India remains mum on killing of Al Qaeda chief

New Delhi is rather trying to ascertain the purported role of the Taliban’s affiliate Haqqani Network in providing Zawahiri a place to hide in Kabul, sources said

India has refrained from officially commenting on the drone strike carried out by the United States in Kabul on Sunday, killing Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri and exposing the continuing link between the terrorist organization and the Taliban, which returned to power in Afghanistan a year ago.

Though the US President Joe Biden announced the elimination of the Al Qaeda chief, New Delhi did not make any official comment on it till late in the evening on Tuesday. The incident took place even as India reached out to the Taliban Government in Afghanistan of late, albeit without recognising it.

Also Read | Biden says US killed Al-Qaeda chief al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan

New Delhi, however, is rather trying to ascertain the purported role of the Taliban’s affiliate Haqqani Network in providing Zawahiri a place to hide in Kabul, sources said, adding: India is also trying to assess the killing of the Al Qaeda chief on the US-Pakistan relations.

The Haqqani Network is known for its close links with Pakistan’s military spy agency Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), which had in the past used the outfit to carry out attacks, not only on India’s diplomatic and consular missions in Afghanistan, but also on its citizens engaged in development projects funded by New Delhi in the conflict-ravaged country.

New Delhi had evacuated its envoy to Afghanistan, Rudrendra Tandon, and 175 other officials posted in the Embassy of India in Kabul on August 17, 2021 – just two days after President Ashraf Ghani’s government collapsed in the wake of a swift military campaign by the Taliban. India had also evacuated its officials posted in its consulates in other cities in Afghanistan weeks before the country was taken over by the Taliban.

New Delhi earlier this month sent a delegation of officials, led by its senior diplomat J P Singh, to Kabul to oversee the delivery operations of India’s humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan. Singh and other officials had a meeting with Foreign Minister of the Taliban’s government in Afghanistan, Amir Khan Muttaqi, as well as other officials of the governance structure set up by the Sunni Islamist militia.

Singh’s meeting with Muttaqi in Kabul was New Delhi’s second publicly acknowledged engagement with the leaders of the Taliban. New Delhi’s envoy to Doha, Deepak Mittal, had earlier held a meeting with Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, the head of the Taliban’s political office in the capital of Qatar, on August 31, 2021.

New Delhi, however, has been having back-channel contacts with the Taliban over the past few years as it had anticipated that the Sunni Islamist militia could eventually return to the governance structure in Kabul after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, thus giving its mentor Pakistan a strategic edge against India.

India over the past few months also sent food and medicines to Afghanistan as humanitarian assistance, which was distributed through the UN agencies.