A LACK OF INTELLIGENCE
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION SURFACED ON THURSDAY about the familial background of the Jordanian suicide bomberwho detonated himself Dec. 30 at
Forward Operating Base Chapman in eastern Afghanistan. The bomb killed seven CIA
officials, making it the deadliest attack against the U.S. foreign intelligence service in over a quarter of a century. Meanwhile, two
additional attacks struck the same region. One targeted the acting governor of Khost province, who escaped with minor
injuries. The second involved a suicide bomber who targeted a convoy of security vehicles in the capital of Paktia province, killing eight people including the
commander of an Afghan security force.
These latest attacks represent a recent spike in Taliban activity along the Pakistani border in eastern Afghanistan. At the heart of the Afghan Taliban's
ability to expand the geography, frequency and intensity of their attacks is their intelligence capabilities. After the fall of their regime in late 2001,
Taliban activity was pushed back into their home turf in southern Afghanistan. For the longest time, eastern Afghanistan didn't see as much activity as was
taking place in the south.
Now, however, the provinces running north to south along the Pakistani border -- Nuristan, Kunar, Nangarhar, Logar, Paktia, Khost, and Paktika –- together
constitute the single largest regional Taliban command in Afghanistan. Its leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, has emerged as the most prominent Afghan Taliban
regional commander reporting (albeit nominally) to the Mullah Omar-led leadership. Haqqani's power projection capabilities have reached a point where
people in the area -- who just three years back weren't interested in the Taliban -- are now supporting the jihadists.
"The Taliban not only maintain an intelligence edge over U.S. and NATO forces, they continue to improve upon it."
This is one of the key reasons why the United States over the course of the last two years has escalated its unmanned aerial vehicle strikes across the border
into the Pakistani tribal belt where many of these Afghan Taliban and their local and transnational allies maintain safe havens. From the Afghan side of the
border, we have learned that the power of the Taliban has reached the point where delegations from district, provincial and even the central government come
to the Taliban and ask the jihadists not to attack them in exchange for material support and information, particularly about U.S.-NATO movements.
Herein lies the heart of the problem. The Taliban not only maintain an intelligence edge over U.S. and NATO forces, they continue to improve upon it.
In contrast, Washington and its NATO allies have only recently begun to seriously gather intelligence on the Taliban and their transnational allies.
Back in April 2008, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Gen. David Petraeus acknowledged that the United States lacked "rigorous, granular, nuanced"
intelligence on Afghanistan.
The killing of the seven agency officials shows that the problem is acute and has to do with developing the means of gathering the intelligence, let alone
obtaining it. The intelligence community is obviously taking steps to ensure thesecurity of those engaged in the intelligence gathering as well as improving the
process itself. The bigger challenge is being able to counter the Taliban's intelligence moves, not just in terms of the jihadists obtaining information
that allows them to enhance their operational capabilities, but also from the point of view of disrupting U.S.-NATO operations.
The need for intelligence is not simply limited to executing an effective counterinsurgency campaign that can undermine the Taliban momentum. This
intelligence problem also impacts another key aspect of President Obama's strategy, which is to be able to build up Afghan security forces over the course
of the next three years. Achieving this goal becomes a Herculean task if the Taliban has deep penetration into these services as well as the offices of their
political masters.
STRATFOR has mentioned in the past that the one actor that can potentially help the United States overcome its intelligence deficit on the Taliban is Pakistan.
But the significant variance between the strategic calculus of Islamabad and Washington for the region, and Pakistan's own loss of control over the
cross-border Taliban phenomenon has thus far prevented any meaningful ntelligence cooperation. But if both sides are going to be able to deal with
their respective Taliban problems, it will be the result of intelligence cooperation.
Copyright 2010 Stratfor.
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