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    Elimination of IS Leader Is a Positive, But Not a Final, Step

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    On January 3, the United States announced the elimination of Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the leader of the so-called Islamic State (IS) during a counterterrorism raid in Atmeh, a town in Syria’s Idlib province close to the Turkish border. In an address to the nation, US President Joe Biden said that the operation had taken “a major terrorist leader off the battlefield,” adding that special forces were used in the operation in an attempt to reduce civilian casualties.

    Why Now?

    The raid comes after IS conducted an attack on al-Sinaa prison in the northeastern city of Hasakah in January in an attempt to break free its fighters. In the assault, several Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters were killed. According to SDF officials, IS was planning the attack for six months. Nevertheless, the US-backed SDF recaptured the prison about a week later. 

    Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona suspects that the attack on the prison “was the catalyst that led to the decision to act on what was obviously already known location intelligence on … al-Qurayshi.” Francona, who served as the US military attaché in Syria from 1992 to 1995, notes that “Over the past few months, there has been an increase in ISIS activity — more widespread and bolder in nature. This also comes at a time when Iranian-backed militias have also stepped up attacks on US forces in Syria and Iraq.”

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    Both Qurayshi and his predecessor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, were eliminated in Idlib province, in areas under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Previously, HTS was known as Jabhat al-Nusra, affiliated with al-Qaeda and initially aligned with IS. In 2013, however, it split from IS and has been at war with the group since 2014. In 2016, it also broke relations with al-Qaeda and rebranded itself as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS). The following year, JFS assumed its current iteration as it merged with other groups. 

    During much of the past decade, Idlib served as a hideout for extremists. In 2017, then-US envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State, Brett McGurk, stated that “Idlib Province is the largest Al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11.” Following Baghdadi’s elimination in 2019, former US President Donald Trump suggested Baghdadi was in Idlib as part of a plan to rebuild IS. Indeed, it was surprising to see Qurayshi hiding in Idlib as well. 

    According to David Lesch, professor of Middle East History at Trinity University in Texas and author of “Syria: A Modern History,” “it seems strange that al-Baghdadi and al-Qurayshi were killed in [a] province largely controlled by its rival HTS and overseen by Turkey, but on the other hand it is the only area not under the control of the Syrian government and its allies or the US-supported SDF, all of whom are opposed to ISIS.”

    “Idlib is now home to thousands of IDPs, therefore it was easier for the two to blend in, live secretively, and not be identified as outsiders since most everyone in certain areas of the province are outsiders,” Lesch explains. “Yet they were still found because despite all this they lived in an area still teaming with enemies who were obviously directly or indirectly assets to US intelligence.”

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    The recent US operation in Idlib, which was reportedly planned over several months, has been the largest of its kind in the country since the 2019 raid that eliminated Baghdadi. Although Qurayshi was less charismatic than Baghdadi, the fact that he was targeted in the US raid confirms his importance.

    It is worth noting that Qurayshi was named as the leader of IS in 2019, following the death of Baghdadi. While IS called on all Muslims to pledge allegiance to Qurayshi as the new “caliph,” it did not provide much information about his bona fides. The use of the name “Qurayshi” seemed to be an attempt to trace his lineage to the Prophet Muhammad. This is a tactic that was also used vis-à-vis Baghdadi with the aim of legitimizing his leadership role. Qurayshi’s real name is Amir Muhammad Said Abdal-Rahman al-Mawla but he is also known as Hajji Abdullah and Abdullah Qaradash.  

    As the US continues to create an impression that it is minimizing its presence in the region, especially following its withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, the raid seems to have been used to demonstrate US reliability to reassure Washington’s partners. It also comes as a needed win for Biden at a time when the Ukraine crisis remains unsolved. 

    However, while Qurayshi’s elimination is a positive development, it may simply be a “symbolic victory,” as Sean Carberry suggests in The Hill. While the operation against Qurayshi may create internal chaos within IS, ultimately, the terror group is likely to name a new leader and move on, which is what took place following Baghdadi’s assassination. Although IS was militarily defeated, the group has not been eliminated and remains a threat. In fact, there have been increased indications, such as the attack on al-Sinaa prison, suggesting that the group is in a state of resurgence. The militants might also seek to use the recent US raid to encourage revenge attacks. 

    US Policy in Syria

    The Biden administration’s policy vis-à-vis Syria seems to indicate that the official approach will be “markedly timid,” as Abdulrahman al-Masri and Reem Salahi suggest. It should not be surprising to learn that Syria does not constitute a top diplomatic priority for President Biden. Yet while the US does not want to remain engaged in endless regional wars, it seems to believe that a political settlement in war-torn Syria would only empower President Bashar al-Assad, whom Washington would never back. 

    Moreover, the US and the Kurds are partners, and Washington would not want to portray an image that it has abandoned those who have shouldered the fight against the Islamic State. This was the overall perception when Trump announced the withdrawal of US forces from Syria in 2019, and Biden seems keen to remedy that controversial decision. 

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    It is worth noting that during President Barack Obama’s tenure, Vice President Biden was one of the skeptics when it came to what the US could achieve in Syria. Nevertheless, it should not be taken as a given that as president, Biden may be in favor of removing all US forces from the country. For instance, he criticized Trump’s decision to withdraw forces from Syria, saying it granted IS “a new lease on life.” In the same year, Biden also said he supports keeping some forces in eastern Syria for the foreseeable future. 

    Middle East expert and former US State Department analyst, Gregory Aftandilian doesn’t see the US leaving Syria anytime soon. Aftandilian, who is also a non-resident fellow at Arab Center Washington DC, thinks “It is doubtful [Biden] will do more than the anti-ISIS campaign and humanitarian aid. In light of the attempted prison break in northeastern Syria he may put pressure on some countries to take back ISIS prisoners.”

    For the US to play a role in stabilizing Syria, there needs to be a clear strategy. Unfortunately, at the moment, that strategy is largely lacking. While the elimination of Qurayshi is a positive step, much more work needs to be done to stabilize the country.

