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Pakistan’s ‘Official Policy’ In Afghanistan

A recent report by Harvard security analyst Matt Waldam, written for the prestigious London School of Economics, based on interviews with Taliban field commanders and corroborated by western security officials, confirms Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), “as the provider of sanctuary and substantial financial, military and logistical support to the insurgency” as a part of its ‘official policy’ generating “strong strategic and operational influence on the Afghan Taliban.” It also alleges that Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari personally assured some captured Taliban leaders that they had his government’s full support!

It will be recalled that the Afghan Taliban, which took over 80 per cent of Afghanistan in 1996, is a ‘spin off’ from the Mujahideen created and supported by the US and Pakistan to counter the Russians. The Taliban in Afghanistan was hosting Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda, despite the 9/11 terror that they perpetrated against the US, and this led to American orchestrated operations. These operations drove them out of Afghanistan to Pakistan tribal areas, from where they operate with impunity even today. Geographically, South Waziristan, in Federally Administered Tribal Areas has a border with the North West Frontier Province city of Dera Ismial Khan on to which abuts Punjab’s Dera Gazi Khan. This makes it easy for the militants in tribal areas to network with terrorist groups in the Pakistan heartland, resulting in tacit ‘unification’ of the Afghan Taliban, al Qaeda/LeT and the Pakistan Taliban. Hence the ISI has channels open not only with Afghan Taliban but with al Qaeda/LeT and Pakistan Taliban, which cause terror in India from time to time, as well.

In his address at the West Point Military Academy on 1 December 2009, President Obama had justified the ‘30,000 thousand US troops surge’ in the first half of 2010 on the grounds that it would allow the US to begin the transfer of troops out of Afghanistan in July 2011. It signaled that the US and its NATO allies no longer believed in the possibility of a military victory over the Taliban and were looking for a dignified exit. Military operations in Afghanistan would now have to aim at persuading the Taliban to negotiate. Hence effort had to be made to wean away non-ideological and moderate Taliban fighters, engage them in dialogue and even facilitate their eventual participation in governance; thus underlining the concept of  ‘Good and Bad Taliban’.

Taking cue from G Parthasarathy, India’s former high commissioner to Pakistan, the definition of ‘Good Taliban’ for the ISI, hitherto appeared to be, those who killed US and Afghan soldiers after crossing the Durand Line into Afghanistan or caused havoc in Kashmir and other parts of India. The ‘Good Taliban’ was armed, trained and backed by the ISI. But if they combined such activity with attempts to create unrest in Pakistan, they were categorized as ‘Bad Taliban’ and were acted against, by the ISI.

These distinctions assume importance because right now Pakistan is facing a ‘double jeopardy’. While the US plans to reduce their military presence in Afghanistan, Pakistan appears determined to have a say with the new dispensation there, to marginalize India and keep the concept of ‘strategic depth’ alive. It can achieve this only through the Taliban, but cannot when assisting the NATO offensive against them in the West. In the East, LeT and Pakistan Taliban have been used as ‘weapons’ against India even though they have caused death and destruction in its own heartland as retribution for assisting the NATO forces in the West. A Catch 22 situation is being portrayed for Pakistan, which will make it ‘easier’ for her to subscribe to the American concept of ‘Good and Bad Taliban’ since it serves their cause against India on both fronts par excellence! 

When representatives of the Indian establishment go for talks to Pakistan later this month, they will do well to review what has actually happened on the ground. India must look for terror being addressed as a whole including against elements operating from the West, its heartland and the East. Terror infrastructure must therefore be dismantled not only in the east (Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) but the west as well, coupled with other ‘safe havens’ for fugitives in its heartland.

Pakistan, for its own good, will also have to ensure that the extremist cult in madarssas is tackled, so that an ideological shift takes place to produce real, far-reaching and gainful results. This indeed is the crux and needs to be the ‘official policy’.