1
Interview with Hamid Karzai over satellite telephone, November 11, 2001. See Ahmed Rashid, “Hamid Karzai Escapes Taliban Encirclement,”
The Daily Telegraph,
November 12, 2001. I spoke to him several times in the weeks ahead.
2
Interview with senior U.S. intelligence official, Washington, D.C., February 2005.
3
Interviews with senior aides to Musharraf and Pakistani diplomats present at the meeting, January 2002. See also James Carney, “Inside the War Room,”
Time,
January 7, 2002.
4
Kamran Khan, “Kabul Fall Is Pak’s Strategic Debacle,”
The News,
January 14, 2001.
5
These militias belonged to Maulvi Younis Khalis, a former Mujahedin commander from the Soviet war era, Hazrat Ali, an NA commander, and Commander Mohammed Zaman, who had arrived from Peshawar.
6
His relatives included Hedayat Amin Arsala, who was in the king’s camp while his elder brother Haji Abdul Qadir was one of the few Pashtun leaders in the Northern Alliance. Arsala would become vice president, and Qadir the governor of Nangarhar province before he was assassinated in 2003.
7
Rumsfeld had told NBC television on September 30 that “there is no question but that there are any number of people in Afghanistan, tribes in the south, the Northern Alliance in the north, that oppose the Taliban. We need to recognize the value they bring to this anti-terrorist, anti-Taliban effort and, where appropriate, find ways to assist them.”
8
Gary Schroen, the CIA agent who led the CIA team into the Panjsher Valley, says that he was constantly resisting the complacent attitude of the CIA office in Islamabad. Gary Schroen,
First In: An Insider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan,
New York: Ballantine Books, 2005. The CIA station chief in Islamabad was Robert Grenier, the man who went to Quetta to meet with Mullah Usmani. He had remained undercover most of his life, until his cover was blown in February 2006, when it was reported that Grenier was removed as head of the Counterterrorism Center at the CIA. Greg Miller, “Top CIA Spy Removed,”
Los Angeles Times,
February 7, 2006.
9
The Ritchie brothers were motivated by their love for Afghanistan, where they grew up and where their father had taught civil engineering before he died in a car crash in 1978. Their mother continued to work for Afghan charities. The Ritchies were joined by former national security advisor Robert C. McFarlane, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal and now an energy consultant. The Ritchie brothers lobbied hard to provide Haq with U.S. funds and support. They had personally donated funds to the office of Zahir Shah in Rome. The Ritchies’ presence in Peshawar made the ISI even more suspicious of Haq’s agenda.
10
Ahmed Rashid, “Abdul Haq Buried,”
The Daily Telegraph,
October 29, 2001. See also Ahmed Rashid, “A Difficult War,”
Far Eastern Economic Review,
November 8, 2001.
11
Franks,
American Soldier.
12
The extent of Pakistan’s support to Operation Enduring Freedom was inadvertently advertised by the CENTCOM Web site in May 2003, information that was swiftly taken down when the Pakistan government protested at the revelation of what were secret agreements with the United States. Some 330 vehicles, 1,350 tons of equipment, and 8,000 marines were off-loaded by the Americans on Pasni beach and flown directly to Kandahar in November.
13
TNSM was founded in 1989 to introduce Sharia law in Pakistan’s far northwest corner. The TNSM had led protests in 1990 and had provided manpower to the Taliban since 1994. In Dir, Swat, and Chitral the mullahs were supported by the timber- and car-smuggling mafia, which had profited hugely from the lack of government controls. There were protests against and shootouts with the army in 1994, and again in April 2001. I am grateful to Khalid Ahmad for his articles in
The Friday Times
on the origins of the TNSM. For a brief history of the movement, see Muhammad Amir Rana,
A to Z of Jihadi Organizations in Pakistan,
Lahore: Mashal Books, 2004.
14
The ICRC sent démarches to the United States and its Coalition partners demanding that humanitarian principles be observed for prisoners who surrendered at Kunduz. A public ICRC statement on November 23, 2001, expressed concern about the rights of captured foreign fighters because of reports “in some parts of the country that no prisoners would be taken.” The ICRC urges that “a fighter who clearly indicates his intention to surrender to an enemy is no longer a legitimate target according to rules of war.”
