Key Reflections
* Human intelligence (HUMINT) needs to be enhanced amidst the potential regrowth of trans-national terrorism and the importance of great power competition.
* The Haqqani Network played a decisive role in facilitating the Taliban’s military victory in Afghanistan and retains very close ties with al-Qaeda.
* All the Taliban factions, including the Haqqanis, maintain strong ties with the Pakistani military establishment, thereby undermining the West’s mission to develop a stable Afghanistan.
* Ideological sympathy for terrorist groups within the Pakistani military has threatened the stability and control over its nuclear weapons.
* Counter-terrorism options in Afghanistan are fewer and more logistically challenging. Equally concerning is the ability to conduct counter-intelligence and run a HUMINT network securely.
* The West needs to get smarter about Russia, who are buoyed by the West’s departure from Afghanistan and want to be a central player on every stage.
* China is trying to find a balance with the Taliban whilst attempting to promote their Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and increasing its leverage over Pakistan.
Transcript:
SG – Dr. Sajjan Gohel
DL – Douglas London
[00:00] SG: Hello, and welcome to DEEP Dive brought to you by NATO’s Defence Education Enhancement Programme. I’m your host, Dr. Sajjan Gohel. Each episode we speak to experts and practitioners in international security and defence, counter-terrorism, and geopolitical current events to gain insight into the most pressing matters of Global Affairs.
In this episode, we speak to Douglas London, a retired senior Operations Officer with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and currently an adjunct associate professor at Georgetown University’s Centre for Security Studies, and a non-resident Fellow at the Middle East Institute. Over the course of his 34 years in the CIA, Mr. London predominantly served in the Middle East, as well as South and Central Asia, and Africa. He was decorated with the CIA’s career intelligence Medal, the ‘McCone Award,’ and multiple unit and individual citations. He is also the author of the book: The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence.
Douglas London, thank you for joining us on NATO DEEP Dive.
[01:14] DL: Thanks for having me on the programme.
[01:16] SG: It’s a pleasure. I’ve read your book, The Recruiter and it’s a fascinating insight into intelligence, the roles and the challenges that exist. What was your motivation for the book? Did you want to convey to those that know some degree of the world of intelligence, dynamics that they perhaps had not thought about? Or was this also for people that were interested in something that they had not looked at before?
[01:46] DL: I think in a selfish way, it started as a personal journey. I had been an intelligence officer for about 35 years. And when you hang it up or you retire, that’s a tough reflection for anyone, when they’re moving on from a career. I was driven somewhat to retire when I did by some of the circumstances, the political weaponization of intelligence that had increased, and I wouldn’t say started, but certainly increased, and dramatically so, during my last couple of years at the agency. And I think on reflecting upon that, I found that the agency was really at a crossroads. And I found that crossroads really to have started the path after 9/11. And having served sort of symmetrically—equally—half of my career prior to and following 9/11, I thought that the best way to illustrate that might be through some of the anecdotes and to demonstrate one the value of human intelligence (HUMINT) and how maybe that was not being applied as judiciously as it should be these days. And then the impact that 9/11 had, obviously, in so many ways on our country, but particularly on the capabilities of our intelligence community. And for me, it was really timely in that we find ourselves now the discussion is about pivoting to great power competition or strategic competition. And the agency does indeed find itself at a crossroads. And I thought I could find a way to place some illumination on the issues and start a conversation but do so in a way that didn’t hurt the agency, didn’t compromise its capabilities, but encouraged a greater appreciation of the redirection it needs to take on the new landscape.
[03:30] SG: Well, certainly, it does provide a huge appreciation to the work that the agency has done, especially when it comes to things such as counter-terrorism, which is one of your areas of specialty and how I got to know you in the first place. One aspect that you spoke about, in your book, you said that terrorism is a family business, and you spoke about the fact that you had many people that were actually related. How common is that, is that something you could just expand on because I found that fascinating?
[04:01] DL: I found a pretty consistent thread, particularly in al-Qaeda, maybe to a lesser extent, in the Islamic State. But certainly, over the years in addressing al-Qaeda and many of its partner groups, other Sunni extremist organisations with which it partnered, and I would include the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the list, goodness knows, can go on, that somewhat, maybe like an international organised crime family, someone has to vouch for you. You don’t just send in an application. ISIS people actually did, right, didn’t they, in 2013 and 14, to go to the caliphate, but particularly for al Qaeda and the external terrorist cells that the Islamic State operated, it was a matter of who you knew. And those connections were very often familial. But at a minimum, they were tribal, ethnic, same places, same region, al-Qaeda, particularly after 9/11 had a huge contingent of Libyans, that all began in the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). And they—several of them—rose to great positions of power, the significance of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is regarded as the mastermind, and I find that an intolerable and inappropriate word for him, but the architect, if you would, of the 9/11 operation is one member of a large family. Ammar Baluchi, Abu Musa al-Baluchi, I mean just a great number of his relatives. So, I found that for the level of trust that was required, certainly al-Qaeda and ISIS took people in—I mean, there were Americans, al Qaeda certainly had no family connection—but those who rose quickest and rose to positions of the greatest responsibility, tended to be those who already had a connection and it was often by blood.
[05:50] SG: That’s absolutely fascinating. Are you worried that there will be a new generation of terrorists whose fathers, uncles, brothers, were at one time involved in terrorism and now you see that the next generation potentially taking on the mantle, especially as for example, we have seen cases where al-Qaeda fighters will be married into the Taliban fighters’ families and vice versa?
