Afghanistan: An enduring rivalry behind Indian consulate attack

http://www.afghanistantimes.af/

At least 12 people were mowed down mercilessly in a deadly suicide bomb attack on Saturday targeting the Indian consulate in Jalalabad—the capital city of eastern Nangarhar province, bordering Pakistan. Indian interests in Afghanistan have been under a constant threat as it is the third time that Indian embassy and consulate had come under attack. The repeated attacks on Indian facilities inside Afghanistan shows there has been an enduring rivalry behind it and it couldn’t be the job of a ragtag Taliban group that doesn’t want anything else but to be back in power in Afghanistan. Therefore, the attack seems to be the job of a third party—definitely a state not a militant group. In 2008, a car bomb attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul had killed over 60 people and suicide attacks on two guesthouses in 2010 killed 16 people, including seven Indians. Saturday’s attack took place in the backdrop of threats of likely terror attacks on Indian diplomats and other facilities in Afghanistan therefore a security team was dispatched from New Delhi to Kabul last week to assess the threats. No militant group has owned responsibility for the attack yet so far but Kurram tribal agency based Haqqani network is likely to be blamed for the attack. The dreaded network has been responsible for attacks on American embassy and military installation as well as on Indian embassy and engineers. Since Haqqani network is based in Pakistan so the dangers of insurgency within Afghanistan and across areas along the Durand Line are predominately sourced in Pakistan, to a far greater extent than in the war-torn Afghanistan. The Taliban and transnational jihadi groups based in Pakistan remain the principal instrumentality of Islamabad’s response to India’s growing engagement in Afghanistan. In Pakistan’s Urdu press Afghan Taliban are feted and eulogized while Pakistani Taliban are being depicted as brutes with and endless bloodlust. Most of the Pakistani so-called liberal writers dip their pens in gall when they give vent to their opinion on Indian consulate in Jalalabad and India’s role in Afghanistan. For them, as if, it is India that has created the Taliban on Pakistani soil. It is no denying the fact that most of these writers are on the payroll of Pakistan’s Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR). Being matchless in “blame the victim” game, Pakistan continues to spread misleading propaganda about the “large Indian consulates” in Afghanistan being a source of insecurity in Pakistan. This perceived threat has been so much projected in media that even those living in the tribal belt on the other side of the Durand Line feel India responsible for insecurity and mayhem in the region. It is despite the fact that most of tribesmen blame Pakistan’s security establishment for their miseries and displacement from their ancestral land. Recently a delegation of Afridi tribesmen comprising of 200 tribal elders had visited Nangarhar and Kabul where it lodged complaints against Pakistan army and ISI, appealing the Afghan government to help them in getting freedom from persecution of Pakistan army. Since Pakistan’s security thinking has been predominantly occupied with a perceived threat from Indian interests in Afghanistan therefore it’s hell-bent on damaging Indo-Afghan ties. The problem is it doesn’t look at who attacked GHQ, police stations, military installations and markets in Pakistan. Islamabad doesn’t have to worry about India in Afghanistan rather it should worry about the thriving militant safe havens and groups in western Pakistan and the tribal belt—a nurturing land for terrorists. Besides that when India has already shown reluctance from sending military trainers to Afghanistan and has clearly declared its intentions not to waver from its commitment to reconstruction and capacity building in Afghanistan, attacking Indian interests in Afghanistan could potentially trigger a catastrophic blowback.