Spiral of Mistrust

The attack on the CIA was a Taliban masterstroke

Was the suicide bomber who killed seven CIA agents at a U.S. military compound in Khost on Wednesday a member of the Afghan military? That’s what the Taliban claims. Or was he just a Talib dressed as an Afghan soldier? The bottom line is that it makes little difference: This attack will amplify the mistrust between Afghan and foreign troops, and that was the Taliban’s intention to begin with.

The international coalition is looking for the quickest way out of Afghanistan and they’ve decided that training sufficient Afghan forces to enable them to take over is the best answer. This year, the plan is to turn over more foreign strongholds to their control and to include them in more joint tactical operations. To do that effectively, there must necessarily be a great deal of confidence between the two forces. And that goal will be undermined by events like the recent attack in Khost.

The attack on the CIA’s most important stronghold in Afghanistan represents not only a stroke of Taliban military intelligence genius, it’s also suited to drive a wedge between foreign soldiers and intelligence agents and their Afghan counterparts.

Recent months have brought a spate of incidents in which Afghan soldiers abruptly turned on their British trainers or on their American counterparts, in some cases killing them. This has resulted in an atmosphere of mutual distrust between Afghans and their foreign allies that plays directly into the Taliban’s hands. The more Afghan soldiers that feel discriminated against because of this distrust, the more they will support the rapid departure of foreign troops. And as the mutual distrust increases, incidents such as the one in Khost will become more and more frequent.