A new NATO report concludes that the Taliban have dramatically reduced their ties with al-Qaeda in recent years.
The classified report-copies of which were first obtained by the BBC and Times of London- is based on interrogations of nearly 4,000 captured Taliban fighters, al-Qaeda operatives and Afghan civilians.
Media reports have overwhelming focused on the study’s conclusions that the Taliban believe they will retake Afghanistan after NATO withdraws and continue to cooperate closely with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
A more important revelation from the report received scant attention in only some of the media accounts, however. Specifically, the report concludes that the Taliban have dramatically reduced-if not completely severed- their ties with members of al-Qaeda. The New York Times, who also obtained a copy of the report, quotes it as reading, “In most regions of Afghanistan, Taliban leaders have no interest in associating with Al Qaeda…. Working with Al Qaeda invites targeting and Al Qaeda personnel are no longer the adept and versatile fighters and commanders they once were.” The same New York Times article says that even the Haqqani Network-the Taliban faction believed to be most closely associated with al-Qaeda, has also broken with the international terrorist organization.
This revelation is of the upmost importance to the U.S. war effort there. As some may recall, the United States overthrew the Taliban government in Afghanistan in 2001 because it harbored al-Qaeda and initially refused to turn over Osama bin Laden and other members of the international terrorist group. The Taliban itself, while a somewhat destabilizing force in the region, is a nationalistic organization that does not pursue the international agenda of al-Qaeda. Indeed, even while it fights Western forces in Afghanistan, the Afghan Taliban has not sought to carry out attacks in the United States or other Western countries.
The sole purpose of invading Afghanistan was to ensure it would no longer be used as a safe-haven for terrorist groups like al-Qaeda who targeted the West. Thus, the report, if true, suggests that the main objective of the U.S. war has been accomplished.
In related news, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told reporters on Wednesday that the United States will end its combat role in Afghanistan in 2013, a year before it fully withdraws from Kabul. Panetta’s comments less than a week after both France and Germany announced they were accelerating their own troop withdrawals from Afghanistan.
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