Pakistani Export of Suicide Bombers into Afghanistan
Dr. G. Rauf Roashan
Recent reports from Afghanistan refer to increased insecurity in the country and a steady introduction of suicide bombing into the tactics of the enemies of peace.
In the past four months, at least 20 suicide bombs have been attempted. Since June 7, 2003 there have been at least 13 major suicide bombings that have claimed many military and civilian lives of coalition forces and ordinary Afghans.
The most recent one in the Afghan border town of Spinboldak, near Pakistan, one of the deadliest attacks that claimed 22 lives and left up to 27 wounded, was savage and inhuman in that the attack took place during a religious festival. Spectators have recalled horrendous scenes of severed limbs and dead innocent civilians murdered for no obvious reason or cause.
Both the government and the people of Afghanistan have demonstrated angry reaction to these killings. Demonstrations in Kandahar and Ghazni provinces are evidence of the Afghans intolerance of the actions of the enemies of peace in their country that has just risen from the ashes of quarter century of war. The United Nations and the free world countries have also condemned the attacks.
Looking at the root causes of the issue one is tempted to review a long history of intervention in the affairs of Afghanistan by its selfish neighbors. And it is an especially intriguing exercise to look upon relations between two South Asian countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan: the former as old as the many thousands of years of the history of the region and the latter only a little over half a century old. Yet in the ever-changing international political stage, the young Pakistani nation has consistently found it to the interest of its military establishment to interfere in the affairs of its older brother. And Pakistan, a so-called democracy, has been ruled for the most part of its life by an arrogant military that has consistently denied the nation the blessing of democratic government.
And Pakistan ever since its establishment in 1947 has failed time and again to establish a cohesive nation. First geography and differences in objectives and priorities plus selfish policies of the politicians in charge, led to the separation of East Pakistan resulting in the creation of a new nation Bangla Desh.
In the West, the four provinces of the country housing four different ethnic groups never truly merged as a unified nation. It was first and foremost the majority Punjabis that ruled the nation to the detriment of the three other ethnic groups.
But perhaps the most important consideration for West Pakistan was its relations with its neighbors, namely India in the East and Afghanistan in the West.
Pakistan has been weary especially of the Pushtoon and Balooch tribes that inhabit along the western banks of the Indus and have traditionally felt closer to their Afghan brethren than the Punjabi population.
Furthermore, from the time of the British Raj in India, the Pushtoons living on the West bank of the river Indus have been fiercely independent, so much so, that the British agreed to acknowledge their independence by calling large areas in Waziristan and upward into the North as Free Border Area. The legacy has continued until today and Pakistani federal laws have not found their way into the tribal life of the free regions who use a system of tribal justice in the form of “rawaj” or tradition to deal with those who break tradition. Also, Pakistani military has not been allowed to interfere in the free areas until only recently when in the guise of Pakistani partnership with the US in fighting the war on terror, some regiments infiltrated Northern Waziristan, but had to retreat or remain in the area cautiously.
Pakistani military governments have also consistently been weary of the status of the so-called Durand Line separating rather theoretically brothers from brothers mostly in the free border area. This along with the hegemony of Pakistani leaders led to the scheming of strategies in the Pakistani ISI, Inter Service Intelligence, to start interfering politically and otherwise in the affairs of Afghanistan, so that a government friendly to Pakistan would be seated in Kabul which would stamp validity to the Durand Line drawn by colonial designs more than one hundred years ago. (The line was never officially endorsed by any Afghan legislature and now with its validity expired is nothing more than a phantom.)
This led to Pakistani support for elements called Mujahidin, some elements of whom, in the beginning, were against the central government in Afghanistan, but later with the creation of the puppet communist regime, engaged in fighting the Red Army. Pakistan was hopeful to win these leaders over and count on them to be subservient to the Pakistani designs for Afghanistan. Failing to achieve this after the valorous Afghan nation drove the Soviet invaders out, Pakistan ISI took it upon itself to organize, encourage and equip Taleban, which consisted of religious schools students and some of the Mullas, their teachers and to install them in power in Afghanistan.
Taleban served Pakistani interests rather well. They heavily relied on Pakistani advisors in military and even civil administration. Pakistani trade flourished with Afghanistan. Pakistani government support of the Taleban won the Military regime respect from the extremists in that country who were, are and will be, one of the major forces to reckon with in the Pakistani context. Pakistani military rejoiced in seeing the Taleban reactionary movement in power in the country. Pakistan had planned in gaining much more from the situation and had dreams of having Kabul regime as a satellite of Pakistan in the region. But even the Taleban rejected subservience and this created problems for the ISI.
However, a major international incident, namely the attack by terrorists on American targets in the United States on September 11, 2001, opened the way for American military intervention to topple down the Taleban regime that had refused to give up Arab terrorists living in Afghanistan and to dismantle their training bases. A new era was born in contemporary history. It is the era of fighting terrorism in all its manifestations. And suicide bombing is one of its most feared manifestations.
Suicide bombing and other terrorist action was alien to Afghanistan until recently. This was because the Afghans as a proud nation found it shameful not to face their enemy in the battleground as they had for thousands of years of their history. Suicide attack as a tactic has been an Arab invention used widely by the Palestinians against Israelis and only recently by Arabs and Al-Qaeda in Iraq and now in Afghanistan.
Al-Qaeda in South Asia is now housed in Pakistan in mostly the free tribal zone. Pakistan, weary also of its relations with the US in the face of its great rival India, has halfheartedly joined the war on terror. This is because there are huge organized extremist movements in Pakistan, which are, when united, a great threat to the rule of the Pakistani military. And these movements are against Pakistani partnership in the war on terror.
The United States and Afghanistan have consistently pointed out to the need for Pakistan to tame extremist tendencies, and prevent terrorists from crossing over into Afghanistan. However, as recent incidents show, and as increasingly the Afghan authorities and people become aware, Pakistan has done the opposite. It has not only let terrorists cross over into Afghanistan, but there are accusations, some by Afghan officials such as the governor of Kandahar Province and a former governor of Ghazni Province and complaints by the Afghan President that suicide bombers are rather exported into Afghanistan from Pakistan.
Those familiar with the ISI know that this is a powerful organization within the government of Pakistan and has accumulated a huge amount of information on almost all movements and people in Pakistan. For this organization to find out who is a terrorist and who is not is a matter of minutes. Yet, Pakistan says notwithstanding its vigil, some elements do cross over through, what it calls, the porous border into Afghanistan without the knowledge of the ISI. This is a lame excuse. In that case, is it the ISI that lets suicide bombers infiltrate into Afghanistan? Could it be that Pakistan cannot tolerate a prospering peaceful neighbor on its west? Is she afraid of a new and strong Afghanistan emerging from decades of war and voicing its support for the rights of Pushtoons and Baloochis that have consistently been trampled upon by the Pakistani military and of which Pakistani military’s recent attacks in Baloochistan and the massacre of innocent civilians including children are an example?
It is for the United Nations, and the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan to guarantee a situation whereby Afghanistan becomes immune to interference in its affairs by its neighbors. Perhaps it is a valid reason for awarding Afghanistan the status of a nation to be guarded from evil action by its neighbors, and countries of the region. Perhaps also, Pakistan should in all honesty pledge true help and cooperation in preventing the export of suicide bombers from its soil into Afghanistan and let the country dress its wounds of many years of war in peace. 1/21/06
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