How Afghanistan's terror web is an enduring threat to India-Afghan relations

An eight-day-long official visit by any country’s top diplomat to another country is a rarity, more of an exception than the rule. More so, if the guest country is Afghanistan and the host country is India.

 

Because, the images of the December 1999 IC 814 hijack episode of the Indian Airlines Airbus A300 that landed in Kandahar into the lap of a supportive Taliban regime is still just to fresh in Indian memory. Consequent events over the years have also not helped improve Indo-Afghan bilateral relations.

 

One of the released prisoners—on demand, by the IC 814 hijackers—was Muhammad Masood Azhar who founded the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror outfit that continues to inflict terror acts in India including the 2001 attack on Parliament.

 

Without doubt Kabul is trying hard for a tie-reset with New Delhi.

 

Therefore, visiting Afghan Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi made all the right noises in India.

 

In an interaction with a male-only troupe of Indian journalists in Delhi, Muttaqi declared on Friday that Afghan soil would not be used against any country. This is being seen as a statement against Pakistan, a country with which Taliban-ruled Kabul’s relations has suddenly plummeted ever since the Taliban re-took Kabul in 2021.

 

But how effective that position will be is anyone’s guess.

 

According to a recent report by the United States Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), terrorist groups such as ISIS-Khorasan or Daesh and Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) operate freely in Afghanistan while the Al Qaeda has found a favourable atmosphere to freely operate in Afghanistan.

 

A UN report talks about how Afghanistan is now a “permissive environment allowing Al-Qaeda to consolidate, with the presence of safe houses and training camps scattered across” the country with grant of sanctuary to many lower- and mid-ranking members of Al-Qaeda’s leadership in Kabul even as senior Al-Qaeda leaders are sheltered in the provinces.

 

With all these terror groups having pledged support to jihad in Kashmir, it is difficult to see how the ruling Taliban can control anti-India activities from its soil.

 

What has given a strategic twist to the issue is the growing interest and presence of major foreign powers like the US and China in Afghanistan that have staked rival claims to carve out Afghanistan as a sphere of influence.

 

As a result, Afghanistan has again become a geostrategic hot-spot.

 

China has offered to help in the infrastructural development of the war-torn country while the US has sought the return of the Bagram air base while aligning closely with Pakistan.

 

The developments have resulted in an enhancement of the bargaining capacity of the Taliban regime. Therefore, in the long run, Indo-Afghan relationship would be hostage to these factors.

 

A key aspect is to what extent the writ of the Kabul-centred Taliban run. Beyond Kabul’s borders, it is the warlords and ethnic militias that are very fickle by nature and not necessarily aligned with the position of the power in Kabul. With unpredictability being the key characteristic feature, India will have no choice but to become familiar with this unpredictability.

 

But what has opened up space for India in Afghanistan is the sharp souring of relations between Kabul and Islamabad.

 

India is also driven by the imperativeness to enhance connectivity with Iran and Central Asia and for that to happen Afghanistan is key. 

India