Pakistan takes rap for Taliban's Kabul attack By Karamatullah K Ghori
The brazen Taliban attack last Tuesday in the heart of Kabul and in close
vicinity of high-value Western icons of presence in Afghanistan - the American
embassy and North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Afghan headquarters - was
daring and provocative. It was, perhaps, the Taliban's way of celebrating with
fire the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and 10 years of Western boots on Afghan soil.
Or were they putting on display, in their own inimitable style, their parting
gift for their gratuitous "guests"?
That only a handful of Taliban daredevils - said to be not more than six or
eight - equipped with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, could hold off the
Afghan security troops on the ground and NATO gun-ships in the air for 20 hours
reflects very poorly on the efficiency and battle-readiness of the Afghans -
trained, of
course, by the Americans and their Western allies.
The Taliban attack that began at 1.30 pm in the afternoon, in broad daylight,
had an unmistakable psychological thrust writ large on the offensive: they had
the capacity, after 10 years of concerted US and NATO effort to neutralize
them, to operate at will and cherry-pick targets even in a garrison-like and
highly fortified Kabul.
The message to the Americans, who have already started United States President
Barack Obama's draw-down of forces by 2014, and to their NATO allies, many of
whom are getting ready to fold their military operations, was loud and clear:
we're ready to step in as you step out.
That the Taliban managed to infiltrate high-security Kabul where US and NATO
forces, abetted by the Afghan security apparatus, have been hunkered down for
so long points only to the strong possibility of an inside-job. The Taliban
couldn't have pulled off the daring raid without collaborators inside the
Afghan security apparatus opening inlets for them. It only lends further
credence to the oft-voiced concern that President Hamid Karzai's hold is
tenuous, even over Kabul, and rampant corruption is the order of the day on his
watch.
The new US ambassador to Kabul, my dear old friend Ryan Crocker (he and I were
contemporaries in Kuwait following its liberation from the Iraqi occupation),
tried to put as fine a finesse as he could on the embarrassing episode. His
spin sought to belittle the Taliban's bloody raid - which resulted in at least
16 casualties - by describing it as an exercise in desperation. Taking the lead
from her ambassador, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, too, disdained it
as "a cowardly act".
But Ryan had also pointed the finger at the Haqqani network, ensconced in the
North Waziristan region of Pakistan's tribal belt, contiguous with Afghanistan,
for masterminding the Kabul incursion.
Ambassador Crocker's opening about the Haqqanis gave Defence Secretary Leon
Panetta the handle to put the heat on Pakistan and implicate it, if not in so
many words, in the Kabul mayhem.
The Haqqani group has long been under Washington's skin in Afghanistan. US
policymakers, in both the State Department and the Pentagon, believe that the
Haqqani outfit is not only closely aligned to al-Qaeda - it is suspected of
sheltering its most wanted men under their wings - but also provides
sanctuaries to the Afghan Taliban. The Americans have been leaning hard on the
Pakistan military to undertake full-scale punitive operations against the
Haqqanis and smoke them out of their hide-outs, something that the Pakistani
military establishment seems reluctant to do, for reasons best known to it.
One good reason for the Pakistani top brass' dithering on what Pentagon
desperately wants could be the fact that 200,000 of Pakistani troops are
already actively engaged in fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda terror in their
tribal region. The war on terror has already exacted a heavy toll in blood -
35,000 civilians and nearly 5,000 soldiers killed and tens of thousands more
injured.
But Panetta expanded on Crocker's theme of the Haqqanis masterminding the Kabul
blitz - although Kabul is a little too far from where the Haqqanis have been
holed up - and served a warning to Pakistan that US would do "everything we
can" to defend its forces in Afghanistan against attacks by the Pakistan-based
militia.
Remonstrating the lack of follow up from Pakistan on the US demand to go after
the Haqqani network the way Washington wants it, Panetta bemoaned: "Time and
again we've urged the Pakistanis to exercise their influence over these kinds
of attacks from the Haqqanis." He expanded the theme further by adding: " And
we have made very little progress in that area."
Panetta's punch-line in the reaction he shared with reporters at the Pentagon
briefing was not only revealing but hinted, very broadly, at what action its
military brass may well be contemplating to respond to the Haqqanis'
provocation in the event of Pakistan's perceived and persistent inaction.
Panetta warned: "I think the message they [the Pakistanis] need to know is:
we're going to do everything we can to defend our forces."
Panetta's veiled, but in fact not-so-disguised, warning to Pakistan is enough
to send political pundits scrambling to their crystal balls and peer intently
into them.
What sort of reprisals against the Haqqanis do the Pentagon generals have up
their sleeves? Are they mulling a reprise of the Rambo-like incursion into
Pakistan territory, of last May, that took out Osama bin Laden?
Most pundits think of that as an apocryphal scenario. Bin Laden was ensconced
in a marked target, at one place, while the Haqqani militia is spread over a
large and uncharted territory. Taking it out would require a concerted
operation with thousands of troops on the ground, which has to be ruled out
given the extreme sensitivity among the Pakistanis to any mention, much less
actual presence, of American boots on their soil.
Panetta may well go through the motions of ordering his generals to their
drawing boards. However, US have very few doable options, other than relying on
Pakistan to heed its advice with greater intent and focus.
Sadly, in the context of US-Pakistan relations, this latest flare-up has come
at a time when relations seemed to be on a mend after a series of setbacks. The
recent arrest of Younis Al Mauretani, a top notch al-Qaeda operative, in
Pakistan by its security forces had been welcomed in Washington as a positive
signal from Islamabad.
Panetta's petulant outburst - indicative of the Obama administration's
increasing frustration on a war all but lost in Afghanistan - is both
unfortunate and untimely. His muscle-flexing, clearly aimed at assuring the
Americans at home that the administration wasn't going to be intimidated by the
Taliban, is almost certain to send the wrong signal to Pakistan and raise
hackles there.
Karamatullah K Ghori is a retired Pakistani ambassador whose assignments
took him, among other places, to Iraq. He can be reached at K_K_ghori@yahoo.com
(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