[06:16] DL: Well in al-Qaeda’s case, doing so was a very deliberate strategy. It was not coincidental. Their operational method was always to integrate themselves in the society in which they were operating. And they were doing that in North Africa, with their affiliate there, as well as Yemen. But it really started in Afghanistan, or even as al-Qaeda began to establish itself, in the 90s, they very much focused on being part of that landscape. Abu Hamza Bin Laden, the deceased son of—one of the deceased sons —of Osama bin Laden, wrote about that extensively in his media musings for as-Sahab, their media organisation, how they in the Afghans really much tied together and tied to the land of the Khorasan, which, of course they consider biblically is parts of Iran and Afghanistan and such, and the region.
So it was quite deliberate, because blood is thicker than water, and blood promotes loyalty, that I certainly saw with al-Qaeda operatives who we would have the fortune, sometimes, of being able to detain, because it was always far better to detain one than to remove them kinetically, because there’s, quite, I will tell you, quite frankly, there’s greater value in a live terrorist who might be a source of information. I recall one, and I wrote this in my book, where this was an individual who had not been out there on the front lines without al-Qaeda, he was certainly a supporter, but he was a member of the family that kept taking in other members of the family. When a fighter would be killed, or when one would be arrested, he would bear the responsibility for wife or wives and children. But finally, it was his time to stand up and take his role and I remember my team being able to attain and I asked him directly, I said, you know, “who’s going to take care of the family now?” but given an opportunity, in his case, he still wouldn’t cooperate, because those bonds of family were so strong, and I and I believe that’s very much the strategy behind, well, al-Qaeda’s done that, we see that across its affiliates and we see the Islamic State, again, a bit more of a bureaucratic and a bit more of a diverse organisation, doing that, particularly with its tighter external sense.
[08:34] SG: So, the bonds, the family ties, the sense of loyalty is very pervading across all of this. You said, in your book also, that when it came to the Taliban, and the Haqqani Network, which is a faction that operates effectively within the Taliban, although they are, I guess you could say, semi-autonomous. You mentioned that they were—you describe them as untouchables when it came to dealing with Pakistan and the cooperation from them post-9/11, that they were untouchables from the get-go. Why was that the case?
[09:12] DL: Pakistan was always a special case. And trying to find transactional areas of common interests; Pakistan also suffered from Islamic extremism and attacks from al-Qaeda, though I would contend, and I’ve written that some of that being their own doing by nurturing some of the very extremist elements and jihadist organisations that they saw as a fifth column of defence against India, which I’ve always expressed, with confidence, is going to come back and bite them. But for Pakistan, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which was the CIA’s primary partner and the primary intelligence service, their military organisation, they had pretty much gotten into bed with the Haqqanis for that very same reason. They needed to pre-empt India, in their mind. But in so doing that means they had to side with the Taliban, and they had to very much side with the Haqqanis, whose business interests straddle that border. The Haqqanis, again, they’re Pashtuns, just like the core of the Taliban is. But you know, 40% of, I think it’s 40% of Afghanistan, is Pashtun, but not all Pashtuns are alike in the sense that they have divisions based on parts of the country they’re from, region and tribe.
So, the Haqqanis, who played, I think, a decisive role in facilitating the Taliban’s military victory, by their operations they’re very effective, they’re closer knit, they are a family organisation, they are inherently a family business. And it was some of those business interests, I believe, that also influenced the Pakistanis, because some of which they reap some profit from. But fundamentally, they needed the Haqqanis as part of that fifth column to prevent what the United States wanted, which was a stable, centrally ruled Afghanistan, which at that time, was developing better and better relations with India. And they saw a threat from India. So, at the very beginning, even at the point of greatest cooperation with Pakistan, which I’d say was in the immediate, let’s say, two to three years after 9/11, where they were a genuine partner in identifying and locating al-Qaeda members, Arab al-Qaeda members, within Pakistan. And of course, it wasn’t totally unselfish. they received a lot of money from doing that. United States would pay the Rewards for Justice programme amounts for captives, which ranged in the millions, many millions, they were also making a lot of money operating the ground and air lines of communications that allowed NATO forces, ISAF forces, United States forces, to operate, but at the same time, facilitating the sanctuary for the Taliban, providing transit points for their fighters for an ordinate amount of fertiliser, which was the foundation of the improvised explosive devices that Afghanistan used, despite us, the West, Western nations, NATO, putting a great deal of evidence in their face about how this was going on, there was too much at stake for them. They needed to support the Taliban, they needed to support the Haqqanis.
So, from the very beginning, as early as 2004/2005, Pakistan had made it very clear, policy wise, they were going to support the Taliban and it was going to be the worst known secret kept, but they were certainly going to do that. And that’s why operating against the Haqqanis, and the Taliban was pretty much off limits. There were some exceptions, where a transactional incentive could help or were, they really had very little choice but to cooperate. And there were a couple of arrests that are kind of timely, because one was Baradar who was arrested, I think, in 2011, and he’s now one of the two deputy prime ministers, as well as both Tajmir Jawad, who was likewise arrested around the same time, and they didn’t have a lot of choice based on the evidence and the circumstances and the possibility that they would be embarrassed by not. But Tajmir Jawad was released long ago. And he’s now the Deputy Intelligence Chief in Afghanistan. And I would argue, maybe in reality, that the true intelligence chief, because the current chief, [Abdul Haq] Wasiq was a member of the Taliban five in Guantanamo, I don’t think those people are fully trusted. Baradar was kept in jail because the Taliban had no interest in seeing him released, which was one of the points I made that Baradar did not have the influence and insight into what was going on that our special envoy would like to claim and that the United States government would like to have believed.
