archive: Look beyond Kargil to Taliban and Bin Laden
Look beyond Kargil to Taliban and Bin Laden
Mahendra Ved
The Times of India
July 9, 1999
Title: Look beyond Kargil to Taliban and Bin Laden
Author: Mahendra Ved
Publication: The Times of India
Date: July 9, 1999
The announcement of sanctions by the United States on the Taliban
rulers of Afghanistan points to the seriousness with which the Western
world is taking the threat of Islamic militancy. Considering that the
US does not recognise the Kabul regime, this is an unusual, if urgent,
measure.
President Clinton acted within two days of his talks with Pakistan
premier Nawaz Sharif on the Kargil conflict. The twin developments
should disabuse Indians of any notion that the US and the G-8 nations
have acted out of any love for Indians or India's Kashmir viewpoint.
They only indicate the growing impatience of the international
community with the mercenary forces led by the likes of Osama Bin
Laden and the Taliban.
Mountain Warfare
When Gen V P Malik spoke of the Taliban "danger" in August last year
in the context of the capture by the Taliban of Mazar-e-Sharief, the
last 'liberal' stronghold in the not-so-distant Afghanistan, sections
of Indian intelligentsia felt the Indian Army Chief was taking an
alarmist view. Today, Kargil has shown that the Taliban-Bin Laden
combine is an adversary common to the international community and
India. Now that Kargil has rallied the international community around
India's stand, it is time these phenomena are watched closely and
acted upon.
India particularly needs to understand this combine for its own
security. For, Bin Laden's men are going to continue to stalk Jammu
and Kashmir, the Sharif-Clinton statement notwithstanding. This
region was their target for jehad long before the Kargil
developments. Their ouster by the Indian Army, assuming that that
operation can be completed, may well be temporary. A defeated
Taliban-Bin Laden force is bound to re-group and re-equip itself and
strike back in the near future. This has been its record in Mazar.
Soundly defeated with over 3,000 killed in May 1997, the Taliban
struck back 14 months later and succeeded.
A basic difference between the Kargil conflict and the earlier wars
India fought with Pakistan over Jammu and Kashmir lies in the
adversary's capabilities. While the past "raiders" were an irregular
force Pakistan forged with indigenous effort, the Mujahideen, now
active in Kashmir fought the Soviets in Afghanistan. They were
trained and equipped by the West. Pakistan played the catalyst and
furthered this role by creating the Taliban, when the Mujahideen would
not listen to them. Today, Taliban has an estimated 50,000 strong
militia, born and bred in the Hindukush terrain, some of the men
trained in mountain warfare and fully equipped to be Pakistan's
auxiliary force.
There is a need to understand this combine because even as Bin Laden
becomes a hate target for the West - a mix of Arafat and Khomeini -
several governments are quietly doing business with the Taliban. A
measure of de facto recognition is being readily extended to Kabul for
the sake of multi-million dollar business even should that spring from
the illegal trade of narcotics.
There is equally a need to understand Bin Laden. He is alleged to
have links with India and, indeed, his bodyguards were found fighting
in Kargil. The West condemns him and he is on the wanted list of
several Arab governments whom he dubs "non-believers". He is feared
by the Central Asian Republics who have no means to fight him. The
Uzbeks and Azeris are up-set at finding their nationals, trained by
Bin Laden, fighting alongside the Taliban.
Pak-Afghan Axis
Even as Kabul blows hot and cold about the activities of its "honoured
guest", it cannot shrug him off. He stays put in Taliban-controlled
territory. In fact, he has emerged as the acceptable mukhauta (mask)
of Islamic militancy, considering that he received a million dollars
from the faithful across the globe in the last three years and that
many the ologians have issued fatwas sup-porting his actions
everywhere, including Kashmir.
Kargil must prompt India to re-vamp its Pakistan policy and make it an
integral part of an Afghanistan Policy of which External Affairs
Minister Jaswant Singh spoke last year in the Cariappa Memorial
Lecture. More so in the context of reports that with the lapse of the
Durand Line that divides Afghanistan and Pakistan, Bin Laden and
Taliban supremo Muhammad Omar, with the sup-port of the fundamentalist
elements in Pakistan, are working for a Pakistan-Afghanistan
confederation. Any development of this kind is bound to affect India.
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