Descent Into Chaos (79 page)

1
Al Qaeda had a close relationship with Harkat ul-Ansar in the early 1990s, until it was banned by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. It then divided into two groups, Harkat ul-Mujahedin and Harkat ul-Jihad-i-Islami. Both groups were active in Kashmir and Afghanistan. Jaish-e-Mohammed emerged as the third group after the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar in 1999.

2
After 2002, I carried out numerous interviews with senior U.S., British, other European, and UN diplomats, military and intelligence officials in Islamabad and Kabul, and U.S. and British officials in Washington and London. I interviewed President Karzai frequently and Afghan ministers and officials from all the key ministries dealing with the insurgency. I also interviewed senior retired Pakistani army and ISI officers who were opposed to the policy of backing the Taliban. It was interesting to note that although mid-level Western officials in their respective embassies would admit to a clandestine ISI operation in support of the Taliban, their ambassadors refrained from doing so, because any such admission would have led to the inevitable question about whether Musharraf was directly giving the orders.

3
Yosri Fouda and Nick Fielding,
Masterminds of Terror,
London: Mainstream Publishing, 2003.

4
Abu Ressam, an Algerian militant who had been caught on the U.S.-Canadian border in December 1999 while planning to bomb Los Angeles airport during the millennium celebrations, had told U.S. interrogators that he had been recruited by Zubaydah in Peshawar.

5
Dan Eggen and Dafna Linzer, “Secret World of Detainees Grows More Public,”
The Washington Post,
September 7, 2006.

6
Bin al-Shibh, a Yemeni living in Germany, had desperately wanted to join the 9/11 hijackers, but his four requests for a U.S. visa were turned down. He fled Germany six days before 9/11 and arrived in Afghanistan via Pakistan.

7
Fouda and Fielding,
Masterminds of Terror.
The authors give a fascinating account of the interview and of subsequent events.

8
See Ron Suskind,
The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9 /11,
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.

9
That claim is made by Jane Mayer, “The Black Sites,”
The New Yorker,
August 13, 2007. The quote comes from Ahmed Rashid, “The Net Tightens on al Qaeda Cells,”
Far Eastern Economic Review,
March 13, 2003.

10
He had evaded capture in Karachi in September 2002, when his wife and two children were arrested along with Ramzi bin al-Shibh. In February 2003 he had again escaped capture in Quetta when police arrested Mohammed Abdel Rahman, the son of the blind Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who was convicted in New York in 1995 for conspiring to blow up the UN building. KSM had stayed with Rahman before traveling to Rawalpindi.

11
Jonathan Randal,
Osama: The Making of a Terrorist,
New York: Knopf, 2004. Randal gives the most insight into KSM’s life and travels. Both Randal’s and Fouda’s books demonstrate how KSM had been thinking of such a plot since 1993, when he had failed to carry out the simultaneous hijacking of eleven commercial aircraft over the Philippines. Ramzi Yousuf, the perpetrator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was one of KSM’s nephews, while another nephew, Musaad Aruchi, organized attacks in Pakistan after 9/11. Aruchi was arrested in June 2004 in Karachi.

12
Pervez Musharraf,
In the Line of Fire: A Memoir,
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.

13
In 2002—the year of the worst tensions with India—Lashkar-e-Tayyaba claimed that 292 of its militants, including 23 suicide bombers, were killed in 118 clashes with Indian troops.

14
For a more detailed analysis of both parties, see Muhammad Amir Rana,
A to Z of Jihadi Organizations in Pakistan,
Lahore: Mashal Books, 2004. Also Mariam Abou Zahab and Oliver Roy,
Islamist Networks: The Afghan-Pakistan Connection,
London: Hurst and Co., 2004.

15
Hazaras living in Quetta migrated from the Hazarajat in Afghanistan in the nineteenth century after working as porters for the British army in the Anglo-Afghan wars. Subsequently they have monopolized trade and shops in Quetta. Ashura is the Shias’ most revered day, when they mourn the death of Imam Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, who was killed in battle.

