New Delhi
8 October 2009
The second attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul in 15 months, coming as it
does after the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, only reinforces New Delhi's argument that the
international community needs to call Pakistan's bluff of cooperating fully against
terrorism.
New Delhi's position reflected itself in Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao's concluding
address Wednesday to an international seminar here on "Peace and Stability in
Afghanistan: The Way Ahead".
She said: "The international community should put effective pressure on Pakistan to
implement its stated commitment to deal with terrorist groups within its territory,
including [the] Al Qaeda, Taliban's Quetta Shura, Hizb-e-Islami, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and
[other] terrorist groups.
"Without this, the gains made over the past eight years will be compromised and it will
become difficult to forestall the restoration of status-quo-ante to a situation similar to
what prevailed prior to 11 September 2001."
The attack on the Indian mission came the day after United States President Barack
Obama and his advisers spent the eighth anniversary of the US-led invasion of
Afghanistan on Wednesday reviewing their strategy by focussing exclusively on
Pakistan.
The review comes barely six months after Obama launched his Af-Pak strategy amid
much fanfare on 27 March.
The Obama Administration's latest attempt to wriggle out of the Afghan conundrum by
proposing a 'Pakistan First' approach has got off to an ominous start.
Thursday's was the fourth such attack in Kabul since August. Last month, a suicide car
bomb attack on an Italian military convoy killed six Italian soldiers and 10 civilians.
Obama is mulling whether to send additional American troops to Afghanistan even as his
European allies find themselves running out of excuses for staying on as casualties
mount.
Kanwal Sibal, a former foreign secretary, said that the latest attack on the Indian
Embassy in Kabul shows the unspeakable nature of the Taliban -- in Afghanistan and
Pakistan -- and the forces behind it.
Mr Sibal said: "India has modest ambitions in Afghanistan. Our assistance is
exceptionally development-oriented. We have to understand the motives, which are
clear: hatred of India, politically and religiously; and intolerance toward Indian presence
in Afghanistan.
"Indian interests in Afghanistan are independent of the US' or the Obama
Administration's [but] they must not encourage Pakistan when it tries to extract a price
for its cooperation in the war on terror by asking for reduction of Indian presence in
Afghanistan."
Rajiv Sikri, a former Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, said that the timing of
the attack is not coincidental. He saw it as a reaction of some section of the Pakistani
establishment to the pressure from Washington, and India served as an obvious target.
"[The US] needs to keep India as a part of the solution. There is a need to reconnect
Afghanistan economically to India. Unless Pakistani goal changes, Afghanistan will
remain a mess," Mr Sikri said but added that reversing decades of strategic thinking will
not be easy.
Ms Rao amplified those sentiments by saying that the increase in terrorist actions in
Afghanistan is linked to the support and sanctuaries available in the contiguous areas,
and the challenge is now about how to put Obama's Af-Pak strategy into effect, for which
there is no quick-fix solution.
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