India and Pakistan Fight New Battles
on Afghan Territory
By
Scott Baldauf
JALALABAD,
Afghanistan: The Indian Consulate here is bustling with delegations
of Indian diplomats and businessmen, who are snapping up many
of the lucrative projects to rebuild the roads and infrastructure
of Afghanistan.
Just
a few blocks away, the Pakistani Consulate is swamped as well
- but with Afghans waiting for visas to visit refugee relatives
across the border. It isn't the diplomatic mission Pakistan really
wants.
This
unequal status reflects a turning of tables in 2001, when Northern
Alliance forces - bankrolled for years by India - rolled into
Kabul on the heels of the retreating Taliban, who had swept to
power five years earlier with Pakistan's assistance. The fallout
has helped take the 56-year rivalry between India and Pakistan
beyond their borders into a third country that both seek to befriend.
For
the most part, the Afghan variant of this rivalry is seen in benign
ways, but Afghan authorities and Western diplomats warn that there
is a sub current of skulduggery. And as Pakistan and India trade
charges of sabotage and terrorism - including a hand-grenade attack
on the Indian Consulate here last week - many diplomats here worry
this rivalry could quickly get out of hand.
"It
would definitely be unhelpful if India and Pakistan were playing
bat and ball in Afghanistan," says a Western diplomat in
Islamabad. "I think it's fair to say that India has an intelligence
presence in southern Afghanistan, as does Pakistan, but whether
it is intelligence gathering or special operations is hard to
say. Obviously, the latter would be much more of a concern."
With
so many enemies, Afghanistan is looking for a few true friends.
Officially,
at least, India and Pakistan - along with the US, Russia, Iran,
Germany, Britain, and others - remain firmly on the friends list.
But
Afghan authorities here admit there is little they can do, in
their current weak state, to stop friends from using Afghanistan
once again as the launching base for a proxy war.
It's
yet another concern for Afghanistan's leaders to factor in, along
with stalled reconstruction projects, fragile security, and growing
Taliban attacks along Afghanistan's southern borders.
"We
have certainly let both Pakistan and India know that we will not
allow our country to be used again as a terrorist base,"
says one senior Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition
of anonymity.
At
first glance, the Indo-Pakistani rivalry in Afghanistan seems
harmless enough, and even somewhat beneficial. Competition between
India and Pakistani construction firms near the southern city
of Kandahar, for instance, has spurred a building spree of roads.
Much to Pakistan's irritation, India won the contract for the
road from Kandahar to Spin Boldak, the Afghan town that borders
the Pakistani town of Chaman.
But elsewhere, the rivalry is played with more than a touch of
James Bond. The grenade attack on the Indian Consulate in Jalalabad,
for instance, fits what Indian diplomats call a pattern of harassment
and sabotage against their efforts, including attacks on Indian
road crews. Afghan authorities have detained seven suspects -
all Afghan - in connection with the attack that left no injuries,
only building damage.
Navtej
Sarna, spokesman for the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in
New Delhi, blames the grenade attack and others on what he calls
"ISI-trained terrorists." The ISI is an acronym for
Pakistan's ultra secret Inter-Services Intelligence department.
Both
India and Pakistan have additional consulates in Herat, Mazar-e
Sharif, and Kandahar. India reopened its diplomatic buildings
after the fall of the Taliban.
"It's
for the Afghans to decide which countries get to set up consulates
in their countries," says Mr. Sarna. "We have strong
bilateral relations with Afghanistan, and we want to help them
rebuild their country. India also sees Afghanistan as a route
to Central Asia. So it has nothing to do with Pakistan."
For its part, Pakistan blames such attacks on Afghan elements
and on Afghanistan's declining security situation in general.
And Pakistani officials say that India's activities have less
to do with humanitarian aid and more to do with India's top-secret
intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW.
Pakistan's
allegations range from Indian consulates printing false Pakistani
currency to RAW's alleged recruitment of Afghans to carry out
acts of sabotage and terrorism on Pakistani territory.
Pakistan
also accuses India of setting up a network of "terrorist
training camps" located inside Afghanistan, including at
the Afghan military base of Qushila Jadid, north of Kabul; near
Gereshk in southern Helmand Province; in the Panjshir Valley,
northeast of Kabul; and at Khahak and Hassan Killies in western
Nimroz Province.
The
Monitor was not able to verify these allegations independently.
India's spokesman, Sarna, calls these charges "rubbish."
Pakistan
also alleges that Indian diplomats prompted Afghan warlord Hazrat
Ali, the security commander of Nangrahar Province, to fire artillery
shells onto Pakistani Army positions in Pakistan's Mohmand tribal
agency last month. Mr. Ali maintains that Pakistani Army troops
have moved 25 miles into Afghan territory. Pakistan replies that
they have deployed troops on the border, at America's urging,
to prevent cross border attacks by the Taliban.
"Pakistan very much wants a stable Afghanistan, because they
are next to us, and any instability up there will leak into Pakistan,"
says a senior official in the Pakistani Foreign Ministry. "But
as for the Indians, we told Afghanistan that if they open those
consulates in southern Afghanistan, the only purpose is cross
border terrorism into Pakistan."
Noting
that coalition forces have only 11,500 troops to patrol a country
larger than France, the Pakistani official says it is plausible
for India to set up small, mobile training camps in Afghanistan,
if it had the cooperation of the Afghan government.
Then
the Pakistani official uses an argument that Indians have used
for decades about Pakistani based militant groups fighting in
Afghanistan and Kashmir, "Terrorism is a fungible commodity,"
he warns. "Once you use terrorists somewhere, they can be
deployed somewhere else. America trained people to fight against
the Russians, and then they got used somewhere else."
The
writer is a Correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor
