Killing Mullah Omar

All the attention to White House strategy meetings may divert attention from an apparent operational plan for U.S. special forces to go after and kill Mullah Omar and eliminate the Taliban leadership based in Quetta, a congested city of 750,000 in the Pakistan province of Baluchistan.

Mullah Omar leads of the Afghan Taliban, known to the Pentagon as the Quetta Shura Taliban [QST] who refused to turn over Osama Bin Laden eight years ago. Though sheltered in Pakistan, the Taliban faction led by Omar is described as having "significant and growing" influence over Kandahar City and its approaches in the recent report by Gen. Stanley McChrystal on the crisis in Afghanistan.

Last week U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, urged that Pakistan "eliminate" Omar, according to the New York Times, and said that if Pakistan failed to act, the United States would.

On Sunday, Gen. James Jones, U.S. national security adviser, said that attacking insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan would be "the next step" in the military's strategy.

The use of Predator strikes, or secret commando operations by special forces or private contractors, in a densely-populated area would generate unpredictable civilian damage and an angry response from Pakistan officials and general public.

U.S. officials are emboldened by their success in killing 11 of their "top 20" list of Taliban commanders in the past year. However, killing or capturing virtually all the Iraqi insurgent leaders identified on the Pentagon's 2004 "deck of cards" did little to quell the raging violence that left devastation across most of Iraq.

But any possibility of capturing or killing Mullah Omar -- and in their deepest fantasies, perhaps Osama Bin Laden -- is an opportunity too exciting for the Pentagon and the president to resist.

Opinion in Pakistan already seems beyond salvaging. July-August interviews with thousands of Pakistanis showed 80 percent opposition to U.S. assistance to Pakistan's military, a 19 percent jump since March, and 76 percent opposition to partnering with the U.S. on missile strikes from drones. The survey did not include the Northwest Frontier Province or the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where hatred of the U.S. is greatest.

If the planned operation in Quetta is successful, it may cause a disruption, but not the elimination of the Taliban's networks and supply lines, while causing the greater alienation of Pakistan's public. If the US fails to succeed in its declared objective of eliminating Mullah Omar, it will be a greater defeat than the Bay of Pigs.

In any event, an assault on Taliban sanctuaries is not equivalent to taking down al Qaeda, which has operated networks from the Hindu Kush mountains to apartments in Germany. Having driven al Qaeda out of Afghanistan, the U.S. might next drive them out of Pakistan - to secret sites closer to their Western targets.

 

 

Comments

[outnow]

The Taliban have some nationalistic goals but the rest of their toxic bellefs do not serve any interest. I doubt that many of these men can be reincorporated into society because their belief system is antithetical to what we call civilization. Decapitating the leadership creates better recruiting for the Taliban, it would appear. We cannot annihilate them either because their numbers are very large. It would almost be genocide.

The only strategy is to negotiate with them as Abraham Lincoln did with the South. A show of force has not won the hearts and minds. Shock and awe seems like just another Crusade. How successful have those been?

[vascopyjama]

I just read that we want to talk to the Taliban. What are we going to talk about, killing Mullah Omar?

[MalleusMaleficarum]

Bang on the money -- as usual. Afghanistan in and of itself is not the problem -- terrorism is the problem, and Al Qa'ida is the onus of the terror problem. If we secure Afghanistan, Al Qa'ida will simply move to Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan -- and elsewhere. Are we at war against terror -- or against the very culture of Afghanistan? Thanks to Tom Hayden for this excellent and incisive column.

[outnow]

Certain aspects of the culture have evolved in a warped way. Do you like the way the Taliban treats women? I blame us for the failed foreign policies pursued by the US during 1978 until 2001. Unocal wanted someone who would bring order to sign for a pipeline. The US didn't want the government to be too "socialistic" and we even wanted to draw the Soviets into a trap, etc. We created a hell on earth. This isn't culture as we know it. Therefore, we must confront, although not necessarily kill, the Taliban and its leaders.