My Share of the Task(276)
“I expect leaders at all levels”: Stanley A. McChrystal, “Tactical Directive,” July 6, 2009, 1–2. This as well as other directives are available on the “Official Texts” section of the ISAF website.
“This directive does not prevent”: Ibid., 2.
answering e-mails: Interview with Charlie Flynn.
That summer: While the text was “published” on May 9, 2009, it did not begin leaking out until July, when Al Jazeera obtained a copy. That August, the Taliban posted Pashto and English versions on the Internet. Quotes come from an English translation posted to the Afghan Analysts Network website: Kate Clark, “The Layha: Calling the Taleban to Account: Appendix 1. The Taleban Codes of Conduct in English,” Afghan Analysts Network, June 2011.
the layha: The official title of the book is “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Rules for the Mujahideen.” In official releases and press statements, the Taliban refer to themselves as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, to portray themselves as a competitor to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan—the sovereign, recognized government.
“Mujahedin”: Omar quoted in Clark, “Taleban Codes of Conduct,” 23.
“fiercely” forbidden: Ibid., 22.
“A brave son of Islam”: This translation comes from Al Jazeera, “Key Quotes from New Taliban book,” Al Jazeera, July 27, 2009. Clark has it translated as, “The Islamic nation’s sacrificing heroes shall not be used against minor and valueless targets” (“The Taleban Codes of Conduct,” 21).
the entire 1980s: With some rare exceptions, during the 1980s suicide bombing was largely confined to Lebanon, and viewed as a peculiar aspect of that war’s internecine violence.
following the book’s release: Kate Cark, “The Layha: Calling the Taleban to Account,” Afghan Analysts Network, June 2011, 23.
polio vaccination programs: Yaroslav Trofimov, “Risky Ally in War on Polio: the Taliban,” Wall Street Journal, January 15, 2010.
even in areas like Helmand: Coghlan notes that most estimates for the population who “actively support” the Taliban are “in the range of 10–20 per cent” (Coghlan, “The Taliban in Helmand,” 133).
CHAPTER 18: DESIGN
“First, tell me”: Notes of ISAF military officer present at June 20, 2009, meeting.
largest operators: International Security Assistance Force, “3 SCOTS Launch Massive Air Assault into Taliban Stronghold” (press release), June 2, 2009.
three thousand British, Afghan, Estonian, and Danish troops: Jeffrey Dressler, Securing Helmand: Understanding and Responding to the Enemy (Institute for the Study of War, September 2009), 34.
Nasim Akhundzada: Biographical details about Mullah Nasim Akhundzada are drawn from Antonio Giustozzi and Noor Ullah, “‘Tribes’ and Warlords in Southern Afghanistan, 1980–2005,” Crisis States Research Center, September 2006, 9–15, and Joel Hafvenstein, Opium Season: A Year on the Afghan Frontier (The Lyons Press, 2007), 128–32.
platform he built overtop the soil: Giustozzi and Ullah, “‘Tribes’ and Warlords,” 9. That Nasim had engaged in this practice was confirmed in correspondence with an intelligence analyst deployed to Helmand, 2009–11.
a fatwa he issued: Hafvenstein, Opium Season, 129.
He was on his way: Ibid., 130.