Chickens are coming home to roost. The reign of terror unleashed by the Pakistan-sponsored jihadis in India and other places has gone out of control of the Taliban handlers. Suicide blasts in Islamabad, synchronized attacks in Lahore, bloodshed in other parts of the country—the Pakistanis are paying for their support to bloodthirsty jihadis. In the unruly northwestern region and the neighboring Afghanistan, the Taliban and al-Qaeda have control and influence over the lives of millions of people.
The frightening situation in our western neighbor also makes a fact starker: that the war on terror, began by former US president George Bush eight years ago, has made little dent in the authority of the Islamist militants. The recently published account of New York Times reporter, David Rohde—who was kidnapped and kept in captivity by the Taliban for seven months—gives the impression that the eight-year-old war waged by the world’s mightiest nation against primitive fanatics is far from being successful. Rohde wrote, “We arrived at a new house [in Waziristan], and I was again surprised by the good conditions. It had regular electricity. We received pomegranates and other fresh food and Nestle Pure Life water bottled in Pakistan.” Electricity, fresh food, bottled water—such things cannot exist in a countryside which has no links with the outside world. The US and its ostensible ally Pakistan have failed to cut the supplies to the regions under the control of Taliban. There is no duress in these regions; this can be possible only with the presence of Taliban sympathizers in Islamabad.
A more important supply line that the US has failed to cut or squeeze relates to financing. The Taliban make tons of money from opium trade. Their earnings from narcotic business are estimated in the range from $70 million to $400 million a year. What is more, they are not fighting a very expensive war. Training, equipping and paying a fighter does not cost much; a fighter earns between $200 and $500 a month.
But drug money is not the only one the Taliban relies on. Gen Stanley Mc-Chrystal, the top Nato commander in Afghanistan, said on August 30, “Eliminating insurgent access to narco-profits—even if possible, and while disruptive—would not destroy their ability to operate so long as other funding sources remained intact.” The CIA is said to have estimated that Taliban leaders and their associates got $106 million in the past year from donors outside Afghanistan. Donations from private citizens from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran and some Persian Gulf nations have fattened the Taliban kitty. So far, there is no evidence that any Arab nation funded the Taliban in AfPak. The US and other Western nations have to broad-base the war on terror. The Taliban have to be isolated, cornered and starved in every possible manner—financially, materially and militarily. Otherwise, it will become an endless war.
India’s failure has been equally spectacular. Apart from ‘strongly condemning’ the jihadi violence, New Delhi has not been able to do anything substantive. There is no point in convincing Islamabad to act against terror outfits; the Islamist terrorists have countless supporters in the Pakistani power structure.
India can act aggressively without waging a war against Pakistan. It can try to transform Pakistan into a pariah state. Its involvement in aiding and abetting terror is well-known to the wide world. In recent times, a state which was openly and official racist was South Africa under apartheid. International pressure played a major role in bringing an end to the reprehensible policy in South Africa. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu, an anti-Apartheid crusader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, wrote in an article in 2002, “The end of apartheid stands as one of the crowning accomplishments of the last century, but we would not have succeeded without the help of international pressure.”
It is time the foreign policy bosses in New Delhi woke up and did something more substantial than making grand statements. They have to act and ensure that Pakistan is isolated, cornered, and financially starved.
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