TENSIONS ACROSS DURAND LINE

M RAMA RAO
The irony is difficult to miss. President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan is threatening Pakistan
with hot pursuit. This means, the day when Afghan soldiers would cross the Durand Line to
smoke out Taliban warriors is not far. This is partly in tune with the Pukhtoon tradition of not
recognising the Durand line. Neither the Taliban militants who have safe sanctuaries in South
Waziristan, Swat Valley and other pockets of Pakistan's tribal belt, nor Mr Karzai recognise the
Durand Line as the border.
Hot pursuit and smoking out from the holes are some of the favourite Bushisms tested and
perfected after 9/11. Yet, commentators in Washington and Islamabad view the Karzai threat as
outlandish. President George Bush has even volunteered to help to cool the tensions between the
two neighbours.
Evidently President Karzai is frustrated. On the one hand, his patrons refuse to read the ground
signals properly and take effective steps to check the menace at his doorstep. On the other hand,
they shower him with homilies on good governance, the importance of rooting out corruption
and installing a sound legal and security environment. He has no quarrel with this wish list
except that in the present circumstances prevailing in the landlocked country most of it looks like
wishful thinking
He is, however, irked at the donors increasingly questioning his governance skills as they did at
the June 12 conference of Aid Afghan Consortium in Paris, and then openly expressing worries
over the sweep of the Taliban over much of the country. In so far the aid is concerned, he may
not have been too disappointed at the aid pledges amounting to $ 20 billion. These fall short of
his projection of $50 billion. Because he knows from experience all the pledges do not translate
into aid flows. Since 2002, his country received aid pledges totalling $ 25 billion. Only $15
billion—60 per cent—have actually flowed into the country.
Undoubtedly, people in Afghanistan are in dire need of better health care, clean drinking water,
electricity, good sanitation, schools and lately food security. The donors’ money is expected to
go into these fields. But increasing terror strikes across the country have slowed down what is
probably already a languorous pace of reconstruction work in the country.
The fact of the matter is that the whole world knows how and why these terror attacks have
accelerated but there is an apparent reluctance to strike hard at that root of the problem. Taliban
has been able to recharge and regroup itself because of the safe havens available inside South
Waziristan and Swat Valley, where the presence of Pak army is very minimal.
If one goes by the version of a group of journalists who were recently (mid-May 2008)
conducted to the ‘hide out’ of Baitullah Mehsud, who, according to Karzai, posed danger to
Afghanistan and Pakistan alike, there is practically no sign of army’s presence and all the check
posts vacated by the Pak army are under the control of the local Taliban. No surprise, therefore,
in recent days Afghanistan has been facing up to 100 terrorist attacks in a week, up from about
60 a year ago. And these are becoming daring by the day.
The June 13 raid on the Kandahar prison, for instance, led to the escape of over 400 Taliban
insurgents and commanders besides some 600 prisoners. The 30-minute- operation with military
precision conclusively nails the theory that the Taliban have been weakened and it was for this
reason they had been taking recourse to suicide bombings and the use of IEDs in recent months.
At the last count there are 14 groups that have been targetting Afghan security forces from their
safe havens East of Durand Line. There are also the likes of Maulvi Haqqani who run a network
of madarsas and training bases to lend a helping hand to foreign fighters lured to the area by the
call of Al Qaeda. The recent (April) assassination attempt on Karzai is said to be the work of
Haqqani and his associates.
Pakistan has been brazenly misleading the world that it can tackle the problem of terrorist
sanctuaries entirely on its own. Being next door neighbour, Karzai knows one home truth. And
that is that the ‘elected’ Federal Government in Islamabad is simply following the anti-terror
policy as laid down by President Musharraf and his army long days ago.
For Musharraf and his army commanders, ‘peace talks’ with militant tribal leaders like Mehsud
were a means to divert attention of the people from pressing economic woes and to lull the Big
Brother to believing that some thing was being done to buy peace east of the Durand Line. There
is also another reason for not deploying the army.
More than a year ago, the army suffered a bloody nose at the hands of tribal militants. It is
unwilling to suffer any more humiliation lest the fighting capability of an already demoralised
force will be undermined. This realisation prompted Musharraf and his field commander Gen
Ashfaq Kiyani (who has since become the army chief) to adopt the talks route ignoring the
advisories from Kabul and Washington.
The result is Afghanistan is fighting a war whose very source is based in Pakistan. As long as the
Taliban has that base, it won’t be able to win the war against terrorists. President Karzai has no
doubt that the terrorists are able to step up their war in Afghanistan because they believe he
cannot do much. And the US led NATO forces also do no more than sending an occasional drone
or a predator.
Frustrated and dismayed he may be but Karzai may not translate his threat of hot pursuit into
real-life action. He knows his limitations. As the News International said (July 17, 2008), it is,
however, time Pakistan stared truth in the face. And it is an ugly truth that elements in powerful
places within the state's forces and institutions, ‘do not wish to see’ an end to terrorism. Perhaps,
they see militants as the means to retain control in Kabul and weaken the US-backed
government.
This is a revised version of Zia policy which used ‘jihad’ as a state creed first in Kashmir and
then in Afghanistan. How strong these elements are in present day Pak establishment is difficult
to say.
The daily rhetoric of Asif Zardari, the back seat driver of Gilani government, and his
unwillingness to dump President Musharraf do not hold much hope for a real meaningful turn
around in the situation. That is bad news for Kabul, New Delhi and Washington not withstanding
the warnings being sounded to Islamabad by home grown analysts against its ambiguous
approach to militancy. The ‘bosses’ in the Pakistan capital and the adjoining garrison town will
do well to take note of what Sunday Observer describes as ‘box loads’ about reports of
Musharraf-Kiyani troops joining militants in the attacks and clashes on Pakistan-Afghan border.
About the Author
Malladi Rama Rao is an analyst and writer on the Indian political scene and geo-political and
security issues of South Asia. He directs a Weekly Feature Service in English, Syndicate
Features, in colloboration with his wife Vaniram. He is also the India Editor of Asian Tribune.
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