Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Al-Qaeda sees opportunity in peace

Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - With the great 2011 Arab revolt still simmering, Western leaders are scrambling to bring to an end the 10-year war in Afghanistan, where the Taliban-led insurgency remains unbeaten. A step in the direction of an endgame through a political reconciliation process is likely to be taken at a preparatory conclave on the security and reconstruction of Afghanistan to be held in Turkey's capital Ankara next month. The Taliban have obtained permission from the Turkish government to open an office in Turkey, former Taliban


administration minister Arsala Rahmani told the media in the United States.

Last week, a senior Afghan official, Mohammad Massoom Stanekzai, secretary of the Afghan High Peace Council and an adviser to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, announced a US$50 million donation from the United States government to the council - the body responsible for seeking peace talks with the Taliban - in support of reconciliation efforts.

This is the beginning of official, up-front peace negotiations with the Taliban, which to date have taken place in backrooms.

However, in stark contrast to US hopes, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that al-Qaeda was gradually returning to the eastern Afghan provinces of Nuristan and Kunar, setting up bases for the first time in years in the wake of the withdrawal of US troops from the area to more populated centers.

Asia Times Online earlier broke the story that after a pause of many years, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been active in the Hindu Kush mountain region of Kunar and Nuristan in Afghanistan and Pakistan's Bajaur regions (see Bin Laden sets alarm bells ringing March 25, 2011) and that al-Qaeda was expanding its territorial influence in the vacuum left behind by US troops.

This raises a question: What does al-Qaeda, the real mastermind of the South Asian war theater, plan by entering into eastern Afghanistan where it already has a powerful local commander, Qari Ziaur Rahman, at a time when a peace negotiation process is about to begin? (See A fighter and a financier Asia Times Online, May 23, 2008 and the video, The Taliban's new breed of leader.)

Asia Times Online spoke to an al-Qaeda-affiliated strategist on the condition of anonymity as his current situation does not allow his name to be used.

"There are two important things to understand. First, the Western coalition is heavily engaged in the Middle East and North Africa. The situation is so complex that it does not allow the West to disengage from there. Revolts within army ranks have begun in Yemen, which is geographically the second-most important region for al-Qaeda," the strategist said.

"This is a multi-layered problem in the Arab world which will become further aggravated. In the meantime, the West has the hallucination that it can keep the Taliban busy through peace negotiations while it resolves the crisis in the Arab world. That idea will never be realized.

"The Taliban will certainly use this breathing space to strategize the war theater and I have a strong hunch that this time the Taliban will make a major breakthrough in Afghanistan. To me, this is no more a case of years, it looks like an issue of months now."

This was somewhat surprising, as the politics of peace and war have always been al-Qaeda’s dialectic. In the past 10 years of its war against foreign forces and Pakistan, al-Qaeda has always used peace agreements for the enlargement of its war strategies.

Only recently, with peace activities echoing in the air, a battle front was opened in the Pakistani tribal areas of Mohmand and Bajaur situated near the Hindu Kush. Al-Qaeda has previously scuttled dialogue processes, such as the Grand Peace Jirga (council) that was announced in Kabul in August 2007.

Al-Qaeda has always used Pakistan as a part of its grand designs for the region. The al-Qaeda-linked strategist explained: "Pakistan is desperately looking for a reconciliation process with the militants on its side of the border because if, hypothetically, the Americans strike a peace deal with the Taliban and supposedly leave the war theater, Pakistan would be left alone and without any resources.

"Its resource pool to fight a war has already been squeezed. However, I don't see any formula through which Pakistan could settle its issues with militants. I think militancy will continue to haunt Pakistan.

"I don’t think that the situation in the Arab world will evaporate into the air in the next several months, therefore any breakthrough in Afghanistan will pave the way for al-Qaeda to reorganize its cadre and march to its ultimate war theater - the Middle East," the strategist said.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief and author of upcoming book Inside al-Qaeda and the Taliban, beyond 9/11 published by Pluto Press, UK. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

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