Archives

ISLAMABAD, Nov 14 (AFP) - Pakistan is nervously watching the Northern Alliance march through Taliban territory closer to setting up what it fears could be a hostile government on its doorstep.

The Islamabad government's calls for a UN peacekeeping force in Kabul shows its anxiety about the opposition coalition's rout of the Islamic militia, analysts said.

Pakistan's salvation could lie in its new found friendship with the United States, built on President Pervez Musharraf's support for the US-led war on terrorism, Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.

The United States has however also sided with the coalition of warlords and commanders from ethnic minorities in the Northern Alliance. Four weeks of US bombing played a key role in weakening the Taliban so much that it just withdrew from many cities with hardly a fight.

There is barely disguised antagonism between Pakistan, which helped set up the Pashtun-dominated Taliban in the early 1990s, and the Northern Alliance.

"Pakistan holds the view that the Northern Alliance must not occupy Kabul," foreign ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmad Khan said Tuesday.

The alliance's foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, in turn called on Pakistan this week to change its attitude to Afghanistan saying his country has been a victim of "misinformation and disinformation" from its big neighbour.

"We don't want to see the policy of the United States towards Afghanistan shaped by ideas coming from Pakistan. That is not understandable for us," he said.

Riffat Hussain, an advisor to Musharraf and head of the Department of Strategic Studies at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University, said the United States had "created a Frankenstein" by helping the Northern Alliance.

"There is concern about the future," added Hassan Askari, a respected Pakistani commentator and former head of the political science department at the University of the Punjab.

The alliance members "have traditionally been opposed to Pakistan. They view Pakistan as supporters of the Taliban. So if they consolidate, Pakistan will not be happy," said Hassan.

"The only hope that the Pakistan government has is that the United States will exercise influence over the Northern Alliance not to try to take revenge over other groups."

He said "Pakistan has the upper hand in dealing with the United States. Both agree that the Northern Alliance should not control Afghanistan."

Hassan said the problem is the lack of an interim government in Kabul. "No-one expected the Taliban would give up so soon. Everyone thought they would fight for at least a week."

The Quaid-e-Azam University expert highlighted that Pakistan's problems could grow the further the Taliban are pushed back.

"If the Northern Alliance seek to control a big block of Taliban territory and push them back to the Pakistan border then that will be bad for Pakistan."

He added: "The Northern Alliance makes no bones of the fact that they do not like Pakistan.

"Now the Northern Alliance has got its wish, they don't need the United States as much as before. Now the US faces a difficult job to rein them in. The US must adjust to the reality."

Pakistan could see its traditional influence in Afghanistan eroding away again. Just as Islamabad played a key role in the rise of the Taliban to power in 1996, agreements that set up the mujahedin government of 1992-96 were also sealed in Pakistan. Many of the mujahedin leaders are in today's Northern Alliance.

"I think Pakistan will have some say in this government," said Hassan. "But Pakistan would like the cover of the United Nations instead of another 1992. This time Pakistan will not want to go it alone."

He said the aim must be to create an alternative force to the alliance and the Taliban. "And that has to be done under UN auspices."

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager