Is the War on Terror expanding? The New York Times reported on June 11 that some al-Qaeda members were fleeing Pakistan for Somalia and Yemen. According to a U.S. counterterrorism official at the time, “There are indications that some al-Qaeda terrorists are starting to see the tribal areas of Pakistan as a tough place to be…It is likely that a small number have left the region as a result. Among these individuals, some have probably ended up in Somalia and Yemen, among other places.”
In response to the physical expansion of the al-Qaeda network, the U.S. has stepped up clandestine counterterrorism operations in Somalia especially. Most recently, the Associated Press reported on September 15th, 2009 that a U.S. Special Operations team captured Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, an al-Qaeda leader based in Somalia. The raid reportedly angered the top leaders of al-Shahab, a powerful Somali Islamic insurgent group with links to al-Qaeda, which afterword declared that there would be immediate retaliation. Two days later, members of al-Shahab infiltrated vehicles belonging to the United Nations and assassinated the second-in-command of the African Union’s peacekeeping force in Somalia, later declaring that the assassination was in direct response to the capture of Nabhan and the deaths of a few other al-Shahab members and civilians in the latest U.S. raid.
While not confirming the attack, Senator James Webb (D-VA) commented that "In concept, these were special ops troops coming off naval ships, taking out an element of al-Qaida and returning back to its original point of origin, which to me, if the target was appropriate, is an appropriate way to use force against international terrorism.” Conceptually, what Webb is saying makes sense. It sounds like a brief assault with minimal casualties, cost, or effort.
But will U.S. involvement in Somalia end with this latest U.S. raid, or is this the beginning of a broader front for U.S. engagement against terrorists in Somalia? Also according to the Associated Press, one U.S. official said that "the attack was launched by forces from multiple U.S. military branches and included Navy SEALs, at least two Army assault helicopters and the involvement of two U.S. warships in the region for months.” That is a lot of firepower for a single mission. A similar assault in May, 2008 led to the death of then-leader of al-Shahab Aden Hashi Ayro, except that it was led by U.S. warplanes and not warships.
Is it unreasonable to imagine that such an assault may also mark the beginning of an expanded War on Terror? Are warships really needed in addition to helicopters? Are the warships involved in combating pirates off of Somalia’s coast also doubling as mobile bases for an expanding U.S.-led assault on the al-Qaeda arm in Somalia? The greater degree of military involvement in Somalia could be indicative of strategic shifts in perspective at the highest levels of the U.S. government and perhaps a longer-term degree of American military re-posturing.
On the whole, whether al-Qaeda members are fleeing U.S.-led Predator drone strikes and Pakistani army-led raids along Pakistan’s western tribal areas—or whether they are simply expanding their base of operations to take advantage of Somalia and Yemen as progressively weak states—remains a mystery.
Terrorism analyst Murad Batal al-Shishani of the Jamestown Foundation documented recent statements by various al-Qaeda leaders (including Osama bin Laden) and concluded that Yemen and Somalia are both desirable as “safe-havens” for future al-Qaeda operations for primarily two reasons: (1) in the short-term, both territories have weak governments, functionally no rules on carrying weapons, and are already home to a number of al-Qaeda members and sympathizers; (2) in the long-term, even greater expansion of al-Qaeda to those territories would force an expansion of Obama’s War on Terror, further bleeding America of blood and treasure.
That al-Qaeda is currently carrying out step-by-step the strategy relayed by the leadership should worry Washington: what does al-Qaeda’s ability to simply “leave” a war-torn area and re-embed itself elsewhere mean for the long-term prospects of Obama’s version of the War on Terror?
In the war against al-Qaeda, did the strategic theatre known as “Afpak” just become “AfPakSom?”
Further complicating the strategic design of the War on Terror, former deputy chief of the counterterrorist center at the CIA from 1997 to 1999 Paul Pillar recently asserted in an op-ed that al-Qaeda has reached the point where “safe-havens” do not matter. He writes that “international terrorist groups have thrived by exploiting globalization and information technology, which has lessened their dependence on physical havens. By utilizing networks such as the Internet, terrorists’ organizations have become more network-like, not beholden to any one headquarters…al-Qaeda’s role in that threat is now less one of commander than of ideological lodestar, and for that role a haven is almost meaningless.”
So what exactly is the strategic scope of the current War on Terror: is it “AfPakSom” or “AfPakInternet?” How about “AfPakWorld.”
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