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      How the Legal Landscape Is Changing for War Crimes

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      War crimes, genocide, torture, forced disappearances, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international law have been characteristic of conflicts in the Arab world since even before they were codified in law. These crimes still occur in many Arab countries, most notably in Syria and Yemen. Not only do perpetrators often go unpunished, but they also find themselves rewarded and promoted.

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      So, when on November 30, 2021, a court in Frankfurt, Germany, handed down a life sentence to an Iraqi man who joined the Islamic State (IS) group for genocide against the Yazidi minority — the first time a former member of IS had been convicted of genocide and the first verdict for genocide against Yazidis — it was celebrated as a landmark case in the fight for justice and accountability. Taha al-Jumailly was found guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity resulting in death, war crimes, aiding and abetting war crimes, and bodily harm resulting in death.

      “Today, ISIS member Taha AJ was convicted of genocide and sentenced to life in prison. This is the first genocide verdict against an ISIS member. This verdict is a win for survivors of genocide, survivors of sexual violence, & the Yazidi community,” tweeted Nadia Murad, a 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner and a Yazidi survivor of IS enslavement.

      Universal Jurisdiction

      The trial was also the first in Germany based on the principle of universal jurisdiction addressing crimes under international law committed abroad by a perpetrator who is not a German citizen and was only extradited on the basis of an international arrest warrant. Universal jurisdiction is the principle that some crimes are so serious that states should be allowed to claim jurisdiction over an accused person regardless of where they were committed or any other relation with the prosecuting entity. None of the crimes in the Jumailly case were committed in Germany, and neither the victims nor the suspect were German nationals.

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      Though universal jurisdiction has been practiced in just a few countries in recent years, it has become an increasingly important tool for achieving accountability and justice for the survivors and victims of international crimes. Hundreds of investigations are ongoing and dozens of convictions have been obtained.

      The blossoming of universal jurisdiction is attributable to several factors, one of which is that the alternative route to prosecuting international crimes through the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court (ICC) has effectively been closed by geopolitics. The Syrian conflict, for example, has never been appraised by the ICC because Russia backs President Bashar al-Assad.

      The Pursuit of Cases

      In recent years, there has been a greater capacity and willingness on the part of some domestic authorities to pursue cases involving international crimes, at least in certain circumstances. More and more countries have also passed laws allowing them to conduct the kind of landmark prosecution that took place in Frankfurt. More countries are following the Dutch example in setting up specialized units within the police, prosecution and even immigration services dedicated to identifying perpetrators of international crimes and bringing them to trial.

      Another important factor in the power of universal jurisdiction is that victims and their advocates can contribute to investigations and prosecutions, and sometimes even influence the direction they take. In some countries, such as France and Belgium, victims and NGOs can initiate criminal proceedings. Even where this is not possible, victims and their advocates can still drive cases forward in other ways, such as by tracking perpetrators’ movements, sharing information with the authorities and exerting pressure on them to act.

      Dutch authorities have even issued directions for Syrians in the Netherlands on how to file a criminal complaint against other Syrians relating to violations in Syria. In February, after Germany’s top court ruled that war crimes committed abroad can be tried in the country, a court in Koblenz became the first court outside of Syria to rule on state-sponsored torture by the Assad regime when it sentenced a former member of the secret police to four and a half years in prison for being an accomplice to crimes against humanity. Another former Syrian intelligence officer is currently on trial in Germany for overseeing 58 counts of murder and at least 4,000 cases of torture, rape or sexual abuse.

      Many Challenges

      Despite this recent progress, enormous legal, evidentiary and logistical challenges remain before international criminal cases can be brought to trial. Investigating and prosecuting international crimes in domestic courts is not straightforward, especially in a complex conflict such as the Yemen war where crimes have been committed over many years by different actors.

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      Foreign investigators cannot easily gather evidence on the ground, so they have to rely on the cooperation of different parties to the conflict to build cases. UN bodies like the group of eminent experts, international organizations, local NGOs, and organizations such as Airwars assist with investigations.

      Even if evidence linking an individual perpetrator to war crimes can be established, the suspect still has to be apprehended. In some countries practicing universal jurisdiction, those accused of committing war crimes do not need to be within reach of authorities for an investigation to be opened, but they need to be physically brought to court before any trial can take place.

      Though international cooperation can be used to apprehend and extradite international pariahs like IS militants, pirates and slave traders, war criminals who are still serving members of Arab regimes are not about to be handed over. Only when they set foot in a country practicing universal jurisdiction — whether for work, vacation, claiming asylum or for any other reason — can they be arrested immediately, providing they do not benefit from immunity.

      Jumailly’s conviction “sends a clear message,” said Natia Navrouzov, a lawyer and member of the NGO Yazda, which gathers evidence of crimes committed by IS against the Yazidis. “It doesn’t matter where the crimes were committed and it doesn’t matter where the perpetrators are, thanks to the universal jurisdiction, they can’t hide and will still be put on trial.”

      *[This article was originally published by Arab Digest, a partner of Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      The War on Terror Was Never Turkey’s Fight

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      Do you know where you were on August 14, 2001? Perhaps not, since it isn’t a defining day in world history in quite the same way as September 11, 2001, or 9/11, as it’s become known. Yet in the Turkish political landscape, August 14, 2001, can now be seen as something of a watershed moment.

      It was on this day that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) was founded. One of its founding members was a man named Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It was the latest in a long list of parties catering to a religiously devout and socially conservative constituency in Turkey. All the previous ones had been banned.

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      What makes August 14, 2001, so significant is the simple fact that the AKP was never banned. Despite the party’s daring to tread on secularist principles that few others had dared, this time, the country, with strong European Union support, had no appetite for military-backed bans.

