Taliban attacks Indian road project, 2 killed

On the eve of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai’s visit to India...

On the eve of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai’s visit to India and the announcement of completion of the Rs 746-crore Zaranj-Delaram road, the Taliban launched a major attack at the project site near Delaram, killing two Indian-employed Afghan security personnel. The road, which allows Kabul an alternative sea access through Iran, will be handed over to the Afghan people later this month.

According to reports accessed in Delhi, the Taliban launched an attack near the 10-km stone near Delaram on July 31-August 1 night, killing two Indian-employed Afghan security personnel. In another attack during the same time, a dumper truck driver involved in road construction work was killed by the Taliban. This is the fourth attack on the road project, which, according to senior Afghan Government leaders, the Pakistani ISI would “like to uproot” if it was possible. The 218-km road is now complete and work is only on to put the signages, dress the shoulders and strengthen it in small patches. The road requires to withstand temperatures up to 48-49 degrees Celcius in the Nimroz and Farah provinces.

That the Pakistani ISI was targeting the Indians in Afghanistan was known much before the suicide attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul on July 7.

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On April 12, a suicide bomber targeted the project site in Nimroz province killing two Border Road Organisation personnel and injuring five others. During questioning, a nearby Afghani tea-stall owner at the Minar camp site said that the bomber asked him the way to the Indian camp in sign language as he could neither speak Pushto or Dari. The bomber walked up to the first culvert close to the camp and detonated the device in his jacket.

While Pakistan-sponsored terrorism will be on top of the agenda in talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Karzai on August 4, the topic of pooling of intelligence related to the attacks is also expected to come up during the discussions. Had it not been for Afghanistan’s National Security Directorate’s warning on June 23, the Indian Embassy in Kabul would have suffered worse damage and more casualties.

The Afghani intelligence at that time spoke of a terrorist attack, on lines of the Indian Parliament attack in 2001, with the attackers wearing Afghan security personnel uniform. The Americans on July 1 updated this intelligence to say that a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device would be used to target the Embassy. This information was delivered to the Indians through the back channel between the Afghans and the CIA.

It is not only the Indians employed by New Delhi in Afghanistan who are in the cross-hairs of the Taliban and the ISI. An Indian construction JV, B.S.C. and C&C, is targeted and threatened daily as it is building the Gardez-Khost road under the US AID programme.

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Considering that the road is close to the Pakistani Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the US-led coalition forces last month got into a major firefight to clear the project site of Pakistani militants and the Taliban, in which scores of Taliban fighters from the Jalaluddin Haqqani group have been killed.