India-Pakistan rivalry reaches into Afghanistan

Navtej Sarna, spokesman for the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in New Delhi, blames the grenade attack and others on what he calls "ISI-trained terrorists." The ISI is an acronym for Pakistan's ultrasecret Inter-Services Intelligence department.

Both India and Pakistan have additional consulates in Herat, Mazar-e Sharif, and Kandahar. India reopened its diplomatic buildings after the fall of the Taliban.

"It's for the Afghans to decide which countries get to set up consulates in their countries," says Mr. Sarna. "We have strong bilateral relations with Afghanistan, and we want to help them rebuild their country. India also sees Afghanistan as a route to Central Asia. So it has nothing to do with Pakistan."

For its part, Pakistan blames such attacks on Afghan elements and on Afghanistan's declining security situation in general. And Pakistani officials say that India's activities have less to do with humanitarian aid and more to do with India's top-secret intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW.

Pakistan's allegations range from Indian consulates printing false Pakistani currency to RAW's alleged recruitment of Afghans to carry out acts of sabotage and terrorism on Pakistani territory.

Pakistan also accuses India of setting up a network of "terrorist training camps" located inside Afghanistan, including at the Afghan military base of Qushila Jadid, north of Kabul; near Gereshk in southern Helmand Province; in the Panjshir Valley, northeast of Kabul; and at Khahak and Hassan Killies in western Nimroz Province.

The Monitor was not able to verify these allegations independently. India's spokesman, Sarna, calls these charges "rubbish."

Pakistan also alleges that Indian diplomats prompted Afghan warlord Hazrat Ali, the security commander of Nangrahar Province, to fire artillery shells onto Pakistani Army positions in Pakistan's Mohmand tribal agency last month. Mr. Ali maintains that Pakistani Army troops have moved 25 miles into Afghan territory. Pakistan replies that they have deployed troops on the border, at America's urging, to prevent cross border attacks by the Taliban.

"Pakistan very much wants a stable Afghanistan, because they are next to us, and any instability up there will leak into Pakistan," says a senior official in the Pakistani Foreign Ministry. "But as for the Indians, we told Afghanistan that if they open those consulates in southern Afghanistan, the only purpose is cross border terrorism into Pakistan."

Noting that coalition forces have only 11,500 troops to patrol a country larger than France, the Pakistani official says it is plausible for India to set up small, mobile training camps in Afghanistan, if it had the cooperation of the Afghan government.

Then the Pakistani official uses an argument that Indians have used for decades about Pakistani based militant groups fighting in Afghanistan and Kashmir, "Terrorism is a fungible commodity," he warns. "Once you use terrorists somewhere, they can be deployed somewhere else. America trained people to fight against the Russians, and then they got used somewhere else."

Page: 1 | 2