US flight from Afghanistan emboldens global jihad

When a new American president takes office, the leaders of other countries compete to be the first to speak with him. When the Taliban took control of Kabul, there was a similar rush to talk to Abdul Ghani Baradar, the public face of the Afghan militant group's leadership. The winner was Ismail Haniye, a leader of Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip. According to information on the Hamas website about the call, Haniye congratulated Baradar on his victory against the "US occupation" of Afghanistan. It will be, as he said, "the prelude to the disappearance of all the occupying forces, among which the Israeli occupation of Palestine stands out." Baradar, for his part, responded by wishing Hamas "victory and empowerment as a result of its resistance."

Those diplomatic compliments were accompanied by overflowing celebrations from other jihadis. In Syria's Idlib province occupied by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a group believed to be linked to Al Qaeda, the organization that carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, fighters held a parade and handed out baklavas in the streets. In the southern districts of Somalia controlled by Al Shabab, another Al Qaeda affiliate, three days of celebrations were announced. On social media, jihadis from around the world shared memes celebrating the Taliban's victory, most notably a montage of Joe Rosenthal's famous photo of US Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima.

The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, resided in that country under the protection of the Taliban, who also provided training facilities for his Al followers. Qaeda. The United States demanded that the Taliban hand him over; these refused. A few weeks later, they were driven out of Kabul by anti-Taliban forces with the help of US air and ground forces.

Since then, the United States has not suffered, anywhere near, a terrorist attack of the same magnitude. And, as an organized and organizing force, Al Qaeda is a shadow of its former self. Osama bin Laden is dead; he was killed in 2011 in Pakistan, where he had taken refuge. The fear of a similar end, carried out by drones or special forces, forces his successors to live in hiding, which greatly complicates their operations. Ayman al Zawahiri, the Egyptian who became head of Al Qaeda after Bin Laden's death, has not appeared in public for almost a year for fear of being assassinated or because he already has been. Although some affiliated organizations such as Al Shabab have celebrated the victory of the Taliban, the central organization of Al Qaeda has not said a word.

Despite this, the violent jihadist Islamism pioneered by that organization has not been defeated. Al Qaeda affiliates and other jihadist groups are not only active in active conflicts in Pakistan and the Middle East, but throughout the Sahel and in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. Not all who adopt that denomination really see themselves as part of a global struggle; many focus on the "near enemies" rather than the "far enemy" of the United States and its Western allies. However, fighting against nearby enemies also causes suffering, destroys livelihoods and forces people to leave their land and become refugees. They feed instability.

Apparently, the ability to stage atrocities like 9/11 has shrunk thanks to improved intelligence, pressure on finances, and a hammering of drone raids and attacks. In spite of everything, jihadist doctrines continue to inspire attacks by lone jihadists in the United States and Europe, although no longer at the rate seen in the mid-2010s. Furthermore, the fight against jihadism leads to or serves as a pretext for all type of human rights abuses; especially in Western China, where it is used as a justification for the systematic oppression of Uyghurs and other Muslim-majority groups.

As the jihadist ideology spread, Western countries have been sending soldiers, advisers and money to more and more places. Counterterrorism and "countering violent extremism" have become global sectors. As of 2020, the United States had 7,000 active troops deployed to a dozen African countries, in addition to training missions in 40 others, with militant Islam as the predominant target.

There is no doubt that the Taliban's return to power is the biggest moment for jihadists since the Islamic State took advantage of Sunni disaffection to create a "caliphate" in western Iraq and eastern Syria in 2014. That fact served as inspiration for carrying out attacks in Europe and Indonesia. The current victory is, in a way, greater. For the first time since the Soviet Union's defeat in Afghanistan in 1989, the Islamists have seized a country from a superpower. "Everybody's saying, wow, if those guys can do it, so can we," says David Kilcullen, a former soldier and counter-terrorism expert at UNSW Canberra, the Australian Defense Force military academy. "They are dazzled, amazed and impressed by what the Taliban have achieved," says Mina Al-Lami, who follows the media used by violent and non-violent Islamists for BBC Monitoring.

