Afghanistan Insurgency nexus continues

Pakistan continues to be the support base of insurgency in Afghanistan even if President Mushharaf might go on claiming that the back of terrorists operating in Swat and NWFP region. It is significant that the lip service apart the Pakistani President has not allowed US forces to pursue insurgents in Pakistan territory. Moreover, Pakistan has become the breeding ground for suicide bombers and the rise in such attacks is alarming.

by M K DHAR

Afghanistan and its defending NATO and US forces have rejected Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s claim that his Army has “broken the back” of the terrorists operating from Swat and other districts of North West Frontier province. The assurances of cooperation in the fight against terrorists, which he gave to President Hamid Karzai during his recent Islamabad visit, is not borne out by facts because movement of terrorists from their sanctuaries inside Pakistan continues, resulting in major battles with the International Security Assistance Force troops. The refusal by Mr. Musharraf to permit US and NATO forces to give hot pursuit to Al Qaeda and Taliban forces inside Pakistan territory does not mean that the demand has been given up. They are no longer prepared to believe him when he assures that he is pursuing a relentless war against terrorism.

Mr. Musharraf has made exaggerated claims of the success his Army has achieved in liquidating terrorist bases inside North and South Waziristan. The Swat operation was only a limited success. Though hundreds of Taliban are claimed to have been killed, the casualties are mostly among civilians. Most of the Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, as well as, fighters remain very much alive and in action, having temporarily withdrawn in the face of Army action, only to regroup later. Their capacity to mount large-scale attacks inside Afghanistan remains undiminished, forcing Musharraf to concede that Pakistan’s tribal areas remain a problem and “training of suicide bombers and militants in North and South Waziristan continues.”

The year 2007 was particularly bad for Afghanistan and saw a record number of suicide bombings, as well as, a 20 per cent increase in Taliban attacks. The insurgency has spread from the border with Pakistan to much of the country’s southern belt, which has become a

Taliban support base. At the same time, while the Taliban keep crossing over from Pakistan and attack and kill US and NATO soldiers, they are unable to conquer territory, or hold on to it in the face of the Army offensives. The strategy appears to be to drain NATO’s will to stay on, despite the commitment by the participating countries to do so for the time being. Their calculations are based on the perception that the International Security Assistance force will not succeed in its mission of eliminating the Taliban and Al Qaeda forces within and outside the country, so long as the insurgents retain their ability to command and control from across the border.

Pakistan’s total and sincere cooperation in eliminating the Taliban and Al Qaeda bases from its soil remains in doubt, particularly after its refusal to permit the US forces to give chase to the attackers even across the border and silence them. Despite his many meetings with Mr. Musharraf, President Hamid Karzai continues to maintain that not much has been done to tackle the Taliban and Al Qaeda proliferating in the tribal areas in Pakistan and their capacity to mobilize, train and arm mercenaries and send them across the border remains undiminished. “Terrorism is like a spring. It is better to go to the main source than to fight the water’s flow,” says Gen Mohammad Zahir Azimi, the Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman. The chief of Afghanistan’s Intelligence Service Amrullah Saleh says that defeat of terrorism requires that either Afghanistan’s borders be settled “or the strategy of the coalition forces towards Pakistan changes.” He believes that the war on terror should know no borders. “This was the slogan given by the US and NATO-led international force. But, the war has been confined to Afghanistan’s borders,” with the defending forces at the receiving end always unable to stem the flow of terrorists from across the border.

The 2,400-km Pakistan-Afghanistan border has been a complicating factor in all US anti-terror inside Afghanistan. President George Bush’s top security advisers— including vice-president Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice — debated last month whether to expand the authority of the CIA and the military to conduct “far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan,” as the New York Times reported. Spokesman for the Afghan President, Ar Humayun Hamidzada commented “whenever the international community carries out operations against terrorism, it would have a positive effect in Afghanistan.” But President Musharraf has strongly reacted to the idea, which was mooted several times earlier also, and said he would regard incursion of foreign forces defending Afghanistan into his country as an “invasion and deal with it accordingly. In the face of Musharraf’s stand, the Bush Administration has given up, for the present, any such plans to cleanse the tribal areas of Taliban and Al Qaeda infestation.

In the past few months, NATO forces have intensified their attacks on Taliban-held positions in Afghanistan. The impact of the raging battles, the worst since 2001, is being felt beyond the battlefields of Kandahar, Helmand and Uruzgan provinces. Simmering tensions between NATO members over “burden sharing” are coming to surface in many capitals. All seem to agree that the alliance is under-resourced and under-funded, but none has a ready answer to the problem. Few deny that NATO first operation outside Europe is in trouble and the alliance’s cohesion and credibility are increasingly on the line. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Schaffer admits that the organization is in the “most difficult” phase in Afghanistan. “If we do not prevail, the consequences will be dire.” Not only is Afghanistan’s future as a democratic, unified state in the balance, so too is Europe’s security in the face of reviving terrorist threats from the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

Despite urgent US appeals to Germany, France, Italy and Spain to drop their caveats on pulling out troops and switch from peace-keeping and training missions to combat duties, there is no indication that they will comply. The six-year operation has failed in its mission of stamping out lawlessness and terrorism and turning the country into a stable democracy. It has failed to eliminate the opium trade, which sustains the Taliban Al Qaeda combine, as well as, Afghan tribal lords and in ridding the anarchic Pakistan-Afghanistan border of terrorist training camps and related infrastructure. While the concept of “Taliban” may not be acceptable, its rigid discipline is re-infecting almost all of Afghanistan’s southern provinces. Western and other countries and international agencies are building roads, bridge and schools, but they cannot sustain them without a central authority capable of maintaining law and order throughout the country.

Despite the growth of force levels from about 5,000 in 2003 to 40,000 today, the fight goes more desperate and the Taliban are able to establish bases inside Afghanistan as well and operate from there, while replenishing their losses and supplies from across the border. The forces estimate has risen from 150,000 to 200,000. Since an Army of this size is inconceivable, because the Afghan Army is not being trained quickly and in sufficient numbers- it is just 60,000 strong now- the holding out operation will continue to be tough. To extricate themselves from the situation British troops last year had cut a deal with tribal leaders in Musa Qila, which proved a failure. Musa Qila had to be taken from the Taliban after a bloody fight lasting several days. A feeble attempt to win hearts and minds failed in the face of relentless Taliban pressure and the fear which they continue to install among the population, which even inclines towards the Taliban sometimes in the absence of any security, or semblance of law and order or governance provided by the NATO and US forces, as well as, the Afghan Army.

While the Afghan Government is woefully short of funds and depends on foreign aid for three-fourths of its budget, corruption is widespread and there is no knowing how the money is spent. There are very few competent people to run the administration. The skeletal staff and the police operating in the rural areas do not get paid in time, forcing them to live by unfair means. In some areas, the police are often regarded as predators, rather than protectors. The growing insecurity and civilian causalities in NATO air raids is eroding the West’s position and the Taliban is trying to capitalize on it.

There is an acute shortage of troops to hold the country. It is, therefore, expected that in the coming months, the Taliban will take advantage of this situation, harass the troops more and spread anarchy and also despondency among the population. With their sanctuaries and supply bases safe inside Pakistan, the insurgents have long sustaining power. The suffering of the Afghans will therefore continue, as the international community looks on.