What Afghanistan would lose to Persia in the west, it would gain in the east, as Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier tribes would be reunited with their Afghan brethren…. Pakistan, another unnatural state, would also lose its Baluch territory to Free Baluchistan. The remaining ‘natural’ Pakistan would lie entirely east of the Indus, except for a westward spur near Karachi.”⁴² Though considerable blood might have to be spilled to move the borders, several senior Afghan officials praised Peters and expressed their support for redrawing the colonial boundaries. Shortly after the article was published, one senior Afghan official told me, “At least one American understands Afghanistan.”⁴³ Not surprisingly, Pakistani officials have been less than enthusiastic about the idea.

U.S. Limitations

The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan had aimed to overthrow the Taliban regime and destroy al Qa’ida’s organizational infrastructure. It achieved the former but not the latter. Key al Qa’ida training camps, such as Tarnak Farms outside of the city of Kandahar, were destroyed. But the Taliban, al Qa’ida, and other militants simply slipped across the border into Pakistan, where they established new camps. Over the next several years, these groups recruited, rearmed, and plotted their return. The Pakistani military conducted combat operations against foreign fighters—especially Central Asians and Arabs—in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but the government refrained from conducting operations against most high-ranking Taliban leaders. ⁴⁴ On September 15, 2001, President Musharraf told Ambassador Chamberlin: “We will hand over captured al Qa’ida operatives to you. But we will handle the Pakistanis and other locals ourselves.”⁴⁵

The Pakistan government’s desire to protect some of its assets was not lost on U.S. policymakers. Deputy Secretary of State Armitage argued, for example, that “Musharraf did not push hard against the Taliban” and was “only cooperative in targeting some key al Qa’ida militants.”⁴⁶ The CIA’s Grenier similarly acknowledged: “The ISI worked closely with us to capture key al Qa’ida leaders such as Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, Ramzi Binalshibh, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, and Abu Zubeida. But they made it clear that they didn’t care about targeting the Taliban.” Neither did the CIA or the U.S. government more broadly. “The U.S. government was focused on al Qa’ida,” Grenier continued, “not on capturing or killing Taliban leaders. The U.S. considered the Taliban a spent force.”⁴⁷

Neglecting the Taliban, who had invited al Qa’ida into Afghanistan in the first place, was a dangerous gamble. A joint paper by the government of Afghanistan, the United Nations, Canada, the Netherlands, Britain, and the United States later warned that insurgents were directing “their campaign against Afghan and international forces from Pakistan,” and most fighters were “trained in Pakistan in combat, communications, IEDs and suicide ops.”⁴⁸

Militant Groups Resettle

Among the groups that settled in Pakistan was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i-Islami. After the September 2001 attacks, Hekmatyar openly pledged to cooperate with al Qa’ida and Taliban forces to fight the “Crusader forces” in Afghanistan.⁴⁹ Hekmatyar’s organization, which included several hundred fighters, sought to overthrow the Afghan government and install him as leader. The group’s area of operations included Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province and the northern part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, as well as the Afghan provinces of Nuristan, Kunar, Laghman, and Nangarhar.⁵⁰ Despite occasional overtures to the Afghan government, one joint European Union and United Nations assessment revealed that Hekmatyar was periodically “offered funds to fill his empty coffers” by the Taliban and “agreed not to negotiate further with the Afghan government.”⁵¹

In addition to Hekmatyar’s fighters, Yunus Khalis’s branch of Hezb-i-Islami also began to rearm in Pakistan. One of Khalis’s sons, Anwar al-Haq Mojahed, began to gather a group of Hezb-i-Islami fighters, disgruntled tribesmen, and some ex-Taliban. So did a group called Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), which was led by Sufi Mohammad, whose objective was to impose sharia law in Afghanistan and Pakistan by force if necessary. He encouraged and organized thousands of people to fight against the United States and the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan as the Taliban regime began to crumble in 2001, but the group was banned by Pervez Musharraf, and Sufi Mohammad was jailed in 2002. The group continued to rebuild, however, thanks to the untiring work of his son-in-law, Mullah Fazlullah, an influential firebrand known for his long, flowing hair. He was dubbed “Mullah Radio” because of his pirate FM radio broadcasts.

There were also a number of groups that rested and rearmed in Pakistan’s tribal areas. As Figure 6.2 illustrates, there are seven agencies (Khyber, Kurram, Orakzai, Mohmand, Bajaur, North Waziristan, and South Waziristan). There are also six frontier regions: Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Tank, and Lakki Marwat. The Pashtun tribes that controlled this region had resisted colonial rule with a determination virtually unparalleled in the subcontinent. The tribes were granted maximum autonomy and allowed to run their affairs in accordance with their Islamic faith, customs, and traditions. Tribal elders, known as