The Struggle between American Army and Intelligence

 

Rabi' al-Awwal 30, 1431 A.H, Wednesday March 17, 2010

Sunday 17 January 2010

Thus America Greets a Year of Failure in Afghanistan:
A Struggle Between the Army and Intelligence and a dual failure on two fronts.

English Translation from Al-Somood Magazine

By Mustafa Hamed

The American Central Intelligence Agency bid farewell to the past Christian year with a funeral procession when it sustained a painful blow in the city of Khost. The blow was so strong that they categorized it as the second most violent blow sustained by the agency since its establishment in 1947. In the Khost attack, the agency – “according to its official story” – lost seven killed, among them the station chief for the base as well as two personnel from a security company that supplies the agency’s unmanned aircraft with ammunition!! This is in addition to six wounded.

According to agency records, the most damaging blow in its history came in Beirut in 1983. Although the fact that the first numbers announced on the Khost operation stated that eight Americans were killed, for psychological reasons the Americans authorities always greatly minimize the amount of their losses in Afghanistan. Likewise the American intelligence agency does not wish – also for psychological reasons – to admit that its greatest loss in history occurred specifically in Afghanistan.

The Khost operation is very rich in significance and warnings in all areas, for example:

Significance of the place: Khost.

Significance of the target: military base of the American Central Intelligence Agency.

Then there is the relationship that has again been discovered between American intelligence and companies of international killers, mercenary companies like the infamous Blackwater.

First – significance of the place: “Khost”

Khost is the capital of a region that bears the same name. This region enjoys a strategic significance unparalleled by any other Afghan region. This is because the region is crisscrossed by the largest number of natural corridors connecting Afghanistan with neighboring Pakistan. In the past, Khost was a very small town, almost forgotten, called “Matun Baba”. When relations between the two neighboring countries became strained, Khost was transformed into a large military barracks and a larger intelligence base.

During the era of communist rule, and later Soviet occupation, the “intelligence value” of Khost – and the entire region of course – increased. From the city of Khost was directed an intelligence effort almost unparalleled in Afghanistan. It was mostly directed towards the tribal region in Pakistan, specifically the region of north Waziristan.

What is happening now and what the American occupation is doing is almost a literal application of what the communists and Soviets did before. The main difference is the technology being used.

When Khost city was conquered on 31 March 1991, the Mujahideen found inside the city 18 intelligence centers. They said that this was three times more than was commonplace in other cities. The missions of those centers are consistent with what American intelligence is doing in the same region today: the organization of acts of sabotage, assassination, espionage and recruitment of agents in the tribal regions, especially Waziristan. This was in addition to internal work against the Mujahideen in the region including gathering information, recruiting agents, organizing sabotage and assassinations, and sowing dissension and discord among the ranks of different tribes. Soviet activity extended to signing local agreements with Jihadist groups and the same tribal factions to move towards a partial or complete withdrawal from some important regions. The aim of this was to ignite armed struggle among factions of the Mujahideen and tribes.

Second - significance of the target: Military base for American intelligence:

This is a large and multifaceted topic.

Why does intelligence have a military base?

What is the impact of that on the military action of the American army?

What is the impact of that on the harmony between intelligence efforts and military efforts?

What is the impact on the militarization of American intelligence on the internal situation in the United States and in the world?

More specifically, what is the impact of that inside Khost?

What is the impact of that on the link between the tribal region of Waziristan and events in Afghanistan and Pakistan?

What is the depth of the relationship between American intelligence and criminal, mercenary companies like Blackwater?

To what extent have such mercenary companies infiltrated the most sensitive centers in American life, such as “internal and external” security and, specifically, intelligence?

To what extent do criminal international companies like Blackwater control the reins of modern technological weapons with regards to import, export and supplying the army and intelligence with that material whether manufactured inside the United States or inside Israel?

What is the extent of influence of Blackwater and its sister companies over weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons, when political leaders in Pakistan have stated that this company has placed the Pakistani nuclear program under its protection?

What is the role of American intelligence and international criminal companies like Blackwater in administrating the American project to plant opium in Afghanistan, manufacture heroin and distribute it internationally?

What is the role of Blackwater and its sisters in protecting the petroleum pipelines that cross through Afghanistan from Turkmenistan and into Pakistan?

What is the impact of the privatization of the army and intelligence upon the internal political situation in the United States and the fate of the ruling regime?

