People's Democracy

N the last week, the scenario in Afghanistan has changed rapidly and dramatically. The Taliban and their non-Afghan jihadi supporters appear to have been routed in most of the country bar the south. The so-called Northern Alliance and other anti-Taliban forces are now in control of about 80 per cent of the country reversing the position on the ground in a matter of days. Almost all major cities and towns, including the capital Kabul, are now held by the Northern Alliance or by local commanders who, seeing the way the wind was blowing, changed sides. Serious and urgent moves are now being made both inside Afghanistan and internationally to forge a broad-based government to rule post-Taliban Afghanistan.

While the Taliban itself seems to have simply decided to pull out, leaving the opposition forces to move in virtually without a fight in most of these places, a large number of Taliban fighters and commanders have been taken prisoner. Significantly, a number of Arab and Pakistani fighters, and several Chechens and fighters from Uzbekistan, have also been killed or captured, facing particular and focused wrath from the Northern Alliance forces and the local population. The Taliban have confirmed the death in US bombing raids of Mohammed Atef alias Al Aqs, Osama bin Laden’s key lieutenant and military leader of Al Qa’ida dealing it a severe blow. At the time of writing, it is believed that the Taliban supremo Mullah Mohammad Omar, the first person since the founding days of the Islamic faith to arrogate to himself the title Amir ul Momineen or Leader of the Faithful, has left his stronghold of Kandahar while the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden himself are unknown.

One may dismiss such outpourings as shouting insults on Taliban prisoners or welcoming Northern Alliance troops with flowers as typical gestures against the vanquished or favouring the conquerors but, in city after city liberated from Taliban rule by the advancing Northern Alliance forces, scenes of genuine celebration and jubilation are being witnessed and now telecast globally. Numerous men rushed to barbers shops to shave their untrimmed beards made mandatory by the Taliban.

After five long years, Radio Afghanistan played music and had a woman announcer, both declared un-islamic and banned by the Taliban. Music from once hidden radios and tape recorders blared on streets and in eateries, and impromptu concerts were held in many towns. Girl children once again began attending schools. All these showed not only that people had been stifled for long by Taliban and hated the repression but also, importantly, that the otherwise devoutly Islamic population of Afghanistan themselves rejected the Taliban’s fundamentalism and extremism.

These scenes and all that they convey should be a wake-up call to extremists and fundamentalists everywhere, as well as to those who at least partly buy their argument that the campaign against the Taliban and the international jihadi forces is a campaign against Islam. Clearly, other than Huntington himself, the only ones really accepting his thesis are the bin Ladens and Talibans of this world.

Yet, all that is happening in Afghanistan is only a semi-final stage in more ways than one. The Taliban is down but not out, Afghanistan is not yet united with the Pakhtoon south dangerously out of sync with the rest of the country, there is considerable uncertainty over who will or should run Afghanistan even in an interim administration, and major domestic and international players are making new and sometimes potentially destabilising moves to position themselves advantageously in the unfolding scenario. Global and regional alliances are also shifting significantly rendering the strategic environment in the region quite fluid in the wake of these sudden changes in the ground situation in Afghanistan.

The changes were brought about by a sharp shift in the US battle plan and tactics. US warplanes, after weeks of high-altitude and remote-controlled bombing of Taliban command and control centres and selected infrastructure with questionable impact, and after much emphasis by the Northern Alliance on the importance of such support, finally started targeted bombing of Taliban frontline positions where they faced the Northern Alliance troops. The US also began deploying several small but goal-oriented special forces missions on the ground deep inside Afghanistan to help identify targets and provide other ground intelligence in co-ordination with the Northern Alliance, and moved more airborne forces into neighbouring Uzbekistan north of Afghanistan presumably with the understanding that this would likely yield better military results than from the south.

Several factors were at work in these decisions of considerable strategic significance. The US was earlier reluctant to attack Taliban frontline positions as this would directly help the Northern Alliance before the US had set up what it considered a more acceptable post-Taliban political dispensation. Apart from its own geo-strategic assessment in which the Alliance was seen as unreliable and perhaps also too close to Russia and other regional powers such as Iran and India, the US was specifically pressed into this direction by its key ally Pakistan which, as the Taliban’s main promoter and backer, was openly disliked by the Alliance and which therefore wished for a more favourable Pakhtoon-dominated dispensation including "moderate Taliban" elements. Pakistan repeatedly stressed these goals, including during US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s visit to Pakistan and India, when the latter conceded Pakistan’s legitimate interests in this regard.

The US was repeatedly reminded of the internal divisions within the Alliance after it had succeeded in the anti-Soviet campaign in the early nineties leading to civil war amongst its factions in turn paving the way for the Taliban. Both the US and Pakistan conveniently forgot, of course, that these divisions were actively instigated and fomented by Pakistan who heavily backed the Pakhtoon Gulbuddin Hekmatyar of the Hizb-e-Islami against those comprising the present Northern Alliance in an effort to dominate the Afghan scenario. It needs emphasis, therefore, that the alienation of the Northern Alliance from Pakistan pre-dates the arrival of the Taliban with even greater and more overt Pakistani support.

Meanwhile, however, US efforts to find suitable Pakhtoon leaders to form a fifth column against the Taliban were not making much headway with one such possible ally, Abdul Haq, being captured and summarily hung by the Taliban. These forays, including some special forces operations launched from or at least with support from US bases in Pakistan, were yielding poor dividends given the poor intelligence the US was receiving in Pakistan about which Colin Powell is reported to have bitterly complained to Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf during his meetings in Islamabad and which was also reported on by the usually authoritative Jane’s Intelligence Weekly. Stepping up of US actions from Pakistani bases would also intensify anti-US and anti-Musharraf protests in Pakistan strengthening the jihadi forces there. There were also no local forces on the ground in southern Afghanistan with which this US strategy could tie up.

All the while, the dreaded Afghan winter, during which military operations of any kind would almost certainly have to be wound down, was creeping up. And so was the Muslim holy month of Ramzan during which Pakistan, including during General Musharraf’s visit with US President Bush in Washington and his speech to the UN General Assembly, as also most other Islamic states, were urging the US to cease military operations which would effectively have led to postponement of the campaign to next spring.

The US therefore changed track and started bombing the Taliban frontline in co-ordination with the Northern Alliance which it also helped with ammunition, new uniforms and so on. Russia also stepped up its support of the Northern Alliance supplying it with tanks, heavy artillery and more ammunition. All at once, in the matter of just a week or so, the balance tilted sharply in favour of the Alliance with decisive impact on the military campaign against the Taliban.

The first coordinated assault was on the strategic northern city of Mazar-i- Sharif. Mazar straddles the highly important road north to the nearby border with Uzbekistan formed by the Amu Darya (known to the Greeks as the River Oxus) and the Soviet-built Friendship Bridge across it and is thus vital for ferrying military and humanitarian supplies from the north. From Mazar, flanking moves can also be made towards Herat in the West and to the North-East towards Kunduz, Taloqan and Tashkorgan close to the Tajikistan and Chinese borders, thus completing an east-north-west road link from Kabul to Herat. Mazar was also viewed as a weak link for the Taliban since the city had changed sides often with the shifting loyalties of its local chieftains, the last time when General Rashid Dostum was betrayed by his local general who defected to the Taliban ending 10 uninterrupted years of Dostum’s rule over the city and leaving him to flee for his life first to Turkey and then to Uzbekistan.

The fall of Mazar-i-Sharif after sustained pressure from aerial bombardment and by Northern Alliance forces on the ground, along with the expected defections of several local leaders, opened up the country, spurred the Northern Alliance forward and began to convince the Taliban and the many local chieftains till then supporting it that it was on the losing side. It also proved the effectiveness of military coordination between the Northern Alliance and the US forces.

