How Killing a Taliban Leader Signals a Change in the Afghan War.........
The extremist leader’s death co
Pakistani civil society activists shout slogans during a demonstration in Multan on Monday, against a US drone strike in Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan. (SS MIRZA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
The U.S. has justified killing the leader of the Taliban by saying he was planning to attack American or coalition forces in Afghanistan. But some observers believe the secretive operation against the extremist leader at a southwest Pakistan hideout represents a shift in how the White House plans to execute the war.
U.S. leaders, including President Barack Obama, on Monday confirmed the death of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Akhtar Mansour in a U.S. drone strike on his hideout in southwestern Pakistan on Saturday.
The current rules of engagement prohibit targeting Taliban leaders offensively, but the military insists the strike comports with its policy of protecting Americans and U.S. partners against direct threats.
U.S. strikes in Afghanistan are currently limited to direct operations against international terrorist groups like al-Qaida, the Haqqani Network or elements of the Islamic State group. Warplanes and ground troops can only engage the Taliban if they are under direct threat themselves, or in the less common position of preventing important Afghan positions from being overrun.
The Defense Department said it had intelligence that Mansour was actively preparing for some kind of attack that would have likely killed U.S. or coalition soldiers based in Afghanistan, giving the forces based there the authority to kill him, even though he was in a foreign country at the time. Spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis referred to the operation as a "defensive strike" that given the location required a higher level of approval, but he would not provide any specifics on the foiled attack itself.
He also insisted that the strike does not represent any change in the authorities granted to U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan.
"This is us continuing to do what we've been doing, which is to take action to conduct strikes of a defensive nature when we see anybody, whether it's Taliban or anybody else, doing things of a threatening nature to U.S. or coalition forces," Davis said. "Anybody who does that needs to be very careful, we will take action to remove them from the battlefield."
Still, targeting and killing Mansour could change the battlefield fight against the Taliban at what some consider a critical time. The day before the strike, the Brookings Institution's Michael O'Hanlon and David Petraeus, the former commander for the war in Afghanistan,wrote an op-ed advocating for greater use of force against the Taliban.
"While we also need to keep a focus on whether U.S. and NATO forces are adequate in size for the current mission, we need to take the gloves off those forces already in-country," they wrote.
Omar Hamid, head of Asia analysis for IHS Jane's Country Risk, says the strike may have solve multiple problems at the same time.
"You cleared the decks, got rid of Mansour, sent a message that the U.S. will continue to be tough against insurgent groups and won't shy away from strikes in Pakistan," Hamid says. "Perhaps it ticks all these boxes, even though the immediate, short-term impact of his death will almost certainly be negative in terms of an increase in the levels of violence within Afghanistan."
The U.S. was already in the midst of a potential sea change in the 14-year-old war. The Pentagon's new commander is expected in as little as two weeks to present recommendations to top military leaders and the president for how he would like to proceed. Army Gen. John Nicholsonhas previously indicated he would like an enduring American presence there, slowing the White House's plan to reduce the current levels of 9,800 American and 3,000 NATO forces by about half by the end of this year.
President Barack Obama's own remarks on Monday, in justifying the strike, also reflect the trouble the U.S. has had so far in getting the Afghan security infrastructure to a level where it can operate on its own against a spike in Taliban attacks in recent months.
"We are not re-entering the day-to-day combat operations that are currently being conducted by Afghan security forces," he said during a press conference in Vietnam, where he is currently traveling. "Our job is to help Afghanistan secure its own country, not to have our men and women in uniform engage in that fight for them."
Davis declined numerous times to say whether the U.S. had given Pakistan any advanced notice about the strike, saying only that the two countries have "longstanding, ongoing relations" that result in regular talks and that the U.S. has spoken with the Pakistani government about Mansour before.
"There were specific things we knew he had engaged in and was preparing to engage in again, that were directly threatening U.S. and coalition forces," Davis said.
Pakistani officials claimed the U.S. violated its sovereignty with this latest strike. But observers say their tepid objections appeared to be geared toward a domestic audience.
The attack could signal improved cooperation with the Pakistani government, with which relations have foundered in recent years over U.S. concerns it wasn't doing enough to root out extremists operating within its borders. Ties between the two countries reportedly dropped to an extreme low in 2011 when it emerged that U.S. planners had not consulted their counterparts in Islamabad before launching the raid on Abbottabad that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
It's in both countries' interests to improve relations, however, as Pakistan wants to complete a deal with the U.S. for the sale of F-16 fighter jets, and the U.S. benefits from Pakistani information and permission to strike targets in its tribal areas in the north.
This latest strike occurred in the Pakistani province of Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan's southernmost reaches as well as Iran. This region had previously been considered a "red line" of sorts that the U.S. would not cross in targeting extremists.
Others believe the strike represents a departure from the previous U.S. strategy of trying to work with groups like the Taliban to reach a negotiated peace.
"In that sense, I think this was a fundamental shift," says Moeed Yusuf, associate vice president of the United States Institute of Peace's Asia Center.
Talks slated for roughly six months from now likely won't continue as planned, as the Taliban almost certainly won't be able to produce a leader who can consolidate power and then speak on the extremists network's behalf.
One of the more hard-line leaders, such as Sirajuddin Haqqani, a leader of the notoriously dangerous Haqqani Network, likely won't support a negotiated peace but presents the greatest possibility of rallying Taliban troops' support.