Analysts see foreign hand in cross-border attacks

KABUL. They believe the international community is trying to maintain its hold on the security transfer process.

Over the past month, Pakistani forces have fired 700 artillery shells into eastern Kunar, Nangarhar and southeastern Khost and Paktia provinces. Officials say 50 people have been killed, dozens of others injured and hundreds more forced to flee their homes in panic.

Waheed Mujhda, a Kabul-based political analyst, said the international community was using the Pakistani attacks to pave the way for the US to establish military bases in Afghanistan.

Mujhda added that the US and the international community wanted to show that if foreign troops left Afghanistan, Pakistan would again occupy the country.

The security transition plan is scheduled to begin this month insevenAfghan provinces simultaneously.

Afghan forces will take over security responsibility from their foreign counterparts in Kabul (except Sorobi district), Panjshir, Bamyan, Herat, Lashkarghah, Mehterlam and Mazar-i-Sharif. The process is scheduled to be complete by 2014.

Mujhda said if the issue of cross-border attacks was not resolved, it could lead to a full-pledged war between the two countries and that the international community would be responsible.

Another political analyst, Gulam Jelani Zwak, the Director of Afghan Advisory Centre, said the international community was responsible for keeping security in Afghan airspace under the 2001 Bonn agreement.

However, he said the silence on the part of the Afghan government showed the international community’s involvement in the Pakistani attacks. Pakistan has yet to come clean on the incursions, he said.

Pakistani Defence Minister Ahmad Mukhtar said during a recent visit to Kabul that Pakistan was not involved in the attacks along the Afghan border.

Two days ago, the Afghan Interior and Defence Ministers were summoned by Parliament. They told the house that Afghan forces had stepped up their activities along the border with Pakistan. The additional forces have been provided all necessary equipment, they said.

Ahmad Saeedi, a political analyst, accused Pakistan of sending militants to Afghanistan to launch cross border attacks.

He did not rule out the involvement of the international community, especially the US.  

NATO) says its troops would not launch attacks into Pakistan, as its mission is limited to Afghanistan.

At a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday President Hamid Karzai told reporters in Kabul that they were concerned about the cross-border attacks.

Karzai said Pakistan should not provoke Afghanistan into launching reprisal attacks, as Afghanistan does not want to kill innocent Pakistanis.

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