      Turkey Says No

      Just as September 11 didn’t really come out of a clear blue sky for anyone observing the tide of Islamist militancy, so too the success of the AKP in Turkey did not come unannounced. It was a long time in the making, but its assumption of power, so soon after 9/11, has been defining for the country.

      By 2003, when George W. Bush’s war on terror was swinging into action in Iraq, the AKP took control of Turkey‘s government. Despite repeated attempts to shutter the party and even a failed 2016 coup, the AKP remains in power. As perhaps the most successful Islamist party in the Middle East, its relationship to both the events of 9/11 and the ensuing war on terror has always been a strained one. The Turkey of the 20th century would have been an unquestioning supporter of US policy. The new Turkey was not.

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      I was in Turkey on 9/11 and I saw the immediate reaction of ordinary people to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In the hours after the towers fell, there were wild, yet in retrospect on-the-mark rumors that the US was about to bomb Afghanistan. The mood among ordinary Turks was not one of support.

      Visceral anger and anti-American sentiment were clearly palpable. While not outright cheering al-Qaeda, it was obvious that most people wouldn’t take the US side in a fight. This mood was reflected when Washington eventually went to war with Iraq and hoped to use the airbase at Incirlik in southeastern Turkey.

      The parliamentary vote that vetoed the use of the base for flights into Iraq was a pivotal one. It was the first strong sign of demonstrable national action in reflection of a national mood. In the post-Cold War world, Turkey’s Islamist government was ready to plow its own furrow.

      Who Defines Terrorism?

      The years that have followed have seen an ambiguous and often highly contorted relationship with the war on terror. Sometimes, Turkey has used the anti-terrorism concept to its own ends, as have many other US allies. At other times, it has turned a blind eye to activity that surely fell under the banner of terrorism.

      The Arab Spring of 2010 offered Islamists across the Middle East their big moment. Secular autocrats, long propped up by the West, tottered. Turkey’s Islamist government was one of the most vocal and active in attempting to ride this wave that they hoped would bring Islamist governments to a swathe of countries.

      Initially, the signs were good. The Muslim Brotherhood won the first free and fair elections in Egypt. Meanwhile, in neighboring Syria, the long-suppressed Islamist movement threatened to overwhelm the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. For a time, Turkey became a beacon of hope and a model for how the rest of the Middle East might evolve.

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      Turkish flags were being waved by demonstrators in Syria, and President Erdogan became the most popular leader in the region, loved by people far beyond his own nation. Then the Egyptian coup destroyed the Brotherhood, and Russia and Iran stepped in to save Assad’s regime in Syria. The mood soured for Turkey.

      In an attempt to rescue something in the Syrian conflict and in response to the collapse of domestic peace talks between the government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, Turkey’s border became a very porous route for jihadists entering into Syria. In time, these jihadists named themselves the Islamic State and declared a caliphate. This audacious move severely upped the stakes on al-Qaeda’s attempts of 2001, with an even more brutal brand of terrorism. Turkey’s ambiguous attitude to these developments was hardly a war on terror.

      Yet by this stage, the concept behind the war on terror had become so nebulous and the AKP’s relations to the US so strained by Washington’s support for the Kurds in Syria, that it was a case of realpolitik all the way. To any accusation of soft-handedness toward terrorists, Turkey pointed to US attitudes vis-à-vis Kurdish militants.

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      President Erdogan has, over time, began to carve a space for himself as an anti-Western champion, a leader of some kind of latter-day non-aligned movement, a spokesman for Muslim rights worldwide. This political and cultural position has made Turkey’s place in a liberal, democratic world order highly questionable.

      What seems clear in retrospect is that both 9/11 and the subsequent war on terror were never Turkey’s fights. Due to the longstanding Turkish alliance with the US and NATO, these have been constantly recurring themes in Turkish politics. But the events that have been so central to US policymaking for the past two decades have generally been used to advance Ankara’s own strategic goals in light of the assumption of power and entrenched hegemony of the Islamist movement in Turkey’s contemporary politics.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      How 9/11 and the War on Terror Shaped the World

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      On September 11, 2001, 19 militants associated with the Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda hijacked four planes and launched suicide attacks on iconic symbols of America, first striking the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and then the Pentagon. It would be the deadliest act of terrorism on American soil, claiming nearly 3,000 lives.

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      The attacks not only shocked the world, but the images of planes crashing into the World Trade Center came to define a generation. In a speech on October 11, 2001, then-President George W. Bush spoke of “an attack on the heart and soul of the civilized world” and declared “war against all those who seek to export terror, and a war against those governments that support or shelter them.” This was the start of the global war on terror.

      The Story of the 9/11 Attacks and Retaliation

      Osama bin Laden, the Saudi leader of al-Qaeda, inspired the 9/11 attacks. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Pakistani Islamist terrorist and the nephew of the truck driver convicted for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, masterminded the operation. The 9/11 Commission Report described al-Qaeda as “sophisticated, patient, disciplined and lethal.” It held that the enemy rallied “broad support in the Arab and Muslim world.” The report concluded that al-Qaeda’s hostility to the US and its values was limitless.

      The report went on to say that the enemy aimed “to rid the world of religious and political pluralism, the plebiscite, and equal rights for women,” and observed that it made no distinction between military and civilian targets. The goal going forward was “to attack terrorists and prevent their ranks from swelling while at the same time protecting [the US] against future attacks.”

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      To prosecute the war on terror, the US built a worldwide coalition: 136 countries offered military assistance, and 46 multilateral organizations declared support. Washington began by launching a financial war on terror, freezing assets and disrupting fundraising pipelines. In the first 100 days, the Bush administration set aside $20 billion for homeland security.

      On October 7, 2001, the US inaugurated the war on terror with Operation Enduring Freedom. An international coalition that included Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Japan, the UK and other countries, with the help of the Northern Alliance comprising various mujahedeen militias, overthrew the Taliban, which was sheltering al-Qaeda fighters, and took over Afghanistan.

