Now that the responsibility for the attack on the Pakistan embassy in Kabul has been claimed by the IS-KP (Islamic State-Khorasan Province), a number of dimensions have opened up. For a start, it shows that the Taliban government remains unable to maintain law and order, even though that was supposed to be its strong point. One factor is that those fighters who think of the Taliban as sellouts have flocked to the IS-KP. This also raises alarm bells for Pakistan, and the IS-KP may spread its terroristic activities to Pakistani. It has a record of operating here, but has not been heard of recently, but it has been expanding at the expense of the Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in much the same manner, by inducting those who see the TTP as too mild.
Though it is basically a Pakistani issue, the Taliban need to consider the position, where it has been shown that it cannot perform one of the most basic duties of any government, that of providing security to the foreign missions accredited to it. This throws into doubt all the other commitments made by the Taliban to the USA to obtain the withdrawal of its forces. The Taliban have not fulfilled their agreements, and seem to be discovering that they are against the Sharia. It does seem opportunistic to have agreed before, and to renege later. It would have been more forthright to have stated that the conditions, particularly about the status of women, were unacceptable, and then lived with the consequences. As it is, the Taliban are living with the consequences of their welshing on those conditions. The Taliban were also acting as an honest broker between the TTP and Pakistan, but those efforts have come to naught, and the TTP is once again on the rampage. And now the Taliban cannot even guarantee Pakistan’s embassy safety.
At this stage, because the Taliban face an immediate challenge to their rule, because of their failure to keep a foreign mission safe, and because the Pakistan government could face a threat on its own soil from the attackers, it is essential that the stop the blame game that seems to be developing, and concert measures that will bring matters under control. Whether the Taliban drives its ‘undesirables’ into the arms of Pakistan, or vice versa, does not really matter. What does, is that the two sides establish the kind of cooperation that had been promised by Taliban boosters when theory first took over, but which has so far been missing.
