Imtiaz Gul
While Taliban celebrate conquest of Panjshir – the symbol of Ahmed Shah Masood’s power bastion – attention is also fixed on General Faiz Hameed, Chief of Pakistan’s mighty Inter-Services’ Intellience (ISI). Ever since his arrival in Kabul, the general has reportedly been meeting with former President Hamid Karzai, CEO, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, mujahideen leader Gulbudin Hekmatyar and Dr. Omar Zakhilwal, former special envoy to Pakistan. Pakistani officials and Taliban sources claim Hameed is not only hearing out these leaders’ views on the future course of actions by Taliban but also sensitizing them on Pakistan’s concerns about Afghanistan-based terror outfits, which Pakistan, China and Russia consider as inimical to their respective interests.
But his visit has also drawn criticism and suspicions. Critics question as to what could be the motives of his prolonged stay in Kabul. They apparently overlook that within days of Taliban’s arrival in the Afghan capital on August 15, William Burns, the head of the US CIA, also flew in for consultations with the Taliban leaders on the possibility of extending the deadline for foreign troops withdrawal.
Nobody seemed to question that secret visit, first reported by the New York Times, but critics at home and abroad, are looking at General Hameed’s visit in a typical exceptional way, as if it were something unique to Pakistan only. How can be CIA Chiefs’ visit to Afghanistan kosher and a similar venture by Pakistan’s intelligence unethical?
It is not for a country that shares a 2,600 km long border with Afghanistan, which has been in turbulence for over four decades. History offers few examples where a country with such close geographical proximity stayed indifferent to an extremely turbulent neighborhood.
It is this geographical proximity that prompted foreign ministers of Germany, UK and other countries to rush to Pakistan in order to weigh pros and cons of an Afghanistan under the Taliban. These nations, who followed the US into Afghanistan and Iraq without questioning the motives, appear to be hyper concerned about the implications of a Taliban rule in Afghanistan, which remains an equally huge source of anxiety for Pakistan because of the socio-economic implications of the conflict next door.