      The war on terror that began in Afghanistan soon took on a global focus. In 2003, the Bush administration invaded Iraq despite the lack of a UN mandate. Washington made the argument that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction, represented a threat to world peace, and harbored and succored al-Qaeda and other Islamic jihadists. None of this proved to be true. Hussein’s regime fell as speedily as Mullah Omar’s Taliban.

      Victory, however, was short-lived. Soon, insurgency returned. In Afghanistan, suicide attacks quintupled from 27 in 2005 to 139 in 2006. Globally, the war on terror saw a “stunning” rise in jihadist activity, with just over 32,000 fighters split among 13 Islamist groups in 2001 burgeoning to 100,000 across 44 outfits in 2015. Terrorist attacks went up from an estimated 1,880 in 2001 to 14,806 in 2015, claiming 38,422 lives that year alone — a 397% increase on 2001.

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      Boosted by the US invasion of Iraq, al-Qaeda spawned affiliates across Asia, Africa and the Middle East, a decentralized structure that remained intact even after the US assassination of Osama bin Laden in 2011 dealt al-Qaeda a severe blow. One of its Iraqi offshoots morphed into what became the Islamic State (IS) group following the withdrawal of most US from Iraq under President Barack Obama in 2011.

      After declaring a caliphate in 2014, IS launched a global terrorist campaign that, within a year, conducted and inspired over 140 attacks in 29 countries beyond Syria and Iraq, according to one estimate. Islamic State acolytes went on to claim nearly 30,000 lives across the Middle East, Europe, the United States, Asia and Africa, controlling vast amounts of territory in Iraq and Syria, before suffering defeat by internationally-backed local forces in 2019.

      In Afghanistan, despite the war’s estimated trillion-dollar price tag, on August 15 the Taliban have taken control of the capital Kabul amid a chaotic US withdrawal, raising fears of al-Qaeda’s comeback. Last year, the Global Terrorism Index concluded that deaths from terrorism were still double the number recorded in 2001, with Afghanistan claiming a disproportionately large share of over 40% in 2019.

      Why Do 9/11 and the War on Terror Matter?

      While the failures and successes of the war on terror will remain subject to heated debate for years to come, what remains uncontested is the fact that the 9/11 attacks and the ensuing war on terror have forged the world we live in today.

      First, they have caused tremendous loss of blood and treasure. Brown University’s Costs of War project places an $8-trillion price tag on the US war on terror. It estimates that about 900,000 people “were killed as a direct result of war, whether by bombs, bullets or fire,” a number that does not include indirect deaths “caused by way of disease, displacement and loss of access to food or clean drinking water.”

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      Second, numerous countries, including liberal democracies such as the US and the UK, have eroded their own civil liberties and democratic institutions with the avowed goal of improving security. Boarding airplanes or entering public buildings now invariably involves elaborate security checks. Mass surveillance has become par for the course. The US continues to keep alleged terror suspects in indefinite detention without trial in Guantanamo Bay.

      Third, many analysts argue that the attacks and the response have coarsened the US. After World War II, Americans drew a line in the sand against torture. They put Germans and Japanese on trial for war crimes that included waterboarding. In the post-9/11 world, torture became part of the American toolkit. Airstrikes and drone strikes have caused high collateral casualties, killing a disputed number of innocents and losing the battle for the hearts and minds of local populations.

      These strikes raise significant issues of legality and the changing nature of warfare. There is a question as to the standing of “counterterrorism” operations in international and national law. However, such issues have garnered relatively little public attention. 

      Fourth, the 9/11 attacks and the ensuing war on terror have coincided with the spectacular rise of China. On December 11, 2001, the Middle Kingdom joined the World Trade Organization, which enabled the Chinese economy to grow at a speed and scale unprecedented in history. Analysts believe that distraction with the war on terror hindered the US response to the revolution occurring in global international relations and power dynamics. 

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      Under Barack Obama, the US initiated an explicit pivot to Asia policy that sought to shift focus from the war on terror and manage the rise of China. Under Donald Trump, Washington unleashed a trade war on Beijing and concluded a peace deal with the Taliban. Joe Biden has believed that, since the early days of the war on terror, US priorities have been too skewed toward terrorism and that Afghanistan is a secondary strategic issue, leading to a decision to withdraw troops to mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11.

      Biden has argued that the US has degraded al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and eliminated bin Laden. Despite worrying echoes of George W. Bush declaring the “mission accomplished” in Iraq in 2003, from now on, Biden wants the US to remain “narrowly focused on counterterrorism — not counterinsurgency or nation building.”

      While the terrorist threat still consumes US resources, Washington is now shifting its strategic attention and resources to China, Russia and Iran. The Biden administration has deemed these three authoritarian powers to be the biggest challenge for the postwar liberal and democratic order. The 20-year war on terror seems to be over — at least for now.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Is the Long War Finally Ending?

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      In October 1944, with the end of World War II in sight, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin passed a note back and forth to each other at a conference in Moscow. On the piece of paper, Churchill had assigned percentages to several Eastern European countries. Stalin amended the numbers and Churchill agreed. The deal remained secret for nearly a decade.

      The percentages on the piece of paper referred to the amount of influence that the Soviet Union and the West would wield in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Greece, with the first three countries falling in the Soviet sphere, control divided evenly in Yugoslavia, and Greece staying in the Western camp. It was the first major articulation of the geopolitical “spheres of influence” that would characterize the Cold War era.

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      During the first post-war elections in Eastern Europe, communist and non-communist parties vied for power, eventually cobbling together different versions of coalition governments. Ultimately, however, the communist parties seized control, except in Greece, where the West intervened in a civil war to help defeat leftist insurgents. By 1948, the region looked very much like the agreement that Churchill and Stalin had drawn up.