16
Shamzai, a close friend of Osama bin Laden, had also helped set up Jaish-e-Mohammed and had provided hundreds of cadres to Sipah-e-Sahaba, whose leader, Azam Tariq, has studied at Binori.

17
How the Pakistani military has used the sectarian conflict to its advantage is best described in Vali Nasr, “Military Rule, Islam and Democracy in Pakistan,”
Middle East Journal,
Spring 2004. See also Vali Nasr,
The Shia Revival,
New York: W. W. Norton, 2006.

18
Mohammed Shehzad, “Suicide Bombing Is the Best Form of Jihad,”
The Friday Times,
April 17, 2003.

19
UN expert group report on continued activities of al Qaeda, December 17, 2003.

20
Dexter Filkins, “US Might Pursue Qaeda and Taliban to Pakistan Lairs,”
The New York Times,
March 21, 2003.

21
Musharraf interview with
The Washington Post,
Islamabad, June 25, 2003.

22
Khalid Hassan, “Pakistani Security Setup Not Fully Cooperative: Armitage,”
Daily Times,
October 2, 2003. Pakistan’s foreign office answered by saying, “All security agencies are answerable to the president and they follow his direction faithfully.”

23
“Armitage Says Army Fully Backs Musharraf,”
Dawn,
October 7, 2003.

24
Farhan Bohkari, “Pakistan Bans Three Hard Line Islamic Groups,”
Financial Times,
November 15, 2003. The three banned groups were: Khuddam ul-Islam, formerly Jaish-e-Mohammed; Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan, formerly Sipah-e-Sahaba; and Islami Tehreek Pakistan, formerly Tehreek-e-Jafria, a Shia party. A few days later, on November 20, the government banned three more groups. These were Jamaat ul-Furqan, a splinter group from Jaish-e-Mohammed; Jamiat ul-Ansar, the renamed former Harkat ul-Mujahedin; and Hizbul Tehrir, a previously legal group.

25
Reuters, “Osama Calls on Pakistanis to Depose Musharraf,” Islamabad, October 9, 2002.

26
BBC, text of broadcast of speech by Ayman al-Zawahiri on Al Jazeera, September 28, 2003.

27
The five officers under arrest and facing court-martial were Lt.-Col. Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Col. Khalid Abbas, Maj. Attaullah Khan, Maj. Rohail Faraz, and Capt. Usman Zafar. A sixth officer, Maj. Adil Qadoos Khan, had been caught in the aftermath of KSM’s arrest in Rawalpindi. The army refused to allow their families to bring their cases to the civil courts.

28
Jaish-e-Mohammed had first attempted to kill him at a Pakistan Day parade in March 2002. When the parade was canceled, suicide bombers next tried to enter a mosque in Islamabad, on December 6, 2002, while Musharraf was saying his prayers, but the security cordon was too tight. They again planned to kill him in March, and then in April 2003, using car bombs. “Trial in Attack of Those Who Tried to Kill Musharraf,”
Herald,
June 2005.

29
Farooqi had first joined Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and was held responsible for multiple murders of Shias in the early 1990s. He later joined Harkat ul-Jihad al-Islami, a splinter group of the main Harakat ul-Islam. The new group was formally allied to al Qaeda, and its chief, Qari Saifullah Akthar, was close to both Mullah Omar and bin Laden. Farooqi planned the murder of eleven French engineers in Karachi in 2002 and had a hand in the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl. See Alexis Debat, “Why Al Qaeda Is at Home in Pakistan,” ABC News, March 3, 2004.

30
Interview with Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Washington, D.C., February 19, 2004.

31
Teresita Schaffer and Pramit Mitra, “Aid as an Agent of Change: The Experience of Pakistan,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C., November 2004. The authors quote from the UN Development Programme reports on human development in Pakistan.

32
State Bank of Pakistan report, December 2004. In 1951, when the population of West and East Pakistan was 32 million, there were 22 million illiterates. By 2001, the population had reached 150 million.

