I have been traveling and working on a research project in recent weeks, and I have had zero time to blog on the website. But I am taking some time today to post a few recent articles I have written, including this Oped in Britian’s New Statesman:
In Helmand, they protect opium shipments, extort money from poppy growers and operate heroin labs. In Kunar, they smuggle timber and guns. In the Swat valley, they control emerald mines, selling gemstones on the black market. On both sides of the Afghan/Pakistani border, they run a brisk kidnapping racket, snaring wealthy local businessmen, diplomats and journalists from around the globe.
When people in the west imagine the Taliban, most think of bearded fanatics, battling from caves under the flag of radical Islam. Having studied their day-to-day activities for more than five years, when I think of the Taliban I think of Tony Soprano and his gang.
Read the full article here.
On July 9, a blogger/intelligence consultant named Joshua Foust wrote a review of Seeds of Terror on the website Registan.
You can read it here.
I’ve emailed him a reply, which I hope he posts, and I am also putting it up here:
Hi Joshua,
I wanted to respond to your blog post on Seeds of Terror both to clarify some issues for accuracy and to further public debate on the important subject of Afghanistan’s drug trade. Having looked around your website, we disagree on some issues and agree on others, including the extent to which ordinary Afghan people are victimized by the opium trade. You have obviously spent time looking at this topic and I thought your concerns deserved a more lengthy response than I would give a casual critic. I hope you will post it. I also plan to link to your review and post my response on my website.
You start off your blog post by saying that it takes me more than 130 pages to discuss corruption, which you regard as the more “pernicious” issue.
I actually agree that it will be a far greater challenge for the NATO alliance and the international community to find reliable partners – both in Afghanistan and Pakistan – and to root out the corrosive issues of corruption and criminality.
However, I did not set out to write an exposé about corruption in AfPak. I believe there has been extensive media coverage of the issue of corruption within the Karzai government and the Afghan police, and that monitoring groups like Transparency International have raised public awareness about the extent of corruption both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I did not intend (nor did I claim) to pen an encyclopedic book detailing every aspect of the AfPak drug problem.
Rather, I sought to research and write about how the drug trade supports the insurgency and extremist groups in the region. That is an issue I felt had not been well documented and about which, as you say, there appears to be much conflicting information.
I believe that insurgencies occur in places that lack good governance. I discuss this in Seeds of Terror, as you note in your review, and I also devote considerable time to the issue of corruption – even in those first 133 pages – especially the long history of connections between the Pakistan military, the ISI and the drug trade.
I am not going to respond to all of your points, but want to address a few broad issues you raised, starting with the issue of correlation vs. causation. You write:
She notes that the Taliban came to power in 2003 “just as opium exploded across southern Afghanistan.” Well, okay. Does that automatically mean opium caused the Taliban? She never really says.
Actually, I think I do. Now, the Taliban did not come into power in 2003, leaving me wondering whether you are referring to the birth of the movement in mid-1994 (and their subsequent takeover of Kabul in 1996) or if you are talking about the 2003 announcement by Mullah Dadullah that they were launching a comeback.
Either way: I discuss at great length the origins of the Taliban, the economic backdrop to their rise to power and their early links to smugglers (both of opium and other commodities) on pages 68-76. In case you missed that point, let me state clearly and for the record that I do believe there is a direct causal relationship between the opium trade (and other smuggling) in Afghanistan and the origins and rise to power of the Taliban.
With regards to the post 2001 Taliban resurgence, there are both correlative and causal factors. There is evidence, for example, that Taliban commanders in Helmand – where few western forces were deployed after the 2001 invasion – tapped into existing opium stockpiles and used money they raised by selling off that opium to regroup and rearm themselves. I’d call that correlative. But there are also “causal” examples, like the story of Taliban forces and trafficking gangs pushing into Farah and Nimroz provinces in 2004/2005 – where poppy cultivation then mushroomed (See page 11 of 2008 UNODC annual opium survey for recent data on the crop size in those provinces).
There is widespread evidence of Taliban commanders collecting tax, extorting businesses and local communities, and also evidence that some of them struggle for money at times (all of this happened during the Soviet resistance as well). There are communities that appear to be victimized more by the local police (take a look at this recent Reuters story, for example), and I have found clear evidence that the Taliban, at least in the south and in some parts of Pakistan, have earned some degree of public respect for implementing impartial justice (this issue is also discussed on page 3 of a recent Atlantic Council report). One thing I have come to learn about Pakistan and Afghanistan, is that nothing is ever black and white.
Another reason this situation is so complex to explain, and sometimes contradictory, is because the wider insurgency is so multi-faceted. It would have been far easier to explain had all the insurgents behaved the same way. But the truth is, and I believe you would agree, that there are various “Taliban” operating along the AfPak border, and they don’t all act alike. In addition to three separately commanded insurgent fronts within Afghanistan (the eastern flank, the southeastern wing and the “original” Taliban in the south), there are also criminal gangs that often get referred to locally as Taliban. Across the Durrand Line, there are various branches of the Pakistani Taliban, along with other Pakistani, regional and international extremist groups.
