Why a Taliban victory may not be everything Pakistan wished for
With the Taliban sweeping across Afghanistan and threatening the U.S.-backed government in Kabul, U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad visited Pakistan last week to meet with top officials. Afterward, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said instability in Afghanistan would cause âserious challengesâ for Pakistan.
Pakistan has invested heavily in a Taliban victory. Despite consistent denials, its Inter-Services Intelligence agency has been instrumental since 2006 in boosting the insurgents with explosives, cash, ideological recruits, and a cross-border safe haven, analysts say.
Why We Wrote ThisPakistanâs heavy investment in the Taliban was vital in leading to Americaâs military defeat in Afghanistan. But is the prospect of a sweeping Taliban victory giving Pakistan second thoughts?
And yet, as the Taliban have accelerated their advance and vowed to re-establish a strict Islamic Emirate, key players in Islamabad may be changing their thinking. The prospects of a Taliban-led state are being weighed against the risks of renewed civil war and instability in Afghanistan, a refugee exodus, and an emboldened cadre of Pakistanâs own recently regenerated jihadists.
âPakistan wants the Taliban to take power [as] a culmination of [its] long-term strategy,â says Asfandyar Mir, an expert in political violence at Stanford. âBut at the same time it is nervous,â says Mr. Mir, speaking from Islamabad. âPakistan probably underestimated that if you bring the Taliban to power in Afghanistan, that will obviously embolden Islamist insurgents inside the country. ... That reality is starting to crystallize.â
LONDON
In 2017, then-President Donald Trump singled out Pakistan for giving âsafe haven to agents of chaos, violence, and terror,â the same groups âthat try every single day to kill our peopleâ in Afghanistan.
At the time, it was seen as long overdue recognition of an open secret: that Pakistan, a U.S. ally, was backing its enemy, the Taliban.
âWe have been paying Pakistan billions ⦠at the same time they are housing the very terrorists that we are fighting,â said Mr. Trump. âBut that will have to change.â
Why We Wrote ThisPakistanâs heavy investment in the Taliban was vital in leading to Americaâs military defeat in Afghanistan. But is the prospect of a sweeping Taliban victory giving Pakistan second thoughts?
Fast-forward four years, and what has changed instead is that the Taliban are today sweeping across Afghanistan and threatening the U.S.-backed government in Kabul, as U.S. forces withdraw unconditionally.
Pakistan has invested heavily in just such an outcome. Despite consistent denials, Pakistanâs Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has been instrumental since 2006 in boosting the insurgents with explosives, cash, ideological recruits, and a cross-border safe haven, analysts say.
And yet, as the Taliban juggernaut has accelerated its advance and vowed to re-establish a strict Islamic Emirate, signs of concern are emerging in Pakistan about the dangers of an outright Taliban victory over the United States and the government in Kabul.
Key players in Islamabad may be changing their thinking, as they weigh the prospects of a relatively friendly Taliban-led state against the risk of sparking renewed civil war and instability in Afghanistan, a refugee exodus, and an emboldened cadre of Pakistanâs own recently regenerated jihadists.
âPakistan wants the Taliban to take power [as] a culmination of the long-term strategy of bringing the Taliban back,â says Asfandyar Mir, an expert in political violence at Stanford Universityâs Center for International Security and Cooperation.
âBut at the same time it is nervous. It certainly appears to have some buyerâs remorse [with] concerns that the Pakistanis are starting to express more and more,â says Mr. Mir, speaking from Islamabad.
Pakistanâs homefrontOne Pakistani concern is that the âTalibanâs dependence on them is going down, which has manifested itself in testy, poor behavior in meetings with senior military intelligence officials,â he says, giving Pakistani officials the impression that todayâs Taliban are âharder to controlâ than in the past.
A larger concern for Pakistan is the energizing impact the Talibanâs ascendance is having on Pakistanâs own jihadist insurgents, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, which has close ties to the Afghan Taliban and has recently regenerated a campaign to overthrow the Pakistani state.
Tariq Achakzai/AP
Pakistani paramilitary soldiers stand guard in Chaman, Pakistan, July 16, 2021, near the Pakistan-Afghan border crossing following fighting between Afghan security forces and Taliban near the Afghan town of Spin Boldak.
Pakistani intelligence and army chiefs reportedly have briefed Pakistani lawmakers that the Taliban and TTP â" which has targeted numerous Pakistani intelligence and military officials â" are two sides of the same coin.
âOur jihadis will be emboldened. They will say that âif America can be beaten, what is the Pakistan army to stand in our way?ââ an unnamed senior Pakistani official told The Wall Street Journal of the Taliban advance.
âThe TTP has really stepped up its violence against Pakistan. They have been hitting various military targets the last 6 to 12 months,â says Mr. Mir. âPakistan probably underestimated that if you bring the Taliban to power in Afghanistan, that will obviously embolden Islamist insurgents inside the country. Due to the TTPâs stepped-up attacks, that reality is starting to crystallize.â
The Taliban now control more than half of Afghanistanâs 400-plus district centers â" most of those seized since June â" but none of the 34 provincial capitals. The United Nations reported Monday that 5,183 civilians were killed or wounded the first six months of this year â" a 47% increase over the same period last year.
