Chapter 3 continues…

However, this is not a sentiment that is exclusive to the Punjabis. Even the Pashtuns and Islamists desire an Afghan regime that can help balance the Indian threat and enhance Pakistan’s regional power.

The Pashtuns in the Pakistani state apparatus are said to harbour strong anti-Iranian and anti-Indian sentiments, and thus, support the idea of a Pashtun-dominated Afghan government capable of eliminating both Indian and Iranian influence in Afghanistan. Pashtuns, sympathetic towards their ethnic brethren across the Durand Line, played an important role in the 1990s in shifting Pakistan’s support from Hekmatyar to the Taliban.

The first among equals in the strategic enclave is the Pakistan Army,anditspowerfulintelligencewing,theISI.
The ISI’s predominance in the Pakistani political setup is the most enduring legacy of the country’s involvement of the Afghan Jihad of the 1980s. Till the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the ISI was seen as an adjunct of its army.

The Afghan jihad transformed the ISI into one of the most influential wings of the state. The overwhelming role and influence of former ISI chief Hamid Gul even to this day, in Afghanistan, long after his retirement, is a significant pointer to the ISI’s clout. More important has been the influence of two recent ISI chiefs, General Ashfaq Kayani and Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha, in putting Pakistan in the driving seat of the US strategy in Afghanistan.

Pakistan Army’s bravado over its ability to influence developments in Afghanistan stems from the ISI’s over arching patronage and control of key Taliban elements; ISI’s links with the Taliban have remained strong for the last decade and a half. In 1996, the US State Department reported that the ISI was supplying the Taliban forces with munitions, fuel and food through a private sector transportation company, which funnelled supplies into Afghanistan and to the Taliban forces.
Two years later, the State Department was getting concerned that the support from the Government of Pakistan for the Taliban was getting stronger and that there was evidence that Pakistan had agreed to give 300 million rupees worth of financial support to the Taliban.

To be continued…