Ever since the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, Pakistan-Afghanistan relations have nosedived. This is because Pakistan finds itself at the receiving end of the terrorist attacks from Afghan soil. The Pakistani military intelligence combine is today at the receiving end of the blowback from the very assets they thought they once controlled. Their plan was to use these forces for action against neighbours, but they are today being hoist with their own petard .. writes Dr Sakariya Kareem
The Bajaur blast in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), Pakistan which killed 56 people is a tragedy to be condemned. But ironically, it has also given Pakistan a taste of its own medicine. For a nation which has nurtured, organised, weaponised and funded terrorists of all hues and colours for the last several decades, the chickens are coming home to roost today.
Further, the statements by the Pakistan Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Army Chief General Asim Munir warning Afghanistan of the ‘consequences’ of allowing the TTP and other terrorist groups to use Afghan soil for carrying out attacks inside Pakistan exposes the double standards used by Pakistan on terrorism. Pakistan has, for several decades now targeted India and Afghanistan using terrorist proxies operating from their soil and yet it claims to be a victim of terrorism and the latest outburst against Afghanistan is symptomatic of a nation uncertain about itself.
The bomb blast (30 July) in Bajaur in Malakand Division in KPK was claimed by the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP). The attack targeted an election rally in Pakistan’s border district of Bajaur. The apparent target was Fazlur Rehman, head of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam[1]Fazl (JUI-F), who was supposed to but did not attend the party’s Workers Convention. The attack resulted in over 50 deaths, including 23 children, and nearly 200 people were wounded. Both Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Army Chief General Asim Munir visited Peshawar subsequently to receive a briefing on the security situation.
PM Sharif reportedly noted with concern the involvement of the Afghan citizens in the suicide blasts inside Pakistan. He also expressed his concern over the liberty of action available to the elements hostile to Pakistan in planning and executing such cowardly attacks on innocent civilians from the sanctuaries across the border. A press release issued by the Pakistani PM’s office quotes Sharif as saying, “The Interim Afghan government should undertake concrete measures towards denying its soil to be used for transnational terrorism.”
Ever since the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, Pakistan-Afghanistan relations have nosedived. This is because Pakistan finds itself at the receiving end of terrorist attacks on Afghan soil. The Pakistani military intelligence combine is today at the receiving end of the blowback from the very assets they thought they once controlled. Their plan was to use these forces for action against neighbours, but they are today being hoisted with their own petards.
As Harsh Pant, a leading research scholar with an Indian think tank aptly concludes, the ‘Frankenstein’s monster’ can no longer be managed. With Pakistan lurching from one crisis to another, and relations with Afghanistan going downhill, the potential for more attacks like the one that occurred in Bajaur has only increased. That Pakistan is seriously concerned by recent events can be adduced from the two strong statements issued by the military in the third week of July which voiced serious concerns about “the safe havens and liberty of action available to the TTP in Afghanistan”. This round of statements was prompted by the terrorist attack on an Army garrison in Balochistan’s Zhob town on 12 July 2023, which claimed the lives of nine soldiers. On the same day, an attack in Sui led to three more military casualties.
The current situation aptly illustrates Pakistan’s double standards on terrorism. On the one hand, it blames Afghanistan for supporting the TTP and allowing terrorist groups to use Afghan soil, while it continues to infiltrate LeT/JeM terrorists into Jammu and Kashmir. Blaming Afghanistan provides Pakistan with an excuse for its own internal inability to manage its security. The roots of the proxy war against India could be traced to prior to the independence and partition of India and Pakistan.
In 1947, Pakistan sent tribal invaders (Lashkars) to capture the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Subsequently, it tried to use the same tactics in 1965 but failed. The 1999 Kargil conflict began with the Pakistan Army troops infiltrating and trying to cut off Siachen. That the war ended in a total disaster for Pakistan is often forgotten and Islamabad continued its sponsorship of terror against India. Since the 1980’s Pakistan has used non-state actors as a strategic asset in its war against India.
This proxy war led to the large-scale infiltration of terrorists into India and one could say the apogee of this phase was the attack on Mumbai in 2008. However, the trend of attacks and infiltrations continued and even today, Pakistan sends its foot soldiers across the Line of Control into Jammu and Kashmir.
While the numbers have dwindled, it nevertheless is clear that the ISI persists in its strategy to bleed India with a thousand cuts. The latest instance of this is the killing of 11 infiltrators in the Kupwara sector in June 2023. There were 3 to 5 infiltration attempts in that month. By way of comparison, there were 20 infiltration attempts between January and June 2022 in Jammu and Kashmir, while in 2023 the number of attempts stands at 23. There are estimated to be over 100 terrorists in the Valley, but operations of the security forces have prevented them from undertaking any major attacks. Of immediate concern from an Indian perspective, is the introduction of drones to smuggle weapons and narcotics into J&K and Punjab. This changes the nature of the battle somewhat and reflects the ideation inserted into Pakistan’s proxy war against India by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
The Indian nation has suffered immeasurably at the hands of Pakistan with a spate of terrorist attacks which led India to conduct the surgical strikes into PoJK in 2016 and in Balakot in 2019. These counter-strikes and a history of strengthened defences have deterred Pakistan from intensifying its proxy war against India. But Pakistan continues to use double standards when it comes to terrorism. On the one hand, it continues to support terrorist groups against India, while on the other, it blames Afghanistan for allowing giving sanctuary to terrorists who target Pakistan. There is a huge difference that needs to be re-emphasised.
Pakistan is the creator of the Afghan Taliban and scores of other organizations like the LeT and JeM. The TTP is one of the few groups to operate against the Pakistani state and is being supported by the Taliban in Afghanistan.