Safe Haven Claim Questioned

Richard Barrett, a counter-terrorism official from the U.N, and a former British intelligence officer, has concluded that the “safe haven” meme is probably inaccurate:

The Afghan Taliban have their own objectives. And their objectives are to take power in Afghanistan. Al-Qaida can join the party; fine, they can help them, but to a certain extent, al-Qaida doesn’t help them because if – and I think Mullah Omar’s made this very clear – if they take over in Afghanistan, they want to consolidate their power. They don’t want to be kicked out again like they were in 2001. And to consolidate their power, they don’t want al-Qaida hanging around. They want to be able to say we are a responsible government; we’re not going to support anybody who meddles in the business of our neighbors or in other international countries or partners.

Well, you might say well, they’d say that anyway; why wouldn’t they – why shouldn’t they say that? But I don’t think they lose a lot if they don’t say that. They don’t gain a lot by saying it and they don’t lose a lot by not saying it. So I think that we could possibly think that we might take them at the face value – that they would not automatically allow Afghanistan to become a base for al-Qaida.

Barrett recently gave a comprehensive overview of international terrorism at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.