[13:47] SG: So, this lays out a very complex scenario, which also perhaps also has paradoxes too, that if on the one hand, Pakistan was ostensibly an ally, in the war on terrorism, but was supporting groups like the Haqqanis, who were responsible for a lot of the violence in Afghanistan, including the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers. How did one find a way of trying to resolve this? Or is it that there wasn’t a way to effectively resolve this?
[14:23] DL: Ideally, the United States government would have liked to have identified a transformational solution to our relations with Pakistan. Because just throwing evidence at them really didn’t matter. I sat across from Pakistan ISI generals many times over the years, and those conversations had a familiar agenda. It was usually an airing of the grievances if you’re a Seinfeld fan, you’ll appreciate what that means, where the Pakistanis would lay out for 45 minutes to an hour, how they are the aggrieved party and the victims of terrorism and it is only, you know, their sacrifice to work with the United States that has brought them this pain suffering. And then one would lay out, you know, concrete evidence and clinical evidence to the point that we could because we also had to be wary of sources and methods, because providing them too much as occasionally might happen, would allow them to find where the intelligence was coming from and change that, either killing an agent or making a change that would impair other collection methods.
So, the fundamental impasse was really India. Pakistan’s policy in the region was and is based on its concerns over what it perceives as an existential threat from India. It’s never won a war with India, India is far larger, has far more arms to bring to bear. Thus, Pakistan’s development of a nuclear programme to try to find some way to even the playing field. But in a conservative war, they see the greater likelihood, and they do believe, that India is an aggressor, and that India would take advantage of weakness and strike at them if they could. So, unless or until one can find some way to address the Indo-Pak drama that’s been ongoing and will continue, for some time. There was no way they were going to change what is an actual pillar of their defence strategy, which is supporting jihadist groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba, the other Kashmiri groups is a perfect example. These are groups that survived, were sponsored, matured, trained, and aided by the Pakistani intelligence. That Pakistani intelligence did a lot of the recruiting for them. But the danger is these groups have grown more independent, and they grow more international. Lashkar-e-Taiba, for example, is hardly and solely a Kashmiri independent group right now. It trained and worked with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan; it has a much more internationalist agenda, as an international Sunni extremist group.
And I believe the danger for all of us, and I think right now the danger with the Taliban in control in Afghanistan, its military victory, is for the region, in that I don’t know how much control Pakistan continues to exercise over some of these groups. I know in the recent weeks, we’ve seen the press discuss the political group [Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, TLP] that wanted the expulsion of the French ambassador, because of caricatures of the Prophet, was supporting the assassin of Pakistan, a governor who had sided with someone who was accused of blasphemy. That’s an ultra-extremist group that actually seeks the overthrow of the generals and seeks a Taliban-like government. They were flying the Taliban flag at the Red Fort. But the Pakistanis tried to detain their leader, designate the group as a terrorist organisation, but then, because of the ensuing violence, they backed out. That’s now a legitimate political party, the leader has been free. And the only thing that group had to step back from was calling for the expulsion of the ambassador and some language about promoting violence. So, I don’t know that the Pakistan government, as it stands today, the military run government, is really in a position to control some of the groups that it has long nurtured.
[18:21] SG: Yes. And that group that you mentioned, is the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, which is effectively a very radical entity that has held the Government of Pakistan to ransom on various issues, in fact, that the Prime Minister Imran Khan has effectively had to surrender to their demands just illustrates how powerful radical forces are in in Pakistan.
When we spoke last year, you were kindly helping me with my research to do with al-Qaeda and the region, we discussed what the potential consequences would be of a Western withdrawal from Afghanistan. Sadly, all of those scenarios have proved to be true. What were your thoughts on the situation now in Afghanistan? Is there anything that has surprised you or worried you more than you were previously worried about?
[19:17] DL: Well, I really wish I could say I’ve been surprised or that things are worse or maybe better. But they’ve played out essentially, as I expected. The Taliban has been very predictable, over the course of this war, they’ve not done anything that’s been surprising, which was the disappointment I had in the United States approach, particularly under the Trump administration, and trying to negotiate a settlement with the Taliban from a position of weakness without any serious conditions, because we never really kept any conditions, without a true end game of the state which we wanted to see when we left. It was just trying to find the most honourable, face-saving way out, which is, which is ultimately what happened.
President Biden, likewise, he inherited a very bad deal, perhaps, and I call it the absolute worst diplomatic deal I’ve ever seen. But you know, President Biden had an opportunity to re-examine our policy in Afghanistan, not necessarily perpetuate what we had done and done wrong, or to accept what he was handed. But I also believe President Biden thought the American people were just exhausted, he was certainly exhausted with the issue, and he just wanted the quickest way out. So I think you just need to look at the actions of the Taliban to understand what they’re going to do, and certainly not their words, look at their actions over the past 20 years and the years that they ruled, and you pretty much have a set pattern of what they’re going to do in the future, because the people running that country are those very same people. It’s predominantly the Taliban leadership, which took to hiding in Pakistan, they are essentially running the country. Very few exceptions, the Taliban Five got some portfolios, some minor, I would say minor, some of the deputy positions, I think, are for face more than anything. I don’t necessarily think they exert much of a progressive stance anyway. Because if you look at some of their comments given, that’s available on public record, to their briefers, they were part and parcel of the genocide against the Hazara, the Shiite, the misogyny and punishment of women. And I don’t really believe we’re going to see any change of that.
I think the challenge and the questions for the United States, for its NATO partners is well, you know, in try to find the most effective way to deal with Afghanistan, in what the reality is, not what we like it to be. Are we better off engaging it, not engaging it? Do we provide aid because of the humanitarian crisis and conditions? Do we not provide aid without some ability to exert behaviour that we’d like to see out of Afghanistan? Those are tremendously hard choices, choices that I personally as a human being, really have. To see people starving and suffering. That’s not politics. That’s real. And are we better off just trying to establish some credibility by providing aid for the sake of aid itself? Again, I am personally torn.
But I see the Taliban, if anything, being smarter, but not having changed its objectives. I think the Taliban, in fact, I’m certain the Taliban will continue to aid those groups, which it feels loyalty from and to, such as Tehrek-i-Taliban Pakistan, which continues to operate from Afghanistan soil in attacking Pakistan and seeking the overthrow of the government. And the only language I’ve seen coming out of Taliban is not “oh we’ll turn TTP [Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan] over, we’ll push them out.” It was, “you know, you all should negotiate an agreement.” The Eastern Islamic Turkmenistan groupment, the Uyghurs from China, or at least one element of the Uyghurs from China that the Chinese are worried about, the Talibans not going to abandon them. It’s certainly not going to abandon al-Qaeda. I think they will try to be careful, but you know, what do they have to lose?
The Taliban is not looking to be a global economic powerhouse, or even to integrate into the global system. They need just enough to keep control. The Taliban needs to exercise control. They don’t necessarily want the influence and the danger that comes with too much Western influence, which comes with too good an economy which might make the people have higher expectations. But I think that at the same time it’s a danger for the Taliban. This is not the country they ruled between 1996 and 2001, particularly the cities. The cities are totally different than what they left behind, the people’s expectations, society has changed. The countryside. Yeah, that’s pretty much the same. They’ve controlled the countryside. But the cities, I think they’re going to have a hard time. And that’s where there could be some gaps, some problems, some divisions within the Taliban itself, as it tries to wrestle with how to maintain control, which is their primary goal. How do they maintain control without ceding too much influence or weakness to outside powers, which they desperately want to avoid? And how do they stay consistent with their ideological agenda, which is a very conservative and often with the pillar of jihad approach to at least their region, and I think their region is what they care about most. So those are those are quite the dilemmas for NATO and the U.S.
[24:34] SG: Well, and tying in those dilemmas you have Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani Network, who is now the interior minister of the Taliban regime, effectively he is the most powerful person in Afghanistan and retains those very close ties with al-Qaeda. Do you envisage al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups looking to reassert themselves in Afghanistan via Pakistan? Because they already seem to be there in some numbers, do you see that growing and expanding and then presenting a problem?
[25:15] DL: I think it will, I think the Taliban will try to be a little more careful about it. The Taliban has the advantage that they know we’re not going to reinvade Afghanistan again. I mean, we might retaliate, we might take economic sanctions, we might take military strikes, but we’re not going to invade Afghanistan, we’re not going to overthrow the Taliban again, at least not directly, not militarily. I mean, there’s always a possibility of covert action and regular warfare, but even that’s pretty broken at this moment, because there’s no Northern Alliance as there was in 2001, that the United States was able to support. So, I’m confident that the Taliban will continue to provide sanctuary, will no doubt ask those groups operating in their territory to keep a lower profile, and to at least to allow some window dressing to impede the possibility of tying future attacks to training, recruitment, organisation, planning, leadership, command, and control that might be conducted from Afghanistan.
But look at just some of the metrics we’ve seen, what information we could trust, a great number of al-Qaeda operatives who were in Iran, maintaining their sanctuary there, that the Iranians provided, have gone back to Afghanistan. They are now joining the significant number of highly placed, well experienced al-Qaeda operatives, particularly those of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), which is the regional affiliate—the local affiliate—who were released by the Taliban, who are still there. There were releases of a couple of notable former al-Qaeda individuals, one who had been arrested and then released by the Pakistanis, who has gone back, and very publicly gone back, to Afghanistan. So, I think that’s the real challenge. It is a largely ungoverned space still, where these groups will be able to conduct a lot of their most important functions.
The biggest advantage the United States had over the 20 years, it was in Afghanistan was attrition, essentially, which was keeping terrorist organisations that were operating there on the defensive, trading their numbers, pre-empting their capabilities to transition to the offensive, because they were busy trying just to survive, moving fighters out moving many to Iran, moving those to Syria, Yemen, and such like that. That no longer exists, there’s no longer any counter-terrorist pressure. So those groups are free to exercise command and control, operate on the media, train, raise money, it’s certainly beyond our reach directly, right now, because there’s no local partner with whom to work. We’re not going to be working with the Taliban. And there’s no rebel organisation right now, no insurgent group fighting the Taliban, that we could work with.
And you know, people speak about “oh we have ISIS as a common enemy,” certainly, ISIS is a common enemy. It’s no friend of the Taliban, though ironically, their philosophy is essentially the same. It’s really my opinion politics that divides them. ISIS in the region, ISIS-KP, of the Khorasan province, largely made up of people from Pakistan, people who came from Tehrek-i-Taliban Pakistan and the Sadozais, the Waziris, I think there was one of the Emir’s, who was a former Taliban member, but that was the exception. So, there was a lot more in terms of political differences in power, and a grab for resources. So, for that reason, ISIS is a threat, and it’s a threat to us as they look to the possibility of using successful external operations, to generate greater credibility, raise more money, raise more recruits. But even there, that’s a real dicey path to lead, working with the Taliban against ISIS, because we don’t necessarily want to see one or the other, but we are compromising our sources and methods and capabilities by working with them that, they will most certainly share with the likes of al-Qaeda and Tehrek-i-Taliban Pakistan, and other groups to whom they’re loyal.
