2001: 9/11, US Invasion, & Defeat of the Taliban -- Excerpt from (Mis)Understanding Afghanistan

"I was in my high-school class in Paktiya. The Taliban came to our class. We were told to leave and gather on a hill outside. Here the Taliban spoke to us. They said something had happened in America and it would be cause problems for Afghanistan. They said there was an Arab in the country who had caused many problems and they needed to find him and get rid of him from Afghanistan. They didn't explain much more. Just that 'things will change in Afghanistan very soon'" — Afghan resident of Paktiya on day of 9/11, Interview. (16)

Troop Levels: <100

On the morning of September 11th, 2001, four hijacked passenger airliners struck targets in the United States killing nearly 3,000 people with the airliners striking the north and south towers of the World Trade Centre in New York, the west-wing of the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a fourth crashing in rural Pennsylvania after passengers disrupted its course towards a fourth target in Washington, DC. (17)

Within days it became publicly known that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by members of?al Qaeda?(AQ) directed by Usama bin Laden (UBL) from a training camp in eastern Afghanistan. (18)?This marked the beginning of the near two decade US/ NATO engagement in Afghanistan.

Leading up to 9/11, the Taliban remained engaged in a fierce stalemate fighting to annex Afghanistan's northern regions from the United Front (UF): a force now comprised of multi-ethnic factions including Masud's Tajiks, Dostum's Uzbeks, Abdul Qadir's Hazara, and Abdul Haq leading Pashtun groups and Taliban defectors. (19)

Although heavily reliant on external funds and fighters to sway the balance, such as those supplied by UBL and his AQ fighters, (20) the Taliban began to emerge on top controlling 90% of Afghanistan's territory by 2001, pushing most of the UF leaders into exile, (21) and possibly gaining the final upper-hand with the assassination of UF leader Ahmed Shah Masud on September 9th (22) — who had warned of an eminent major terrorist attack against the US just months earlier in a speech to the European Parliament.(23)

Despite UBL initially denying involvement in the attacks, US President George W. Bush issued an ultimatum to the Taliban on September 20th to handover UBL and AQ leaders in the country and to close AQ training camps. (24)?This ultimatum was initially rejected by Taliban leader Mullah Omar who refused to handover UBL unless significant evidence of his involvement was provided. (25)

The US invasion of Afghanistan began as an insurgency supporting UF forces to rise-up and topple the Taliban government. The US organized an unconventional warfare approach for the invasion of Afghanistan consisting primarily of Special Forces (SF) supported by air-power that would work alongside Afghan anti-Taliban forces. (26)?This approach was recommended to President Bush by the CIA to defy expectations held by UBL that a US invasion of Afghanistan would follow the course of the Soviets and provoke an anti-American uprising to expel a foreign power. (27)?President Bush was keen to avoid a repeat Clinton-era bombing policy — the?‘bomb what?’?issue of?‘launching a million dollar rocket on a $10 tent’. (28)?Whereas the CIA had assets on the ground with the UF and were prepared to lead the invasion, the US military had ignored Afghanistan in the years previous — possessing no contingency plans for an invasion. (29)?Unprepared, military planners used Soviet maps of Afghanistan from the 1980s and had to call the publisher of the out-of-print?'Bear Went Over the Mountain'?book on the Soviet invasion as a single reference material going in. (30)

By September 26th, CIA operators from the Special Activities Division (SAD) were inserted by helicopter into Afghanistan's north where they revitalised networks amongst anti-Taliban UF fighters (becoming popularly referred to as the ‘Northern Alliance’ in Western media)?armed with millions of dollars in cash stuffed into duffel-bags. (31)?Aerial bombardments began on October 7th, 2001, against targets in Kabul, Jalalabad, and Kandahar — the few targets that existed amongst a low-tech adversary. US and allied military Special Forces (SF) teams began arriving shortly after to perform operations in the north, south, and east that would see the defeat of the Taliban by December. (32)

In the north, Special Forces teams inserted by helicopter near Mazar-e Sharif (from an airfield in Uzbekistan) where they joined Dostum’s Northern Alliance fighters on horseback to call in airstrikes against Taliban forces — forcing their withdrawal from Mazar-e Sharif by November 9th, 2001, and moving on to take Kunduz, the last city held by the Taliban in the north, by November 26th. (33)

