Afghanistan may get more arms from India during Ashraf Ghani trip

NEW DELHI: Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani is likely to visit India next week, when both sides are expected to highlight closer cooperation, especially in the security sector.

India appears to have overcome the hurdles to transfer additional military equipment to Afghanistan, which should come in handy for Kabul as it battles increasing attacks by the Taliban. In recent days, the Afghan army chief too paid a quiet visit to New Delhi to talk about security cooperation.

PM Narendra Modi and Ghani had jointly inaugurated a renovated Stor palace in Kabul recently, as part of India's assistance to rejuvenate Afghanistan's historical treasures. But going by the three attacks in Kabul over the last two days, it seems the Taliban can strike virtually at will, despite advances by Afghan security forces.

Earlier this week, Afghan national security adviser Hanif Atmar accused Pakistan of lying about Taliban's reconciliation moves. In an interview, Atmar was quoted as saying, “Our President has told them we have no hope that they will help us with peace talks. He told Pakistan that they promised they would go against those who do not want peace talks, but Pakistan did not do this. They lied to us.“

“Islamabad said the Taliban leader was not in Pakis tan, but then we saw Mullah Mansur had a Pakistani ID card when he was killed while travelling inside Pakistan,“ Atmar said.

The situation has been exacerbated by the growth of ISIS (Khorasan) consisting mainly of Pakistan Taliban militants. Within the government, the situation is not much better, as Ghani and his chief executive Abdullah Abdullah have aired their discord, which is connected to the lack of political reforms.

Davood Moradian, head of Afghan institute of strategic studies recently wrote, “Pakistan's continued support to Taliban manifests its decades-old strategy of seeking strategic depth in Afghanistan. Both managed instability andor a de-facto partitioning of the country are preferable to Pakistan than a united, prosperous and independent Afghanistan. Taliban's terror infrastructure, Kabul's bickering elites, and Washington's double-think approach will be instrumental to Pakistan's objectives.“