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CHAPTER 1
War in Afghanistan – I
Almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, the al-Qaida network was identified as responsible for the atrocities, and its host Taliban regime in Afghanistan was thus seen as a prime part of the enemy in President Bush's declared 'war on terror'. There was therefore some surprise that the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan did not start for several weeks. People remembered President Clinton's rapid use of cruise missiles against targets in Sudan and Afghanistan in response to the bombing of US embassies in East Africa, and there was an expectation of immediate retaliation.
In practice, such attacks would have been little more than symbolic, and the US military therefore developed plans for much more substantial military action, aware of the requirement to finish the war before the onset of winter. The main problems for the military were the lack of nearby bases from which to launch an attack, and the risk to US troops of engaging in ground conflict against Taliban and al-Qaida guerrilla forces.
This chapter records developments over the first eight weeks of the war and shows the importance of the use of Northern Alliance forces in combination with US air power. Essentially, the United States took the option of taking sides in the long-running Afghanistan civil war, even though the human rights record of the Northern Alliance was little better than that of the Taliban.
For the first four weeks of the war, there appeared to be little progress with the US war aims, but the impact of the rearming of the Northern Alliance forces in combination with the US bombing campaign was crucial and ultimately had its effect. At the same time, and even within just a few weeks of the start of the war, two other issues were becoming apparent. One was that there were significant civilian casualties being caused, partly through targeting errors and partly through the use of area impact munitions (AIMs). The other was that there were already signs that the Taliban and al-Qaida groups were frequently withdrawing rather than fighting, a tactic that was to have long-term significance, given that the US military had little interest in a lengthy presence in Afghanistan.
In the wider 'war on terror', there were already firm indications that the security hawks in Washington had their sights set on the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. There were also two further developments that provided markers for the future. One was the substantial number of people taken into custody in the United States, coupled with a presidential directive establishing military courts for the trial of foreign nationals. The other was the decision to allow the CIA to undertake assassinations of presumed terrorists overseas.
From Afghanistan to Iraq? 15 October 2001
Although most of the media has given an impression of a massive air bombardment, the reality is of a fairly low-level air war, for two different reasons. Firstly, the United States is unable to use bases in the region for bombers or strike aircraft, only for special operations forces, reconnaissance aircraft and drones, or special functions such as aerial refuelling. It is therefore reliant on aircraft flying from carriers operating well offshore in the Arabian Sea, from Diego Garcia or, in the case of the B-2 stealth bomber, from bases in the United States. As a result, on some recent nights, fewer than ten targets were attacked.
While the B-2 bombers deliver large numbers of bombs, they fly from the US to Afghanistan and then on to Diego Garcia, where fresh crews fly them back to the US. The whole sortie takes nearly 70 hours, the planes need detailed maintenance and the US only has 21 of them, with perhaps 14 operational at any one time. It is unlikely they can use more than three in any one night.
Strike aircraft launched from carriers need aerial refuelling. The carriers have a limited number of small tanker aircraft, but the US is also relying on RAF tankers flying out of Oman. Extraordinary as it might seem, USAF tankers are not configured to refuel US Navy planes. Such operational difficulties severely limit the capability of the US to maintain aircraft loitering over Afghanistan looking for 'targets of opportunity'.
The second reason for the limited strikes is that there are few readily available targets. The Taliban regime is not configured like a conventional army and air force – there are very few planes and helicopters and few large barracks or troop concentrations. The forces are essentially infantry and guerrilla forces. Their mode of operation stems from the Soviet occupation of the 1980s, when Afghan resistance groups found it effective to organise in dispersed groups of 20–200 fighters.
In the last few days, air defences and mostly obsolete aircraft have been destroyed quickly, and the primitive command and control systems have also been damaged, as have the few bunkers that might have housed military commanders. Most of these are of no great value to the Taliban – in one case, a number of aircraft were destroyed on the ground in an air raid, but they had not been flown for more than a decade.
The limits of technology
Attempts have been made to target troop concentrations, and the US is now using 'area impact munitions' (AIMs) such as cluster bombs for this purpose. As the name implies, these are at the opposite end of the bombing spectrum from precision-guided laser bombs. They are designed from the start to cause destruction over the greatest area, and are used against 'soft' targets such as trucks, tented camps and people. Atypical cluster bomb is actually a canister that dispenses around 150 'bomblets', each of which detonates to spread up to 2,000 high-velocity shrapnel fragments, the whole bomb shredding anything or anyone within a couple of acres.
Use of AIMs, especially from high altitude, means that civilian casualties are virtually certain. In any case, up to 10 per cent of cluster bomb munitions can fail to detonate, leaving behind what amount to anti-personnel land mines. Such bomblets have resulted in numerous injuries and deaths months and years after their use in the 1991 Gulf War, and will do so likewise in Afghanistan.
Even without the use of AIMs, there have been problems with targeting precision-guided bombs. Incidents include the deaths of four UN workers early last week and two more recent events, one possibly involving more than 100 people killed. One reason may be that the National Imaging and Mapping Agency (NIMA) falls massively short of producing the digital databases that are needed to guide the bombs. These are rather like finely defined maps; they should give three-dimensional targeting co-ordinates accurate to within nine metres. According to a reliable report, regional commanders need 9,000 of these 'maps' to provide adequate coverage. As of late September, they were 5,000 short of this figure.
In other moves, the US Navy is ordering 600 more sea-launched cruise missiles to replace stocks used in recent years against Iraq, Sudan, Serbia and Afghanistan. It is also asking for $4 billion in emergency spending on base and ship security. There is currently a worry that the massive aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea might be subject to suicide attacks, analogous to the New York and Washington attacks.
What next?
The bombing may continue for some days, possibly with a pause to see if the Taliban will give up bin Laden (this seems unlikely, though they may make offers chiefly for propaganda purposes). Targets will become more difficult to find. There are indications that many Taliban units have been ordered to disperse into cities, towns and villages to await American ground troops. The al-Qaida network has up to 55 bases throughout Afghanistan, but these are not so much fully-fledged bases as locations used often on a temporary basis.
Meanwhile, there is a divergence in Washington between military chiefs and the Pentagon's politicians. The military want to continue the bombing rather than risk their elite Special Forces in any numbers, in view of the risk of a costly guerrilla war with winter coming on. Their political masters want Special Forces action. Increasingly, they see the military as out of touch with political realities.
Within Afghanistan, there is considerable integration of the bin Laden forces into the Taliban armed forces. There is little doubt that they, too, will have spread out widely. There are also reports that much of the network has dispersed, many of its personnel even quietly leaving Afghanistan for neighbouring countries to the north and east. A dispersal could last months or years. Given local support in countries such as Pakistan, network personnel would be almost impossible to track down. If the US does deploy forces in Afghanistan in pursuit of al-Qaida, there may be little to find.
In the immediate future, the US will attempt to seek and destroy units of the Taliban's 55th Brigade, several thousand troops including many Arabs and other foreign supporters. While this is the most effective Taliban group, it is reported to be widely spread, with only a few hundred concerned with guarding the al-Qaida leadership (including bin Laden). The use of helicopter-borne troops and AC-130 gunships is likely. But there is no certainty that the 55th Brigade and other elements of the Taliban militia can be found and attacked within the next four weeks, before the start of Ramadan and then the onset of winter.
According to the US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, 'continuous pressure' will be maintained on the Taliban and elements of the network, but the limited availability of air bases in the region from which to operate makes this questionable. Moreover, the use of Pakistani bases even for helicopter and Special Forces operations may become problematic, given the current development of opposition to the US military operations in Pakistan.
It is possible that the Taliban might still give up bin Laden. It is also possible that a US air strike or Special Forces operation might destroy him and the network leadership. Both are unlikely. It is more probable that the war will continue for several weeks before being scaled down over the winter. During a much longer timeframe of several months, the extent of troop movements from the United States will give a clear indication of whether the US is planning major and persistent military interventions in Afghanistan next year.
The region, especially Iraq
Street-level opposition to US action is growing in a number of countries in the Middle East and South-west Asia. States such as Pakistan and Jordan are moving fast to detain the more militant local leaders. Such action may ensure short-term stability at the risk of longer-term problems, especially if the war stretches over many months.
On the other hand, intense US pressure on Israel is having some effect – the Israeli army has withdrawn armoured units from key areas around Hebron, and two hard-line members of Sharon's cabinet are likely to resign their posts in protest.
Among the Arab states, Saudi Arabia is particularly sensitive, especially in relation to possible military action against Iraq. A powerful group in Washington sees as essential an Iraq offensive, combining extensive air strikes with, in due course, military occupation of Iraq's southern oilfields, support for Kurdish rebels in the north and Shi'ite forces in the south. While the latter action would be months away, there are reports of the build-up of substantial Turkish armed forces units on the Turkish-Iraqi border. This might be part of such a plan, but could instead be designed to prevent Iraqi Kurds linking up with Kurdish opposition forces in southeast Turkey.
