ISLAMABAD: For decades, Pakistan appeared to be pursuing a policy of supporting the Afghan Taliban while cracking down on the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
With the Taliban in power in Afghanistan, Islamabad may have won its “long game”. But its game of chicken may be backfiring with TTP coming home to roost.
On August 15 last year, when the Taliban swept into Kabul and seized power in Afghanistan, there were exultations in neighbouring Pakistan. Afghans had “broken the shackles of slavery,” said Prime Minister Imran Khan a day after the takeover.
In more circumspect military-intelligence circles, the so-called “double game” was the subject of jokes that sometimes leaked into the public domain.
In 2014, during the peak of the US war in Afghanistan, former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Hameed Gul appeared on the talk show, Mazaq Raat.
On live television, Gul — who was the nation’s spy chief towards the end of the Cold War — made a celebrated forecast. “When history is written, it will be stated that the ISI defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan with the help of America,” he declared, embellishing Pakistan’s role in ending the 1980s Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
It was a prelude to a punchline that Gul proceeded to deliver with pizzaz. “Then there will be another sentence: The ISI, with the help of America, defeated America,” he concluded to guffaws from the audience.
America may be defeated in Afghanistan. But nearly six months after the Taliban takeover, the joke could well be on Pakistan – with cruel risks for its citizens.
DEADLY ATTACKS AND A CROSS-BORDER WARNING
On Sunday, five soldiers were martyred by firing from neighbouring Afghanistan in an attack claimed by TTP.
The Taliban are separate groups in both countries, but they share a common ideology and allegiances, which the TTP renewed following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
Pakistan though follows a “good Taliban-bad Taliban” strategy that seeks a friendly government across its western border in Afghanistan as a counterweight to India.
The “bad Taliban” — the TTP, with its stated goal of overthrowing the state and establishing its interpretation of religious laws — is considered a terrorist threat.
The TTP attack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa came just days after nine soldiers were martyred in Balochistan in coordinated attacks that officials said involved “planners” from Afghanistan and India.
The attacks sparked a first in Islamabad’s relations with the new Taliban regime across the western border.
In a statement released over the weekend, Islamabad condemned the use of Afghan soil for attacks against Pakistan, warning that it “expects that the interim Afghan government will not allow the conduct of such activities against Pakistan in future.”
Some experts were quick to note the accusation marked the first time since the Taliban takeover that a country publicly declared Afghan territory was being used for cross-border international terrorism.
The accusation of Afghanistan being used for cross-border terrorism came days after a UN terrorism monitoring report said the Taliban had failed to take “steps to limit the activities of foreign terrorist fighters in the country”.
The report, by the UN Security Council’s monitoring team for al Qaeda, the Islamic State (IS) group and their affiliates, noted that “on the contrary, terrorist groups enjoy greater freedom there [Afghanistan] than at any time in recent history.”
The Taliban however said the findings were “untrue”.
In a Twitter post, the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” — as the group refers to its government, which has not been recognised by the international community — “strongly” rejected the report.
“Afghanistan is witnessing exemplary security since the Islamic Emirate regained full sovereignty over the country,” the statement noted.
‘CUT FROM THE SAME IDEOLOGICAL CLOTH’
“Exemplary security” is a contested claim for many Afghans — including abducted women rights activists who have been missing for weeks, and members of the Shi’ite Hazara minority, who have been targeted in deadly attacks attributed to the Islamic State group’s local Khorasan branch, the IS-K.
Meanwhile, in Pakistan, increasing attacks over the past few weeks have raised questions over the policy of supporting the Afghan Taliban despite threats of a militant spillover.
“For quite a few years, Pakistan had been demanding that the government in Afghanistan curb the threat of anti-Pakistan groups on Afghan soil. The hope was, with a new friendly government in Afghanistan, Pakistan would get more help than in the past,” said Michael Kugelman from the Washington-based Wilson Center in an interview with FRANCE 24.
Instead, “there are signs of intensified security risks. We’re seeing a resurgence of the Pakistani Taliban, as well as Baloch separatist groups intensifying attacks,” he noted.