The United States, Russia, and China have all pressured Pakistan to convince the Taliban not to advance on Kabul, and to instead find a political solution. In March, all four nations issued a joint statement opposing the ârestoration of the Islamic Emirateâ â" the name the Taliban used for their state when they ruled in the late 1990s, which was recognized then only by Pakistan.
The Taliban immediately rejected the statement as âagainst all principle and not acceptable.â
Khalilzadâs visit to IslamabadZalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. envoy for Afghanistan, visited Islamabad July 19 and met with the ISI chief and top officials. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has said his country, in the past, âmade a mistake by choosing between warring partiesâ in Afghanistan and now has âno favorites.â After meeting Ambassdor Khalilzad, he said instability would cause âserious challengesâ for Pakistan.
Just days before, Pakistan had tried and failed to convene a meeting in Islamabad between senior Afghan leaders, including President Ashraf Ghani and former President Hamid Karzai, with top Taliban leaders, to hammer out a power-sharing deal. Pakistanâs national security adviser, Moeed Yusuf, told Indian television Saturday that Pakistan was âobsessively focusedâ on a political settlement but had âvery limited leverageâ over the Taliban.
Kabul has complained bitterly for years about Pakistanâs support of the Taliban, and seen few signs of change. Whatever its security concerns, Pakistan has not stopped the Afghan Taliban from using its territory to recruit Pakistani fighters, provide safe haven, or care for wounded fighters.
President Ghani on July 17 said Pakistan had, in the previous month, allowed more than 10,000 âjihadi fightersâ to enter Afghanistan.
âCan Taliban convince a single [Afghan] including themselves that they arenât puppets of Rawalpindiâs GHQ [Pakistani military headquarters]? They are just a kill and destruction squad in the hands of Pakistan,â tweeted Amrullah Saleh, the Afghan first vice president and former spy chief, earlier this month. âPak has once again opted for a very dangerous and costly adventure,â he said in another tweet.
Tajikistan Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin (left) speaks to Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. special representative for Afghanistan, at the Central and South Asia 2021 conference in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, July 19, 2021. Ambassador Khalilzad, Washingtonâs point man in talks aimed at ending decades of war in Afghanistan, made a brief visit to Pakistan as relations between Islamabad and Kabul reached a new low.
Peace talks as coverAfghan officials say Pakistan has also abetted the Talibanâs use of intra-Afghan peace talks, which began last September but made little progress, to prepare for continued war.
Back in January, for example, Taliban negotiators were late in returning to the Gulf state of Qatar for talks scheduled to resume on the 5th.
âWhere were the Taliban?â Ahmad Shuja Jamal, head of international affairs and regional cooperation on Afghanistanâs National Security Council, asked rhetorically during a webinar this month hosted by the Frontline Club in London.
The answer, he said, came a few days later, when videos from Pakistan showed Taliban leaders âparading across a line of suicide bombers of the Talibanâ and visiting âwounded Taliban terroristsâ treated in Pakistani hospitals.
Mr. Jamal accused the Taliban of planting explosive devices manufactured with Pakistani-produced ammonium nitrate âin peopleâs orchards, in peopleâs crops, in peopleâs abandoned homes and pathways into and out of their villages.â
The solution, he said, is for the U.S. and others to âpressure Pakistan, so that they actually do play, finally, a constructive role that only they can play in this equation.â
Pakistan, however, despite stated concern about Afghan Taliban victories, appears to have done little to meaningfully knuckle down.
âThere was a big push to mobilize fighters in the last few months, in the [Pakistani] tribal areas and in the Pashtun areas around the south of Afghanistan in Baluchistan,â Carlotta Gall, a New York Times correspondent who covered Afghanistan and Pakistan for more than a decade, said in the webinar.
âWe know there are a lot of bodies coming back, including of Pakistanis,â said Ms. Gall, author of âThe Wrong Enemy.â The Nangarhar governorâs office tweeted Sunday, for example, that 39 dead Pakistani fighters were sent home the past two weeks. Videos show funerals of fighters in Pakistan, with white Taliban flags held aloft.
âItâs a massive, state-organized campaign, and itâs been going on for 20 years,â said Ms. Gall, whose book title invokes Richard Holbrooke, the late U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, who once said, âWe may be fighting the wrong enemy in the wrong country.â
âPakistan has never given up on its idea to have a client state in Afghanistan,â she said. âIt hasnât changed. It hasnât stopped. The Americans knew it all along.â
A colonial powerThat has been most clear to Afghans, who have been shocked by the speed and scale of destruction of the current Taliban campaign â" and are suspicious of any claimed Pakistani change of heart.
âEvery Afghan now knows that the name used for these invasions is Taliban, but itâs actually the Pakistani Army in the uniform of the Taliban,â says Orzala Nemat, a Kabul-based analyst.
Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox.
âPakistan is planning this, has a huge hand in orchestrating whatâs happening. Itâs a very sophisticated offensive,â she says. âThis time, if the Taliban have a full takeover, the damage ... will spread beyond Afghan borders, to Pakistan, Iran and elsewhere, and everyone should be aware of that.
âWe are not faced with some madrasa-educated, ordinary-village young man,â says Ms. Nemat. âWe are faced with a colonial power fighting Afghans, again, in the uniform of the Taliban. That is how it should be seen.â
0 Response to "Why a Taliban victory may not be everything Pakistan wished for"
Post a Comment