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Another epitaph for ‘strategic depth’
The death in custody of retired ISI officer Col Imam points to the blunder of ‘strategic depth’ as national...
The death in custody of retired ISI officer Colonel Amir Sultan, alias Col Imam, who had been abducted by the Taliban early last year, points, once again, to the blunder of ‘strategic depth’ as national policy towards neighbouring Afghanistan.
The death in custody of retired ISI officer Colonel Amir Sultan, alias Col Imam, who had been abducted by the Taliban early last year, points, once again, to the blunder of ‘strategic depth’ as national policy towards neighbouring Afghanistan. Some reports have ‘Taliban sources’ saying that he died of a heart attack, but his mentor General (retd) Hamid Gul says Col Imam was never a heart patient and that he had been killed by Indian agents and American private security firm Blackwater. Col Imam was kidnapped along with another former ISI officer, Khalid Khwaja, in March 2010. His captors demanded ransom and the release of Taliban prisoners by Pakistan. Mr Khwaja was shot by the allegedly Punjabi Taliban, on a purported phone call from Islamabad, where the caller accused him of being a CIA agent.
Col Imam was an icon of Pakistan’s Afghan policy after 1996, which ousted the Indian embassy from Kabul and facilitated the inauguration of the ‘Islamic’ government of Taliban, one of the cruellest in human history. Islamabad recognised the Taliban government in a manner typical of the Kargil Operation in 1999. The then prime minister Nawaz Sharif didn’t know who had okayed the recognition, because he hadn’t. Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub followed orders that came from a source other than the prime minister; but that was, more or less, routine in Pakistan by then.
Trained by Col Imam in camps that also trained terrorists for infiltration into India, the Taliban did something in Mazar-i-Sharif that began the regional isolation of Pakistan in pursuit of the policy of ‘strategic depth’. They finally got hold of Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998 and this came at the cost of a massacre in which hundreds of locals were killed, including Iranian diplomats, in the city’s consulate at the hands of men sent in from Pakistan. The good colonel claimed the Taliban who invaded Mazar-i-Sharif were unarmed and were mostly traders! He also put the blame on Iran for asking the Hazara Shias to resist and start the massacre.
The American-trained Colonel Imam was a commando officer who trained the mujahideen in camps run by Pakistan and the US. He was sent into Kandahar in 1994 to keep the Taliban going in the right direction but he soon moved to the more ‘strategic’ location of Herat, where he was given the dubious title of ‘king of Herat’. Today, India has a presence in Afghanistan with the help of the international community to prevent Pakistan from repeating 1996; and Iran is aggressively pressuring Herat through infiltration to forestall another Pakistani attempt at checkmating its neighbourly interests in Afghanistan. The Mazar tragedy of 1998 had brought the Taliban and Iranian troops eyeball-to-eyeball on the border, with Iran blaming Pakistan for the confrontation.
The Punjabi Taliban — a group of fighters from Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Harkatul Jihad al Islami, Harkatul Mujahideen, and various other jihadist groups — are all the product of the Pakistani state, which is proved by the statement given out by Khalid Khwaja and Col Imam saying that they were going to the Taliban territory in North Waziristan on advice from ex-army chief Mirza Aslam Beg and ex-ISI chief Lt-Gen (retd) Hameed Gul. The Punjabi Taliban wanted their men held by the ISI released, and finally killed the two ISI hostages when this was not done.
The Taliban have denied that they had anything to do with the killings, but the truth is that when post-kidnap demands were communicated, they contained one from the Afghan Taliban too, asking for the release of an Afghan Taliban leader captured outside Karachi. What is most significant is the fact that the Taliban and al Qaeda care little for Pakistan’s official policy of ousting India and targeting the Americans in Afghanistan. What they have in their cross hairs is Pakistan itself, and they see the Pakistan Army and the ISI as a hindrance in the realisation of this objective. Pakistan needs to change its Taliban-linked policy in the region in order to stave off the internal crisis generated by its totally misguided ‘strategy of depth’ against India. This would be completely in line with furthering our national and security interest.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 25th, 2011.
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Reader Comments (23)
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this argument is totally vague and need reconsidering! We need to understand who is aiding these Taliban element and how on earth have they procured such strength to control such areas! all this is not possible with out and outside help.
I am of the view point that Pakistan is correct when it pursues the strategy of depth again India for the sake of national interests.Recommend
Strategic Depth is working well for other countries and it has supported us too. I completely fail to understand your point here. things changed after 9 11 and like US no other country was prepared to deal with that. Dont brush the work of our agencies like that, you know it very well they have been facing hard times.Recommend
So if the killing of a retired ISI colonel is ENOUGH for you to deduce that STRATEGIC DEPTH(Please get this straight..I am NOT advocating it)is a failure,will you apply the same formula for all the PEACE INITIATIVES which have met death at the hands of Indians as failure of the concept of ever having PEACE with India.A very vague and illogical piece of journalism I would say!Okay..STRATEGIC DEPTH might be a failed strategy…but how you have managed(with malice I suppose)to link the death of the colonel with this policy is mind boggling and stinks of bias!Recommend
@Ali Saqib: How did the Taliban get the resources to take over most of Afghanistan in the 1990s? The US? Mossad? Blackwater?
@ Asif: The problem with our strategy is that the death toll of Pakistani citizens keeps on adding up. Is that supposed to be a measure of success? And so what if they are facing hardtimes? They are state institutions who are paid out of the public purse to do a job. Not rule over everyone else.Recommend
Col. Imam may have been killed as a test. The TTP may be checking the resolve of Pakistan. If Pakistan does not respond, it will let the TTP know that their position is strong versus Pakistan to extract more concessions. If it wants to reduce the power of the militants, Pakistan is stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea. The powers that be will have to weigh the response options carefully – they must not allow the TTP to gain the psychological advantage by failing to respond.Recommend
Keep pursuing Strategic depth. Not much deeper to go down for Pakistan now.Recommend
A snake charmer bitten to death by his own snakes.Recommend
How shameless and double faced a country can be. Dont think that no one is keeping an eye on pak’s misdeeds. Just because others need pak for another one year, big countries are giving alms to run the failed economy. By 2012 everyone will start withdrawing from the region and we will get to see the dance of strategic assets in pak. Recommend
Wow – a very powerful editorial. Beginning to think that the editorial section has been penetrated by nefarious Indian agents. Recommend
A very candid and honest analysis! Well done express tribune! We need to confront the forces of darkness head on, or else they will destroy what is left of us.Recommend
@Nadir Thank you for the comments that actually make some sense. I’m appalled to see others advocating the so called strategic depth in Afghanistan and then Pakistanis complain why Afghans hate the Pakistan establishment so much :P
I recall how the late Afghan president Dr Najeebullah predicated that blood will flow in the cities of Pakistan unless the Pakistani establishment change their polices ( this was in the 1990s) but alas Pakistani policy makers had this crazy obsession of projecting power in Afghanistan and changing the regional dynamics.
Wake up Pakistanis you are now termed as the epicenter of global terrorism,every major terrorist plot is traced back to Pakistan, your society has been so radicalized that people such as Qadri who murdered the governor of Punjab is termed as hero while renowned muslim scholars like Javed Ahmed Ghamidi lives in exile.
Fair enough if you still think that Strategic depth is a policy that is benefiting the Pakistani state then follow it and I guarantee that Pakistan will disintegrate sooner rather than later.
BTW : Thank you in advance for blasting me as a RAW or Mossad agent :PRecommend
really a very misperceived and vague story u have to understand that whats ur affectionate India and USA are dong with us who prepared taleban ? when ever USA requires its a crusade even in your editorials when Kashmirs resistance where at peak every one was addressing them crusaders and now they are militants I would not like to write a detail inhumanity and cruelty practiced by India in Kashmir and Pakistan, about taleban wherever there is a cataclysm the causalities occurs and after that there was a peace in afghan that never seen now a days even in developed countries Recommend
FYI : The late Afghan president Dr Najeebullah was killed/murdered by the Taliban in a brutal manner when they captured Kabul and many Afghans blame the ISI who they say were making the decisions on behalf of the Taliban now if that is true I believe that Colonel Imam was in the forefront of those decisions and what an interesting end to the person who might have ordered the killing of the president and couldn’t have imagined that a similar fate awaits him.
Probably the saying is true ¨As you sow so shall you reap¨Recommend
You cannot destroy the social fabric of the society for the sake of strategic depth or any other motive. A stable progressive society is the most important element for a nation, it cant be sacrificed. The concept of strategic depth is laughable to say the least; how is going to attack a nuclear state through the rugged terrain of FATA ? Recommend
Those who abducted.kill Imam are not from Islam but the beasts of the time with no religion.they are doing it for money only.Pakistan agencies are ignoring every terrorist act by saying that the criminals went to tribal belt which is fully nonsense.to capture one from tribals is easy follow trace ask the political to bribe some tribals & capture the beast.but why agencies not tracing them to capture.?. Recommend
@ Ali Saqib and Asif –
No need to judge policy of “strategic depth” on morality.. For a moment keep emotions aside, and just think logically if it has worked for Pak, could it have worked and can it work?Recommend
One (of the many many) downsides to the Pakistan military exclusively controlling defence and foreign policy is that they can act without taking domestic considerations into account. Let thousands of Pakistanis die every year in terrorist attacks for the sake of strategic depth, the army will simply blame the civilian government for lack of security and continue with its destructive policies.
By the way, can anyone name even one way in which strategic depth has helped Pakistan? Pakistan has only become more insecure since its adventures in Afghanistan. Recommend
@RS: Wat morality? oh yeah the one that we got to see in iraq, the one that happend due to carpet bombing of afghanisatn or the drone attacks. comon man!
We shouldnt be a remorseful nation, we have done nothing wrong, and its how the world has been doing. The only differnece is ther ppl stand behind them ours whine.Recommend
@Nadir: Dont you think they are doing what they can? its sad to see comments like your, tells you how bad we have gone. Recommend
Looks like the Muslim Punjabi Empire will meet the same fate as other empires in Afghanistan. Recommend
@Asif
Can you tell me where have the following countries found ‘Starategic Depth’
India- China/Pakistan/Bangladesh?
Bangladesh- India/Burma?
Sri Lanka- ???????
Maldives-????
Iran-????? Don’t tell me Pakiatan supported Iran against Iraq during the 10 year war.
Afghanistan-Pakistan? When Afghans were being massacred by the Taliban (in Mazar-e-Sharif for example) , was strategic depth for the Afghans ‘working well’?Recommend
Strategic depth was strategic nonsense.Recommend
If this nonsense policy of Strategic Depth continues, Pakistan shall drown in those strategic depths.
Why cannot economic freedom and upward movement be the clarion call for Pakistan. The truth is that ISI and the Pakistani Army keeps raising the Indian bogey to justify their power. In this modern day and age, it is impossible for any country to invade and conquer another country.
What will India gain by invading Pakistan. Nothing except more poverty to rule over. India is focused on its economic development and wants Pakistan to achieve the same. Imagine we have set up our Software shop branches in our arch enemy China. Why wouldn’t we do that in a friendlier Pakistan given that we share so much of history.Recommend