Kabul-Islamabad intelligence agreement intensifies insecurity in Afghanistan

A number of Afghan analysts and Afghan citizens said that the agreement signed between the intelligence agencies of Kabul and Islamabad will intensify insecurity and terrorism in Afghanistan.

The Afghan Intelligence – National Directorate of Security (NDS) has signed an agreement with Pakistan’s military intelligence – Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) that it would allow Pakistan intelligence to train and equip the Afghan spy agency.

Afghan analysts warned that if the agreement comes to the practical steps it would cause the discredit of government in the region.

According to them, the agreement makes Pakistan’s efforts easier to insecure Asian countries.

Amrullah Saleh, former head of NDS was said to consider the agreement a “Hot Line Contact” between the two countries and said that the agreement will reach Pakistan to its old dreams.

“In fact, Afghanistan makes its enemies stronger if the agreement goes to the practical terms. Pakistan that still supports Taliban will dominate Afghanistan’s data and affairs,” Amrullah Saleh said.

“With the agreement, we will lost India’s trust too. Pakistan wants to insecure Afghanistan and the Asian countries,” Atiqullah Amar Khail, military analyst said.

Afghan lawmakers have also criticized signing of this agreement with Pakistan on Monday session, and asked the house to summon National Directorate of Security (NDS) officials to provide justification on the pact signed.

For four decades, Pakistan’s spy-generals have played Afghanistan like a powerful chip in a consequential game of poker. They know the important local militants, have open channels to their favorite groups, and regularly play various groups against the Western coalition.

The twin justifications for the aggressive intervention in Afghan affairs are India and American withdrawal.
Since Pakistan’s humiliating dissection at Indian and nascent Bangladeshi hands in 1971, Islamabad’s doctrine vis-à-vis Afghanistan has been known as strategic depth.

For the ISI, Afghanistan is to be a safety net should the delusional prediction that India will invade a weaker Pakistan actually come true.

According to a number of reports, the ISI – sometimes called a state within a state – operates a highly secretive, off-the-record “S Wing” that is used to support the various militant groups that have been central to Pakistani foreign policy.

A report leaked in 2006 by the British Defense Ministry stated, “Indirectly Pakistan (through the ISI) has been supporting terrorism and extremism.”

The report went so far as to link the ISI to the 2005 London bombings, in addition to the various insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A 2012 NATO study based on 27,000 interrogations of 4,000 captured Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters concluded that the ISI provided safe havens to the Taliban, monitored their movements, manipulated their fighters, and arrested those thought uncooperative.

Afghanistan and Pakistan share multiple strands of culture, history, religion, and civilization, but the two countries have never succeeded in establishing bilateral relations free of tensions.

Rather, passive antagonism and mistrust have marked bilateral ties for the larger part of more than half a century following the creation of Pakistan.

The intensity of hostility has varied under different regimes in Afghanistan, however, and though brief periods of cordiality have occurred as well, these have never been enough to provide a consistent positive direction.
Reported by Wahid Nawesa