suicide attack on the Indian embassy

Earlier this week, suicide bombers in Afghanistan rammed a vehicle laden with explosives into two cars entering the gates of the Indian embassy in Kabul. The two diplomatic vehicles had two of the most high profile diplomats at the embassy - the Defense Attache Brigadier Ravi Datta Mehta and Counsellor V Venkateswara Rao. They both lost their lives.

In addition, two other Indians, both Jawans from the ITBP, and 37 Afghan nationals were killed and 141 other individuals injured. Nobody has claimed responsibility for this dastardly act, but the Afghan interior ministry did not waste time in hinting at the involvement of the perennial pain for world peace, Pakistan. Of course, Pakistan did what Pakistan always does - deny it outright. After all, an unstable Afghanistan is not in Pakistan's interest!

Of course, the UPA government is "shocked" at this act, and condemns it in the strongest of terms. The Defense and Foreign ministers had an emergency meeting with their officials, and they promptly sent a team to Kabul. The usual talk of India not backing down from doing good work in Afghanistan is making the usual rounds, and I am really no expert in diplomacy to point at other factors, but I can try to think of some of them.

Assassinating two high profile officials together tells me that this was probably in planning for a long time, because the execution had to be precise. In addition, I believe that there could be insiders involved in the plan as well. There are long lines at the Indian embassy every day of Afghans seeking a visa to India. They were not the target. There are other important offices on the same road, and they weren't targeted. In fact, I read in a report that the terrorist's vehicle didn't even try to enter the embassy, it was headed straight for the defense attache's vehicle. This tells me that the Pakis have got to be involved in this, and that there was something deeper here. I don't want to go hunting for sensitive information, but it is no secret that India is one of Afghanistan's best allies, and this is not a War on Terror phenomenon. India and Afghanistan have been good friends long before that, and after the Taliban came into power there, India's influence was limited to supporting the Northern Alliance, whose one prominent leader was Ahmad Shah Masood. The NA was recognized by the UN, by the way, and the only country that actually recognized the Taliban were our immediate friends in the West.

Now that India is again making inroads into the country, there will be a lot of consternation in others minds, but India, in its new status as a nation with certain influence and power, needs to do what it needs to do in the country. We have probably done more for the nation without sending our security forces there than all the NATO armies. But this attack makes me think that maybe India should send a few forces there because it seems that the Taliban and ISI want to take it to the next level. Sure, I dont know if our present government have the balls to take any strong military decision, but I think its high time they did something good for the country before they are hopefully thrown out of power.