Are Drone Strikes Effective in Afghanistan and Pakistan? On the Dynamics of Violence between the United States and the Taliban

Strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, have been the primary weapon used by the United States to combat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This paper examines the dynamics of violence involving drone strikes and the Taliban/Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan from January 2007 to December 2010. We find that drone strikes do not have any significant impact on terrorist violence in Afghanistan but that drone strikes do have a significant impact on Taliban/Al-Qaeda violence in Pakistan. We find that our results are robust to examining different time periods and lag structures. We also examine the impact of successful and unsuccessful drone strikes (which did or did not succeed in targeted killing of a militant leader) on terrorist attacks by the Taliban. We find strong negative impacts of unsuccessful drone strikes on Taliban violence in Pakistan, showing the deterrent effects are quite strong, while the incapacitation effects appear to be weak or non-existent.time series models, conflict

Operational Manoeuvre Group: Operation SOHIL LARAM II, Kandahar Province, February 2008

In February 2008 Regional Battle Group (South) in Afghanistan, based on The 1st Battalion, The Royal Gurkha Rifles supported by Canadian “enablers” and working with Afghan national security forces, conducted a mission known as Operation SOHIL LARAM II in the Maywand district of Kandahar province. A weak NATO presence coupled with a corrupt police force had allowed the Taliban to turn Maywand into a safe haven. Following the dismissal of the police force, Op SOHIL LARAM II was successful in disrupting Taliban operations, reasserting government authority and regaining the confidence of the local population. In addition, the disruption of Taliban forces allowed the relief in place of Canadian battle groups to proceed without the usual interference

The Taliban and the Crises of Afghanistan and Pakistan

Overview: Ziauddin Yousafzai is a man who was born and raised in Pakistan. He is a devout Muslim and takes pride in two things – his family and education. He is responsible for the building and running of multiple schools in the Swat Valley – for both boys and girls. His daughter has won multiple awards in school for her work and speeches. Their nation is not perfect, and that certainly needs reform, but Ziauddin believes that education can solve these problems. His life and the lives of his family and friends move on until one word stops everything – Taliban. Suddenly, radicalization is spread throughout his home. This group who is spilling over from Afghanistan gains a substantial amount of support at the very beginning – but who can blame them? The Pakistani government is corrupt and does nothing for its people. Change is something anyone would want. Besides, to Ziauddin and many other people of Pakistan, the Taliban does not seem like a severe threat at first. They preach a return to more focused practices of the teachings of the Quran. While fear is still there, no one in Pakistan is able to predict what might happen next. Suddenly, as if overnight, he is forced to watched as schoolhouses are bombed, people are executed in the streets - the Taliban has taken over Swat Valley. He remains adamant about all of his children, including his daughter, receiving education and does what most are too afraid to do – he speaks out publicly against the Taliban. While his efforts are valiant, they prove to be useless as the government does little to rescue his home from the invading extremists. Tensions rise, and the violence escalates until he finds himself on a one-way flight to Birmingham, England to stay with his daughter, Malala, as the entire world reacts in shock that even the Taliban would shoot a fourteen-year-old girl simply for going to school. Situations such as the one told above have almost become the norm within not only Pakistan, but Afghanistan as well. Unfortunately, not as many people are lucky and survive the onslaughts as Malala and her father did. For decades, the Taliban has been rising to power in these two Middle Eastern nations. Their extremist views have gained international attention and condemnation and are also responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent citizens during the War in Afghanistan and their invasion of Pakistan. While they have been around since the Cold War, it seems to most the Taliban has exploded into power and influence, especially during the late 20th century and into the 2000s. When the mountainous geography of both nations and the amount of power and influence the Taliban held over people is explored, it is easy to see how a small militia of a few hundred grew so quickly and became one of the largest terrorist threats in the world

