India, having neglected Afghanistan for decades, seized the opportunity brought about by the fall of the Taliban and initiated a comprehensive effort to gain influence in the country. It was welcomed by Indian-educated Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his administration.
However, Taliban insurgents, displeased with India's efforts, began attacking Indian interests. The latest attack in this context targeted the Indian Embassy in Kabul. Last Monday a suicide car bomb exploded at the gates of the embassy and killed 41 people, mostly Afghans.
Defense Attaché Brigadier R.D. Mehta, diplomat Venkateswara Rao and two security guards at the embassy are the latest Indian victims.
In fact, there were many Indian victims in the last two-and-a-half years. An Indian driver for a road construction team was found decapitated, an engineer was abducted and killed and seven members of the Indo-Tibetan border police, guarding Indian construction crews, were killed.
President Karzai blamed the July 7 bombing on what he called the "enemies of the strong friendship between India and Afghanistan." His spokesman, Homayun Hamidzada, went further and said the bombing was coordinated by "foreign agents in the region."
"The sophistication of this attack and the kind of material that was used in it, the specific targeting, everything has the hallmarks of a particular intelligence agency that has conducted similar terrorist acts inside Afghanistan in the past," he said, of course implying strongly that Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, was behind the attack. Also pointing the finger at Pakistan was Afghan Interior Minister Zarar Ahmad Moqbel, who was quoted as saying, "The training center for the terrorists who carried out the latest act of violence in Kabul at the Indian Embassy is in Pakistan."
Pakistan, on the other hand, strongly condemned the attack and denied any involvement. However, that does not hide the fact that Pakistan has been seriously concerned by the Indian presence in Afghanistan. In fact, with the ousting of the Taliban, Pakistan has been losing influence in Afghanistan, whereas India has been gaining and consolidating its influence at Pakistan's expense.
India presently has 4,000 personnel working in Afghanistan, mostly in reconstruction.
It has pledged about $750 million in aid to Afghanistan's reconstruction since 2002. Having spent a significant portion of its aid, it is today the fifth-largest bilateral donor in Afghanistan after the US, Britain, Japan and Germany. This of course makes India a major player on the Afghan scene.
India is involved in a variety of projects, ranging from providing food and medicine to the people to improving infrastructure. It is constructing the 218-kilometer Zaranj-Delaram highway, the Afghan Parliament and a power transmission line from Pul-e-Khumri to the capital of Kabul and a substation, also in Kabul. It is repairing and constructing the Salma Dam in the western province of Herat at a cost of about $110 million and building telephone exchanges linking 11 provinces to the capital. It has supplied hundreds of buses and minibuses. India is training bureaucrats as well as unskilled people. In this respect it is helping over 3,000 Afghans with skills, such as the carpentry, masonry and plumbing trades. India also has given hundreds of scholarships to Afghan youth to study in India. Fourteen Indian military officers are helping to train the Afghan National Army.
From all accounts, it seems that despite the attacks, India is determined to stay in Afghanistan and that it will be there for a long time to come.
