Round The World
New Delhi, 15 July 2008
Embassy Attack In Kabul
ANTI-INDIA
terrorists open new front
Prof. Chintamani
Mahapatra
School of International Studies, JNU
India's fight against
terrorism is no longer confined to its borders. The terrorist bombing of its
embassy in Kabul
does not appear to be a one-time terrorist assault on Indian facilities and
interests abroad. It may very well be the beginning of a new trend that
requires careful planning and execution on the part of New Delhi to prevent future occurrences.
Although India has been fighting terrorism largely within
its borders for decades, neighbouring countries, particularly Pakistan, Nepal
and Bangladesh
have often been used by anti-India terrorists as safe heavens or bases for
training and launching operations. But except loud complaints against
cross-border terrorism, sometimes sponsored by Islamabad
and at other times silently encouraged, New
Delhi has not been able to do much. The long peace process
with Pakistan has certainly
brought considerable benefits to India
in tackling terrorist infiltration into Kashmir.
But terrorist activities in other parts of the country have clear footprints of
Pakistani connection.
New
Delhi has also not been able to put in place any strong bilateral
mechanism with Nepal or Bangladesh either
to credibly tackle terror. One of the major problems it faces viz these two
countries is the absence of a durable governing system. Besides, neither Nepal nor Bangladesh
seems to have developed a similar security outlook with India, for
participating in cooperative ventures to combat terrorism.
Significantly, Indian
facilities or interests in Nepal,
Bangladesh or even in Pakistan are
not known to have been the target of terrorist groups. Despite dispatch of the Indian
Peace Keeping Force to Sri
Lanka and its engagement in battles with the
LTTE, Indian facilities there have not been targeted so far. The recent attack in
Kabul, in which India lost four personnels is thus
a new development. It shows signs of a dangerous trend and how New Delhi handles it, will set an example for
potential terrorists elsewhere.
Importantly, India has invested a huge amount of capital,
human resource and diplomatic stake in Afghanistan,
unlike in Nepal and Sri Lanka. When
the Maoists launched a long low-intensity war in Nepal,
India's
role was pretty much limited. Except a brief period of IPKF deployment, India's role in
taming LTTE terror has also been rather limited. Thus, the Afghan case stands
out.
India has invested several hundred
millions of dollars in Afghanistan.
Indian engineers, technicians and skilled labour are busy rebuilding the war-torn
infrastructure. Unlike in India's
neighbourhood, the Afghan Government led by Karzai is in the friendliest of
terms with New Delhi,
which has not deployed any troops there and is currently engaged only in reconstruction
and state-building. Why was then there a suicide attack on the Indian embassy?
It is important to
note that many more local Afghans died in the attack than the Indians. Who were these people? They were either
employees in the embassy or visa seekers. Who did the suicide bomber target
then? Those locals, who were apparently friends of India or the embassy building viewed
as a high-value target? Was it an expression of opposition to Indian
participation in Afghan reconstruction? Was it a signal of Pakistan’s unhappiness over the spread of Indian
influence in Afghanistan?
It is unlikely that
Afghans of any sect would be opposed to reconstruction activities in their
country. But Afghan resistance groups, primarily the Taliban and their backer,
the al Qaeda, are not only hostile to
the presence of foreign troops on their soil, but also have opposed
reconstruction efforts of the United Nations, other international agencies and
individual countries, such as India.
Several reports point out
that the number of attacks on civilian construction workers and international
aid agencies has been mounting in Afghanistan. The Taliban and their
supporters perhaps are afraid that successful reconstruction in the country
would turn the people against them and they would lose the steam to carry their
mission forward.
New
Delhi’s allegation that Pakistan’s ISI has had a hand in this
attack appears to be logically convincing. During the Soviet occupation, the ISI
was CIA's pet organization in training and equipping the anti-Soviet Mujaheedin
forces in Afghanistan.
Now, it is a target under surveillance. Secondly, the reverses faced by the
US-led coalition forces in Iraq, NATO forces in Afghanistan, Iranian ability to
withstand the US pressure on nuclear issue and the inability of Islamabad to
tackle the law and order situation in the States bordering Afghanistan have not
only emboldened the Taliban but also the ISI.
The US, the Musharraf regime and the Karzai
Government have all failed to check the growth of Taliban influence in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan. The
political uncertainty in Islamabad since the
parliamentary election and the institution of a civilian government has,
moreover, provided a fertile soil for the dreaded ISI to once again spread its
tentacles and renew its cooperative ties with the Taliban in Afghanistan and its sympathizers in Pakistan. The
anti-American sentiments among the Pakistani people and the inability of its Government,
civilian or military, to defy the United States openly makes the ISI bold
enough to engineer the terrorist attacks one recently witnessed in Kabul.
While the Pakistani
Government may be legally correct to disown responsibility for the attack on
the Indian embassy in Kabul,
it is unlikely to take any preventive or corrective measures against such
terrorist activities. This is for the simple reason that Indian influence
in Afghanistan
has been apparently growing. In the recent past Pakistan
was seeking to acquire strategic depth in Afghanistan. It was the brain and
the hands behind the rise of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan. But for the 9/11
attacks on the US, Pakistan would have been the king maker in Kabul. However, the US and NATO
intervention destroyed its hopes. The US
also forced Pakistan
to cut off ties with Taliban. Now when India's
influence in Afghanistan is
growing, Islamabad's
worries too are mounting. While it is possible that the current Pakistani government
doesn’t have a hand in this suicide blast, but if it denies ISI role, it can be
thoroughly discounted.
Having said that,
reports about New Delhi dispatching special
forces to Afghanistan,
forging strategic ties with the Karzai government against terrorism and determined
to move ahead with construction work despite terror threats, are not so
heartening. It may very well prove to be
the beginning of a deeper involvement in Afghanistan, consequences of which are
unknown to have been analyzed adequately.--INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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