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2002 - A YEAR OF WAR?

US Military- give a positive performance 

Just what can the world expect from the New Year?  In all probability more terrorist attacks and a widening of the US led war on terrorism to include Somalia, Yemen, but more importantly Iraq, and probably Iran and Syria. Countries in the Far East are likely also to be embroiled at some time, there are indeed Muslim insurgencies in Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia all with known contacts with Al Qa'ida and other Islamic extremist groups.

In the first reckoning of plus and minus points for 2001 the performance of the oft criticised US Military machine has been a definite positive, for although it is still top-heavy with brass-hats and equipped with vast amounts of largely unsuitable cold-war weapons, it has once again achieved a positive result in the first battles of a long war. The United States has worked hard at the basic principles of military success, the ability to hide your real intentions till the last minute, keep your enemy off balance and to be endlessly inventive and unpredictable. There are still weak points in the US performance, but there appears to be plenty of forthcoming opportunities to iron out the wrinkles before the major supporters of terrorism such as Iran are tackled.

That we shall see a greater use of highly mobile forces, with a faster reaction to events and equipped with a new generation of hi-tech weapons is certain. Lighter airportable fighting vehicles with a new generation of 'plastic' armour, increasing use of stealth helicopters, electronic warfare and a perfection of the 'tactics of confusion' will help to ensure a leaner and meaner US armed forces. However, the need for long-range bombers, stealth technology applied to more types of combat aircraft, the continued maintenance of at least twelve Carrier groups and an even closer relationship between the intelligence community and the military have become very obviously major ingredients in future military success. What may now slowly pass into history are the heavy armoured and mechanized divisions trained and equipped to fight across the plains of Northern Europe.

Understanding terrorism-room for considerable improvement

Among the minus points has been the inability to fully understand the true nature of the 'new' terrorism, amoral, international and sophisticated.  Even now, nearly four months after the events of September 11th it is still difficult to gain a clear picture the strength of the Osama Bin-Laden's 'International Islamic Front For Jihad Against of the US and Israel'. Just how many of them have been killed or captured during the war; how many survived and where are they now? Is their structure badly damaged or still capable of planning yet more terrorist outrages?

Kenton Keith, from the US Embassy in Islamabad at a media briefing on December 26th 2001, presented a chart showing the believed present command structure of the Al Qa'ida organisation. It contained 42 names, out of whom six were shown as 'killed in action' and two under arrest. Those shown as killed were Osama's deputy Muhammad Atef, his aides Muhammad Salah, Assadullah and Tariq Anwar Fathy, the organisation's  operational coordinator Abu Saleh al-Yemeni and a terrorist instructor, Abu Ubaida.  Those shown as arrested are Abdul Aziz and Abu Faisal, detained on December 12th and 14th respectively. The remaining 34 senior members, including Bin-Laden and his second-in-command Aiman al-Zawahiri are still at large.

Keith also distributed a  list of 27 Taliban leaders, of whom one Jalaluddin Haqqani was shown as killed in action, while Muhammad Fazal and Mulla Noorullah Nori were shown as prisoners of war. Leading Indian analyst B. Raman has commented that "No credible details have been forthcoming from the allies regarding the damages caused by the war on the cadres of the Al Qa'ida and the other components of the International Islamic Front.  A mistake, which the US officials and analysts have been making from the very beginning of this war, is to treat the Al Qa'ida and the Front as one and the same.  The Al Qa'ida, which is Saudi-centric, is only one of the 12 components of the Front."

He went on to add that "Before the war began, the Front was assessed as having 12 components - the Al Qaeda, three each from Egypt and Pakistan, the Taliban, two from Uzbekistan and one each from Southern Philippines and Xinjiang in China.  The three components from Pakistan were the Harkat-ul-Mudjahideen (HUM), the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and the Sunni extremist Sipah-e-Sahaba.  Details received after the outbreak of the war indicated that the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) was also a component".

Pakistan - the power behind the Taliban

It is believed that the maximum casualties caused by the US bombing and the assaults launched by the Northern Alliance and other anti-Taliban groups were sustained by the four Pakistani components. Another Pakistani organisation, which is not a member of the Front, but which also fought in Afghanistan and sustained large casualties, was Mufti Sufi Mohammad's Tehrik-e-Nifaz-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), an organisation whose following is confined to the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan.

"While the Pakistani authorities have been silent on the casualties, independent reports from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas put the number of casualties sustained by these four Pakistani organisations at 8,000 plus.  While the HUM brought some of its initial fatal casualties to Pakistan for burial, the rest of them were buried in Afghanistan itself at the places of their death"  added Raman.

Confusion continues about the numbers of non-Pakistani 'volunteers' in Afghanistan. Arabs, Chechens, Kosovan, Uighers and others mainly served with the Taliban and not as popularly supposed with Al Qa'ida and their numbers were far less than that of Pakistani fighters. However, Islamabad has chosen to direct media attention to the 'foreigners' to distract attention away from Pakistan's huge involvement in Afghanistan ranging, as it does from the many thousands of volunteers, to whole brigades under the direct control of the Pakistan Army, Officers seconded as advisers to the Taliban regime and the pervasive influence of the ISI, Pakistans intelligence service.

2002 is also likely to be a decisive year in international relations. China is struggling hard to keep a security 'lid' on an ever more resistive and impatient population - an external 'threat' may be provided as an excuse for a major clamp-down. India and Pakistan may well find war inevitable at some time this year as the problems of terrorism and Kashmir continue to poison relations between the two nuclear powers and the Middle East is becoming sufficiently troubled and unstable in the wake of 9-11, the threat of further US military action and the continuing intifada, to markedly increase the risk of major conflict. The growing financial problems affecting much of Latin America, Africa and such major nations as Turkey merely help to make the prospects for the coming year more than a little interesting.

Richard M. Bennett
 
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