What that means in practice will depend on how events in Afghanistan unfold, how the morale boost translates into victories on the ground, and how the countries targeted by the jihadists respond.

It's cold outside

Militant Islamism was not born with the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Its intellectual origins go back to the 1950s and 1960s, when radicals in Egypt began to develop a new ideology based on the rejection of socialism, capitalism, and the secular nationalist regimes influenced by them. Sayyid Qutb, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, became the great theoretician of the movement. In the United States, where he had fled from the attention of the Egyptian secret police, he became radicalized as a result of his rejection of American morality and sexual mores, which represented "the nadir of primitivism." His main reason was the idea that Muslims were mistreated by the regimes of their own countries, which imitated the materialism of other irreligious countries.

Qutb was executed by the Egyptian authorities in 1966; the Muslim Brotherhood organization he had reformed spread to various countries, often underground. However, in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s, his ideas took on a new form, transcending the idea of ​​resistance to particular regimes to a global armed struggle sometimes known as Salafist jihadism.

The Soviet Union's invasion in 1979 sent hundreds of fighters from across the Muslim world to Afghanistan to join the mujahideen, or "holy war fighters." One of them was bin Laden, a young Saudi who had inherited a fortune from his father's construction company and had studied with Qutb's younger brother, Mohamed. Another, Aden Hashi Farah Aero, one of the founders of Al Shabab. Abdelmalek Droukdel, one of the founders of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a group that fights in Niger and Mali, was also there; as was Abu Musab al Zarqawi, one of the founders of what would become the Islamic State. All of them saw in Afghanistan the beginning of a jihad that would eventually lead to a more authentic and pure existence in submission to God.

Their common origin and faith, as well as the shared adoption of a lofty goal and barbaric tactics, do not make the world's jihadis a united front. The Iraqi fighters who founded the Islamic State did so because they felt al Qaeda was too soft: the Afghan branch of the Islamic State has been locked in a bitter war with the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan for years. It has been one of the few Islamist groups that has not expressed admiration after the fall of Kabul; instead, they have denounced the Taliban for being, in effect, lackeys of the Americans. The group's newsletter, Al-Naba, has scoffed that "support for Islam does not enter Qatar hotels or the embassies of Russia, China and Iran," referring to the Taliban's political offices in Doha and their relations with infidel states.

The animosity is reciprocal. The only execution admitted by the Taliban since its seizure of power has been that of Abu Omar Khorasani, head of the Islamic State of South Asia. But the Islamic State is an outlier. Kilcullen is not alone in his fears that the Taliban will once again allow Afghanistan to become a base for other jihadis. In the agreement negotiated in 2020 with the United States in Doha, the Taliban promised to reject Al Qaeda and its international mission. They never did. According to a UN estimate, there may be between 400 and 600 members of Al Qaeda in the country, many of them protected by the Taliban.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, number two in the Taliban, heads a particularly brutal semi-autonomous unit called the Haqqani network which, among other things, used to serve as al-Zawahiri's contact with the Taliban. (If the Al Qaeda leader is still alive, it is quite possible that he is still doing it.) Members of the Haqqani branch have been prominent in patrolling Kabul since it fell to the militants.

Such ties do not mean al Qaeda can strut with impunity about rebuilding its operations. The Taliban are unlikely to want anyone to start planning attacks against the United States or Europe, least of all immediately. "Al Qaeda is staying on the sidelines for now because of the Afghan Taliban's orders," says Asfandyar Mir of Stanford University. However, Afghan regime change could extend the jihad to nearby targets.

Pakistan is of particular concern. Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a jihadist group made up of what are often called the Pakistani Taliban, waged a savage war there between 2007 and around 2014, when they were mostly pushed back to Afghanistan. After a period of recovery and regrouping, the TTP, many of whose members are affiliated with Al Qaeda, has recently intensified its activities with 120 attacks in Pakistan last year and 26 last July. The return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan has emboldened the TTP, which could now be better supplied.

