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Afghanistan: Taliban faces arms embargo and US strikes

	December 04, 2000

Fed up with the Taliban's refusal to hand over the terrorist mastermind, Osama Bin Laden. the United States, in cooperation with Russia has initiated moves both to launch a joint strike against the Taliban forces as well as have a resolution passed by the UN Security Council seeking fresh economic sanctions and arms embargo on the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. India which has had separate talks both with Washington and Moscow under the aegis of Joint Working Groups it has formed with them, too is expected to playa crucial role in the US-Russian joint military action possibly in the next few days. While Pakistan, which is strongly lobbying against any fresh UN sanctions against Taliban, has vowed to deny US cruise missiles to cross its strikes, the Taliban spokesman have stuck to their guns that they will never hand over Osama Bin Laden who has now been accused by the United States of masterminding a suicide bomb attack on one of its warships in the Yemeni port of Aden, killing 17 US servicemen.



Informed sources say that unlike in August 1998 when the US launched tomahawk cruise missiles from an aircraft carrier, this time the option of a ground missile attack from one of the Central Asian Republics bordering Afghanistan is being actively considered. In fact, this is one of the reasons why the US is seeking cooperation with the Russians who are equally agitated with Osama Bin Laden providing bans of terrorists to Chechen rebels.



An indication that the US in cooperation with Russia, planning military retaliation against the Taliban, came from Gen. Henry Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who in an interview with the Times, said American investigators have found a link between the bombing of two US embassies in Africa in 1998 and the latest attack on the US warship, USS Cole, in Aden harbour. Gen. Shelton however did not rule out the possibility of Iran or the Lebanon based Hizbullah to be behind the attack on the US warship. He said, with Russian knowledge of Afghan territory and its own considerable counter-terrorist capabilities, the joint Russian-American operation would be a dream option. The Russian Defence Minister, Marshal Igore Sergeyev, has also given a strong hint that some kind of action against Afghanistan was imminent. He identified Afghanistan as the international terrorist centre of the world where about 1000 camps for training the so-called Jehadis were operating.

The Pakistan news paper, The Nation, has however quoted sources in the USA to say that Washington is certain to retaliate for the death of 17 US soldiers and get Osama arrested. The sources said, "the USA will choose how, when and where to strike against Osama. This time, it might not be a missile attack like two years ago". At least two senior US officials, Under Secretary of State, Thomas Pickering, and Assistant Secretary of State, Karl Inderfurth, have also hinted at a possible US retaliatory strike against Afghanistan. While Mr. Pickering cautioned Pakistan against allowing the Islamic seminaries which are breeding grounds of terrorists from Afghanistan to operate from its territory, Inderfurth has indicated that the US could stage a retaliatory strike against Taliban if it was determined that Osama was responsible for the attack on the USS Cole.



Informed sources say in the coming joint US-Soviet military strike, one of the options under consideration is to launch a raid from one of the three Central Asian states - Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kirghyzstan. These former Soviet Republics are part of NATO Partnership for Peace, and have commandos training with US specialist forces in Montana and •Alaska. Such an operation would probably require the blessings of Russia, the regional overload. A military operation, whether with Cruise missiles or a joint land and air mission would need to cause a significant damage to Bin Laden's alleged terrorist infrastructure, including his communications set up, as well as his headquarters facilities.



Reacting to the fear of US attack on Taliban, Pakistan's Foreign Minister, Abdul Sattar, said, no country including the US will be allowed to use Pakistan's airspace to attack Afghanistan. He told reporters in Karachi the other day that if this happens, Pakistan will lodge a complaint with the UN. Taliban has also sought assurances from neighbouring countries that they will not allow their airspace to be used for any US missile strikes on Afghanistan. In an interview with the Asian Age Mr. Sattar was very critical of India's assumed role on the issue. He said, whatever India is trying to do in relation with Afghanistan is prompted entirely by its hostility to Pakistan. He said, that India does not have a common border with Afghanistan and should keep out of the current process as its interference would unnecessarily complicate issues. The Taliban Foreign Minister, Vakil Ahmed Muttah Vakil, said he hoped countries such as Pakistan and Iran would deny the USA permission to send missiles across their territories. The Taliban Education Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, warned, the fate of the USA will be worst than that of the Russians if Afghanistan is attacked again. A senior spokesman of the ruling Taliban militia, Haji Muttamaeein, said if the USA attacks Afghanistan, a catching reply would be given. He advised the USA not to repeat the past mistake as it knew how the brave Afghans fought the Soviet army and the war resulted in the disintegration of a super power. For his part, in his first statement since December 1998, Osama Bin Laden said a US attack could not kill him. He vowed to continue his battle against the enemies of Islam, an apparent reference to the USA.



Indian role in US-Russian anti- Taliban operation



While there is no official confirmation about the précised nature and extend of India's involvement in the joint US-Soviet operation against Taliban, reliable sources say that it has the full approval of the Vajpayee government. The operation also reportedly involves extending money and military help to the Northern Commander Ahmad Shah Masood in his counter- Taliban offensive. The immediate objective of his ongoing operation is to recapture Taloqan, which is the capital of the exiled Burhanuddin Rabbani government and provides full protection to Faizabad, Rabbani's hometown in Badakhshan, 150 Kilometres north-east of Taloqan.



A joint US-Russian-Indian tripartite mechanism may not be there, but there is no mistaking about a strong three-way understanding among these countries on the urgency of countering the Taliban menace in Afghanistan and the approach to achieve it. This is what the bilateral discussions between India and US and India and Russia and Russia and US have sought to achieve when their joint working groups on Afghanistan had meetings separately. The specific measures envisaged by them included a call, through an appropriate forum, notably the UN to the world community to have no interaction with the Taliban, no financial dealings, no trade and other economic contracts and embargo on the movement of Taliban leaders and on setting up offices by them abroad.



These steps, it was hoped, would yield concrete steps. Also, it was considered necessary to extend support (it was not publicly specified) to the elements in Afghanistan which are in a position to rebuff the Taliban - the most important being the force, led by Commander Ahmed Shah Masood, whose Northern Alliance, though literally driven to a corner, was seen as achieving the potential for reversing the Taliban tide. Of late, there was evidence on the ground of a beginning in that direction. The latest in the bilateral series was the meeting of the India-Russia joint Working group on Afghanistan on November 20-21, agreed to be set up during the recent visit of the Russian president, Mr. Vladimir Putin. It was led by Mr. Y.T. Trubnikov, First Deputy Foreign Minister, who some time back, held detailed discussions with the number three in the US State Department, Mr. Thomas Pickering, on ways to coordinate their efforts in dealing with the Taliban.



On their part, India and the US considered ways to enhance their cooperation to combat international terrorism at the Joint Working Group 0 n the subject some two months ago. The JWG, set up early this year, to institutionalize bilateral contacts, was later included in the architecture of institutional dialogue, agreed upon by the two sides during the US President Mr. Bill Clinton's visit in New Delhi. During the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee's trip to the US, it was decided to expand its mandate so as to include Afghanistan end narco-terroism. The tripartite understanding on the Taliban threat stemmed from their principled positions against international terrorism as also from the convergence of compulsions create for each one of them by the Taliban-engineered violence - from India in Jammu and Kashmir, for Russian in Chechnya (apart from the CIS countries), while the US had identified t he Taliban as t he source of major threat to its interests, manifesting through the activities of Osama Bin Laden (based in Afghanistan) who had gained international notoriety and had been on Washington's "most wanted" list.



India and Russia, at last week's working group meeting, reiterated their view that the Taliban movement presented an ever-increasing threat in the region. The Russian side was gravely concerned at the advance of the Taliban forces to areas, 50 km from the CIS border, and possibility was not ruled out. Because of this "alarming" turn in the situation, Russia, of late, intensified its consultations with the CIS countries, feeling threatened, and agreed to be "in a state of preparedness," to quote a Russian source. In t he joint statement issued after the group's meeting, India and Russia noted that "direct foreign intervention in the Afghan affairs has exacerbated the civil conflict and is preventing the return to peace "and called upon" those states which give the Taliban all kinds of assistance, including military one, to cease their interference in Afghan affairs". This was an obvious reference to the role of Pakistan - an issue that was reported to have figured pointedly in the Russia-US talks as well. As a matter of fact, both these countries had agreed to exert their influence on Islamabad to give up its negative role in backing the Taliban regime. Mr. Putin's envoy to Islamabad too had strongly impressed on the military ruler there to stop this support, while drawing attention to the danger, posed by Talibanisation of Pakistan's civil society.



UN envoy's Delhi trip: Moves for tougher UN sanctions



The special envoy of the UN Secretary General, Francese Vendrell came to New Delhi on November 29 to meet top officials of the Foreign Ministry and briefed them on the ongoing peace paralyze with the players on the Kabul scene. His discussions with Foreign Secretary Lalit Mann Singh and others covered the ground broken by him just a few days ago in making the warring Afghan factions to agree to negotiations. Mr. Vendrell who also visited Pakistan, supported the recent peace proposal by the ex-king of Afghanistan, King Zahir Shah, and said the idea of calling Loya Jirga (an assembly of scholarly Afghan elders), makes sense especially given the fact that former King was behind the initiative because he retains a lot of credibility with many sections of the population in Afghanistan. He told Integrated Regional Information Network that the military games by Taliban in Afghanistan will not be a ticket to its international recognition. He said, there must not be a military solution. There has to be progress on issues like terrorism, drug production, Human Rights and gender issues before there is full engagement by the international community with the Taliban. He said, if the Afghan warring factions enter into a substantive process now and make progress on negotiations, then the international community and the Security Council will pay attention.



At the United Nations meanwhile, moves are afoot in the Security Council to move a resolution seeking to impose an arms embargo on the Taliban to force it to stop supporting terrorism and handover Osama Bin Laden to the US. Russia, which is fighting Afghanistan trained terrorists in Chechenya, is expected to cosponsor along with the US resolution on imposing new tough sanctions. The new measures would come in the wake of freezing of foreign assets of Taliban under a Security Council resolution last year. Also its airline is prohibited from flying overseas. The proposed resolution would impose arms embargo against Taliban fuel, trade and financial sections and restrict travel of senior Taliban officials except for humanitarian and religious purposes. In addition, it would encourage other countries to reduce staff at Taliban missions, restrict offices of the Taliban run airline outside Afghanistan and ban the sale to anyone in Afghanistan of chemical precursors used to manufacture heroin.



Political observers say if the resolution finally comes about, it would be a major setback for Pakistan which, according to diplomats and officials, is supplying arms to Taliban and also serves as conduit for weapons for other sources. Pakistan itself has launched a campaign to convince members of the UN Security council not to impose further sanctions against Taliban. Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said, his country was in touch with all members of the Council including China to convince them to avoid taking hard steps against Taliban which has been refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden for trial in the US bombing cases. Incidentally, an opinion poll in Pakistan has indicated that most Pakistanis do not want their country to help the USA to capture Osama Bin Laden. The poll conducted by the Nation shows that some 62 per cent said no and 31 per cent said yes while 7 were uncertain.



Meanwhile, while a joint diplomatic and military offensive has been launched by the US and Russia against the Taliban, the Northern Commander, Ahmad Shah Masood, is reportedly waging a last ditch effort to recapture Taloqan, capital of the exiled Burhanuddin Rabbani government. There are reports that Russian troops, as also troops from Central Asian Republics have crossed over from Tajikistan and are directly involved to the battle. Masood Khalili, the Afghan envoy in New Delhi who has denied any outside military help being extended to Masood as "baseless propaganda", claimed that Masood's forces had taken prisoners about a hundred fighters, including the Taliban militia and Arabs owing allegiance to Saudi leader Osama bin Laden. He said, Haji Khadir, Masood's top military leader, was conferring somewhere in the Panjshir Valley with 150 commanders to work out "a unified strategy" to fan out in three different directions.



The directions according to Khalili, are about moving towards Herat and Badhis in the west , and Nangarhar, Kunar and Laghman in the east and Badakhshan and Takhar in the north. The "final assault", however, would be southwards from Parwan and Kapisa towards Kabul. Haji Qadir, a former governor of Jelalabad, is an Ahmedzai, and one of the many Pushtuns who have chosen to strengthen Masood's forces despite the recent setbacks. The "strategy" to take on the Taliban, however, can be implemented only after the winter snow melts early next year. Till then, Major General (retd) Afsir Karim says, there is little either side can do. The Taliban, have considerable support from Pakistan and have a track record of regrouping and fighting back. Taloqan, or for that any other town that is strategically important in the current conflict could change hands many times.