The Taliban conundrum has kept our diplomats, defense officials and geo-peolitics experts confused. Almost everyone is in a “wait and watch” mode. There are all the reasons for them to be so. However, progress has been made from the Indian side by holding talks with Taliban representatives in Qatar on Tuesday. As per the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), India’s Ambassador to Qatar Deepak Mittal met with the head of the Taliban’s political office, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai on 31 August. This indicates that the Indian Government has mellowed down its take on the Taliban.
Considering the circumstances, it was more than likely to happen because it’s a reality that Taliban has taken over Afghanistan and it’s here to stay. It’s shrewd that the Indian Government understood it before delaying the process too much. This becomes important as China has already begun preliminary talks with the Taliban on their cooperation with Taliban in Afghanistan. To neutralise the Chinese impact on Taliban, dialogue with Taliban was imminent and it would be beneficial for India.
Many experts are of the opinion that Indian security officials and diplomats were already engaged with Taliban representatives for several months. This is the first time the government has publicly acknowledged such a meeting. According to the MEA, the meeting took place at the request of the Taliban. According to officials, Taliban leaders want acceptability and India is a major player to this end. However, since India has maintained its cautious approach, Taliban is looking to be in the good books of India by assuring India peace.
According to the statement issued by the MEA, the emphasis of the discussions was on safety, security and early return of Indian nationals stranded in Afghanistan. They also held talks on the travel of Afghan nationals, especially minorities, who wish to visit India. Mittal talked about India’s concern relating to the use of Afghanistan’s soil should not be used for anti-Indian activities and terrorism in any manner.
About 140 Indians and members of the Sikh minority still remain in Kabul, and need to be brought back. So far, India has transported 565 people, including 112 Afghan nationals to Delhi. Going by the MEA statement, the Taliban leader assured the Indian Ambassador that all the issues would be “positively addressed”. Mr. Stanekzai, who trained and graduated out of the Indian Military Academy at Dehradun, made a statement on Saturday calling for India to continue its political and trade ties with Afghanistan, and pursue connectivity projects.
The Haqqani connection
Prior to the meeting and statements, the Indian Government had given many signals that it was ready to change its stance on Taliban as a terrorist group. However, India has always been apprehensive about the Haqqani group, which is a part of the Taliban. Taliban Deputy leader Sirajuddin Haqqani was responsible for the attacks on the Indian Embassy in 2008-2009. The attacks took over 75 lives, including Indian diplomats. India is apprehensive due to a long held notion that Taliban is a proxy of Pakistan.
Nevertheless, in the last few months, the MEA was said to be in touch with various stakeholders in Afghanistan. It didn’t deny that the Taliban was one of them.
In June, one such meeting was confirmed by Qatari special envoy for reconciliation Mutlaq bin Majed Al-Qahtani. After the Taliban takeover of Kabul, when India decided to pull out all embassy staff, gunmen stopped them from leaving for the airport, and the government had to open its channels to the Taliban to safeguard their release.
As per sources, the Embassy in Kabul worked its communications to the Taliban by means of other countries and leaders like former President Hamid Karzai and High Council for National Reconciliation Chief Abdullah Abdullah. It gradually received permission after some money was given, and assurances given that the convoy would travel without weapons so as to reach the airport with Taliban escort. It will be interesting to see if the Modi government will agree to re-establish its diplomatic presence in the country and to recognise a Taliban government, once it is formed.
Countries such as Russia, China, Qatar, Iran and Pakistan have kept their embassies in Kabul open. On the other hand, countries like the U.S, Saudi Arabia, the U.K. and European countries have closed their missions there. On the other hand, the security forces in Jammu and Kashmir are keenly following development in Afghanistan following capture of Kabul by Taliban.
While there are fears that the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan may impact the security situation in the Kashmir Valley, there are also apprehensions that this could escalate terror-related violence in the Union Territory. However, the security officials in the field say that there is little chance of Taliban infiltrating into Kashmir as there is a robust anti-infiltration grid at Line of Control (LoC).
