General: bin Laden Death Will Spook Afghan Insurgents

Spook

There aren’t many al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan anymore. Maybe 100, judging by most estimates. But the Marine general who recently ran the war in rugged southwestern Afghanistan says that Osama bin Laden’s death will still have a major psychological impact on the insurgency.

Tactically, al-Qaida’s support of Taliban fighters in provinces like Helmand is “more indirect than it is direct,” says Maj. Gen. Richard Mills, who ran Regional Command Southwest for NATO from April 2010 until last month. “Equipment and personnel flowed up from Pakistan into the Helmand river valley,” he explains, but “very few” actual fighters. Guns and cash, mostly.

Those facilitators now have to watch their backs, Mills predicts during a Thursday breakfast meeting with reporters in Washington. Intelligence gathered from bin Laden’s captured hard drives “will identify people who are involved in material support for the insurgency in Afghanistan,” he says. “I think it will provide targets to be worked, and I think it’ll have a tremendous impact a little bit later in the year, as the loss of that leadership begins to take place and they lose that capabilities.”

And that leads to the bigger overall impact for the war, Mills predicts, even amongst fighters who don’t have anything to do with al-Qaida. The killing of bin Laden will “sow seeds of distrust among the leadership and cause considerable turmoil on the battlefield for the [insurgent] soldiers themselves.”  Taliban leaders who previously thought they were untouchable by U.S. forces now have to reconsider their assumptions. “We don’t leave our missions,” Mills says. “Once we’ve targeted you, we’re going to maintain our focus on you until mission’s accomplished. … That has to have a psychological impact on the leadership of the insurgency.”

Whether it hastens the end of a decade-long war is a different story. Experts are still debating the impact of killing bin Laden on al-Qaida’s global terrorism operations. But when it comes to the Afghanistan war itself, launched to destroy a terrorist network that’s now based in Pakistan and dispersed worldwide, the Obama administration has so far declined to announce an accelerated schedule for reducing troops this year in the wake of killing bin Laden. The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Team Obama hopes bin Laden’s death will shock the Taliban into negotiating.

In a talk with Danger Room readers on Wednesday, Stephen Grey, a Frontline reporter who recently interviewed senior Taliban commanders in Pakistan, said that the Taliban “is crucial FOR Al Qaeda but [I'm] less sure how much they matter to the Taliban… the Taliban has its own inspirations.” If he’s right, then losing bin Laden won’t spur the Taliban into suing for peace, let alone laying down their weapons. The Taliban’s support structure is more dependent on Pakistani intelligence than its old allies in al-Qaida.

But at lower levels, Mills — nominated on Wednesday to head the Marines’ Combat Development Command — thinks the unexpected, dramatic killing of bin Laden might freak out the average Taliban fighter. “It’ll have tremendous impact in showing we’re able to reach out and get what might be perceived as a completely safe target,” he says. Marine special operations units in the southwest have already “decimated the insurgent command and control structure,” leaving operations to be run by Talibs in their early 20s rather than their mid 30s, another factor that might cause a Taliban rethink.

Mills stops far short of predicting an accelerated end to the war thans to bin Laden’s death. Instead, he thinks the Taliban are certain to try to retake Helmand during 2011. But they may not have the same morale, confidence or sense of momentum that they had before bin Laden was iced, and that might compel the insurgents to reconsider the fight — especially as U.S. troops continue to pursue them. Mills points to a peace deal he considers durable in northeast Helmand that came after months of fierce fighting as a possible prologue. It might not be the most satisfying coda to the bin Laden death. But in a war whose adversaries only have an “indirect” relationship now to the original rationale, expecting more might not be realistic.