Kunar Deputy Governor’s disappearance

In the wrong place at the wrong time

Both Afghan officials and  militant leaders have frequently met their destiny on the road they have taken to avoid it.  They have been  kidnapped or killed in Peshawar and other towns in Pakistan which are supposed to be  safer and securer  than Kabul.  Their local rivals often follow them where they are least suspected to be on the prowl. In April Afghan Taliban official Maulvi Daud was killed  by an IS militant. This was obviously a continuation of the fighting between the two ferocious terrorist networks in Afghanistan. What is  disturbing is that  both the victim and the predator somehow  managed to cross over into Pakistan illegally.    In May  Haji Mohammad Farid’s bullet-riddled body was found  outside a mosque on the outskirts of  Peshawar. The victim  was Gulbadin Hekmetyar’s personal secretary. He was presumably killed by dissidents who were unhappy over their leader joining hands with the Kabul government.

Afghan officials are kidnapped on account of several motives that include extraction of ransom and revenge. In February last year former Afghan governor of Herat was kidnapped  from Islamabad.  Pakistan’s government at the highest level worked hard to recover him.  He was freed by police after a shootout with kidnappers at Mardan within two weeks.

The case of Deputy Governor Kunar Muhammad Nabi Ahmadi who was abducted  from Peshawar on Friday is both  complicated and instructive. Ahmadi presumably crossed over to Pakistan without a visa. He had more than one enemy  with a motive to extract revenge from him.  Kunar where he occupied a high government office  is infested with  several terrorist groups whose hideouts were bombarded by the US and raided by the Afghan security forces. As he was associated with Hekmatyar’s party, he too could have been targeted by party dissidents. That Ahmadi could cross over into Pakistan illegally, reaching Peshawar without being caught anywhere on the way raises questions about the efficiency of the border checkposts and pickets inside the tribal area. Unless those manning border entry points and pickets are made to work efficiently, illegal Afghan entrants including terrorists  would continue to  reach the cities in Pakistan.