33
Pervez Hoodbhoy, “Reforming Our Universities,”
Dawn,
January 3, 2005.

34
Yvette Rosser, “Pakistani Studies Textbooks Can Cause Cognitive Dissonance in Students,” paper read at Sustainable Development Policy Institute conference, December 8, 2004.

35
Stephen Cohen,
The Idea of Pakistan,
Washington, D.C., Brookings Institution, 2004.

36
The best history of the madrassa system in Pakistan is International Crisis Group, “Madrassas: Extremism and the Military,” July 20, 2002.

37
Aga Khan Development Network, “Philanthropy in Pakistan: A Report of the Initiative on Indigenous Philanthropy,” Karachi, Pakistan, 2001.

38
The Madrassa Registration Ordinance was issued by the government on June 19, 2001.

39
State Department, “Press conference of President George W. Bush and President Pervez Musharraf,” Washington, D.C., June 24, 2003.

40
Irfan Raza, “Almost One Madrassa Opened Every Week,”
Dawn,
December 31, 2006.

41
Khalid Hassan, “Americans Safer with Pakistan as Ally: Bush,”
Daily Times,
July 12, 2004.

42
Some U.S. think tanks did question whether Pakistan was a reliable ally. “The Musharraf regime is unlikely to evolve into a long-term ally in the war on terrorism,” said the Cato Institute. Pakistan’s decision to abandon the Taliban in 2001 was “not a strategic choice but a tactical decision to avoid US retribution and prevent Indian advantage.” Cato Institute Briefing Paper, reported by Khalid Hassan, “Musharraf Not a Long-Term Ally of the US,”
Daily Times,
January 31, 2005.

43
Associated Press, “Karachi Militants Funding Terror with Heists,” Karachi, September 21, 2004.

44
In August 2007 he was suddenly freed without a trial and without being charged by the ISI, which had held him in a secret prison in Pakistan. U.S. officials were angry that he had been freed. There were also strong suspicions that he was released as part of a deal with the ISI and may have been working for them at some stage. See Craig Whitlock and Griff Witte, “Al Qaeda Suspect Released by Pakistan,”
The Washington Post,
August 22, 2007.

45
The Islambouli Brigades of al Qaeda claimed to have carried out the attack. The group had been responsible for the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981 and the bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad in 1995. However, subsequent arrests proved that Pakistani militants working with a faction of Jaish-e-Mohammed and under Amjad Farooqi’s leadership were involved.

46
According to Western diplomats who spoke to Marcus Mabry, Aziz claimed to be able to conquer any woman in two minutes with his “Savile Row suited gigolo kind of charm.” Mabry wrote that when Rice sat down with Aziz, “Aziz puffed himself up and held forth in what he obviously thought was his seductive baritone.” See Marcus Mabry,
Twice as Good: Condoleezza Rice and Her Path to Power,
New York: Modern Times, 2007.

47
Interview with Sherry Rehman, Islamabad, October 15, 2004.

48
After the second suicide attack on Musharraf, General Kayani suggested that soldiers search the roofs of shops near the attack site for possible evidence. It was there that soldiers found the all-important chip from a cell phone that led to the disclosures about the identities of the suicide bombers. There are usually 115 major-generals in the Pakistani army.

1
The former foreign minister Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil surrendered to U.S. forces in Kandahar on February 8, 2002. Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former Taliban ambassador to Islamabad, was handed over by Pakistan at the same time; while Mullah Fazel Mazloom, the former army chief of staff, was captured by U.S. forces.

2
Gul Agha met with Mullah Obaidullah Ahmed, the former defense minister, and Mullah Noorudin Turabi, the former justice minister. Bradley Graham, “Two al Qaeda Fighters Caught,”
The Washington Post,
January 9, 2002.

