Supporters of ex-NDS chief besiege Pak embassy

Supporters of Amrullah Saleh organised an anti-Pakistan rally outside Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul

ISLAMABAD: Supporters of Afghanistan’s former spymaster staged an angry demonstration outside Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul on Friday, preventing staff from performing their diplomatic duties.

According to an embassy spokesman, supporters of Amrullah Saleh, a former chief of National Directorate of Security (NDS), organised the anti-Pakistan rally because of his ‘strong links with India’.

“Nearly 400 of Saleh’s supporters besieged Pakistan’s Embassy in Kabul while chanting abusive anti-Pakistan slogans,” the High Commission’s spokesman Akhtar Munir said. “The demonstration kept the diplomatic staff out of the embassy premises, due to concerns about security,” he told The Express Tribune by telephone.

The rally, led by Saleh’s deputy Gen (retd) Esa, was staged to protest a series of recent bomb attacks in Afghanistan which have led to the deaths of more than 50 people, including five UAE diplomats.

Kabul has blamed the attacks on militants operating from ‘safe havens’ in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Pakistan has denied the presence of any terrorist safe havens on its territory and stressed that Afghanistan’s own instability have allowed various militant factions to carve out safe spaces.

The protests outside the Pakistan Embassy also came the same day Islamabad warned that a nexus between NDS and India’s RAW was responsible for violence and destabilisation in the region.

“The activities of a nexus between India’s RAW and NDS remain a matter of deep concern to Pakistan,” the Foreign Office spokesman said on Friday. He also stressed that some foreign elements were exploiting the situation and using Afghan soil against Pakistan.

Embassy spokesman Munir said although the demonstrators dispersed after an hour, they still came very close to the embassy building, prompting staff to contact senior Afghan officials for security. He pointed out that despite terrorist attacks on Pakistani soil which were linked back to Afghanistan, Pakistanis had never staged any protest outside the Afghan Embassy in Islamabad.

Political watchers in Afghanistan have blamed the recent attacks in Kabul, Kandahar and Helmand on the weaknesses of Afghanistan’s security agencies. They pointed out that the attacks carried out in security zones.

Some Afghans are also questioning the role of the Kandahar police chief Gen Raziq, who disappeared from the guest house at the time of the suicide bombing in Kandahar. The UAE ambassador and Kandahar governor were among the injured.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2017.