Afghan intelligence will chose India over Pakistan any day

New Delhi, June 25: A ploy by Pakistan to get the Afghanistan intelligence on board and ensure that every terrorist strike was blamed on India appears to have failed. After the attack on the Afghanistan parliament, the Pakistan media was abuzz with news and views in which India's Research and Analysis Wing was blamed.

However now with the Afghanistan intelligence service now stating that it was a Pakistan intelligence officer who helped the Taliban carry out the Parliament attack, the entire picture becomes clear.

The signing of a landmark deal between the Intelligence agencies of Pakistan and Afghanistan which was in fact stage managed by the UK saw an anti India tilt. However an officer with the R&AW informed OneIndia that the opinion within the Afghanistan intelligence is divided and a majority of them do not want to side with Pakistan.

Why Afghan's intelligence would chose India over Pakistan?

The deal that the ISI and the Afghan's intelligence agency- National Directorate of Security (NDS) signed had several clauses in it which made India extremely uncomfortable.

One of the clauses was that for any terror strike in Afghanistan the intelligence agencies would not blame each other. This automatically meant that for any terror strike both agencies would get together and blame India.

This virtually gave Pakistan the license to carry out as many strikes as possible in Afghanistan and get away with it. If one looks at the pattern in which the NDS has worked, it has always preferred India to Pakistan.

The NDS basically follows the general opinion of the people of Afghanistan (not the Taliban) who have always blamed Pakistan for their misery.

The NDS too realizes that the entire game by Paksitan would be aimed at destablising Afghanistan by propping the Taliban up every now and then. On the other hand, Afghanistan does realize that along with India it has a common enemy in the Taliban and both would need to work to thwart that threat for long term peace.

Historic distrust between Afghanistan and Pakistan

The trust factor between Afghanistan and Pakistan has been nothing that the two nations can boast about. There has been a trust deficit between the Afghanistan and Pakistan leadership for several years now.

The Afghan leadership always felt that Pakistan was aiding the Taliban and as long as this outfit existed there could no sanity in the nation.

A recent meeting of the tribal elders and the Chief of the NDS lasted over four and half hours and it was discussed as to how the Taliban was influencing every decision in the tribal belts. It was decided that they would do everything they could to wade away the threat of the Taliban and ensure that peace returned.

It was during this meeting that an 80 year old man stood up and told the NDS chief that the problem began with Pakistan. He further went on to add that all the internal problems in Afghanistan were being stage managed by the ISI.

However the new regime under President Ashraf Ghani took a completely different stand on the issue. Instead he felt that peace and stability could return only if he engaged with Pakistan.

There was a need for military cooperation between the two countries, he also said during a visit to Pakistan in November 2014.

Afghan intelligence has discovered the real threat

The statement by the Afghan intelligence blaming the ISI officer for aiding the Taliban in the parliament attack pretty much sums up what the thinking is.

The animosity and the trust deficit may have been cleared up by the leaders of the two nations (Af-Pak), but within the ranks such as the army and the intelligence the scenario has not changed one bit.

A R&AW officer says that the NDS which does the ground work in the country has a better understanding of who is staging these attacks. Currently it is only the Taliban which would rely on the ISI as it realizes that an external threat in the form of the ISIS is coming.

The officer says that the Parliament attack had several meanings to it. While one was the continuation of the Spring Offensive that the Taliban launches every year, the bigger message was to ensure that India is blamed for the attack.

OneIndia News