PESHAWAR, Pakistan, July 18, 2008
Foreign Jihadis Flock To Afghanistan
Fighters From Wider Muslim World Flood In, Boosting Taliban's Deadliness
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Face covered Taliban militants hold their weapons at an undisclosed location in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, July 12, 2008. (AP Photo/Rahmatullah Naikzad)
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Play CBS Video Video More Troops For Afghanistan? The Pentagon is set to send reinforcement troops to Afghanistan after insurgent violence killed nine U.S. troops near the country's remote border with Pakistan. David Martin reports.
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Video Taliban Kills U.S. Troops Nine U.S. soldiers were killed in a Taliban attack with the distinct markings of al Qaeda. Lara Logan reports on the group's growing stronghold in Afghanistan's remote, mountain regions.
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Video Candidates On Afghanistan Barack Obama wants the U.S. military to refocus on the conflict in Afghanistan by sending more troops there from Iraq. John McCain says Obama's plan will jeopardize progress. Dean Reynolds reports.
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Fast Facts Afghanistan Learn about the people, economy and history.
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Interactive Crosshairs: Taliban America's fight against terrorism in Afghanistan.
More foreigners are infiltrating Afghanistan because of a recruitment drive by al Qaeda as well as a burgeoning insurgency that has made movement easier across the border from Pakistan, U.S. officials, militants and experts say.
For the past two months, Afghanistan has overtaken Iraq in deaths of U.S. and allied troops, and nine American soldiers were killed at a remote base in Kunar province Sunday in the deadliest attack in years.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned during a visit to Kabul this month about an increase in foreign fighters crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan, where a new government is trying to negotiate with militants.
A former high-ranking member of the pre-2001-invasion Taliban government, who spoke to CBS News' Sami Yousafzai on condition of anonymity on Monday, said the Taliban was benefiting hugely from a massive influx of foreign fighters.
The former minister, who presently lives in Pakistan, told Yousafzai that the attack on the U.S. troops in Kunar province was made possible by the new techniques and skills brought to the country by outsiders, and he admitted that Afghan Taliban were not previously capable of carrying out such daring attacks.
He called it a "well planed attack, and the start of a new resistance in direct combat with the invaders."
The former Taliban official told CBS News the number of foreigners - who he described as primarily Arab or Pakistani - coming to wage jihad in Afghanistan had increased three-fold since 2007. "As much as the so called war on terror in Afghanistan expands, numbers of the foreigner volunteers get more and more."
Two U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, told The Associated Press that the U.S. is closely monitoring the flow of foreign fighters into both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Jihadist Web sites from Chechnya to Turkey to the Arab world featured recruitment ads as early as 2007 calling on the "Lions of Islam" to fight in Afghanistan, said Brian Glyn Williams, associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Massachusetts. Williams has tracked the movement of jihadis for the U.S. military's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.
Local Afghans in the border regions are increasingly concerned about the return of the "Araban" or "Ikhwanis," as Arab fighters are known in the Pashtun language, Williams wrote in a CTC paper. He said there were rumors of hardened Arab fighters from Iraq training Afghan Pashtuns in the previously taboo tactic of suicide bombing.
The ex-Taliban minister told Yousafzai that, while the benefits of foreign fighters' advanced training and techniques were clear to the militant group, he also believes Arab and Pakistani extremists' presence in Afghanistan presents potential trouble for the invaders, and the local militants.
He said that in the past foreigner fighters have not shown "respect for local values." Afghanistan's Taliban commanders have been at odds in the past with the group's Pakistani factions and al Qaeda over tactics that result in high civilian casualties, particularly suicide bombings.
In related developments:
Al Qaeda's recruitment drive stems from a slow and steady resurgence that started in 2002, according to Taliban sources.
"They are awake," said Qari Mohammed Yusuf, who Afghan authorities confirm is a senior Taliban. "They have people going by different names to other countries. They are coming and going easily. In the last year, they have been organizing more day by day."
