Afghan reality: India may talk to ISI, Taliban

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Pakistan Uses Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency for Political Gains in Afghanistan

The Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has recently captured nine out of the 18 key members of the Taliban central command circle known as Mullah Omar-led Quetta Shura. Does that sudden and unusual strike mean Pakistan is going to divorce itself from its long-standing ally the Taliban once and for all? Or is that a strange spectacle designed to make new political fortunes in Afghanistan?

It is a good question, without an easy answer. If the ISI's motive behind the arrest is fair and square, it will certainly be the beginning of the end of the Taliban insurgency; and if it is one more of the agency's familiar tactics, it will certainly start off a new fighting season in the approaching Afghan spring.

The history of Pakistan's use of religious extremism as a cheap and effective policy tool against its neighbouring India and Afghanistan suggests that the ISI is going to punish those among the Taliban leaders who disobey the spy agency or even those who have been willing to negotiate with the Western backed government in Kabul. The arrest of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, second to the Taliban secretive supremo Mullah Omar has been interpreted by many analysts as a new ploy to block attempts made by the President Obama and Kabul to initiate a political settlement in Afghanistan. According to Afghan sources Baradar was in secret talks with Kabul which was mediated by Saudi Arabia.

This claim is further backed up by Pakistan's refusal to hand over the captured Mullahs to Afghanistan. An independent interrogation might have revealed more details and more importantly the truth about the ISI past secret dealings with the Taliban and their possible negotiations with the government of President Hamid Karzai. The US and the Afghan government had already requested Mullah Baradar's extradition to Afghanistan. "During the two-week period, CIA Director Leon Panetta and other US officials asked the Pakistani government and military leaders to transfer Baradar and other Taliban leaders to the US detention centre at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan in order to allow the US military to interrogate him," reported by the Los Angeles Times on February 19.

The extradition has been barred apparently by the Lahore High Court which towards the end of February ruled that the Pakistani government cannot hand over any of the Taliban detainees to Afghanistan. Earlier the Pakistani Interior Minister Rahman Malik said that Mullah Baradar would be returned to the "country of origin (Afghanistan)". The ISI might have persuaded the court to make this decision, for the agency has had a history of directing the country's domestic politics since it was founded by British in 1948. As in recent months, the ISI has been manipulating the Pakistani media for disseminating anti-American narrative in
order to mislead public opinion in the country.

For Pakistan keeping the Taliban leaders in custody is obviously far more useful than their extradition to Afghanistan. As a bargain chip, the ISI can use the arrested Taliban leaders to gain high-ground in the Afghan game and tame those among the Taliban leadership who are turning against the Pakistani state.

The Taliban's arrests in Karachi reveal yet another fact that the command-and-control structure of the Taliban insurgency and al-Qaida terrorist network exist not in the tribal Pashtun belt alone, but also throughout the Pakistani metropolitan urban centres. This has always been denied by Pakistani authorities in the past.

In addition to the Afghani Taliban, there are other lethal anti-Western religious extremists in Pakistan who still enjoy ISI patronage. Al-Qaida-linked militants such as Punjabi Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad and Sipah-e-Sahaba are active in terrorist activities in the region. They also function as an influential ideological support for the Afghan Taliban. The Afghan security authorities said that LeT terrorists were behind last week's suicide bomb raid on an Indian guesthouse in Kabul. The LeT was also believed to be responsible for deadly attack on Mumbai.

Many experts believe that the ISI's multi-layered and covert links with the Taliban is part of Pakistan's strategy to use them as an effective leverage against arch-rival India. The real intention behind the link, however, is to gain control of Afghan domestic politics and especially contain the Pashtuns on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan 2310km long border known as the Duran Line, which was drawn by British Empire in 1893. The disputed border has remained as a haunting nightmare for the Pakistani military and spy agencies. Since the creation of Pakistan in 1947, the country's military sought out to find a robust strategy and effective weapon against the Pashtunistan issue. With the help of radical mullahs, the ISI finally found the golden goose. They poisoned Islam with the extremists and al-Qaida and began to export political Islam to Afghanistan since the early 1970s.

