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Obama has to reconsider prioritizing the more refined goals of quelling terrorist infiltration to the country and protecting the boarder

Obama’s Failed Afghan Strategy and the Return of Al-Qaeda



Al-Qaeda has moved back into Afghanistan, a blockbuster article from the Wall Street Journal has revealed. The report contains details of U.S. airstrikes in September against what military officials are now calling an “al-Qaeda training camp” in Korengal Valley - Afghanistan's so-called Valley of Death. It is the first time in a number of years that the terrorist network is considered to have established an operating base inside the country.

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The implications of an al-Qaeda return to Afghanistan are a disastrous development for President Obama. The existence of this camp in Kunar Province came only after large U.S. troop-drawbacks from the region. The administration's military analysis at the time was this; because a heavy American troop presence was abetting Taliban recruitment in the area, pulling out would eliminate the Taliban’s need to maintain a fighting presence there. Major developments since, however, expose the failed logic of this strategy. Not only did the Taliban recently seize the Waygal district in Kunar, but it appears al-Qaeda has pinned the region as defenceless and is now pushing to claim it as their newest stomping ground. This naturally brings into focus larger and more critical questions about the future of the Obama administration’s strategy in Afghanistan. Though the core objective remains to deny al-Qaeda a safe haven in the country, the addition of some 50,000 troops over the last two years clearly hasn’t achieved it. Instead of increasing their efforts to fortify the failed boarder with Pakistan, officials have preferred to focus more on fighting Taliban militants in the South on an issue-by-issue and location-based strategy of intervention. Despite the setbacks Gen. Patraeus recently claimed they have handed the Taliban in these areas, the Obama-backed surge hasn’t achieved the more strategically urgent need to keep terrorists from entering and seizing territory in the remote Northern regions of the country. As a result, even Pakistani militant groups have become active in Kunar Province. The WSJ report indicates that Jaish-e-Muhammad as well as Lashkar-e-Taiba, who carried out the Mumbai attacks in 2008, each have known operatives inside the boarder. Complicating matters further, a growing base of Chechen fighters from Central Asia are piling in. Currently, Obama’s military strategy is based on building a meaningful long-term political partnership with the Afghan government – a process that is ultimately contingent, however, on Afghan forces supporting military gains that he hasn't yet made. If there is any hope of carrying out the further troop-withdraws his administration has promised for July, Obama has to reconsider prioritizing the more refined goals of quelling terrorist infiltration to the country and protecting the boarder.


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Trevor Westra -- Bio and Archives

Trevor Westra is a Canadian analyst and blogger whose writings on international affairs are featured at FamilySecurityMatters.org, syndicated security news-blog WorldThreats.com, and online magazine Global Politician. He writes frequently on role of religion in global conflict at his website, and is a contributing analyst with </i>Wikistrat. A graduate of Canada’s Laurentian University, he specializes in the religious historiography of the Middle East and South Asia.


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