There is an element of displacement of blame here, to be sure. It has become quite common for Kabul to downplay the extent of the problem as a phenomenon native to Afghanistan: everything’s fine, no terrorists here!
But the fact remains that Pakistan’s double game has made efforts to root out the Taliban a decade-long game of Whack-a-Mole with billion-dollar weapons. Where the mallet comes down one place, they can disappear to the safety of Pakistan’s tribal areas and pop up again in another. And the Taliban could not have regained this level of strength in Afghanistan without a sanctuary over the border. “Afghan police chief attack planned abroad: government,” by Amie Ferris-Rotman for Reuters, May 29:
KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan leaders on Sunday appeared to accuse Pakistan of harbouring insurgents behind a suicide bombing that killed one of the most powerful men in northern Afghanistan.
The government also said it was investigating whether security forces had been infiltrated.
Seems like a safe bet.
Dawood Dawood, the north Afghanistan police chief, was killed in Saturday’s attack in Takhar province.
Two Afghan police and two German soldiers were also killed, underlining the spread of insurgent violence into once peaceful areas of the country.
“No one in Afghanistan would carry out these attacks. All evidence shows that these operations are planned outside of Afghanistan,” Waheed Omer, chief spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, told reporters.
Kabul regularly accuses elements of the Pakistani government of sheltering insurgents and providing safe havens.
Omer said Afghanistan was suffering because of “the hideouts that these terrorists have and the places where they get mobilised, equipped and plan these terrorist attacks.”
Despite the presence of up to 150,000 foreign troops, violence in Afghanistan was at its worst last year since U.S.-backed Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban almost a decade ago. This year is following a similar trend….