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01/11/2006 | Europe: The Taliban's Broadening Scope

Stratfor Staff

In an interview conducted on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and aired on the United Kingdom's Sky News on Oct. 23, a shadowy Taliban commander directly threatened Europe with militant attacks for its role in supporting the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan. Though Taliban probably are not able to pull off such an attack outside of South Asia, the threat is serious and shows that the Taliban are thinking on a new level.

 

During an interview with a British journalist aired Oct. 23, Taliban commander Mullah Mohammed Amin said the Taliban are prepared to continue their fight against foreign forces in Afghanistan and are planning to attack civilians in Europe in retaliation for their counties' participation in the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan. Whether it is a legitimate threat or a boast fueled by a recent Taliban resurgence, Amin's remarks are the first indication that the Taliban are changing their thinking from a national to a transnational level. The Taliban have not operated internationally before.

Amin, a previously unheard of Taliban commander, claimed to have worked in the Taliban's Ministry of Defense before the October 2001 invasion. His remarks seemed to support a statement from the Taliban's reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, that was posted on a jihadist Web site to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr. Omar's address, initially written in Pashtun and posted in Arabic with parts translated into English, called for the Taliban to intensify their operations against NATO forces in Afghanistan, and it congratulated the insurgents in Iraq for their resistance to the U.S.-led coalition in that country. Omar also tried to convince the NATO countries to withdraw from Afghanistan by claiming they are losing their soldiers in Afghanistan for U.S. interests rather than their own.

Amin's more direct threats against European civilians served the same purpose -- to erode support in member countries for the NATO mission in Afghanistan. There is a precedent for such a strategy: The March 2004 commuter train bombings in Madrid, Spain, by an al Qaeda-linked cell influenced the Spanish political process and eventually led Spain to withdraw its troops from Iraq.

Confidence stemming from recent battlefield successes in Afghanistan could have contributed to the Taliban's change in thinking. Amin's threats come as the resurgent Taliban frequently are engaging NATO forces in southern Afghanistan in intense combat, including guerrilla attacks and suicide bombings. As fighting between the Taliban and NATO forces increases, the perception grows on both sides of the Atlantic that the United States and its allies are having difficulty with their military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. These two factors helped to change the Taliban's earlier calculation that the benefits of striking in NATO member states at home would be far less than the costs.

NATO

However, with British, Dutch, German and French troops participating in combat operations and taking on more adversarial roles, the Taliban and al Qaeda are more likely to consider those countries as targets. Amin said that, because these troops are fighting in Afghanistan, "It's acceptable to kill ordinary people in Europe because these are the people who have voted in the government." Amin also said, "The ordinary people of these countries are behind this -- so we will not spare them. We will kill them and laugh over them like they are killing us and laughing at us."

Regardless of Amin's reasoning, the Taliban are not very likely to be able to stage attacks outside Afghanistan by themselves. This is largely because their fighters lack the sophistication and technical means to operate in a Western urban environment. They even have difficulty operating in an Afghan urban environment such as Kabul or Kandahar. Therefore, Taliban attacks in Europe would have to be outsourced to other jihadist actors, probably al Qaeda-linked cells or cells of sympathizers recruited from Europe's Muslim communities -- such as North African immigrants in Spain, Italy, France and the Low Countries, or Pakistani immigrants in the United Kingdom. The Taliban, with money from poppy cultivation in Afghanistan and contributions from al Qaeda, would be capable of financing such operations and providing their operatives with sophisticated components for improvised explosive devices.

Europe's vulnerability to militant attacks is no secret among its intelligence and security communities. If there is another attack on the scale of those in Madrid, or the London underground bombings, it could very well be claimed on behalf of the Taliban -- even if Taliban members did not actually conduct the operation.

Stratfor (Estados Unidos)

 



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