The Pakistani government has long supported the Taliban in various ways and will welcome the weakening of Indian influence in Afghanistan heralded by the group's return to power. The militants it supports in Indian-administered Kashmir may be reinforced by Afghan fighters entering through the Hindu Kush. On August 23, the chairman of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan's party said on television that "the Taliban say they are with us and they will come to liberate Kashmir for us." Although a renewed TTP is a problem, Pakistan probably thinks it can be kept in check through diplomatic and economic pressure. Afghanistan depends on Pakistan for many imported products. Still, now that the Taliban are back in power, they may feel they need Pakistan less.

Less likely seems a direct flow of material or soldiers from Afghanistan to conflicts beyond South Asia. As much as they may have been founded by men who fought in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda's affiliates in Africa and the Middle East today have fewer direct ties to that country. Traveling to or from Afghanistan is more difficult than it was in the 1990s, says Aaron Zelin of the Washington Institute, an American think tank, and more difficult than traveling to Syria during the height of Islamic State.

dunes and dooms

Still, even if it doesn't lead to direct support for the Taliban, the US exit from Afghanistan will be a huge morale booster for the jihadis. And that can be especially true in conflicts involving external actors alongside the government side. Keep fighting, says the lesson, and in the end the foreigners will give up and leave, even if they have been there for many decades. And then you will win.

Perhaps they are right. In June, French President Emmanuel Macron promised that French forces deployed in the Sahel, the region defined by the southern edge of the Sahara desert, would not remain there "forever". That deployment, a mission known as Operation Barchan, began in 2013 after jihadists took over the northern half of Mali. Since then, the Sahelian jihadists have kept the French contingent, which now numbers 5,100, busy.

The United States has taken part in the same struggle. He built a huge military base in Agadez, in Niger, another of the G5 Sahel countries facing jihadist insurgents. (The other three are Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania.) It has also deployed some 800 of its special forces fighters to Somalia, where they have carried out raids against Al Shabab and coordinated more than 200 drone strikes.

Last December, Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of most US troops from Somalia. Drone strikes have also stopped, although they have resumed this July under stricter rules of engagement. European funding for African troops in Somalia has been cut; Ethiopia, which has occupied parts of Somalia since 2009, is withdrawing soldiers to fight its own civil war in the Tigray region. France has started a process that will lead to the reduction of Barchan by half and that will focus more on killing terrorists than on protecting towns and cities. "As Africans, we face our moment of reckoning at a time when many feel the West is losing its will to fight," Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari wrote in the Financial Times on August 15.

The western retreat is not made from a position of success. What happened in Kabul could be repeated in Mogadishu. Al Shabab has long used tactics similar to those of the Taliban, says Samira Gaid, director of the Hiraal Institute, a security think tank in Mogadishu. They weaken the government and international forces with attacks and at the same time run (even in government areas) a shadow government to pay their fighters.

Like the Taliban, they thrive by providing residents with a modicum of security beyond the capabilities of a failed state. Its violence is not popular, says Hussein Sheikh Ali, also from Hiraal, but its effectiveness is admired. "If a man at a checkpoint gives you his word, you get it; if a judge in his court says something, he will comply." On the contrary, the Somali state, which enjoys international recognition, is repeatedly considered the most corrupt in the world.

In the Sahel, more than 700 people have been killed by Al Qaeda and the Islamic State so far this year. The latest attack, in a Malian town near the border with Niger, killed 51 people on August 8. That attack undermines the claim of Marc Conruyt, the French general under Barjan's command until July, that "Sahelian forces are [today] capable of dealing with armed terrorist groups."

Worse than the old boss

Since the militants tend to recruit their members among the Tuareg and Fulani minorities in northern Mali, soldiers in the south of the country, where the militants are less widespread, often crudely profile men from these groups as suspects. Ethnicity is not the only thing that can trigger an attack. It can also be caused by wearing underpants (most Malians don't, so it's considered proof of having been to Libya). "I know people who have had parents, siblings and children killed and then joined the militants," says Corinne Dufka, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, a New York-based charity.