15
“We are not interested in having a large, long-term presence of any kind or managing POWs, but clearly we would be interested in interrogating the prisoners,” said an American official. “We are looking for as limited a role as possible, with as much access to the prisoners as we can,” he added. Dexter Filkins and Carlotta Gall, “Pakistanis Again Said to Evacuate Allies of Taliban,”
The New York Times,
November 23, 2001.
17
“Efforts on for Pak Evacuation from Kunduz,”
The News,
November 24, 2001.
19
Masood Haider, “No Pakistani Jets Flew into Afghanistan Says US,”
Dawn,
December 2, 2001.
20
Seymour Hersh, “The Getaway,”
The New Yorker,
January 28, 2002.
21
My conversation with the first U.S. official took place in February 2005 in Washington; I spoke with the other through e-mails, in 2006.
22
"U.S. forces were in the area at the time. What did the U.S. know, and when and where and what did they do about it?” asked Jennifer Leaning, from Physicians for Human Rights. John Barry, Ron Gutman, and Babak Dehghanipisheh, “The Death of a Convoy,”
Newsweek,
August 26, 2002.
23
For the
Newsweek
cover story, see ibid. I am extremely grateful to John Heffernan, who investigated the grave sites, for his help on this issue.
24
Press conference by Lakhdar Brahimi, Kabul, August 27, 2002.
25
Interview with Lakhdar Brahimi, Paris, April 26, 2006.
26
Karl Vick, “Rout Near a Desert Stronghold Took the Heart out of the Taliban,”
The New York Times,
January 2, 2002.
27
Mullah Naqibulla had first resisted the Soviets in the 1980s, then threw in his lot with the government of President Rabbani after 1992 and finally helped the Taliban come to power in 1994. He was considered the grand old man of Kandahar.
28
The breakdown was $1.9 billion for the deployment of sixty thousand troops, $400 million for munitions, $500 million for the replacement of damaged equipment, and $1 billion for fuel and operating costs.
29
Interview with Ryan Crocker, Islamabad, February 7, 2006.
30
Richard Clarke,
Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror,
New York: Free Press, 2004.
31
Jonathan Steele, “Forgotten Victims,”
The Guardian,
May 20, 2002. Statement by Human Rights Watch, “The Use of Cluster bombs,” December 18, 2001.
32
Steele, “Forgotten Victims.”
33
Mary Anne Weaver, “Lost at Tora Bora,”
The New Yorker,
September 11, 2005. This is one of the best accounts of the battle.
34
Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo,
Jawbreaker: The Attack on bin Laden and al Qaeda—A Personal Account by the CIA’s Key Field Commander,
New York: Crown, 2005.
35
“Osama Resurfaces on TV Screens,”
Dawn,
quoting Agence France-Presse, Doha, December 27, 2001.
36
Peter Spiegel, “Ex-CIA Agent Says US Missed bin Laden in Afghanistan,”
The Financial Times,
January 3, 2006. Franks wrote the
New York Times
piece on October 19, 2004.
37
Abdallah Tabarak, a Moroccan bodyguard of bin Laden’s who spent twenty days guarding him in Tora Bora and was later captured in Pakistan and shifted to Guantánamo, provided details of bin Laden’s presence. See Craig Whitlock, “Al Qaeda Detainee’s Mysterious Release,”
The Washington Post,
January 30, 2006. So did Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi, a doctor from Yemen who was carrying out amputations on al Qaeda fighters in Tora Bora with a knife and scissors and who met with bin Laden. Associated Press, “Doctor Says bin Laden was at Tora Bora,” September 7, 2007.
38
Associated Press, “US to Hunt AQ Fighters in Pakistan—General Franks,” January 7, 2002.
39
Sean Naylor,
Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda,
New York: Berkley, 2005. Shahi Kot is twenty-five kilometers south of Gardez. The valley is in the Sulaiman mountain range that forms the southern end of the Hindu Kush mountain system in Afghanistan. The Sulaiman range is also an extension of the Spin Ghar range, in southeastern Afghanistan.
40
Interview with Abdullah Abdullah, Kabul, November 23, 2001.
41
Ahmed Rashid, “I Would Step Down to Help My Country,”
The Daily Telegraph,
November 24, 2001. Interviews with Vendrell in Kabul, November 22 and 24, 2001.
42
Rashid, “I Would Step Down.”
