Afghanistan: Taliban Revival Transforms War On Terror Amid Tough Choices For Pakistan.

*** Hints That President Musharraf May Push For Recognition Of Israel Have Been Strongly Condemned By Pakistani Pro-Taliban Parties In The NWFP And Baluchistan; Any Such Move By The General Would Spark Off A Revolt In These Provinces, Which Have In Some Ways Begun To Look Like Taliban-Ruled Afghanistan

*** The US Is Dispatching Its 10th Mountain Division Back To Afghanistan

*** Border Clashes Between Afghan And Pakistani Forces Highlight The Fragility Of The Durand Line 

NICOSIA - A highly placed APS source warns that the US is gradually sinking into a trap in Afghanistan laid by a combination of Al Qaida terrorists, a former Taliban leadership associated with the forces of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and those in the Pakistani military establishment who see the regime of Hamid Karzai in Kabul as a threat to their geo-strategic interests. The trap - not very different from the one which snared the former Soviet Union - involves hit-and-run guerrilla tactics against a far superior power which has not been able to control their safe haven.

During the anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s, Pakistan functioned as a safe haven for Afghan mujahedin under US protection. Now nuclear-armed Pakistan continues to be a safe haven, but is protected by a different rationale: the US is worried that action which would undermine its President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, could result in a radical Islamist takeover in Islamabad with the atomic weapons falling directly into the hands of any one of a number of groups on the US State Department's terrorism blacklist. These groups are simultaneously active against Indian forces in the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir.

With the global media focusing on American casualties in Iraq, anti-US fighters in Afghanistan have over the past several months become increasingly bold in their attacks. The source believes such attacks will intensify in the months ahead. The frontier region of Spin Boldak on the Afghan side of the Durand Line - which separates Pakistan from Afghanistan but which remains unrecognised by Kabul as a boundary - has become a haven for anti-US fighters who can easily slip across the border into Pakistan. On the Pakistani side, local officials have indicated that their orders are to neither harass nor help these fighters; in practice, this amounts to assistance, because Taliban and Hekmatyar sympathisers in the area provide material support. Mullah Omar himself, for instance, is said to be constantly on the move within the Pakistani provinces of Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Much depends on the course of events in Pakistan, which is now facing this combination of challenges: (a) domestic political turbulence, with growing calls for Musharraf to relinquish his title of Chief of Army Staff, at a time when the NWFP is under the political control of the Muttahida Majlis Alliance (MMA), a pro-Taliban grouping of radical Islamists; and (b) slow but potentially promising rapprochement with India, where Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has agreed to resume dialogue with Islamabad provided terrorism across the Line of Control in Kashmir comes to an end (see overleaf).

Meanwhile, less than two years after the ouster of the Taliban regime, Afghanistan remains inherently unstable and the pro-West regime of Hamid Karzai (protected by American bodyguards) exercises little power beyond Kabul. Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have been fast deteriorating in recent weeks, following a comment by Musharraf that Karzai does not have much authority beyond Kabul. The Pakistani embassy in the capital was ransacked on July 8, prompting an apology from Karzai. But Afghan military forces and Pakistani frontier guards have been exchanging intermittent fire on their common border since then.

The UN has suggested it is ready to mediate. The US has held talks on the issue with the Kabul and Islamabad governments. Yet the fact remains that Karzai's control does not extend beyond Kabul and Northern Alliance areas held by key members of his government.

Afghanistan was the first post-9/11 challenge for the US, but the developments there highlight the risks that lie ahead in other areas where it is using a combination of military and diplomatic forces to achieve local objectives. The US is currently spending $900-950m per month on its military presence in Afghanistan - compared to about $3,900m it is spending in Iraq. It cannot leave Afghanistan at this point without risking a takeover of that country by the Taliban/Hekmatyar/Qaida alliance, and thus accepting defeat in a key part of its campaign against terror.

Implications Of Indo-Pakistani Rapprochement: The reduction of tension between New Delhi and Islamabad will have a positive impact on Afghanistan. This is because, in the event of peace between the two countries, it is assumed that Pakistan would feel less inclined to intervene in Afghanistan in order to try and establish a friendly regime there - or at least large pockets of friendship in Pashtun-dominated areas. The current regime in Kabul is not regarded as friendly, although President Karzai (who has very good ties with India) has generally adopted a positive tone in relations with Musharraf.

Islamabad is more concerned by the fact that Karzai's administration is dominated by leadership figures of the Northern Alliance, a grouping of Tajik, Uzbek and Shiite interests which blames Pakistan for the violence faced by Afghanistan over the past two decades - and for the assassination of their legendary leader Ahmad Shah Masood, the Lion of Panjshir, just days before the 9/11 attacks. India has taken advantage of its close links to the Northern Alliance to boost its influence in Afghanistan, with consulates in Jalalabad, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kandahar and Heart already established.

While Indo-Pakistani rapprochement may lead to peace eventually, the opening steps for real dialogue are yet to materialise. New Delhi has said talks will not begin until terror strikes across the Line of Control dividing Kashmir between the two countries come to an end. Islamabad denies that it is providing any aid to Islamist groups launching such attacks. At best for the moment, the Vajpayee government is ready to "talk about talks", i.e. initial discussions will be about the modalities of the actual negotiations on a settlement to a number of points on which there is disagreement, including the Kashmir question. This means there could be a period of relative calm, but that depends on domestic political stability in Pakistan.

One of the focal points of domestic instability is that Musharraf holds a number of key posts, especially that of the president and chief of staff. This is resented by senior army officers, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mohammed Aziz Khan, who helped Musharraf take over in the October 1999 coup. But Aziz Khan is also known as a "mullah's general" with strong Islamist leanings. He recently warned that politics and the uniform do not go together, an indirect but clear hint of disapproval of Musharraf. It is important to note that that comment was made when Musharraf was on a visit to Washington. At the same time, the radical Islamist leaders are becoming increasingly bold in directly attacking Musharraf's policies in the media, in particular his close co-ordination with the US on a number of strategic issues - including the country's nuclear capability and his recent suggestion that Pakistan should establish relations with Israel.

A key factor is that the Pakistani military establishment has traditionally regarded Afghan territory as providing "strategic depth" in the event of a war with India. It views the insurgency in Kashmir as a way to "bleed" India while not escalating to an all-out war. In practice this has meant that the Pakistani military, through its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, has tried to install friendly regimes in Kabul (the Taliban was one example) and has facilitated the training and infiltration into India of terrorists who target Indian military forces as well as civilians in Kashmir.

Musharraf is now faced with the prospect of ending both levers of the ISI under threats of a "limited war" by the Indian side, if the attacks intensify in the summer months, and of a US assault on Pakistani territory if the Taliban/Hekmatyar/Qaida revival begins to inflict more casualties on American forces. Backing down on either of these issues will earn him the wrath of the hardliners in the military establishment who find that, after years of cultivating strategic space in the region, the gains are now being reversed. Thus, Musharraf's choice is either to accommodate the military/Islamist hardliners, which will mean upsetting the US, or satisfy Washington which would mean risking domestic instability. The APS source says Musharraf will not risk the latter. His "double game" in allowing the Taliban/Hekmatyar alliance and Al Qaida to survive in the border regions is an indicator of the choice he has made. And the current rapprochement between Pakistan and India is not indicative of any real shift in either country's position on Afghanistan.