      The Long War

      Today, the end of a much longer war appears to be approaching. The fighting in Afghanistan has lasted nearly two decades, the most protracted conflict the United States has ever endured. This war is, in turn, part of a much larger battle that has been variously described as “America’s endless wars,” the “war on terror” or simply the “long war” that began in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, though earlier skirmishes took place during the 1990s.

      The Biden administration is currently trying to negotiate a spheres-of-influence arrangement in Afghanistan that resembles what Churchill laid out in 1944. The American-backed government in Kabul, according to this proposal, would share power with the insurgent Taliban forces as an interim step until elections can be held under a new constitution.

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      Such a deal would make it easier for the United States to withdraw all of its 3,500 soldiers from Afghanistan by May 1, as laid out in a peace deal signed in 2020. Even if that withdrawal goes through, however, the institutional apparatus of the larger “long war” will still be operational. US forces remain in Iraq and Syria, and the Pentagon eyes the civil war in Libya with concern.

      In all, after drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq, about 50,000 US troops are stationed in the greater Middle East, with 7,000 mostly naval personnel in Bahrain, 13,000 soldiers in Kuwait and a roughly equal number in Qatar, 5,000 in the United Arab Emirates and several thousand in Saudi Arabia. US Special Forces are also scattered across Africa, while the United States is still conducting air operations throughout the region.

      But, as in 1944, the preliminary discussion of a power-sharing arrangement in Afghanistan suggests that the active phase of the “long war” is coming to an end. The specific US adversaries — al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and various smaller global actors — have more or less been defeated. Local groups that have battled US forces, like the Taliban, remain powerful, as do adversarial governments like Bashar al-Assad’s in Syria, but they don’t pose a threat to the US homeland. Larger geopolitical rivalries, with Russia and Iran in particular, continue to shape the conflicts in the region, but the US has already established an uneven pattern of engagement and containment with these actors.

      If history is to be replayed, the United States will wind down direct combat in favor of a tense cold war and intermittent “out-of-area” operations. The end of this “long war” against the architects of the 9/11 attacks and their supporters is long overdue. The Biden administration is eager to focus on “building back better” at home, enjoy a post-war economic expansion and beef up the US capacity to challenge China and, to a lesser extent, Russia. The administration is reassessing its military capabilities to reflect these priorities.

      All of this begs the question: Will it be possible to avoid repeating the 1945 scenario by ending the “long war” and not replacing it with a cold war?

      After promising to end the forever wars during the 2020 election campaign, President Joe Biden is eager to enjoy his own “mission accomplished” moment in Afghanistan. But that pledge comes with a couple asterisks.

      For one, Biden would like to maintain a “counterterrorism” force in Afghanistan with the permission of the Taliban. Such an agreement would parallel the arrangement in Iraq, where the government allows around 2,500 US troops to focus on suppressing any remnants of the Islamic State (as well as reining in Iran-backed paramilitaries). Second, Biden has in the past broached the possibility of moving US military bases from Afghanistan to Pakistan, where they would continue to serve their counterterrorism function. It’s not at all clear whether the Taliban or Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan would be enthusiastic about these options.

      At the moment, the United States is paying a relatively low price for its continued presence in Afghanistan. After last year’s peace deal, there haven’t been any US combat deaths in the country, which means that Afghanistan is basically absent from the hearts and minds of Americans. The US foreign policy community would like to preserve that status quo as long as possible, particularly given the post-withdrawal prospects of “ethnic cleansing, mass slaughter and the ultimate dismemberment of the country,” as Madiha Afzal and Michael O’Hanlon of Brookings have written. Similar arguments were made around the proposed withdrawal of the bulk of US troops from Iraq, and yet those worst-case scenarios haven’t come to pass.

      In recent days, the warnings about Afghanistan have increased. According to The New York Times:

      “American intelligence agencies have told the Biden administration that if U.S. troops leave before a power-sharing settlement is reached between the Taliban and the Afghan government, the country could fall largely under the control of the Taliban within two or three years after the withdrawal of international forces. That could potentially open the door for Al Qaeda to rebuild its strength within the country, according to American officials.”

      It doesn’t take an intelligence agency to predict that the Taliban will play a major role in any future Afghanistan, with or without a power-sharing settlement. The Taliban control about 20% of the country with as much as 85,000 full-time soldiers (though the areas under Taliban control are relatively underpopulated). At the same time, the insurgents are active over a much larger stretch — as much as 70% of the country — and are putting pressure on a number of key cities, including Kunduz in the north and Kandahar in the south.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In other words, there’s a good possibility that regardless of power-sharing arrangements, the Taliban will simply take over the country, much as the communists did throughout Eastern Europe in the late 1940s. Given the record of the Taliban’s last sojourn in power, the prospect of a reestablishment of their rule is very sobering.

      But the US has failed in two decades to defeat the Taliban with the full force of its military. Keeping a few thousand soldiers in the country is not going to change the balance of power on the ground. “The hawks argue that to leave Afghanistan is simply unthinkable until someday when they have finished winning the war,” writes Scott Horton in his new book, “Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism.” “But they lost the war more than a decade ago, and no one who protested against Trump’s drawdown had a single coherent thing to say about how staying there is supposed to somehow change the reality of Taliban power in that country.”

      Won’t Afghanistan again become a safe haven for international terrorists once the US troops withdraw along with their NATO partners? For all their immersion in Islamic religion and culture, the Taliban are Pashtun nationalists interested above all in kicking out the foreigners. They’re not big fans of the Islamic State group, but they do maintain a close relationship at the moment with the 200-250 al-Qaeda militants in the country. Take NATO out of the equation, however, and that relationship will likely fray at the seams, particularly if international recognition, access to the global economy and the support of powerful neighbors like Russia and Iran depend on a verifiable divorce.

      When he proposed the two spheres of influence, Churchill was not relying on the goodwill of the Soviet state. The British leader hated Stalin and communism. He was taking a clear-eyed look at the balance of power at the time and striking what he thought was the best deal he could, even if that meant “losing” most of Eastern Europe. A power-sharing arrangement with the Taliban that “loses” Afghanistan is comparably pragmatic. But will it be accompanied by other, equally pragmatic policies to bring the long war to an end?

