Slain Soldiers and the Afghan-end Game

Four inter-related incidents happened in the course of this eventful week. First, a Pakistan army border commando force ambushed an Indian Army patrol on Indian soil, very near the border in Kashmir  and killed 5 soldiers. Then the government did a flip-flop over pinning responsibility on who exactly did the slayings – the Pakistan Army or irregulars dressed in Pakistan Army uniforms.  A first day statement by defence minister A.K.Antony drafted by the National Security Advisor suggested it was by unknown assailants dressed in Pak Army fatigues. The uproar  that followed forced the government to eat its own words and go back to the original press release issued by the Army which blamed the Pakistan Army’s border action team.

4 Bihar regiment martyrs being brought back

Then came two contrary messages from across the border – terror group Lashkar e Toiba chief Hafeez Saeed in a pre-Eid rally at Karachi threatened more attacks on India and followed it up by tweeting on Eid day : “time is near when those oppressed in Kashmir, Palestine and Burma will celebrate Eid in the air of freedom”. On the other hand, the Pakistan Prime Minister’s special envoy to India, Shahryar Khan in an interview in London blamed Pakistani extremists for the Kashmir killings and said Saeed needs to be checked.

Before Saeed unleashed his terror threat,  India’s hawkish television anchors and former generals had of course unleashed their own verbal `jihad’ demanding a fitting response to Pakistan’s perfidy. While India’s peaceniks launched a counter `love jhad’ going blue in the face reminding everyone of Gandhi’s famous line : `an eye for an eye would  make this world  blind’.  The hawks who were joined by the opposition BJP had a point – Pakistani soldiers had beheaded an Indian soldier ambushed on patrol earlier this year and prime minister Manmohan Singh had then promised a `robust’ response  – no one could see that response on the ground. And then came this killing followed by  a flip-flop.

The argument which came from many in the defence community was - An armyman is mentally readied to die defending his country in war. However, is he expected to become a martyr even when the country is ostensibly at peace? In that case should we accept this `phony’ peace?

In the din of this televised battle no one sought to probe the whys of the story – why did the Pakistan Army chose to do what it did at this stage? Why did the Manmohan Singh government act as it did in the face of strong provocation in an election year, knowing fully well that such a stance could boomerang on its face?

Despite misgivings on our peaceniks part and denials by the Pakistan government who would like to blame `non-state actors’ for the mischief, it should not be doubted that what happened at the border was the doing of the Pakistan Army. For there is no way anything like this can happen without the Pakistan Army sanctioning it. The Kashmir border is one of the most heavily fortified and militarized borders in the world, with concrete bunkers and artillery  batteries abounding. Nearly a lakh Pakistani troop – regular 10 corps as well as the paramilitary Northern Light Infantry are stationed along it or behind it.

Line of Control on the Kashmir front
 

The `Kashmiri militants’/`terrorists’ (mostly recruited from the Punjab and Multan  by organisations like the Lashkar-e-Toiba) who are regularly pushed through that border, crawl across thickly forested `No-man’s land’ while regular Pakistani troops give them covering fire.  They are never allowed to wear Pakistani Army fatigues as that would defeat the denials Pakistan always trots out when challenged on this unique `cold war’.

Why then did the Pakistan Army which really runs the country’s foreign and defence policy regardless of whoever is the civilian prime minister, do this at this time of the year? Especially when Pakistan’s economy is nearly crippled, it desperately needs electricity and gas from India and is under intense international pressure to be friendlier towards its larger neighbour.

The answer perhaps  lies in the Afghan end-game.  The US, with whom the Pakistanis have reluctantly and unwillingly agreed to be partners in the fight against terror, wants Pakistan to keep its troops focused on the Afghan border and its own tribal areas in the North-West, giving protection to the American lines of communications as they pull out. But if  Pakistan guards these lines, it is also expected to see to it that the Taliban which it has been sponsoring does not snipe at the retreating Yanks and/or walk into the spaces vacated by the Americans in Afghanistan.

It pays Pakistani interests if its’ Army can excuse itself from the second part of the task allotted to it, by being `forced’ to withdraw part of the troops posted on its western border on to the Indian border.  The Taliban can then either battle its way to Kabul or threaten the Karzai regime sufficiently to agree to share effective power with it. Talks being held with Taliban to share power, have as yet from the Taliban point of view, yielded nothing much more than just the respectability which comes when an insurgent group is invited for talks by any ruling power.

If the Americans can be `stampeded’, that is forced to quicken their pull-out from Afghanistan and persuaded by mounting casualties not to leave any forces behind to support the Karzai regime, so much better for Pakistan, which wants to use Afghanistan as its strategic backyard. If in the process of `quicker’ withdrawl, the US forces leave behind heavy artillery and equipment, it could prove a boon for the resource starved Pakistani Army.

India which is USA’s unmentioned `other’ ally in the war against terror,  of course does not want to give Pakistan any excuse to pull troops away from the Afghan border and is also under considerable pressure from its new-found Super-power ally to keep the peace with Pakistan, so that the pull-out goes on undisturbed.

This would explain Dr Singh silence on the issue and the flip-flop by his defence minister, who many have sarcastically dubbed `St Antony'. There was perhaps a conscious attempt to give Pakistan a way out from the embarrassment  and uproar caused by the sneak attack.

However all this leads on to another set of questions  – does helping out USA pull out quietly from Afghanistan help India? What will Pakistan do once the Americans have pulled out, leaving  it in the undisputed position of being the strongest military force in all Pashtun speaking lands (which includes  most of Afghanistan and Pashtun speaking provinces and tribal territories in Pakistan)? Will India’s huge investments in Afghanistan remain safe after the Americans pull-out ? (attacks have been mounting on Indian diplomatic posts in Afghanistan as well on Indian built roadways and other ventures by Pakistani supported terror networks) How will all this impact India’s Kashmir region? Or for that matter the terror attacks that India regularly faces from across the border? Can it really count on the Nawaz Sharief government to have the strength or the real desire to reign in Pakistan’s hawks who demand that it feeds terrorists into Kashmir and even to attack targets in Indian cities using `non state actors’ ?

To be concluded