Toronto [Canada], July 1 (ANI): Prevalence of Jihad in Afghanistan is a Pakistan-bred concept that serves their political interest. While the world seemed to have checked out of Afghanistan, leading it to be a perfect breeding ground for terrorism, it’s only going to come back to bite them in not so distant future unless stamped now.
These observations and reflections came from a dynamic, emotional and passionate discussion amongst four prominent personalities of Afghan origin at The Open Forum discussion on June 29, moderated by Toronto-based writer and Afghan human rights activist Mina Shariff. The Open Forum is a London-based independent think tank that regularly holds webinars on contentious issues.
“Pakistan easily could use Afghanistan for terrorism and extremism and try to convince that a big Jihad is going on inside of Afghanistan and you have to go and try to fight terror,” said Pulitzer and WPP award winner photojournalist, Massoud Hussaini addressing the webinar.
Massoud further informed the forum that it was Pakistan who, “made this Jihad Philosophy alive for the day that they might need this extremism against India- because Pakistan is always scared of their existence again India…This is the main reason that every other country like Iran or Saudi – who palmed let us say Al Qaeda to Afghanistan during the Russian invasion. All these kinds of problems make Afghanistan a safe haven for many other terrorist groups- to have a base there, to train their own fighters and try to plan terrorist attacks into other countries.”
Mariam Solaimankhil, MP Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, representing Kuchis and Nomad, now in exile added to Massoud’s point and said, “replace Pakistan with any of our five other neighbours and suddenly the Taliban insurgency has no cross border military, economic, medical, logistical or moral support. This clearly shows that the Taliban is a Pakistani phenomenon, designed, empowered and maintained to act as an extended arm of the Pakistani military.”
Responding to an audience question on the possibility of reaching some resolution by putting pressure on Pakistan, Mariam said, “To think that pressure can be put on Pakistan is naive. Their entire country is dependent on Afghanistan – they built their nuclear arsenal in the 90s when the Taliban were in power. They were able to supply North Korea with nuclear weapons, and no one wants to talk about that.”
Afghanistan has somehow fallen way down the world agenda because some people believe that, “Afghanistan had its chance,” and that democracy is not what the people of the country opted for. Calling it rhetoric generated to absolve the west of their guilt Massoud said in a worried tone, “This game will go to another new phase because we have a union of three other big powers in the region – Russian China and Iran. Just a few months before the Kabul fall, one and a half years ago they had an important agreement about being together and working together in Afghanistan, this will make Afghanistan really really down and for other terrorist groups to come to this area. This is the safe haven to start Jihad against all international countries.”
“Afghanistan is the heart of Asia … connecting East to the West, the Middle East to Central Asia, Iran to Russian and the Indian Sub-continent to China,” informed Mariam and that’s what spells out its problem too.
Whether one likes it or not; ignoring is not the luxury one can indulge in at this stage. May it be human rights or women’s rights all are being flouted blatantly in Afghanistan informed Crystal Bayat, a writer and human rights advocate, also the woman who marched in the frontline squad of women protesting against the Taliban soon after the Kabul take-over. Crystal is now in exile.
“This is not the matter for only Afghan’s life or Afghan’s future, it’s about the world security. The world will become insecure if we leave the Taliban to rule Afghanistan,” urged Crystal. “The International community should pay attention to Afghanistan and prevent the next disaster in the world security,” concluded Crystal reminding the forum of 9/11 that changed the face of world peace. (ANI)