During this initial fighting, displays of US airpower and strength caused many of the Taliban's Afghan fighters — many of whom had relatives on the other side — to begin to defect to the Northern Alliance, generating a rift between local Afghan Taliban and the more hardline foreign fighters committed to opposing US intervention. (34)

Shortly after the fall of Mazar-e Sharif in the north, Taliban forces unexpectedly fled Kabul during the night of November 12th, 2001, where it was seized the following day with little resistance by US-supported Northern Alliance forces. Remaining Taliban forces were then pursued to the south and east of the country towards the Pakistani border.

Retreating from Kabul towards the south, Taliban controlled regions began collapsing as Afghan Taliban forces fled to Kandahar. Filling the security vacuum, local power-brokers (tribal militias, warlords) began assuming authority in local areas and organising resistance forces. Former authority figures displaced by the Taliban returned to assume control of tribal and local factions. In the Taliban’s southern stronghold of Kandahar, these included: Gul Agha Sherzai, a former provincial governor and Durrani Barakzai of the Muhammadzai royal lineage; and, Hamid Karzai, a Durrani Popalzai leader of the Sadozai royal lineage. (35)?US Special Forces supported a force of nearly 3,000 local fighters organised by Karzai and Sherzai where they seized Kandahar City and the airport from Taliban control within two weeks. The remaining Taliban, including leader Mullah Omar who escaped on motorcycle, eventually fled across the border to Pakistan. (36)

In the east, approximately 2,000 predominantly foreign Taliban and AQ fighters who had fled Kabul (on November 13th, 2001) toward Jalalabad, presumed to include UBL, gathered in Tora Bora: a mountain cave complex in the Khyber Pass near the Pakistani border. (37)?By November 16th, 2001, the US military began aerial bombardments against the cave complex while CIA/SF teams organized local Afghan militias and Northern Alliance forces. Fighting began on December 3rd, 2001, and intensified over a period of two weeks until UBL and AQ elements eventually escaped into Pakistan by December 16th, 2001, after having suffered some of the heaviest (non-nuclear) bombing capable of the US arsenal. (38)

By the end of December, little more than two months after the first Americans arrived in the country, Taliban and AQ elements had fled the country — inadvertently bringing an end to the stalemated Afghan Civil War. The regions fell under control of local leaders where the country experienced a period of calm and peace for the first time in nearly a quarter century.

Excerpt from: (Mis)Understanding Afghanistan, Chapter 2: The Situational Context of US-Led ‘Counterinsurgency’ in Afghanistan (2001-2015), Pp. 117-122.

CITATION:

Gavriel, Alexei (2020) (Mis)Understanding Afghanistan: An Ethnographic Examination of 'Human Elements' Affecting the Nexus Between Understanding and Strategy in Population-Centric Conflict. Queens University Belfast. Doctoral Thesis.

Gavriel, Alexei (2020) "Chapter 2: The Situational Context of US-Led ‘Counterinsurgency’ in Afghanistan (2001-2015)". In (Mis)Understanding Afghanistan: An Ethnographic Examination of 'Human Elements' Affecting the Nexus Between Understanding and Strategy in Population-Centric Conflict. Queens University Belfast. Doctoral Thesis. Pp. 110-155.

NOTES:

16.?Interview, HM, Resident of Paktiya Province in Eastern Afghanistan.

17.?The fourth target was never confirmed but has been presumed to be the US Capital building or the White House.

18.?The attack reportedly occurred unbeknownst to UBLs Taliban hosts. According to Van Linschoten and Kuehn (2012: 278):?“The Taliban leadership— both Mullah Mohammad Omar and the faction close to Mullah Mohammad Rabbani—had two conditions for providing hospitality to bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership: bin Laden was not to communicate with the media without consulting the Taliban, nor were they to move against the United States or antagonise it (Brown 2010). The September 11 plot would have violated both of these conditions.”

