Last week?s devastating suicide-cum-car bomb attacks on two guesthouses in the Afghan capital Kabul took the lives of 9 Indian citizens. The repetitive nature of such targeted terrorist attacks on Indians in Afghanistan makes the latest outrage all the more agonising.
Like previous assaults on Indians?who are not only building Afghanistan?s infrastructure but also helping revive its tolerant culture?the Kabul carnage carries the inevitable handiwork of Pakistan. The Afghan Taliban, which was created by Pakistan in the early 1990s to gain strategic depth in Afghanistan and that continues to enjoy the Pakistani state?s camouflaged patronage, tried to deflect attention from Pakistan?s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) by announcing that ?the number one target was not Indian? and that ?the actual target was European and Western foreign people.? But one must take this psychological warfare with a pinch of salt.
When the Afghan Taliban?s second-in-command, Mullah Baradar, was arrested recently, its spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid bluffed that it was a ?rumour to confuse the public.? The same Mujahid, who gave ISI a clean chit in Friday?s attacks on Indians, is believed to represent anti-India miscreants affiliated to the Afghan Taliban, viz Sirajuddin Haqqani?s network and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar?s Hizb-e-Islami. Now, most of the terrorist attacks carried out on Afghan soil against Indians are attributed to these two Islamist outfits, which have long been financed and sheltered by the ISI. According to Indian intelligence sources, ISI had planned a series of strikes against Indian aid workers in Afghanistan through Hekmatyar?s operatives in November 2009. The mayhem on Friday was the poisonous fruit of this conspiracy.
As if Mujahid?s bid to confuse the world about the culprits was not sufficient, Pakistan has steadily drummed up rhetoric that it is ?itself a victim of terrorism like India? and that New Delhi must desist from ?hasty judgements and inflammatory statements.? Islamabad frequently refers to the terrorist attacks within Pakistan to claim that the ?same forces? of religious intolerance that threaten India are also hitting Pakistan and that the two countries really need to ?jointly? fight terrorism.
But the figure of 3,021 deaths from terrorist attacks in Pakistan in 2009 does not exonerate the Pakistani state from terrorist attacks against Indians in Afghanistan or in India proper. The haze of violence engulfing Pakistan needs to be dissected to separate grain from chaff.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which is Pashtun in ethnicity, is responsible for terrorist attacks against Pakistan?s army, ISI and civilians. This loose alliance of militants was formed around 2002 to assist fellow Pashtuns?the Afghan Taliban ?across the porous Durand Line in their battle against the US invaders. For some years, the TTP was patronised by the ISI in Pakistan?s bid to better arbiter the fate of Afghanistan. But relations between sections of TTP and the Pakistani state soured during the later period of General Pervez Musharraf?s rule, as the Pakistani military was seen to be ?betraying? Islam by caving in to American pressure for cooperation in the ?war on terror?. A war within a regional war then erupted across Pakistan?s streets, barracks and government offices, with regular suicide bombings and assassinations against the country?s ruling elites.
A well-informed source from Pakistani civil society, who works in the tribal areas, confided to this author that ?60% of the TTP outfits being launched into Afghanistan are still under ISI control, but 40% are now out to get their former paymasters within Pakistan.? The atrocious terrorism inside Pakistan is a result of partial slippage of former mentees from the ISI?s fold.
But these Pakistan-disenchanted TTP units are not attacking Indians in Afghanistan. Bent on overthrowing what they consider a pro-American Pakistani state, they have no interest in squeezing India out of Afghanistan. Terrorist cells loyal to ISI, which are not even members of the TTP, are to blame for the blood of innocent Indians in Afghanistan.
One must blow the cover off Pakistan being a ?victim? of the same phenomenon as India. Violence against Indians in Afghanistan can be shut down with the turn of a tap by the ISI. Tales of certain jihadis having gone out of control of ex-bosses in the Pakistani state are true, but these elements are not dying in fedayeen missions to bleed India and evict it from Afghanistan. The Hekmatyars and Haqqanis, as well as ethnic Punjabi terrorist outfits like Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Muhammad, are all obedient players in what a rebel Pakistani jihadi described in a NYT article as ?the B team of the (Pakistani) government.?
How can India survive the hostile environment in Afghanistan generated by the Pakistani state? That we should remain in Afghanistan to prevent its re-Talibanisation is obvious. But India must deepen linkages with the majority Pashtun population of Afghanistan ahead of the so-called ?Afghan reconciliation? process, where the Hamid Karzai-led government tries to co-opt Taliban cadres that are willing to switch sides.
In October 2009, Pakistan?s interior minister incredibly alleged that India is financing the Taliban to destabilise Pakistan. But it is a tantalising proposition for New Delhi to widen channels with inclined segments of the Afghan Taliban that could feed intelligence to offset terrorist attacks on Indians residing in Afghanistan. If renegade Taliban are bound to feature in a future Afghan government, and given that the United Nations and the Karzai regime already talking to them, why should India not follow suit and flexibly insure its citizens? safety and diplomatic footing in Afghanistan?
A carefully crafted policy on these lines is infinitely better than rash calls for deploying the Indian army in Afghanistan to protect Indian nationals. We must stay in Afghanistan, but do so proactively to foil Pakistan?s violent agenda.
The author is associate professor of world politics at the OP Jindal Global University