“What this means is that the [Afghan] Taliban is not a seamless entity,” said Ayesha Siddiqa, from the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, in an interview with FRANCE 24.
“Pakistan can continue supporting the Taliban, but they have little control in discouraging or convincing the Taliban to clamp down on the TTP.”
It’s a matter of “will and capacity”, according to Kugelman.
“There’s an argument to be made that the Taliban ran a successful insurgency for many years, and it theoretically has the capacity to tackle the TTP. But I think the broader issue is one of will. The Taliban is not willing to use coercive tactics against the TTP because they have a close relationship with the group. At the end of the day, especially with Islamist militant groups, they are all cut from the same ideological cloth,” he explained.
GETTING BY WITH DRONE STRIKES FROM A FRENEMY
Just moments after taking charge of Kabul on August 15, the Taliban released thousands of TTP prisoners, including the group’s former deputy chief Faqir Mohammad.
The move was promptly reciprocated when the TTP hailed the Afghan Taliban takeover and pledged allegiance to Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada.
Since it shot into the spotlight more than a decade ago, the TTP has been blamed for hundreds of attacks in Pakistan, including the 2014 massacre of nearly 150 children at the Army Public School in Peshawar.
Despite its brutal record, Islamabad has been unable to persuade the Afghan Taliban to crack down on their cohorts.
Instead, the Afghan Taliban offered to facilitate talks between the TTP and Islamabad. It was an overture that was taken up by Islamabad, resulting in the two parties agreeing to a month-long ceasefire in November.
But the truce expired on December 9 after the peace talks broke down.
On the military front, Pakistan could launch cross-border raids on TTP positions in Afghanistan, but that would raise tensions with the new sovereign power in Afghanistan in a sensitive zone split by a colonial-era border that has divided Pashtun tribes on either side.
Before the Taliban takeover, Pakistan was aided in its anti-TTP fight with US intelligence and drone strikes, which resulted in the killings of the group’s top leaders, including Hakimullah Mehsud in 2012 and his successor, Maulana Fazlullah in 2018.
But Pakistan today is not likely to get by with a little help from the US. “The TTP is not going to be a priority for the US. Pakistan can’t count on the US to provide counterterror assistance since the US is now focused on al Qaeda and Islamic State and threats to US interests,” he added.
MINERALS AND MILITANTS IN BALOCHISTAN
Meanwhile, an alarming new front is opening up west of the TTP’s tribal heartland, in arid, mineral-rich Balochistan bordering Afghanistan and Iran.
Militants have waged a low-level insurgency in the province, fuelled by anger over a political and economic marginalisation that traps Balochistan in “the poorest province” status despite its abundant natural resources.
In recent weeks though, the attacks have turned increasingly sophisticated and alarming. On Saturday, the military finally managed to put an end to four days of assaults by separatists that began with twin attacks on army posts last week.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed the latest attack, which martyred nine soldiers, according to official figures.
It followed a spate of attacks last month following warnings by Baloch militants that Chinese investments are not safe in Pakistan.
Pakistan is home to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) showcase, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project linking China’s western Xinjiang region with the strategic port of Gwadar.
In Kabul, the Taliban also views China as a “friend of Afghanistan” and is likely to address, as best it can, Beijing’s requests to expel Uighur militants on Afghan soil. It’s an easier ask than Islamabad’s call for a crackdown on their Pashtun brethren in the TTP.
China has so far resisted playing a military support role in the Af-Pak region. But if Pakistan’s claims of an Indian involvement in the Balochistan attacks are true, Beijing may feel compelled to push back against its geostrategic rival, drawing a third nuclear-armed country into an already combustible zone.
While allegations, counter allegations and denials between India and Pakistan are a familiar feature, Kugelman notes the audacity and sophistication of the latest attacks in Balochistan have added an alarming new ingredient in the regional security stew.
“Understandably, there are speculations about external involvement. What happened in Balochistan was unprecedented. The attacks on two Pakistan Army frontier camps had a level of sophistication and close coordination that suggests external involvement,” said Kugelman.
“As attacks mount inside Pakistan, the political risks of inaction grow higher for the government. Attacks now are seemingly happening every day and it will become a political issue for the government,” warned Kugelman.