19. See: Tomsen 2011. Also, according to Coll (2002), the United Front factions coalesced under the acceptance of exiled King Zahir Shah and were willing to "work under the King's banner for an ethnically balanced Afghanistan" (Coll 2002: 558).

20. Van Linschoten and Kuehn (2012: 302) provide a detailed account on the myth of the Taliban-AQ merger in Afghanistan, arguing that: “In many ways, the parameters of ‘TalQaeda’ were drawn in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Even though the Taliban were not explicitly indicted for their involvement in the actual plot, the rhetoric of commentators in the run up to Operation Enduring Freedom and in the months of war that followed convinced many that there was little to distinguish between the Taliban and al-Qaeda.”

21. Dostum had been pushed into exile after the fall of Mazar-e Sharif to the Taliban in 1998. Abdul Haq's wife and son were murdered in Pakistan in 1999, sending him into exile.

22. In a dispute with Taliban leadership, UBL is cited as taking responsibility for the assassination, stating: “Very well. I will solve your internal problems. I will get rid of your internal enemies so you don’t tell me I’m nothing but trouble for you”, furthering that, “The Taliban have wasted four years of my life. They have created obstacles in the way of our jihad even though at this time jihad is our religious duty. I have given allegiance to Mullah Omar, who is a symbol for the Imams, but when a follower follows a leader, the leader cannot ban him from doing so” (Mojdeh 2003: 86).

23. According to a declassified Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA 2001: 4-5) report from November 2001: "Through Northern Alliance intelligence effort, the late commander Massoud gained limited knowledge regarding the intentions of the Saudi millionaire Usama ((Bin Laden)) (UBL), and his terrorist organization, Al-Qaida, to perform a terrorist act against the U.S., on a scale larger than the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania... In April 2001, Massoud addressed the French and European parliaments in Paris. In his televised speech he warned the US government about UBL.”

24.?On 21 September 2001, the Taliban refused to hand over UBL stating their was no link between UBL and the 9/11 attacks. On 04 October, the Taliban offered to hand over UBL if the US supplied evidence of his involvement. this offer was refused by the US on 07 October and the US began aerial bombardments in Afghanistan. On 14 October, the Taliban made a final offer to hand over UBL to a third party for trial.

25.?Furthered by Van Linschoten and Kuehn (2012: 288):?“The military response of the United States and its allies to the September 11 attacks directly affected the relationship between the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda. After years of fruitless negotiations between the Afghan Taliban, the United States and Saudi Arabia over the issue of bin Laden and foreign jihadist groups operating on Afghan soil, the United States under the leadership of President Bush declared that both terrorists and those who harbour them would be treated in the same way. The Taliban’s leadership found themselves pursued just as bin Laden and al-Qaeda did; at this point they shared the same fate.”

26.?Ignatieff 2003.

27.?Grenier 2016. According to Bergen (2006: 316), UBL wrote a letter to Mullah Omar on 3 October 2001, explaining:?“A U.S. campaign against Afghanistan will cause great long-term economic burdens [on the United States] which will force America to resort to the former Soviet Union’s only option: withdrawal from Afghanistan, disintegration, and contraction.”

28.?Langston 2007; Zenko 2010.

29.?Schroen 2005. George Tenet (2007), then Director of Central Intelligence, describes how the CIA engaging a group referred to as ‘the tribals’ that had previously assisted with the capture of Aimal Kasi who had killed two CIA employees in shooting at the CIA headquarters front-gate in Langley, VA, in 1993.

30.?The incident is discussed in: Stanton 2010. The book referenced is Grau (1998)?The Bear Went Over the Mountain?documenting the Soviet experience in Afghanistan.

31.?Schroen (2005) provides a detailed account of this effort as the CIA officer who led ‘Operation Jawbreaker’ and the ten member team who would remain as the sole US presence on Afghan soil until the arrival of US Special Forces on 19 October, 2001.

32.?Berntsen and Pezzullo 2006.

33.?Stanton 2010.

34.?Barfield 2010; Van Linschoten and Kuehn 2012.?

35.?Barfield 2010.

36.?Grenier 2016.

37.?Berntsen and Pezzullo 2006; Schroen 2005.?38?Bergan 2009.