"Obama's War No Longer Versus Al-Qaeda "
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 January 11, 2010
A senior U.S. Military Intelligence official say that there are perhaps fewer than 100 members of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan
The ascendancy of the Taliban and the relative decline of al-Qaeda have broad implications for the Obama administration as it seeks to define its enemy in Afghanistan.
U.S. President Barack Obama has ordered 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan to defeat Taliban and al-Qaeda extremists and restore stability to the war-torn country.
In an address outlining his new war strategy, President Obama said while Afghanistan is not lost, it has been moving backwards for several years. He warned that the U.S. and the common security of the world was at stake.
Mr. Obama told cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York that additional forces will help accelerate the transfer of responsibility to Afghan forces and allow U.S. troops to begin leaving the country by July 2011.
Although the war in Afghanistan began as a response to al-Qaeda terrorism, there are perhaps fewer than 100 members of the group left in the country, according to a senior U.S. military intelligence official in Kabul who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The official estimated that there are 300 al-Qaeda members in the tribal areas of Pakistan, where the group is based.
The fight has now shifted primarily to Mohammad Omar's Pakistan-based Taliban group.
The Taliban and al-Qaeda have long enjoyed a symbiotic relationship. The Taliban, composed primarily of ethnic Pashtuns from Afghanistan and Pakistan, has offered haven to the Arab-led al-Qaeda in exchange for money, weapons and training. When Omar ruled nearly all of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, he sheltered al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and refused to turn him over to the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The subsequent U.S. invasion of Afghanistan forced Omar and bin Laden to flee to Pakistan.
Omar's mission is to force U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan and to recapture the country. His group is particularly active in attacking U.S. troops in southern Afghanistan, his home base.
On the battlefield, insurgents from al-Qaeda and a broad spectrum of Taliban factions still communicate and coordinate attacks, officials said. United by a common enemy, they share explosives and use the same suicide-bomber networks. A foreign fighter who travels to the Pakistani tribal lands to join al-Qaeda may end up working with the Taliban.
"Al-Qaeda is the teacher of the Taliban. They're still very close partners," said Maj. Gen. Abdul Manan Farahi, director general of the Afghan Interior Ministry's anti-terrorism department. "It's very clear, the ideological connection they have."
Source: Washington Post and Voice of America |
