NATO'S Shadow Over South Asia

B. RAMAN / Outlook India 18apr03

When it takes over the command of the ISAF in Afghanistan this summer, it would be the first NATO operation out of Europe since its creation. Some more unilateralism.

The AFP, the French news agency, reported on April 16, 2003, that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) would take over the command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan this summer.

When this happens, this would be the first NATO operation out of Europe since its creation. Under a mandate of the United Nations (UN), the ISAF, created in December, 2001, is responsible for the security of Kabul and its neighbourhood. The US forces, assisted by units from its allies, have assumed upon themselves the responsibility for security and for the search of the dregs of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in southern and eastern Afghanistan bordering Pakistan.

While denying that this could amount to a formal NATO operation, Yves Brodeur, a NATO spokesman, has been quoted by the agency as saying as follows: "The ISAF commander will be chosen by NATO's top military commander. Strategic coordination, command and control will be exercised by NATO through SHAPE (the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe). Neither ISAF nor the mission will change. What is going to change is the means by which the international community meets its commitment (in Afghanistan)."

The ISAF currently comprises about 4,600 troops from nearly 30 countries, including around 2,500 German and 600 Dutch soldiers and assists the Afghan authorities in maintaining security in Kabul. It has been reported that Germany, which presently exercises the leadership of the ISAF under a rotational system and whose leadership expires in August, 2003, had proposed that the NATO take over the leadership on a date to be decided by it. France and Belgium, which were initially opposed to this, are since reported to have agreed to this.

The AFP has quoted a French official in the NATO headquarters in Brussels as saying: "We are not planting the NATO flag in Afghanistan. NATO is anxious to avoid changing the perception in Kabul of what ISAF is." Another unnamed official said: "What we don't want to do, is to give the impression that NATO is going to lead the mission. It is first of all an ISAF mission under the aegis of the UN. All we are doing is providing the structure."

According to Brodeur, George Robertson, the NATO chief, has informed UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan of the alliance decision. The NATO, which has already been providing logistical support to the ISAF, has reportedly asked its military experts to study how the alliance could "maximise" its role in Afghanistan.

The NATO has thus quietly made a backdoor entry into a region, which is of strategic concern to India, Russia, China, Iran and the Central Asian Republics (CARs) and unilaterally assumed the leadership of a UN force without the matter being discussed in the UN and without the member-states of the UN outside Europe, who have been supporting the coalition waging the so-called war against terrorism, being consulted, either formally or informally, in the matter.

One does not know whether Pakistan was consulted. It is also not known whether the concurrence of the Hamid Karzai Government in Kabul was taken and, if so, how the Northern Alliance, which is an important constituent of the Government, agreed to it.

In articles written after the US-led military operation started in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, I had expressed my concern over the US projecting the coalition's operation against the Taliban and Al Qaeda as a war against terrorism with the total emphasis on the military aspect of the operation instead of as a counter-terrorism operation and over the way the rest of the world, and particularly India and other countries of Asia, had accepted such a projection without carefully examining the implications of it.

By saying that "what is going to change is the means by which the international community meets its commitment (in Afghanistan)", the NATO has projected its unilateral decision as the decision of the international community, even though the majority of the member-nations of the international community are not members of the NATO. They have been confronted with a fait accompli.

This decision has come at a time when there are indications of a steady deterioration in the internal security situation in Afghanistan. The dregs of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, now operating from sanctuaries in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) with the connivance of Pakistan's military-intelligence establishment, have staged a come-back in the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan adjoining the Pakistani border. They have been joined in their operations by the Hizbe Islami of Gulbuddin Heckmatyar.

Hamid Karzai's writ continues to be confined to Kabul and his army, raised with Western assistance, is unlikely to be in a position to provide effective protection even in Kabul for months, if not for years, to come. He is not yet sure of the loyalty of his own security forces and police to him and continues to depend on US special forces for his personal security.

The US forces operating in Southern and Eastern Afghanistan have been unable to neutralise the dregs of the Taliban and Al Qaeda and the newly-inducted jihadis of Gulbuddin. The security situation has been made worse by the depredations of the various warlords and narcotics barons of the 1980s vintage, who were inducted into the area by the USA in the hope of using them and their sources and their knowledge of the topography of the area in its hunt for bin Laden and other dregs.

They have been playing havoc in the region and have ignored with contempt the repeated warnings of Hamid Karzai of strong action against them. Well-informed sources say that junior and middle-level US officers in the field feel that they would never be able to deal effectively with the situation so long as the Pakistan Army does not take effective action against the sanctuaries in its territory and so long as the Pentagon and the State Department do not allow them to exercise the right of hot pursuit into Pakistani territory to destroy the terrorist infrastructure there.

