Web | Jun 28, 2005
OPINION
The New Great Game
Pending a U.S. 'solution' or 'exit', the Pakistani leadership will continue to seek means to recover leverage in Afghanistan that it lost after the Taliban rout in Afghanistan, and reframe its quest for 'strategic depth'.
KANCHAN LAKSHMAN
That all is not well between Pakistan and Afghanistan was apparent when the U.S. President George W. Bush indulged in some telephonic diplomacy on June 21, 2005, to resolve friction between two key allies in the 'war on terror', urging both to exercise restraint. Shortly after President Bush's call to General Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani President called his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai and both of them reportedly promised to 'continue co-operation' in combating terrorism. But the seriousness of the situation was evident in the fact that the General called Karzai a second time on June 23 to reiterate Pakistan's claim that it was not involved in terrorist incidents in Afghanistan.
President Bush was forced to step in after Pakistan reacted strongly to Afghanistan disclosing that it had arrested three Pakistanis for allegedly planning to assassinate the former US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. The three were arrested on June 19 from the eastern Laghman province, where the Afghan-born Khalilzad, nominated as the next US envoy to Iraq, was inaugurating reconstruction projects. The trio was reportedly waiting for suicide vests packed with explosives to come from Pakistan, but these never arrived, and they were instructed, instead, to carry out the assassination with the weapons they had in hand. While the group affiliation has not been disclosed thus far, a senior intelligence official was quoted as saying on Afghan National Television that they had trained in a "terrorist camp in Pakistan". While Abdul Alim and Murad Khan hail from the Pakistani city of Peshawar, Zahid is from North West Frontier Province on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Jawed Ludin, President Karzai's spokesperson, has said that there have been a series of attacks in recent weeks, committed by terrorists who had allegedly entered from Pakistan, including a suicide bombing on June 1, 2005, at a mosque in Kandahar, which killed 20 people. Ludin was more assertive at a press conference in Kabul on June 22 when he said "some senior members of the Taliban, including some who are involved in killings and are considered terrorists, are in Pakistan.'' President Karzai, addressing a gathering of the Ulema (clerics), alleged that Islamabad was blackmailing the Taliban and threatening to hand their families over to the US unless they did as told.
That the Afghan-Pakistan theatre is critical for the US-led war on terror needs no reiteration. And the U.S. will do the utmost to prevent the rather hasty conclusion by some that Afghanistan is fast becoming the 'forgotten eastern front'. But the vital issue, in terms of an end game, is the presence and operation of surviving elements of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan. US and Afghan officials have, in recent times, stated that Osama bin Laden is hiding in the tribal region along the Pakistan-Afghan border and, crucially, President Pervez Musharraf confirmed in Auckland recently that he believes bin Laden is probably somewhere in the area of Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.
CIA Director Porter Goss, while disclosing that he had "an excellent idea of where he [Laden] is," in his interview to Time had alluded to Pakistan when he talked about the "very difficult question of dealing with sanctuaries in sovereign states." And Khalilzad had, on June 19, stated that there was a good chance that the fugitive Taliban chief, Mullah Mohammad Omar, was hiding in Pakistan. In an interview to Aina Television, Khalilzad disclosed that a Pakistani TV channel had interviewed a senior Taliban 'commander', Mullah Akhtar Usmani, at a time when Pakistani officials claimed they did not know the whereabouts of Taliban leaders. "If a TV station can get in touch with them, how can the intelligence service of a country, which has nuclear bombs and a lot of security and military forces, not find them?" Khalilzad queried.
The Taliban, as has been documented extensively, exists on both sides of the border. While they have obviously been weakened to a certain extent, they retain substantial capacities to execute attacks. While Islamabad has managed to quieten the chaotic Waziristan region along the Afghan border, the mountainous terrain along the Durand Line provides a secure pathway and safe hideout for the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Pakistani insecurities on the Afghan front also relate to the contested nature of the Durand Line. In the opinion of most Afghans, the Durand Line should rightly have been drawn at Attock, and this is what the Afghans will press for when their country is strong enough. Within this context, it is useful to note that, south of the Durand Line, in what is currently Pakistani territory, land records, police and legal records, etc, still refer to the people as 'Afghan'.
