CIA's secret fighting force played 'crucial role' in collapse of the Taliban

War on Terrorism: Intelligence

Despite being vilified for its intelligence failures in the run-up to 11 September, the Central Intelligence Agency appears to have played a crucial role in orchestrating the collapse of the Taliban in Afghanistan, thanks to secret paramilitary units on the ground and Predator surveillance drones picking out targets for aerial bombardment.

A front-page article by Bob Woodward in yesterday's Washington Post revealed the existence of a hitherto secret fighting force within the agency called the Special Activities Division, which has been active in Afghanistan since late September. The 150-strong force is made up of teams of half a dozen men each, most battle-hardened military veterans who do not wear uniforms.

Using resources on the ground, as well as helicopters, planes and Predator drones equipped with high-resolution cameras and Hellfire anti-tank missiles, the division is believed to have provided crucial intelligence leading to the deaths of a number of al-Qa'ida commanders over the past week.

The article by Mr Woodward, a journalist made famous by his Watergate investigations who has since written extensively about US intelligence, cast the CIA in a far more favourable light than previous accounts, which have bemoaned a near-dearth of decent human intelligence in Afghanistan and many other hot spots around the world.

One former operative, Reuel Marc Gerecht, wrote in the summer that the CIA was bereft of credible language skills, relied too much on hi-tech communications, and suffered from a pampered office-bound culture that made talented agents averse to the very idea of operating in a country where diarrhoea is a way of life.

Since 11 September there have been rumours that George Tenet, the CIA director, is on the verge of resignation, particularly after it was revealed that a specific warning about two of the suicide hijackers was received by the CIA in August but was not passed to local law enforcement agencies fast enough for them to be apprehended. Since the war began five weeks ago, regional analysts have also worried that CIA operatives in Afghanistan are inexperienced and too junior to be taken seriously.

Mr Woodward, by contrast, said the CIA had been working intensively with anti-Taliban groups in Afghanistan for the past four years, identifying local people willing and able to hunt down senior officials as well as members of al-Qa'ida.

The agency began with Northern Alliance fighters holed up in north-eastern Afghanistan but branched out about 18 months ago to work with anti-Taliban Pashtun tribes in the south. Covert or overt support has come in the form of weapons, ammunition, food and money.

Mr Woodward says the CIA has drawn extensively on its experience of the Afghan-Soviet war in the 1980s – aperiod when US clients included radical Islamists who went on to join the Taliban, as well as Osama bin Laden himself. The CIA effort has also relied on a dozen or so case officers from the Near East Division with knowledge of the terrain and languages.