PAKISTAN’S precision-airstrike on a Kabul hospital claiming as many as 400 lives needs to be condemned in most unequivocal terms. It was an insane act of vendetta by Pakistani Air Force. Though Islamabad claimed that the airstrikes were conducted to demolish terrorists and their support infrastructure, making a hospital the target of attack is clear act of insane cruelty. It is obvious that the Pakistani authorities have become extremely jittery over their own repeated failure to contain the Afghani attacks in the past few months. An undeclared war is going on between the Afghani and the Pakistani forces in the past few months and the Afghan forces have often dominated the scene. All attempts by the Pakistani Forces to quell the Afghani action have failed. The attack on a Kabul Hospital shows the Pakistani frustration of not being able to defeat what a Pakistani General was quoted to have described as a “Force without force”. In the past few months, the Afghani Talibani forces have shown Pakistan the mirror of its own military inefficiency. Every attempt by Pakistan to crush the Afghani forces was met by a terrible hit-back. Pakistan had never expected the Afghans to be so strong and strong-willed. The initial idea the Pakistanis harboured about Afghan forces was that of a weak entity that could be crushed soon. All that boastful ideation now stands demolished by the Afghans’ capacity to be very tough as warriors and relentless in the pursuit of their goals.

 

The precision-strike on the Kabul hospital killing as many as 400 innocent people demonstrates that Pakistan is losing its own confidence to conduct a systematic military action against Afghani forces. The Pakistanis possibly expected that the Afghans would lose their morale once a terrible attack on a hospital was conducted. This calculation of the Pakistanis is quite likely to be met with an equal and opposite force from Afghanistan. For, in the past few months, the Afghans have hit back the hardest if the Pakistanis tried to be extra-smart. The Pakistanis realised that they had made terrible mistakes of undercalculating the Afghan power on almost all occasions. The Pakistanis have also not understood the Afghani sentiment against the Durand Line that is described to be the international border with Pakistan. They have all along remained under the impression that their military power is superior to that of the Afghans and they would crush any attempt by Kabul to act smart. In the past few months, all those calculations have been proved wrong -- on two counts. One, the Pakistanis really do not know how to handle their own military prowess even against a so-called weaker force; and two, their arrogance stops them from taking realistic view of things. The world will not take lightly the Pakistani airstrike on a Kabul hospital. Pakistan will have to face widespread criticism for its cruel approach to establishments such as hospitals.

 

Apart from official conventions about war, there is a general understanding among all countries that institutions delivering humanitarian services need to be spared from military strikes. Pakistan had not bothered to keep this most basic convention in mind as it attacked the hospital killing at least 400 lives -- in a way demonstrating that it is losing its patience and balance, which is a national characteristic of Pakistan -- proved over decades of its incompetence. Pakistan has often tried to describe the hostilities with Afghanistan as a fight against terror. This is nothing but a blatant lie. The world knows that Pakistan has been sponsoring terrorism as part of its state policy. When such a country raises alarm against terrorism, the world knows that it is only indulging in falsehood. The hostilities between Pakistan and Afghanistan have exposed Islamabad’s vulnerabilities to both, internal as well as external forces. The airstrike on the Kabul hospital shows that it is losing its patience and power to counter the Afghani forces effectively.