Ahmed Rashid
The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001–2014
By Carlotta Gall
The New York Review of Books - June 5, 2014
During the Afghan elections in early April I was traveling in Central
Asia, mainly in Kyrgyzstan. I wanted to inquire into the fears of the
governments there as a result of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
What did they think of the growth of Taliban and Islamic extremism in
Afghanistan and Pakistan? Officials in each country cited two threats.
First, the internal radicalizing of their young people by increasing
numbers of preachers or proselytizing groups arriving from Pakistan,
Bangladesh, and the Middle East. The second, more dangerous threat is
external: they believe that extremist groups based in Pakistan and
Afghanistan are trying to infiltrate Central Asia in order to launch
terrorist attacks.
Islamic extremism is infecting the entire
region and this will ultimately become the legacy of the US occupation
of Afghanistan, as the so-called jihad by the Taliban against the US
comes to an end. Iran, a Shia state, fears that the Sunni extremist
groups that have installed themselves in Pakistan’s Balochistan province
on the Iranian border will step up their attacks inside Iran. In
February Iran threatened to send troops into Balochistan unless Pakistan
helped free five Iranian border guards who had been kidnapped by
militants. (The Pakistanis freed four of the guards; one was killed.)
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