      The Rest of the War

      The “endless wars” are obviously not just being fought by the 3,500 troops in Afghanistan and 2,500 soldiers in Iraq. As the Bush administration transitioned to the Obama era and war fatigue began to set in, the United States shifted its focus from ground operations to an air war. In Afghanistan for instance, as the number of troops declined from a high of 100,000 in 2011, the number of airstrikes steadily increased, with a peak in terms of bombs dropped in 2018 and 2019 and a consequent rise in casualties. “The number of civilians killed by international airstrikes increased about 330 percent from 2016, the last full year of the Obama Administration, to 2019, the most recent year for which there is complete data from the United Nations,” reports Neta Crawford of the Costs of War project. Throughout the greater Middle East, the United States has launched in excess of 14,000 drone strikes, which have killed as many as 16,000 people, including several hundred children.

      Since taking office, as I note in my recent study of Biden’s take on multilateralism, the new administration has launched two airstrikes, one against Iranian targets in Syria on February 25 and the other in Iraq on February 9 against the Islamic State. The Syrian attack, in particular, has prompted a bipartisan effort in Congress to repeal the Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (passed in 1991 and 2002) in order to narrow the presidential ability to launch future airstrikes.

      Meanwhile, the administration has yet to report any drone strikes. This is in marked contrast to the strikes that Barack Obama and Donald Trump ordered almost immediately upon taking office as well as the escalation in attacks that took place in Trump’s final months. In one of its first orders, the Biden administration issued a temporary halt to any drone strikes outside of combat areas such as Afghanistan and Syria. As Charli Carpenter, an expert in the laws of war, points out:

      “Essentially what Biden is doing is he’s moving the barometer back to where it was before Trump devolved authority for drone strikes away from the executive branch and into the hands of commanders. What that means is that anytime a drone strike is envisioned, it needs to be approved by the White House. There’s going to be a much higher level of oversight and much more concern over the legal nuances of each strike. It will just make drones harder to use, and you can imagine the weaponized drones will only be used in the most extreme cases.”

      In addition to initiating a review of drone strikes, the administration has launched a probe into Special Forces operations to ascertain whether they have adhered to the Pentagon’s “law of war” requirements. In effect, the Biden administration is applying greater oversight across the range of military operations to bring them into closer compliance with international rules and regulations. Such oversight, however, does not imply the end of the endless wars.

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      For that to happen, the United States would have to dramatically shrink its global military footprint, the constellation of US bases around the world that serve as the launching pad for myriad operations. About 220,000 military and civilian personnel operate in more than 150 countries and over 800 overseas military bases. A significant chunk of the Pentagon’s $700 billion-plus budget goes toward maintaining this immense archipelago of force.

      In early February, the Biden administration also announced a Global Posture Review to assess the US. footprint. Such a review is much needed. After all, did this massive apparatus save a single one of the more than half a million Americans who have died from COVID-19? Is the Pentagon protecting the United States from climate change (or merely contributing to the problem with its own carbon emissions and its protection of overseas fossil fuel production and distribution)? And all that “forward-based defense” has done absolutely nothing to safeguard US infrastructure from cyberattacks like the SolarWinds hack (that, by the way, gained access to the emails of Trump’s cybersecurity team at the Department of Homeland Security).

      For the time being, the architects of the Global Posture Review are thinking primarily of refocusing “strategic capabilities” against China in the Far East and Russia in the Arctic. But that just replaces one set of threats with another, which will adjust the footprint without actually reducing it.

      So, let’s remember that the 3,500 American troops in Afghanistan are just the tip of the iceberg. For the United States to avoid the fate of the Titanic — also famous at one time for being immense and impregnable — it had better address the rest of the icy hazard of war.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      No Clear Vision to End Violence in Afghanistan

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      Afghanistan has been engulfed in bloodshed and confusion for decades. The deal between the United States and the Taliban signed on February 29 in Doha, Qatar, has added more tension to the conflict by creating competition among anti-government militants. Groups such as the Islamic State Khorasan (ISK) compete with the Taliban for political success and influence by perpetrating more violence. At the same time, they look to each other’s success as a source of inspiration and cooperation.

      No Place for Naivety in Afghan Peace Talks

      READ MORE

      On November 2, Afghanistan was shocked by an attack on Kabul University that killed 35 students and wounded 50; officially, the death toll stands at 22, with 27 wounded. It was the latest of the many attacks on the country’s educational institutions. On October 24, a suicide bomber targeted the Kawsar-e Danish education center in western Kabul, killing at least 43 and wounding a further 57. In August 2018, another suicide attack in western Kabul on the Mawud tutoring center, which, like Kawsar-e Danish, was located in a Shai-dominated area, killed at least 48 and wounded 60. The victims at both schools were under the age of 20, some of them were as young as 14.

      Who Killed the Students?

      Due to the highly complex environment, survival for the people of Afghanistan is just a matter of chance. Sajjad Nijati was wounded in the attack on Kabul University. He is also one of the survivors of the attack on the Mawud education center. He has lost three of his family members in the attack on Kawsar-e Danish.

      ISK claimed responsibility for all three attacks, while the Taliban denied any connection. However, the Taliban attack on the American University of Afghanistan in August 2016 killed 14 and wounded 35, again mostly students. The attacks on Kawsar-e Danish and Mawud were mainly against the Shia Hazaras, a historically persecuted group that has invested in education as a strategy to break the cycle of its precarious position inside Afghanistan. Shamsea Alizada, a survivor of the attack on Mawud, topped the country’s national university tables by achieving the highest score out of nearly 200,000 students this year. When the attack happened, she was 15 and could have lost her life like many of her friends.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The day after the university attack, students protested and carried slogans against the Islamic State and the Taliban that read “Don’t kill us.” All in all, 13 people have been detained for their failure to prevent the attack, including the security commander of Kabul University and the district chief of police. However, Vice President Ambrulah Saleh reversed the decision arguing that the problem is systematic and needs broader attention. It is still unclear whether those arrested have been released.

