Mike Walker, Colonel USMC (retired)
The death of UBL has led to a spate of misinformation regarding the relationship between the Taliban and al Qaeda. Basing decisions on misinformation at this point would be a tragic and far-reaching mistake.
First, let us go over the history between these two organizations. Al Qaeda was led, until this week, by UBL. The Taliban is led by Mullah Omar. The current alliance between the two began in earnest when Mullah Omar invited UBL and al Qaeda into Afghanistan from the Sudan within months of the Taliban taking control of Kabul in 1996.
The leaders of the two movements were indivisibly joined in the tradition of that region, i.e. the feudal intermarriage between the two families to cement the alliance. Most reliable open source reports cite the fact that a daughter from each family married into the other’s family. They are joined together in blood on many levels.
In May 1998 al Qaeda declared war on the United States during a conference hosted by the Taliban in Afghanistan. In 1999 al Qaeda began detailed planning and training for the 9/11 attacks from camps provided to them by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
By 9/11 2001 al Qaeda was an official unit in the Taliban Army in Afghanistan and was designated as 055 Brigade. In other words, the fighters in al Qaeda and the fighters in the Taliban were seamlessly integrated in common cause against us on the battlefield from day one.
The Taliban alliance with al Qaeda is a strong today as it was on 9/11.
Second, we need to understand how important personal leadership is to movements like this. When Zarqawi, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), was killed in 2006 the organization carried on normally for a few months. But after the previously planned operations were completed AQI began to falter. New and well-coordinated operations did not easily follow and the organization soon faded as a viable threat to Iraqi sovereignty.
A fair portion of this collapse was due directly to the loss of the ‘great leader.’ It was not simply a case of a key billet that urgently needed to be filled as is the experience in the Western or Eastern military tradition where the army is bigger than any one person. It was a hole that could never be filled. In organizations like al Qaeda the leader often is the organization. This is especially true when the heart and soul of the organization is so deeply based on faith in God as are the al Qaeda and Taliban movements.
The inescapable question now facing every true believer in al Qaeda is why did God kill UBL? That leads almost immediately to asking why has God forsaken us, why are we being punished, what did we do that was so wrong? The death of UBL is not simply the loss of a key or even the key leader; it represents a shattering of the previously unchallenged belief that UBL was the righteous arm of God. Clearly he was not. Great personal piety is no excuse for merciless and compassionless murder of innocents.
The death of UBL has caused a crisis of faith in the ranks that al Qaeda will probably never recover from. A similar fate probably awaits the Taliban should Mullah Omar meet his just deserts.
Finally, let us go over what we do not know. We do not know that UBL was only a figurehead or symbolic leader. We do not know that he was an active leader running operations directly from his compound in Pakistan. We will, however, know which assumption is true shortly.
Open source reports claim that significant amounts information in the form of documents and electronic storage media were captured. Reportedly, he had several "thumb drives" whose information was so sensitive that he carried them on his body at all times.
If that reporting is largely true then that information will be exploited by the intelligence community and we be able to assess just how involved UBL was in al Qaeda operations. Perhaps more importantly, we will find out how deeply UBL was or was not involved in operations conducted by the Taliban, Haqqani Network, and Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami Faction in Afghanistan.
If he was an active member of the enemy’s Afghan operational leadership then that could have a profound effect on both the Taliban and Haqqani Network (or less likely, on Hekmatyar's) spring offensives now underway in Afghanistan as those plans may now be compromised.
My bet is that UBL was actively involved. Too many intelligence and operational leaders underestimated UBL too many times in the past. The assumption that he was a mere figurehead may become one more miscalculation on our part in understanding the threat we face on the battlefield.
Semper Fi,
Mike
