Barbarity In Kabul

 There is a picture of Faiz Hameed, the chief of Pakistan’s In­ter Services Intelligence (ISI) along with Mansoor Ahmad Khan, Islamabad’s envoy to Kabul, sipping tea in Kabul’s Serena Hotel days after the US’ disastrous exit from the country. On that day in September 2021, Hameed told inquisitive journal­ists, “All will be well.” It was his way of saying that Afghanistan was in Pakistan’s grip.

Predictably, that bout of braggadocio did not end well. The proud Afghans, who never accepted overlordship of anyone, chafed and then rebelled against Pakistan’s efforts to control them. Today, Pakistan is wreaking vengeance on a country that it once described as its “brother”. In an attack by Pakistan, 400 persons were killed and another 250 were injured. The attack not only killed hundreds of persons but also de­stroyed a drug rehabilitation hospital in the Afghan capital. It is among the scores of attacks on Afghanistan in recent months by Pakistan.

The east­ern provinces of the country—Paktia, Paktika and Kunar—have borne the brunt of these attacks.The ostensible reason for Pakistani anger at Afghanistan is the latter’s “unwillingness” to stop the Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan (TTP)—that allegedly has sanctuary in Afghan territory—from mounting at­tacks within Pakistani territory. TTP itself is a product of Pakistan’s flawed policy of ‘good militants versus bad militants’. The ‘good’ ones are allegedly those groups that serve as proxies for Pakistan’s interests in Afghanistan and India, while the ‘bad ones are those who operate within Pakistan.

In the welter of proxy warfare prac­tised by Islamabad since 1980, it has become difficult to control these groups. If Afghanistan alone were responsible for Pakistan’s problems, the violent response could be understood. But it is hard to figure who’s who in Pakistan. Balochistan is in flames as are vast stretches of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. And yet, in a classic Pakistani ploy, ‘others’ are to be blamed for Islamabad’s mess. This is unten­able as is Pakistan’s barbaric violence against Afghanistan.