Within a week, the Northern Alliance made rapid advances on the ground with heavy US bombardment of Taliban frontline positions. The Taliban withdrew from several major cities in rapid succession allowing them to fall into the hands of the Northern Alliance. The mainly Tajik Alliance spearhead, the Jamiat-i-Islami forces, took Taloqan and Balkh (Bactria to the Greeks) in the north along with the surrounding provinces, while the mainly Shi’ite Hazara forces of the Hizb-e-Wahdat captured Bamiyan, where the Taliban had destroyed the giant standing Buddha statues and the rest of the Hazarajat region in the Afghan central highlands, home to these descendents of Genghiz Khan’s Mongol forces which once held sway over most of central Asia.

In another part of the ethnic mosaic that is Afghanistan, the key eastern city of Herat close to Iran with which the Ismaili populations of this region have cultural much in common fell to the Jamiat forces led by Ismail Khan, famous for his daring exploits during the mujahideen anti-Soviet campaign, for his enlightened Governorship of the province subsequently and his dramatic escape from a Taliban prison last year. At the time of writing, only Kunduz was holding out, mainly due to substantial presence of Arab and other other non-Afghan fighters.

Yet the US was hesitating to bombard the Taliban positions facing the Northern Alliance near the strategic Bagram airport, a mere 30 kilometres from Kabul, lest the Alliance take Kabul before a US-envisaged political dispensation was set up in the Afghan capital. But battles have their own momentum. With some US bombardment in the area and given the accelerating disarray in the Taliban ranks, the frontline defending Kabul crumpled and General Fahim’s Northern Alliance forces comprising Jamiat Tajik and Hizb-e-Wahdat Hazara forces stormed into the capital while the Taliban had melted away the previous night but not without looting the money market, taking away millions of dollars and crores of Pakistani rupees, and various international offices.

Several key towns and provinces to the south and south-west of Kabul were also soon to slip out of Taliban hands including the key south-eastern city of Jalalabad, gateway to the Khyber Pass and to Peshawar beyond it. In many of these areas, local Pakhtoon commanders and other leaders took over from the retreating Taliban and then threw in their lot with the Northern Alliance. It remains to be seen whether this pattern repeats in Kandahar which is also likely to face mounting pressure from flanking moves from Kabul to the east and Herat to the west from where Ismail Khan’s forces are already believed to be moving. What happens next will be crucial to the future of Afghanistan and to the security environment in the region.

In city after city to fall, the scenes were same. Residents not only greeted the departure of the Taliban with unconcealed glee but also, significantly, poured hatred and scorn on the Taliban’s Arab and Pakistani supporters with slogans against the latter being a common thread. This would come as no surprise to those familiar with Afghan history famous for Afghan hostility to foreign interference. It is ironic that this fate should befall Pakistan too who portrayed itself as a legitimate if not natural interlocutor in Afghan affairs while hectoring other countries not to interfere in that country.

Pakistan’s Afghan policy now lies in shambles and its strategic position as a US frontline state devalued almost as soon as it had been acquired and it is highly unlikely that Pakistan would now have anywhere near the influence it had during Taliban rule. Pakistan’s frontline status was crucial to the US as a means of entry into Afghanistan and into Central Asia. These latter objectives have now been achieved with US ground forces working alongside the Northern Alliance, whatever the short-term tensions between them, and the US having acquired a direct and decisive voice in Afghan affairs without dependence on Pakistani mediation. The US has also established bases, even if temporary, in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and now has good rapport with these Central Asian states as also with Kazakhstan to the north, fulfilling long-cherished strategic goals and lessening Pakistan’s importance in the US scheme of things. In any case, US naval presence has now been stabilised in the Arabian Sea, and likely to remain there, giving it huge leverage in the region.

