Taylor & Francis SECURITY ISSUES IN SOUTH ASIA RAJAT GANGULY

Transcription

1 SECURITY ISSUES IN SOUTH ASIA INTRODUCTION The security environment in South Asia, a region comprising India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan and the Maldives, remained volatile in While several established sources of insecurity such as the unresolved dispute in Kashmir between India and Pakistan, the spread of terrorist and criminal networks in the region, internal schisms and fissiparous tendencies in several South Asian states, and political uncertainty in Afghanistan continued to destabilize the region, some new and resurgent challenges in the form of border skirmishes between India and Pakistan, an increase in militant attacks and ethnic violence in Pakistan, an intensification of violence related to the Maoist insurgency in India, and growing communal tensions and extremist activity in Sri Lanka have reinforced South Asia s status as one of the most dangerous regions in the world. THE KASHMIR QUESTION AND CONTINUED INDO PAKISTANI HOSTILITIES Hostile relations between India and Pakistan, South Asia s two largest states, have been a key source of insecurity in this region over the past six decades. The roots of this hostility can be traced back to the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, when a growing freedom movement hastened the decision of the United Kingdom to end its 200 years or so of rule in India. When compromise between the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim League over power-sharing proved elusive, a complex formula was devised to partition British India into two states India and Pakistan. Under the partition plan, contiguous Muslim majority provinces of British India eventually formed the new state of Pakistan, with the border provinces of Bengal and Punjab (with nearly equal numbers of Hindus/Sikhs and Muslims) divided in half. The partition resulted in a massive population migration accompanied by severe communal violence and rioting. Millions died as a result of communal slaughter, dislocation, hunger, hardship and disease. In this highly polarized and vitriolic environment, the Congress and Muslim League leaders argued bitterly over the division of public assets between the two new states. A further arena of fierce competition between the two states was the status of the 565 princely states, which were nominally sovereign under the British, but now had to choose between the newly created states of India and Pakistan. All the princely states, with the exceptions of Hyderabad, Junagadh, and Jammu and Kashmir (hereafter referred to as Kashmir), had joined either India or Pakistan by the time the British transferred power. Junagadh and Hyderabad, located deep within India, were forcibly annexed by the Indian Government after their rulers expressed the desire to join Pakistan. Kashmir, however, posed a problem. The state had a Muslim majority, but a Hindu ruler, who entertained the notion that by joining neither India nor Pakistan, he could become the sovereign ruler of an independent state. This was, however, unacceptable to India and Pakistan. Since the state was contiguous to both India and Pakistan, both sides claimed it, but for different ideological reasons: Pakistan claimed it on the basis of religion, while India claimed it on the strength of its secular and democratic credentials. The ideological conflict between the two sides quickly escalated into a full-scale military confrontation, which was eventually brought to an end in January 1949 by the intervention of the UN. At the time of the UN-brokered ceasefire, Kashmir was effectively divided, with India controlling roughly two-thirds of the territory and Pakistan the other third. The Indian portion consisted of three distinct regions: the Kashmir Valley, Jammu and Ladakh. The Pakistani-controlled area consisted of Azad (Free) Kashmir, Baltistan and the Northern Areas. Over the next 25 years, the 1949 Ceasefire Line (CFL), with minor modifications, became the Line of Control (LoC) or the de facto RAJAT GANGULY border between the two states in Kashmir. However, Kashmir remained a dangerous point of contention between the two nations. Pakistan launched another military offensive in 1965 in an attempt to seize Indian Kashmir by force. However, the Indian military mounted a strong counter-attack, and the status quo ante was finally restored upon the signing of a USSR-brokered peace agreement in January The Pakistani military s crackdown on Bengali secessionists in East Pakistan in 1971 created an enormous refugee burden for India and precipitated a third Indo Pakistani war. During the war over East Pakistan, the Pakistani military countered by attacking Indian Kashmir. However, this war in Kashmir proved to be of short duration and did not change the military position. Indo-Pakistani relations over Kashmir became particularly tense in the 1990s after a secessionist insurgency broke out in the Indian-controlled Kashmir Valley. The Indian Government alleged that the insurgency was instigated and supported by Pakistan. Most impartial observers, however, concurred that while the insurgency against Indian rule in the Kashmir Valley was mainly the result of bad governance on the part of national and local élites, once it broke out, Pakistan actively encouraged it, as it offered the Government in Islamabad a relatively inexpensive and effective way to tie down the Indian military in costly and unpopular counter-insurgency operations, discredit India s secular and liberal credentials, and slowly undermine its hold over the region. In early 1990 India and Pakistan appeared to be on the brink of a full-scale war over Kashmir, which was averted only by US political intervention. Tempers flared up again in 1992 after an historic mosque (Babri Masjid) was destroyed in India by Hindu fanatics, and again in mid-1998 in the immediate aftermath of controversial nuclear weapons testing by India and Pakistan. In this charged atmosphere, the prospect of a real nuclear exchange (no matter how limited) between the two countries seemed fairly high given the long history of animosity between them, their zero-sum mentality regarding Kashmir and the hardening of emotions on both sides of the LoC following the nuclear weapons tests. Although the immediate consequences of the nuclear tests were diffused by US diplomacy, an undeclared border war broke out in Kashmir in May 1999 when local insurgents and foreign volunteers, supported by regular Pakistani soldiers, attacked Indian positions across the LoC in the Kargil sector, and occupied large tracts of land and several unmanned peaks and ridges on the Indian side. Although initially stunned by the suddenness and scope of the border incursion, India s military response was robust and determined. The real question during this war was whether it would escalate into a bigger showdown, perhaps even involving nuclear weapons. Thankfully, in July the status quo was restored after a massive Indian counter-offensive, and intense US diplomatic pressure forced Pakistan to withdraw its own troops and the insurgent forces under its control from the Indian side of the LoC. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in the USA on 11 September 2001, when Pakistan was elevated to the status of a frontline ally by US President George W. Bush in return for Pakistan s support for the US-led war on terror and invasion of Afghanistan, the military regime led by Gen. Pervez Musharraf increased its support to terrorist organizations operating against India. In late 2001 and early 2002 the Pakistan-based organization Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) carried out daring terrorist attacks in different parts of India, including an attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi. Public opinion in India revealed strong support for a decisive war with Pakistan. The Indian Government reacted by mobilizing and deploying the Indian military on the Indo Pakistani border and by placing the forces on the highest state of alert; Pakistan responded in similar fashion. The Indian Government also recalled its ambassador from Islamabad and revoked Pakistan s over-flight permission. With two of the world s largest 15

2 armies thus squared up to each other, war in South Asia appeared imminent. Under intense US pressure, both India and Pakistan grudgingly agreed to demobilize their military forces and initiate a composite peace dialogue. Several rounds of official bilateral meetings were held and a number of confidence-building measures were initiated, including the setting up of a Srinagar Muzaffarabad bus service linking Indian and Pakistani parts of Kashmir. However, no progress was achieved towards resolving the vexatious Kashmir dispute. Terrorist attacks by Pakistan-based groups such as LeT in Indian Kashmir and in other parts of India and the ongoing infiltration of insurgents across the LoC from Pakistan also vitiated the positive atmosphere that had been generated by the resumption of bilateral talks. Gen. Musharraf s ouster and the return of civilian rule in Pakistan in 2008 led to hopes for an improvement in Indo- Pakistani relations. However, within a short span of time serious doubts were raised regarding the new Pakistani Government s ability and determination to suppress Pakistanbased terrorist groups such as LeT, which intended to strike against India and against Indian assets and personnel in neighbouring Afghanistan. The disclosure by the Bush Administration that Pakistani agents were involved in the suicide attack against the Indian embassy in Kabul in July 2008, which killed several Indian diplomatic and security personnel, further aggravated Indo Pakistani tensions. In November 2008 war between India and Pakistan seemed a distinct possibility after a group of Pakistan-based terrorists allegedly belonging to LeT infiltrated the Indian port city of Mumbai from their base in Karachi, Pakistan, via the Arabian Sea, and carried out suicide attacks in Mumbai s main railway station, a Jewish cultural centre and two luxury hotels. Indian commandos were eventually able to capture one terrorist and kill the others after several days of fierce gun battles. Indian public opinion was one of sheer outrage at the ease with which the terrorists committed mass murder in Mumbai, and the Indian Government was put under intense pressure to retaliate militarily against terrorist bases inside Pakistan. As tensions rapidly rose, the Pakistani authorities refused to acknowledge that the Mumbai terrorists were from Pakistan. Thereafter, when provided with evidence by India and the USA, the Pakistani Government conceded that the Mumbai terrorists could have come from Pakistan but refused to take any serious action against Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the front organization through which LeT operated, and its leader Hafeez Muhammad Saeed, the alleged ringleader behind the Mumbai attack. Pakistan responded that instead of being a sponsor of terrorism, it was its victim and was doing all it could to help the USled efforts in Afghanistan and to fight terrorism at home and abroad. The Pakistani Army Chief, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, even threatened the USA that if India did not tone down its confrontational attitude towards Pakistan, then the Pakistani military would reluctantly have to scale down its military operations against the Taliban along the western border with Afghanistan and redeploy troops along the eastern Indo Pakistani frontier. Pakistan also accused India of fomenting trouble within its borders (notably in Balochistan) and supporting anti-pakistani forces in Afghanistan. As tensions simmered across the LoC and the entire Indo Pakistani frontier, violence erupted in the streets of Srinagar in the Kashmir Valley after angry mobs attacked Indian security personnel to express their anger at the state government for its failure to create adequate economic opportunities for ordinary people and prevent harassment, intimidation and abuse by the security forces. The state administration, led by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, seemed incapable of diffusing the situation and called in the paramilitary forces. This exacerbated the situation and led to pitched street battles between protesters and security forces. Several protesters died and many were injured when the security forces, untrained in appropriate crowd-control techniques, opened fire with live bullets to disperse the crowd. As the Kashmir Valley slipped into ever-deeper chaos, the Indian Government blamed Pakistan for inciting the protests, a charge that was vehemently denied. For its part, the Pakistani Government accused India of brutality and human rights violations against the Kashmiri people and called on the international community to intervene. The Kashmir dispute, indicating a deep mutual mistrust and hostility, thus continued unabated between the two sides. In 2012 the Indian Government appointed a team of interlocutors to begin a dialogue with representatives of all shades of political opinion in Indian-controlled Kashmir, with a view to understanding the grievances and aspirations of the people and formulating a future roadmap for peace. The Government, however, was in no hurry to open direct discussions with Pakistan over Kashmir. The resounding victory of Muhammad Nawaz Sharif s Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) in the May 2013 elections to the Pakistan National Assembly convinced many observers that an opportunity to normalize Indo-Pakistani relations had been created. During the election campaign Nawaz Sharif had spoken about his desire to seek cordial relations with India. Confronting a major domestic energy crisis, the Nawaz Sharif administration made it known that it would consider buying electricity from India; the Indian Government reciprocated by confirming that it would be willing to sell electricity to Pakistan. With regard to Afghanistan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif suggested that he favoured dialogue between all interested parties to chart a way forward after the withdrawal of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops in 2014, and also indicated that he was not alarmed by growing ties between India and Afghanistan. India responded by retreating from its erstwhile policy of opposing any dialogue with the Pakistani-supported Taliban. In spite of these promising developments, serious impediments stood in the way of normalizing Indo-Pakistani ties. Nawaz Sharif s ability to rein in the Pakistani military and the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), the key players in formulating foreign and security policy, was doubtful. Equally doubtful was the Sharif Government s ability to restrain Hafeez Saeed and the anti-indian activities of LeT and Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Pakistan s surreptitious support for the Taliban in Afghanistan also put it on a collision course with India. In early 2013 tensions between the security forces along the LoC increased once again after India accused the Pakistani military of decapitating two Indian border guards. Pakistan rejected the allegation and claimed that Indian troops had opened fire and killed several Pakistani soldiers. The news of the soldiers beheading provoked public outrage in India and the Government came under intense pressure to respond robustly. Sober counsel on both sides ultimately prevented the incident from escalating further and allowed military commanders to defuse the crisis. In April May 2014 a general election was held in India. For the first time in 30 years, Indian voters gave a single party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a decisive majority in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of Parliament), enabling it to form a government without relying on disparate coalition partners. Most commentators agreed that the BJP s victory was due mainly to its charismatic leader, Narendra Modi, who became India s 14th Prime Minister. Modi immediately invited all his fellow leaders from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to his inauguration ceremony in Delhi. Amid intense media speculation, and despite considerable domestic pressure to shun the event, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif accepted the invitation and attended the ceremony. In his public pronouncements, Prime Minister Modi made it clear that he regarded India s economic progress and prosperity not in isolation but as part of the progress and development of the entire South Asian region, including Pakistan. However, he clarified that progress on bilateral ties with Pakistan would depend on whether it could rein in the various insurgent groups operating on its soil, prevent its territory from being used by any group to launch terrorist attacks against India, and bring to justice the perpetrators of the attacks in Mumbai in November Modi and his party reiterated that Kashmir was and would remain an integral part of India. An immediate breakthrough between India and Pakistan was therefore unlikely, although Modi s overtures to SAARC states and his emphasis on regional development were promising. 16

3 THE AFGHANISTAN CONUNDRUM Afghanistan, a landlocked state that acts as a bridge between South Asia and the Middle East, has been wracked by instability and civil war since the forcible overthrow of its last monarch, Mohammed Zahir Shah, at the hands of Gen. Sardar Mohammad Daoud Khan in Daoud s leadership style quickly alienated the people, particularly the left-wing factions, which joined together to oust him from power in Communist rule rapidly led to factional infighting, which prompted the USSR to invade Afghanistan in December Over the next decade the country experienced fully fledged war between the Soviet occupying forces and a noncommunist, multi-ethnic Afghan resistance force collectively known as the mujahidin, which was funded, trained and equipped by the USA, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. After the Soviet withdrawal in 1988, the communist regime of Najibullah stood no chance against the mujahidin forces and collapsed within a short span of time. With the fall of communism in Afghanistan, serious fighting broke out among the various ethnic factions within the victorious mujahidin. The Pashtun tribes, who collectively form Afghanistan s largest ethnic group and comprise approximately 40% of the total population, wanted to reassert their historic dominance over other ethnic groups by making an exclusive claim to power. The smaller ethnic minorities, notably the Tajiks and the Uzbeks, were resentful of the historic Pashtun domination in the country and saw an ideal opportunity to reverse that trend. The Tajiks and the Uzbeks, therefore, formed the Northern Alliance to oppose the various Pashtun warlords hankering for power. The civil war that ensued lasted for almost five years. It is against this backdrop that the Taliban came to power in Kabul in Comprised in the main of fundamentalist Pashtun students from the hundreds of madrassas (Islamic seminaries) that had been established in the tribal areas of Pakistan during the decades-long Afghan war, the Taliban became a fighting force under the guidance of Pakistan s ISI in the mid-1990s. After suppressing the forces of the various Pashtun warlords clamouring for power, the Taliban turned its attention to the Northern Alliance-supported fledgling government, headed by the elderly Tajik statesman Burhanuddin Rabbani, which soon fled the capital. The Taliban captured Kabul in September 1996, and fierce fighting subsequently erupted in the Panjshir Valley in the north of the country, where the Northern Alliance forces under the Tajik warlord Ahmed Shah Masoud had retreated. In western Afghanistan the forces of the Uzbek warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostam also clashed with the advancing Taliban troops. By the late 1990s the Taliban had taken control of most of the country (except for pockets of resistance in the north and the west) and had implemented a harsh and puritanical Islamic rule. The association of the Pashtun Taliban leaders with Osama bin Laden and al-qa ida stretched back to the days of the anti- Soviet resistance in Afghanistan. During the 1980s, when droves of Arab jihadists poured into Afghanistan to fight the Soviet occupiers, Pashtun leaders welcomed their help for tactical reasons. During the mid-1990s, when the Taliban launched its military campaign and attempted to sweep through Afghanistan, it welcomed the active support of Arab and other foreign volunteers, as well as the help that it received from the Pakistani and Saudi military and intelligence communities. The Arab volunteers were greatly inspired by the ideology of jihad (holy war), which found resonance among the fundamentalist Taliban and led to the establishment of close personal and political ties between the supreme Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and bin Laden. The Taliban regime provided a safe sanctuary for bin Laden and his associates and allowed al-qa ida to operate a number of terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. Following the terrorist attacks against the USA in September 2001, the Bush Administration was determined to capture bin Laden. When the Taliban refused to hand him over, the USA undertook a full-scale military offensive against Afghanistan and the Taliban regime, launching air and ground attacks from aircraft carriers located in the Persian (Arabian) Gulf and also from bases in Pakistan and Tajikistan. The USA also secured the services of the Northern Alliance, which had a large following and knew the harsh, mountainous terrain well. By the end of 2001 US and NATO forces, with support from the Northern Alliance, had recaptured most of the country, including the capital city of Kabul and the northern city of Mazar-i- Sharif. Although the Taliban was ousted from power relatively easily, the high-ranking leaders of the former regime, such as Mullah Mohammad Omar, together with Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-zawahiri, evaded capture by the US Special Forces. It is widely believed that they initially hid in mountain caves in the rugged Tora Bora region of eastern Afghanistan, thus escaping the relentless bombing campaign inflicted on the region by the US forces. Thereafter, with the help of Pashtun warlords and tribal leaders affiliated with the militant Haqqani network, the fugitive leaders were reported to have crossed the Durand Line (the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan) and to have found shelter among Pashtun tribes in Pakistan s quasi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). With the leading figures of the Taliban and al-qa ida reportedly in hiding in Pakistan, the US forces turned their attention to state building in Afghanistan. In December 2001 the Bonn Agreement was signed, under which the various ethnic groups of Afghanistan agreed to form a multi-ethnic interim government. In April 2002 an emergency Loya Jirga (Grand National Council) was convened in order to allow tribal leaders from various parts of the country to endorse the formation of the new Government, which was headed by Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun leader supported by the USA, as President. However, Pashtun opinion regarding Karzai remained divided, with many regarding him with suspicion and mistrust. The formation of the interim Government did not solve Afghanistan s security predicament. The country was, to all intents and purposes, divided into various enclaves that were controlled by different ethnic and tribal warlords. Hence, the writ of Karzai s Government did not extend much beyond the immediate surroundings of Kabul. In addition, Afghanistan was awash with weapons, and criminal and illegal drugstrafficking networks operated at will. The economy was in utter disarray and the infrastructure was completely destroyed. The black market flourished openly and food production was severely curtailed as farmers opted for the more lucrative cultivation of opium poppy. Realizing that the security and development environment in Afghanistan would require the long-term presence of Western forces in the country, the USA persuaded its NATO allies to establish the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in January ISAF was initially composed of 10,000 soldiers drawn from more than 30 NATO countries and was NATO s first military operation outside of Europe. ISAF s mandate was at first restricted to security operations within the Kabul region, while a large contingent of US-led coalition forces conducted military operations in the south and east of the country. Despite these measures, the security situation in Afghanistan continued to decline steadily throughout 2004 and By early 2006 there were clear signs that the power wielded by key regional warlords and the Taliban was on the ascendancy, largely owing to the fact that the Afghan Government and the coalition forces were powerless to halt the flow of money and weapons to these groups from their foreign patrons (mostly, it was alleged, Afghanistan s neighbours). The USA s policy of using warlords to fight the Taliban also meant that Karzai s Government could exercise little control over these mercenaries. From mid-2006 the security situation began to deteriorate further. In May violent anti-us protests erupted in Kabul after a road accident involving a US military vehicle resulted in the deaths of many bystanders. In May June there were reports of serious gun battles between Taliban fighters and Afghan and coalition forces in the south. The severity of the clashes demonstrated that the Taliban had recovered and gained in strength following the setbacks that it had suffered in The resurgence of the Taliban prompted ISAF to assume the leadership of military operations in the south of Afghanistan in July Over the next three months heavy fighting took place in the south and east, where the Taliban had once again established bases. In October ISAF took over the responsibility of providing security across the whole of Afghanistan, taking 17

4 command in the east from a US-led coalition force. However, despite concerted efforts on the part of ISAF, the Taliban continued to grow in strength and its leaders remained at large. In March 2007 heavy fighting erupted in the southern province of Helmand after the Afghan and ISAF forces launched Operation Achilles against the Taliban. Although the Taliban s most senior military commander, Mullah Dadullah, was killed during the fighting, the military operation failed to curb the Taliban s rapidly growing military and political clout. The US and NATO commanders blamed Pakistan (particularly the ISI) for the resurgence of the Taliban, claiming that the organization s senior leaders (together with high-ranking officials of al-qa ida) were hiding in the quasi-independent tribal areas of Pakistan where they were being protected by fiercely loyal Pashtun tribesmen. The USA accused President Musharraf and his military of not doing enough to flush out the insurgents from their tribal hideouts. A number of US and NATO commanders even voiced their suspicions that elements within the Pakistani authorities, particularly within the ISI, were sympathetic to the Taliban and al-qa ida and were actually helping these groups to revive and strengthen. Religious fundamentalist groups in Pakistan were also suspected of providing support to the Taliban and al-qa ida, and the Musharraf regime appeared to be doing nothing to prevent this. As US and NATO frustration mounted, the commanders even discussed taking direct military action in the tribal areas of Pakistan in order to neutralize the Taliban and al-qa ida. The Pakistani Government expressed its firm opposition to this proposal and insisted that such a move would be a direct violation of Pakistan s sovereignty and would be interpreted as an act of war. Islamabad further argued that Pakistan itself was a victim of terrorist acts carried out by the Taliban and al- Qa ida and that its troops were involved in heavy fighting with members and sympathizers of these organizations in the tribal areas. By mid-2008 both the Taliban and al-qa ida had regained their full strength and become much more emboldened, mainly as a result of their successes in the battlefield. For instance, in June the Taliban organized a massive and daring jail break from Qandahar prison, freeing at least 350 of their supporters and sympathizers. This was followed in July by a suicide bomb attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, which killed more than 40 people. Consequently, NATO leaders had no option but to pledge their unwavering long-term commitment to fighting the Taliban and al-qa ida in Afghanistan. In January 2009 the Republican George W. Bush was replaced by Democrat Barack Obama as President of the USA. During his election campaign Obama had promised that upon taking office he would scale down the US military operations in Iraq and send several thousand additional troops to fight the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. President Obama soon followed through on his pledge and approximately 21,000 extra soldiers were deployed in Afghanistan. He also brought in Gen. Stanley McChrystal to take charge of all US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. A cornerstone of Gen. McChrystal s new strategy was to protect more civilians by taking back control of land from the Taliban, particularly in the southern provinces and districts. In the second half of 2009, therefore, a series of confrontations between the Taliban and US/NATO forces took place, especially in southern Afghanistan. The USA also started attacking Taliban and al-qa ida leaders and their suspected hideouts across the border in Pakistan, using unmanned aircraft ( drones ). In spite of these US/NATO efforts, the Taliban became increasingly powerful, particularly in the southern provinces. One key reason for the growing strength of the Taliban was the unpopularity of the Hamid Karzai Government, which most observers believed to be highly corrupt and incompetent. Another important factor behind the Taliban s resurgent popularity was the increasing public anger at the large number of civilian casualties caused by US drone attacks. The Taliban s ties to the Afghan drugs cartels and the Pakistani ISI also contributed to the growing military strength of the group. The sharp escalation in violence in Afghanistan in the second half of 2009 resulted in a notable rise in US and NATO casualty figures: for instance, more US troops were killed in August 2009 than in any month since the beginning of the war. The situation in Afghanistan in 2010 remained quite alarming for the USA and NATO. The US Government had hoped that the Afghan presidential election held in August 2009 would usher in a degree of political stability and help to undercut the Taliban s growing popularity in the countryside, but the election was marred by allegations of widespread voting fraud in favour of President Karzai. Thus, Karzai s re-election for another term in office failed to bring about a reduction in violence in Afghanistan. The Afghan Government s weakness was compounded by the coalition forces questionable military strategy. The drone attacks continued unabated and resulted in massive loss of civilian life and destruction of property, thereby increasing public anger towards the coalition forces and the Obama and Karzai Governments. The troop surge that President Obama had authorized also fell short of what Gen. McChrystal had requested and thus proved ineffective in helping coalition forces to wrest control of sufficient territory from the Taliban. The coalition forces also suffered many casualties in pitched battles with the Taliban in the first half of 2010, leading to a loss of morale. As criticism of the coalition forces mounted back in the USA, McChrystal vented his frustration by publicly criticizing the Obama Administration for failing to provide him with the kind of support that he required. McChrystal was immediately relieved of his duties and replaced with Gen. David Petraeus. Developments in neighbouring Pakistan also had a significant effect on the security situation in Afghanistan. Ever since President Musharraf decided to support the US military operation in Afghanistan, the US Government had urged the Pakistani leaders to attack the Taliban and al-qa ida forces from the Pakistani side of the border. The Pakistani military, first under Gen. Musharraf and then under Gen. Kayani, claimed to have repeatedly attacked not only the Taliban fighters from Afghanistan, who used Pakistani territory in the FATA and in parts of Balochistan and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP renamed Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa in April 2010), but also members of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, the Pakistani Taliban movement, a group similar to the Afghan Taliban who aspire to take political control of Pakistan and convert it into a hardline theocratic state. While not denying that the Pakistani military had shifted a large number of troops from its eastern border with India to the western border regions with Afghanistan and that these