In the first flush of victory contrived by the US for
the Northern Alliance in late 2001, the Tajik animosity
against Pakistan had bared itself immediately and ominously.
Within Kabul, Pakistani-origin Taliban prisoners were
summarily executed. Externally Qanooni, Gen Fahim and
Abdullah Abdullah took turns visiting the Indian capital
and lambasting Pakistan from pillar to post. Qanooni
reportedly handed over about 125 Pakistani “Taliban’
prisoners to India for use as terrorism’s cannon
fodder, eg the Dec 13 attack on Indian Parliament is
widely suspected to be a Polish border-type incident
staged by Indian intelligence. As the US-led Coalition
imposed a UN-sponsored interim set-up in Afghanistan,
the Tajik became more sophisticated, their rage against
Pakistan was kept under wraps for international public
consumption, but only just. With late Ahmed Shah Masoud’s
cronies holding the vital portfolios of governance,
Interior, Defence and Foreign Affairs, the “broad-based”
Afghan Interim Government is simply a front for the
Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance...more
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Is it a coincidence that within a few
days after three Uzbek/Tajik-looking terrorists attacked
a Imambargah in Quetta, killing 50 and injuring scores
of others seriously, the Pakistan Embassy in Kabul was
ransacked by an armed mob of a thousand or so who turned
up “spontaneously” in trucks and buses for
what clearly was an “officially sponsored”
riot? His belated regrets notwithstanding, one is used
to Abdullah Abdullah, the Tajik-origin Afghan Foreign
Minister, and his constant “companion” Omar
Samad, spouting anti-Pakistan vituperatives at every
international forum conceivable, is it also a coincidence
that Hamid Karzai has only recently embarked on a scurrilous
campaign to blame Pakistan for his own government’s
increasing failure at extending the Afghan Government’s
authority in any meaningful manner beyond Kabul? And
even while tendering his government’s apology,
Karzai had some cheek asking Musharraf to explain why
the President remarked recently that Karzai’s
authority did not extend beyond Kabul, are we to understand
that warlords Ismail Khan in Herat and Rashid Dostum
in Mazar-i-Sharif are very much in Karzai’s control?
For that matter, does Qanooni, the Advisor-in-charge
of Home Affairs, or Gen Fahim, Afghan Defence Minister,
really answer to his authority? When recently Karzai
tried to rein in Dostum by appointing him to an “advisory
post” in Kabul, Dostum very publicly declined....more
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