The Mulla Dadullah Front: a Search for Clues
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The Mulla Dadullah Front: A search for clues Author : Thomas Ruttig Published: 22 May 2012 Downloaded: 9 September 2018 Download URL: https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/the-mulla-dadullah-front-a-search-for-clues/?format=pdf A Mulla Dadullah Front has claimed responsibility for assassinating the High Peace Council member, Mawlawi Arsala Rahmani, on 13 May. Some in the media, as well as the Afghan authorities have picked up on the claim – and some alleged members of the Front have been arrested. Although this is not actually the first sighting of the front, information about it is scarce. Thomas Ruttig, a Senior Analyst at AAN, goes in search of clues, about the group’s emergence and its possible relationship with the Taleban mainstream. The claim of responsibility by the ‘Mulla Dadullah Feda’i [Self-Sacrificing] Front’ for assassinating the High Peace Council member, Mawlawi Arsala Rahmani, was briefly reported by AAN in an amendment to our blog about his killing. The front is named after a notorious Taleban commander, Mulla Dadullah, who was responsible for some of the worst war crimes (look for 'Dadaullah' in the linked report) committed by the Taleban before 2001 and one of the first to announce the launch of the post-2002 insurgency; he subsequently imported al-Qaida tactics (and some al-Qaida rhetoric) from Iraq to Afghanistan(1), before being killed in a joint Afghan-international forces operation in May 2007 in Helmand. There were some rumours, at the time, that the Taleban leadership might have given him away because it was dislike his bloody ways of massively using suicide attacks and being his own spokesman and it could not reign him in. (2) Diverse descriptions of the Mulla Dadullah Front have been offered since. But while the front still remains mysterious, it is neither a ‘new’ nor an ‘unknown’ group, as Radio Azadi - the Afghan wing of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that picked up the front’s statement from 1 / 6 the Pakistani Express Tribune first – called it in two different reports. There have indeed been occasional sightings of a ‘Mulla Dadullah Front’ in southern Afghanistan since around late 2008. It was actually the slainPajhwok reporter in Uruzgan,Omaid Khpelwak, who first mentioned the front (at least in the reports I have collected) in two different dispatches in December 2008 when it said it had abducted a number of ANA soldiers in Chinarto district of Uruzgan.(3) In April 2010, another Afghannews agency reported that the front had claimed responsibility for the assassination of a Kandahar provincial council member. In January 2011, the Long War Journal, a terrorism watch website, quoted ‘a US military intelligence official’ that a suicide attack on a bathhouse in Spin Boldak was the work of the Mulla Dadullah Front and that it had carried out several other ‘recent high-profile attacks’, including a ‘complex suicide assault’ on a US combat outpost in Kandahar city on 12 December 2010 that had killed six US and two Afghan soldiers. The roots of the front seem to go back even further, to mid-2007, when its eponym, Mulla Dadullah, the then Taleban military commander for the southern zone (Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan and Nimruz), was killed and his younger brother Mulla Bakht Muhammad, not only took over his position, but also assumed his name, re-naming himself Mansur Dadullah; ‘Mansur’ means ‘he who triumphs’ in Arabic. The original Dadullah, who was credited with rebuilding much of the Taleban’s military structure after its 2001 defeat, had developed a network of his own that, owing to his position, was far more autonomous from the Taleban leadership than is usual in southern Afghanistan. It cut across tribes and reached regions beyond the classic Kandahari realm and was financially self- sufficient. However, it still operated within the Taleban ‘network of networks’. Dadullah’s unique position, though, led to a form of hubris that contributed to his downfall. When he cast himself as (or was taken by some media) as an official Taleban spokesman and as the Taleban’s overall military commander, two positions he officially never held, he possibly even fell from Mulla Omar’s grace. After his death on 11 May 2007, Bakht Muhammad, alias Mansur Dadullah, was able to maintain some of his slain brother’s status, thanks to resources channelled directly to him from Arab donors who were honouring his brother’s ‘hero status’. But the Taleban leader, Mulla Omar, did not tolerate the Dadullahs’ extravagancies anymore. In December 2007, Mansur Dadullah was demoted for repeatedly ignoring instructions.