Arab Militants Join Fight in Afghanistan

[cal04]

Source: Associated Press

Arab Islamic radicals who fled Afghanistan in the U.S.-led invasion are coming back, eager to support suicide bombers in their increasingly frequent and effective attacks on Western and Afghan forces.

In both Iraq and Afghanistan, young militants feel that ''Allah's victory seems to be drawing near'' and see parallels with the stalemating of the Soviet army in Afghanistan in the 1980s and its ultimate withdrawal, said Michael Scheuer, a former CIA official who until 2004 headed a team that searched for Osama bin Laden.

Al-Qaida is bringing back fighters it sent home after the post-9/11 invasion, he said. Al-Qaida leaders have written that ''it would take three or four years to get the insurgency restarted. They seem to be pretty much on schedule and are bringing more fighters back into the theater,'' he said.

Seth Jones, counterinsurgency expert at the U.S.-based Rand Corporation, said the influx is in the dozens or low hundreds, but is increasing, along with a fervor reminiscent of the 1980s, when Arabs such as the Saudi-born bin Laden flocked to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Afghanistan-Arab-Influx.html

[rodeodance]

1. this would not be happening had we stayed and finished the job in Afghan!!

[Igel]

7. I think you're wrong.

As long as there's a ready pool of fighters and financial support across the border with Pakistan, and the Pashtun support killing those they don't think honor them enough (as Allah told them last Friday during his visit to their mosques), there'll be an insurgency.

The only question is how strong the insurgency will be.

It'll be nearly impossible to wipe out, as long as Pashtun are tribal, xenophobic, and believe in the absolute supremacy of their religion/culture. After all, the problem areas in Pakistan are mostly Pashtun, and nearly every attack in Afghanistan has either been in Pashtun areas or clearly originated there. Only when the Pashtun consider their religion, truth, and justice above their tribe- and clan-based external honor will the insurgency be truly disposed of.

[Bragi]

10. Sounds like "never" to me

You wrote: Only when the Pashtun consider their religion, truth, and justice above their tribe- and clan-based external honor will the insurgency be truly disposed of.
Is there any realistic prospect of that happening?

And if there is some prospect of this happening, why should any of us in the greater non-Pashtun world care if it a) happens or B) doesn't?

I ask because I am trying to trim the list of things I need to care about, and I can't for the life of me remember why I am supposed to care about the Afghan insurgency.

I think I cared initially when the mission was supposed to be to get Osama, but this is no longer the goal.

As for liberating Afghani women, that sounded nice, but it seemed unlikely we would do this militarily, or coujld succeed without the full cooperation of Afghan society?

As for stopping the Taliban there so we don't have to fight them here, I have trouble imagining the Taliban taking a serious run at here. In fact, it seems highly implausible.

So can you remind me why I should care about the insurgency in Afghanistan.

- B

[rodeodance]

2. k

[PATRICK]

3. And which Arabs

would those be? From our big ally Saudi Arabia or just our nuclear ally Pakistan, across whose borders they stroll? Would it be fair to call then "non-Iranians"

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Pakistanis aren't Arabs (n/t)

[PATRICK]

6. Oops.

So that pesky NYT means Sunni Saudis(or our Gulf Coast emirates allies) alone are trucking it back to their old glory haunts. That's even better regardless if the terrorists have been out of their own country- somewhere- for some time. The point is the media never mentions Saudi Arabia in the same breath as Arabs or terrorists.

[High Plains]

4. Afghanistan will be America's Afghanistan?

Afghanistan will be America's Vietnam?

[Igel]

8. Vietnam was America's Vietnam.

While we have another 4 years or so to come up from the 300 or so Americans dead in Afghanistan to the Russians' 14k dead soldiers and other 'operatives', I guess it's possible. Unlikely, but possible. But it's likely that since we've been more gentle with the Afghans and their infrastructure so far that we'll continue to be no less gentle, and that the death toll won't raise stunningly.

[Posteritatis]

9. Now, now, there's enough Vietnam to go around these days. (nt)