CIA launching 'surge' of spies into Afghanistan
Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times
Sunday, September 20, 2009
The CIA is deploying teams of spies, analysts and paramilitary operatives to
Afghanistan, part of a broad intelligence "surge" that will make the agency's
station there among the largest in CIA history, U.S. officials say
When complete, the CIA's presence in the country is expected to rival the size
of its massive stations in Iraq and Vietnam at the height of those wars. Precise
numbers are classified, but one U.S. official said the CIA already has nearly
700 employees in Afghanistan.
The influx parallels the U.S. military expansion, and comes at a time when the
nation's spy services are under pressure from Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal to
improve intelligence on the Taliban and find ways to reverse a series of
unsettling trends.
Sophisticated tactics
Among them are a two-fold increase in the number of roadside bombs, a growing
sophistication in the kinds of assaults aimed at coalition troops, and evidence
that a Taliban group has developed an assembly-line like approach to grooming
suicide bombers and supplying them to other organizations. U.S. officials have
also been alarmed by a more sophisticated suicide attack - sending multiple
fighters armed with guns to carry out coordinated assaults before detonating
their bombs.
The arriving spies are being used in a range of assignments - teaming up with
special forces units pursuing high-value targets, tracking public sentiment in
provinces that have been shifting toward the Taliban, and collecting
intelligence on corruption in the Afghan government.
The intelligence surge goes beyond the CIA to involve every major spy service,
officials said, including the National Security Agency, which intercepts calls
and e-mails, as well as the Defense Intelligence Agency, which tracks military
threats.
The CIA push comes at a time when the Obama administration is under pressure to
show progress in Afghanistan, calculating it has only until next summer before
public support for the war effort collapses.
Stronger insurgency
The deployments coincide with fresh warnings from U.S. spy services that the
insurgency in Afghanistan has continued to gain territory and strength.
"The Taliban is at its most capable level since 2001, when it was ejected from
the country," said a Defense Department official who has access to classified
intelligence estimates. The official, and others, spoke on condition of
anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
The official said the Taliban's geographic gains have slowed only because it has
already pushed into almost every area with a significant Pashtun population -
the tribal networks that make up the Taliban's home turf.
Overall, officials said the insurgency is believed to have between 15,000 and
20,000 fighters. The estimates are imprecise, officials said.
The CIA's buildup is the latest in a series of escalations there. After having
only a handful of operatives in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks,
the agency's presence climbed to an estimated 150 by the end of 2001, and 300 at
the close of 2005. A recent Senate report criticized the CIA's role in
Afghanistan over the past eight years, saying the agency provided large
quantities of money and support to warlords, some of whom had ties to the drug
trade and parlayed their U.S. backing into high-level positions in the Kabul
government.