Aren’t Afghans Throwing Stone in Their Own Garden?

By Sohail Parwaz

The things were gradually coming under control on the western front since the relations with Afghanistan were gearing up positively, however due to some self created misunderstandings by the Afghan authorities; there was a momentary hold-up in the relations between the two countries. The strange thing is that with the slight corrosion in the bilateral relations, out of the blue the terrorists activities inside Pakistan were at a notable rise which was a clear warning towards the fact that such heinous acts can’t take place without the abetment of some unknown elements of the Afghan authorities who still have a long to have romance with the Indians and their notorious intelligence agency RAW.

Pakistan, always had a great regard for the Afghan president Ashraf Ghani and has assured him Pakistan’s fullest support and so is the response reciprocated back by the latter however the Karzai loyalists still aggressively functional in the lower tiers of the Afghan government are incessantly creating hurdles for the sincere Afghan government. There were few terrorists attack launched in the recent past, leaving behind the foot prints enough to believe that the terrorists had a linkage and support by the elements of Afghan intelligence. However the Pak government and categorically the Pak armed forces have always shown remarkable tolerance and maturity while reacting on such terrorist acts from across the border. Pakistan’s foreign affairs advisor Mr. Sartaj Aziz had recently visited Afghanistan and made it clear to his Afghan counterpart that it’s becoming more and more hard for Pakistan to tolerate such irritating activities day by day.

Sadly, the ineffective and weak Afghan authorities didn’t succeed in controlling these border-crossings and finally the things came to a stage when on Friday, September 18, 2015, in the wee hours of the morning a group of thirteen to fourteen terrorists attacked a heavily-guarded Pakistan Air Force base in Badhaber area on the outskirts of Peshawar killing at least 29 persons posted at the base, most of them were either in the base’s mosque at that time or were preparing for the namaz.

Security officials said the attackers split into three groups after entering the camp, with two moving to a residential area. The third group approached the mosque and sprayed worshippers with bullets as they prayed. According to details the number of casualties was confirmed at 29, of which 15 were martyred in the mosque, 7 while performing ablution in the barracks next to the mosque, three army persons including one officer, embraced martyrdom while fighting the terrorists and four civilians employed at the base also met their maker. The encounter began immediately due to quick response. The attackers were clad in Frontier Constabulary (FC) uniforms, he said. Confirming the attack, ISPR said a clearance operation was underway.

While this analysis is being formed up, the Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asim Bajwa has confirmed the fears in a press conference that the terrorists who attacked Peshawar’s Badhaber airbase’s mosque came from and were controlled from Afghanistan. Addressing a media conference, he said the terrorists wanted to go further but were contained by the quick response force within 50 meter.

The most alleviating part about this operation against the terrorists is that the army troops were alert and watchful. Besides that the QRF (Quick Response Force reached the scene within no time to contain and surround the terrorists in the area of their choice where Captain Asfand Yar Bukhari took them on as the sitting ducks while leading his troops from the front and embraced Shahadat.

Following the attack, keeping up the tradition, Army chief General Raheel Sharif and Air Chief Sohail Aman immediately reached Peshawar to visit CMH to meet the injured army and PAF personnel. Later both the chiefs visited Badhaber base to meet the PAF, army and police troops who defeated the attackers and killed all terrorists. It looks as if the terrorists had the knowledge about the base being a radar station and fearing that it was monitoring their cross border, to and fro moments, and were specifically assigned the task to destroy it and inflict heavy life and asset losses.

Although a couple of claims have been made; one through an email to the media by one Khorasani group, a faction of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) who has owned the responsibility for the attack while the other was a forecast by the intelligence agencies who issued a threat alert about a week ago for an attack on any military installation by Qari Saifullah group. The security official said initial investigations confirmed that the attackers had traveled in a vehicle from Bara Tehsil, Khyber Agency to Ghundi area of Jamrud Tehsil.

The attack is repulsed, area is cleared and the situation is well under control while the group sent for a carnage met its fate, nevertheless, it is the time to evaluate and analyse that what could be the possible reasons for such attempt from across the border, especially when Pakistan is extending its sincere hand for an all out cooperation with the Afghan government in every field. An impartial analysis suggests the following reasons:

1. The Afghan governmental set up is still infected with the Indian influence who are not happy about their ousting from the Afghan national affairs and are trying their best to mess up the rapidly improving Pak Afghan relations.

2. Either Afghan government has still not been able to neutralise the terrorists who have taken refuge in Afghan territory after being kicked out of FATA or they are not at all serious about putting them back in their shoes.

3. The Afghan ‘Kachi Basti’ near Sabzi Mandi Islamabad was recently bulldozed after the confirmed reports about the terrorists group residing and operating from there. Some elements of the Afghan government didn’t like that security action taken by the Pakistan government since it was a heaven and a hub for the terrorist activities anywhere in Pakistan.

Whatever the reasons are but one thing is for sure that the Badhaber attack has left behind a question mark on the Pak Afghan relations. If in the past the Afghan, ESAF troops and jets could violate Pak air space and land in the name of chasing and punishing the terrorists who were operating from FATA then what stops or bound Pakistan from chasing the terrorists and militants operating from the Afghan soil according to the confirmed reports? Pakistan certainly reserves the right to chase and chastise the culprits even if our troops have to go deep inside any neighboring country, may that be Afghanistan or some other dominion. General Raheel Sharif’s address on the Defense Day that, “May it be Hot Start or Cold Start, conventional or unconventional war, we are ready”, was not meant for the Indians only. The earliest the Afghan government realizes the consequences of such lapses and follies the better it would be in their own interest.