Indian Defence Review

The Historical Context

The Afghanistan problem has to be seen in its historical context when the country became a buffer zone between tsarist Russia and the British Empire in India. It begins with the designs of the British colonial expansion and their desire to keep Russia out of the region. The machinations which followed as a consequence are called “The Great Game”. The power struggle led to the First Anglo-Afghan War between 1839 and 1842. This was followed by Russia capturing the ‘Afghan’ territories of Bukhara, Tashkent and Samarkand in 1865. When the British took control of Kabul after the Second Anglo-Afghan War, Afghanistan was forced to give up control of several frontier districts, including most of today’s FATA and parts of Baluchistan. The British had also devised a special legal structure for the FATA, called the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR), which remains in place today. The guiding principle of the FCR was the creation of a buffer zone in the hinterland between British India and Afghanistan. This buffer zone fell within the Pashtun tribal area between Afghanistan and the NWFP.

In 1873, Russia established a fixed boundary with Afghanistan and promised to respect its territorial integrity. The British, however, fought the Second Anglo-Afghan War from 1878 to 1880. The border between Afghanistan and British India was drawn within this buffer zone in 1893 after the Second Anglo-Afghan War. It was drawn in such a way as to divide and weaken the eleven Pashtun tribes located there who periodically revolted against British colonial rule.3 The line became known as the Durand Line, after Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, the British civil servant who drew it. This line, along with the FCR, strengthened the buffer zone between British India and Afghanistan.4

Ever since their egress from Afghanistan in November 2001, the Talibans command and control structures have re-established themselves in Pakistan, directing insurgency propaganda and activities from a safe haven close to the border with Afghanistan.

The Third Anglo-Afghan War, leading to Afghan independence, was fought between 1919 and 1921. Kabul, which lacked a standing army, used the Pashtun tribes located on the Afghan side of the border in a revolt which led to Afghanistan’s full independence from the British in 1919.5 USA formally recognised Afghanistan in 1934.The twentieth century saw a weakening of the British Empire and increasing nationalist movements against British rule in both Afghanistan and among the tribes in the border regions.

After Britain withdrew from the region, and after the creation of an independent Pakistan, Afghanistan gradually came under Soviet influence. This was formalized when General Mohd. Daoud Khan became Prime Minister, in 1953. Two decades later, a military coup abolished the monarchy and the Republic of Afghanistan was established. The coup in 1978 was primarily against Soviet influence. It led to the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union on 24 December 1979. The US ambassador (Adolph Dubs) was killed and US assistance to Afghanistan cut off.

The decade from 1980 to1989 witnessed the Mujahideen rebellion against Soviet occupation, supported by Western countries and Pakistan by finance, weapons and training. The withdrawal of Soviet troops resulted in civil war between ethnic/tribal groups between 1992 and 1996 till the Taliban emerged as the authority controlling Afghanistan. While the matter of Osama Bin Laden’s training camps in Afghanistan was known for quite a while and the US had even launched cruise missiles attacks on them in 1998, followed by UN Sanctions (Resolution 1267) against the Taliban in October 1999 and additional Sanctions (Resolution 1333) against terrorism and narcotics in 2000. However, it was after the 11 September 2001 attacks that the US-led coalition invaded Afghanistan under Operation Enduring Freedom and ousted the Taliban regime.

The war on terror should know no borders. The international community should address the root causes of terrorism”¦

The Karzai era then followed with his appointment as President of the Transitional Government. It was followed by the Bonn Agreement, which set out a road map for new a Constitution, justice system, democracy, reconstruction and reconciliation in Afghanistan. NATO took over responsibility for the security of Kabul in 2003. Karzai was elected President in 2004 and the Berlin donors’ conference pledged US $8 billion over three years for Afghanistan. It has done little as NATO had to expand its operations to the northern sector of Afghanistan and then the western sector in 2005.

In 2006, the Afghan Compact set out the framework for cooperation between Afghanistan and the international community for the next five years and NATO expanded its stabilisation to the southern and eastern sectors of Afghanistan as the Taliban insurgency gained momentum in the summer, leading to their control of Southern Afghanistan this year. It is now increasingly clear that the ISAF operations are not making headway and Afghanistan stands to revert to the situation that obtained seven years back. At present, neither side can hold sway over the other. They also do not have the ability to absorb or partially subdue the other side in this conflict, where memories run deep.

The Pashtunistan Angle

The Pashtuns in Afghanistan are the largest ethnic group in the country. They are concentrated mainly in the south and east. In Pakistan, the Pashtuns are found in the North-West region. The Pakistani part of Pashtunistan comprises an area that runs from Chitral in the north (where Pashtuns are a minority) to Sibi in the southwest and includes the ethnically mixed region of Balochistan. The Pashtun majority areas in western Pakistan include the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Mianwali District and the northern portion of Balochistan. The main language spoken in the Pashtunistan region is Pashto.

Pakistan has more than double the number of Pashtuns compared to Afghanistan. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, over three million refugees, mostly Pashtuns, migrated to Pakistan.

Pakistan has more than double the number of Pashtuns compared to Afghanistan. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, over three million refugees, mostly Pashtuns, migrated to Pakistan. These refugees are not included in the official count of Pashtuns in Pakistan as they are not Pakistani citizens. The Pakistan’s Pashtuns have integrated into Pakistan and have representation in their armed forces, parliament, political parties, business and civil services.

Despite sharing a common language and believing in a common ancestry, Pashtuns have rarely been united and did not achieve unity until the 18th century, under Ahmad Shah Durrani. During the reign of Amir Abdur Rahman, in the late 19th century, the Afghans gave up nearly half of the Pashtun territories to the British who finalized the Durand Line6 as part of their permanent political border with Afghanistan. In 1905, the North-West Frontier Province was created and roughly corresponded to Pashtun majority regions within the British domain. The Federally Administered Tribal Areas was created to further placate the Pashtun tribesmen who never fully accepted British rule and were prone to rebellions, while Peshawar was directly administered as part of a British protectorate state with full integration into the federal rule of law.

At the time of independence from Britain and the creation of Pakistan, the Pukhtuns did not accept India or Pakistan and announced a boycott of the referendum to decide their future. The fiercely tribalist Pashtuns of NWFP, wary of Jinnah, asked for Pathanistan. The Pashtunistan issue caused diplomatic problems with Afghanistan, which was the only country in the world that voted against Pakistan’s inclusion in the UN. Relations between the two countries deteriorated and the Afghan government declared the Durand Line agreement of 1893 to be null and void. Afghan backed insurgents crossed the Durand Line from Afghanistan to openly combat the Pakistani military between 1950 and 1955, but the issue remained unresolved.

Pakistans security issues along its border with Afghanistan partially explain its support for insurgents in Afghanistan today. However, the militant camps established in western Pakistan also pose a threat to Pakistan itself, by abetting “the Talibanisation” of the NWFP.

Pakistan formally joined the CENTO and Afghanistan established closer ties to the Soviets who declared that they supported the right to self-determination of Pashtunistan. In the 1970s, the Pakistan government decided to support Islamist opponents of the Afghan government including future Mujahidin leaders Gulbadin Hekmatyar and Ahmed Shah Masood. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and civil war in Afghanistan sidelined the Pashtunistan issue.

Prominent proponents of the Pashtunistan cause included the late Khan Wali Khan and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who stated in the Pakistan Constituent Assembly in 1948 that he simply wanted “the renaming of his province as Pakhtoonistan, like Sindh, Punjab, etc.” Khan Abdul Wali Khan is remembered for having eloquently replied to a Pakistani critic of the Pashtunistan cause, who asked him if he considered himself a Pakistani Muslim first or a Pashtun, by stating that: “I have been a Pashtun for six thousand years, a Muslim for thirteen hundred years, and a Pakistani for twenty-five.” This has become an often repeated sentence by Pashtun nationalists. However, the Pashtunistan cause is often relegated to their tribal affiliation rather than nationality by independent Pashtun tribes.