Just a day after Islamic State’s Khorasan (IS-K) chapter claimed responsibility for a series of blasts primarily targeting Afghanistan’s Hazara community, a deadly bombing at a Sunni mosque during Friday prayers rocked the city of Kunduz resulting in 33 deaths, including children. As no group has so far taken ownership of the latest attack and this particular incident targeted Sunnis rather than Shias, it is clear that multiple terror outfits are operating in Afghanistan and are evidently able to carry out their activities without much hindrance. With the Taliban government unwilling to fully accept this reality, denying the presence of terror groups in the country, such a rapid deterioration of the security situation was to be expected. What is more, in the absence of any tangible meaningful action against these groups by Kabul, the latter has been able to comfortably hit targets across the border in Pakistan. The Pakistan Army soldiers were martyred in North Waziristan following a gunfight with Afghan terrorists across the border. Since the Taliban takeover, the TTP has resurged and gained prominence once again and continues to successfully attack security personnel on Pakistani soil, predominantly in Balochistan where it has managed to gain the support of the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA). IS-K struck a Shia Mosque in Peshawar last month, killing over 60 worshippers.
A major reason for the support of the Taliban was to establish law and order, and bring such episodes to an end.While Pakistan should be concerned about the state of the relationship, Afghanistan should be more concerned. The Taliban government should realise that if it cannot maintain normal relations with its neighbours, it is failing a very basic test of its readiness to be included in the comity of nations. Other standards have been laid down, such as respect for human rights and readiness to allow female education, but the very basic minimum, preventing its territory from being used to launch terrorism against other countries, is hardly an imposition; it is merely something states do for each other.
