July 7: A car bomb today rammed into the Indian embassy’s gates in Kabul’s deadliest terror strike since the Taliban fell in 2001, killing at least 41 people including Delhi’s defence attache, a senior diplomat and two Indian guards.

The Taliban is the chief suspect in the bombing, which also injured 139 people, with Afghan authorities alleging a role by foreign agents in the region, a likely reference to Pakistan. Both Islamabad and the Taliban denied the charges.

Eyewitnesses said that around 8.30am (9.30 Indian time), just as a diplomatic vehicle was entering the embassy, an explosives-laden Toyota Corolla rammed the gate.

Defence attache Brig R.D. Mehta and counsellor V. Venkateswara Rao, who were in the car, were killed on the spot along with Indo-Tibetan Border Police guards Ajai Pathania and Roop Singh. Rao was flung over the roof.

Islamabad, July 8 (AP): Attacks in Islamabad and its main commercial hub have rattled the country and raised questions today about whether the new government’s policies towards militancy is working. Investigators were still probing the seven small blasts that wounded 43 yesterday in Karachi and a suicide bombing that killed 18 and wounded dozens on Sunday in Islamabad. The attacks coincided with the one-year anniversary of the deadly military siege of the Lal Masjid.

Pakistan’s new government came to power after February elections with promises to use peace talks and economic aid to try to end militant activity — much of which occurs in its northwest tribal regions near the border with Afghanistan.

Under the previous administration dominated by President Pervez Musharraf, the government relied heavily on military action against insurgents. US officials have warned the new government that peace deals could give militants time to regroup.

But although the government never ruled out using force, it only turned to it on a significant scale in late June when militant groups began threatening the northwest city of Peshawar as well as a key road used to send supplies to US-led forces in Afghanistan.

Yet, militants had mostly fled the targeted Khyber tribal region before the security operation began, and it was recently put on hold as officials again try peace talks. Late today, local government official Mohammad Khan said gunmen fired on a vehicle carrying security forces in Khyber, killing four and wounding seven. It was not immediately clear if the killings today were linked to the offensive. Compounding the confusion is a lack of clarity over who really is running Pakistan.

Pakistan is suspicious of the way India has invested crores to rebuild Afghanistan and pushed in thousands of engineers and workers to construct roads. It is also wary of India’s string of consulates in Kandahar, Jalalabad, Herat, and Mazar-i-Sharif.

The Taliban have frequently attacked Indian offices and projects. Delhi had been forced to close its Kabul embassy in 1996 when the Taliban seized power, but reopened it in 2001 after the regime’s ouster.

Take the case of Mangal Bagh, whose comfort zone on the outskirts of Peshawar was the focus of police action in the wake of growing concern that the NWFP capital was being hemmed in by militant Islamists and in due course might be overrun. A former bus driver who at some point discovered a higher calling, Bagh heads an outfit called Lashkar-i-Islam with the declared aim of establishing his writ throughout the Khyber tribal agency.

His goons were reportedly responsible for the recent kidnapping of 16 Christians from Peshawar (who were freed soon afterwards), and his forces are engaged in a deadly territorial dispute with an outfit called Ansarul Islam. There is a distinct possibility that what the rival gangs share in terms of nomenclature is little more than a cover for activities of a criminal nature.

That’s not an uncommon feature among groups of this ilk: it serves as a recruitment tool and provides the convenience of a confessional justification for rough justice. It’s equally possible, of course, that the piety may be more than a pose. Either way, (war)lording it over Bara — with its legendary marketplace — and its environs is probably a highly lucrative proposition. And once you’ve tasted the fruits of Bara, nothing short of Peshawar is likely to take your fancy if you’re inclined to expand operations.

After the incursion by the Frontier Corps into Mangal Bagh’s zone of influence, the federal government’s security factotum Rehman Malik advised the residents of Peshawar to “sleep easy tonight” because “we are awake”. They are unlikely to heed that advice if they share the apprehension of the Awami National Party’s Afrasiab Khattak, who believes that Bagh and his not particularly merry men are creatures of the ISI.

Back in the early 1990s, the ISI helped create the Taliban and eventually captured Kabul by proxy. One of the moving forces behind the enterprise was Benazir Bhutto’s interior minister Gen Naseerullah Babar, who apparently considered it a good opportunity to export the produce of the madressahs that had sprouted across the North West. Perhaps the possibility of blowback never crossed his mind. The ISI ought to have known better. Perhaps it didn’t care. Maybe it remains unconcerned by the consequences as it continues to engage in the old game of playing favourites — which brings to mind the old witticism that military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.

Afghanistan was impartial during the First and Second World War and this factor paved the way for Afghanistan to be a member of the Non-Aligned Movement. Afghanistan, unlike Pakistan and Iran, did not accept to enter into military alliance with the West.
Afghanistan attended the Non-Aligned Movement Conferences held in Bandung, Indonesia in April 1955. This gathering brought together the independent Asian and African States although it was not the first gathering of the Non-Aligned Movement, though it created the spirit of anti-colonialism, which is considered one of the pillars of the Non-Aligned Movement.

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Manish Ghosh

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Manish Ghosh

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Manish Ghosh

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