Why Afghanistan And Pakistan Are At War

Afghans have deep self-respect and are the last people to put up with humiliation.
Is it any surprise that relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have touched an all-time low and the two countries are now at war? asks M R Narayan Swamy.

'You will be Afghanistan's enemy number one! ... You should be ashamed to even utter the word jihad!'

This was the Taliban-run Afghanistan's ambassador to Islamabad, Abdul Salam Zaeef, screaming at three officers of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's all-powerful intelligence agency.

The spooks had called on Zaeef at the Afghan embassy in Islamabad when Pervez Musharraf as Pakistan's president decided, under intense US pressure, to turn the screws on the Taliban. They had come with instructions clearly from the top.

If this was not enough, the ISI officers accused Zaeef of planning to assassinate Musharraf. The diplomat denied the charge. In no time, a screaming match erupted.

By the time it ended, one of the ISI officers was in tears. In their hearts they knew that Pakistan was about to let down an Islamic outfit it had actively propped up.

Zaeef was eventually one of the numerous Afghans arrested by Pakistani security forces and handed over to the Americans in exchange for money the US provided Islamabad and its deep state as it set about avenging 9/11.

Zaeef suffered for years in in the military prison at Guantanamo Bay before his reluctant release by the Americans. He is one of the few in the Taliban who has authored a biography, providing a rare insight into the heart of the secretive Islamic group.

This Taliban leader's detailed account of the many betrayals by the Pakistan establishment and the ISI can help one understand why the former allies are now at each other's throats.

The turmoil in Pakistan-Afghanistan relations is not new.

When Afghanistan Voted Against Pakistan

Indeed, the two countries have never had a stable relationship. Kabul was the only one to vote against Pakistan's admission into the United Nations.

Pakistani rulers always feared that Afghanistan's refusal to recognise the British-drawn Durand Line that divides the two countries was aimed at forming a greater Pashtunistan one day.

Pakistan is home to some 26 million Pashtuns while 14 million Pashtuns live in Afghanistan.

Pakistan claims it hosted millions of Afghan refugees and actively supported the mujahideen/Taliban.

But in the process, Pakistan only played one set of Afghans against another -- a deadly game in which the biggest losers were the Afghans.

Even this was done with an ulterior motive -- as Afghans quickly realised.

Having lost all the wars against India and with East Pakistan breaking away in 1971, the Pakistan military wanted a pliable Afghanistan, one which could give Islamabad 'strategic depth' in the event of another conflict with India.

This is why when the Taliban first seized power in Kabul in 1996, Pakistan's deep state celebrated more than the Islamic militia.

The ISI quickly posted its officers in all Pakistani diplomatic missions in Afghanistan. ISI officers also took up posts in key Afghan government ministries.

Even during the war against the Soviets, the ISI extended its resources and support deep across Afghanistan.

And without the Taliban's knowledge, it recruited many Afghans to work for the ISI as well.

Select Afghan staffers in the Taliban embassy in Islamabad were wooed with bribes.

When it came to distributing money and weapons, the ISI brazenly played favourites, strengthening groups and mujahideen commanders who did what the agency demanded.

It quietly assassinated those who were defiant. Hamid Karzai, who later became Afghanistan's president, believes that his father was murdered at the ISI's instance.

All this caused resentment among the Afghans even when the mujahideen fought the Soviet army.

While the world viewed the Taliban as Pakistan's creation, it had a mind of its own and refused to take Pakistani fiats lying down even as it was aware of Islamabad's role in providing oxygen to the rebels.

Afghan refugees who lived in Pakistan through the anti-Soviet war and later repeatedly accused the Pakistani security establishment of mistreating and even robbing them.

The complaints became so rampant that Afghan diplomats frequently raised the issue with the Pakistan authorities.

'Policemen would linger on the streets that led to the (Afghan) embassy and rob Afghans, falling upon them like a pack of wolves,' wrote the Afghan envoy, Zaeef.

Afghans Allege Police Abductions, Extortion and Abuse in Pakistan

Mullah Serajuddin, a commander with the Afghan defence ministry who was on his way to Germany for medical treatment, was abducted by the police in Islamabad because they had seen him with $10,000.

Fortunately, he had entrusted the money for safe keeping to a guest house where he was staying. Finding no money on him, the police dumped the shaken man outside the city.

Another Afghan man was killed when he jumped out of a moving taxi when Pakistan policemen forced their way into the cab after noticing the expensive jewellery his wife was wearing.

Even as the man lay seriously injured, the policemen grabbed the jewellery and escaped.

The US-led war on the Taliban regime post 9/11 made life more miserable for the hundreds of thousands in Pakistan.

Pakistani officials, those from the ISI included, often threatened ordinary Afghans that they would be handed over to the Americans as Taliban/al-Qaeda suspects unless they parted with money. It became a scandal known to every Afghan.

Zaeef writes: 'The ISI or the police captured (Afghans) and if they could not pay a bribe, they were interrogated, beaten and abused... In the end, they were all sold to the Americans. Many had never been to Afghanistan or had any involvement with al-Qaeda or the Taliban... Pakistan was known among the (Afghan) prisoners as Majbooristan, the land that is obliged to fulfil each of America's demands.'

To the world at large, Pakistan portrayed itself as a State firmly rooted in Islamic piety, a country which generously hosted an army of Afghan men and women who had fled their country.

Zaeef was himself was stripped naked and brutally beaten up by American soldiers while Pakistani soldiers watched after being handed over to the US as a prize catch.

He underwent a terrible time at Guantanamo as did every other prisoner in the notorious prison. When he was freed, he fumed, rightly so, against Islamabad.

Accusing Pakistan of treachery, Zaeef said: 'They have two tongues in their mouth, and two faces on one head so they can speak everybody's language; they use everybody, deceive everybody. They deceive the Arabs under the guise of Islamic nuclear power, saying that they are defending Islam and Islamic countries.

'They milk America and Europe in the alliance against terrorism, and they have been deceiving Pakistanis and other Muslims around the world in the name of the Kashmiri jihad. But behind the curtain, they have been betraying everyone.'

There could not have been a stronger denunciation of Pakistan and all that it stands for.

Zaeef's years spent in Pakistan, his and his compatriots' experiences in that country betray the deep hatred ordinary Afghans have for the Pakistani state.

During the many years she spent covering the Afghan war, British journalist Christina Lamb often met Afghans sick and tired of Pakistan.

Besides then president Karzai and his close aides, other Afghan elders made it clear to her that Afghanistan would never have peace until Pakistan stopped its unending interference.

Even when the Taliban ruled the country in its first avatar, Pakistan tried to derail Kabul's already fledgling economy.

If and when the Taliban regime rebuilt some factories and opened new industries, Pakistan would introduce export taxes on raw materials that effectively rendered the emerging industries useless.

And if Afghanistan became ready to produce something, Pakistan would grant tax exemption to its own companies which produced the same goods -- with the same disastrous results for Kabul.

Afghans have deep self-respect and are the last people to put up with humiliation. Is it any surprise that relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have touched an all-time low and the two countries are now at war?

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff