Army Lt. Col. David E. Cabrera never made it home to Abilene, Texas, from Afghanistan. The father of four was killed in Kabul last October, when a suicide bomber with 1,500 pounds of explosives in a Land Cruiser slammed into the NATO armored bus in which Cabrera was riding. The suicide attack, which killed a dozen Americans and five others, was ordered and executed by the Haqqani clan, a criminal network of insurgents based in Pakistan that has proven lethal to hundreds of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
In September, the Haqqani network launched multiple coordinated attacks against the U.S. Embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul. That same month, in eastern Wardak province, a truck bomb detonated by Haqqani insurgents at a combat outpost injured more than 77 U.S. troops. Last month, the Haqqani network launched an 18-hour coordinated attack in four different provinces in Afghanistan. In eastern Afghanistan, from Kabul to the border of Pakistan, the group is responsible for at least 90 percent of all attacks against NATO and Afghan forces.
The Obama administration is well aware of the danger to Americans presented by the Haqqani group, which numbers up to 15,000 insurgents. Seven months ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the administration was in the “final, formal review that has to be undertaken to make a governmentwide decision to designate the network as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.” That would be an important step, officials said. “Designating the network a terrorist organization would allow us to go after assets easier and would send a message to any nation aiding them that we’re not going to turn a blind eye,” said a U.S. official in Afghanistan.
So why doesn’t the administration move swiftly to designate the family a terrorist organization, especially in an election year when being tough on America’s enemies would appear to be sound politics?
When asked by The Washington Examiner why a decision on the Haqqani network has not been announced, a State Department spokeswoman said, “We cannot discuss the process as it is ongoing.”
But U.S. and Pakistani officials who asked not to be named say the U.S. has quietly decided it can’t afford to exert the pressure on the Haqqani group that would come with labeling it a terrorist organization. To do so would worsen already frayed relations with Pakistan, because that country’s spy agency and its military have close ties with the Haqqanis. And some pragmatists inside the Obama administration have decided that exiting Afghanistan will be easier without an open war on the Haqqanis, who are busy setting themselves up for a prominent post-American role in the region, officials said.
Lisa Curtis, a senior defense analyst with the Heritage Foundation, said conflicting views within the State Department are making it difficult to move forward with any sort of policy on the network.
“The U.S. is seeking to cajole Pakistan to use its leverage to help bring about a peace settlement in Afghanistan,” said Curtis, formerly with the CIA. So far, she said, the U.S. has been reluctant to push the designation of the Haqqani group as a terrorist organization.
A Pakistani official told The Washington Examiner that his government sees little incentive in warring with the Haqqanis, especially since the U.S. has been ambivalent in calling the group terrorists. “The Haqqanis will be with us forever,” he said. “And in two years the U.S. will be gone for the most part.”
Just before retiring as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in September, Adm. Mike Mullen warned a Senate panel that “the Haqqani network … acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency.” Those remarks were seen as deepening distrust between the U.S. and Pakistan, but many U.S. officials said privately that Mullen was simply stating a fact accepted by all within American intelligence circles.
American military forces in Afghanistan continue to pressure the group, said ISAF spokesman Army Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, who noted a number of successful attacks against the organization in recent weeks.
But those days appear to be numbered. A strategic partnership agreement signed last week by the U.S. and Afghan governments will prohibit the U.S. military and CIA from using Afghanistan as a base to combat insurgencies in neighboring countries after 2014.
A U.S. military official said the agreement will expose the 30,000 U.S. troops expected to still be in the country to attacks by Haqqani insurgents, who could then fade back into Pakistan.
“The [Haqqanis] should not be given carte blanche to do whatever they want while State Department officials hold out false hope that they can cut a deal with the devil,” the military official added.
Sara A. Carter is The Washington Examiner’s national security correspondent. She can be reached at [email protected].
