Major General (retd) Ashok K Mehta
The lessons of Afghanistan
Wounded and humiliated by the Manhattan bombings, the
world's most powerful nation has finally decided to
act against the scourge of terrorism whose epicenter
lies in our very backyard. We must therefore ensure a
change in the geostrategic balance of the region in
our favour through the activation of the US
counter-terrorism agenda. Winding up terrorist training
camps in Afghanistan must be concurrent with winding
down similar facilities inside Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir.
Equally, Pakistan, which is jockeying to become a
frontline state must be made to recommit its military
forces on the Durand Line that it now employs as
strategic reserves against India.
The new Great Game has been joined by the only
superpower in the world. It comes at a time when
the Taleban was on the verge of completing its conquest of
Afghanistan after the assassination of Ahmad Shah
Masoud, the leader of the anti-Taleban Northern
Alliance. But the US will have read the troubled
history of Afghanistan as well as Rudyard Kipling on
the difficulties of tribal and frontier warfare there
before deploying US soldiers inside the country.
The US has two
immediate targets: to capture Osama bin Laden alive, and the destruction of
terrorist camps inside Afghanistan. The dismantling of
the Taleban regime may be an additional objective. But
all this could change if bin Laden is handed over to the
US. The US strategy is to make Pakistan fight the
dirty war. It will commit its troops as a last resort
for a short and swift commando type operation to pluck
bin Laden out and roll back terrorist camps.
A Kosovo-like
standoff operation would precede such a strategy.
Both Pakistan and the Taleban are trying to make the most
of a bad bargain with the US before accepting its
terms. Acting in its national interest, Pakistan is
willing to dump the Taleban and at the same time, risk
the backlash from domestic jehadis whom the military,
rightly or wrongly, feel they can control.
India's third strategic front represented by the
Northern Alliance is at present lying astride the
Pamirs and Hindukush in Afghanistan. India's Afghan
policy went askew with its decision to support the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. While geography has
limited India's policy options, lack of contiguity
confers the advantage of strategic deniability which
hasn't been used effectively.
Till recently, India had
a one-point agenda: to ensure a pro-India regime in
Afghanistan and limit the efflux of the Taleban into
J&K. US intervention in this region could result in a
realignment of forces and a possible restoration of
the Northern Alliance in Kabul which would be to
India's advantage.
Till the late 1980s, Pakistan had committed two army
corps, one each at Quetta and Peshawar, guarding its
western front. On the east, it was hemmed in by India.
Afghan officers trained in the USSR and USA, would pore
over maps of the northwest frontier, playing war games
with their Indian colleagues on restoring the Durand
Line along the Indus river.
With the collapse of the
Soviet Union, all that changed. Pakistan with American
backing, sought to fill the vacuum with the creation
of the Taleban. Pakistan's former interior minister,
Major General Naseerullah Khan Babar, had once proudly told
this writer that the Taleban was his baby.
It is now certain that the Taleban's conquest of
Afghanistan will remain incomplete and its future
uncertain. The surplus jehadis will flood Pakistan and
Kashmir bringing greater instability to the region.
Pakistan's military forces will, however, continue to
be committed in Afghanistan.
With a rag tag force of around 7,000 armed guerillas,
Masoud's Northern Alliance was fighting on two fronts:
Badakshan and Panjshir. The 50,000-strong army of the
Taleban is supported by a regular Pakistan brigade of
5,000 soldiers under the command of Lieutenant General Said ul
Zafar, GoC, Peshawar-based 11 Corps, responsible for
Afghanistan. His field commanders are Brigadiers
Rashid, Shamim and Khanzada, the last two from the
ISI. Of these, around 1,200 regulars are leading a
force of 10,000 Taleban in the Badakshan theatre of
operations. They are backed by 4,000 volunteers from
madarsas in Pakistan with another 3,000 in reserve at
Chaman.
Lt Gen K Matinuddin of Pakistan in his book, The
Taleban Phenomenon, has described Pakistan's backing
of the Taleban as the biggest clandestine operation
undertaken by his country. He has severely criticized
his government's Afghan policy and suggested the
formation of a broad-based government. Such an
establishment will result in the forfeiture for
Pakistan, the much sought strategic depth and for
the Taleban, an Islamic regime in Kabul.
It should be
India's hope that the US can dismantle the Taleban
regime and set up a government of national
reconciliation in which the Taleban is marginalized.
This will ensure that Pakistan is forced to redeploy
the four divisions along the Durand Line facing
Afghanistan which it has so far been able to use as
strategic reserve against India. This will alter the
geostrategic balance in the region in India's favour.
While neutralizing terrorist bases and facilities
inside Afghanistan, the US cannot ignore the training
camps inside Pakistan and PoK from where jehad is
being waged against India. The US is committed to
'draining the swamp' which is going for the roots of
terrorism. The US has to be evenhanded. It cannot be
seen to be treating terrorism arising from Pakistan as
a freedom struggle and that emanating from Afghanistan
as terrorism. Indian diplomacy must not allow this
opportunity of eradicating terrorism to slip by.
Major General Ashok K Mehta (retd)
|