(4) His current status is unclear. There were reports of his arrest in January 2008 in Pakistan and a report, by murdered Pakistani journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad, that he had been released again in April 2011. (There are rumours and reports, though, that he had been released much earlier, in 2010 or even in February 2008 already, from Afghan custody.(5)) Maybe there are still remnants of this network around, acting on their own. The Taleban spokesman’s claim, reported by the New York Times, ‘that there was no such organization affiliated’ to the Taleban might indicate that it may be working autonomously. The same information came from Afghans with contacts in the Taleban, whom AAN spoke to; they said 2 / 6 such a group existed but was ‘very weak’. (This raises the question, of course, of why it has become more visible now.) In any case, Mansur Dadullah has not been mentioned in the latest events as one of the front’s main proponents - unless he has changed his name again. The name mentioned as ‘the front leader’ is Mulla Faruq Mansur and, as spokesmen, Qari (Mir) Hamza and Mulla Shahabuddin Atal. Of course, these names – as all others - may be noms de guerre. This leads to the next question, namely, whether the Mulla Dadullah Front is still part of the wider Taleban movement or separate from it - a genuine splinter group. The Long War Journal (see above) called the Front ‘a wing of the Taliban in the south that has adopted al Qaeda's tactics and ideology’, ‘attempting to sabotage negotiations between the Afghan government and lower-level Taliban leaders and fighters in the south’. Jeff Dressler, of theInstitute for the Study of War, spoke of an ‘extremist offshoot’ of the Taleban a few days ago. A ‘wing’ or ‘faction’ would still be part of a broader movement, although with dissenting opinions and actions perhaps. This is less than a ‘break-away group’, a term that also has been used by some in the media. What ‘offshoot’ might mean is less clear to me: does it indicate common roots, but already a new ‘tree’? Given the lack of solid information, it is far too early to answer this question for good. Moreover, when not much is known and everyone craves for new bits and pieces, a ‘new group’ can quickly become a hype, blown out of proportion and the object of all kind of psy-ops and counter psy-ops. Already, Afghan security forces have claimed they arrested three Front members in Kabul who, they believe, are ‘part of a bigger network’, as reported by the New York Times (find the link above). The security forces also mentioned the Front in one go with the Haqqani network and Lashkar-e Taiba and with the hands of both the ISI and Iran behind it. These are not unbelievable claims, but they also are cheap to make. This – still open – debate also belongs in the context of the much-discussed issue of how we should look at the Taleban movement: is it a ‘network of networks’ but still rather homogenous, with an undisputed Mulla Omar, as its leader, and the so-called Quetta Shura as its military command centre (as I have often argued)(6) or, as terrorism analysts and ISAF commander, John Allen, have argued is just is ‘a heterogeneous conglomeration of insurgents with varying motivations and loyalties’ over which Mulla Omar ‘has lost all control’? This, in turn, has repercussions on the question of whether it makes sense at all to try to get the Taleban’s signature on a political settlement that is worth the paper it is written on. Or, to put it more analytically, does Mulla Omar and the Quetta shura control (most of) the movement and can it deliver politically? The question is timely because we see more reports claiming a difference of opinion within the Taleban movement on the question of whether to talk or not. See for example, the recent public statements by Agha Jan Mutassem, a former head of the Taleban political commission who went to Turkey after almost having been killed in Karachi – by whom is anyone’s guess (here and here).(7) In his 14 May interview with AP, he said: 3 / 6 ‘There are two kinds of Taliban. The one type of Taliban who believes that the foreigners want to solve the problem but there is another group and they don't believe, and they are thinking that the foreigners only want to fight’. This sounds as if he assumes they are all part of one movement still. Finally, there is the Long War Journal’s assertion (based on the same intelligence official?) that the Mulla Dadullah Front is led ‘by none other than Mullah A[bd]ul Qayoum Zakir, the former Guantanamo Bay detainee who has since been promoted as the Taliban's top military commander and co-leader of the Taliban's Quetta Shura’. In the light of what is available on the background of both Zaker and Mir Hamza who has been called the Front’s leader in recent reports, this does not seem convincing.