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COMMENTARY
September 6, 2002
Diversions
Make no mistake the assassination attempt on the Afghan president Hamid Karzai in Kandahar yesterday and the big car bombing in the Kabul market are directly related to the impending American attack on Iraq; just as the assassination of the Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Massoud on Sept. 9 last year was directly related to the Al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington two days later. Massoud was killed to decapitate the Northern Alliance in expectation that they would soon be the feet on the ground for a U.S. intervention in Afghanistan. The killing of Mr. Karzai was meant to create one of several diversions to stretch the U.S. military preparing for the showdown in Iraq. (I would pray that Ahmed Chalabi and other leading Iraqi oppositionists have adequate police protection in such places as London and Washington.) To understand the connexions one must understand what Western intelligence agencies have been establishing in the time since 9/11: that the "axis of evil" is no mere rhetorical device but a good working description of what has been formed across the arc from Afghanistan to Lebanon and whose influence is rapidly spreading through the rest of the Middle East. There are separate command structures but the Palestinian terrorists the Lebanese Hezbollah the regime of Syria's Bashir Assad that of Saddam Hussein Iran's ayatollahs Al Qaeda and other Islamist terror organizations also operate co-operatively. They have foreign even non-Islamic weapons suppliers and trainers ranging from the rogue regime of North Korea to international crime syndicates to the Irish Republican Army -- in for the money and mischief not for the Islamist cause. Their motives are equally various. But they have declared common enemies in the United States and Israel and for the purpose of conducting a multi-front war they know as surely as Hitler Mussolini and Tojo once did that they must stand or fall together. In Afghanistan this "axis" has been reorganizing since the overthrow of the Taliban regime. The general idea has been to create a vast killing zone for U.S. soldiers thus drawing the Americans into the kind of quagmire the Soviets found themselves in in the 1980s. Indeed the 9/11 strikes themselves could be interpreted as a "come and get me"; though the speed with which the Americans crushed the Taliban regime must have come as a surprise. Surviving elements of Al Qaeda and the Taliban are linking up with disgruntled local warlords who feel threatened by "Karzai's democracy". They have been reinforced by the warlord errant Gulbuddin Hekmatyar former darling of Pakistan's intelligence services and now apparently cozy with Iran. The Iranians have infiltrated agents through the west of the country; Hekmatyar's forces are consolidating in Pashtun mountain fastnesses north of Jalalabad in the east (with links into northern Pakistan and Kashmir); and the Taliban survivors are re-emerging as guerilla units in their old heartland around Kandahar. Cracks in the multi-ethnic coalition of Karzai's government are exploited to insinuate terrorists into the heart of Kabul where there had already been a string of smaller bombings. American forces and their local alllies are now getting ambushed all over the country and have meanwhile been discovering weapons caches almost everywhere they search. But the car-bombing in Kabul market yesterday was a signature piece -- an old taxi stuffed with explosives was detonated by the market building in which electronic equipment was sold -- things like CD players TV sets and satellite dishes forbidden by fanatical Islam. A much smaller explosion preceded it designed to attract gawkers and assure the maximum number of casualties in the subsequent main blast. The assassination attempt on President Karzai was made while he was in Kandahar attending the wedding of a younger brother. The assassins had infiltrated the security detail of Gul Agha the Kandahar governor and strongman. Gul Agha was a target too and is reported to be gravely wounded; but Mr. Karzai's sharp-witted American bodyguards were able to deck the president and gun down the assailants in a flurry of quick moves. While there have been several previous assassination attempts on Mr. Karzai this one was the most intelligent and least likely to fail. The car bombing in Kabul was world-class: a sophisticated and disciplined team operation. At the same time a car-and-truck-bomb explosion was supposed to happen in Israel at the other end of the arc one which in the estimation of Shimon Peres the Israeli foreign minister would have cost such loss of life that it would have changed almost the entire political situation in one moment . (The truck was rigged to create a huge fuel-bomb effect supplemented by whole barrels of shrapnel probably meant for the middle of Tel Aviv.) This mission was prevented by the pure chance of witnesses being in the right place at the right time and being able to find police soon enough. There were several other attacks on Israeli military in Gaza one of which succeeded in destroying a tank (no easy job). Bombs planted by a house belonging to former prime minister Ehud Barak were also discovered and defused. None of these incidents were "mere" suicide hits: they were attempts to create havoc on a very large scale. To those who have begun to understand the enemy mind the reason for these attacks -- ambitious in themselves and simultaneously at either end of the "Islamist arc" -- are obvious. Had they fully succeeded we would be reading this morning of both Afghanistan and Israel in complete turmoil. The enemy is attempting big diversions to stall U.S. plans for advance into Iraq. They are doing Saddam's work for him and it would be wilfully naive to assume that Saddam is in no way involved. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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