This explains Pakistan's need for advocating the dark forces in Afghanistan and their use as a straitjacket for an estimated 45 million Pashtuns in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Afghanistan was the only country that refused to recognise Pakistan as a legitimate state after the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. Greater autonomy for the Pakistani Pashtuns, known as the Pashtunistan cause was part of the Afghan foreign policy for decades. In 1963 when Daud Khan was Afghanistan's Prime Minister, Afghanistan's support for the formation of Pashtunistan in the Pakistani tribal belt brought Kabul and Islamabad to the brink of an outright war. This truth reveals the calculus behind Pakistan's hidden strategy in Afghanistan.

The complex and deliberate entanglement of the ISI with the Talban and others of their ilk is not only an impediment to the political and social evolution in Afghanistan but a major stumbling block to the efforts of the West to bring a lasting peace in this long-suffering country. The extension of war in Afghanistan holds out the greatest hope for the ISI to promote Pakistan's geopolitical strategy as well as keep American tax-dollars flowing. The recent capture thus unfolds Pakistan's strategy to use both Taliban insurgency and Western counter-insurgency in Afghanistan for its internal and regional security interests.

 

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Threat to Indian interests

The killing of Indians in an attack in Kabul on February 26 highlights the mounting dangers for India in Afghanistan. As the West prepares to exit from there and strike a deal with the Taliban, the very forces responsible for the latest killing, India’s vulnerabilities will increase. Kabul cannot be sealed and if large parts of the country are not under firm government control and local intelligence is unavailable, the ability of terrorist groups to strike unexpectedly cannot be eliminated.
The US has deployed an additional 30,000 troops, with the allies adding 10,000 more. This will supposedly give the means to put military pressure on Taliban strongholds, eliminate the insurgents from key areas, hold them with the help of trained and expanded Afghan forces, provide proper civilian administration, undertake development activities, winning over in the process local populations to the government side and reducing the Taliban base within the country. The operation in Marjah in the Helmand province is supposed to demonstrate the viability of this strategy, and its success, it is believed, will have a demonstration effect all over the country. But in the absence of a credible, popular, galvanising national political authority in Kabul, can this strategy work by July 2011?
The policy of reintegration and reconciliation with the Taliban is fraught with uncertainty. The December 2009 NATO statement describes reintegration as efforts at the tactical and operational levels to persuade low-level fighters, commanders and shadow governors to lay down their arms and to assimilate peacefully. Reconciliation is referred to as high-level strategic dialogue with senior leaders of the insurgent groups (no distinction here between the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban) designed to terminate their armed campaign against the Afghan people and their government. Both processes are to be Afghan-led. The January 28, 2010 London Conference, to which India was invited but its views disregarded, endorsed this policy.
The process of reintegration, according to Afghan representatives, will be advanced through strengthening Afghan institutions and their delivery capability, enforcing the rule of law, combating corruption, carrying out geographically balanced development, investing in education, creating legitimate economic opportunities, extending the reach of the government to remote areas, etc. At its core it means providing good governance. Can something that takes years to effect be done in less than 18 months? Reintegration includes the responsibility of providing physical security to those who break links with the Taliban against any reprisals in the future against them and their families from the extremists. Such protection will have to be provided by capable Afghan National Security Forces, set to increase to 1,71,600 by July 2011. Can such a well-trained and adequately armed, motivated and loyal force be created in a few months?
India needs to worry about this outreach to the Taliban. In his November 19, 2009 speech on taking over the presidency, President Karzai singled out reconciliation as one of the key priorities of his government. Karzai is rightly considered India’s good friend. His government has given us space to spread our political influence in Afghanistan. We have common interest in exposing Pakistan’s use of terror as an instrument of state policy against both India and Afghanistan. But it is Karzai who is pushing for reconciliation with the Taliban leadership in Pakistan — a policy that can gravely undermine India’s position in Afghanistan, give Pakistan the role it seeks, and open the doors to the political expansion of extremist religious ideology. It is not clear what his calculations are. His political position has been seriously eroded by the controversy over last year’s fraud-smeared presidential election. Why with little Pashtun support and an ambivalent western one he believes he can make peace with the Taliban on favourable terms as president is unclear. If this constitutes survival strategy post-US drawdown, it is unlikely to succeed. Pakistan, with no particular reason to trust Karzai, would want to see him out of the way to facilitate their own dominance over a future Afghan government. A gap is opening between what Karzai sees are Afghan interests and his own and those of India.
India has to be wary of Karzai’s search for a Saudi role in promoting the reconciliation process. Given the close nexus between the two, Saudi intervention suits Pakistan. One need not take seriously Saudi claims, made by its foreign minister to the Indian press during prime minister’s visit to the kingdom that they are not in touch with the Taliban. Reality is otherwise though the Saudis will press the Taliban to break its ties with al-Qaeda.
Western overtures to the Taliban constitute a significant diplomatic success for Pakistan, as these forces constitute its strategic assets for restoring its influence in Afghanistan. Pakistan has showed great resilience in withstanding US pressure to act against these groups. General Petraeus’ aversion to Pakistan stirring up any more ‘hornet’s nests’ in the border areas has encouraged General Kiyani to offer to mediate between US/NATO and the Taliban on the condition that Pakistan’s need for a soft strategic depth in Afghanistan is recognised as an insurance against the Indian threat and limits are put on India’s presence in Afghanistan. Pakistan will automatically get a role in the parleys with the Taliban as these groups are located on its territory and have close links with the ISI. Kiyani’s stature in Pakistan has risen, Pakistan’s attitude towards India has hardened and its political classes are singing the military’s tune.
India would need to rethink its strategy towards Afghanistan. Karzai can no longer be a reliable partner. Our local popularity is a fragile base for retaining our long-term influence unless it is supported by an ability to affect power equations within the country. The anti-Taliban forces within Afghanistan need stronger backing by Russia, Central Asian countries, Iran and India. The Taliban, sustained by Pakistan, will always be close to that country even if there are disagreements between the two. US is failing to take into account India’s long-term strategic interests. Its self-interest is prompting it to advance Pakistan’s interests at India’s expense. Its arming of an unreformed Pakistan constitutes a threat to us. The answer does not lie in India buying more arms from the US. Worse, through the West’s willingness to reconcile with the odious and vandalist Taliban forces conditions are being created for the spread of an extremist version of Islam with long term consequences for India’s security. The US is failing a critical test of its so-called strategic partnership with India.
About the author:
Kanwal Sibal is a former foreign secretary