Will the regime turn into a new kind of fascist and totalitarian state internally and on the international stage? And will America turn into fascist empire controlling the world for the benefit of capitalism and Zionism?

What is the role of Zionist banker capital in that transformation and what is the extent of its control, through the policy of privatization, over the army and intelligence and subsequently inside America?

What is the impact of all that upon Muslims generally, upon Arabs particularly and upon the Palestinians most particularly?

Militias, Communists, Occupation

The presence of a Central Intelligence Agency base in Khost warns of the severe danger to the security of citizens on both sides of the border and their constant exposure to the threat of murder and destruction of property.

It is well known that the tribes are the same on both sides of the border, and their division came at the hands of the British occupation which drew up separating boundaries. All the Pushtun regions were inside Afghan territory until this was divided by the Durand treaty which drew the borders. It was assumed this would be temporary in duration, but removing the effects of colonialism will be no easy matter so long as a proper Islamic regime is not implemented on both sides of the artificial border.

But an open and provocative presence of this degree leads to exciting religious and nationalist feelings against the occupiers, especially if they are provocative louts like the Americans. Like the rest of Afghanistan, this region has been famed for resistance to invaders across the ages. During the Soviet era, the victories of Khost and the assault on the city and its military conquest were the incomparable crowning achievements of the Jihadist war in Afghanistan. And it is now recording a new battle, a malhama, against the American occupation.

Although the occupiers have been able to hide a great many facts, the painful debacle of the detonation of their intelligence center in Khost was too big to hide, although as is their custom, they minimized the amount and extent of their losses, for reasons connected to the psychological state of their forces.

The communists previously considered Khost to be one of their main strongholds in the country. They thought that they were successful in recruiting a large number of strong militias to support them in the war against the Mujahedeen. They were helped in this by the presence of sons of this region among the high-ranking officers in the communist regime, the most famous of whom was Shah Nawaz Tana, who reached the Army general staff.

Nonetheless, a large number of the members and leaders of the militias of the region provided inestimable service to the Mujahideen, especially in the provision of information and later in arranging the heavy defeat of the communist forces. When attacked, most of those militias joined with the Mujahideen or left the fighting completely and fled with their families from the region. Meanwhile the regime called upon for help the militias organized by Abdul Rasheed Dostum, currently the Army chief of staff in the Karzai government. There is almost no Mujahid in Khost who does not feel a personal vengeance against Dostum and his militias.

The American occupation is following in the footsteps of the Soviet occupation in an astounding manner, both from its overall approach to managing the entire problem to its way of managing the war in its smallest details.

Despite possessing far better weapons, the (Americans) are less proficient in managing war and conducting field combat and even in the field of collecting information and intelligence. This is clear from the recent Khost strike and other incidents.

Since the conquest of Khost, western humanitarian (!!) aid organizations have rushed to contact individuals and leaders of the communist leaders in Khost. This is natural since it has happened in all parts of the country. They opened projects in their districts, rented their houses at fantastic prices, and woven a network of relationships which they used against the first Islamic Emirate. And they use it now to strengthen the occupation, defend their forces and work within their intelligence network. Just as many countries near and far worked to hunt down and recruit officers of the previous communist intelligence agency, especially from the apparatus of the “KHAD” information service, which was transformed into a ministry towards the end of the regime’s life. Now the time has come for them to apply their intelligence expertise in the internal Afghan realm. This is invaluable experience and the American war budget is capable of filling their bellies with gold.

But it must be noted that many changes have occurred in the circles of those officers and in the con**** of their national and tribal background. For example: many of them inclined moderately towards Islam, especially after experiencing the war, the defeat of the communist regime and the collapse of the Soviet empire. Additionally, there is the fact that many of them enjoy a pardon given to them by the Mujahideen. This was the last thing they expected and may have a deeper impact on them than anything else.

I personally lived through an incident of this type when a high-ranking general of the communist regime was captured after the conquest of Khost. His wife came with his children to beg the leader of the region to pardon him and not kill him. He answered her plea and gave as a gift to her and her children that venerable general, who belonged to the largest tribe in Khost.

Another general with a special rank in the regime was captured by the Mujahideen at the conquest of Khost. They treated him well and he was a great help to them in subsequent battles and had a great impact in the surrender of large army forces in other cities.

Second, the ideological background of those officers is Marxist, but mostly it’s built upon an extreme nationalist base, hostile to the English in a “hereditary historical fashion” and everything related to the English, at the forefront of which are the Americans.

