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After Kosovo, will Afghanistan be next?

Releasing the annual report on patterns of global terrorism just four months ago, Secretary of State, Colin Powell ended his statement with the remarks 'Terrorism is a persistent disease and so the fight goes on. Just as we acknowledge success today, we know that there will be new challenges and yes, some setbacks tomorrow…'

For the world's only superpower, that setback and tomorrow came this week on Black Tuesday. The war against terrorism has finally been joined, rather belatedly and somewhat typically of the US, after another Pearl Harbor. If the death toll reaches 20,000 as is estimated, it might become history's biggest conventional kill on a single day.

Addressing a conference in Delhi last year on Islamic fundamentalism, former CNN correspondent and specialist on Islamic terrorism Stephen Emerson noted that the US recognises terrorism only when it is carried out against the US, its citizens and national interests. He added that Western liberal democracies do not see the danger in realtime and unless they recognise the threat, the disease will spread. It is for that reason that Islamic fundamentalism has developed into terrorism and graduated into jehad.

It is believed the UK is the biggest centre of Islamic militant leaders followed by the US, Italy, France and Germany. India has gone hoarse telling the US about the new epicentre of terrorism having shifted from West Asia to Afghanistan and Pakistan but Washington has not taken Delhi seriously till the Manhattan skyline was brutally obliterated.

Osama bin Laden regarded as the patron saint of international terrorism is the creation of the CIA. After his Hiroshima on America, are his days numbered? He is already 'wanted' in the US for his role in the East African embassy bombings. Powell cited UN sanctions against the Taleban for allowing terrorist camps to operate on Afghanistan territory and for harbouring Laden.

Last year there were reports from the UK-based Jane's Information Group that a joint US-Russian operation was likely to hunt down bin Laden. That did not happen. Earlier attempts to take out bin Laden failed as he has at least a dozen hideouts in the Hindu Kush mountains. The only practical route to nabbing bin Laden alive, not dead, is by the employment of US Special Forces with the help of Russia and any of the Central Asian Republics bordering Afghanistan like Tajikistan or Uzbekistan.

Pakistan, America's traditional friend and ally, would have been ideal in tracking down bin Laden who is the personal guest of Mullah Omar, the supreme leader of the Taleban. But Islamabad will be reluctant to cooperate owing to any possible backlash from its own jehadis. Pakistan is the only country which has an embassy in Afghanistan and is the creator of the Taleban. Most of its funding and operational planning is done by the Pakistan military and the ISI.

However, Pakistan is under great pressure after the attacks on America. Pervez Musharraf is finally on test to prove his country's bonafides on terrorism. He has said it will provide unstinted support to the US in rooting out terrorism. Pakistan a known champion of jehad will have to do a tightrope act, meeting US demands compatible with domestic sentiments. It seems Musharraf has decided to act in the national interest even if it means going against the Taleban and indigenous fundamentalist groups inside Pakistan. He knows the US knows the limits to which he can act without putting his own job at risk.

If Pakistan is unable to provide total support against any future operations against Afghanistan, the choice for logistics and operational support may well fall on Russia whose agents and operators are very familiar with the terrain and local guides. India had pledged its full support to the US but will be limited by its lack of contiguity with Afghanistan.

The excitement of a surgical operation a la Sylvester Stallone, to abduct bin Laden, would be avoided if the Taleban simply decide to hand him over or he pops a cyanide capsule like Prabhakaran's Tigers, which would be a terrible anticlimax. On the other hand, bin Laden has an extensive web of operational and support networks, ranging from his own al-Quaida to Islamic Jehad to Hezbollah to other groups outside Afghanistan to do the vanishing trick as he is reported to have done.

Bin Laden has given up the use of satellite phones for networking his cadres and supporters. Instead, they use the Internet to bury messages in pornography, music and even blank verse, the modern day Enigma for secure communications. Bin Laden has a personal fortune worth $ 250 million and runs a business empire estimated around a billion dollars.

No one in the US administration has named bin Laden directly as one behind the attacks. President Bush has described the attacks as the first war of the 21st century. In fact, the US is itself to blame for the laxity on monitoring terrorism on its soil and for the laws of the land that encourage terrorism.

Preaching violence is not a violation of law till it leads to actual acts of violence. The car bomb attacks against the World Trade Center in 1993 involved five different Islamic militant groups. Islamic movements thrive in the US and are liberally funded by Saudi Arabia. In the past, at least after 1995, when Islamists gained legitimacy in the US, even the president and White House are known to have engaged different Islamic groups. Emerson said there were reports that American Muslims contributed up to $ 50,000 for Hillary Clinton's election campaign last year. There are at least 10,000 known Hamas supporters in Chicago while several hundred backers of the Kashmir Front are gaining strength.

What the US has lacked so far is the political will to act decisively against the very roots of terrorism. They have decided to do so now after being grievously wounded and humiliated by the likes of bin Laden.

US leaders have declared that their response to the kamikaze attacks will not be unifocal but multidimensional: political, diplomatic and military. It will not be a single counter-attack but a comprehensive and considered riposte at the heart of the evil. Already forged is the unique solidarity among NATO members. Secretary General George Robertson has said that Article 5 of the NATO Charter and the Washington Treaty have been invoked for the first time among the 19 member states to join the fight against terrorism.

This is a blessing in disguise for the world's most powerful military coalition that has been searching for an enemy ever since the dissolution of the USSR. This new enemy will be as elusive as the one NATO has been chasing for the last decade and more. After Kosovo, will Afghanistan be next?

The war against terrorism is going global. Critical to its success are a military strategy for counter-terrorism, choking of financial pipelines (funds for suicide bombers) and controlling zakat (donations). The media will also have to chip in as a force multiplier. The most decisive weapon against terrorism is intelligence -- human intelligence. Without it money flow can neither be monitored nor terrorism tracked to its source.

The US has to first set its own house in order before attempting to do so elsewhere. US federal laws need to be tightened to roll back legitimacy of militant groups.

India, which faces both an internal and external threat from Islam, is the world's number one victim of Islamic terrorism. It may finally have found a strategic partner in the US against this evil, either by an accident of history or an act of Allah as bin Laden has called it. Pakistan has waged a proxy war against India which is pure and abysmal terrorism which it has the effrontery to call jehad, that the US has condoned so far and shied from calling it terrorism. Instead it is referred as cross-border violence. Hopefully that will change now. A spade will be called a spade.

Pakistan's day of reckoning has arrived. It has to draw a new Durand Line against further Talebanisation. The emerging coalition against terrorism has to address and attack the very concept of religious fundamentalism and jehad. It is also high time the world community came on grid implementing the various UN conventions against trafficking and financing of terrorism.

Major General Ashok K Mehta (retd)