US asks Pakistan to rein in Haqqani network

The US State Department spokesperson Elizabeth Trudeau in a press briefing in Washington on Friday revealed that Pakistan has been told at the highest level that the Haqqani network, an aggressive armed sub-group of the Afghan Taliban with its strongholds in the south-eastern parts, has to be reined in.

The strong and explicit nudge from the State Department comes in the wake of the terrorist attack in Kabul at the National Directorate for Security on April 19, in which 64 people week killed and more than 300 were injured.

Though Pakistan has officially condemned the attack, Afghanistan's deputy presidential spokesperson Dawa Khan Menapal told Voice of America that the Haqqani network was behind the Kabul attack, and that Pakistan supported and armed the group, which has its operational base in North Waziristan, in Pakistan. The US drone attacks on Haqqani camps have not been able to decimate its forces.

Trudeau underlined the imperative to warn the Pakistan-Haqqani link, and its impact on the peace process in Afghanistan. She said, "Attacks such as this clearly undermine US, Afghan, Pakistani efforts to promote peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan."

Despite the overthrow of the Taliban government in December, 2001 in the post-9/11 shock and trauma, the Taliban did not disappear from the Afghan political scene. In the last few years, especially from the final year of former president Hamid Kaarzai's time, there has been an effort to re-integrate the Taliban into the democratic set-up in Kabul. It is an acknowledgement on the part of the Americans that the Taliban have not been beaten in the political game, and that there is no way of keeping them out of the Afghan political scene.

The talks between the US, the Taliban, the Afghan government and Pakistan have been going on, behind closed doors, in Doha, capital of Qatar. But they have remained inconclusive. Pakistan is quite satisfied with the attempts to bring back the Taliban because Islamabad believes that this is the only way to regain its lost foothold in Kabul. The public opinion in Afghanistan as well as that of its new political establishment is quite hostile to Pakistan because of its support for the Taliban.

Washington is of the view that the Taliban cannot be wished away, a fact recognised by the Afghan leadership as well. There is also the recognition that Pakistan has a key role to play in making the Taliban accept a political solution.

In spite of repeated American urgings, Pakistan has not really cooperated in ending its material and political support to the Haqqani network directly, and to the Taliban generally. It is unlikely that Islamabad will respond positively or concretely to the State Department's friendly directive. The reason behind Pakistan's unwillingness to disarm and defang the Haqqani group is that Islamabad feels that this is the only means for it to become the puppeteer in Afghan politics.

(with agencies)