Afghan investigators inspect a damaged car at the site of a suicide car bomb attack on the convoy of Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah as residents walk near the scene in Kabul on June 6, 2014. PHOTO: AFP
Pakistan had not wasted a moment in denouncing the cowardly assault on Dr Abdullah’s election campaign convoy in the Afghan capital city, which left a dozen people dead. Tragic as the incident was, and deserving of unqualified denunciation, it nevertheless was a result of Afghan security forces’ utter failure to prevent such an occurrence. Instead of doing the much-needed soul-searching, Afghanistan’s National Security Council, headed by President Hamid Karzai, pointed an accusing finger at Pakistan’s intelligence services for orchestrating the incident ‘to disrupt the election in Afghanistan’. The charge, which was not backed up by any corroborative evidence, was rejected by Islamabad. In a befitting reply, the Foreign Office said these allegations fall in the familiar pattern of certain elements in Afghanistan sparing no occasion to malign Pakistan and its security institution.
The acrimony engendered by this fresh blame game is all the more unfortunate since Pakistan’s army chief, General Raheel Sharif, only last month travelled to Afghanistan to bolster two-way cooperation and review the fragile security situation in Afghanistan. During the trip, he had discussed ways of enhancing Pakistan-Afghan bilateralism with emphasis on a coordinated mechanism along the border. The visit served to create the impression that the often rocky relations between the two countries were finally on the mend. However, this fresh bitterness in ties put paid to any such rosy assessment. There is a sense in certain quarters that, with his time almost up, President Karzai wants to play the role of a spoiler before handing over charge to the soon-to-be-elected new president. We cannot rule out this proposition outright.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 11th, 2014.
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@John B: The general rule is innocent until proven guilty. Does Afghanistan have any evidence of Pakistan's involvement? Nope. For all you know, Karzai was behind the assassination attempt as he is backing a different candidate and wants Dr Abdullah Abdullah out of his way.
p.s. Warlords trying to assassinate rivals isn't exactly something new.
After seeing some of the news channels over the last 3 days, your statement "Kabul has gotten to its old, familiar tricks of vitiating the feel-good atmosphere Islamabad creates with meticulous, painstaking efforts after intermittent blips in bilateral ties" should also be replaced with "Islamabad has gotten to its old, familiar tricks of vitiating the feel-good atmosphere New Delhi creates with meticulous, painstaking efforts after intermittent blips in bilateral ties". Without any official confirmation (DSP Ranger just said that some of the weapons MIGHT be indian origin"), what about rest of the weapons that might be US/Chinese/Russian made, were these countries also involved too, did any news channel pointed fingers towards these countries too, or was it selective bashing of India for TRP ratings. Think rationally: - RAW is capable/intelligent enough to hire uzbeks as mercenaries, but fool enough to provide them Indian made weapons. No intelligence agency works that way. - there is a big black market for arms, have we explored possibility that weapons might be purchased from black market itself?
Not sure this will get published or not, but who ever is reading it gets the message and starts thinking rationally, this message has done its work.
No one believes any of comments or trickery of the Afghan administration - least of all Afghans themselves whether Tajik or Hazara, Kandahari Pakhtun or Uzbek. They all know it is a common Afghan game to fight among themselves and cause their own problems but then blame others. Only when Afghans own up to their own problems and stop being a puppet state of India can they ever hope to progress and become a stable nation. Pakistan should just deport all the Afghan refugees now and seal the border so they never come back.
Although I agree with the editorial based on common sense analysis, I pause to ponder on the tone of the editorial itself. The writer seems to be very confident that PAK establishment did not play any role and seems to defend the official PAK statement rather than taking a neutral analysis. How does a new agency know the full facts to the event that happened only two days ago?
At first I did not like the way Afghans like to blame everything on PAKISTANI agencies but now I kind of like it.........The only loser in this whole blaming affair is Afghans.....LoL!!! Not that I want bad things for them but if their western/Indian Backed leaders choose to keep doing Pakistan Bashing it does not mean good for their internal affairs in long run as whole world knows the state of Afghan internal Affairs that span over centuries.