What is common among these anti-state groups – on both sides of the border – is that they all engage in criminal activity of some sort or another to raise funds. It might be timber smuggling, human trafficking or taking a cut on emerald mines. They also collect “taxes” on legal goods. I compare the way the various groups interact to the way Mafia crime families relate to each other. Sometimes they collaborate, and sometimes they fight each other. They hold regular meetings to decide who has rights to earn in what territory. And when they work together, it is often to earn money.
In this regard, anti-state groups in AfPak are following the pattern of insurgents and terror groups around the world. The phenomenon happening in South Asia is neither new nor unique: It’s happened to the FARC, the IRA and Hezbollah, among others. What is worrisome, among other things, are the growing indications that some fighters in Afghanistan have links to criminal gangs in the West.
I’m not sure where you get the idea that Chechen and Uzbek are fighter are “mythical.” There has been widespread reporting of the IMU and Chechen presence in South Waziristan and the FATA in recent years, where they have battled both the Pakistani army and other militants and tribal elements. The IMU routinely puts out videos, like this one or this one. One of the local journalists who helped me research Seeds of Terror personally met Uzbek fighters who were supporting Mullah Fazlullah in Pakistan’s Swat Valley in 2008. There were reports Tahir Yuldeshev was recently wounded in Waziristan, and even more recently an Afghan reporter emailed me to say there are reports Yuldeshev has since decamped to northern Kunduz.
You accuse me of contradicting myself:
On page 86 we see that U.S. counternarcotics officials say they have no evidence of Osama bin Laden’s direct involvement in the drug trade, but on page 89 we see a former NSC official alleging that bin Laden used Ariana Airlines to launder money and drugs. Make up your mind!
My mind is made up. I believe bin Laden played a key role facilitating the drug trade during the 1990s. But that doesn’t mean I think he routinely got on his sat phone to coordinate jingle trucks full of dope that were traveling down the Chaman highway. Over and over, I heard how senior leaders – be they corrupt state actors, muj commanders or terror chiefs – did not personally muddy their hands in the day-to-day running of drug or other criminal operations. But they made contacts and facilitated relationships that made those deals possible across tribal lines, district and national borders.
Throughout Seeds of Terror, I have labored to present evidence and counter-evidence, and then to analyze that information instead of just cherry picking details that suit my argument. I am the first to agree with you that the conflicting information coming out of different U.S. government agencies has stymied attempts to formulate a coherent counternarcotics policy towards the region.
In my conclusion, I call for greater information sharing and cooperation among the various U.S. agencies that collect intelligence on Afghanistan and Pakistan. I believe the intelligence community, law enforcement agents and the U.S. military would all benefit greatly from a broad, detailed and classified study of how the insurgency finances operations, as well as how terror groups operating along the border fund themselves. Much more analysis of this issue is needed.
As you note, on page 14 I quote U.S. officials as saying that the DEA believes that 70 percent of the Taliban’s financing comes from drugs. You then link to an AFP story quoting the former U.S. commander in Afghanistan Dan McNeill as saying the figure is more like 40 percent. But actually, if you read the next line of that same AFP story, Gen. McNeill goes onto say, “he had been told by an international expert that this figure was likely low and could reach up to 60 percent.”
So where does the truth lie, at 70, 60 or 40? McNeill didn’t seem to know for sure. I’d raise another question: Can anyone really know? Since Seeds of Terror went to press, I have come to conclude that wondering what percent of the Taliban’s funding comes from drugs is a fairly futile exercise, given that Taliban commanders appear to keep few paper records and, as I said before, there is no longer just one Taliban.
Rather than trying to quantify the amount of money the Taliban and other anti-state groups are earning, I believe the focus should be on identifying and disrupting flows of money reaching insurgent, extremist and terror groups (as well as, of course, corrupt state actors). Degrading the enemy’s source of funding, while simultaneously improving governance, are critical pillars to any counterinsurgency campaign, and Afghanistan and Pakistan will be no exception.
Kind regards, Gretchen Peters
John R. Schmidt, a former foreign services officer who was based in Pakistan and who now teaches at George Washington University, has written an insightful analysis of the political backdrop in Pakistan that has contributed to its current unravelling. Read it here.
I thought his analysis of the land- or manufacturing-based elite that have swapped power with the Pakistan military since the country was founded was right on, as well as his remark, on page 33, that the lawyer’s movement could represent:
“the first stirrings of a civil society that could in time challenge the system.”
Schmidt also carefully dissects the complex and not always friendly relationship between Pakistan’s military and intelligence forces and the various militant Islamic groups they have at times fostered and at times fought.
It’s worth a read.
Watch my appearance on Good Morning America Weekend here about the escape of New York Times reporter David Rohde and his translator Tahir Ludin after seven months in Taliban captivity. Kidnapping has become a growth industry for the Taliban on both sides of the AfPak border, and the case of Rohde, Ludin and driver Asadullah Mangal was typical in that the threesome was kidnapped by a local criminal gang inside Afghanistan and then sold up the insurgent chain of command to end up in a compound in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The camp was run by the Haqqani Group, under the command of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the son of the legendary mujahidin commander Jalaluddin Haqqani (see my dossiers page for more on Dad).
