VZCZCXYZ0002
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHBUL #4129/01 3561555
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 221555Z DEC 09
FM AMEMBASSY KABUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 4288
INFO RUEILB/NCTC WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE

UNCLAS KABUL 004129 
 
SIPDIS 
 
S/CT: RHONDA SHORE; NCTC 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ASEC PTER
SUBJECT: AFGHANISTAN: 2009 COUNTRY REPORTS ON TERRORISM 
 
REF: STATE 109980 
 
¶1.  Per reftel, the following is Embassy Kabul's submission 
for the 2009 Country Report on Terrorism.  Begin Text: 
 
In 2009, an Afghan presidential election year, Afghanistan 
continued to confront the challenges of building a stable, 
democratic government in the face of a sophisticated, 
multi-faceted insurgency that increasingly employs terrorist 
tactics.  This insurgency targeted coalition forces, the 
United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA), 
international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), foreign 
diplomatic missions, Afghan government officials, and Afghan 
voters. 
 
Separate but interdependent extremist organizations led by 
U.S.-designated terrorists Mullah Omar (Taliban), Jalaluddin 
Haqqani (Haqqani Network) and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar 
(Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin - HIG) notably increased their use 
of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and coordinated 
attacks using multiple suicide bombers, resulting in an 
increase from 2008 in overall casualties. The Taliban, in 
particular, stepped up the pace of its attacks and 
simultaneously increased its shadow government presence 
throughout the country. 
 
With support from the civilian and military international 
community, the Government of the Islamic Republic of 
Afghanistan (GIRoA)is working to build and strengthen its 
national security forces and establish effective 
law-enforcement mechanisms and improved governance to 
increase stability and counter Taliban presence and 
influence.  In addition, President Karzai announced in his 
November 19 inaugural speech that it would be a priority of 
his new administration to reintegrate those lower level 
Taliban fighters into mainstream society who were willing to 
lay down arms, sever all ties to al-Qa'ida, and accept the 
Afghan Constitution. 
 
Since its March 2005 inception, the Disbandment of Illegal 
Armed Groups (DIAG) program - successor to the earlier 
Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) program 
- has disbanded 689 illegal armed groups and collected over 
45,000 weapons.  Beginning in 2007, DIAG has offered 
development assistance to qualifying districts.  Eighty-seven 
of the 132 targeted districts currently qualify for this 
assistance and are considered to be in compliance with DIAG 
disarmament regulations. 
 
The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) led the 
coalition forces' counterinsurgency campaign, using a 
combination of counterinsurgency means and methods, including 
synchronized use of combat (air and ground forces) and 
non-combat means (building civil governance and aiding 
reconstruction and development in conjunction with UNAMA) to 
fight extremism. 
 
The Commander, U.S. Central Command, maintained command and 
control of U.S. counterterrorism (CT) forces operating in 
Afghanistan.  CT operations were coordinated with U.S. forces 
at the Headquarters of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A) and 
Combined Joint Task Force 82 (CJTF 82), the successor to CJTF 
¶101.  Special Operations Forces conducting combined 
operations and foreign internal defense operated under the 
Commander, USFOR-A.  United States CT forces target insurgent 
leaders, and insurgent training and logistics centers, with 
the objective of eliminating terrorists and facilitating 
reconstruction and development.  The Afghan National Army 
(ANA), and to a lesser extent, the Afghan National Police 
(ANP) continue to lead in the majority of counterterrorism 
operations, in close cooperation with coalition forces.  The 
Afghan National Security Force (ANSF) assumed lead 
responsibility from coalition forces for municipal security 
in Kabul City in 2008.  It continues to work in close 
partnership with ISAF to develop the capability necessary to 
assume the lead in security across Afghanistan. Partly in 
response to their growing inability to prevail against 
coalition and ANSF forces in conventional encounters, 
militants increasingly resorted to terrorist tactics to 
intimidate ordinary Afghans. These tactics included greater 
use of increasingly sophisticated IEDs along key travel 
arteries, assassination of Afghan government officials, and 
the use of suicide bombers and direct fire attacks in 
population centers where Afghan civilians are used as 
shields. 
 
Integrated civilian-military counterinsurgency approaches in 
the east have continued to yield some successes. 
Nonetheless, the anti-government insurgency remained a 
capable, determined, and resilient threat to stability and to 
the expansion of government authority, particularly in the 
south and east.  The insurgency continued to suffer heavy 
combat losses, including among senior leaders, but its 
ability to obtain al-Qa'ida support and recruit soldiers 
remained undiminished.  Taliban information operations were 
aggressive and sophisticated, including, for example, Mullah 
Omar's injunctions on the Taliban website for Taliban 
fighters to avoid harming civilians and pulse local 
communities regarding their satisfaction with Taliban shadow 
government officials' performance. 
 
