Afghanistan, Pakistan: 1 War, 2 Fronts

The suicide attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul on Thursday lays bare the reality that this conflict is a single war with multiple fronts that extend from Afghan battlefields to Pakistan's fractured political scene and include the vital interests of India and the United States.

The bomber detonated an explosives-packed SUV near the outer perimeter wall of the Indian Embassy compound, killing at least 17 people — all Afghans — and wounding nearly 80 others including three Indian security guards. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

International efforts to end Afghanistan's violence are complicated because the major players see their interests differently. The U.S. goal is to prevent al-Qaida from regaining its bases in Afghanistan, where it trained militants and plotted the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.

Pakistan, with archrival India to the east, believes it needs a friendly government in Afghanistan on its western border, preferably one without close ties to the Indians. For its part, India seeks regional allies and access to oil- and gas-rich central Asia.

As the war enters its ninth year, President Barack Obama is considering whether to focus the fight in Afghanistan against al-Qaida's allies in the Taliban or shift to more missile strikes and special operations raids against al-Qaida in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country where the terror movement's leadership is believed hiding.

Whatever option Obama chooses, the administration must wrestle with the fact that neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan can be secure as long as instability plagues the other. Militants move freely from one country to another, sheltering among the ethnic Pashtun community that lives on both sides of the border.

Pakistani tribesmen loosely allied with the Afghan Taliban have ambushed convoys carrying supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan. Last spring, Pakistani Taliban moved into a district only 60 miles from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, raising alarm until Pakistan's military drove them back weeks later.