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| Afghanistan |
| Why did the Taliban attack the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul? |
| 2011-07-09 |
| The dramatic attack on Kabul's Hotel Inter-Continental earlier this week ties in somewhat convolutedly with the arrest in Karachi in February 2010 of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a Taliban commander who led the Quetta Shura and directed the insurgency from Pakistan. Let me explain. The dream of strategic depth in Afghanistan, nurtured by the ISI, which helped train the Afghan Mujahideen against Soviet occupation, was eventually to be realised by installing a government of its choice in Kabul whenever an opportunity arose. That is why the ISI had helped and protected the Taliban. This facile game plan failed after 9/11 when US President George W Bush, egged on by the neo-cons, mounted a massive military retaliation in Afghanistan. The Pakistan-Afghan border became a sanctuary for Al Qaeda and Taliban. The US could not have thought of a more menacing figure than deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage to deliver the threatening message to Pakistan. If Pakistan did not support the US-led war against Islamic terrorism, the country would be "bombed back to the stone age". This quote would be unbelievable had it not been repeated by former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf on CBS News's 60 Minutes in September 2006. The complications of what Musharraf was being asked to do are clear. He was being asked to eliminate the very force his ISI had helped create and nurture over the past two decades. Double-dealing was built into Musharraf's response - shoot the Taliban (or their lookalikes) when the Americans were watching, hide them when they weren't. Ambidexterous though he was, Musharraf couldn't avoid participating in the rendition program or in helping the Americans ferry Afghan Taliban to Guantanamo Bay. Remember, when the lawyers' agitation began to destabilise Musharraf, one sensitive issue the Army and the ISI had to deal with was "missing persons". If the Army's hand in the "missing persons" phenomenon came to public notice, there would be massive anger against the Army. Over the years, much more came to light. Some sort of a crescendo was reached with the Lal Masjid affair. The blowback from the Afghan war, which was by now raging in NWFP (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) and FATA, eventually consumed Musharraf. Despite Musharraf's departure, neither the ISI nor the Army could disengage from their policy of strategic depth in Afghanistan. For this, the Baradars, the Haqqanis and their tribe had to be pampered and kept on a leash. Pashtuns in Afghanistan have had to cope with so many traumatic changes since the ouster of President Daud in 1978 that the traditional social structure has broken down. The Pashtun society on the Pakistani side has been relatively less unsettled. This explains why the Pakistani Pashtuns were able to open their hujras and extend hospitality to their cousins escaping the situation in Afghanistan. A large Pashtun population has therefore spread as far as Karachi. This diaspora is sensitive to the "misfortunes of our brothers" that are to be blamed on the US and Pakistani Army. Their sympathy extends to the troubled Taliban too, who are described by some as a Pashtun resistance movement. It is therefore not surprising that the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdus Salaam Zaeef, froths at the mouth at the mention of Pakistan's role in Afghanistan. He says the Pakistani Army facilitated his deportation to Guantanamo, where he was a prisoner for four years. "Pakistan has proved to be unreliable - it has no role in Afghanistan." And now that the US is initiating a dialogue with the Taliban without assigning Pakistan a role, the Pakistan-backed Taliban and their handlers are angry. They will snap the leash and rush into exactly the sort of demonstration, blazing flames and billowing smoke, that was on display at the Inter-Continental in Kabul. This is desperation, not some well-thought-out long-term strategy. The latest attack in Kabul is linked to Baradar's arrest in Karachi in February 2010: that was the showdown with the CIA, which had started establishing direct contacts with the Taliban and circumventing their Pakistani handlers. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #2 On the other hand, it could be the usual Muzzi bloody-mindedness. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2011-07-09 14:35 |
| #1 Good analysis. |
| Posted by: Odysseus 2011-07-09 14:32 |