- The sudden arrival of 12 Russian military cargo aircraft
at Bagram airfield just north of Kabul last week has underscored the
intense
behind-the-scenes rivalry now underway between the US and other major
powers
for a stake in Afghanistan. Having supported Washington's military
intervention,
each is now seeking, under the guise of humanitarian concern, to establish
a presence inside the country to further its interests in resource-rich
Central Asia.
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- According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the
purpose
of the airlift was to provide relief aid, including a field hospital, and
to rebuild the Russian embassy in Kabul. The huge Ilyushin-76 aircraft,
each capable of transporting 40 tonnes of equipment and supplies, landed
at Bagram on November 26 and unloaded construction equipment and materials,
Health Ministry officials and uniformed relief workers from the Emergencies
Ministry.
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- While Russian officials denied any soldiers were
involved,
the Emergencies Ministry is a paramilitary body with its own military wing
of 70,000 troops. It was formed as a split off from the Defence Ministry
after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The landing operation is
reported to have taken five hours. A fleet of trailer trucks, supported
by fuel tankers and other vehicles, ferried the cargo and personnel into
Kabul.
-
- Putin has played down the operation simply saying that
it was the first "in the past few years". But no one missed the
political significance. Russian officials were back in Kabul for the first
time since the Soviet military pulled out in 1989 after a decade of brutal
war against various Mujaheddin groups backed and financed by the US.
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- Putin noted pointedly that Russia's actions had been
carried out "on the request and with the assistance of the Islamic
State of Afghanistan"?a reference to the Northern Alliance that now
controls Kabul. By mounting the operation on the eve of talks in Bonn over
the political future of Afghanistan, Moscow signalled Russian support for
the Northern Alliance and its leader Burhanuddin Rabbani, who is still
recognised by the UN as the Afghan head of state.
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- While Russia stopped short of officially recognising
the Northern Alliance as the Afghan government, the move threatens to cut
across Washington's demand for a "broad-based" administration.
The US is insisting that others, including the former king Zahir Shah and
various ethnic Pashtun tribal leaders, be part of any new regime alongside
the Northern Alliance. Russia, Iran and India have been supporting the
Northern Alliance against the Pakistani-backed Taliban since the
mid-1990s.
-
- US officials reported that Secretary of State Colin
Powell
had telephoned Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov after the Russian
airlift
to warn Moscow against any abrupt diplomatic or military moves that might
undermine trust between the US and Russia. Powell urged Moscow to avoid
promoting Rabbani as the official leader of Afghanistan. Both ashington
and Moscow have attempted to minimise the differences.
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- Putin gave his backing to the Bush administration's
"global
war on terrorism," including the go-ahead for the stationing of US
military in the Central Asia, as a means of securing Russian interests
on other issues, including in Chechnya where Washington had previously
criticised Moscow's war against Islamic militants. But support for the
US-led war has provoked opposition in ruling circles, particularly among
the military top brass, who have warned of the dangers to Russia of the
US intervention in the strategic Central Asian region. The airlift is at
least in part Putin's answer to his critics.
-
- A US official quoted in the Washington Post noted that
last week's airlift was to demonstrate that Moscow wanted "to play
some sort of role in post-Taliban Afghanistan". Then, in a remark
that is more revealing about Washington's plans, he added: "The
Russian
are smart enough to know that the important thing is not what happens in
Bonn, but what happens on the ground."
-
- The comment bluntly sums up the Bush administration's
strategy: to control the military campaign and monopolise the deployment
of troops in order to dictate the terms of any political settlement.
Washington's
refusal to allow other countries to send soldiers in substantial numbers
to Afghanistan is already leading to frictions with its European allies,
particularly Britain. US veto on British troops
-
- Two weeks ago, British Prime Minister Tony Blair
announced
that up to 6,000 troops would be dispatched to Afghanistan, ostensibly
to assist in providing humanitarian aid. Around 100 British commandos
landed
at Bagram airfield to secure a bridgehead but immediately ran into
opposition
from the Northern Alliance, which insisted that foreign troops were not
necessary.
-
- It became clear from subsequent statements that it was
not simply the Northern Alliance but the Bush administration which was
opposed to any large-scale deployment of foreign troops other than from
the US. While Blair insisted that there was still "complete
agreement"
with Washington, his Secretary of State for International Development,
Clare Short, publicly attacked the US for neglecting Afghanistan's
humanitarian
needs. Blair was subsequently forced to reverse his decision and stand
down the troops.
-
- The Guardian was quick to point out that while Russian
officials were welcomed in Kabul, the Northern Alliance, with the support
of the US, had shown "the cold shoulder to the 100 British soldiers
shivering at Bagram airbase". Reflecting concerns in the political
establishment that Britain was gaining little from the war, the newspaper
complained: "Blair's aid-and-rebuilding agenda elicits only tepid
American backing, suggesting that his instant and full-throated support
for Bush has not quite won the clout he hoped for."
-
- France faces a similar situation. Its first detachment
of about 60 troops left the Istres airbase for Mazar-e-Sharif in northern
Afghanistan in mid-November. They landed in Uzbekistan, where they have
been cooling their heels for two weeks, waiting for transport by US
helicopter.
The group was the advance guard for up to 2,000 French troops being sent
to create "favourable conditions" for humanitarian relief. The
first French unit was finally airlifted into Mazar-e-Sharif last
weekend.
-
- Last Friday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer made
clear that the Bush administration considered the sending of an
international
"peacekeeping" force as premature. He described the conditions
in Afghanistan as "difficult and dangerous" and implied that
other foreign troops would only get in the way of US operations. The
president
"looks forward to the day" that "peacekeepers will be able
to arrive," he blandly concluded.
-
- US Central Command spokesman Rear Admiral Craig Quigley
confirmed that the US would dictate the terms on which other countries
would deploy troops. "Whatever piece they're offering doesn't work
at this time. You take them up on their offers at the location and time
and manner that fits into the overall fabric of Enduring Freedom,"
he said.
-
- At the same time as vetoing a large international force,
the US has stepped up its own deployment of troops in Afghanistan. The
commander of US forces General Tommy Franks said last week that the US
may create more bases like the one near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan
established by around 900 marines. He announced that a small "rapid
reaction force" had been dispatched to Mazar-e-Sharif and that more
US combat aircraft were to be sent to either Tajikistan or Kyrgystan, along
with a handful of French warplanes.
-
- The US strategy of excluding its so-called allies from
Afghanistan, and thus from the spoils of the war, is bound to further
exacerbate
tensions with Europe.
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