A new alliance in Afghanistan

G Parthasarathy 
former diplomat

THE resilience and courage of the people of Afghanistan was evident in parliamentary elections held on October 21. While there are varying estimates about the number of eligible voters in the country, about 4 million voters, comprising around 33% of the electorate turned out to vote, braving Taliban threats, bomb explosions, suicide bombers and mortar shells.  Over 170 voters were killed, or wounded. What was noteworthy was the significant turnout of women voters — over 30% of those registered. Nothing shames the Taliban and their medieval practices regarding women more than the large turnout of women voters. Interestingly, while the Afghan government controlled 229 districts with 56.3% of population, 59 districts with 14.5% population were under Taliban control, with control of 119 districts, comprising 29.2% population, being contested. 

Barely three days before the elections, the southern Afghan city of Kandahar witnessed a murderous Taliban attack, demonstrating the uncertainty in the loyalties of individual members of the armed forces and the police because of the infiltration of Taliban cadres into their ranks. The attack occurred at a meeting between US Commander-General Austin Miller and Provincial Governor Zalmai Wesa. Two Afghan bodyguards opened fire, killing the Governor, his police chief, Gen Abdul Raziq, who had conducted anti-Taliban actions ruthlessly and successfully for over a decade, and the provincial intelligence chief. Brigadier-General Jeffrey Smiley, who was accompanying the US Commander, was seriously wounded.

The attack has immense symbolic significance, given Kandahar’s historical and spiritual importance to the Taliban. The main mosque in Kandahar, described as the ‘Shrine of the Cloak’, houses what is believed to be the Prophet’s cloak. Ahmed Shah Durrani, regarded as the founder of Afghanistan and its hero, brought the cloak from Bukhara in Uzbekistan in 1768. This was done just a few years after Ahmed Shah’s victory in the Third Battle of Panipat (1761), which extended Pashtun control over the whole of what is today Pakistan’s Punjabi heartland, north of the Sutlej. 

When Mullah Omar reached Kandahar with Pakistani backing in 1996, he sought to emphasise his legitimacy by blasphemously appearing in public, donning the cloak. Control, or appearance of control, over the mosque is symbolically more important to the Taliban, than even the control of Kabul! Hence, the relentless Taliban attacks on Kandahar, where we now have an Indian Consulate. Few in India, unfortunately, recognise or appreciate the dangers our diplomats and staff in diplomatic and consular missions, and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police face daily in Afghanistan.

With presidential elections scheduled for the first half of 2019 in Afghanistan, India must realise that the greatest diplomatic and strategic challenges it will face in coming months are going to arise in Afghanistan. With Imran Khan, popularly known as ‘Taliban Khan’, now heading the civilian government in Afghanistan, it is clear that more than ever before, Pakistan army’s hard-core Islamists are going to call the shots in Afghanistan.  Establishing a Taliban-dominated setup will remain their highest priority. They are going to be emboldened by the fact that virtually every external power that matters — the US, the EU, Russia, China and Iran — are reconciled, one way or another, to ‘accommodate’ the Taliban. This is their thinking at a time, when the Taliban impetuously seizes control over urban centres like Ghazni and shows little interest in negotiating with the Afghan government.

The role of external powers in the Afghan cauldron is also getting more complex. President Trump was dissuaded from his desire to pack up and leave from Afghanistan, when he was warned that he would be judged by many as a ‘weak’ President who ‘lost’ Afghanistan. He has since, on the advice of Defence Secretary Mattis, augmented the US air power, especially in the use of attack helicopter gunships, which can play a crucial role in dealing with Taliban attacks. He has, more or less, frozen US troop levels, but kept options open for a ‘face-saving’ withdrawal. The shrewd Zalmay Khalilzad, an American of Afghan origin who played a leading role in Afghanistan during the Bush Administration, has been made Special Envoy for talks with the Taliban, which he initiated recently in Qatar. 

In the meantime, Pakistan has released a founding member of the Taliban, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar — a leader it had distrusted and incarcerated since 2010. The Taliban has welcomed Baradar’s release. He could play an important role in talks with the Taliban, which can pick up steam only after the 2019 elections. Both Russia and China have played duplicitous roles. Russia has made friends with the Taliban and even reportedly supplied it with weapons. Pakistan has midwifed secret Chinese contacts with the Taliban, for over a decade now. Russia, China and Pakistan are playing a dubious game of diverting attention away from Taliban depredations. They are trying to make the world believe that the real terrorist challenge in Afghanistan comes not from the Taliban, but from the ‘Daesh’ (IS), which has regrouped in Afghanistan. Americans wanting to leave Afghanistan have conveniently bought this argument. China also has other worries, based on its fears that its Muslim Uighurs, whom it is treating brutally, could cross the border, seek shelter in Afghanistan and threaten Beijing’s internal security.

With the growing poll fervour in India, New Delhi should not ignore these developments. A Pakistan-backed takeover of large tracts of Afghan territory has to be thwarted. Afghan leaders should put aside personal rivalries and face the challenges posed by Pakistan and the Taliban. President Ghani would be well advised to see, even as the Afghan armed forces are strengthened and their morale restored, that powerful regional satraps like the Provincial Governor of Balkh, Atta Mohammad Noor, are fully associated in what should be a united effort to meet the challenges.