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India worried over rise of Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

New Delhi, Oct 8, IRNA
India-Taliban-Worried
The Indian intelligence is worried about the rise of the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan but there has been no response, officially or otherwise, by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who did not raise the issue in his meeting with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in Havana last month.

"The phenomenal growth of the Taliban is simply not on the government's radar screen."
The intelligence reports suggested stacking of arms and weapons by the Taliban in areas very close to Kabul. The Taliban, that has strong popular support and is now also projecting itself as a "force against foreign (US) occupation", is well armed and well trained, said a report published in Asian Age, here today.

The Indian intelligence has sufficient information here to show that there has been a major change in the profile of the Taliban, pre-9/11 and now.

The earlier Taliban was essentially what former additional secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat B. Raman describes as a "rag-tag militia of students from the Deobandi madrasas of Pakistan" who did not demonstrate great fighting capability.

The cadres were certainly not motivated enough to carry out suicide terror attacks, and disappeared when confronted by the US forces.

The new Taliban has shown far greater fighting capability, appears to be very well trained, well armed and highly motivated.

Suicide attacks have become part of the Taliban arsenal, and it has been fighting the US and NATO forces directly in fierce battles where it is not always the loser.

Well-known journalist and author Ahmed Rashid, writing for the London Daily Telegraph, reported on Friday that NATO commanders are demanding their governments get tough with Pakistan over the support and sanctuary its security services provide to the Taliban.

He has mentioned commanders from Britain, the US, Denmark, Canada and Holland as being frustrated over the fact that US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who had met President Musharraf , were refusing to call his bluff.

A NATO commander has been quoted in the report as saying, "Our boys in southern Afghanistan are hurting because of what is coming out of Quetta." The report states that the Taliban has been using Balochistan to coordinate the insurgency and to recuperate after military action.

NATO has captured 160 Taliban, of whom many are reportedly Pakistanis and have described in detail the ISI support to Taliban.

Mr Karzai, and now more recently Afghan defence minister Gen.

Rahim Wardak, are on record pointing towards Pakistan as being responsible for the rise of the Taliban. The Afghan general said, "Taliban decision making and its logistics are all inside Pakistan." India's national security adviser M.K. Narayanan had earlier, in the wake of the Indian construction workers kidnapping and murder, been categorical that this was masterminded by Pakistan.

The government at the time claimed to have sufficient proof of this. Nothing has been heard of this since, despite the fact that the Taliban are getting control of large portions of Afghanistan where India has invested over $650 million in reconstruction work.

The Telegraph report details a post-battle intelligence report compiled by the Nato forces that reveals the logistical capability of the Taliban. The Taliban, during the battle in Panjwai area, fired an estimated 400,000 rounds of ammunition, 2,000 rocket propelled grenades and 1,000 mortar shells which arrived slowly from Quetta.

Ammunition dumps found after NATO's Operation Medusa was over showed that the Taliban had stocked over one million rounds of ammunition in Panjwai. The report further maintains that the Taliban had also established a training camp here to teach guerrillas how to penetrate Kandahar, along with a separate camp to train suicide bombers and a full surgical field hospital.

President Musharraf has now admitted that "retired" ISI officers might be involved in supporting the Taliban. He has been insisting that the only way out is for the US and the international community to allow the moderate Taliban into the government, a demand being resisted by President Karzai who, however, has little left to argue with as his authority is just about working in Kabul. Nato, that has now extended its presence with reinforcements to most of Afghanistan, is, according to the Telegraph report, mapping the entire Taliban support structure in Balochistan, ISI-run training camps near Quetta, huge ammunition dumps and arrival points for the Taliban's new weapons and meeting places. The participating governments are, however, very worried about casualties and the impact of body bags on public pinion at home.

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