43
The Northern Alliance had eleven delegates plus seven alternatives and two women. The Rome group had eight members plus three alternatives, seven advisers, and two women. The Peshawar and the Cyprus groups had three delegates each, two alternates each, and one woman each. Three women attended as full members of the conference, Amina Afzali and Siddique Balkhi from the Northern Alliance, and Sima Wali from the Rome delegation.
44
Reuters, “Bonn Conference opens,” Bonn, November 27, 2001.
45
Communication with Fatemeh Zia, August 10, 2007.
46
James Dobbins, “How to Talk to Iran,”
The Washington Post,
July 22, 2007.
47
Interview with Lakhdar Brahimi, Paris, April 26, 2006.
48
Interview with Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the UN, Oslo, June 27, 2007.
49
Eighteen members of the Special Independent Commission for the Convening of the Loya Jirga would be appointed by Karzai and the UN. The chairman was Ismael Qasimyar, a lawyer and expert in constitutional law from the Qizalbash community in Herat who had lived in exile in Iran. The vice chairperson was Mahbooba Hoquqmal, a Tajik and a professor of law at Kabul University who had taught in exile at the Afghan University in Peshawar. Another vice chairperson was Abdul Aziz, a Pashtun and the dean of the Sharia faculty of Kabul University.
1
Shirin Tahir-Kheli,
India, Pakistan and the United States: Breaking with the Past,
Lahore: Vanguard Books, 1998.
2
Jammu is predominantly Hindu, but one third are Muslims. Ladakh is dominated by Buddhists, but its Kargil region has a large number of Shia Muslims. The most popular Kashmiri Muslim leader, Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, the head of the All Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, was closer to India than to Pakistan and favored independence. See Sumit Ganguly,
Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan Tensions Since 1947,
New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.
3
The three UN resolutions were passed on January 20, 1948; April 21, 1948; and August 13, 1948.
4
The APHC emphasized the nationalist ideology of Kashmiriyat, or Kashmiri identity, which was an amalgam of Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist cultures. Its Islamic component included Sufism, which had a mass following in Kashmir and Shia Islam, as many Kashmiris were Shias. Kashmiris believed in a tolerant view of Islam, and over time resentment against the outsider jihadis increased.
5
Even though the State Department documented these abuses, it put little pressure on India to rectify them. Harsher documentation of these abuses came from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch—even though they and the International Committee of the Red Cross were all barred from visiting Kashmir for more than a decade.
6
On December 5 Jordan had arrested thirteen Arab extremists suspected of trying to organize a terrorist bombing campaign of Jewish and Christian holy sites. The terrorists had received training in Afghanistan and had arrived in Jordan from Pakistan.
7
Ahmed Rashid and Sadanand Dhume, “Price of Surrender,”
Far Eastern Economic Review,
January 13, 2000.
8
Pakistani journalists who visited the destroyed camps after the missile attacks said that between five and ten ISI officers were killed in the raid. Later U.S. diplomats confirmed this to me. See Richard Clarke,
Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror,
New York: Free Press, 2004. See also Strobe Talbott,
Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy and the Bomb—A Memoir,
Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2004. Both books make the same claim.
9
Azhar’s diary, written in prison in India, described his experiences in Somalia in 1993 and the deaths of American soldiers. The sixteen-hour battle in Mogadishu on September 25, 1993, resulted in the deaths of eighteen Americans and some five hundred Somalis. Three Black Hawk helicopters were shot down. The FBI interviewed Azhar in his Indian jail in 1995, 1996, and again in 1998. Paul Watson, “Somalian Link Seen to al Qaeda,”
Los Angeles Times,
February 25, 2000.
10
Bin Laden’s bodyguard Abu Jandal later admitted that al Qaeda had carried out the hijacking because bin Laden admired Azhar and needed his help. Bin Laden threw a lavish party for Azhar when he was freed in Kandahar. Agence France-Presse, “Osama Guard Says Indian Plane Hijacked for Azhar’s Release,” Islamabad, September 17, 2006. Abu Jandal had given an interview to Al Jazeera TV.
11
On January 7, India issued a list of the five hijackers, naming them as Ibrahim Azhar (from Bahawalpur), Shahid Akthar Sayed (Karachi), Sunni Ahmed Qazi (Karachi) , Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim (Karachi), and Shaqir (Sukkur). “India Names Hijackers,”
Dawn,
January, 7, 2000.
12
Reuters, “US Issues Stern Warning to Pakistan,”
The Nation,
January 6, 2000.
13
Tahir Mirza, “Kashmir May Provoke War,”
Dawn,
February 8, 2001.