The group of US hawks centres around the Defense Policy Board (DPB), a bipartisan group of hard-line security advisers. These include Richard Perle, Newt Gingrich, Henry Kissinger, Dan Quayle, and former CIA Director James Woolsey, who has recently been in Britain seeking evidence of an Iraqi link with 11 September. Both Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz attended a recent two-day meeting of the DPB that largely excluded participation from the State Department (which takes a much more cautious view, as does the UK government).
Faultlines
The war is in its early stages, is taking place in a region of hugely complex politics and is following a course that is extraordinarily difficult to predict. Even so, four issues are relevant:
• There are substantial limitations on US military action because of the unavailability of local bases.
• Opposition to the United States in the region is growing quite rapidly.
• The al-Qaida network is being more successful than expected in portraying the war as 'the west versus Islam'.
• A powerful lobby in Washington wants to extend the war to Iraq.
The 'Iraq hawks' will probably not succeed, not least because of opposition from the Saudi authorities who fear strong internal opposition to any such US move. This, though, is the very reason why the Saddam Hussein regime may deliberately seek to provoke such a reaction, either by substantial infringements of the no-fly zones or else by an apparent military move towards Kuwait. While all the attention is being paid to the conflict in Afghanistan, it is worth watching Iraq.
An elusive enemy 22 October 2001
From early in the third week of the war, the United States was able to operate strike aircraft such as the F-15 out of Uzbekistan. This has enabled the US to mount more air raids and has partially overcome the previous limitations of using carrier-based aircraft and long-range bombers. Even so, press reports of up to 100 aircraft involved in air strikes in any one day are misleading, as the number actually dropping bombs is much smaller. Aircraft involved include tankers, electronic countermeasures planes, 'back-up' strike aircraft, interceptors engaged in combat air patrols, and reconnaissance aircraft. These can make up 70 per cent of the total aircraft used.
Even so, the US now has a greater ability for airborne intervention, although Gulf and Pakistani bases still do not appear to be available for bombing. The movement of a fourth aircraft carrier into the region appears to indicate an acceptance of the need to use carrier air-power into the winter.
Widening the targets
Use of area impact munitions such as cluster bombs has been confirmed, and the AC-130 gunship is also designed to have an area impact effect. The use of such munitions against possible Taliban military concentrations is highly likely to lead to much larger civilian casualties. In the past two weeks there have been at least six cases of mis-targeting, including UN and Red Cross facilities.
Kandahar has clearly experienced widespread damage that goes beyond the targeting of military sites. This does fit in with patterns of US air attacks in previous wars such as the Gulf War and Serbia, where the definition of 'military' is capable of being greatly stretched to include targets that serve a primarily civil function (transport nodes, power stations, administration offices, radio stations).
An effect of this is to degrade the capability of a city or other urban area to provide electricity, drinking water and other facilities for its population, making refugee flows more likely. These, in turn, make civilian casualties more likely, especially as Taliban military movements become mixed in with refugees. Even so, US bombing strategy is still not as harsh as the out-and-out destruction carried out by the Russians in Chechnya. At the same time, US forces may yet use fuel-air explosives (sometimes called thermobaric weapons) against underground bunkers and trenches. These were used against Iraqi positions in the Kuwaiti desert and are particularly destructive. The Russians have used them in urban areas in Chechnya.
The Northern Alliance
There are credible reports that the Northern Alliance is starting to receive substantial quantities of arms from Russia, possibly financed by the US. In return for this, and other aid, the United States is unlikely to criticise Russian suppression in Chechnya, and improving US relations with China may give Beijing more of a free rein against Islamic rebels in western regions. Both moves will further inflate antagonism to the United States in a number of Islamic countries.
While the Northern Alliance is being strengthened, there remains unwillingness on the part of Washington to see it move on Kabul, not least because it does not carry support in Afghanistan as a whole. Thus, if the immediate aim is to cause the collapse of the Taliban regime, an acceptable alternative regime is not readily available.
The media
There is a dearth of reliable information coming out of Afghanistan, and direct media access to US forces is under remarkably strict control. As a consequence, media manipulation is easy and a noteworthy feature of the first two weeks has been a careful 'feeding' of stories, day by day, with an emphasis on items that produce good graphics. The AC-130 gunship was one example, as was the news that Special Forces were now operating in Afghanistan (when most informed analysts believed this had started some four weeks ago).
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "A War on Terror"
by .
Copyright © 2004 Paul Rogers.
Excerpted by permission of Pluto Press.
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