[29:19] SG: Well, sticking with the ISIS affiliate IS-KP or ISIS-KP, there seems to be again this situation where nothing is ever black and white in Afghanistan-Pakistan. You’ve got all these complicated relationships, where even sometimes you could see low level support between IS-KP and the Haqqanis, for example, and there are reports suggesting that the group IS-KP could be able to launch attacks globally, within a year, potentially 18 months. Do you agree with that assessment?
[29:56] DL: There’s a little bit to unpack there. I think what notoriously was absent is any comment about what al-Qaeda is able to do in six months to a year. Secretary of Defence Austin commented as Afghanistan was collapsing that the intelligence community had anticipated that al-Qaeda could reconstitute and form a serious homeland threat within one to two years. That’s roughly true, but that was a projection based on still having a partner force in Afghanistan, that there was still an ongoing war between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Taliban, not one which the Taliban maintained complete military control of the country. I thought it was suspicious that there was no mention of al-Qaeda, yet ISIS-KP, which truly is not as well-organised internationally—they depend on core ISIS, which remnants or pockets of are still in the Levant for a lot, otherwise they have to turn to their own sort of familial ties, those Afghans and Pakistanis, and maybe Indians, who are in places of the world that they could support. I think there’s certainly the potential to inspire attacks in that timeframe, six to twelve months for any group, because that doesn’t really take a whole lot of time. And it depends on how they’re doing with their media, it’s how they’re doing in terms of promoting themselves, and if they can promote success that they can claim from a home.
So, I don’t discount the assessment that ISIS could present a homeland threat. I think it’d be more problematic for them to constitute the type of 9/11 or July 7, 2005 threat, or threat to the trains in Spain that we saw over the years, where they’re actually sending fighters—I’m not discounting it, I just don’t know that they have the logistical maturity to do that, because there’s a lot of logistics, and I don’t know that that’s their priority. Al-Qaeda’s priority is striking the United States homeland—that’s without a doubt— striking the United States externally. So, they’re certainly going to be much more in gear, and they’ve got a greater web of connections to do so. So, I think when I read that, I certainly didn’t discount it, but I focus more on, what about al-Qaeda? How come that’s sort of notably absent?
[32:24] SG: So, your opinion is that it is al-Qaeda that potentially is the greater transnational threat, rather than IS-KP, who could still be a challenge, but principally, it is al-Qaeda?
[32:36] DL: Again, I don’t want to underestimate what IS-KP could do, but they’re going to play to their strengths. Core ISIS from the Levant was able to connect to a great number of contacts and colleagues who work in Europe or have been in Europe, and then join them and then went back—those who have Algerian and Moroccan ethnicity, who are French nationals, citizens of Belgium and such. ISIS-KP may not have that same bench of connections and people. And again, I can’t speak with any authority, because basically you’d be looking at those from the Sadozais, to the Waziris – Pashtuns – and they’re certainly global. But I don’t know that they’re those who are tied to ISIS for being part of ISIS’ sake, as opposed to being just ethnically tied to people who are in the organisation.
So, I’m not just counting the capacity to do something. I think the greater threat—both short-term, but I think it’ll be more long-term, actually, to be honest—is going to be from al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is probably going to be more patient in establishing itself because it’s going to want to be successful. And I think they might be able to throw something together sooner than ISIS or IS-KP could externally. But I would suspect if I had a bet, they’ll probably be a little more patient and try to do something that will not be an embarrassment, but that will be more likely to succeed.
[34:11] SG: Most definitely, I would agree with you on that. Then, in terms of our counter-terrorism operations, Doug, for Afghanistan, what options are there that are actually viable? You have to look at Afghanistan on the map; it’s completely landlocked. We don’t necessarily have an ally that is going to allow us to operate on the ground. So potentially having that intelligence gathering has been severely impaired. Negotiations with Pakistan seem to be continuing without reaching any clear resolution. So, do we have an effective strategy for dealing with a regrowth of terrorism in Afghanistan?
[34:59] DL: We have the resources that are available to us, which are fewer and more logistically challenging. So, intelligence has been collected from closed borders before, it’s part of the business you operate with. President Biden refers to an “over the horizon” strategy, and that that relates to it, but on the intelligence piece, you try to have stay-behind agents. I would like to think that for the years we were there in Afghanistan that CIA and other intelligence services have agents that deliberately wanted left behind, who were willing to stay behind, who retained access to intelligence and a means to communicate. And those means are going to be personal, most likely, either electronic or otherwise, might rely on couriers, might rely on what we refer to as a “principal agent,” which is an agent from that country that you’ve recruited, whose job isn’t to provide intelligence him or herself, but to collect intelligence from others who have access.
But there’s a lot of complications and dangers. It’s much more challenging from a counter-intelligence perspective. It’s much harder to run any network securely, because anytime you’re operating an agent network where more than one agent knows of another, then compromise of one can result in the compromise of the others. When you’re dealing indirectly with intelligence, it’s not as timely. It’s often indirect, might be second-hand, the chain of information, chain of acquisition might be more extended. So, it’s more difficult to vouch for and validate the access of the ultimate source of the intelligence. Does the ultimate source even know they’re providing intelligence, or just having a meal with a buddy, who’s talking to another buddy, who was talking to the CIA? So, the quality of the intelligence will also weaken our ability to test it and stand behind it.
