Pakistan is no more secure than at any time in recent history and it faces a potential war with India. India is front and center in the war on terror which offers immense potential for forging more significant ties to the U.S. The Bush administration has emerged as dealing out major defeats to al Qaeda and the Mahdi Army while the nation, as a whole, is moving towards reconciliation in a development that has surprised, delighted, and confounded pundits respectively. The Afghanistan situation has degenerated by experiencing the most violent year since the U.S. incursion to oust the Taliban in 2001. Most commentators are mixed in their assessment regarding the relative chances of implementing a “surge” strategy in Afghanistan that proved to work so successfully in Iraq. In any case, this strategy will be implemented later this year. General Petraeus has re-deployed to Afghanistan to head up operations. If the General had performed this admirably in any previous war that the U.S. had been involved in, he would have been touted as one of America's greatest war leaders. In this conflict, enthusiasm for his efforts has been muted and largely unrecognized by the American public. Iran is closer than ever to developing a nuclear weapon, and no one in the West has a coordinated plan to deter Iran from developing into the world's next nuclear power. As Iran acquires nuclear war making capability, the region will destabilize. Al Qaeda will likely retake control of Somalia as surviving cadres fled Iraq. Yemen remains an al Qaeda sanctuary.
Outside the main theater of operations battles continue. Imad Mugniyah was assassinated in Damascus. The Philippines made progress against its Islamic insurgency and dealt blows to Abu Sayyaf and the radical Rajah Solaiman Movement. Indonesia has driven Jemaah Islamiyah underground. Algeria fought a low-intensity terror insurgency with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
An overview can summarize the major developments in the most active theaters globally:
Pakistan
Pakistan is the central front in the war against al Qaeda, the Taliban, and allied movements such as Lashkar-e-Taiba. The Pakistani Taliban, led by South Waziristan chieftan Baitullah Mehsud, controls and has expanded in the tribal areas of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province: the districts of Swat, Shangla, Bannu, Tank, Dir, and Malakand are under Taliban control, while the Taliban has a strong presence in every other district.
In the summer of 2008, U.S. intelligence estimated that the Taliban and al Qaeda run more than 150 training camps and maintain more than 400 support locations throughout the northwest.
The U.S. countered al Qaeda with 36 recorded airstrikes and cross-border raids in 2008, compared to 10 in 2006 and 2007 combined. Five senior al Qaeda leaders, including Abu Laith al Libi and Abu Khabab al Masri, were killed during the 2008 strikes.
Pakistani military and intelligence services appear to assist Lashkar-e-Taiba, as characterized by the devastating Mumbai attack which killed more than 170 people and the city was shut down for nearly three days in the military-style assault.
On a more positive note, Pervez Musharraf resigned from the office of president and allowed for the successful democratic transition of power after nine years of a military dictatorship. The Pakistan People's Party, whose former leader was the slain Benazir Bhutto, won the election and formed a coalition government.
During 2008, India emerged as front and center in the war after Mumbai. India suffered the greatest losses other than those countries not directly involved in active fighting with the Taliban, al Qaeda, and other terror groups. This development seems to reveal that it is not only those countries currently engaged that are targeted. Terrorists attacked Mumbai, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Assam, and New Delhi resulted in the deaths of 332 Indians and foreigners and more than 1280 wounded. The Mumbai strike revealed a new and more advanced typed of attack: more severe, and military in nature featuring an assault from the sea.
Al Qaeda-linked Harkat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami, Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Lashkar-e-Taiba have been implicated in the attacks, along with the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the Indian Mujahideen. These are front groups.
Iraq
In only two years, the Iraqi and the US and Coalition forces have reversed what at one time appeared to be a hopeless situation. In 2006, Iraq seemed like a quagmire and to al Qaeda, Sunni insurgents, the Mahdi Army, Iran, and death squads. Following the surge however, coupled with an expansion of the Anbar Awakening program in 2007, violence was dramatically reduced and the Iraqi government was given the time and space needed to further reconciliation.
Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al Masri fled the country and Abu Qaswarah, the group's second in command was killed in Mosul.
The violence in Iraq is at its lowest since 2003, when the US ousted Saddam Hussein from power. Peace is still fragile yet the Coalition can be guardedly optimistic about positive developments. The status of forces agreement between the US and Iraq stipulates that US combat forces must withdraw from Iraqi cities by the summer of 2009 and will be out of Iraq entirely by the end of 2011. The U.S. must remain to provide guidance and support to ensure the peace.