troops fought a series of battles with insurgent forces, in the process suffering heavy casualties, NATO commanders repeatedly voiced their concern that parts of the Pakistani military, in particular factions located within the ISI, have provided support to the Taliban, which has been a major factor behind the group s resurgence. Leaked US military classified documents, published by the organization WikiLeaks in July 2010, further suggested that NATO commanders had for a long time doubted the commitment of the Pakistani Government and military to fighting the Taliban and al-qa ida in the Pakistani-Afghan border regions. As relations between Pakistan and the USA, NATO and the European Union (EU) became deeply strained, US and European officials began to refer to the Af-Pak problem, which indicated that they considered Pakistan to be a hindrance rather than a facilitator of a favourable resolution of the Afghan situation. President Obama also talked openly about the need to fix Pakistan in order to find a solution in Afghanistan. In keeping with this emphasis on Pakistan, US and NATO forces widened the scope of their drone and special forces attacks within Pakistan, particularly in the tribal areas and north-western Balochistan. The USA also placed enormous diplomatic and economic pressure on Pakistan to curb the activities of terrorist organizations operating in its territory and to co-operate with India to apprehend the organizers of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. In this tense climate, early on 2 May 2011 US Navy Seals, acting on intelligence received, mounted a special cross-border operation by stealth helicopter deep into Pakistan from their base in Afghanistan. The US commandos raided a residential compound in the garrison town of Abbottabad (located just 18

5 north of Islamabad) and shot dead Osama bin Laden, who, it was alleged, had been hiding there with his family since It was also reported that after killing bin Laden, the Navy Seals flew back with his body to their base in Afghanistan; subsequently, bin Laden s body was handed over to the US Navy for burial at sea at an undisclosed location. In this operation, one of the two deployed helicopters was badly damaged and abandoned in Abbottabad by the US commandos. The damaged helicopter, which was rumoured to incorporate sophisticated stealth technology, was later handed back to the USA but there were suspicions in some US quarters that the Pakistani military had allowed Chinese engineers to inspect the wreckage and to take photographs and samples. The US commando raid to kill bin Laden, which caused shock and embarrassment to the Pakistani establishment and was in violation of Pakistan s sovereignty, led to a sharp deterioration in US-Pakistani relations. In the aftermath of the raid, some US officials and legislators openly questioned whether Pakistan (particularly the army and the ISI) had been complicit in protecting bin Laden over the past decade; critics disputed that it could be possible for bin Laden to live with his family in a garrison town close to Islamabad without the knowledge, on some level, of the Pakistani authorities. US legislators also demanded that the Obama Administration suspend economic and military aid to Pakistan and put pressure on the country to either take measures against terrorists on its territory or face dire consequences. US threats notwithstanding, the commando raid to kill bin Laden was deeply problematic and embarrassing for the Pakistani politico-military establishment. The military, which styled itself as the guardian of the state, now had to face humiliating questions regarding whether it was incompetent in defending the country s sovereignty or whether it was involved in the raid to kill bin Laden; there were also reports of unrest within the ranks of the military over the manner in which the raid took place. The civilian Government also lost considerable standing for its lack of awareness and for appearing to be subservient to the USA. Public anger in Pakistan at the USA and the West appeared to be reaching a dangerous level, and conditions in the country seemed to be deteriorating into anarchy and extremism. As the US and NATO military withdrawal from Afghanistan approached (President Obama had pledged to withdraw all combat troops, apart from special forces, from Afghanistan by 2014), the key question was whether the Taliban would try forcibly to seize power from the Karzai administration and reinstate harsh Islamic rule in the country or whether it would be willing to reach a compromise with the US-backed Afghan Government and agree to a power-sharing arrangement. Several unsuccessful attempts were made by the US Administration to initiate a dialogue with the Taliban. While the latter ostensibly remained open to political negotiation with the USA, it continued to attack coalition forces and government personnel. In June 2013 the Taliban signalled its intention to open peace negotiations with the USA and the Afghan Government by establishing a representative office in Doha, Qatar. However, it was subsequently discovered that the Taliban had designated the office as an embassy of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the country s official title under Taliban rule in the 1990s. The Afghan Government vehemently expressed its opposition to this designation, and President Karzai accused the USA of secretly negotiating with the Taliban. Although the office was promptly renamed, the incident caused a significant rift between the Obama Administration and the Afghan Government. Karzai withdrew from negotiations with the USA on a status of forces agreement, which was to provide the legal basis for US special forces to remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014 (mainly to mount special operations and to train the Afghan National Security Forces ANSF). As US-Afghan relations reached one of their lowest points since the Taliban s ouster in 2001, speculation mounted among experts as to whether the planned US withdrawal would proceed as scheduled. President Obama, however, made it clear that all US forces would be withdrawn by the end of 2014, thereby adding increased urgency to the many questions concerning the future of Afghanistan. For many observers, the signs point towards the Taliban becoming a major political force in Afghanistan once more after US and NATO forces are withdrawn. In the 2014 Afghan presidential election campaign all the main candidates made conciliatory gestures towards the Taliban, often appealing to their sense of patriotism. In what form the Taliban will reenter Afghan politics after 2014 will depend on several factors. First and foremost, the Taliban s re-emergence as a political force will depend on whether the two leading contenders for the Afghan presidency, Dr Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, can put aside their post-election differences and form a strong national unity government. It was widely contended that the Independent Election Commission had failed to conduct a free and fair presidential election. (An inconclusive first round was held in April, followed by a run-off poll in mid-june.) While most exit polls had predicted a victory for Dr Abdullah, when the votes were counted it was Ashraf Ghani who emerged as victor. Abdullah s camp refused to accept the verdict, claiming electoral fraud had undermined the result, and threatened to run a parallel administration if he was not declared President. After tense negotiations between the two sides mediated by US Secretary of State John Kerry, in July the candidates agreed to form an interim national unity government and to allow the UN to carry out a full audit of the vote. However, the real question was whether Abdullah and Ghani could work together. In the weeks following the compromise agreement, disagreements emerged regarding the nature of the deal signed by the two sides; Ghani argued that the deal was not a power-sharing arrangement, while Abdullah believed that to be the case. If the deal were to fall apart and Afghanistan was plunged into a political crisis, it would likely strengthen the position of the Taliban. Secondly, a crucial factor that could determine whether the Taliban would succeed or fail in regaining power in Afghanistan would be the reaction of the Pakistani military and the ISI to such a move. It was widely believed that elements within the Pakistani military and the ISI played a crucial role in the Taliban takeover of power in Afghanistan in When the Taliban regime was subsequently removed from power after the US and NATO invasion in late 2001, most of the Afghan Taliban leaders and cadres took refuge in the tribal areas of Pakistan, with the principal Taliban leaders subsequently establishing a base in Quetta, in Balochistan province. The Taliban s re-emergence as a fighting force, especially in southern Afghanistan across the border from Balochistan, was believed to be due to the support that it received from Pakistani sponsors. In mid-2014, however, the Pakistani military was engaged in a major operation targeting Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP the so-called Pakistani Taliban) in North Waziristan in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Whether the conflict signalled a move by the military away from its earlier position of exploiting the Islamist insurgents as instruments of foreign policy was not yet clear. Encouraged by the Sharif Government, the military may decide to sever its ties with Islamist insurgent groups such as the Afghan Taliban. On the other hand, it may decide to defy the Government and try to use the Afghan Taliban to gain a firmer foothold in Afghan politics. Should it choose to follow the former course of action, then it may induce the Taliban to seek accommodation with the Afghan Government; it may also help to reduce the power of Islamist groups in Pakistan. If, however, the Pakistani military chooses to follow the latter course of action, it will likely create more instability and unrest in Afghanistan and possibly contribute to greater Islamist radicalization in Pakistan. Furthermore, continued US military assistance to Afghanistan would be vitally important if a Taliban takeover were to be prevented. The USA and NATO were determined to strengthen the ANSF and to train and equip them to successfully take on and defeat the Taliban. This would require the USA and NATO to leave behind a sizeable force in Afghanistan to conduct special operations after 2014, and to continue to supply and train the ANSF to assume the main responsibility of providing security. The USA would also need to encourage the Afghan Government s intention to procure weapons and ammunition for the Afghan National Army from sources other than Pakistan, including India, the People s Republic of China and Russia. Finally, to undercut its appeal and prevent a Taliban takeover of power, the USA and other donors would need to apply pressure on the Afghan Government to provide good governance to the Afghan people and 19

6 reaffirm their long-term development commitment in Afghanistan, so that state-building projects can be completed successfully and on time. This would exercise a positive effect on the lives of the Afghan people and thereby help to win the battle for hearts and minds. IDENTITY CONFLICTS IN SOUTH ASIA All the states of South Asia suffer from various degrees of internal schisms and divisions, which have often led to violence and conflict within their own societies and contributed to the creation of complex humanitarian emergencies. The internal schisms in South Asian states are usually the result of competing ethno-national, religious, tribal and class identities (and, in the case of India, also caste identity). Ethno-national mobilizations have typically generated insurgency movements for autonomy and secession, leading to fierce resistance on the part of the authorities. Many of these insurgency movements continue today (such as in Kashmir and the north-east of India, and in Balochistan in Pakistan), endangering thousands of people, while a few, such as the Tamil insurgency in Sri Lanka, have been brutally suppressed, at the cost of severe human suffering. Clashes between and within religious communities have also generated chronic violence and insecurity in South Asia. In the recent past, India has witnessed major communal riots in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, in which thousands of people died and were seriously injured and there was massive destruction to private property, businesses and public infrastructure. Communal clashes between mostly Hindu Tamils and Buddhist Sinhalese, and between Hindu Tamils and Muslims have also occurred with regular frequency in Sri Lanka, further complicating the ethno-national and secessionist conflict that had raged in the country for the past three decades. In addition, ethnic and sectarian clashes have been a major source of insecurity in Pakistan, especially in urban centres such as Karachi, Hyderabad, Quetta and Lahore. The rapidly spreading Maoist insurgency in India and the recently concluded Maoist armed struggle in Nepal further demonstrate vividly that class, caste and tribal identity and political movements based on such identity continue to be a potent source of insecurity in South Asia, particularly in regions of extreme poverty and deprivation. Ethno-nationalist Conflicts India s ethnic diversity is of staggering proportions and, starting from the immediate post-independence years, the country has had to deal with the nationalist aspirations of many constituent ethnic groups. The initial challenges came in the form of the Naga and Mizo insurgencies in north-east India, which were eventually neutralized through political accommodation and the creation of the new states of Nagaland and Mizoram. However, strong feelings of deprivation, neglect, economic and social marginalization, and lack of empowerment continued to create resentment among many ethno-tribal groups in this region towards the Indian State. Such resentment often led to violent clashes such as in Assam, Nagaland and Manipur. India has also had to deal with secessionist ethno-national movements in the north-west of the country, particularly in the Punjab and in Kashmir. A Sikh insurgency in the Punjab in the 1980s culminated in an invasion of the Golden Temple in Amritsar (the holiest Sikh religious shrine) by the Indian army (codenamed Operation Blue Star ) in June 1984 to flush out religious fanatics and militants who had taken shelter there. The Golden Temple was severely damaged in the fighting, which inflamed the anger felt by the Sikhs. In an act of retribution, two Sikh bodyguards assassinated Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in October 1984, which, in turn, led to anti-sikh riots allegedly encouraged by some senior leaders of Indira Gandhi s Congress (I) Party. In May 1988 Indian security forces were once again forced to enter the Golden Temple (codenamed Operation Black Thunder ) to evict militants who had moved back there and were using it as a shelter and a base of operations. In the 1990s the Punjab police launched a harsh counter-insurgency operation, which gradually weakened the potency of Sikh militancy. During the 1990s student demonstrations in the Kashmir Valley rapidly escalated into a full-blown secessionist insurgency and led to extremely tense relations between India and Pakistan. In the new millennium there were some positive developments; however, in 2010 there was a resurgence of proindependence sentiment in the Kashmir Valley after highhanded behaviour by the security forces led to pitched street battles between stone-throwing protesters and security personnel. The security forces opened fire with live rounds, killing more than 50 people and wounding hundreds more. Public support for the state government and the Indian State plummeted, leading to an almost complete paralysis of governance in the state. The Indian Prime Minister tried to quell the popular uprising in the Valley by promising the state a substantial degree of autonomy within the ambit of the Indian Constitution, but his offer received little support. With the election of a BJP Government in 2014, relations between Kashmir and India had the potential to become fraught. A key policy of the BJP was the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which provides special autonomous power to Kashmir. Any move to repeal the provision would likely reopen the debate about Kashmir s accession to India and further destabilize and complicate the political situation in that state. In Pakistan ethno-nationalist and secessionist movements have occurred with regular frequency, posing serious political and security problems for the State. In the immediate aftermath of Pakistan s foundation in 1947, the State had to use force to crush the secessionist aspirations of the Baloch and Pashtun tribes. During the 1950s and 1960s nationalist sentiments continued to grow among the Bengalis in East Pakistan. When the Pakistani military attempted to suppress the Bengalis, it led to a fully fledged war of liberation and the creation of the new state of Bangladesh in In the 1980s and 1990s the major ethnic conflict in Pakistan was between the Sindhis and Mohajirs in the province of Sindh. Due to this conflict, the port city of Karachi, which is Pakistan s commercial capital, witnessed almost daily murders, shootings and bomb blasts. The neighbouring province of Balochistan became restive again during the 2000s, and serious fighting took place between the Pakistani security forces and the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA). The political climate in the NWFP (renamed Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa in April 2010) and the FATA also became volatile following the US invasion of Afghanistan in October After the Taliban was ousted from power in December 2001, a number of high-ranking leaders of the former regime (such as Mullah Mohammad Omar) and al- Qa ida (including Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al- Zawahiri) were reported to be hiding in the FATA protected by the fiercely independent and fanatically religious Pashtun tribes. The Musharraf regime s relations with the Pashtun tribes became strained when the Pakistani military, under intense US pressure, mounted several offensives in the tribal areas in an attempt to capture or kill bin Laden and the other al-qa ida and Taliban leaders. After Musharraf was removed from power in August 2008, the new Zardari/Gilani civilian Government endeavoured to placate the restive Pashtun tribes by allowing the TTP a measure of political control in the Swat Valley. However, this arrangement rapidly collapsed as a result of the TTP s growing political ambitions as well as severe US criticism of the arrangement. The Zardari/Gilani Government resorted to force and authorized the military to launch intensive counter-insurgency operations against the TTP. The situation in the FATA became extremely volatile and tens of thousands of people were forced to flee their homes. It was widely feared that this situation of extreme insecurity and humanitarian crisis in the FATA could potentially have serious implications for the future territorial integrity and political stability of Pakistan. The euphoria in Pakistan following the unprecedented transfer of power from one elected civilian Government to another in May 2013 ended abruptly on 15 June, when the BLA launched a major attack against an historic building in the town of Ziarat, close to the provincial capital Quetta, which was famed as a former residence of Pakistan s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah. By choosing this target, the BLA seemed to indicate its rejection of the Pakistani State. Moreover, a sectarian attack against the Shi a Hazara community carried out in Quetta on the same day by the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), a militant Sunni group linked to al-qa ida, further emphasized 20