BRIEFS

TALIBAN CLAIM ARGHANDAB OCCUPATION A DIVERSION AND DEMONSTRATION OF STRENGTH

Last week’s apparent attempt by the Taliban to occupy the Arghandab district of Kandahar province perplexed many observers. Following the successful raid and breakout of prisoners from Kandahar Prison on June 13, the large-scale operation in Arghandab, where there is little support for the Taliban, resulted in the loss of scores of Taliban fighters.

A June 19 statement from Taliban spokesman Qari Yusof Ahmadi outlined some aspects of the movement’s strategy: “There were some hidden objectives behind our plan to enter Arghandab… The obvious aim of this was to show that we can easily enter an area and then leave it without suffering any casualties whenever we want to. We also wanted to divert the enemy’s attention to this area so that our prisoners could safely return to their homes” (Voice of Jihad, June 19). According to Qari Yusof, the Taliban fighters left the district of their own accord rather than being driven out: “They did so in order to prevent loss of life and material among the local people, because the enemy’s cruelty and their bombardment of the area, which would have caused losses to civilians, were intolerable.”

Afghan troops assisted by Canadian forces quickly defeated the insurgents in a counter-offensive that began on June 18. The Taliban claimed a loss of only six men, but a Defense Ministry spokesman cited a loss of 56 fighters, while Kandahar governor Asadollah Khaled claimed over 100 Taliban were killed (Tolo TV, June 19).

The number of Taliban fighters killed in the operation is disputed by Afghan and Coalition security forces, though there seems little doubt that hundreds of fighters were involved in a sweep through at least a dozen villages in Arghandab. There was similar disagreement over the number of foreign militants involved in the operation, with Afghan security officials claiming that the large number of militants wearing the distinctive woolen pakool cap indicated that most of the attackers came from Pakistan, though other sources failed to see the pakool worn by any of the dead fighters (Globe and Mail [Toronto], June 21). The fighters were apparently led by a Taliban commander known as Mullah Shakoor.

The withdrawal does not appear to have been hurried; before leaving Arghandab the Taliban are reported to have destroyed an important bridge and heavily mined and booby-trapped the whole district. It was, according to General Zaher Azimi, “a move similar to the Russian occupiers” (Tolo TV, June 19; Radio Afghanistan, June 17).

There is some speculation within Afghanistan that the Pakistani government organized and financed the operation as covert retaliation for successive U.S. strikes on targets within Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (Hasht-e Sobh, June 18).

Canadian Brigadier General Denis Thompson did not agree with Afghan speculation that the attack was part of an attempt to occupy the provincial capital: “What you have to understand about this district is it’s all one tribe, the Alokozai… They’re mostly pro-government. So this was the Taliban demonstrating to the tribe that they’re vulnerable. It was a psychological operation, not a military operation” (Globe and Mail, June 21).

Until last October the leading Alokozai elder was Mullah Naqib, a famous anti-Soviet mujahideen and a leading backer of the Hamid Karzai government in Kabul. Though he resisted Taliban encroachment into Arghandab, Mullah Naqib was also prominent at times in negotiations with the Islamist militants. Following his death from a heart attack last fall, the Mullah was replaced by his 26-year-old son on the orders of Hamid Karzai. The appointment of this untested youth broke with tradition—tribes generally choose their own leaders—and overlooked a number of capable fighters and leaders in the tribe. There is reason to think that the Taliban operation was intended to intimidate the Alokozai into cooperation or passivity, eventually clearing the way into Kandahar.

AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI REBUKES KURDS FOR FAILING TO JOIN JIHAD

A northern Iraq-based Kurdish-language newspaper has published an interview with Ayman al-Zawahiri, in which the senior al-Qaeda leader comments on several Kurdish leaders and the state of jihad in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq (Levin [Sulaymaniyah], June 17). In a process that took several months, the questions were relayed through al-Hisba jihadist internet forum to al-Sahab Foundation—al-Qaeda’s information agency—before being passed along to al-Zawahiri for reply. Al-Zawahiri takes a dim view of Kurdish failure to participate in jihad in large numbers: “I have known the Kurds from Salah-al-Din [the 12th century Kurdish ruler of most of the Islamic Middle East], but now I feel that the Kurds have deviated from the path of the great Salah-al-Din, the leader of the Islamic world who defeated the Crusaders. Now the Kurds are the greatest agents of the Crusaders occupying their land, the land where Salah-al-Din was born.”

Asked which prominent Kurdish Islamists he is familiar with, al-Zawahiri names the former leader of the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan, Shaykh Uthman Abd al-Aziz (died in 1999) and his brother and successor, Ali Abd al-Aziz al-Halabji. The movement now has two ministers in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), though participation in official political structures does not appear to impress al-Zawahiri: “Those Islamic groups that are participants in power and in the parliament are no different from groups of unbelievers. If they do not express repentance and return to the fundamentals of the religion, which is jihad, they will die as ignorant people.”

Al-Zawahiri has a more favorable impression of the now largely dormant Kurdish Ansar al-Islam movement, which was alleged in 2002-03 to be working closely with al-Qaeda: “Ansar al-Islam are a jihadist group who obey Allah… We consider them the initiators of jihad against America and its agents.”

The jihadi leader is opposed to greater autonomy for Iraqi Kurdistan or its prolonged occupation by American forces: “Kurdistan is part of the Islamic world and we will never accept its occupation or separation. We know that Kurdistan owns great oil wealth but the U.S. is squandering it now… As long as America is in Iraq, those people who live on Iraqi soil do not own what is under the soil and are unable to protest because they receive their share for being [American] spies and agents.”