Surendra Kumar Gupta
The land of Gandhari of Dwapar and Kaykai of Treta Yug, presently known as Afghanistan, is going to become another Syria with the difference that here Ashraf Ghani, its President, may not sustain as Basher Al Asad, the president of Syria sustained with its fort there. The recent withdrawal by the United States forces from Afghanistan without establishing alternative safety measures for the people of Afghanistan and its Government from the onslaught of Taliban is a foolish step of the Biden Government of US.
Now the support being extended by Pakistan in the form of sending thousands of personnel of its 21 terrorist outfits to Afghanistan, for the help of Taliban, has further aggravated the situation in favour of Taliban. Though Afghanistan’s forces are fighting the battle with their utmost might having very limited arsenals to their command, it may not provide them the upper hand until unless the US or Russia supports them with their armaments and armed forces. In the past, the rivalry between two world powers–the US and the erstwhile USSR–had made Afghanistan a war zone which has led to the establishment of Taliban rule there from 1996 to 2001 with the implementation of Sharia rule which unleashed a sort of trauma under which the entire population of Afghanistan had to undergo.
The Taliban is nothing but the brainchild of the US itself which was established by it in 1994 through its head Mulla Omer to blunt the power of the USSR which had established the Communist regimes from 1978 to 1989. However, it had to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1989 owing to the formulation of an alliance by seven Peshawar-based Mujahideen in 1985 to oppose the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan.
The crux of the problem is that Islam was propagated in the whole world with the sword in 57 countries and its real monstrous face of terrorism is the outcome of Wahabi culture, started during 18th century by Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab’. There is another aspect also that no Muslim nation can live in peace owing to follow up of a sectarian culture by its inhabitants as established by the initiators of Islam. Sunnis, the majority population of Islam followers in the whole world, having hundreds of its terrorist outfits, can not live in harmony with Shias, Ahmedias and other sects of Muslims having its population in minority in the world.
The civil war erupted in Syria as its majority community is Sunni. However its president, since long, is Basher Al Asad, who is a Shia. Consequently, rebels of its majority community took the help of a Sunni terrorist outfit ISIS to oust Basher Al Asad but could not be successful owing to the support provided by Russia to Basher Al Asad during its war with ISIS. Similarly, the conflict started in the recent past in Iraq as the majority community there is of Shias and its minority community of Sunnis called ISIS to attack the Shia establishment there. Earlier Iraq, a predominant Shia country was ruled by Saddam Hussain, a Sunni, for a very long time. This was an eye sore to Iran, a majority Shia country; that is why a very long battle of ten years went on between Iran and Iraq. Take the example of Yemen, wherein its establishment, supported by Saudi Arabia, is opposed by the Shia Houtis connected to Hezbollah, a terrorist organisation of Shias supported by Iran.
Perennial Conflict Zone
As far as the legacy of Afghanistan is concerned, it has never been at peace since its foundation in 1747 which included present day Pakistan and Kashmir along with Afghanistan which was partially taken over by Maharaja Ranjit Singh from the then ruler Durrani and then there had been three Afghan wars with British rulers. Now the present day conflict in Afghanistan is another testimony of sectarian oriented culture of Muslims, based on enmity of Taliban, a Pashtun outfit, with the Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks communities whose sum total is more then the Pashtuns. The recent bloodshed will not subside so soon as interest of the US, Russia, China, Pakistan and India is involved there. Old rivalry between the US and Russia is well known to everybody. China wants to extend its CPEC to Afghanistan, having its eyes on vast resources of minerals there but having fear also in its mind if the Taliban extends its support to the Chinese Muslims of Xinjiang’s Uyghur Muslims who are being tortured in their camps. Pakistan supports Taliban fearing that its State of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa may be taken over by Taliban if it does not support it.
Having old enmity with Afghanistan, Bharat’s interest is based on the fact that it may lose its establishments and investments of $ 3 billion there and Taliban may also start supporting the Kashmiri terrorists on the name of Islam with the support of Pakistan.
International Support Needed
Abdullah Abdullah, the no. 2 official in the Afghanistan Government, returned recently from the first high-level round of peace talks with the Taliban in the middle eastern state of Qatar without having any significant outcome there. However, defence forces of Afghanistan are doing their best to fight against the Taliban through their limited power of air force. The Taliban are destroying government buildings, girls schools, public homes, killing Afghans on a large scale. To stay for a long run in the battlefield, Afghanistan needs to get direct immediate support from the US, NATO countries, Russia and India. Though at the moment, Russian defence forces plan to do battle exercises with Afghanistan bordering the countries of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in a couple of days. The US has just sent its bomber Aircrafts to Kabul, but the destruction of Afghanistan, on the line of Syria, is just inevitable until unless world forces extend their whole hearted defence support to Afghanistan in a big way.
(The writer is former General Manager of BHEL and political analyst)
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