 

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Jyoti Malhotra: Filling the post-US vacuum

At a dinner party at the home of India’s defence attaché, Brigadier Surinder Singh, in Kabul in December 2009, the freezing cold outside was considerably lightened not only by a raging bonfire set up on the verandah, but also by the grace, charm, warmth and wit of the young men and women from India’s Army Education Corps and Army Medical Corps who had left their spouses and children back home in order to work among the people of Afghanistan.Major Deepak Yadav from Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh, taught English at the Afghan Military Academy, as did Major Nitish Roy, while Major Laishram Jyotin Singh, from Imphal, Manipur, looked after the ill, the infirm and unhealthy children at the Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital in Kabul. The hospital’s out-patient department (OPD) has since been temporarily shut down, after Major Singh was blown up (and several other Indian doctors were injured) when he tried to stop a suicide bomber from hunting down Indians — two other terrorists went from room to room in the guesthouse, looking for the Major’s colleagues — and thus allowing several Afghans and Indians to escape during those crucial life-giving moments.

Much has been written about the February 28 Kabul attack, the third against Indians in the last three years, which, Indian and Afghan officials believe, was carried out by the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Much has been said about the LeT’s motives, as well as that of its alleged sponsor, Pakistan’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), with US, British and other NATO diplomats privately conceding that the ISI — and its mother organisation, the Pakistan Army — is playing a double game in the Af-Pak frontier. (Last year’s attack against the Indian high commission in Kabul was also said to have been carried out by the LeT.)

None of this is new. According to Pakistani media reports, Pakistan Army Chief Ashfaq Kayani has told President Asif Ali Zardari that the army will take primary responsibility of all Af-Pak-related policies — meaning, Af-Pak matters are too important to be left to the democratically-elected government in Islamabad. This ties in with the general western assessment that the Pakistan Army/ISI has refused to completely cut off its links with the Taliban — because, it may need to revive them after the western forces leave — and join the US-led war on terror in the Af-Pak region.

The most startling reaction came from the US special envoy for Af-Pak Richard Holbrooke. At first, Holbrooke rejected the claim by Afghan intelligence that the attack — in which nine Indians, including Majors Deepak Yadav and Laishram Jyotin Singh, died, while Nitish Roy succumbed to his injuries at the Army hospital in Delhi — was targeted at the Indians.

Two days later, when Delhi protested against the insensitivity of the top US diplomat’s remarks, Holbrooke backtracked, saying he “regretted any misunderstanding caused” by his comments. “The willingness of India to take risks and make sacrifices to help Afghanistan is testament to India’s commitment to global peace and prosperity and a vital part of the international commitment to Afghanistan’s future,” he added.

Although Holbrooke’s carefully-worded denial of his own intemperate remarks was aimed at appeasing a furious Indian establishment, the fact is, the clarifications still haven’t found their way into the US State Department’s website in Washington DC, nor the State Department’s website in Pakistan.

In fact, the US establishment seems increasingly divided down the middle over its Af-Pak war, with Holbrooke tending to very much overlook Pakistan’s complicity, because he feels it will endanger and discourage the critical role Islamabad is playing in the war effort.

On the other hand, Delhi believes that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is much more circumspect about Islamabad’s intentions and much more willing to keep India in Afghanistan, in the short as well as the long term. When Kayani, followed by Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, reaches Washington in the coming days, they are likely to find that it is Clinton who takes the tough calls.

Clinton understands that when the US forces get out of Afghanistan, sooner rather than later, India and to a certain extent, Russia, will be the only regional players — not Pakistan, China or Iran — that the US will be able to depend upon to settle the chaos that is likely to ensue.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has now indicated that the US troop’ draw-down could begin even earlier than the mid-2011 deadline. With Barack Obama increasingly embroiled in the two wars that he had no part in making, Delhi’s assessment is that the “outsourcing of the Afghanistan war” has already begun in Washington’s mind.

According to Holbrooke, the time is not ripe to call Pakistan’s bluff in the Af-Pak badlands. So, when Pakistan and the US “jointly” captured Mullah Abdu Ghani Baradar in Karachi in mid-February, said to be the second most important man in the Taliban hierarchy after Mullah Omar, Holbrooke described it as a “high watermark for Pakistani and American collaboration”.

Only, it now appears that Baradar’s capture was really a cull. Having moved the top Afghan Taliban leadership, known as the “Quetta Shura” to Karachi from Quetta recently, the Pakistan Army/ISI is said to have “given up” Baradar because he was willing to experiment with Karzai’s grand plans for “reintegrating” all shades of Afghans.

The US-owned news agency, Associated Press, is now reporting that Karzai was furious at Mullah Baradar’s capture by the Pakistanis; in fact, when Karzai asked that Baradar be extradited during his visit to Islamabad last week, the Pakistanis turned him down. So much for the “twin brotherhood” between Pakistan and Afghanistan that Karzai was said to have espoused during his Islamabad trip

In fact, Holbrooke is well known to be resisting the Indian offer to train the Afghan Army because Pakistan, already edgy about India’s enormous goodwill in Afghanistan, does not believe Delhi should be allowed to expand its sphere of influence there.

But, as America wrestles within itself over its next course of action, the time may have come for India to play a more active role on the Af-Pak frontier. Keeping the conversation alive with the Obama administration will, naturally, be key to enhancing Afghan partnerships, whether it is about training the trainers for the Afghan National Army or the civil police force.

Meanwhile, Delhi must expand and intensify its dialogue with countries like Russia, Germany and Japan — all of whom have enormous stores of experience, financial resources as well as determination — to enhance both goodwill and leverage, so that it is ready to play an active role to fill in the vacuum when the US-Nato-led troops’ draw-down begins.

Expanding India’s footprint in Afghanistan will mean that Majors Deepak Yadav, Nitish Roy, Laishram Jyotin Singh, as well as all the other Indians who died there, did not fall to the terrorist’s bullets in vain.