Afghan officials have alleged for weeks now that the Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives were coming in from Pakistan, where they are reportedly based in areas of the North West Frontier Province and also from Balochistan. Since the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) launched 30 Arab and Pakistani militants into the Kunar and Nangarhar provinces almost a year ago under the leadership of Colonel Haq Nawaz, sources indicate that Taliban leaders have held frequent meetings with their handlers in Pakistan at Quetta, Peshawar (where the 'moderate Taliban' Jaishul Muslim is based), Kohat, Waziristan and other locations. For instance, on August 11, 2004, senior Taliban leaders, including Mullah Obaidullah, Akhtar Usmani (the 'commander' mentioned by Khalilzad), Akhtar Mansoor and Maulvi Razzak, had met in Quetta to discuss ways to disrupt the October 2004-presidential elections in Kandahar, Zabul, Uruzgan, Nimroz and Helmand provinces.
The more recent escalation in attacks along the border is partly due to the fact that the snow has melted from mountain passes, allowing terrorists to launch strikes from Pakistan and possibly due to the less-reported regrouping of the Taliban/Al Qaeda. U.S. military spokesperson, Colonel James Yonts, revealed on June 20 that foreign terrorists, backed by networks channeling them money and arms, had come into Afghanistan to try and subvert parliamentary elections slated for September 16, 2005. The October 2004 Afghan presidential elections had been relatively peaceful, since Pakistan had sealed the border and executed operations against the terrorists. Afghan officials say that such levels of cooperation are not forthcoming from Islamabad now.
Since March 2005, some 195 persons, including at least 29 U.S. troops and 70 Afghan security force personnel, have died in various incidents of terrorist violence across Afghanistan. At the other end, approximately 300 terrorists have been killed in various security operations.
Violence, according to Ludin, is worst near the Pakistan border. The subversion that targets Afghan provinces close to Pakistan, like Paktika, is a reality despite the fact that Islamabad has deployed approximately 70,000 troops on their side of the border. This suggests that the Taliban/Al Qaeda have been provided space by the military to operate in the Pakistani areas along the border. Significantly, Balochistan and the NWFP are governed by the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, a fundamentalist alliance with close links to the Taliban.
The security establishment in Afghanistan, including coalition intelligence sources, has reportedly indicated a disturbing shift in terrorist tactics, with the jehadis increasingly adopting 'Iraq-style' suicide attacks. And such attacks are bound to increase ahead of the September parliamentary elections. Defence Minister Rahim Wardak said on June 17 in an interview to the Associated Press that he had received intelligence that Al Qaeda had brought at least six Arab operatives into Afghanistan in the past three weeks.
According to him, while one suicide bomber attacked a funeral service for a pro-government cleric at a Kandahar mosque on June 1, killing 20 persons, another rammed a vehicle laden with explosives into a U.S. convoy in Kandahar on June 13, injuring four U.S. soldiers.
Suicide bombings are a relatively rare phenomenon in Afghanistan, with most of them suspected to have been carried out by non-Afghans, primarily Arabs. While the minister did not disclose how the suicide bombers entered Afghanistan, officials said men and material are usually moved through Pakistan, implying that Pakistan is again becoming a staging post for the Arab jehadis. Incidentally, Pakistan's interior minister Aftab Khan Sherpao told Daily Times on June 23 that the Al Qaeda had established a strong nexus with outlawed extremist groups in Pakistan. Although he did not provide names, the minister said banned groups were facilitating Al Qaeda operatives inside Pakistan. Among the proscribed groups in Pakistan are: Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), Jamiat-ul-Ansar (JuA), Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Khuddam-ul-Furqan and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP).
Pakistan is noticeably seeking to regain the foothold it lost after the Taliban rout in Afghanistan, and is reframing its quest for 'strategic depth'. Pending a U.S. 'solution' or 'exit', the Pakistani leadership will continue to seek means to recover leverage in Afghanistan. More importantly and possibly critical to Pakistan's desire for strategic space, there are concerns that an Afghan regime that is friendlier to India could leave Pakistan sandwiched between two 'adversaries', something which no regime in Islamabad would find acceptable.
-------------------------------------------------------------- Kanchan Lakshman is Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management; Assistant Editor, Faultlines: Writings on Conflict & Resolution. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal