AFGHANISTAN:INDIA'S EXPANDING strategic ties with Afghanistan and its involvement in reconstructing the war-ravaged country were the main reasons behind the suicide bombing of its embassy in Kabul on Monday in which 41 people died.
Although no one has claimed responsibility, Afghanistan's interior ministry said it was executed in co-ordination with "an active intelligence service in the region".
Indian and western security officials said this was a clear reference to neighbouring Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence Directorate, which has long been accused by the US and Nato forces in Afghanistan of actively supporting the Taliban/al-Qaeda alliance.
They said the two groups had long opposed the Indian presence in Afghanistan, which includes a small military contingent to instruct the Afghan National Army.
Pakistan has long believed that nuclear rival India wanted to extend its strategic influence inside Afghanistan not only to squeeze Islamabad but also, in recent years, to use it as a corridor to exploit desperately needed oil and gas from central Asia.
India is the fifth-largest donor of aid to Kabul after the US, Britain, Japan and Germany. It is involved not only in building crucial roads and rebuilding the country's parliament, but also working on power, dam and communications projects.
"Opposition from Pakistan to India's influence in Afghanistan is not new. Its growing presence in a stable, democratic Afghanistan works against these interests," says retired Lieut Gen V R Raghavan, a defence analyst.
Since 2002, the Taliban has demanded the departure of Indian personnel working on several infrastructural and rehabilitation projects across Afghanistan. It backed up its demands with sustained attacks, in which at least 10 people died and many others were kidnapped.
Afghan military and police officers attend various Indian military training and technical establishments, while about 3,000 Afghan civilians have been instructed in carpentry, plumbing, masonry and even tailoring.
"India is capitalising on the goodwill it had earned in helping the Northern Alliance fight the Taliban militia in the 1990s," a senior military officer associated with the secret mission said, declining to be identified.
India provided limited military hardware and financial assistance to the Northern Alliance commander, Ahmed Shah Masoud, who was assassinated two days before 9/11 by suicide bombers posing as journalists.
Masoud died in a field hospital run by the Indian army.
Meanwhile, India's foreign ministry reiterated Delhi's determination to continue with its commitments in Afghanistan, saying it would not be deterred by acts such as Monday's bombing.