The Second War on Terror

Nearly six years on from 9/11, since which two major wars have been launched and numerous military operations have been undertaken against Islamist enemies, a new far more potentially dangerous showdown is looming. Following the US led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 and the destruction of large segments of Al-Qaeda's infrastructure, the militant group's leadership escaped via Tora Bora to Pakistan's North-West frontier. This remote and rugged border territory has provided the safe haven for Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda's upper echelon since. It has also assumed the operational centre for attempted plots in Europe and Asia - the 7/7 attacks were co-ordinated from this refuge. The region's importance to Al-Qaeda has now been acknowledged in the latest National Intelligence Estimate. Its value as a safehaven has been long undervalued by the Bush administration, as they maintain that Iraq is now the central front against Islamic extremism. But Pakistan's north flank remains the ideological and operational nerve centre.

Whilst Al-Qaeda's presence in Iraq has been a steady source of violence and provided a valuable training arena for future jihadist terrorist operations, the war there remains nationalist and sectarian. The presence of international jihadists in Iraq has long been exaggerated by both the Bush administration and Al-Qaeda to justify the initial invasion and to recruit volunteers to fight the US occupation. The test of wills that exists there means that jihadists will be enlisted and then killed by US troops in a continuous apocalyptic cycle of violence. Protecting the American Homeland will not be influenced by this endless struggle, the terrorism that emits from Iraq has so far been regional and lacks strategic input.

So while Al-Qaida "seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of Al-Qaida in Iraq" and uses AQI to "raise resources, and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives", its command centre remains Pakistan's North West frontier. This is not a unexpected revelation, the US have fought a low level and unsuccessful campaign alongside the Pakistan army in Waziristan since 2004. Numerous propaganda videos have emerged from the region and intelligence in European terror plots regularly points back to Pakistan. But critically the upsurge in Taliban insurgency, the radicalisation of Pakistani Islamist groups and the recent siege of the Red Mosque, now places the country as the main concern for the US.

The National Intelligence Assessment has been picked up as further evidence of the Bush administration's flawed counterterrorism policy. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “Changing our strategy in Iraq and narrowing our military mission to countering al Qaeda terrorism [..]would be the single greatest thing we could do to undermine al Qaeda’s ability to use Iraq as a recruiting and propaganda tool fueling the growth of regional terrorist groups.” Countering the threat that exists globally has been hindered by the drain of resources in Iraq. “It is a travesty that Osama bin Laden remains at large nearly six years after the 9/11...the Bush administration and most congressional Republicans remain stubbornly wedded to a flawed strategy in Iraq,” Reid adds. And this is where Pakistan's importance comes in.

President Musharraf's precarious position means that the US will be waiting in the wings to provide military support when needed. This - without doubt - will worsen the situation. The Bush administration have unfinished business with Bin Laden, and any campaign of airstrikes will also make matters worse. Al-Qaeda's links to local tribal leaders, its patronage and the Talibanisation of Pakistan military and civic institutions means that the US face an ever harder hearts-and-minds task than Iraq. Military success will be hard to find. The US unleashed all its military might in October 2001 without achieving their primary objective. Local allies and intelligence agencies are notoriously corrupt, unreliable and prone to change sides in an instance. Airstrikes are also highly flawed and offer easy propaganda.

Cultivating local tribal contacts in a similar way to tactics employed in Iraq's Anbar province could present success. North and South Waziristan have witnessed an influx of 40,000 trained fighters of Arab, Chechen and Uzbek origin. Local Taliban leaders and the Pakistan army came to a peace accord in September 2006, but this was sabotaged by Al-Qaeda. The US (and indeed Britain) are desperate to prop up Musharraf, but face a situation as complicated as Iraq, that they dare not leave to play out to a violent conclusion nor interfere with unpredictable consequences. The border region may be vast and undefined, but the possibility of US attacks on Pakistani soil have been fiercely resisted by officials.