MILNET Briefing - Al-Qaeda Network

MILNET Brief
Al Qaeda Network: Southwest Asia

(Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India)

No region could be more entertwined than this select area in southwestern Asia. The history between Pakistan and India, of course, is well understood -- Pakistan is the Muslim breakaway from a newly Independent India which in turn had become a soverieign nation by forcing its own independence from the United Kingdom. The conflicts between those two nations might be amplified by the conflict over the Kashmir region, however, while many terrorists groups from Pakistan focus on that area, it is also quite clear that aninimity between the two nations has not slackened since the "partition" of the two nations. Indeed, when India became a nuclear nation, few doubted Pakistan would also find their way "to the bomb" in order to keep parity. Unforunately from the non-proliferation point-of-view, Pakistan not only produced their own nuclear weapon and test, but unfortunately did not keep a tight reign on the design personnel (specifically but not limited to A.Q. Khan). Soon the Pakistani design was showing up in a number of places, including, it is believed, in the second worst place, North Korea. The first worst would be in the hands of terrorists like Al-Qaeda and that cannot be written off as a possibility yet.

Linked to Pakistan by the Afghan-Soviet war that ended in 1989, Afghanistan and Pakistan share a remote, moutainous border which so far defies policing of terrorist hideouts. The region is thought to house the dwindling headquarters staff of Al-Qaeda and indeed may be where Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are hiding. Al-Qaeda actually sprung up here during the Afghan-Soviet conflict, Bin Laden using his considerable personal fortune to fund and train Mujadiheen fighters and later breaking off from the MAK (Office of Order) group and forming Al-Qaeda sometime in 1990.

Al-Qaeda thus becomes the financial and training organization for many Islamic terrorists, including those home based in Pakistan and attacking Pakistan or India, and in a rather large number in one region, attacking the India settlements in the Kashmir region, still hotly contested.

Currently only this display is active, no drill down has been implemented yet. Note the eight references for data sources on the region's terrorists -- this remains one of the most active recruiting zones for Al-Qaeda, much like the area in and around Israel is for Hezbollah and Hamas in the Middle East (West of Southwest Asia). And yes, the Taliban still lives, a small shell of its former self, but still able to recruit from its place of origin, Pakistan, as well as its former home in Afghanistan.