The Afghan jigsaw

All the signs are that Karzai, whose power and glory as President barely extends beyond the reaches of Kabul city, seems doubly jolted by these events. Afghanistan, in any case, has been informally parcelled out into areas of influence under regional chieftains like Ismail Khan in Herat and Abdul Rashid Dostum in Mazar-e-Sharif, besides sundry warlords in the south. For the Taliban-Al Qaeda to now regroup and ally with none other than Hekmatyar, a pus-boil that ravaged the Red Army into retreat, almost seems like a nightmare come true.

But there’s more cunning in the story than meets the eye. At a NAM press conference in Kuala Lumpur earlier this week, President Musharraf’s death-warrant of Osama bin Laden (‘‘I am absolutely sure that he is dead’’) has been greeted with raised eyebrows in Washington. Apart from the fact that it re-establishes the Pakistan President’s daily communion with the most dreaded man in the world, Western media reports now also say that the Taliban-Hekmatyar alliance is waiting for the US to launch its attack on Iraq, so as to synchronise its own big push into Afghanistan.

Clearly, its deja vu time in Afghanistan — except that the principal actors in this war seem to have neatly changed sides. Hekmatyar, the pin-up boy of the CIA in the Eighties, is back — fighting the Americans. Then the hero of the ‘mujahideen’ fighting the godless Soviets in Afghanistan, Hekmatyar received as much as 90 per cent of the CIA’s funds funnelled through Pakistan’s ISI, according to well-known Afghan analyst Ahmed Rashid. Amounting to $500 million annually, this fund was matched equally by the Taliban’s other patron Saudi Arabia (one of only three, besides Pakistan and the UAE, to recognise the Taliban government in Kabul).

On January 27 in the mountains near Spin Boldak, a town near the Pakistan border, US forces were pitted against guerrillas ‘‘most closely aligned to the Hezb-i-Islami movement, which is Hekmatyar’s military arm,’’ US military spokesman Roger King was quoted as saying in Pakistan’s Daily Times on February 10. The death of nine minibus passengers in Kandahar on January 31 was attributed to none other than the Hezb, while the Boston Globe reported that Hekmatyar, who had been sighted in six Afghan provinces over the last three months, has linked up with Mullah Omar, as well as the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda.

The question is, where is Mullah Omar? Or Osama bin Laden? If Karzai knows, he’s surely not telling. Nor is the US, forced to depend upon Pakistan’s agencies in the capture of men who easily slip across the border when the going gets tough in Afghanistan. But an editorial in the Washington Post earlier this week went for Musharraf’s jugular.

‘‘Senior officials of the Afghan government say former Taliban and Al Qaeda militants have joined with those of another Islamic extremist, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and are amassing funds, weapons and communications for a concerted campaign once the worst of winter is over….Even more disturbing, several reports say that the regrouping has been supported by elements of Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, which helped to create the Taliban and backed it until the attacks of Sept 11, 2001,’’ it said.

There was more in the Post piece, manna indeed from heaven for New Delhi. ‘‘The enemy concentrations…confirm the steady unravelling of commitments by Pakistan’s President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to support the US in the war on terrorism. Just over a year ago, Gen. Musharraf was vowing to rid his country of violent Islamic extremists; now he stands by as Afghan and Arab radicals, likely including Osama bin Laden, establish bases on Pakistani soil from which to attack American troops…(He) is back to the dangerous game of challenging Indian rule in disputed Kashmir through tolerance of Pakistani-based terrorism. Moreover, some intelligence officers in his own army may have returned to their previous strategy of using the Taliban to extend Pakistani influence in Afghanistan, at the expense of Afghanistan’s pro-Western government.

The Post editorial seemed primed to appear on the eve of Karzai’s visit to Washington. At a hearing of the US Senate Foreign Relations on the situation on Afghanistan, Karzai admitted that terrorist operatives were moving back and forth across the Afghan-Pakistan border. And that he had, and would, talk to Musharraf about this when he visited Islamabad on March 22. ‘‘We have agreed to discuss in detail the better operationality of our activity against terrorism and their cross-border operation. That is a problem,’’ he said. With Indian journalists in Kabul last week, Karzai’s aides couldn’t hide their concern. That the war in Iraq could easily distract the Americans from not only the reconstruction of Afghanistan, but also ignore the growing and visible collusion between Pakistan and the Taliban. After all, there were 10,000 American troops, including its elite Special Forces, in Afghanistan. What would happen if these units were either cannibalised or if they simply moved westwards to fight the sexier war in the Gulf?

Karzai’s fears seemed to have some basis in remarks by US Secy of State Colin Powell last week, when he proposed that NATO take on a much more ‘‘active role’’ in keeping the peace in Afghanistan. That is, the UN-inspired Kosovo model could now be applied to Afghanistan, with NATO replacing the UN to watch over assigned portions of the country.

With the Afghan jigsaw still to fully take shape, the pro-West Karzai’s visit to India could be simplistically seen as New Delhi’s ‘‘betrayal’’ of the Northern Alliance faction in Afghan politics. Fact is, India intends to use the roll of the dice — with Hekmatyar-Taliban-Al Qaeda currently on top — to push its own concerns on Pakistan with Washington. Just like the seasons, the government hopes, Western capitals must also see the light. Snow in Kabul and Washington — the furies of nature prevented Karzai’s plane from taking off for many hours — could still mean sunshine in New Delhi.