Kabul to send arms request
SUJAN DUTTA
New Delhi, Oct. 21: Afghanistan is set to renew a request for arms and military hardware from India as the US draw-down enters its final phase over the next three months.
But Afghanistan is also using China's leverage with Pakistan to support itself militarily as nearly 40,000 US and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops exit Afghanistan between now and December.
Top security officials from India are expected to visit Kabul soon.
A new government led by President Ashraf Ghani took over in Afghanistan about three weeks ago.
Afghanistan's minister of the interior, Mohammed Umer Daudzai, who is set to have informal talks with the Indian establishment during his visit to New Delhi this week, said here on the sidelines of a think-tank conference that investigations into terror attacks on Indian establishments in Afghanistan have found footprints traced to Pakistan.
"Afghanistan is at the crossroads of terrorists," he said. "Any investigation into incidents of this sort will lead across the Durand Line," the minister replied when asked for the inquiries into the attack on the Indian consulate in Herat in May at the time the Modi government took over in Delhi.
"India is our all-weather friend. Changes in government will not have any, rather it will have a positive impact. We have requested India for assistance in the security sector, in training, and with some equipment that we may need," he said.
In April this year, then Afghan President Hamid Karzai had requested the outgoing Manmohan Singh government for 230 types of military equipment, including helicopters and field guns. Daudzai said he expected the request to be heeded "but our list of military demands will be decided by (the Afghan National) army".
Daudzai said China was also interested in a stable Afghanistan because of the suspected movements of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM).
Beijing sees the ETIM as a terrorist outfit formed by Uighur militants in western China who are attempting to secede. ETIM militants have been travelling through Afghanistan to other Central Asian countries.
The Afghan home minister outlined where the interests of China and Afghanistan merge. China "has a leverage with Pakistan" that Kabul wants to use to put pressure on militants crossing the Durand Line — the undemarcated Afghan-Pakistan frontier — and China wants its own eyes and ears for intelligence on militant movements in its western periphery.
For New Delhi, that is a threat to its interests in Afghanistan that encompass overcoming the distance that Pakistan puts between India and Kabul. At the same time, India is wary of China's sphere of influence expanding at the cost of its own.
This jostling reminiscent of the "Great Game" between the British and the Russians in the 19th century is taking place when nearly 40,000 US and ISAF troops have begun leaving Afghanistan. Daudzai said Afghan security forces had begun replacing the international troops.
The Afghan National Army was expanding from 1,92,000 troops to 2,20,000 troops and needed arms and ammunition to in the fight against the Taliban.
Kabul to send arms request