However, the real worry lies in a probable scenario that there could be a weapon upgrade with the Pakistan Army and terrorist groups getting their hands on huge supplies of weapons including stinger missiles captured by the Taliban from the Afghan National Army which surrendered recently.
In another officer’s assessment, Pakistan could manage to lay its hands on some of the 2,000 armoured vehicles, including Humvees, 40 aircraft including the UH-60 Black Hawks, attack helicopters and ScanEagle small drones but a senior officer in the Military Intelligence (MI) said it was too premature to say anything as situation was fluid.
Poonch-Rajouri or North Kashmir vulnerable for attacks
Going by the recent indications of intelligence reports, post-FATF (Financial Action Task Force, an inter-governmental body based in France) review of Pakistan’s handling of terrorism, minimum 25 terrorists have managed to successfully infiltrate. There has been reasonable success in their detection and them being neutralised.
According to intelligence reports, a probable vulnerable terror spot could be Poonch-Rajouri or North Kashmir. Both the areas have seen encounters taking place. The field commanders seem confident of the situation. There have been instances of target killings of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers and political leaders in the Kashmir Valley. The sustained pressure needs to be kept on terror groups.
Several Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives from Pakistan infiltrated months before the Afghanistan situation. The intelligence agencies anticipate that the terror-related violence may increase in months to come, when the Union Territory prepares for its first assembly election since its newly acquired status.
Imminent repercussion unlikely
According to an officer, although the situation is brewing in Afghanistan, the possibility of Taliban infiltrating could be very minimal. However, not all agencies seem to be on the same page in terms of this assessment. According to another officer, as there are too many fighters at hand, there was a likelihood that at least a few thousands could be spared for Kashmir. That would spell trouble.
However, the key assessment is that there may not be any imminent repercussion though preparations are underway to brace for the worst. The field officers feel the impact could be on a different level and local militants could be emboldened carrying sensational attacks on security forces.
There are already indications that things could heat up south of Pir Panjal and key infiltration routes in the Kashmir Valley where even a more stringent vigil has been mounted.
The security apparatus has been reviewed. The worry is to pin down militancy to take out its head in Kashmir and escalate after the victory of Taliban in Afghanistan. There are about 80 new terror recruits.
Several factions of people who have been alienated from the recent developments in Jammu and Kashmir including the historical abrogation of Article 370 seem to be almost joyous in anticipation of Taliban fighters marching towards Kashmir Valley, said an officer in North Block who did not wish to be quoted.
The officer further said that it was an open secret that there had been ties among the terror groups such as Jaish and Lashkar with al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
In the Pulwama chargesheet of the deadliest terror attack of February 2019, in which 40 CRPF soldiers lost their lives, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) mentioned that the main accused Umar Farooq trained at the Sangin camp in the Helmand province of Afghanistan.
The Helmand connection
According to the NIA, around 1,000 Pakistani terrorists are trained at these al-Qaeda and Taliban camps. Incidentally, Helmand has a history of being among the first provinces to come back under control of the Taliban after the Nato operation. Three years before the attack, Umar Farooq was training in a terror camp in May-June 2016 in Helmand and subsequently in September 2016. Also, a well-known fact is that slain terrorist Umar Farooq was the son of Ibrahim Athar, one of the five terrorists who had hijacked the Indian Airlines IC 814 in December 1999 and top JeM terrorist liaising with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The Pakistan Army which has been indulging in proxy war had sent in the Afghan fighters into the Kashmir Valley where few were killed and rest apprehended and returned to their country after their sentence was over. Sources have said that the Afghan terrorists are completely radicalised and would not surrender in encounters.
Security agencies sound confident for the challenges posed by the Taliban and Pakistan militant outfits supported by the Taliban. The Centre has stressed for security forces to maintain a very high alert on both Line of Control (LoC) and International Border (IB) to meet with any threat.
The measures to counter increasing drone droppings along the borders were also discussed. In some of the border areas, anti-drone equipment has been installed while in other areas this will be done shortly.
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