Pakistan has become the homeland of international fundamentalist terrorism, with its epicentre on the Af-Pak border astride the Durand Line. While Mullah Omar’s Taliban has extended its hold over most of rural Afghanistan with help from the al Qaeda, Baitullah Mehsud’s Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Maulana Fazalullah’s Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) have gained control over large swathes of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), including the picturesque Swat Valley. On behalf of Maulana Fazlullah and the TNSM, Maulana Sufi Muhammad has signed an agreement with the NWFP government for the implementation of Sharia. Peshawar appears to be the next stop and people have begun to flee the frontier town.

Gradually but inexorably, and almost inevitably, the Pakistan army is losing control over its Af-Pak backyard. The army is facing large-scale internal dissension – its troops are unwilling to fight fellow Sunni Muslims and Pushtuns and have been deserting in large numbers. It is also professionally inexperienced in the finer nuances of the tactics, techniques and procedures of counter-insurgency operations and has either resorted to massive artillery and air strikes, which have proved to be counter-productive, or sought to buy off the terrorist organisations through several failed peace deals.

The Obama Administration is asking Pakistan to do more to deny sanctuary to the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists operating inside Afghanistan from safe havens in NWFP and FATA and has stepped up attacks with unmanned drones firing air-to-ground missiles on suspected hideouts. The political instability caused by the unending feud between President Zardari and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is also distracting the army chief, General Kayani’s attention and talk of a military take over is once again in the air. Consequently, the writ of the terrorist organisations runs virtually unfettered in the country’s north-west and Talibanisation is almost unstoppably creeping forward towards Punjab. This was brutally demonstrated in the methodically executed daylight attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in the heart of Lahore in early March.

For India, two key national security objectives flow out of the march of Talibanisation. In the short-term, it is in India’s interest to ensure that the epicentre of radical extremism remains confined to the NWFP-FATA area. If fundamentalist terrorism spills over the Indus River to Pakistan’s Punjab, it will inevitably spread eventually to north India as well since India has more Muslims than the entire population of Pakistan. Though they have been good Indians and good Muslims so far, some of them might fall prey to the relentless propaganda of the terrorists. If even a very small fraction of India’s Muslim population is infected by the fundamentalist plague, the mayhem that will follow will be so great that the recent bomb blasts and terrorist strikes at Bangalore, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Mumbai, New Delhi and Varanasi, among others, will look like firecrackers on Deepawali, the Indian festival of lights. In the long-term, it is in India’s as well as the regional interest and that of the international community to completely eliminate the scourge of terrorism from Af-Pak.

Despite the deployment of 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan ordered by President Obama, the NATO-ISAF coalition will remain unequal to the task of eliminating the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists who now control most of the country. The area involved is very large for operations to be meaningfully sustained over a long period of time and many of the NATO-ISAF forces lack the professional capability, the military staying power and the political will to fight the war to the finish. Hence, it is now necessary for the international community to enlarge the catchment area from where counter-insurgency forces are sourced, to include the countries in the Southern Asian region. And, foremost among these is India that has a well-trained professional army with a distinguished counter-insurgency record spanning over 50 years.

A peaceful and stable Afghanistan capable of maintaining its strategic autonomy is a vital national interest for India. It is a country with which India has traditionally enjoyed warm and friendly relations. Since the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001-02, India has contributed only soft power to the international reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. It has spent over US $ 1 billion in building the Delaram-Zaranj highway, building and running schools and hospitals and in training the fledgling Afghan administration. As an aspiring though reluctant regional power, India must overcome its fear of overseas military interventions – occasioned by the ill-advised and unsuccessful foray into Sri Lanka in the 1980s – and stand up and be counted as a genuine rising power that is willing to discharge legitimate regional responsibilities.

Should India agree to send its troops to Afghanistan, it will do so only under a United Nations flag and a fresh UN Security Council mandate will be necessary under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter.  Pakistan will be extremely reluctant to accept Indian troops being positioned in the Jalalabad-Ghazni-Kandahar areas, which are the worst affected, as it will see such presence as a direct threat. It will be more prudent to send Indian troops to either Mazar-e-Sharif in the north or Herat in the west. India could send a brigade group (5,000 personnel) to begin with and gradually step up the force level to one infantry division (15,000 personnel) when a fully functional logistics system is in place – either from the south through Chabahar Port (Iran)-Zaranj-Delaram-Garland Highway or from the north through Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan. Both the routes will present formidable challenges for logistics, but none that cannot be overcome with methodical planning.

The present situation in the Af-Pak region can only be described as having reached a strategic stalemate. To break out of the logjam, the international community must consider a fresh approach. The tactical situation calls for the infusion of a much larger number of professionally competent military personnel than NATO-ISAF are capable of mustering. If the challenge of fundamentalist terrorism is to be successfully overcome, the aim should be to close in with and fight the Taliban and the al Qaeda on the ground, rather than seeking to bomb them into submission from the air. Among others, the Indian army and air force can help to turn the tide. It is time the international community stopped playing politics with the future of a volatile region and called on the regional powers to play their rightful role.