As an observer, if your belief tells you that terrorism started with al-Qaeda attacking the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, your understanding of the background is incomplete.
Running to Disaster is a multi-part study from CommandEleven, written and researched by Syed Khalid Muhammad, that traces Pakistan’s radicalization and terrorism problem to its roots. It argues that terrorism is the organic by-product of a radicalization that began with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, was paid for and shaped by foreign governments and intelligence agencies, and was never reversed by the leaders who created it.
The study digs into:
- Radicalization
- The roots of terrorism
- What has failed
- What needs to be done
- How we get there
Intrinsic to this study is the assigning of responsibilities for Pakistan to move forward as a nation, meaning that roles will be defined for all stakeholders with defined objectives.
How the Series Is Organized
The study was first published as two briefing papers. On this site it is presented in eight parts so each can be read in one sitting. Parts 1 and 2 are Volume I, Roots of Radicalization (June 2023). Parts 3 to 8 are Volume II, Operation: Dinner Out.
Volume I: Roots of Radicalization
- Part 1: Roots of Radicalization – Why terrorism is a by-product of radicalization, what Pakistan struggles with today, the six stakeholders that hold the solution, and why ideologies cannot be defeated by bullets.
- Part 2: The Alphabet of Jihad – The USAID-funded textbooks that taught jihad from the first grade, and how Zia-era politics turned that curriculum into a pipeline of fighters.
Download: Volume I: The Roots of Radicalization (PDF, 2024)
Volume II: Operation: Dinner Out
- Part 3: Operation: Dinner Out – The overt and covert players on the Afghan chessboard, four decades of jihadi terrorism in summary, and the world before 1979.
- Part 4: The KGB’s Active Measures – How Soviet subversion worked, why Moscow set out to punish Pakistan, and what the KGB’s own files reveal about its work in India.
- Part 5: Afghanistan, 1978–1979 – The Saur Revolution, Taraki and Amin, and how Moscow’s missteps turned Afghan resistance into jihad.
- Part 6: Pakistan in the KGB’s Crosshairs – KGB forgeries and press plants from Ayub and Bhutto to the 1971 breakup and the first years of Zia.
- Part 7: Al-Zulfiqar and the Covert War – Murtaza Bhutto’s KGB-backed al-Zulfiqar, the PIA hijacking, Operation TARAKANY and the US-Pakistan covert alliance.
- Part 8: Inside the Camps – How recruits were enlisted and trained, how suicide bombing evolved, and how al-Qaeda and ISIS grew from the war’s leftovers.
Download: Volume II: Operation Dinner Out (PDF, 2024)
About the Author
Running to Disaster was written and researched by Syed Khalid Muhammad, Director General of CommandEleven. Khalid has significant field operational experience with terrorism, extremism, and insurgencies, and specific insights on the Afghan Taliban, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISKP), and other groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Start reading: Part 1: Roots of Radicalization
