By Paul Cruickshank
The most spectacular acts of terrorism in the last decade
have not been committed by Afghans. The September 11 attacks were perpetrated
mostly by Saudis, the Madrid train bombings by North African immigrants, the
London Underground bombings mostly by British citizens of Kashmiri descent, and
even the Bali bombings by homegrown Indonesian Islamists. The Taliban's ethnic
Pashtuns were not generally like the group they chose to shelter, Osama bin
Laden's al Qaeda. They were mostly partisan locals, not international
terrorists. But that may all be about to change.
Last weekend, agents in Denver and New York arrested three
men of Afghan descent -- including Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old Afghan
national suspected of involvement in a Qaeda plot to blow up targets like Grand
Central Terminal -- raising the question: is the Afghan war now coming to
American shores? Zazi is beginning to look like part of a trend.
For most of its 20 years, al Qaeda's commanders recruited
very few Afghan militants into their ranks because their parochial world views,
their lack of international travel experience, and their poor education made
them useless as global operatives. But when the Taliban was forced from power
across the border in Pakistan -- where it became a target in what the Bush
administration called "the global war on terrorism" -- its members
became much more worldly. As they came to see the United States, rather than
rival Afghan tribes, as their enemy, Pashtuns were radicalized in the border
region, where they had easy access to al Qaeda's training facilities. The war
in Iraq, the mushrooming of Internet cafés in the region, and al Qaeda's
relentless propaganda efforts have widened the horizons of Pashtun militants
who, a decade ago, had little concept of the outside world, let alone global
jihad.
To read the rest of my piece about Afghan involvement in jihad, visit Newsweek,
where this was originally published.
Paul Cruickshank is a Fellow at the NYU Center on Law
& Security.
Marc Piscotty/Getty Images
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