ISI: A common enemy of India, Afghanistan

Kabul: In 2001, the United States of America and its allies launched the war against terrorism after the world was stunned by the daring attack at the World Trade Centre.

Seven years later Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar are still at large.

Taliban has regrouped but this time just across Afghanistan's southern borders in Pakistan's volatile Federally Administered Tribal Areas and North-West Frontier Province.

"We want peace and security to rebuild this country but we will not allow people to cross our border and attack us. So what we want is the possibility of hot pursuit of those who are crossing our borders and attacking our people and friends," Zalmay Rasoul, National Security Advisor, Afghanistan, says.

People like Baitullah Mehsud are the new sources of Taliban-inspired terrorism emerging in the tribal areas of Pakistan, staging beheadings of those allegedly collaborating with the security forces and launching a series of attacks across the Pakistani border on the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

"Baitullah Mehsud is officially announcing in a press conference that we are going to bring jehad in Afghanistan that means what? It is an attack to our soil so we have a right to defend ourselves," says Zalmay.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates says, "There is a real need to do something on the Pakistani side of the border to bring pressure to bear on the Taliban and some of these other violent groups."

Media reports suggest NATO troops are mobilising on the Afghan side of the Durand Line just days after 15 American soldiers were killed by the Taliban in Southern Afghanistan, close to the Pakistan border.

But it was the suicide bombing of the Indian Embassy on July 7 that forced India and the international community to revisit the close ties between Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Taliban.

"I hold the ISI guilty. I do not hold the Pakistan government pre se necessarily as complicit in this but we'll trust and verify. But I am very clear in my mind the villain of the peace is the ISI," SOT: MK Narayanan, National Security Adviser, says.

"I agree with Mr Narayanan in this view. I name ISI to organize it from the indications that we have. The intelligence service has been behind it," says Rasoul.

Intelligence sources told CNN-IBN that the 324 Field Intelligence Unit attached to the Peshawar-based XI Corps of Pakistan Army was involved in the attack.

Kabul is crawling with Afghan secret service officials looking for Pakistani agents let loose by Adam Khan, the Kabul Station Head of ISI.

The attack on the Indian embassy followed by series of Taliban strikes in Southern Afghanistan killing scores of civilians and NATO troops, many of them Americans provoked Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai to speak his mind.

"We know who martyred the people in Kabul. Now this has become clear. And we have told the government of Pakistan that the killings of people in Afghanistan, the destruction of bridges in Afghanistan are carried out by Pakistan's intelligence and Pakistan's military departments," President Karzai says.

Karzai's words had an immediate effect.

US President George W Bush says, "First of all, we'll investigate his charge and we'll work with his service to get to the bottom of his allegation. Some extremists are coming out of parts of Pakistan into Afghanistan. And that's troubling to us, it's troubling to Afghanistan, and it should be troubling to Pakistan."

A resurgent Taliban is a concern for India too.

"We apprehend that there will be further intensification of attacks. We have enough information that there are at least three or four specifically targeted attacks on our personnel including our two consulates at Kandahar and Jalalabad. I think on the long term basis we will have to look at really fortifying some of these places," Narayanan says.

Foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, who was in Kabul days after the attack, says, "Every leader I met saw this as an attack on both India and Afghanistan. I told them that our commitment to the reconstruction of Afghanistan is unwavering."

Strong commitments in Afghanistan need stronger security measures. In the next two weeks India will deploy more personnel from the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).

Their primary role will be to secure the Indian Embassy in Kabul and four other consulates in Afghanistan.

To begin with the Indian Embassy in Kabul could have more than 100 ITBP personnel deployed on security duties. About that same number could be stationed at each of the four consulates in Jalalabad, Mazar-i-Sharif, Herat and Kandahar.

ITBP personnel would also be tasked to secure infrastructure projects where Indians are present in substantial numbers.

The ITBP personnel undergo the same training and conditioning as Army infantry units.

As the force operates in the mountains it may have less problem acclimatising to Afghanistan.

With the security of Indian missions being strengthened, both India and Afghanistan are keen to get on with the business of deepening and widening their relationship.

Afghanistan Presidential Spokesperson Humayun Hamidzai says, "We would like to expand multilateral cooperation with India. Would like to expand as much as possible stability to Afghanistan."

In packed press conferences at the Foreign Ministry in Kabul Hamidzai has been voicing President Karzai's view that Pakistan's ISI along with Taliban will not be allowed to destabilise New Delhi's growing ties with Kabul or launch terror attacks inside Afghanistan and kill civilians and troops belonging to the Afghan National Army and NATO.

The message is clear.

"We will not tolerate people who come in and attack us and our friends. That's the message," Rasoul says.

In an official briefing in the Foreign Ministry, Afghan government spokesperson once again laid the blame on Pakistan's ISI for staging terror attacks on Afghanistan.

It is in this context that the increased deployment of ITBP to secure Indian missions in Afghanistan must be looked at.

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