14
“Pakistan Does Not Want War,”
The News,
December 30, 2002.
15
Associated Press, “President Asks Blair for Help in Defusing Crisis,” Washington, D.C., December 30, 2001. White House spokesman Scott McClellan gave an account of Bush’s conversation with Musharraf.
16
“Terrorism has always been Pakistan’s state policy. The face of Afghanistan has been changed and that of Pakistan will change too,” Vajpayee told reporters in Lucknow. Agence France-Presse, “Vajpayee Accuses Pakistan,”
Dawn,
January 3, 2002.
17
Ahmed Rashid, “Give Peace a Chance,”
Far Eastern Economic Review,
January 17, 2002. I carried out several interviews with U.S. diplomats and Pakistani generals.
18
Agence France-Presse, “Situation not defused says Bush,”
The News,
January 6, 2002.
19
Ayaz Amir, “Excelling at the Aim of the Strategic U Turn,”
Dawn,
January 17, 2002. The quote from Musharraf’s speech comes from the text published in all the newspapers, January 12, 2002.
20
The ruling BJP was routed in four state elections in late February, demonstrating that the talk of war had also not gone down well with the Indian public. Hundreds of Muslims were slaughtered by Hindu right-wing extremists in Gujarat state. The massacres were to turn Muslims decisively against the BJP at the next general election.
21
Gen. Tommy Franks, with Malcolm McConnell,
American Soldier,
New York: Regan Books, 2004.
22
Reuters, “US Urges Restraint on Pakistan,” St. Petersburg, Russia, May 25, 2002.
23
Interview with senior U.S. diplomat in Islamabad visiting from Washington, June 2001.
24
“President Musharraf wants to do this keeping intact the honor and dignity of the nation and the armed forces, I think we got a very good basis on which we can proceed,” Armitage said in Islamabad. Agence France-Presse, “Armitage Satisfied with Pakistan Assurances,”
The Nation,
June 7, 2002.
25
Agence France-Presse, “Powell for all Parties’ Participation in Elections,”
The Nation,
July 29, 2002.
26
In answer to Musharraf’s charge that the elections had been rigged, Vajpayee replied, “If the elections are a mere fraud, why are terrorists being trained and infiltrated into India under the command of the ISI to kill election candidates and to intimidate voters. How can it [Pakistan] continue to use terrorism as an instrument of state policy against India.” See Afzal Khan, “Vajpayee Says India Will Use All Means to End Terrorism,”
Dawn,
September 13, 2002.
27
I am grateful to Graham Allison’s excellent summary of bin Laden’s intentions in her article “The Ongoing Failure of Imagination,”
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists,
October 2006.
28
Interviews with senior U.S. officials, Washington, D.C., January 2006.
30
Amjad Siddiq, “Pak Scientist Regrets Meeting Osama, Omar,”
The News,
March 19, 2002.
31
Douglas Frantz, “CIA Chief Urges Pakistan to Take Harder Line on Muslim Militants, ”
The New York Times,
December 3, 2001.
32
The best study of what happened after 9/11 is Gordon Corera,
Shopping for Bombs: Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity and the Rise and Fall of the AQ Khan Network,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
33
Jawed Naqvi, “India Must Hold Talks with Pakistan,”
Dawn,
January 7, 2003.
34
Ahmed Rashid and Rahul Bedi, “Peace Hopes Rise as India Joins Pakistan Summit, ”
The Daily Telegraph,
January 3, 2004.
35
To Pakistan’s satisfaction, the statement also read, “The two leaders are confident that the resumption of the composite dialogue will lead to a peaceful settlement of all bilateral issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, to the satisfaction of both sides.” Ahmed Rashid, “Planned Kashmir Talks as ‘Big Leap Forward,’ ”
The Daily Telegraph,
January 7, 2004.
36
“Let’s agree to greater autonomy to both sides of Kashmir so the Kashmiris can better manage their affairs, but let’s avoid formal agreements which involve new political arrangements,” a senior Indian official told me in New Delhi. Interviews in New Delhi with J. N. Dixit, national security adviser to the prime minister; Shyam Saran, foreign secretary; and Salman Khorsheed, general secretary of the Congress Party, October 31 and November 1, 2004.
37
Shirin Tahir-Kheli, India,
Pakistan and the United States: Breaking with the Past,
Lahore: Vanguard Books, 1998.