That extreme nationalism is a stronger force among them than is Marxism. As for tribal affiliation, that comes first. This is a strong influence in Afghan society, exceeded by nothing else other than their adherence to Islam. Nationalism and tribalism have caused violent clashes among them and with the Soviets which developed into armed battles and at time attempts at revolution.

Third, there are numerous other ramifications examples of which we have seen in other Islamic countries. The most important of which is that there is a faction of such people who have joined themselves heart and soul with the American surge and have employed themselves acting in hostility to Islam, and even in hostility to nationalist feelings, to the point they have become more American than America itself and more colonialist than colonialism.

From what was previously demonstrated, it is very clear there are local military and intelligence elements ready to conduct operations against the American presence after the manner of the Khost operation, or even more severe.

The role of information in war:

The American Central Intelligence Agency began its work, like similar organizations around the world, as an organization concerned with gathering information, analyzing it and providing it to the decision-makers.

Then its work evolved into operations interfering with the internal affairs of foreign countries, and arranging coups like occurred in Iran in 1953 against the Mossadeq on behalf of the American petroleum companies, or invasion attempts using mercenary forces as happened in Cuba during the Bay of Pigs operation against the regime of Fidel Castro.

Its role abroad has developed to its current state in which it has become revealed as a complete army operating abroad. Obama himself has described that intelligence army as working on the front lines in the war against the enemies. This is the army that organized the kidnapping of thousands of Muslims from everywhere and took most of them to secret prisons around the world. The small minority were taken to Guantanamo. The missing ones are believed to have been subjected to more torture, or subjected to medical and psychological tests. Undoubtedly most of them met their fate and were turned into spare parts after their organs were harvested, just like Israel does with kidnapped and imprisoned Palestinians.

That “intelligence army” plays the complete role of a traditional combatant army possessing open bases, and conducts operations with aircraft, satellites and guided missiles to assassinate “enemies”, destroy facilities and sow fear among civilians to dissuade them from aiding the Mujahideen.

However, is the effect of that a military digression – or the militarization of intelligence agencies – from its duties as an organization that gathers and analyzes intelligence?

This question cannot be answered precisely, but there of operational indicators that point to a decline in intelligence performance without the military performance recording any praiseworthy success. On the contrary, many opinions have emerged which sharply criticize this process and regard its effects as far more negative than positive.

The failure of that organization in gathering intelligence has reached the point that one of its main bases in Afghanistan was subjected to a martyrdom-seeking operation which inflicted the second greatest losses on the CIA in its history. That dreadful agency was unable to protect itself in the poorest and least armed country whose only method means of defending itself is deep religious allegiance with a highly proficient and experienced leadership.

The agency then alleged that its mission in Khost was to pursue the Mujahideen, the foremost of whom is one of the most prominent field commanders of the Islamic Emirate, Sheikh Jalaluddin Haqqani, may Allah protect him and his men. But the operation that struck them revealed who was pursuing whom. For Khost remains one of the most active fronts, and Sheikh Haqqani, may Allah protect him, worthily directs his operations in greater Paktia: Paktika, Khost and Paktia. And so we do not forget, Paktika is the province in which was taken prisoner the first American soldier to be captured since the Vietnam War. Where is the ability of that legendary agency in performing those miracles that you see the propaganda films made in Hollywood?

It is clear that American intelligence assassination operations and its departure from the realm of what is “reasonable” both inside and outside the United States, have weakened it on all fronts, even in its primary field – which is intelligence work – even as it has weakened it in additional areas – namely, acting as an organized army.

It is natural that the militarization of the intelligence agency has caused a fissure in its relationship with the regular army, and this interference in others’ specializations reflects on the level of performance of both parties in the field of Afghan operations. This is clearly demonstrated by the pathetic military performance of the American army and its loss of control over the course of affairs and the loss of initiative to the forces of the Islamic Emirate.

Merely the intervention of the intelligence agency in such a fashion in the field of military operations gives the impression of a loss of confidence by the state in its army. It likewise damages decisively presumed cooperation between an intelligence agency whose job is to gather and analyze information and the army which supposedly bases its plans and conducts its operations according to that information.

It is perfectly clear that this cycle has now been broken. For the army does not possess sufficient information and moves like a blind elephant (or like a blind donkey according to which party is in power) fumbling about from wall to wall, striking recklessly and destroying everything but its enemies. In the end it will collapse from fatigue and be torn apart by those waiting for this moment. They will slay it and deliver the country and Believers from it.

