Guest Column | Double Deal

Radhavinod Raju 

There are reports of NATO and Afghan troops massing along the AF-PAK border near North Waziristan following reluctance of the Pakistan Army Chief to take action against the Haqqani network there. The United States is convinced that the Haqqani group has the backing of the ISI in its attacks on the ISAF forces operating in Afghanistan, and as warned, have decided to take action themselves. General Kayani, while addressing Pakistani lawmakers, issued a clear warning to the United States not to mess around with a nuclear Pakistan, implying that any armed intrusion into Pakistan will be resisted! The United States secretary of state, Hillary Clinton will be visiting Pakistan to see whether that country can be brought back from the brink that the generals seem to be keen to take it to.

There is frustration in the United States that the Pakistan Army Chief has pleaded over-stretching of his forces, and therefore not in a position to take on the militants in North Waziristan, while at the same time, not allowing the US to go after them.

According to influential US security analysts, “….the generals who run Pakistan have not abandoned their obsession with challenging India. They tolerate terrorists at home, seek a Taliban victory in Afghanistan and are building the world’s fastest-growing nuclear arsenal.” Pakistan had been hoping that, through their investments in the Taliban, including the Haqqani network, they would play a decisive role in the Afghan end-game that would give them unassailable influence vis-à-vis India in Afghanistan through their proxies.The latest strategic partnership that was signed between India and Pakistan has only added to the woes of the Pakistani generals, who can only see it as encircling of Pakistan by India! India has millennia-old relations with Afghanistan. We have always had excellent relations with that country, except when the Taliban, backed by Pakistan, was in power.

Our experience of the Taliban rule was certainly not filled with pleasant memories. Kashmiri boys were sent to Afghanistan for training by their mentors, the ISI, and were assigned in al Qaeda camps for this purpose. This was when Osama bin Laden had settled down in Afghanistan after he was forced to leave Sudan under US pressure. This clearly indicates the relationship between the ISI and the al Qaeda. Some of these Kashmiri boys were killed when the United States launched a missile attack on the Khost camp of the al Qaeda in 1998, following the bombing of their embassies in Kenya and Tanzania by this terror outfit. It may also be recalled that when the terrorists demanded the release of Azhar Masood, along with Omar Sheikh and the Kashmiri Mushtaque Zargar, following the hijacking of the Indian Airlines flight IC 814 with over a hundred passengers in Decembe