Approaching Women\u27s Education: Utilizing Islamic Sources for Empowerment

When the Taliban rose to power in Afghanistan in the 1990s, an Islamic fundamentalist approach was utilized to disempower the Afghani people. The group particularly targeted women and girls, who were stripped of their rights, including their right to an education. While the Taliban is no longer in power, the issue of women’s education in Afghanistan has not received adequate attention, as threats and violence continue to keep women and girls out of school. This paper seeks to address the issue of women’s education in Afghanistan in the post-Taliban period with a focus on alternative models of education, including the Muslim feminist model and the Islamic secular feminist model. Specifically, this paper utilizes Islamic sources, including the Qur’an and hadith reports, and interviews conducted by Lina Abirafeh in Gender and International Aid in Afghanistan and by Rosemarie Skaine in The Women of Afghanistan under the Taliban to reveal a misunderstanding regarding Islam and the rights of women, especially the right of women to an education. I argue that based on the current realities in Afghanistan, the Muslim feminist model is the ideal model for re-structuring the educational system in post-Taliban Afghanistan because it empowers Afghan women to live devoutly as Muslims, while also empowering them to fully participate in society

The Taliban insurgency and an analysis of Shabnamah (night letters)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09592310701674176The Taliban has recently re-emerged on the Afghan scene with vengeance. Five years after being defeated by a US coalition, the resurgent Taliban, backed by al-Qaeda, are mounting an increasingly virulent insurgency, especially in the east and south, near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The Taliban now represents a significant challenge to the survival of President Hamid Karazi's government. This article assesses the narrative strategy the Taliban has employed to garner support with the Afghan people. Specifically, this paper assesses the narratives of Taliban shabnamah, commonly referred to as 'night letters' in an effort to unravel what the Taliban represents

Pakistan in 2009: Tackling the Taliban?

Party-based political competition played an important part in shaping key events in Pakistan in 2009. This article examines the impact of party-based competition on the much-delayed restoration of Supreme Court Chief Justice Mohammad Iftikhar Chaudhry, efforts to address (with U.S. assistance) Pakistan’s growing Taliban-affiliated insurgency, and both federal and provincial economic policies. This article concludes that party-based competition will continue to shape Pakistan’s evolving security and economic situation in 2010

Thinking about the 'law of unintended consequences'

The United State’s now-not-so-covert drone based program targeting Al Qaeda (AQ) and Taliban commanders based in Pakistan’s inhospitable and hostile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FETA) has been operational since 2004. However, US air strikes in Pakistan’s tribal belt have steadily escalated over the past three years. The US has claimed that these attacks have successfully decimated core Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership. This past September alone the US military conducted 26 drone strikes in Pakistan, racking up a figure that the BBC is calling the "highest monthly total for the past six years". Not only do these steadily escalating drone strikes raise some pertinent questions about US/NATO successes claimed under the rubric of the Global War on Terror (or if you prefer, the Overseas Contingency Operations) but they also shed some light on the deteriorating political situation in Pakistan.Publisher PD

Analysing the new Taliban Code of Conduct (Layeha): an assessment of changing perspectives and strategies of the Afghan Taliban

The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2012.647844Periodically, Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership formally issues Layeha or ‘codes of conduct’ for their fighters and supporters. Layeha offer important insights into the Afghan Taliban’s objectives, strategies and the psyche/perspective of Taliban leadership. This article presents an analysis of the Taliban’s code of conduct and examines what Layeha tell us about Taliban objectives, strategy and organization. Such information would seem particularly important as the United States as well as its coalition allies assess their Afghan operational strategy as well as exit strategy from Afghanistan. This analysis of the Layeha suggests that the Taliban remain most concerned with: chain of command principles preventing the fragmentation of the various Taliban networks; obtaining and maintaining public support by winning ‘hearts and minds’ of local residents; ensuring enough fighters remain engaged in combat; and galvanizing the perception that the Taliban represent a capable, desirable and fair alternative to the current Afghan political establishment

The Obama/Pentagon War Narrative, the Real War and Where Afghan Civilian Deaths Do Matter

This article investigates two related issues: (1) the on-the-ground experience of the fierce US war. in Afghanistan, in contrast to the Pentagon story and the mainstream media; (2) The relentless efforts of Obama and the Pentagon to control the public account of this war. While the real war spread geographically and violence intensified, so did the efforts of the United States. to build a positive reading. The examination of the corpses (of foreign occupation forces and innocent Afghan civilians) reveals a situation of exchange. The elites of the countries of the NATO countries have understood that they have entered a dead end and begin to back down