Al Qaeda has financed the Taliban in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, Yusuf told the AP. In the chaos created by the Taliban groups, al Qaeda has been able to steadily recruit, re-establish its public relations wing, plot new attacks and re-establish areas of operation on both sides of the border.
Some new recruits cross into Afghanistan's northern Balkh province or through Iran into Herat province in western Afghanistan, said Nangyal Khosti, a commander loyal to Jalaluddin Haqqani, a wanted terrorist. Those from Iran have often trained in Iraq and are hardened insurgents. The recruits, Yusuf said, head to Afghanistan's Paktika province, where there are roughly 150 Arab militants.
In Pakistan, al Qaeda recruits are sent to Waziristan and the lawless regions of the northwest along Afghanistan's eastern border, Yusuf said.
Afghan and Western officials say a key route for al Qaeda recruits is from Central Asia into northeastern Kunar and Nuristan provinces, where former U.S. intelligence officials suspect Osama bin Laden is hiding. Both provinces border Pakistan's Bajaur tribal area, where the Taliban hold sway and where the U.S. has targeted al Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri.
The hulking mountains of Kunar and Nuristan soar thousands of feet and are heavily forested, giving militants good cover. Kunar was the location of the war's two deadliest attacks on U.S. soldiers - on Sunday, with the killing of the nine Americans, and in June 2005, when militants shot down a helicopter and killed 16 soldiers.
Kunar and Nuristan are also the only areas in South Asia where the Wahhabi or Salafi strain of Islam dominates. Wahhabism is the main sect in Saudi Arabia and is followed by al Qaeda, while Afghanistan's Islamic traditions are more Sufi and mystical in nature.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Add a Comment See all 254 Comments
- There are no benefits for Americans in Afghanistan. Your tax dollars and cumulative borrowed debt to finance these operations only benefit the corporations who purchased the oil& gas rights in the Caspian Sea Basin, for the construction of the Caspian Sea Pipelines........nothing more nothing less.
And the extermination continues:...........
February 12, 1998 John J. Maresca vp of UNOCAL oil appeared before a House sub committee. The purpose of the meeting was to gain support for exploitation of oil & natural gas resources, for the rights purchased by BIG OIL in the Caspian Sea area.
In his testimony he stated, "The key question is how the energy resources of Central Asia can be made available to nearby Asian markets ".
The exploitation option stated : "One obvious route south would cross Iran, but this is foreclosed by American companies because of U.S. sanctions (with Iran ) . The only other possible route is across Afghanistan, which of course has it''s own unique challenges. " He continued saying, " the pipeline we have proposed across Afghanistan could not begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments,lenders (world monitary fund & world bank ) ,and our company "......"
UNOCAL and other American companies are prepared to undertake the job ". - Reply to this comment
- Posted by noprejudice at 01:59 PM : Jul 20, 2008
You never read what I said, did you? have it your way - Reply to this comment
- The radicals do not have to get to the States to attack their targets ,& get a surgical strike-only military & mercenaries to attack in Afghanistan.I am not so sure this is a good thing for the States.
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- How`s the "fly swatting" going there, Mr. Bush? Tired yet?
Regards,
Posted by Nancy_Naive at 08:40 AM : Jul 20, 2008
+ report abuse
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well this overwhelming liberal support..these same people who be "flocking" in your neighborhood..
do you think they would lend you a open ear... - Reply to this comment
- You are 100% right, I am not in yur league at all.
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Posted by ToolMangler at 10:17 PM : Jul 18, 2008
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no Missionary Man, you and your judgmental, exclusive, Christian, I-do-no-wrong-but-I-will-point-out-your-transgressions b.s., no way are you in my league! I look to see how I can help someone, NOT LIKE YOU, who views folks by how they''ve done wrong by your distorted ideals! - Reply to this comment
- Bin Laden guarantees the slaughter of Taliban and American Soldiers. This sacrifice empowers Osama as supreme leader of the regional economic system (poppies). The Saudis ordered the elimination of rank and file Arabs for an elite society of opium producers. Taliban should not obey a delusional lunatic.
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- Osama bin Laden was the man behind the 9/11 attacks, he''s the one Bush said we''d get him "Dead or Alive" almost 7 years ago.