3
Agence France-Presse, “Osama May Be Alive: Afghan FM,” Washington, D.C., January 25, 2002.

4
Reuters, “Islamabad, Kabul Vow to Curb Terror,” Kabul, April 4, 2002.

5
BBC, “Interview with Mullah Omar,” May 17, 2002.

6
My earlier book gives a full history of the origins of the Taliban and their links with the JUI and the Deobandi tradition. See Ahmed Rashid,
Taliban: Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia,
New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001.

7
Ahmed Rashid, “Taliban Mounted Militia Prepares for Border Strike,”
The Daily Telegraph,
October 8, 2003. See also Ahmed Rashid, “Safe Haven for the Taliban,”
Far Eastern Economic Review,
October 16, 2003.

8
James Dao, “Afghans Raise Concern That Taliban Forces Are Reorganizing in Pakistan,”
The New York Times,
November 3, 2002.

9
Elizabeth Rubin, “In the Land of the Taliban,”
The New York Times Magazine,
October 22, 2006.

10
Ahmed Rashid, “US Bombers and Fighters Attack Afghan Rebels,”
The Daily Telegraph,
January 29, 2003.

11
Text of Osama bin Laden’s message “Fight the Invaders,”
International Herald Tribune,
February 15, 2003.

12
Associated Press, “Afghan Rebels Urge Attack,” Islamabad, February 23, 2003. “I ask the Muslims of the world to wage a guerrilla war by using suicide attacks—now is not the time for large-scale group assaults but rather for individual attacks,” said Hikmetyar.

13
Sarah Chayes explains the situation in the south in great detail in her
The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban,
New York: Penguin Books, 2006.

14
Ahmed Rashid, “Afghans Urge Pakistan to Help Rein in Taliban,”
The Daily Telegraph,
April 23, 2003.

15
Ahmed Rashid, “Taliban Are Back, Says US General,”
The Daily Telegraph,
July 21, 2002.

16
The ten were former corps commanders Dadullah, Barader, Razzaq; the former chief of the Kandahar air base Akhtar Mansoor; former army chief Akhtar Usmani; former defense minister Obaidullah; former Nimroz governor Mohammed Rasul; and Kandahar’s ex-security chief Hafiz Abdul Majeed. The only two Pashtuns who did not belong to the south were Jalaluddin Haqqani and Saifur Rehman Mansur. Of these, Razzaq was killed in a NATO air strike in Zabul province in 2006, Usmani was killed in a NATO air strike in Helmand province in January 2007, and Obaidullah was captured in Quetta in March 2007. See Asif Farooqi, “Taliban’s New Hierarchy,”
IslamOnline.net
, June 25, 2003.

17
In a major speech on April 30, 2003, Karzai announced that “those who did not oppose the peace process and who were committed to non-violent means must be provided with the political space and equal opportunities . . . to help the peace process.” John Heller, “Political Space Is Opening for Taliban Moderates,” Radio Free Liberty, July 4, 2003.

18
Lakhdar Brahimi, “Address to the UN Security Council,” New York, UN briefing paper, December 8, 2003.

19
Reuters, “Iraq Won’t Weaken US Effort,” Bagram, July 30, 2003.

20
The scene was reminiscent of the burning down of the Pakistani embassy in Kabul in 1995 by a crowd led by NA leaders after the Taliban had captured Herat.

21
Ahmed Rashid, “Karzai Pledges Good Relations but Demands Pakistan Stop Extremists, ”
The Nation,
July 22, 2003.

22
“I have spent 3 million rupees [$50,000] on tickets sending back Mujahedin to their homes—if I am a terrorist, the court should hang me,” said Piracha. “If I Am a Terrorist, the Court Should Hang Me—Piracha,”
Herald,
September 2004.

23
Ahmed Rashid, “The Betrayal of the Afghans,”
New York Review of Books,
January 29, 2004.

24
My story was for the
Far Eastern Economic Review:
“Afghanistan and Pakistan: Safe Haven for the Taliban,” October 9, 2003. The editorial was “Haven for the Taliban,”
The Washington Post,
November 2, 2003.