The frustration of the US field officers in this regard became evident after an incident involving an US patrol and the Waziristan Scouts of the Pakistan Army towards the end of December last. While the US field officers were vocal in their criticism of the Pakistani security forces and asserted their right of hot pursuit if they were attacked from the Pakistani side, the Pentagon and the State Department in Washington DC played down the incident, quietened their field officers with difficulty and reassured Gen. Pervez Musharraf that there was no question of the US forces exercising any right of hot pursuit into Pakistani territory.

The assurances given by Musharraf post-December of stricter action to prevent the dregs of the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the Hizbe Islami from using Pakistani territory to step up their activities in Afghanistan have not been kept up. Amongst the major incidents recently reported are:

Four foreigners, including a worker of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the Oruzgan Province, were killed in different incidents in March. The last of these incidents took place in the last week of March, when an Italian tourist was shot dead by suspected Taliban elements in the southern Afghan province of Zabul.

Two members of the US special forces were killed in an ambush near the Pakistan border on March 29.

On April 10,ten Afghan troops were killed when suspected Taliban cadres fired rockets on two Khost airports. At least 15 rockets landed on the airports where the Afghan troops are camped. The attack was carried out at dawn from mountain ranges on the Pak-Afghan border and the attackers managed to flee into Pakistan. The incident followed the US attack on Baghdad and reportedly resulted in a lightening visit to Kabul by Gen. Tommy Franks, Commander of the US Central Command, from his headquarters in Doha, to discuss the security situation in Afghanistan with his officers. The fact that despite his preoccupation with the war in Iraq, he found it necessary to visit Kabul indicated the seriousness of the US concerns over the deteriorating situation

On April 12,an Italian patrol in the vicinity of Khost had two hand grenades thrown at it. No casualties were reported.

A cousin and another relative of Kandahar’s Governor, Gul Agha Sherzai, were killed by suspected Taliban militants in the Pakistani border town of Chaman on April 13, while his brother, Sharif Sherzai, was also injured. "Pakistan’s hand is behind this event," Sherzai’s spokesman, Khalid Pashtun, said. He accused Pakistan of backing the re-emergence of the Taliban. The Governor of Kandahar has a house in Chaman. His brothers and other family members frequently visit Chaman along with their armed guards. After the incident, some officers of the Afghan army tried to cross into Pakistan to arrest the Taliban attackers, but the Pakistani border security officials prevented them from doing so. They also refused to arrest the Taliban attackers and hand them over to the Afghan officials.

On April 13, an Afghan, two Pakistanis and a Yemeni, all suspected to be belonging to Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF), were killed in a massive blast as they were unloading explosives at a house in Khost. According to Gen Khial Baz Khan, the Khost military commander, the killed Afghan used to work for the Taliban's intelligence agency. Khan said that after the blast, the security forces recovered a large quantity of weapons and explosives from the house.

In another incident the same day, four people were killed in Karwan Sarui, six kilometers east of Khost, when their car -- packed with explosives for an apparent terrorist attack -- blew up by accident.

The same night, a suspected landmine exploded in east Kabul, at a spot a km away from the US Embassy. Earlier, on April 1, Philip Reeker, a spokesman of the US State Department in Washington DC, issued a statement expressing concern about the increase in security incidents directed at US forces in Afghanistan, aid agencies and other foreigners. In another statement the next day, the Department renewed its existing travel warning for Afghanistan, urging US citizens not to travel to the country because Taliban holdouts as well as members of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network remained active.

On April 11, Hakim Taniwal, the governor of Khost, warned in a press interview that the dregs of the Taliban were regrouping in an effort to step up anti-government militancy. "The reality is that there are increased Taliban-related security incidents compared to the past," he said. His officials said that recently two Taliban fighters and two government soldiers died in a gun battle in the Zhawara District of the province.

There have been at least two serious incidents in Northern Afghanistan involving rival elements of the Northern Alliance, one supporting Gen. Rashid Dostum, the Deputy Defence Minister, and the other opposed to him. In the first incident on April 10, 2003,17 people, mostly soldiers, were killed. In the second incident on April 15, three were killed.

In a statement issued from Brussels on April 14, 2003, the Foreign Ministers of the European Union countries said that security in Afghanistan remained a major concern.

Towards the end of March, US forces had undertaken a special combing operation codenamed OP Valiant Strike to smoke out the dregs of the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the Hizbe Islami in the areas adjoining the Pakistan border. The fact that incidents continued to take place even after this indicated that the operation was not successful.

While US officials continue to maintain that the recent increase in incidents was expected with the onset of spring and that, hence, there was no special cause for alarm, Afghan officials posted in the area say that a situation similar to what had prevailed in the 1980s is slowly developing in the area and that unless the US is able to neutralise the terrorist infrastructure in the adjoining Pakistani territory, history is likely to repeat itself.

B. RAMAN is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Convenor, Advisory Committee, Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter

source: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20030418&fname=raman&sid=1 19apr03