Where is he?
Are we close, yet?
Has "bin Laden" become "been forgotten?" Did Iraq distract us from the fight against our attackers? - Reply to this comment
- ubrew12 - I hear nothing but crickets....
Did you even get a dime out of the time you''ve heard once and for all ? - Reply to this comment
- Nancy_Naive - weren''t you one of the far left in denial of the Al Qaeda in Iraq. Guess what!?!
They are losing big time there, so they are having to go back to Afghanistan.
So did it matter that we were in both places ?
NO, except now we have a country which is MUCH more friendly than if we hadn''t gone in.
You seem determined to show that we are going to fail in Afghanistan. Just as you were in Iraq.
What''s the matter - give up on trying to make it sound like the surge won''t work ?
Far left freak of nature. - Reply to this comment
- "patriot75 said: "We are going to kill them all once and for all! " If I had a nickel for every time I heard that... - Posted by ubrew12
So tell us just 50 cents worth about important people that have said this ubrew12, or do you just listen to casual talkers ?
""Foreign Jihadis Flock To Afghanistan"
Guess they wore out their welcome in Iraq. -Posted by ubrew12
EXACTLY!!!!! Now here''s a democrat that gets it!!!
How long ago was it that your ilk was denying that Al Qaeda was in Iraq ? Guess who makes up the grunts in Al Qaeda! Any freakin muslim that wants to Jihad.
DUH - HEl-lllooooooooooow Democrats!!!!!!
It doesn''t matter WHERE they are, they are still terrorist supporters!
Man, I can''t believe how dense the far left is! - Reply to this comment
- Let them all flock to Afghanistan then make a damned parking lot of the whole stinking place!
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- We need to kill everything breathing O2 in a 1000 mi. radius. Let them flock back again and repeat step 1.
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- Posted by noprejudice at 08:41 PM : Jul 18, 2008
You are 100% right, I am not in yur league at all. - Reply to this comment
- Probably won''t kill them once and for all, but it will be a more target-rich environment.
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- patriot75 said: "We are going to kill them all once and for all! " If I had a nickel for every time I heard that...
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- Nancy_Naive said: "Darius, Alexander, Ghengis Khan, Timur, Atilla, Queen Victoria, Tsar Nicholas, and Brezhnev. All came, none stayed and the loss crippled their empires. And now, Bush? Afghanistan -- the "roach motel" of empires."
While my guitar gently weeps... - Reply to this comment
- toolmangler is mangled!!!!
- Reply to this comment
- "Foreign Jihadis Flock To Afghanistan"
Guess they wore out their welcome in Iraq. - Reply to this comment
- Right there is your problem, when you were a catholic you were wandering around in a daze.
*****What??? fool. you know nothing of what i did as a catholic.
Why did you seek GOD in a business, Catholicism is a business in case you didn''''t know. Organized religion is a business (this includes Islam, Buhddisim, Hinduism and a multitude of other ''''isims''''). You talk as if you have all the answers but you seem to have missed that one.
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again, what???? you are nuts.
I am not going to show you GOD or anything like that, all I will do is tell you that you were looking in the wrong place to find GOD.
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sigh. just like a christian. i''m not looking for anything. didn''t insinuate this, didn''t suggest this. what is wrong with you? oh right! the christians ALWAYS have the answers!!!
This is not a ''''judgement'''', this is plain old knowledge from experience.
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another religious blunder! clearly you entered the conversation by simply reading one posting. you reference my ''judgment'', but you missed the context. you are not intelligent. do not address me. - Reply to this comment
- AQ alienated the population in Iraq with indiscriminate bombings and beheadings. And, they got their butts whipped by the US troops.
So, the AQ wannabees go to "Pakistan" to fight in Afghanistan. One more time to demolish the jihadists and then we are done.
We should be done but the NATO takeover of the fight in Afghanistan was an error. NATO is not ready for this size of responsibility and many EU countries will not allow their troops to actually fight meaning the fight is being waged without enough troops. - Reply to this comment