25
Al Qaeda leaders made constant references to the Muslim kingdoms in the province of Andalusia in southern Spain in the Middle Ages as a period of greatness in the Muslim world that should be emulated. Lawrence Wright, “The Terror Web,”
The New Yorker,
August 2, 2004.

26
A total of twenty-three U.S. soldiers were killed in 2003, and twelve were killed in the first six months of 2004.

27
Ahmed Rashid, “Karzai Expects to Discuss Critical Issues with Musharraf,”
The Nation,
July 25, 2004.

28
Interview with Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defense secretary, Washington, D.C., February 19, 2004.

29
Interview with John McLaughlin, Washington, D.C., November 19, 2005.

30
See Robin Wright, “Untested Islamic Militants Emerging, US Official Says,”
The Washington Post,
April 2, 2004.

31
Associated Press, “US Wants to Build Network of Friendly Militias to Combat Terrorism, ” Washington, D.C., August 11, 2004.

32
Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, “Afghan Elections: The Great Gamble, ” Kabul, November 2003. Of the warlords, the report said, “It will be a cruel irony for Afghans if their first experience of voting is being to vote for those who have been responsible for so much of the misery of the last two decades.”

33
Ahmed Rashid, “Afghan Elections to Be Delayed,”
The Wall Street Journal,
January 8, 2004.

34
Ibid.

35
I saw several private cables sent by the UN and European embassies that outlined the deal, even though Karzai publicly continued to deny it. Karzai had agreed to give the warlords 50 percent of the ministries in return for their support to his candidacy. He promised that Fahim and Karim Khalili, the Hazara leader, would be on his slate as vice presidents, and Rabbani would become the speaker of the future parliament.

36
Carlotta Gall, “Karzai Casts Lot with Warlords,”
The New York Times,
June 8, 2004.

37
A confidential UN discussion paper circulated among Western embassies stated: “The reformers have looked up to the transitional government and the international community to spearhead the transition. The jihadis have relied on their position in the security apparatus—and their military/political control over large parts of the territory—to achieve their own agenda.” UNAMA discussion paper, “Debate on the 2004 Electoral Process,” Kabul, March 2004.

38
Rashid, “Afghan Elections to Be Delayed.”

39
Interview with Karzai, Kabul, July 20, 2004. See Ahmed Rashid, “A Vote Is Cast Against Warlords,”
Far Eastern Economic Review,
July 28, 2004.

40
Ahmed Rashid, “No Going Back,”
Far Eastern Economic Review,
September 24, 2004.

41
Due to the security situation, the UN felt that it could not protect hundreds of foreign election monitors, so thirteen Afghan and Western NGOs pooled their resources to set up the Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan, which trained Afghan men and women as election monitors.

42
Private document, letter from Munir Akram to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, New York, October 4, 2004.

43
Private document, letter from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to President Pervez Musharraf, August 18, 2004. I was shown various UN letters and Pakistani replies to them by diplomatic sources in Islamabad and Kabul in September 2004.

44
All the quotes above were made to me personally. See Ahmed Rashid, “Afghanistan Hopes for Neighborly Goodwill,”
Far Eastern Economic Review,
October 14, 2004.

45
Musharraf also appointed a new ISI chief, Lt.-Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, the general who had uncovered the plot to blow up Musharraf a year earlier. The Afghans knew him because for the past year he had led the Pakistani delegation in regular meetings with the United States and Afghan militaries. In June 2003 a tripartite commission had been established among senior military commanders from the United States, Afghanistan, and Pakistan to discuss border violations.

46
Ahmed Rashid, “Karzai Looks to Rebuild a Nation,”
Far Eastern Economic Review,
October 14, 2004.

47
There were other Panjsheri Tajiks and NA leaders in the hierarchy. Apart from Abdullah Abdullah, Ismael Khan remained minister of power and water, Amrullah Saleh headed the intelligence service, Gen. Bismallah Khan was army chief of staff, and the head of Counter-Narcotics was Gen. Mohammed Daud.