Pak Is Using Terrorists as ‘Violent Proxies’, says Afghanistan

Afghanistan blames Pak for using “violent proxies” to achieve political objectives motivated by regional rivalry.

Stating 2015 as the bloodiest year in Afghanistan since 2001, Mahmoud Saikal, Permanent Representative of Afghanistan said that Pakistan has been using terrorists as “violent proxies”.

Citing Afghanistan’s ties with India as the reason for Islamabad’s “unnecessary anxiety”, Saikal has said that Pakistan has resorted to using violent proxies in pursuit of political objectives that has left a sharp spike in civilian and military casualties. This made 2015 a very bloody year in Afghanistan.

External support to the Taliban and other terrorist groups is primarily motivated by regional rivalry, with excessive and unnecessary anxiety and suspicion of one state over its rival’s otherwise ordinary relations with Afghanistan. This has resulted in an unsavoury policy of using violent proxies in pursuit of political objectives, which has created a significant trust deficit between Pakistan and Afghanistan and provides oxygen for terror to breathe.

Mahmoud Saikal, Permanent Representative of Afghanistan

Saikal made the remarks at the Plenary Session on the Situation in Afghanistan, on Monday. “This year has been the bloodiest in Afghanistan since 2001, with a sharp increase in civilian and military casualties. We have come under high levels of attacks from foreign-based Taliban including the Haqqani network, Al Qaeda, ISIS (Daesh), Hekmatyar’s faction, and other extremist groups,” he said.

The Haqqani network is blamed for some of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan, including the Indian embassy bombing and the attack on Kabul Serena Hotel in 2008. The peak of this was the Taliban’s temporary capture of Kunduz city in late September, during which – together with hundreds of international terrorists – they unleashed their reign of terror on the population, he added.

Saikal said the “foreign” orchestrators of this year’s ferocious attacks had taken advantage of three factors, including the withdrawal of international forces, and the strong belief of the terrorists that their attacks would make the political system collapse.

Pakistan’s lack of coordination of untimely counter, terrorism operations with Afghanistan which allowed international terrorists to enter Afghan soil and Kabul’s preoccupation with its 2014 political transition, involving two rounds of elections, which slowed down governance were the other two reasons he listed.

(With inputs from PTI.)