Rohde and his associates were by no means unique victims of the kidnapping problem along the AfPak border. The vast majority of the people abducted come from middle class and wealthy Pakistani and Afghan families. Thousands have fled the border areas, or moved out of the country, because of this growing problem.
When Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in January 2002, his captors intended to make a statement, and they did so by beheading him and releasing a grisly video of his execution. It shocked the world. When David Rohde was kidnapped, his abductors intended to make money — lots of it. In their first request, they asked almost $30 million for his release, according to Western and Afghan officials, along with the release of high value Taliban prisoners being held by the US military.
The Taliban demand smaller ransoms for locals they kidnap, but the issue is the same. Kidnapping is now a central pillar of the Taliban’s criminal economy.
By the way, you can also watch me on PBS’s Newshour here.
This week the BBC reporter Owen Bennett-Jones, who I do not know well but whose work I have long admired (if you want a good and concise read-in on recent history in Pakistan, do yourself a favor and order his book) put out this excellent report from the Northwest Frontier Province.
In it, he quoted locals fleeing Taliban-held areas of Swat, and described what he calls a changing attitude towards the Taliban in Pakistan. Read this section (emphasis mine):
I have come to a place about an hour’s drive from Peshawar, 50 miles (80km) from where there has been intense fighting.
There are many people on the move here who have run away from that fighting and they have brought with them eyewitness accounts of the brutal things they have seen under the Taliban’s control of the Swat valley over the past few months.
“They were beheading people, they were shooting innocent people without any warning, they were terrifying us,” one woman tells me.
“They were stopping our kids from going to school, they were kidnapping young boys.”
A man standing nearby is also eager to talk.
“With my own hands I have buried 18 people who were beheaded, even children,” he tells me grimly.
“They are not friends, they are not our allies, they’re our enemies, they are criminals, they are gangsters.”
Such strong public criticism of the Taliban is new - the mood has changed in Pakistan.
I agree with OBJ that the mood has changed in Pakistan, and I would argue that ordinary people in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas also turned against the Taliban some time ago. Months back, I was chatting online with a friend from Wana, in South Waziristan and he was positively enraged about “gansters,” as he called them, who make up the TTP, the Urdu acronym for the Taliban Movement of Pakistan. I asked why he chose the word “gangsters” and he shot a message back to me: “There is not a crime in the world they have not committed,” and went on to describe widespread robbery, gun battles in the streets, and their engagement in all sorts of smuggling.
The reports filtering out about life in southern Afghanistan are equally disturbing, as I describe in my book. On both sides of the AfPak border people’s lives are being chewed up by a brutal blend of extremism and crime, made worse by endemic corruption and a critical lack of governance.
But as much as this widening insecurity presents an enormous security challenge, it also presents an opportunity for western nations hoping to stabilize the region. Ordinary people both in Afghanistan and Pakistan want nothing more than a secure environment where they can live and prosper. There are widespread misperceptions here in the U.S. that the Pashtun tribes who populate the border areas are ungovernable. I argue that people in the border areas (and in fact people across both Afghanistan and Pakistan — just look at the lawyers movement in Pakistan or the recent protest by brave Afghan women in Kabul) want rule of law and better governance. Our best and only exit strategy for this region is to give that to them — and fast.
“Stability operations,” the new buzz word in Washington for nation-building, is not only the fastest and cheapest option, it is the morally right one, and it will improve our nation’s security too.
If you have reached my website, you are probably someone who is interested in Afghanistan and Pakistan, national security or counternarcotics issues. You may have mistakenly visited the website of my namesake, the Nashville-based singer-songwriter Gretchen Peters, who (curiously) is releasing her new album the same week my book, Seeds of Terror comes out. Perhaps our publicity tours will overlap, but somehow I don’t think so.
Writing the book and getting it published has been a tremendously rewarding experience for me, however one of my great frustrations has been the fact that this story is constantly evolving, and every time new information emerges, I want to update the book. Unfortunately, book publishing doesn’t work that way.
So I have decided to start this blog, which I hope will serve as a living, breathing complement to the book, providing fresh information as it emerges both about events and characters described in the book, as well as news stories and reports that I find pertinent to the subject. I encourage visitors to leave comments or send me tips about stories I might find interesting (although I can’t promise to respond to all of them).
Shortly, I plan to post a blog about how criminal activity helps the Pakistani Taliban as they gain ground. Today I’d like to direct readers to this story in the Christian Science Monitor written by my friend Rehmat Meshud about the Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Meshud, who is facing new challenges from a local rival. One thing I came across over and over during my research for Seeds of Terror was how rivalries between the mujahidin in the 1980s and Taliban commanders today have repeatedly beset their ability to gain ground. Such rivalries may not offer western authorities new allies (the man challenging Baitullah is also an extremist, for example) but they may serve to weaken the Taliban from within.