      The question remains unanswered as to how the three gunmen entered the university campus. Kabul University has three main gates that are blocked by police checkpoints. The terrorists entered from the north gate, which is usually overseen by a large number of police officers who check all visitors’ IDs. With no sign of an explosion at the gate, Saleh, hours after the attack, called it an “intelligence failure.”

      Research shows that Afghan universities have been exposed to extremism in recent years and have become fertile ground for recruitment for groups like ISK and the Taliban; in July 2019, Afghan security agencies arrested three ISK recruiters at Kabul University. On November 14, Vice President Saleh announced that security forces have arrested the mastermind behind the attack on Kabul University. According to Saleh, Adel Mohammad was recruited by the Haqqani Network, a branch of the Taliban based in Miramshah, Pakistan, and had gone missing three years ago after completing his third year at Kabul University’s faculty of sharia law.

      Proxy War, Terrorism, Confusion

      In their peace deal with the US, the Taliban agreed to stop bombing urban centers and cut ties with other terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda. However, according to the US special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, attacks by the Taliban have increased by 50% in the past three months, to at least 55 attacks per day around the country. Since the official inauguration of the intra-Afghan talks in Qatar on September 12, the has been no reduction in civilian casualties. The Taliban use military operations as a bargaining chip in the talks, which has increased concerns about the group establishing a totalitarian and discriminatory regime in the country if it comes to power as a result of the negotiations.

      The frequently reported links between the Taliban and al-Qaeda remain another concern. Last month, Afghan security forces killed a senior al-Qaeda leader in Ghazni province in areas controlled by the Taliban. Another al-Qaeda member was killed in a Taliban-influenced area in Farah province, in the west. Research also shows that there has been cooperation — as well as clashes — between the Taliban and ISK in the past.

      Many in Afghanistan view the Taliban as responsible for hosting and cooperating with various terrorist groups. The continued war by the Taliban has severely undermined Afghanistan’s political stability, economic development and security. This has weakened the government’s functionality and territorial control, opening the door for other militant groups such as ISK. Both ISK and the Taliban have similar ideological positions toward secular education, and the situation on the ground today makes it clear that the war has turned into a deliberate strategy of indiscriminate violence against education centers and youth in the country.

      There are three theories about recent urban attacks in Afghanistan. The first is that the Taliban organize the attacks but deny responsibility to benefit from the chaos and backlash against the government, which allows ISK to claim responsibility. Vice President Saleh claimed that the ISK claiming the attack on Kabul University was fake. Saleh pointed to a Taliban flag apparently found at the scene as evidence of Taliban involvement. According to the vice president, the weapons found at the scene do not match those in photos released by ISK. The Taliban, however, rejects these claims.

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      The second theory is that the Haqqani Network, a branch of the Taliban close to Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), is carrying out attacks in urban areas. Some experts argue there is a disagreement between the Quetta Shura and the Haqqani Network branches. Therefore, without Quetta Shura’s approval, the Haqqani Network attack on urban areas but under the ISK name; since the appearance of ISK, the Haqqani Network did not claim most of the bigger urban attacks, with ISK taking responsibility instead. According to this theory, the main actor behind terrorist activity in Afghanistan is the Haqqani Network rather than ISK. It has been argued that the Haqqani Network has strong links and levels of cooperation not just with the ISI, but also al-Qaeda and ISK. Those who believe in this theory argue that there is a close relationship between the Haqqani Network and ISK.

      The third theory is that the ISK organizes urban attacks independently, such as the one on Kabul University. According to this analysis, ISK today has more influence in urban areas. At the moment, however, this argument does not have many supporters among experts and Afghan security officials. From the Afghan government’s point of view, ISK is a platform for Pakistan’s clandestine activities, where ISK is an umbrella for many actors including the Haqqani Network and the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) for attacking targets in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, believes that ISK is supported by the same forces in Pakistan that back the Haqqani Network.

      Death by a Thousand Cuts

      The conflict in Afghanistan doesn’t have a single dimension. It is a combination of proxy wars and terrorism. The proxy dimension of the war since the 1980s produced countless intended and unintended consequences such as state fragility, terrorism, sectarianism, war crimes, social fragmentation and radicalization. Kabul University has found itself at the center of this strife over the four decades of war. In late 1983, a bomb was placed under a dining room table at the university, killing many. Later on, Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, who was leading the Afghan Bureau of ISI at the time, revealed in his memoir that the attack was part of Pakistan’s strategy of “death by thousand cuts.”

      This specter of history is fresh in Afghanistan’s collective memory. Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan enabled the group to intensify the conflict. The complicated links and cooperation between the Taliban, ISK and al-Qaeda make it difficult to believe that they did not join forces to target educational institutions and carry out assassinations. At the same time, contextualizing the war in Afghanistan by considering the long history of cooperation between militant groups and the intelligence services in the region make the proxy dynamic of the war more apparent.

      With mistakes made on all sides, especially by the Trump administration in Washington, created both inspiration and hope for many extremist groups in the region. Particularly, the US-Taliban deal turned the country into a playground for various extremist groups and their supporters trying to either outdo each other or build tactical collaboration to defeat the Afghan government. Even Pakistani extremist groups have called upon the Afghan government to surrender to the Taliban.

      These groups are trying to build leverage through violence and claiming the honor of resisting the US and its partners. They are fighting to create frustration and chaos in order to expand their operational reach and lethality, thereby creating transnational inspiration for the movement. Unless there is a policy change to effectively deal with this threat, there is no clear vision for ending all this violence.

      *[Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that the attack on Kawsar-e Danish killed 24 people. This piece was updated at 17:50 GMT.]