Divergent aims for the army and intelligence

The former director of Pakistani intelligence made the following comment about the Khost operation: there is a lack of coordination between the CIA and the army operating in Afghanistan, and the goals of the CIA do not accord with the aims of the army, and that is a source of division.

We say that this is a source of something greater than a division, it is an element of disruption and chaos in military operation that will end ultimately in defeat. The same intelligence director observed that the Soviets were more successful than the Americans in Afghanistan because of the coordination between the military and the intelligence apparatus. The struggle between the army and Central Intelligence has reached the point that it compelled the chief of military intelligence in Afghanistan to describe, in his last and most serious report to the American administration, the Central Intelligence as ignorant.

It appears that amazing technological superiority has governed the minds of the CIA leaders and they think that this alone is able to subjugate the Islamic peoples. They wanted to obtain that “honor” for themselves and they put their hands on a system for aerial assassination, or unmanned aircraft, linked to satellites and equipped with guided missiles which defy error. And what has been the result of this?

They have been able to kill some targets –but many more innocent people and religious holy places such as mosques, madrasas and religious scholars. And with the mosques they burned copies of the Quran and killed hundreds of children and elderly and destroyed hundreds of houses.

The yield has been the expansion of the spirit of resistance and Jihad, which has spread like fire in the straw so that the Jihad has become a popular Jihadist revolution encompassing all segments of the population and not simply religious students. This has occurred in Afghanistan and it has been capably managed by the military, political and media apparatus of the Islamic Emirate.

It has also happened in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Palestine and Lebanon and every place that American intelligence has sought to humiliate the Muslims and subjugate them to the power of technology as a substitute for the power of Allah the creator.

We can almost say that the numbers of Muslims who have left for Jihad carrying weapons in the face of the American tyrant as a result of the operations of American intelligence are far greater than the numbers of Muslims who have brought out by the words and sermons religious preachers and scholars.

In the end, America will lose its battles on all fronts. The Afghan front will be first and foremost.

The failure of American intelligence in the opium war

Despite the shameful reverses suffered by American intelligence in Afghanistan, especially their recent disgrace at Khost, their invisible disasters are the most important and most dangerous. They are systematically losing their military battles, and before they lost most of their most important battle in the “opium war”, which is the crux of the war and its primary cause and engine.

It is assumed that the protection of and investment in the opium prize is the primary mission of the CIA. According to the United Nations, when it took possession of Afghanistan the opium crop there was only 185 tons, most of it from the areas of the Northern Alliance, America’s first and last ally in Afghanistan. As a result of the efforts of the American intelligence agency, the opium crop in Afghanistan has surpassed 9,000 tons!!

The primary task of the ruling regime, with Karzai and his brother at its head, is to gather opium from the southern provinces, Helmand in particular, which grows most of the opium in Afghanistan, exceeding 60% of the entire world’s opium growth.

American intelligence uses the Army’s air bases and other secret sites under its control to convert the opium crop into heroin. It then supervises its transport and distribution around the world by means of army aircraft and its own private airplanes, using Army airfields and its secret airfields in Afghanistan. It also uses other military flights and other secret flights such as those which transport kidnapped Muslims. It is doubtful that the ruling regime in the White House has full or detailed knowledge of the activities of that intelligence agency in the cultivation of opium, the production and distribution of heroin, or the strategic reserve which will last the world for years even if its cultivation if Afghanistan ceases. This is expected to occur with the return of the Islamic Emirate to rule and after the American collapse, which is expected at any moment.

American intelligence is allied with the big Zionist banks, top army generals, big industrialists, and narcotics, weapons and oil mafias, who constitute the true power in the land and not the White House or Congress. All of those are merely carefully chosen employees. This is the new American fascism.

We say that the great American failure is not in combat, or the blows of the Mujahideen which have reached inside its intelligence bases. The great and dangerous failure is that half of the opium crop in Afghanistan is reaching the competitors of the United States and its possible enemies, with the Russians standing at their front, without their sending one soldier, or losing one drop of blood or one bullet. Thus the happiest of people understand the American predicament in Afghanistan and the foolish occupations of the Americans, the stupid application of military force and great technological power which is driven by the stupidest mentalities in the history of warfare. All of that will lead swiftly to the complete American collapse, not only in Afghanistan but on the entire international stage.

This bears a better opportunity for all competitors and enemies to occupy a better position in the coming world order, an order in which the Islamic Emirate will be among the greatest of those drawing its contours.