Afghanistan
Aided by bases, training camps, and a nearly endless supply of recruits across the border in Pakistan, the Taliban has made significant gains in its attempt to retake control of Afghanistan. The resurgent Taliban, along with the allied Hizb-i-Islami and the Haqqani Network, has ramped up operations in southern and eastern Afghanistan, and has expanded its control of provinces around Kabul and in the northwest.
The Taliban essentially controls the provinces of Wardak and Logar just outside Kabul, and has increased its presence in Baglan province in the northwest. Attacks are up in Nimroz, Farah, and Herat provinces in the west. Many of the districts in Kandahar province are under effective Taliban control, while fighting is still heavy in neighboring Helmand province. The Taliban has established shadow governments in many of Afghanistan’s districts and provinces, with courts, checkpoints, security forces, and taxation.
This year, the United States will surge approximately 30,000 additional troops, including four combat brigades and one combat aviation brigade, effectively doubling the amount of US troops in country. NATO has failed again to answer the call for more troops, sparking serious concerns about the alliance's effectiveness. Canada will withdraw all of its forces by the end of 2011.
Somalia
Al Qaeda-backed As Shabaab, or the Somali Youth Movement, and allied Islamist insurgent groups are prepared to retake control of Somalia after a year of gains in central and southern Somalia.
The US conducted several 'over the horizon' airstrikes in an effort to take out senior Shabaab and al Qaeda leaders operating in southern Somalia. Aden Hashi Ayro was killed in one such strike in May of 2008.
The African Union failed to provide the required number of peacekeepers; only one-quarter of the pledged troops arrived.
If Africans do not defend Somalia, the country is likely to fall.
Iran
Iran is one of the most important state sponsors of terror, and will likely be nuclear soon. There is no comprehensive plan to deal with Iran's nuclear program.
Iran suffered a strategic defeat in Iraq with the US and Iraq efforts to dismantle the Iranian-backed Mahdi Army and Iran's Ramazan Corps network that moved weapons, money, and fighters into the theater.
In Lebanon, Iran's proxy Hezbollah was able to force the government to include them in the government and give the terror group veto power over government decisions.
Yemen
After Pakistan, Yemen is considered to be one of the largest havens for al Qaeda.
The most high-profile attack took place in the capital after a suicide bomber breached the outer gate of the US Embassy.
A Yemeni appeals court reduced Jaber Elbanah's 10-year jail term to five years. Elbanah is wanted by the US for providing material support to Al Qaeda and is believed to have helped recruit the Lackawanna Six. A Yemeni court released Elbanah on bail in February 2008.
In August 2008, Yemen's new vice and virtue committee elected Sheikh Abdulmajid al Zindani as its president. Zindani was named by the US Treasury as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist and a bin Laden loyalist.
Syria
Syria has long supported or looked the other way as al Qaeda and Sunni insurgents used the country as a transit point and safe haven for fighters entering western Iraq. About 90% of the insurgents enter Iraq through Syria.
The US in October 2008 launched the first recorded cross-border strike inside the country since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Nine terrorists were reported killed after US commandos dropped from helicopters conducted a raid in eastern Syria. The target was Abu Ghadiya, a senior al Qaeda leader who had been in charge of the Syrian facilitation network since 2005. Ghadiya and his staff were killed in the attack.
Earlier in 2008, Imad Mugniyah, the leader of Hezbollah’s military wing and a senior officer in Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, was killed in car bombing in the capital of Damascus. It is thought that Israeli intelligence was behind the attack. Mugniyah, a pioneer in modern terrorism, was behind numerous terror attacks throughout the world, including the 1983 Beirut suicide attacks that killed 241 US Marines and 58 French paratroopers.
Philippines
Talks between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the government broke down after MILF conducted several terrorist and military attacks against villages in areas adjacent to MILF control.
Indonesia
Jemaah Islamiyah, al Qaeda's Southeast Asia affiliate, has largely gone underground in Indonesia after senior leaders in the group have been killed or captured.
Algeria
After conducting multiple high profile attacks against government institutions and international agencies in 2007, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb’s operations took the form of a terrorist insurgency.
Israel & the Palestinian Territories
Major fighting broke out between Israel and the Hamas-led government in the Gaza strip after the six-month truce between the two expired at the end of December.
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