Pak-sponsored terror in Afghanistan: Why India has to stay alert

A shaken and much-rattled Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, in a nationwide televised address last Friday (February 2), blamed Pakistan for its abject failure to rein in the Taliban which has unleashed terror on the Afghan soil carrying out strikes at regular intervals, the most recent being the deadly ambulance attacks that killed nearly 130 persons in Kabul.

This incident preceded yet another strike in Intercontinental Hotel. He also castigated Pakistan for abetting terror in Afghanistan through the notorious Haqqani network, operating from the Pakistani turf. Ghani, emboldened by the recent US declaration to slash security aid to Pakistan, did not mince words and claimed to be in possession of strong intelligence information that Pakistan was singularly behind these terror misadventures.

Meanwhile, to buttress their claim on Pakistan's complicity in such attacks, Afghan interior minister Wais Barmak and the country's intelligence chief Masoom Stanekzai visited Pakistan with available evidence in an attempt to prevail upon Pakistan to take effective preventive measures against the unwieldy terror group(s) which has been targeting Kabul time and again.

However, reacting to the Afghan allegations of Pakistani involvement in the recent attacks, Pakistani National Security Council (NSC) held a hurriedly convened meeting on February 2, and dismissed all charges.

The NSC on its part, argued that Afghan reactions were based on misconceptions created by certain foreign elements. Although the NSC did not spell out the details of the foreign elements, it is more than clear that they were hinting at India. It may be recalled that Pakistan has always been wary of India's growing friendship with Afghanistan and has tried all possible measures to douse the warmth that New Delhi and Kabul has been consolidating over these years.

Pakistan, having dismally failed to wean away Afghanistan from India, has been resorting to terror tactics using Afghan Taliban to carry out attacks targeting Afghans and their critical infrastructure.

The NSC meeting, attended by Pakistani foreign minister Khwaja Asif, interior minister Ahsan Iqbal, three service chiefs, national security adviser and other high officials, called upon Kabul to reinforce the plans for border fencing between Afghanistan and Pakistan to preempt cross-border terrorism. Security analysts, however, reckon that all such proposals, including drawing up a new strategy are merely an eyewash.

The Pakistani military establishment, including its intelligence arm, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) are hell-bent on bleeding Afghanistan by abetting terror as part of its blueprint to distance New Delhi and Kabul. Such rhetoric (as seen and heard in the NSC meeting) by Pakistani polity and military officers are simply to send signals to the US that Pakistan was doing "enough" to root out terror from the Afghan soil.

In the meantime, terror attacks in Kabul have evoked strong reactions in the US. Already miffed by Pakistan's indifference to the spiralling violence in Afghanistan, the US may commit troops on the Afghan soil to deal with the fresh challenges. Unless Afghanistan also increases its capacity building capabilities to address the terror incidents, including beefing up its intelligence competence, Pakistan will find it easy to exploit the Taliban to its advantage by continuing to cause devastation in Kabul. Foreign troops can not succeed unless local Afghan security forces actively collaborate. Afghanistan should also try and identify if some of its security personnel are hand in glove with the terrorists. Such elements may be weeded out to the extent possible to have a completely dedicated and professional force to tackle terror, which is now assuming monstrous proportions.

In another related development, according to an input appearing in The Wall Street Journal, the US has now decided to make Afghan war data secret amid intensification of military efforts to contain terror. The US' defence department has classified a sweeping range of data used to measure its progress in Afghanistan to hide information from public view. Important data, including size of the Afghan army and police force and other allied details, are being kept secret to minimise casualties. However, how far this measure will prove effective on ground, will be known only with the passage of time and during the course of happenings that may ensue.

Available inputs from certain quarters, in the meantime, also suggest that the Islamic State (IS) and Afghan Taliban have been receiving tacit moral and material support from a segment of the Pakistani state dispensation and both seem to be in a race to outdo each other by their mindless killing sprees. This madness needs to be dealt with an iron hand. The main perpetrator, however, in its covert operation, is obviously Pakistan. Now that the US has glaringly exposed Pakistan's malafide intentions to appropriate the huge monetary aid it was receiving in the name of controlling terror, the time appears to be opportune to further expose and alienate Islamabad for its support in fomenting terror in Afghanistan.

It's assumed Indian and US intelligence agencies are in the know of several strands of hard intelligence in nailing Pakistan. The same must be selectively shared to bare all Pakistani machinations. This also needs to be coupled with some robust diplomacy to have the best results.

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