Seth Jones - In the Graveyard of Empires - America's War in Afghanistan

64. Author interview with senior White House official, Washington, DC, November 28, 2007. Also see, for example, Karen DeYoung, “U.S. Notes Limited Progress in Afghan War,” Washington Post, November 25, 2007, p. A1.

65. Julian E. Barnes, “U.S. Military Says Iraq Is the Priority,” Los Angeles Times, December 12, 2007.

66. Author interviews with senior U.S. Marine Corps officials, Washington, DC, December 10, 2007.

67. Thom Shanker, “Gates Decides Against Marines’ Offer to Leave Iraq for Afghanistan,” New York Times, December 6, 2007, p. A16.

Chapter Thirteen

1. PBS Frontline, “The Return of the Taliban,” Written, produced, and reported by Martin Smith. Airdate: October 3, 2006.

2. See, for example, Murray Gell-Mann, The Quark and the Jaguar (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1994); John Holland, Hidden Order (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995); Kevin Dooley, “A Complex Adaptive Systems Model of Organization Change,” Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Science, vol. 1, no. 1, 1997, pp. 69–97.

3. Author interview with Commander Larry Legree, June 10, 2008.

4. Joby Warrick, “CIA Places Blame for Bhutto Assassination,” Washington Post, January 18, 2008, p. A1.

5. Author interview with U.S. intelligence officer, Bagram, Afghanistan, March 8, 2008.

6. On cooperation among insurgents, see Barnett R. Rubin, Afghanistan and the International Community: Implementing the Afghanistan Compact (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2006); “Afghan Taliban Say No Talks Held with U.S., No Differences with Hekmatyar,” Karachi Islam, February 24, 2005, pp. 1, 6; “Pajhwok News Describes Video of Afghan Beheading by ‘Masked Arabs,’ Taliban,” Pajhwok Afghan News, October 9, 2005; “Spokesman Says Taliban ‘Fully Organized,’ Daily Ausaf (Islamabad), June 23, 2005, pp. 1, 6; “UK Source in Afghanistan Says al Qa’ida Attacks Boost Fear of Taliban Resurgence,” The Guardian, June 20, 2005; “Taliban Military Chief Threatens to Kill U.S. Captives, Views Recent Attacks, Al-Qa’ida,” Interview with Al Jazeera TV, July 18, 2005.

7. David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (St. Petersburg, FL: Hailer Publishing, 2005), pp. 11–12, 78–79.

8. On terrorism and learning, see Brian A. Jackson, Aptitude for Destruction, Vol. 1: Organizational Learning in Terrorist Groups and Its Implications for Combating Terrorism (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2005); Jackson, Aptitude for Destruction, Vol. 2: Case Studies of Organizational Learning in Five Terrorist Groups (Santa Monica, CA: RAND: 2005).

9. United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, A Review of the Taliban and Fellow Travelers as a Movement: Concept Paper Updating PAG Joint Assessment of June 2006 (Kabul: United Nations, August 2007), p. 3.

10. United States Marine Corps, After Action Report on Operations in Afghanistan (Camp Lejeune, NC: United States Marine Corps, August 2004); Operation Enduring Freedom: Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, December 2003); United Nations Department of Safety and Security, Half-Year Review of the Security Situation in Afghanistan (Kabul: United Nations, August 2007).

11. Amnesty International, Amnesty International Contacts Taliban Spokesperson, Urges Release of Hostages (New York: Amnesty International, August 2, 2007).

12. See, for example, Action Memo from Steven Casteel (Senior Adviser to the Iraq Ministry of Interior) to L. Paul Bremer (Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority), Ransom Payments for Hostages, April 21, 2004. According to the memo, the Japanese government paid $750,000 per hostage for the release of three Japanese hostages captured on April 8, 2004, near Fallujah, and the French government paid $600,000 for the release of journalist Alexandre Jordanov.

13. Letter from L. Paul Bremer (Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority) to Foreign Embassies in Iraq, Ransom Payments for Hostages, April 21, 2004.

14. See, for example, Ian Fisher, “Italy Paid Ransom for Journalist, It Confirms,” International Herald Tribune, March 22, 2007, p. 1; Peter Kiefer, “Italian Leader Faces New Attack on Prisoner Swap After Reported Death of Journalist’s Aide,” New York Times, April 10, 2007, p. A12; Massoud Ansari, “Taliban Funds Blitz on British Troops with Hostage Cash,” The Sunday Telegraph (London), October 14, 2007; Saeed Ali Achakzai, “Korea Pays Taliban $24m for Hostages,” The Sunday Mail (Australia), September 2, 2007, p. 46.

15. “Taliban Military Chief Threatens to Kill U.S. Captives.”

16. Lester Grau, ed., The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan (Washington , DC: National Defense University Press, 1996); Grau, Artillery and Counterinsurgency: The Soviet Experience in Afghanistan (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Foreign Military Studies Office, 1997); U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Operation Enduring Freedom: Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, December 2003).

17. Statement of Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, Commander, Combined Forces Command—Afghanistan, Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Washington, DC, June 28, 2006; Memorandum from General Barry R. McCaffrey (ret.) to Colonel Mike Meese and Colonel Cindy Jebb, United States Military Academy, “Trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan,” June 2006, p. 4; Operation Enduring Freedom: Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures; Opposing Militant Forces: Elections Scenario (Kabul: ISAF, 2005).

18. “The Rule of Allah,” Video by Al Qa’ida in Afghanistan, produced in 2006; “Taliban Execute Afghan Woman on Charges of Spying for U.S. Military,” Afghan Islamic Press, August 10, 2005; “Afghan Taliban Report Execution of Two People on Charges of Spying for U.S.,” Afghan Islamic Press, July 12, 2005.

19. Taliban Says Responsible for Pro-Karzai Cleric’s Killing, Warns Others,” The News (Islamabad), May 30, 2005; “Taliban Claim Responsibility for Killing Afghan Cleric,” Kabul Tolo Television, May 29, 2005. Also see the killings of other clerics, such as Mawlawi Muhammad Khan, Mawlawi Muhammad Gol, and Mawlawi Nur Ahmad in “Pro-Karzai’ Cleric Killed by Bomb in Mosque in Khost Province,” Pajhwok Afghan News, October 14, 2005; “Karzai Condemns Murder of Clerics,” Pajhwok Afghan News, October 18, 2005. Also see Antonio Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan (London: Hurst & Company, 2007), p. 46.

20. “Taliban Threatens Teachers, Students in Southern Afghan Province,” Pajhwok Afghan News, January 3, 2006. Also see “Gunmen Set Fire to Schools in Ghazni, Kandahar Provinces,” Pajhwok Afghan News, December 24, 2005.

21. Afghan Islamic Press interview with Mofti Latifollah Hakimi, August 30, 2005.

22. Olivier Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000); William Maley, ed., Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban (New York: New York University Press, 2001).

23. Commander British Forces, Counterinsurgency in Helmand: Task Force Operational Design, January 2008.

24. Estimates of insurgents are notoriously difficult for two reasons. First, it is difficult to count the number of insurgents, since they hide in urban and rural areas to evade foreign and domestic intelligence and security forces. Second, the number of insurgents is often fluid. Some are full-time fighters but many are not. In addition, there is a significant logistics, financial, and political support network for insurgent groups, making it virtually impossible to reliably estimate the total number of guerrillas and their support base. These reasons make it more difficult to estimate the number of insurgents than to estimate the size of state military forces. On the Taliban numbers, the author interviewed U.S., European, and Afghan officials on numerous occasions throughout 2004, 2005, and 2006.