Streams of Taliban financing from across the border in 
Pakistan, along with funds gained from narcotics trafficking 
and kidnapping, have allowed the insurgency to strengthen its 
military and technical capabilities.  Narcotics trafficking 
in particular is a primary financing mechanism of 
terrorist/insurgent operations, and although poppy production 
decreased 22% in 2009 and the number of poppy-free provinces 
increased from 18 to 20, the actual progress this represents 
in terms of reducing revenue streams is not yet clear. 
 
Violence in 2009 reached the highest level since 2001.  In 
addition to targeting Afghan and coalition military forces, 
insurgents and criminals attacked Afghan government officials 
and civil servants, Afghan police forces and recruits, 
humanitarian actors, and civilians.  Foreign civilians, 
including diplomats, were deliberately targeted.  Two 
high-profile terrorist attacks against foreign diplomats in 
Kabul City this year included the October 8 suicide car 
bombing of the Indian Embassy that killed at least 17 and the 
October 28 attack on a UNAMA guesthouse that killed 5 UN 
employees and 3 other Afghans.  The Taliban claimed 
responsibility for both attacks. 
 
Throughout the year, insurgents targeted NGOs, Afghan 
journalists, government workers, UN workers, and recipients 
of NGO assistance.  They targeted teachers, pupils 
(especially girls), and schools.  Attacks on girls schools in 
the east and south increased, and Taliban militants were 
suspected in late April and early May of using an 
unidentified gas to sicken girls and teachers at two schools 
in the town of Charikar in Parwan Province and one school in 
Mahmud Raqi, a small town north of Kabul.  Insurgents coupled 
threats and attacks against NGOs with continued targeting of 
Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), de-mining teams, and 
construction crews working on roads and other infrastructure 
projects.  Additionally, insurgents and criminals continue to 
kidnap foreigners and Afghans.  While insurgents conduct most 
abductions for ransom, presumably as a means of raising money 
to support their operations, they have also sought to use 
victims to negotiate with the GIRoA and the international 
community. 
 
Taliban militants made a concentrated effort to thwart the 
August 20 Presidential and Provincial elections by 
intimidating voters and attacking election officials.  There 
were more than 1000 insurgent attacks in August, 
approximately 20% of which occurred on Election Day. 
Although there were few resulting casualties,  voter turnout 
was notably lower than for the 2004 election, and, in some 
areas in the south and east, turnout was effectively shut 
down altogether as a result of Taliban intimidation. 
 
----------- 
SAFE HAVENS 
----------- 
 
Afghan-Pakistan Border.  Despite the efforts of ISAF and 
Afghan and Pakistani security forces, instability along the 
Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier continued to provide the 
Taliban, al-Qa'ida and other militant groups with leadership 
mobility and the ability to rest, recruit, and conduct 
training and operational planning that target international 
and U.S. interests in particular.  Numerous senior and 
mid-level Taliban and al-Qa'ida operatives have been captured 
or killed, but insurgent and terrorist leaders in Pakistan 
continued to plot attacks and to cultivate stronger 
operational connections that radiated outward from Pakistan 
to affiliates throughout the Middle East, North Africa and 
Europe. 
 
Afghanistan.  The GIRoA, in concert with ISAF/NATO forces and 
the international community, continued efforts to eliminate 
terrorist safe havens and build security on the Afghan side 
of the border.  The porous border areas remained contested, 
however, with Taliban, Haqqani, HIG and al-Qa'ida operatives 
crossing the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan to conduct 
attacks throughout the country.  Narcotics trafficking from 
Afghanistan into Pakistan, poppy cultivation and criminal 
networks are particularly prevalent in the south and west of 
the country, constituting a major source of funding for the 
insurgency as well as corruption in Afghanistan.  Al-Qa'ida 
leadership in Pakistan maintained its support to militants 
inside Afghanistan, providing funding, training, and 
personnel to facilitate terrorist and insurgent operations. 
Anti-Coalition organizations such as HIG continued to operate 
in coordination with al-Qa'ida, Taliban, and other insurgent 
groups, primarily in the east. 
 
End Text 
 
Embassy POC is Poloff Vonda Nichols; 1 (301)490-1042, ext. 
8691; email: nicholsvg@state.gov. 
 
 
 
 
 
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