With the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Pakistan will also have additional worries. Pakistani jihadi fighters belonging to Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and other extremist organisations have been returning to Pakistan after fleeing towns in Afghanistan where they were fighting alongside the Taliban and Al Qa’ida forces. Pakistan has arrested over 80 such returnees at a border-crossing them and declared that the "law would take its course". After having strenuously denied that HuM even exists in Pakistan, this will be another test for the Pakistani leadership’s apparent new resolve to distance itself from extremists who would now be weakened after recent developments in Afghanistan. To what extent this happens, and how this aspect pans out, will have significant impact on the region as well as, of course, on India both of which have been plagued by extremism and terrorism originating from the Afghanistan-Pakistan-Al Qa’ida axis.

Apart from the Pakistani angle, British troops have landed uninvited at the Bagram airport taking it over ostensibly for humanitarian use but also for possible military operations. Presence of British troops in Kabul have also been reported, ostensibly in some kind of peace-keeping role. The British are clearly quite ready to play constable to the US chief of police! Reports are being deliberately circulated about dissensions within the Northern Alliance and possible attempts by it to monopolise power rather than accommodate other elements in a broad-based government, even though Alliance leaders, including their foreign affairs spokesman, Abdullah Abdullah, himself a Pakhtoon, have repeatedly emphasised their commitment to do so.

Indeed, apart from a few cases of lynching of Arab fighters, the Northern Alliance has been displaying considerable maturity, belying all such fears. Western media is even highlighting the possibility of a balkanisation of Afghanistan, with the US working independently with Pakhtoon leaders in southern Afghanistan. Such negative thinking has a habit of becoming reality, especially if it serves some interests such as calling for more direct intervention by western powers with the UN taking a backseat.

Unfortunately, the BJP-led government’s responses have been characterised by its now customary distorted vision as regards Pakistan, towards which it still maintains a touch-me-not attitude, and its readiness to be subservient to the US. Especially under present circumstances, India will gain no great mileage by harping on Pakistani involvement with terrorism as unfolding events will themselves further expose this aspect and add pressure on the Pakistani leadership to isolate extremists threatening the very social fabric of Pakistan. The BJP-led government’s continued refusal to engage with Pakistan and adopt a confrontationist position with regard to it will only add sympathy value to the former internationally and, domestically, rather than further the polarisation between moderate and extremist sections in Pakistan, provide them common ground by rousing anti-India sentiments.

Positive moves to tackle popular disaffection and alienation in Kashmir should now be the priority but the BJP shows no inclination to do so. On the contrary, all evidence points to its desire to further promote anti-Pakistan sentiments as a means to strengthen Hindu extremism and cynically promote a Hindu vote-bank especially in view of the impending crucial UP elections. While some people may derive some short-term satisfaction at Pakistan’s discomfiture, it should be obvious that India’s long-term security interests, as well as the interests of the common people on both sides of the border, lie in a stable moderate Pakistan and resolving Indo-Pakistan differences including over Kashmir.

Prime Minister Mr Vajpayee returned from his three-nation tour of Russia, USA and Britain with smug self-satisfaction although whatever has transpired has been not because of any dexterous diplomacy but despite it and due to unfolding events. In the US, Mr Vajpayee pleaded for expansion of the 6+2 consultation mechanism on Afghanistan involving its six immediate neighbours, the US and Russia, but was rebuffed only for the UN to constitute a 21-member mechanism also including India, China, Turkey and even Sweden clearly because the changed situation now demands more players in a different role than before.

Mr Vajpayee also came back having agreed at US instance to a role for "moderate Taliban" in a future dispensation in Kabul even though this had earlier been described by foreign minister Jaswant Singh as a contradiction in terms. Clearly, Mr Vajpayee has lost whatever special capability he may once have had for foreign affairs. The BJP-led government has yet to wake up to the fact that the US is now strategically lodged next door to India, with a huge and perhaps permanent naval presence (as it established off Iraq a decade ago) only a very few hundred kilometres from Mumbai and that momentous changes have taken place in the region. But then the BJP has one eye turned permanently fixed on Pakistan always seeing darkness, another on the US always seeing light, and its third eye transfixed with the vision of a Hindu rashtra.