Tag: Afghanistan

8 November 1998

Posted on by William Arkin

 

The United States posts a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden in light of his indictment (see November 4).

Diplomatic inquiries are made of the Taliban government in Afghanistan to turn him over. They respond by offering to try bin Laden themselves. After a secret court hearing, and with no U.S. representative present, they find him “innocent” of wrongdoing.

Much has been written about the reasons for Taliban support of bin Laden—that he was bankrolling the regime, or that al Qaeda was helping to fight the normal tribes and alliances resisting Taliban rule and still holding parts of the country. But he didn’t have that much money left after leaving Sudan (and losing much) and al Qaeda wasn’t really engaged in combat. Instead it was a genuine ideological affinity, especially given international condemnation of the Taliban. And Saudi insistence. Perhaps. It was one of only three countries recognizing and supporting the Taliban.

30 October 2000

Posted on by William Arkin
Sandy Berger passes the baton to Condoleezza Rice

 

After the attack on the USS Cole, but absent any “proof” of al Qaeda culpability, National Security Advisor Sandy Berger agrees to a State Department proposal making another approach to the Taliban to expel Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan.

U.S. diplomats had already been in touch with Deputy Foreign Minister Abdul Jalil and now Berger orders that the U.S. message to the Taliban “be stern and foreboding.”

Meanwhile, the Clinton administration is also working with the Russian government on new U.N. sanctions against Mullah Omar’s regime.

Between 1998 and 9/11, the United States issued a half dozen threats to the Taliban, both about bin Laden and support for al Qaeda, and to protest the treatment of women. None of the warnings had any effect.

2 October 1999

Posted on by William Arkin

 

The CIA readies an operation to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, secretly training and equipping approximately 60 military commandos supplied by the Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) establishment.

The covert action, approved by President Clinton, includes a quid pro quo, that Pakistan would train and prepare the commandos and conduct the operation, in return for the lifting of economic sanctions imposed with Pakistan’s nuclear testing.

The plan is briefed and supposedly ready to go, but it is then aborted because on October 12, Pakistan Army General Pervez Musharraf takes control of the country in a military coup. Most would later say that no ISI-sponsored operation would have been successful given that the organization was filled with Taliban and al Qaeda sympathizers.

30 September 2000

Posted on by William Arkin
Predator RQ-1 drone

 

The Taliban issue a press statement saying that an unknown aircraft was seen over Kandahar. CIA-operated Predator drones had started flights over Afghanistan on September 7, flying from an airfield in Uzbekistan.

The satellite-equipped, bulbous-nosed RQ-1 Predator (an enhanced version of the CIA’s Gnat-750) was a newer innovation that allowed the drone to fly beyond the line of sight of ground stations controlling the drones. A year after the satellite-version was introduced, the drone made its first combat debut in hostile airspace, flying near-daily reconnaissance missions over former Yugoslavia (Serbia and Kosovo), then flying from an airfield in Albania.

In December 1998, the CIA first proposed a covert action to use an armed Predator to assassinate Osama bin Laden. Director George Tenet thought the program too risky to be approved on his authority alone and he brought it before the NSC for discussion. The Council gave a go-ahead for development of the capability, but the White House decided to retain control over authorizations for any lethal strikes. Predator development continued to move forward. Flights over Afghanistan are only occasional in September 2000 as the testing program to fire a Hellfire missile from the drone moves forward under Air Force aegis in Nevada. Despite the conclusion that the Predator spotted bin Laden in its first flights (see September 28), the 12-flight covert action is terminated before the end of the year. Predators would not return to the skies of Afghanistan until after 9/11.

28 September 2000

Posted on by William Arkin
Tarnak Farm

 

A mythical pre-9/11 event gains traction, after the first two missions of an unarmed Predator reconnaissance drone are flown over Afghanistan on September 7 and 8. In review of the videos of the flights, the CIA comes to believe that Predator drones captured images of Osama bin Laden, “a tall man dressed in white robes,” during the overflights.

The 9/11 commission says that the conclusion was made after-the-fact. The drone imaged Tarnak Farms in Kandahar, a former Soviet agricultural collective taken over by al Qaeda. “A group of 10 people gathered around him [the tall man] were apparently paying their respects for a minute or two,” the report says.

CIA director George Tenet sends the video to the White House. White House terrorism specialist Richard Clarke wrote to national security advisor Sandy Berger that there was a “very high probability” bin Laden had been located. President Clinton is then shown the video. It is a mythical event, and not provable one way or another; bin Laden is never to be sighted again in Afghanistan, not before or after 9/11. The lore associated with locating bin Laden fed acceleration of an armed version of the Predator drone and a year of covert action to come up with various schemes to capture or assassinate him while at his Tarnak Farms residence east of the city.

26 September 1996

Posted on by William Arkin
map of opposition groups in Afghanistan

 

Afghan military commander and politician Ahmad Shah Massoud abandons Kabul and flees to the Panjshir Valley in the face of overwhelming Taliban forces, which had entered the Afghan capital city from the south.

Massoud had been a powerful mujahedin commander during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and was a leader of the so-called “Northern Alliance,” the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan.

The Alliance formed after the southern-dominated Taliban took over control of most of the country. Massoud’s forces were mostly Tajiks but included other non-Pashtun ethnic groups by 2001. Two days before 9/11, on September 9, Massoud was assassinated by a pair of journalists who blew themselves up during an interview. They are presumed to have been al Qaeda operatives.

14 September 1998

Posted on by William Arkin

 

The United States formally warns the fledgling Taliban regime in Afghanistan (through a diplomatic demarche) that it will hold it responsible for any terrorist attacks perpetrated by al Qaeda—that is, so long as the Taliban continues to provide sanctuary to the group and to Osama bin Laden.

The government in Sudan receives similar warnings.

A month after the twin attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan William Milam meets with Taliban representatives. They tell him that it “against their culture to expel someone seeking sanctuary but asked what would happen to Bin Ladin [sic] should he be sent to Saudi Arabia.” (911 Commission Report, p. 121) It is neither the first nor the last overtures to the Taliban regime regarding bin Laden. In fact, quite astoundingly, we are still negotiating with them today, despite a 20-year war in Afghanistan.