So much of the conversation is on “can we fly drones from far away?” That’s not the issue. We’ve got great satellites, we’ve got terrific drones, the technology is super, they can fly from hither and yon, and loiter over Afghanistan. But what are they looking at? What are they listening to? How do they know what to look at and listen to, and where to look and listen? That’s provided by agents on the ground. Agents provide phone numbers, radio frequencies, locations of houses, homes, safe houses, commands, times of patterns that people take when they’re out and about, what they look like, physical descriptions. So, all the great technical collection we have—and we do have extensive technical collection and capabilities—depends on people at the end of the day. And we will still be collecting intelligence, we will still be operating agents on the ground, very much remotely, indirectly. We will strengthen those networks over time, as Afghan dissident groups grow, we will most likely start engaging them and cooperating and try to take advantage of their networks. But again, they’ll have their own biases, they’ll have their own flaws. And they’ll have their own counter-intelligence challenges to deal with that will be inherited.
So, the strategy is to go with what we have and try to be as scrupulous as possible, to be really vigilant about the quality of the intelligence, but then decide at the end of the day, as you said, what are we going to do with it? We don’t have a local partner on the ground. So, you don’t have an ability to reach down and capture someone, unless you want to send in Special Forces, which is doable but highly dangerous. And do we want to have the nightmares of Special Forces operatives being shut down and taken captive? I think those are going to be political decisions—that will drive a lot of what we do. So, if you’re just left with kinetic activities to take people off the map, I don’t necessarily know that that addresses the conditions for terrorism with which we should be most concerned. How do we actually impede the rise of terrorism or the drive of those to conduct violence against us and others? I think it’s a lot more complicated and more holistic. It has a security component, it has certainly a military component. And a lot of that’s going to be driven by just good intelligence, to try to inform our understanding of the dynamics, so that we can best manipulate that in the most advantageous way to our own security.
[39:20] SG: So, there are options, but it’s also a question of waiting and biding one’s time to see if those options can increase. It’s interesting that we may not necessarily have a strong visible footprint, but you could say that there is a low-key toeprint in Afghanistan. If we look at some of the other neighbours of Afghanistan—in our conversation, you were mentioning Iran—I always found that curious, because in your book also you spoke about it, that there were al-Qaeda fighters that would go to Iran, that they would be based there, that they even found sanctuary there. Now, everyone knows that Iran plays various different strategic games. On the surface, they’re supposed to be hostile towards al-Qaeda and vice versa. And yet, you had this whole host of al-Qaeda figures that at one time were being based in Iran. So, what does Iran get from having these groups operating there? Why would they even allow it in the first place?
[40:27] DL: So, Iranians are—and I say this with admiration as our political opponents and intelligence opponents—extremely practical. I think they can afford to be practical because they do most of what they do in secret from their own people. So, the idea of them hosting al-Qaeda, I mean, that’s not a question. Abu Muhammad al-Masri, who was the deputy emir of al-Qaeda, was killed in Tehran, living comfortably, happily, driving with his daughter, in conditions provided by the Iranian government. Saif al-Adel, who moved up to succeed him, likewise is there, along with a host of others. Now, a number of them did move back.
For the Iranians, it’s not something to their advantage to thumbing their nose in the Americans’ face, or even a practical advantage of making it less likely al-Qaeda would do something against them elsewhere, because it depends on conditions. I believe al-Qaeda is a valuable proxy, another valuable surrogate to the Iranians that serves their purpose in a very measured way. I think their cooperation went from simply sanctuary and trying to impede al-Qaeda acting against them and thumbing their nose at us, to a more active role around 2015. And the reason for that is the JCPOA: the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. I think that was a lever that they wanted to have as a safety valve for them to be able to act.
But at the same time, Iran today is looking with some apprehension at what’s going on. Now, the Iranians wanted the United States out, that was their priority—because a United States military presence, whether it’s in Iraq or Afghanistan, they see as the Pakistanis see India as an existential threat to them. So, getting us out was great. They certainly cooperated to some degree with the Taliban, provided aid, material aid. At the same time, they were talking to the Afghan government that was in place at the time.
But now what? The Iranians know up close and personally what the Taliban will do to Shias and Hazaras—they lost nine diplomats, I think, at their consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif when the Taliban was in power. The Taliban has operated in a genocidal fashion against the Hazaras, which is a community very much that the Iranians want to protect and support. So, I don’t think it’s a real happy day for them to see the Taliban in charge, and I think, being practical as they are, they will try to find some practical modus vivendi. But at the same time, it’s been interesting some of the language they’ve had about Taliban actions or lack of actions and promoting minorities, Hazaras in the cabinet posts that they’ve announced, and the care they’ve taken, or support and resources they provided to Hazara communities. The Hazaras have been the primary target, after all, of the Islamic State. Taliban fighters and the Islamic State continue to target Shia schools, Shia hospitals, Shia communities, Shia mosques.
So, I don’t think it’s a happy day for the Iranians, and they will try to find their footing. I think, if anything, it makes them not necessarily an opportune partner, but at least an indirect partner to promote certain stabilising measures the West and NATO would like to see Afghanistan take and pressure we’d like to apply to them. They might, without making it look like they’re supporting us, be helpful in that fashion.
I think the same could be said of the Central Asian states, which have their own insurgency issues, which have their own Islamic extremist groups, their own stability problems. Remember, Tajiks, Uzbeks—they form a significant part of the Afghan population. Now, there’s not that many of them in the Taliban. There’s a few they’ve promoted, but really not that many. They are in high-profile positions, and still the Taliban is fundamentally a Pashtun organisation. But they’re certainly worried, the Central Asian states are, so again, I don’t think they are totally thrilled to see the Taliban in charge.
