Afghanistan

• Case study in changing geopolitics

• Monarchy until 1973 (Zahir Shah)
– On top of ethnic and tribal structure
• 1973-1978: Republic led by Muhammad Daud
Khan
• 1978: Communist coup--People’s Democratic
Party
– Significant reforms (replace tribal structure, land
reform, reduced power of Islamic clerics)
– Instability (tribal, business, and Islamic resistance)
– Possibility of government’s fall
 Soviet Occupation
• December 1979, 85,000 Soviet troops invade
Afghanistan
• Install communist regime
• Disparate resistance groups
– Islamic groups, tribal groups, business groups
• Mujihadeen—Islamic resistance
• Brutal, long struggle until 1989
– Soviets withdraw from Afghanistan beginning in 1988
 Proxy War
• During Soviet occupation (1979-1989)
• CIA joins Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to give
significant aid to Islamic resistance
– Largest covert aid program since Vietnam War
– 1980-1987 as much as $15 billion
– Weapons (stinger missiles), supplies, training
– Orchestrated out of Pakistan by ISI—Pakistan’s
security agency
• Why Islamic resistance?
– Evidence of commitment of Islamic fighters
– Incite Islamic unrest in Soviet Union
– Iran counterbalance
• Sunni groups vs. Iran’s Shi’i Islam
 Anatomy of Mujihadeen
• Several components:
• Afghani Islamic groups in Afghanistan
• Islamists recruited mostly from Arab countries
(Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc.)—the Afghanis
• Taliban (students) and similar groups
– Afghani refugees in camps in Western Pakistan (mostly
Pashtun)
– Saudi aid and expertise—2500 madrassas
• Wahhabi Islam
– CIA financial aid
– Overseen by ISI, Pakistan’s security organization
• Looking to create an ally in the west
 Post-1988 Afghanistan
• Soviet withdrawal in 1988-9
• Fall of Soviet Union, 1991
• U.S. withdraws much funding and interest in Afghanistan
– No longer of cold war importance
• Afghanistan’s Communist government falls in 1992
• Mujihadeen and ethnic groups struggle to take power
• Rise of Taliban from 1994 with extensive ISI backing
– 1996 capture Kabul
– Control ~90% of Afghanistan until recently
– Recognized as legitimate only by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia
 bin Laden’s role
• During Soviet occupation (1979-1989): leader of
Harakat ul-Ansar (volunteers movement)
– Recruited non-Afghanis (mainly Arabs) to fight the
Soviets in Afghanistan
– Funding: his own fortune, CIA, ISI
– CIA expertise, training through ISI
– Engaged in guerrilla warfare, terrorism against Soviets
with support of U.S., Pakistan, Saudi Arabia
– Notion that Islamic resistance defeated the Soviet Union
and brought about its collapse
 More bin Laden
• Soviets defeated; next threat to Islam: U.S.
• Bin Laden returns to Saudi Arabia
– Has established new organization: al-Qa’ida (the base)
– Many other Afghanis return to their home countries
• bin Laden critical of
– U.S. air strikes and sanctions against Iraq
– U.S. support of Israel
– U.S. backing of pro-western autocrats in Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, Algeria
– Saudi government allowing U.S. troops on the Arabian
peninsula
 U.S. troops in peninsula

• Some 5,000 troops and equipment in Saudi

Arabia
– 4,000 in Kuwait, 1,300 in Bahrain, 50 in Qatar
• To enforce no fly-zone in Iraq
• To protect against a coup in Saudi Arabia
 bin Laden moves
• His strident protests against Saudi government
• Leaves for Sudan in 1991 (taking ~$250 million in assets)
• 1993 first WTC bombing
• Saudi government strips him of Saudi citizenship in 1994
– 1995 bomb at Saudi National Guard base in Riyadh
• 1996, Taliban gain control of Afghanistan
• 1996 U.S. and Saudi Arabia pressure Sudanese
government, he is expelled
• Returns to Afghanistan under protection of Taliban and
Mullah Omar (related by marriage)
– 1996 truck bomb near Dhahran air base (19 American soldiers
killed)
 Further attacks
• 1998 embassy bombings in Tanzania, Kenya (212 killed,
most Kenyan and Tanzanian)
– Clinton launches cruise missile attacks against bin Laden camps in
Afghanistan
• 2000, U.S.S. Cole bombing off Yemen (15 killed)
• 2001, WTC and Pentagon (thousands killed)
• U.S. begins war against Taliban regime and al-Qa’ida
• Returns its attention to Afghanistan as a strategic area
– Except, now fighting bitterly against its former proxies (mujihadeen)
– Russia and Putin now allies
• Further U.S. operations in Yemen, Sudan, Iraq?