Is India Smoothing Way for Daesh in Afghanistan?

By:       Aasef Chauhdry

It is no more a secret; rather talk of the town that Daesh has penetrated even in high ranking Afghan government officials as well. This serious threat has not only upset the ruling Afghan government but has also caused a great disturbance to the Americans who are already trying to contain and neutralize this evil in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the world. Afghan president Ashraf Ghani who was almost towing to Abdullah Abdullah’s policy and had literally fallen to the Indian camp, when learnt through credible sources that Engineer Mohammad Khan, the 1st Advisor and a close friend of Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah has very close links with the Islamic State group also known as Daesh, ISIS or ISIL, he immediately ordered his arrest. While obeying the President’s orders, Afghan forces/agencies immediately put him behind the bar.

The credible sources say that when Indians learnt it through their buddy Abdullah Abdullah, they immediately approached the Afghan president and requested him to release Engineer Muhammad Khan, however Ghani bluntly turned down the Indian request for obvious reasons. So much so that even Ajit Doval, National Security Advisor of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi secretly flew to Afghanistan and personally met Ashraf Ghani, however his efforts remain futile. In this regard, it should be kept in minds that Ajit Doval; the ex-spymaster who is now National Security Advisor of Indian Prime Minister is the real author and controller of India’s offensive-defensive doctrine. Hence, as part of its offensive-defensive doctrine, India is destabilizing Afghanistan—all regional states, while its major focus has always been towards Pakistan, a policy of weakening Pakistan.

In case of Afghanistan, India is playing a dirty and dangerous double game to implement Ajit Doval’s heinous plans. It’s no more a secret that Ajit had visited Iraq and Syria and had met Daesh leaders and undercover Israeli secret agents who were assisting and guiding Daesh. It was only after that tour that he was made the Indian NSA and he openly threatened and warned Pakistan for the grave consequences.   RAW’s well-established network in Afghanistan is an open secret and every one knows that it is in connivance with the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Daesh). On January 13, 2015, at least seven personal of the Afghan security forces died during the suicide attack which targeted the Pakistani consulate in Jalalabad. ISIS claimed responsibility for the terror assault. The attack which coincided with efforts to restart the stalled peace process with Taliban insurgents and ease diplomatic tensions between India and Pakistan, added a dangerous new element to Afghanistan’s volatile security mix. In this context, delegates from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States had met to try to resurrect efforts to end nearly 15 years of bloodshed in Afghanistan.

In this respect, in the recent past, cordial relations were established between Pakistan and Afghanistan when Afghan President Ashraf Ghani who realized that Afghanistan and Pakistan were facing similar challenges of terrorism and would combat this threat collectively, did make some positive moves. However, unfortunately as it has been happening in past the dominating Northern Alliance on the direction of New Delhi and like the former regime of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, forced Afghanistan president to start blaming Pakistan of cross-border terrorism. The only aim is to corner Pakistan and make the cross border terrorist tasks easy for their agents. In the recent past the relations between Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, to some extent turned normal however soon after Engineer Khan’s arrest the differences between both have again aggravated, as the former wants cordial relations with New Delhi at the cost of Afghanistan and the latter prefers Islamabad. Its further supported by the fact that in December 2015, President Ghani accepted the resignation of director of the Afghan intelligence agency, National Directorate of Security (NDS), Rahmatullah Nabil who strongly opposed Ghani’s move to attend the regional conference in Islamabad.

Unfortunately the Afghan NDS is unaware of RAW’s silent encroachment in Afghanistan where the latter has set up its secret network and not only fully assisting cross-border incursions and terror-activities in various regions of Pakistan through Baloch separatist elements and anti-Pakistan groups like Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA), Jundullah (God’s soldiers) and TTP but also making efforts for Daesh to have a strong foothold as first step towards dominating the region.

It is an undeniable fact that Ajit Doval’s cronies are creating law and order problems in Afghanistan. Particularly, Indian nexus with Daesh and TTP leaders like Hakimullah Masood and Mullah Fazalullah has been proved by the recent revelation of the TTP militant Latifullah Mehsood regarding the incident of Army Public School Peshawar and exploitation of Baloch sub-nationalists. Notably, with the start of 2016, frequency of terrorist incidents has increased manifold in Afghanistan, indicating the frustration of the spoiler (India), after her proxies were uprooted from Pakistani soil. Moreover, Afghan people also feel wary of protracted proxy warfare, strife and lawlessness in their country and are desirous for peace. But, New Delhi does not want it.

It’s high time that the US-led western powers should start taking the Indian ingress in Afghanistan seriously and before it is too late. India’s offensive-defensive doctrine God forbid may destabilize Pakistan and Afghanistan, but the worrying fact is that it will destabilize the whole South Asia and may be put the world’s peace at stake.  America must not forget that jeopardizing of the whole region would mean jeopardizing the political and economic interests of America and NATO countries too, which demand stability and peace in the region. It’s certainly a time for the US to abandon her double game with Pakistan.