So again, I’m looking for some quiet support, some quiet activity. I don’t see Vladimir Putin ever allowing a US military presence, but I could be wrong. You could find some advantage in targeting us there by having a presence there—targeting mostly from a collection point of view, not directly targeting kinetically because he doesn’t want to bring US forces closer to Russia or to the Baltics these days, for sure. But I think those factors and concerns of the regional players might at least lend to an atmosphere for some quiet behind-the-scenes activity, which could help put some pressure on the Taliban, nut again, I’m not really optimistic that pressure like that really has an impact on them.
[45:30] SG: I noticed you mentioned Russia and Vladimir Putin and Afghanistan. So, does Russia play that much influence now in the country where they can effectively, or regionally, stop the West from potentially coming back or having a greater involvement?
[45:52] DL: The Russians obviously, and Putin particularly, are delighted we’re gone and delighted we were bled as much as we were, and they contributed to that bleeding by their support to the Taliban. Russia wants to be a player, they want to be on every stage, they want to be centre stage. They played a role in diplomatic activity with Afghanistan and with the Taliban—they’ll continue to do that, because they see it as a means of exercising influence and undermining our own, largely at American expense.
I think the Russians have to be concerned about the threat from Islamic extremism from Afghanistan—Chechens and other elements in their own country, or their sphere of influence that they’re worried about, or the Islamic State, but it’s not really a high threat to them. Even if there were to be an occasional, small-level attack in Russia, Putin doesn’t face the issues that an American leader has to, from public outrage, from a free press. He could endure some of that, and he could then respond very brutally, if he wants to, as he has. So, I think Russia is less worried than the Central Asian states. The Central Asian states have more to lose than Russia has. I think Putin is in a greater position of security. But at the same time, you know, he’s no fan of the Taliban. And he’s obviously going to have to contend with threats from the Islamic State, from other Sunni extremist groups that will be using Afghanistan for sanctuary.
[47:27] SG: Well, I definitely want to come back to Russia for a final question. But before we do that, factoring in that one of Afghanistan’s other neighbours is China. And there’s been increasing talk about China’s role in Afghanistan, assisted by Pakistan. Do you think that China can succeed in Afghanistan in terms of its objectives that may be economic or strategic, especially if they have Pakistan’s backing, which is something that perhaps the West was not able to achieve in the last 20 years?
[48:04] DL: China wants stability and influence. Their Belt and Road Initiative is the cornerstone of their policy in the region. And that extends to them the type of influence that they’re looking for: economic as well as military, access to ports and such, and leverage over countries—look at the leverage they have over Pakistan, in terms of how indebted Pakistan is to China. China is worried about its own internal security in that respect and the Uyghur question is at the forefront, and how forthcoming will a Taliban-run Afghanistan be? I think the Taliban will cooperate concerning Uyghurs who are working with ISIS, and there are a fair number. I think the Uyghur community tended to split somewhat. Originally, they were really focused with al-Qaeda associated groups such as ETIM [East Turkistan Islamic Movement], and they drifted, like some of the Central Asians did, to ISIS for power and opportunity and such like that.
So, I think China will be also trying to find that balance and trying to promote their Belt and Road Initiative and trying to have access and trying to have influence. Their main nemesis in the region is obviously India. So, they share that with Pakistan. I don’t think the Taliban feels terribly threatened by India as much. I think China likewise is not all in with the Taliban, is going to try to find a chord in combination, which they’re good at. I don’t know that they’ll get as much from the Taliban that they would like. They’re not going to get the Taliban to turn over or impede Uyghurs who associated with ETIM. The Taliban is not really thrilled about infrastructure. The Taliban won the war based on a lack of infrastructure, based on the demographics and the topography and geography of Afghanistan, which is a very decentralised country— they’re all proud of being Afghans, but they all kind of fall along very decentralised lines of the region and tribe. So, I think the Taliban will only go so far in allowing for that much infrastructure, tying all the roads together, which is very much at the height of the Chinese policy. So, there’ll be some frustrations, but the Chinese will try to find a way to work with it. I don’t think the Chinese are going to abandon the Taliban. And at the same time, I don’t think they’re going to be an unquestioning, unconditional friend as well; they’re going to try to find ways to promote what’s in their interest, which is some of that balance we talked about.
[50:40] SG: If things go wrong in Afghanistan for China, does that then impact on their relationship with Pakistan because of Pakistan’s very close relationship with the Taliban and the Haqqanis?
[50:52] DL: The Chinese were always concerned about their investments in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the Chinese did a good job of dealing with the Taliban in the countryside, paying them off to allow them to continue to operate their mines. So, the Pakistanis have often been messaged by the Chinese to temper it down, and the Pakistanis would do perhaps what they could superficially. I think that the Chinese-Pakistan relationship is very sound, as it is. I think China has only increased its leverage. Pakistan doesn’t want to be a slave to one state to fight off being a slave to another, so it’s going to try to maintain some degree of independence. And I’m sure that Chinese individuals sometimes have the same frustrating meetings with their Pakistani counterparts that I endured over the years. But I don’t see that relationship breaking.
Similarly, I don’t really necessarily see the US-Pakistan relationship breaking. I see it getting really frail at times, and even by a thin thread at others, but I don’t think there’s, at this point, a willingness by either party to break the relationship, though there are times I think the United States should push it more for the American part. For the NATO part, the great worry is, well, if that relationship breaks, we no longer have influence at keeping what might be a jihadist Taliban-like government coming to power in Pakistan and having control of their nuclear weapons—that’s the ultimate nightmare. NATO does not want that. Even in its worst days in Afghanistan, when we were losing the highest number of casualties from facilitation provided to the Haqqanis and the Taliban by Pakistan, we were not willing to break that relationship, because the threat and the danger we saw of a broken Pakistan, from whose ashes could come a Taliban-type government, was a nightmare with which we did not want to have to contend.