      *[The author is one of the investigators on the Carnegie Corporation of New York-funded project “Assessing the impact of external actors in the Syria and Afghan proxy wars” (Grant number: G-18-55949) at Deakin University, Australia.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Shamima Begum: The Sensitive Case of IS Returnees

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      Born in the UK to Bangladeshi parents, Shamima Begum left London as a 15-year-old in 2015. Using her British passport, she traveled to Turkey with two of her friends from school. From there, Begum and her friends crossed into Syria, where they met their Islamic State (IS) contacts. While in Syria, Begum married an IS fighter. On February 19 this year, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission had stripped Begum of her citizenship as she was deemed to be a national security threat. On July 16, however, UK authorities granted this now adult British woman, who had joined a terrorist group as a teenager four years earlier, the right to return to Britain to challenge the UK government’s removal of her citizenship.

      The commission ruled that the decision to revoke Begum’s British citizenship did not render her stateless as, by default, the United Kingdom also considered her a Bangladeshi citizen “by descent.” However, the Bangladeshi Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that it did not consider her as a citizen of that country. A statement released by Begum’s British lawyers argued that she indeed had never visited Bangladesh, nor had she ever applied for dual nationality.

      Made in Britain: Understanding the Realities of Radicalization

      READ MORE

      In the meantime, the press has chastised Begum, who remains a detainee in a camp operated by ethnic Kurdish militias in northern Syria, for making controversial statements such and saying that seeing her first severed head did not faze her “at all” and suggesting that people should “have sympathy” toward her for everything she has been through.

      Why Women?

      England’s Court of Appeal, in turn, unanimously agreed that Begum should be granted the right to have a fair and effective appeal of the decision to strip her of her citizenship, but only if she is permitted to come back to Britain. Of course, that does not guarantee the reinstatement of her citizenship rights, just that she has a right to present her case in person. Regardless of the legal wrangling and the debate about the legality that her case has sparked, this example sheds some light on the issue of contextualizing female IS supporters and terrorists and the legality of stripping Western-born suspects of their European or North American citizenship.

      There has been some academic discussion of why women, especially young women, who were born, raised and educated in the West, migrate to IS-held territory and join terrorist groups, leaving behind family, friends and a way of life while abandoning liberal values and opportunities that countries such as the UK offer them. It is difficult to ascertain whether a particular female, such as Shamima Begum, was a victim of IS, an active supporter or both. The widely circulated stories of “jihadi brides” have projected an image of confused and naïve girls and women traveling to join the Islamic State. While certain dynamics lured a number of females to IS-held territories, many went of their own free will. Yet it is highly debatable to what extent a 15-year-old understands the realities of this extremist group.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Muslim women have migrated to IS-held areas for a multitude of reasons, including the romantic ideal of marrying a “lion” — a supposedly brave and noble warrior — looking for an adventure and contributing to the establishment of an Islamic “caliphate” regulated by strict enforcement of Sharia law. The sense that joining the Islamic State empowers people to live meaningful lives draws many of the migrant women. One study suggests that besides issues of belonging and identity — and a skewed interpretation of Islam — it is, in the case of young women like Begum, online social networks that appeared to be the primary venue and driving factor for radicalization. It turns out that the vast majority of foreign women who traveled to Syria and Iraq served IS primarily as one of several housewives or sex slaves.

      It is only by understanding the motivations and experiences of those who have gone to fight abroad that governments can prevent the recruitment of another generation of terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. The enemies of the Islamic State have ostensibly defeated the group in the Middle East, yet unknown numbers of surviving IS fighters have found the means to relocate to Afghanistan. Permutations of IS and other extremist groups are also active in many African countries like Burkina Faso, Chad, Nigeria and  Somalia, among others. Aside from Afghanistan, other places in South Asia are not immune.

      Displaced Burden

      The UK, US and some other countries have chosen to prevent the return of foreign fighters by revoking their citizenship. Although such actions may prevent the return of foreign fighters in the short term, they do not solve the problem and may also be illegal under both national and international laws. In several instances, this will simply displace the burden and force weakened states such as Syria and Iraq to deal with the consequences of radicalization. It may also instill further grievances and act as a trigger for radicalization into surviving Western-born radicals who may plot terrorist attacks against Western targets.

      In certain cases, citizenship revocation has led to concerns over statelessness. Rendering an individual stateless runs against Western legal principles and is contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In several legal systems, there is a lack of sufficient evidence to prosecute female returnees because of their domestic roles in Syria and Iraq. Another challenge associated with prosecutions of foreign fighters lies with demonstrating intent. This applies both to the intent of the actions committed while in the war zone and the intent of travel for aspiring foreign fighters. There is also an argument that many such individuals, especially the juveniles, were victims of human trafficking.

      A more fruitful approach would be to allow a panel of experts to determine whether an individual returning to the home country is dangerous or disillusioned. The prime example of this approach is Denmark, which has already implemented assessment protocols that allow authorities to determine the individual circumstances for each returnee. Based on the results of such screenings, Danish police, together with social services, develop a plan of action for each returnee. Together, they decide whether a returnee is imprisoned, placed in a rehabilitation program or is assigned a combination of both approaches. It is extremely difficult to separate a victim from a perpetrator, and the boundaries can be particularly murky for foreign fighters.

      *[Gulf State Analytics is a partner organization of Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Iraq Has a Unique Opportunity to Limit Iranian Influence

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      The appointment of the new Iraqi prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, could have significant implications for the country’s relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has heavily meddled in Iraq’s affairs post-2003. Kadhimi was serving as the director of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service when President Barham Salih appointed him to the post of prime […] More

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      Can US Special Operations Command Be Held Accountable?

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      Last October, a group of eight Apache attack and CH-47 Chinook helicopters carrying US commandos roared out of an airfield in Iraq. They raced through Turkish airspace and across the Syrian border, coming in low as they approached a village just north of Idlib province where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, his bodyguards and some of […] More