It is very difficult to get good information about insurgencies. This is because they:
1. IO. They run their own information operations through their own dissemination channels, traditional channels (e.g. bazaar, mosque), and local, national, and international media of all types. In the case of the Taliban, they are very adapt at dissinformation (especially regarding civilian and military casualties) and spin [I will provide more analysis of this paper soon].
2. OPSEC. Sensitive information (to include the location of leaders), operations, and communications are protected using the whole gamut of op-sec methods.
3. CI. Their counter-intelligence methods range from “ordinary” (e.g. vetting members, use of informants, running agents, offering rewards for turning in spies/providing information) to brutal (e.g. killing alleged informants; publicly humiliating, disfiguring, and slaughtering alleged informants; threats & intimidation). It actively recruits and plants informants and spies in security forces, intelligence forces, government, NGO’s, etc.
All these combine with the natural complexity of the cultural and physical terrain to make it very hard for outsiders to know what is going on. As a result weddings sometimes get bombed, the wrong people get arrested, innocents and allies get hurt/killed, and even the most effective military actions turn into COIN setbacks.
This is obvious to most readers, but for some reasons people forget that they apply to other countries’ efforts, as well. “When Spies Don’t Play Well With Their Allies”, a NYTimes article by Mark Mazzetti about the difficult relationship between our agents and the ISA, does a pretty good job at describing the problem:
Even the powerful I.S.I., which is dominated by Punjabis, Pakistan’s largest ethnic group, has difficulties collecting information in the tribal lands, the home of fiercely independent Pashtun tribes. For this reason, the I.S.I. has long been forced to rely on Pashtun tribal leaders — and in some cases Pashtun militants — as key informants.
Intelligence agencies are in the business of getting information, and this sometimes leads them to ally themselves with unsavory sorts. You may remember the debate a few years back about whether our agencies should be allowed to use criminals and terrorists as sources. While our policy is that we should avoid this, we should not be surprised that others are not so constrained. From the same article:
The I.S.I. operates in a neighborhood of constantly shifting alliances, where double dealing is an accepted rule of the game, and the phenomenon is one that many in Washington still have problems accepting.
Accusations are made so often in the press that the Taliban and the ISI are working together that I have to believe that members of each are in contact with one another. But what does it mean? If a ISI agent gives money to a Taliban leader, and the Taliban leader later leads his men in a cross-border attack, everyone seems to assume that the relationship is one of command. But given what we know about how intelligence agencies gather information, and how difficult it is to secure the loyalty of Taliban and tribal leaders, shouldn’t we be more cautious (or even charitable, given the empirical evidence demonstrating the Pakistan military, government, and intelligence forces’ support of OEF).
The NY Times Carlotta Gall had an article on Jalaluddin Haqqani, the Islamist mafioso of Miram Shah / Waziristan. It has a “senior Pakistani intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledg[ing] that [the Pakistan military did not move against Haqqani] because he was a Pakistani asset. I would be willing to argue that he is so nefarious that the ISI should bring him down no matter what the costs to their influence with him (which is probably quite limited) or to their credibility in the region (which is probably low anyways). While it has done a lot in Waziristan, the cost-benefit analysis of the Pakistan government still weighs against directly going after Haqqani. We can (and should) influence them to change this, but we should not fall into the trap Lermontov describes in the preface to “Hero of Our Times”:
Our public is like the person from the sticks who, overhearing a conversation between two diplomats belonging to hostile courts, becomes convinced that each is being false to his government for the sake of a tender mutual friendship.