[52:52] SG: I know I said that I was going to get to Russia, but you keep raising so many good points that it just keeps making me want to ask you more interesting questions. So, this will probably be the penultimate question: you spoke about the concern that there is of nuclear weapons getting into the wrong hands in Pakistan. And that was certainly something that I’ve heard a lot by policymakers in the last 20 years. Is that a genuine concern? Because they seem quite safe and secure under the military. Has there ever been an occasion where it’s actually got close to being in the wrong hands? And I guess then it also comes down to defining what the wrong hands are.
[53:35] DL: So, I’ll answer that backwards. First, I’d say there have been insider threats within the Pakistani military that would give one pause. They had been disrupted, the ones of which I’m aware, over the years, but they have come. I don’t think that we should overestimate the stability of the military. I think one of the greatest denial and deception operations I’ve ever seen done has been done by Pakistan, in convincing the West, convincing the United States, that we should be betting on them, we should rely on them, they’re just like us, they’re progressive, you know, they believe in God, they’re Islamic, they’re progressive, and they run the country, I wouldn’t say in a secular way, because it’s an Islamic republic fashion. But we’ve got to invest in that, we’ve got to trust them, because we’re all together in this.
I think that’s one of the greatest D&D [Denial and Deception] programmes I’ve seen, because I don’t think the Pakistan military is that cohesive, I don’t think it’s that stable, and I don’t think it’s that resistant to an uprising. I worked with Pakistani security elements against al-Qaeda, tried to against the Taliban, and there was no shortage of sympathy for some of these movements. There was no shortage of content for what they still saw as a very imperialist, colonialist West—not just the United States, Great Britain and others, who they did not cry for when we suffered our own defeats and problems. So, I would not really have that confidence in Pakistan’s military. I think that’s one of the reasons why the West, the United States in particular, wanted that continuing influence and access, to provide training, to have some eyes on, to provide means for the Pakistani leadership to continue to secure its nuclear weapons, its way it delegated authority. But I do not sleep well at night thinking that all is well there.
[55:40] SG: Well, that is a very sombre assessment. So, this is the last question now, I can promise. We spoke about Russia, and right now, as you’ve probably seen, there is this migration crisis on the border between Belarus, Poland, and Lithuania. And there’s a belief that it is being created deliberately by President Lukashenko of Belarus, involving hybrid warfare, potentially with the support and assistance of Russia. And this is now a major concern for NATO. What is your take on what is happening?
[56:17] DL: I think we have to get a lot smarter about Russia, I think we have to be a lot more realistic. Vladimir Putin has thrown out all the rules of order that we went by, because largely they were imposed by the West, they were imposed by NATO and the United States on the rest of the world, in terms of comportment and behaviour. Putin started talking about Ukraine, unashamedly saying Ukraine’s part of Russia. He does not even respect Ukraine’s sovereignty as an independent country. So, threats about embarrassing or cajoling the Russians are futile because you’re not going to embarrass or cajole Vladimir Putin.
Russia, historically, and Putin as very much in that grain, understands consequences, reciprocity, actions. So, there’s got to be a threat for Putin to be concerned enough to change his behaviour. I don’t see us yet embarking on that multidomain warfare that Russia is, which is very much in the charter of General Gerasimov, his famous doctrine from 2013, which is essentially, it’s been written on that all measures short of war, addition through subtraction, where we’re weaker than the United States, we have to even the playing field. So, we want to win the war without having to fire shots, we want to be able to win the war by compromising alliances, using propaganda, disinformation, intimidation, economic hegemony, in order to make sure that the United States and NATO doesn’t have the chance to send Marines, the 82nd airborne, the German armoured divisions forward, because we would have already lost the war before it became a military one.
That multidomain warfare, fighting in the cyber realm, the information realm, the economic realm, is one that I don’t think NATO and the United States have put their arms around holistically as a campaign. We do it independently. We fight cyber with cyber; we try to fight disinformation with influence and messaging and diplomacy. But the Russians do it as a campaign, it’s all very much synchronised and tied together, which is what’s been effective. Russia is not a supreme military power. They are enhancing their capabilities by embarking on a strategy—this multidomain strategy—which we’re not yet fighting back with. So, I think NATO and the United States really have to start embracing that, starting to synchronise how we deal with Russia across the playing field, because it’s not necessarily symmetrical. If they are going to threaten us here, we may not have the capacity to counter that threat there. We need to find an asymmetrical way which the Russians get and understand “okay, that’s the price, we’re not going to do it.” Because other than that, I think we’re still now playing Putin’s game, and by Putin’s rules, as opposed to one where we could exercise our own advantages of which we have many.
[59:23] SG: Well, on that note, I think we can conclude with knowing that this problem is not going to go away and is something we’re going to have to address, and as you said, we’re going to have to get a lot smarter about Russia. Douglas London, it’s been a real pleasure to have you on NATO Deep Dive. We’re very grateful and thank you so much for spending the time with us.
[59:47] DL: The pleasure is all mine. You all have a great day.
[59:55] SG: Thank you for listening to this episode of DEEP Dive. I’m your host, Dr. Sajjan Gohel. DEEP Dive is brought to you by NATO’s Defence Education Enhancement Programme. The production and research team are Marcus Andreopoulos and Victoria Jones. For additional content, including full transcripts of each episode, please visit: deepportal.hq.nato.int/deepdive.
Disclaimer: Please note that the views, information, or opinions expressed in the DEEP Dive series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of NATO or DEEP.