The Afghan spy chief's resignation

By Rahimullah Yusufzai

Such is the level of mistrust of Islamabad and the hatred against it among many Afghans that Amrullah Saleh, until recently Afghanistan's intelligence chief, described Pakistan and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) as his country's "enemy number one."

Saleh is so convinced, on the basis of the intelligence that he and his men have been gathering about the ISI's work in Afghanistan, that he doesn't feel the need to provide proof to back up his claim. He was quoted in a recent interview as saying: "The ISI is part of the landscape of destruction in this country, no doubt. So it will be a waste of time to provide evidence of ISI involvement. They are part of it."

If Saleh hates Pakistan so much and considers the ISI responsible for Afghanistan's destruction, one could safely presume that this is the dominant feeling about Islamabad in his country's intelligence setup, the National Directorate of Security (NDS) that he headed since early 2004. And since Saleh is an ethnic Tajik from the Panjshir Valley, the native place of the late Afghan mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Masood, it would not be wrong to say that all other Masood followers and supporters grouped in his Shura-i-Nazar faction of the Jamiat-i-Islami party of former president Burhanuddin Rabbani share the same feelings of hostility towards Pakistan and the ISI.

This sentiment of mistrust and hatred cannot be one-sided. It is, therefore, natural that the ISI people also don't like Saleh and his men. In fact, a running battle has been going on for years between the ISI and Afghan intelligence, which has functioned with different names, including KHAD and WAD during the rule of Afghan communists, and partnered new allies such as the KGB, the CIA and RAW at various stages of the conflict in Afghanistan. Given the state of their animosity towards each other over the years, it would be impossible for them to cooperate even in facing a common threat.

The Americans would surely want the ISI and Afghanistan's NDS to join forces with the CIA to defeat Al-Qaida and the Taliban, but the mistrust keeps the Afghan and Pakistani spies apart and prevents them from cooperating with each other. Asking them to work together is like wanting ISI and RAW agents to join hands after their having conspired and plotted against each other throughout their existence.

Saleh has spent years doing intelligence work in Afghanistan and abroad. He was based in Peshawar for sometime during the Afghan jihad against the Soviet occupying forces when Masood, Rabbani and the rest of the Afghan mujahideen leaders enjoyed Pakistan's hospitality and received support from the ISI, CIA and other intelligence agencies. Saleh also operated out of Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe to coordinate the Northern Alliance's battle against the Taliban with assistance from countries seeking to oust the regime led by Mulla Mohammad Omar in Afghanistan. Following the Taliban defeat as a result of the US invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, he was made deputy head of the NDS, with Muhammad Arif Sarwari taking over as its director.

In fact, the entire intelligence setup of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance was installed in the NDS, bringing it to all those who hated Pakistan and considered the ISI responsible for Afghanistan's woes. In due course of time, many former Afghan communists and mujahideen who had done intelligence work and were always suspicious of Pakistan's role in Afghanistan were in control of the NDS. As always, the Afghan intelligence agency and the ISI were in rival camps and, in Saleh's words, Pakistan's premier intelligence agency was the foremost enemy of Afghanistan. Afghanistan's fine ethnic balance that is so crucial to the country's stability also wasn't maintained in the NDS, or subsequently in the Afghan National Army, the police and other institutions, as the majority Pakhtuns remained underrepresented. This obviously had its own pitfalls and the Taliban fully exploited it to find recruits from among Pakhtuns dissatisfied with their circumstances.

Saleh's enmity with Pakistan has its origins in the Afghan jihad. His leader, Masood, was critical of Pakistan and the ISI at the time for preferring his rival Gulbadin Hekmatyar over him and providing him greater resources. Gen Ziaul Haq had clear preference for the more fundamentalist Afghan mujahideen groups, such as those led by Hekmatyar, Rabbani, Yunis Khalis and Abdur Rab Rasul Sayyaf, not only because of his own conservative choices but also due to the better battlefield performance of their committed fighters against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

Masood and his party leader Rabbani belonged to fundamentalist Jamiat-i-Islami, but it seems they were less willing to take orders from Islamabad than the others. This became evident in later years when Masood and Rabbani defied Pakistan and built up their own alliances with Iran, Russia and France and, in the post-9/11 period, with the US and its Western allies. Ziaul Haq and the ISI at that point in time felt more comfortable working with Hekmatyar than Masood and Rabbani.

Though Ziaul Haq was wise enough not to say it publicly, it was obvious that Islamabad's policy in Afghanistan was, and always has been, generally pro-Pakhtun. It was felt that befriending Afghanistan's Pakhtuns was in Islamabad's interest because Pakistan has a significant Pakhtun population of its own and the Pakhtuns lived on both sides of the Durand Line. Gen Pervez Musharraf, an fimpulsive man keen to take credit for his forthrightness, on at least two occasions publicly declared that Pakistan's Afghan policy was pro-Pakhtun. It was irresponsible on his part to make this statement as it alienated the Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmen and other non-Pakhtuns in Afghanistan and made them realise that their friendship wasn't a priority for Pakistan. In fact, many Afghan Pakhtuns also found Musharraf's statement offensive. Some of them at the time commented that they didn't need Musharraf's or Pakistan's support as they were themselves capable of winning their rights and maintaining Afghanistan's unity, being the founders of the Afghan state named after them.

Saleh's resignation on June 6, along with that of Interior Minister Muhammad Hanif Atmar, following the audacious attack four days previously in Kabul on the occasion of the landmark Consultative Peace Jirga, not only exposed the strife in President Hamid Karzai's laboriously built and complex ruling coalition but also thrust Pakistofan into the limelight. Though Saleh and Atmar's resignations were linked to the security lapse that enabled the suspected Taliban militants to come close to the venue where about 1,500 jirga members were meeting, despite the presence of 12,000 soldiers and police, there was more to it than meets the eye. Atmar, a former communist official who earned praise from Western governments for his effective style of leadership and honesty, isn't talking after quitting the interior minister's job. But Saleh, who too was praised by Western authorities for his work, is all over the place, granting interviews in which he is blaming Pakistan for Afghanistan's problems and raising questions about Karzai's motives. He is unhappy with Karzai for going soft on Pakistan after criticising it all these years and is opposed to his plans to release Taliban prisoners and reconcile with Mulla Omar and his men.

Saleh's views represent those of many Afghans who are non-Pakhtun and supporters of the erstwhile Northern Alliance. Some Pakhtuns who have stood up to the Afghan Taliban and suffered as a consequences are also against bowing to the militants and giving Pakistan a role in Afghanistan's affairs. Such divergent views have exposed the rift in the Karzai-led ruling coalition with regard to reconciliation with the Taliban, ties to Pakistan and the relationship with the US-headed Nato forces bent upon an elusive military solution of the Afghan conflict. Though Karzai's managed to get support for his policy of reintegrating the Taliban into the political mainstream from the Consultative Peace Jirga, his government would encounter problems and suffer from further splits as he proceeds on the path of peace and national reconciliation.

The writer is resident editor of The News in Peshawar. Email: rahim yusufzai@yahoo.com