A suicide blast at an education centre in the Dast-e-Barchi neighbourhood in Kabul left 19 dead and 17 injured on Friday, after a suicide attack. Though no responsibility was claimed, the operation had all the hallmarks of an attack by ISIS. The attack managed to hit the Taliban government in three areas where it is most subject to criticism within the international community. First is the maintenance of law and order. The Taliban had taken power on the basis of a reputation of being tough on law and order. Their inability to provide security in the midst of their own capital shows them as being hapless, coming as it does on the heels of the killing of Al-Qaeda chief Ayman Az-Zawahiri, again in Kabul. The attack came in a Shia Hazara neighbourhood, and the victims are primarily Hazaras. The Taliban’s failure to provide them security will be held against them throughout the world. Then there is the attack on education, particularly women’s education, for though the centre was not a formal institution, the blast took place while students were sitting a mock-exam of the entry test to Kabul University, and many victims were young women.
Pakistan is a neighbour, and thus cannot ignore the disorder prevailing there. As could be seen in Swat, that disorder could well spill over and have unforeseen consequences. At the same time, Pakistan can neither ignore any instability that could increase the flow of refugees, nor behave in any way that might be seen as infringing Afghan national sovereignty. At the same time, it cannot wash is hands of Afghanistan and leave it to its fate.
The Taliban should also realize that their intransigence will lead them nowhere. If they want recognition as a government, they will have to conform to certain norms and expectations. Perhaps the most basic of them being to main a modicum of order within their borders. No one wants to try that. After all, both the USSR and the USA succeeded. However, the Taliban might like to remember the hoary adage about nature abhorring a vacuum. Afghans may well be an unruly people, loth to accept the yoke of the law. But until he change their ways, there will be more outrages like the one in Dasht-i-Barchi.
