While there are differences between Pakistan and Afghanistan on the Durand issue, which has led to several casualties in the past and could emerge as a major threat to peace in the region, the Afghans consider the Pakistanis playing a game of ‘duplicity’ with Kabul on various fronts….reports Asian Lite News
Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan has changed drastically ever since takeover of the Taliban in Kabul. The nature of engagement from the initial days of the Taliban government when one witnessed the then Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Chief being received in Kabul with honour and dignity, to a stage when both sides do not see eye-to-eye, has been a major ‘about- face’ in the relationship.
While there are differences between Pakistan and Afghanistan on the Durand issue, which has led to several casualties in the past and could emerge as a major threat to peace in the region, the Afghans consider the Pakistanis playing a game of ‘duplicity’ with Kabul on various fronts.
The differences between Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) and Pakistan on an agreement signed between the two has been increasing with the TTP claiming lack of Pakistani adherence to the terms of the agreement. This has led to serious casualties on both sides.
The Pakistan Peace Research Institute published data in October 2022, according to which the number of terrorist attacks in Pakistan had gone up by 51 per cent post coming to power of the Taliban government in Kabul. According to the report, 250 attacks were carried out from August 2021 to August 2022 leading to the death of 433 people with 791 injured.
A senior Russian researcher, Andrey Yashlavsky, an expert on religious terrorism and extremism, while speaking to a Russian daily ‘Nezavisimay Gazeta’ (NG) recently, mentioned that in the second half of 2021, there were signals from Kabul that the Taliban movement was dissatisfied with the policies of Islamabad, and high-ranking Taliban figures stated that the actions of the Pakistani leadership did not comply with the norms of Islam.
In this backdrop, it is worth considering the mention by Russian Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, in an article published in NG in the first week of November where he states: “The Americans are openly blackmailing Taliban leaders, threatening them with a drone attack and forcing them to distance themselves from Russia and China (in this case, they demand that Kabul should refrain from restricting the activities of Afghanistan-based Uyghur militants from the so-called East Turkestan Islamic Movement, designated as a terrorist organisation in Russia).”
Kabulov strongly implies in the article that “Pakistan is colluding with the US with respect to the latter’s blackmail scheme against the Taliban”.
He further claims that the US was resorting to drone diplomacy by using Pakistani territory to threaten Kabul into doing its foreign policy bidding. Considering Afghans have always been united against a common enemy, especially when the enemy is the US, the latest tactics of the US is only helping in bringing the militant groups together. Moreover, such actions will only bring them closer to the command and control in Kabul.
The realisation has dawned on Pakistan that the desperate economic situation and the serious need for financial support from international institutions and the West can only fructify with open ended cooperation with the US on Afghanistan.
However, unlike in the past when Pakistan would define its own broad course on Afghanistan not jeopardising its relations with Kabul, this time around such sensitivities do not seem to be the priority. This change of stance on the part of Pakistan has angered the Taliban leadership.
Moreover, there is a feeling in Taliban circles that Pakistan is being egged by the US to disrupt the sanctity of the region as a whole. Keeping the southern fringes of the central Asian states disturbed and in a state of turmoil will indeed cause concern to these states as also Russia. Thus, diverting Russian attention from the Ukraine war could be an underlying tactical ploy by the US, being played at the cost of Pakistan.
The resultant destabilisation of the broader Central-South-West Asian space surrounding Afghanistan would worsen Pakistan’s own objective national interests as well. This extremely reckless policy would not go down well with the Pakistani masses, yet it is being promulgated anyhow because the US has successfully captured its elite, including those within its establishment, who are supposed to be responsible for defending their country’s interests.
Pakistan needs to realise that with a disturbed region close to their border and an agitated Kabul with several radical militant entities at their beck and call, Pakistan could end up facing a difficult situation dealing with a menace which is its own creation. Hopefully, the new military leadership would realise this aspect and balance their policy in a more mature and well calibrated manner.
Assassination attempt on Pak envoy
The ties between Pakistan and Afghanistan witnessed a new low after a top Pakistani diplomat, Ubaid-ur-Rehman Nizamani was attacked outside his mission in Kabul recently. This year, 2022 has been a disastrous year for Pakistan which facilitated the Taliban’s return in August 2021 and now Islamabad is tasting its own medicine, Voice of Vienna reported.
After the Taliban took over the Afghan land in 2021, the very same year witnessed a border clash with neighbouring Pakistan, and this year ended with an attack on the Kabul embassy, bringing the bilateral relations to a stooping low and Kabul virtually washing its hands of the marauding Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) that uses Afghan territory for its operations and expansion in Pakistan. An “assassination attempt” targeted Pakistan’s top diplomat in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s prime minister said, as tensions between the neighbouring countries simmer.
The head of mission, Ubaid-ur-Rehman Nizamani, was the target of an attack on its embassy compound, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
Al Jazeera reported citing an Embassy official that the attacker “came behind the cover of houses and started firing” in the Embassy compound.
The incident occurred after the Pakistani government urged the Taliban to cease terrorist attacks occurring from their territory. One year after the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, border clashes between Afghanistan and Pakistan have increased manifold with no thaw in sight anytime soon, reported Voice of Vienna.
Nizamani travelled to Kabul to assume the position at one of the few embassies that had continued to function since the Taliban seized power in August 2021.
The ideological ties the Afghan Taliban have with foreign militant groups like the TTP and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) are a significant factor in the resurrection of terrorist networks, according to Pakistani expert Zahid Hussain’s article in Dawn newspaper, a Pakistani publication.
According to Pakistani security researcher Mohammed Amir Rana, the TTP cadres have given the ISKP the necessary muscle and are growing its support base throughout Pakistan. It continues to be relentless and set demands that Islamabad cannot afford to meet, with the help of covert Kabul, Voice of Vienna reported.
Pakistan is exerting pressure on Kabul to attribute the latest attack on its Kabul embassy, in which its Charge d’affaires narrowly escaped, to the ISKP.
The IS’s South Asia chapter was founded by the TTP’s Hafeez Saeed, and there have been “defections” from the TTP to the ISKP, as pointed out by analysts Rana and Zahid Hussain as well as others, as they write for an article in Dawn. Afghanistan has been used as a hinterland by several political governments and the military to gain financial and political clout. (IANS/ANI)