Afghanistan Weekly War Update: Capitalizing on the

Killing of Bin Laden

May 10, 2011 | 1208 GMT

Bin Laden’s Death and the Afghan War

Our weekly update of the war in Afghanistan usually examines several of the prior week’s
notable developments, but this edition is different. Given the singular significance of the
death of Osama bin Laden May 2 at the hands of U.S. Navy SEALs in Pakistan —
reportedly without the prior knowledge of the Pakistani government — we believe it is
important this week to turn our focus to his death and the effects it will have on NATO’s
fight against the Taliban.

A great deal of analysis has centered on the implications of bin Laden’s death for
American-Pakistani relations, which had already reached a point of unprecedented tension.
The emphasis on Pakistan is understandable. Islamabad is critical to the U.S. strategy of
creating conditions in Afghanistan conducive to a Western military withdrawal. But the
wider question — the ramifications of bin Laden’s death on the war in Afghanistan —
remains largely unaddressed.

A recent statement by Gen. David Petraeus, the outgoing U.S. commander in Afghanistan
who will soon become the new CIA chief, offers insight into that broader issue. In a May 8
interview with The Associated Press, Gen. Petraeus said al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban
were bound not by an organizational relationship, but a personal one between Osama bin
Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar. The General expressed hope that bin Laden’s death
could weaken al Qaeda’s influence over the Afghan Taliban.
The nature of the relationship between the global jihadist network and the Afghan jihadist
movement notwithstanding, Petraeus’ remarks underscore the United States’ need to
capitalize on the bin Laden killing and finally begin to wind down one of the longest wars
in U.S. history. Certainly, bin Laden’s death has provided momentum to the Obama
administration’s pursuit of this goal, but the process will continue to be slow and
painstaking.

For starters, senior U.S. officials acknowledge that al Qaeda’s role in the Afghan
insurgency has been negligible. Leon Panetta, the outgoing head of the CIA and soon-to-be
defense secretary, said a few weeks ago that there are anywhere between 50 and 100 al
Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. The Afghan Taliban were a force before al Qaeda settled
in Afghanistan, and will remain powerful long after al Qaeda has been neutralized.

Beyond bin Laden’s death, in the last few weeks we have witnessed the launch of the
Taliban’s spring offensive, which has included a number of fairly spectacular attacks. The
most recent was the Mumbai-style multi-target guerrilla assault on May 7 against various
government facilities in Kandahar, an attack that lasted 36 hours. A May 9 statement from
the U.S. Embassy in Kabul warned of the threat of Taliban attacks in Helmand province,
saying that some American personnel in Marjah (the town taken from the Taliban more
than a year ago when the U.S. surge began) had been restricted to their compounds.
Helmand and Kandahar were meant to be the focal point for the surge of some 30,000
additional American troops into Afghanistan. It appears that the Taliban have largely
withstood the surge in those two provinces.

As things stand, the United States seems unable to undermine the Taliban’s momentum,
which was the goal of the surge. The battlefield situation brings us back to one essential
point about the Afghan war: ultimately, there will be no military solution. A negotiated
settlement must be reached before the fighting can end. At a bare minimum, such an
arrangement will require talking with the Taliban, but no one seems quite sure who among
the insurgents to address.

Petraeus’ remarks linking Mullah Omar personally with bin Laden, as well as previous U.S.
statements about the Taliban chief, suggest that Washington is not prepared to negotiate
with the founder of the Afghan jihadist movement. The problem is that Mullah Omar has
no equals within the movement. As long as he is alive, there can be no meaningful talks
with anyone else. The United States might like to eliminate Mullah Omar as it did bin
Laden, but it realizes this task would be more difficult to accomplish and the destabilizing
effects on Pakistan could be more pronounced.

Unlike bin Laden, Mullah Omar is not at war with Islamabad and is likely to have far better
sanctuary in Pakistan, making it considerably more difficult for the United States to
pinpoint his location. Assuming Washington is able to track him down deep inside
Pakistan, another unilateral American strike like the one on May 2 could further damage
Washington’s relations with Islamabad. Pakistan is still very much a key player in this
drama. The United States will need Pakistan to manage the situation on both sides of the
Afghan-Pakistani border after conventional U.S. and NATO forces leave the war zone.

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