Free Preview of Members-Only Content

To view the requested intelligence, you must be a Stratfor.com member.

U.S. military cross-border operations from Afghanistan into Pakistan have become increasingly overt and unilateral since the spring. More than a tactical shift, these operations are meant to address the strategic problem of Pakistan’s lawless Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where Taliban fighters from Afghanistan rest, recuperate and resupply and where other jihadists mount a growing Islamist insurgency in Pakistan. The next U.S. president will soon be working closely with the new head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus, on developing and implementing a new strategy for Afghanistan. This strategy will have to address the situation in Pakistan, where FATA sanctuaries for al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are reminiscent of North Vietnamese army sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

Terrain

The northern part of the Afghan-Pakistani border is delineated by the Hindu Kush, a western subrange of the Himalayas that is at its highest elevations in the north, where a long and narrow spit of Afghan territory runs all the way to the Chinese border. The Hindu Kush rises above the disputed territory of Kashmir and feeds into the Himalayas, which are the world’s tallest mountains. Harsh, rugged terrain that is sparsely populated, the Hindu Kush is all but impassible and therefore useless for logistical purposes.

South of the Hindu Kush, the Afghan-Pakistani border begins to follow a ridgeline that drops precipitously to the Khyber Pass. Because Afghanistan is completely unconnected to the rail networks of its neighbors, the road from Peshawar, Pakistan, through the Khyber Pass and on to Jalalabad (and from there to Kabul) is a crucial lifeline for Afghanistan. The border rises up another ridge south of the Khyber and follows a mountain range known as the Safed Koh, which runs north-south, more or less the orientation of the border for several hundred miles. Though still mountainous, this area is rife with passes and trails used for infiltration in both directions — and particularly for moving supplies and fighters west into Afghanistan.

Below South Waziristan, the southernmost agency of the FATA, the border cuts westerly over the Toba Kakar range toward the second vital road link across the border, running from Quetta in western Pakistan to Kandahar in southeastern Afghanistan. Known as Balochistan province’s Pashtun corridor (named for the dominant ethno-linguistic group in eastern and southern Afghanistan and in Pakistan’s FATA, North-West Frontier Province [NWFP] and Balochistan province), this sector of the border encompasses an area where Stratfor believes Taliban chief Mullah Omar is hiding out. The border then follows the vast openness of Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, where the terrain is less difficult to traverse but also offers far less concealment from the prying eyes of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This region is also sparsely populated with little in the way of infrastructure to facilitate the movement of military supplies.

This geography is a fixed reality for border operations. There are passes that are suitable for transit by pack animal or even motorbikes and four-wheel-drive vehicles and there are passes that can only be traveled by people on foot and in single file. It is not that insurgents create a new infiltration point when one is shut down by U.S. or NATO security operations but that there are so many potential infiltration points in key sectors that infiltrators can vary locations of ingress and egress and have a good chance of success. Western troops, burdened by a multitude of security missions inside Afghanistan proper, are too limited in number to cover them all.

Another fixed reality is weather. Combat operations in the Afghan-Pakistani border area take on a regular cycle in accordance with the seasons. Winter arrives early in the extremely high altitudes of the Hindu Kush and Safed Koh. When the snows come, many of the high mountain passes become impassable, causing a noticeable decline in combat activity. With the spring thaw, heavy snow melt in the mountains results in flooding, mudslides and muddy or washed-out roads and paths, also limiting the level of combat. The combat season, then, for much of the border area traditionally runs from late March through October — although a new U.S. strategy could call for sustained pressure during the winter months.

The mountains also limit the use of helicopters, which become more difficult to operate with maximum payloads at higher elevations, in the hot summer weather and through overcast skies. Yet the distribution of NATO forces in Afghanistan makes helicopters a coveted asset in theater. Even the most basic military maneuvers are extremely taxing in the high and rugged border areas, which also afford a distinct advantage to locals who are acclimated to the altitude and intimately familiar with the terrain.

To the east of the most heavily traveled border region are Pakistan’s FATA, NWFP and Balochistan province. Covering nearly 40,000 square miles, the FATA and NWFP together are larger than the group of northeastern U.S. states known as New England (minus Maine); yet with almost 20 million people, the FATA/NWFP area is more populous than all of New England and has a much higher population density. NWFP is very nearly three times as densely populated as all of New England.

This density offers exceptional human camouflage for Taliban and al Qaeda fighters and their core leadership as well as jihadist actors of various other stripes. Offering infiltration routes and sanctuaries (where someone like Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar can remain undiscovered despite the best efforts of the Bush administration), the border region is receptive to the Islamist cause and has been since the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979. The FATA was the staging ground for the Afghan mujahideen resistance, and the multinational Islamist fighters who poured into the FATA and NWFP — supported by the United States as well as Pakistan — were seen by the local Pashtun tribes as noble guardians against Russian aggression. From tribal cultures themselves, many of these foreign fighters eventually began to marry into the local tribes and establish roots in the region.

© Copyright 2008 Stratfor. All rights reserved