Abstract
As its last tank rattled home in february 1989, heading northward on the bridge over the Amu Darya River, the Soviet Union must have thought its Afghanistan nightmare was finally over. The war had dealt a mortal blow to the Soviets. Tens of thousands of young Red Army conscripts had been killed, injured, or traumatized, while others returned addicted to Afghan heroin. Many experts now credit the Afghan war with accelerating the demise of both the Cold War and the Soviet Union, which could no longer bear the enormous costs.
Twelve years later, Afghanistan still haunts Moscow's sleep. Only now, after the September 11 terrorist attacks, has the world's attention turned toward Afghanistan, a country run by the extremist Taliban militia since it overtook Kabul in 1996.
But Russia and India have been paying close attention to the Taliban for years. The Taliban's reach has grown steadily over the past five years; in September, it claimed to control around 95 percent of the country. If its power were to expand throughout Afghanistan, neighboring former Soviet republics fear they could be in danger of invasion.
Moscow, as well as its long-time ally in New Delhi, has long wanted to see an end to the Taliban reign. Both India and Russia support the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance (also known as the United Front). The small alliance-controlled part of Afghanistan lies in and around the Panjshir Valley, northeast of Kabul. Until recently, the opposition group was led by veteran mujahideen commander Ahmadshah Massoud, an ethnic Tajik dubbed the “Lion of Panjshir.” On September 9, two days before the terrorist attacks in America, Massoud was fatally injured in a suicide bombing at his residence by two men posing as journalists. An explosive was reportedly concealed in a video camera.
Mohammad Fahim, one of Mas-soud's commanders, has been named the new military leader in the wake of the assassination, but whether the fractious opposition coalition can withstand the loss of its charismatic leader, or whether Western military aid will be decisive, remains to be seen.
Among India's many motives for supporting the anti-Taliban resistance is its strong relationship with Russia. During the Soviet invasion in 1979, New Delhi was noticeably uncritical of Moscow's actions. India is also home to more than 80,000 Afghan refugees who fled following the 1992 collapse of President Na-jibullah's Moscow-backed regime. New Delhi kept its diplomatic presence in Kabul after Burhannudin Rabbani took power later that year, when Massoud became Rabbani's defense minister. Rabbani's political power declined after he was ousted by the Taliban, but Massoud's power rose considerably as he ran “free Afghanistan.”
Long-time Afghan opposition leader Ahmadshah Massoud (foreground) was assassinated on September 9.
For Moscow, Rabbani's regime was always considered more moderate and pliable than the other actors in post-Soviet Afghanistan. Rabbani was significantly more moderate in his domestic policies than his Taliban counterparts. Russia worried that the Taliban's brand of radical Islam could gain a foothold in the southern regions of the former Soviet Union, where similar groups already exist, threatening Russia's interests.
The once-feared Soviet army is a shadow of its former self. Demoralized, undisciplined troops fight rebels in Chechnya with little success and are often the target of international criticism. Should the Taliban threaten border regions, Russian troops may not be able to stop the aggression. There would almost certainly be a mass exodus of ethnic Russians–perhaps as many as 10 million–into Russia, worsening an already dire economic situation.
India has major problems with Pakistan-backed militants operating in Kashmir. The Taliban's paymaster is Pakistan, a country that New Delhi accuses of using Afghan soil to train Kashmiri militants. But India is unlikely to intervene militarily in Afghanistan when, like Russia, it believes that it is easier to hire an Afghan to do dirty work on its behalf. On a wider scale, New Delhi is concerned that the fundamentalist Islamic regime in Afghanistan will further inflame its own internal HinduMuslim tensions, which have increased since the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party came to power. When the Taliban ordered the few remaining Hindus in Kabul to wear yellow identity tags, New Delhi was outraged. For India and Russia, it was the more moderate Massoud who stood in the way of an arch-conservative Islamic state.
One of Pakistan's motives for providing financial and military support to the Taliban is to install a friendly regime in a neighboring country to build “strategic depth” against India. The Taliban have proved to be an enthusiastic proxy for Islamabad's regional machinations. In 1993, Pakistan moved many of its militant training camps into eastern Afghanistan because it was worried that under Indian pressure, the United States would declare it a state sponsor of terrorism. Afghanistan is a useful base for Pakistan to train militants to fight the Indian army or to infiltrate into Kashmir. In 1998, the Taliban's reclusive, one-eyed leader Mullah Mohammed Omar insisted that the movement “supports the jihad in Kashmir” and that “some Afghans are fighting against the Indian occupation forces,” although he did not elaborate on who was providing sponsorship or support.
“We're stocking up just in case.”
Russia, too, faces a threat from the militants who attend Afghanistan's training camps. Moscow alleges that some Chechen rebels train in Afghanistan, and it has considered conducting air strikes against the offending facilities, much as the United States did in 1998 in retaliation for the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. It is doubtful, however, whether the Russian military is in any condition to carry out such a plan. If the Taliban is defeated, Moscow must hope that the Afghan camps will shut down.
India and Russia's policy of supporting Massoud crystallized in September 1995, when the Taliban captured Herat in western Afghanistan. The movement had undertaken a lightning advance from Kandahar in the south, fanning out to the northeast and northwest. Russia was already supplying arms to Mas-soud, and India began airlifting non-military supplies to his troops via Iran–another nation anxious about the Taliban's reach.
As the Taliban extended and then tightened its grip over Afghanistan, India and Russia increased their support for Massoud. Russia had supplied Rabbani's regime with arms, ammunition, and fuel when it controlled Kabul, and had also upgraded the former Soviet airbase at Bagram, north of Kabul. Following the capital's fall to the Taliban in 1996, U.S. satellites photographed Russian engineers building a new bridge across the Amu Darya to provide Massoud with a land supply route from Tajikistan into his northeast border province of Badakhshan. Earlier that year, Moscow had upgraded the airport at Taloquan, due south of the Afghan-Tajik border, providing Mas-soud with an aerial supply route to the Bagram airbase. Moscow also asked Tajikistan to allow Massoud the use of the airbase at Kolyob in southern Tajikistan for logistics supply and as a base for his small air force. In early 2001, Massoud talked with Russian defense minister Igor Sergeyev in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe–discussions that apparently yielded the Northern Alliance new tanks (although of a Soviet vintage) and armored fighting vehicles.
India's support has been more covert. India allegedly provided Mas-soud with cash (the exact amount is unknown) in addition to ground radar and spares for his fledgling air force. In early 1996, around 30 Indian technicians were reportedly maintaining Massoud's MiG and Sukhoi fighter aircraft (the Indian air force operates similar types) and transport helicopters, while military advisers assisted alliance forces by providing tactical advice on operations against the Taliban. Massoud also reportedly benefited from Indian high-altitude warfare equipment.
Russian and Indian support for the Northern Alliance is not restricted to military supplies. India furnished Massoud with a field hospital at Farkhar, an alliance base in the northern Afghan province of Tark-har. The hospital houses 25 Indian Army doctors and male nurses and has beds for 20 patients.
Meanwhile, Russia is trying to help the alliance destabilize the Taliban's economy. According to Nasser Khalid, a Toronto-based producer for Voice of Afghanistan radio, “fake Afghan notes are being printed in Russia” and smuggled into Afghanistan, where denominations of 10,000 afghanis (about 20 cents) are then circulated among the local currency dealers. The effect this will have on an already bankrupt country remains to be seen.
Indian and Russian support for the opposition is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Previously, both countries helped the Northern Alliance survive in its struggle to prevent the Taliban from taking total control of Afghanistan. Now, in the wake of Massoud's assassination and the attacks in the United States, the opposition is likely to find more friends. Pakistan has pledged to help the United States, and the United States wants a closer relationship with the anti-Taliban coalition. The balance of power in Afghanistan may be ready to shift toward the Northern Alliance–an event that would satisfy both Moscow and New Delhi.