The Western-sponsored response to Islamist terrorism has tended to be overly focused on training security forces, says Michael Keating, a former British diplomat who has worked in both Somalia and Afghanistan and is now director of the European Institute of Peace, a study center. It would be better to provide them with a political space in which to operate. "A lot of attention is paid to training, communications and all the technical stuff," he adds. But "in reality, if you want to build sustainable institutions, you have to make sure that those institutions are very well grounded."

In Somalia, where British and Turkish troops have been training the security forces, getting them to fight is not just a question of their technical skills. It is about building local institutions that are worth fighting for. The same goes for the defense forces fighting in the G5 countries.

And what happens if the jihadists are successful? Few Islamist militants in the world have managed to rule much more than towns and rural districts. When they spread further, popular support is often vital. After seizing the Iraqi city of Mosul, the Islamists were initially welcomed by the (mostly Sunni) residents, who saw them as an alternative to the violence and corruption of the (Shiite-dominated) Iraqi security services. . Governments supported by the United States or Europe are prone to corruption, as their officials seek to make money with funds injected from abroad.

The new bosses provided services that had long been neglected by the government, such as simplifying electricity bills and garbage collection. Their coming to power marked a welcome decline in terrorist violence, since they were responsible for much of what had gone before.

However, they were also committed to a caliphate ruled according to what they saw as the patterns of early Muslim civilization. They immediately prohibited women from leaving the house alone, suppressed vices such as tobacco and drinking, and began to persecute religious minorities. The degree of popular discontent with these rulers soon overcame the initial favorable reception.

Also money is important. While fighting, jihadists can earn revenue through taxes on highway traffic and illicit activities; the Taliban have done well with opium production. Once in power, they often need more revenue and cannot raise it in the same way without delegitimizing themselves. In Syria and Iraq a lucrative hobby has developed for the kidnapping of foreigners. In Mozambique, the jihadists who took control of Cabo Delgado in early August have resorted to looting banks and extorting businesses. In this way they can pay their fighters, acquire weapons and continue the fight. Now, the money gathered by looting or taking hostages runs out. Currencies stop flowing. And the situation becomes desperate.

The same fate may await the Taliban. Before the fall of Kabul, teachers and doctors working in schools and clinics located in the Taliban-occupied territories continued to receive a salary paid by the central government in Kabul (and by foreign donors). Taxing the transport of, for example, fuel only works if there is foreign currency to pay for it. Afghanistan's reserves, deposited for the most part in the New York Federal Reserve, are now frozen; it is unclear whether bilateral aid to the government will continue. There are still other ways to bleed the economy. However, those who give the blood may not willingly do so.

The pen and the sword

Jihad is not, in principle, the only way to achieve the strict Islamist states that its followers want. In theory, they could be voted on. In some parts of Asia, governments with significant Islamist representation have been successful. However, attempts to establish fully Islamist governments in the Arab world have been found to be highly susceptible to backlash when their initial popularity wanes. The Muslim Brotherhood ruled Egypt for less than two years before a coup returned them to dispossession, jail and worse. Last July, the president of Tunisia ended the political participation of Islamism by dissolving the parliament of which an Islamist leader was president.

It is tempting, then, to consider the sword mightier than the pen. Islamists who remember Egypt's former Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badia calling on his followers to stand up to the tanks with peaceful activism say such ideas are now mocked and denounced online. "The Taliban captivate the collective imagination. When you express your thoughts against that violence, many attack you. It is a bit worrying," says Osama Gaweesh, an Egyptian journalist exiled in London. With increasing poverty and political restrictions in many Middle Eastern states, frustrations seek an outlet. Some speak of a renewed faith in mass action, this time bearing arms on the Taliban model. "They have stopped trusting bankrupt elitist Islamist parties and organizations," says Naim Tilawi, a Jordanian Islamist who fought in Syria. "They want, instead, a mass jihadism."

© 2021 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved.

From The Economist, translated for La Vanguardia, published under license. The original article, in English, can be found at www.economist.com.

Translation: Juan Gabriel López Guix