Back from the grave

The Taliban has long been hostile to India. They colluded with the hijackers of the Indian Airlines aircraft to Kandahar and even after they have been ousted from power, they have brutally killed two Indian road construction workers, demanded that India end all economic assistance to Afghanistan and attacked our consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar.

India naturally welcomed the American military intervention in Afghanistan and the ouster of the Taliban from power. New Delhi has also pledged an economic assistance programme totaling $650 million for relief and rehabilitation in Afghanistan. Indian assistance has included artificial limbs for thousands of Afghans, supply of buses, running of hospitals, technical training of Afghan personnel, construction of roads and the erection of a new parliament building in Kabul.

Over the past five years, India's policy towards Afghanistan has premised on the belief that the Americans and their NATO allies would not countenance a return of the Taliban to the corridors of power. This belief is now being challenged.

The American takeover of Afghanistan resulted in the dispersal but not the destruction of the Taliban and its al Qaeda allies. Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri, have eluded capture. More significantly, not a single senior Taliban leader has been killed or captured in the past five years. Intelligence reports from Afghanistan indicate that while Osama has taken refuge in the tribal areas of Waziristan in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, Taliban leaders including Mullah Omar have found refuge in and around Baluchistan's capital, Quetta. Afghan President Karzai has provided General Musharraf detailed information about the location and contacts of Taliban leaders residing in Pakistan and the details of the support, training and weapons the ISI is providing to the Taliban. But, as in the case with India,  Musharraf has refuted Karzai's allegations.

Pakistani support to the Taliban has also led to serious differences between NATO commanders in Afghanistan who are furious with Pakistan, on the one hand, and the Bush administration that regards Musharraf as its 'best bet', on the other. A rejuvenated and rearmed Taliban has inflicted heavy casualties on NATO troops, with determined attacks and suicide bombings over the past six months. One would have normally expected a vigorous American response to Pakistani provocation. What has happened instead is that the Americans are showing signs of war weariness and an inclination to seek an agreement, which will bring in the Taliban to the corridors of power in Kabul.

Signs of American war weariness were apparent when the leader of the Republican party in the Senate, Bill Frist, and another senior Republican senator Mel Martinez, recently proclaimed after a visit to Afghanistan that the time had come to bring the Taliban into the government in Afghanistan. In the meantime, following clashes with the Taliban, the British reached an agreement with local Taliban commanders under which they handed over control of the battle area in Musa Qala to the Taliban. The Musharraf government had concluded an agreement with pro-Taliban leaders in North Waziristan on September 5, 2006, under which they pulled out all Pakistani troops and checkposts from the region, which has now become a hub for Taliban activities. Strangely, the Bush administration has welcomed this agreement. Though there were talks that NATO might also sign similar agreements with the Taliban, the attack on the seminary yesterday proved that for now, NATO might just stay on course. 

India cannot be sanguine about emerging developments in Afghanistan, where over 1,000 Indian experts are working on various assistance projects. A return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan will have serous implications for India's security. It is imperative that New Delhi advise its American friends about its concerns and seek clarifications from the Bush administration and its NATO partners about the emerging situation in Afghanistan. The entire diplomatic effort should be to persuade the international community that, rather than seeking to accommodate the recalcitrant Taliban leadership within the government in Kabul, the effort should be to encourage moderate Pashtun leaders and parties in both Afghanistan and Pakistan to unite with Tajik and Uzbek leaders within Afghanistan to meet the challenges posed by Taliban extremism.

The writer is former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan.