PESHAWAR, April 20: The withdrawal of most combat troops from Afghanistan at the end of 2014 has raised questions from Kabul to Brussels to Washington about the potential chaos that may follow if the Taliban press to take over again.
Few people are as worried about what the pullout could trigger in Pakistan as Lieutenant-General Khalid Rabbani, commander of the corps fighting militants in the northwest of the country.
Sitting in his office in the heavily-fortified headquarters of the XI Corps in Peshawar, he speaks anxiously about creating the right perceptions as the foreign troop exit approaches.
“If they are leaving and giving a notion of success to the Taliban of Afghanistan, this notion of success may have a snowballing effect on to the threat matrix of Afghanistan,” Gen Rabbani told Reuters in an interview this week.
“On our side, it may give impetus to the already dying down so-called Tehrik-i-Taliban’s effort over here.”
One of the most notorious Pakistani Taliban leaders, Afghanistan-based Mullah Fazlullah, has already demonstrated what may be in store if US-led Nato forces fail to stabilise Afghanistan before 2014. Hundreds of his fighters staged cross-border raids on Pakistani posts last summer, killing dozens of Pakistani soldiers.
“Our friends on the other side know exactly where they are because we communicate it to them. But they have capacity issues,” said Gen Rabbani, referring to western and Afghan forces.
“I wonder, that if the superpowers and the western world operating on the other side, they have capacity issues, we certainly have them too.”
Gen Rabbani took command at a time of deep crisis in relations between Washington and Islamabad, a week after a cross-border Nato air attack killed 24 Pakistan soldiers on Nov 26.
About drone strikes, which fuel anti-American sentiment in the country, Gen Rabbani said he acknowledged the strikes could be effective, but added they also killed civilians and were counter-productive.
“You kill five, and you’re making 50 more enemies. It’s very clear arithmetic. This is the arithmetic that we’re trying to make them understand,” he said, adding that instead intelligence should be shared so that Pakistan could act.
“They may indicate (a target), we’ll pound it with the precision shooting of our F-16s. So it can be done, it has been done at one or two places. Why can’t this model be followed, we keep on telling them this is a possible model to be followed.”
The United States has repeatedly urged Pakistan to mount a full-scale assault on North Waziristan and go after the Haqqani network, reportedly one of the deadliest militant groups.—Reuters