The Bajaur, Khar, suicide attack on the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazal) JUI (F) public meeting has killed 54 and injured 90. According to media reports, the number of deceased could rise, as many of those admitted to the different hospitals have received serious injuries and were fighting for their lives. Immediately after the bloody incident Islamic State Khurasan Province (ISKP) has accepted responsibility of the gruesome attack. There have been series of terrorists attacks since November 2022, when the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) unilaterally withdrew from the cease-fire declaring another war against the security forces and citizens of Pakistan.
The first massive suicide attack took place in Police Lines’ Masque, Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, on 30 January 2023, which killed 84 innocent citizens and injuring hundreds, majority of them were police officials. After that terror incident, bordering districts of KPK with Afghanistan have been constantly victim of terrorism.
The other day in the Khyber district a sub-inspector has been martyred (killed) in a masque, when he tried to arrest the suicide bomber. Interestingly, the recent two attacks, first in Khyber and second in Bajaur districts, were bordering Afghanistan. Therefore, it’s very easy for terrorists to cross the Afghan border and launch attacks inside Pakistan. According to Pakistan Institutes for Conflict and Security Studies, in the first six months of the current year, so far 389 people including the security forces, have lost their lives, in the terrorism incidents. The current trend indicates that the country will face worse terrorists’ attacks in the coming days, weeks and months, particularly in the bordering districts of Afghanistan. KPK and Baluchistan are the main targets for various reasons.
There is no second opinion that Afghanistan’s land is being used by various terrorists’ groups, including the notorious TTP, for killings and causing instability in Pakistan, whether it’s related to KPK or Baluchistan. Pakistan time and again has raised this issue with the interim regime in Kabul to control the TTP and other miscreants, but the result was zero.
Either the Afghan interim government is complacent or unable to control various groups and individuals living in Afghanistan. Sensing the seriousness of the situation, the top military leadership in the recently held Crop Commander Conference has expressed concerns about the militants using Afghan land against Pakistan.
Most of us know that violence has been one of the strategies to intimidate masses, and opponent forces (both military or political) to gain power or tarnish country’s image with an aim to declare the country as a security risk, to block the foreign investment, prevent foreign visitors or tourists, ultimately damaging the economy.
In some cases, as like us in Pakistan, violent groups are being established, sponsored, trained and launched by the enemies’ states to weaken the country internally, without declaring a full-fledge war, which might have serious—dangerous consequences.
When Afghanistan was passing through an international War on Terror after 9/11 attacks in US in 2001, the enemies of Pakistan, particularly, the Indians through the facilitation of Hamid Karzai’s government approached to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in 2006 to destabilize Pakistan.
The Indian established numerous consulates in Afghanistan close to the Pakistani border providing financial, logistical and other support to all those terrorists groups including TTP, which were busy in launching terrorist attacks in Baluchistan, KPK and other parts of Pakistan. In 2015, one of the senior most Pakistani diplomates informed me during meeting that Indians have recently paid 10 million dollars to Hamid Karzai for helping the Indians in Afghanistan against Pakistan and also launching propaganda against Pakistan in the western media. It was the time when Ashraf Ghani was the president of Afghanistan.
Today, there was a debate going on among the Afghan issues’ experts, that since the United States was out of Afghanistan, governments like Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani were removed in Kabul, then, how the TTP was getting financial and logistical support, especially, access to modern sophisticated weapons?
It might be possible that after the fall of Kabul to Afghan Taliban and the TTP terrorists were released from the various prisons there, they might have re-engaged with the same old supporters, who had been providing financial and logistical resources during the Karzai-Ghani regimes in Afghanistan. There was a possibility that Indians might have been using the Afghanistan neighbors’ soil for helping TTP and other terrorists’ groups to destabilize Pakistan, particularly targeting the China Pakistan Economic Corridor CPEC.
On the issue of availability of weapons to the TTP and other terrorists’ groups, there could be another possibility that when the Americans were leaving Afghanistan on the 30th of August 2021 in consequence to a peace deal with the Afghan Taliban, signed in Doha (Qatar) on 29 February 2020, they had left a large number of sophisticated weapons in Afghanistan.
That weapon was captured by Afghanistan Taliban, members of TTP and other waring groups like Islamic State Khurasan Province (ISKP) etc. So, the same was being used by the TTP and other terrorists against Pakistani forces and citizens.
Many former diplomates and security experts raise this question that why the Afghan Taliban could not control TTP? Why the TTP is allowed to operate and move freely in Afghanistan?
The problem with the Afghan Taliban was, that at one time TTP extended full support to Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan against the United States and allied forces. They consider TTP their natural ally, friends and brothers.
Therefore, the interim regime was morally bound to support the TTP or allow the group to operate from Afghanistan. The second serious issue with the Afghan Taliban regarding TTP could be that if they push them to leave Afghanistan, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) could move towards Islamic State (KP) or Al-Qaida creating security challenge for the Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan.
With this consideration, the Afghan Taliban interim setup, does not want to take action against the TTP or force it to leave Afghanistan or to stop using Afghan land or stop attacking Pakistani security forces or citizens.
It’s very difficult to say that directly Afghan Taliban were using the TTP or any other terrorists’ groups against Pakistan. Because, Pakistan has been close ally of Afghan Taliban.
It has played central role in bringing the US and Afghan Taliban on negotiating table. Afghan Taliban needs Pakistan support to get the international recognition as legitimate representative government of Afghanistan.
Afghanistan gets its major daily used supplies from Pakistani land routs. The transit trade is a life line for the Afghan economy. The Afghan business community regularly trade with the Pakistani counterparts. Afghanistan will benefit from the energy projects from the Central Asian States reaching to Pakistan and further to China. Still millions of Afghan citizens are living in Pakistan as refugees. Thousands of Afghan citizens cross border into Pakistan on the daily basis for job, business or medical treatment. Thousands of Afghan students were getting education in Pakistani universities. Pakistan with all its internal economic and political challenges, has a great influence in the region and at the international levels.
So, how the Afghan Taliban could compromise on all these economic, diplomatic and strategic interests by opening supporting a terrorist group like TTP which ultimately has to fall and fail.
Even the Illiterate people living in the remote areas of former FATA and other parts of Pakistan do understand the fact, that TTP was not fighting for Islam. Islam has nothing to do with the violence and killing innocent people. It attacks innocent children in schools, it attacks people offering prayers in masques, it attacks the security forces, who sacrifice their lives for the safety of Pakistani and its citizens.
There fight is unjustified and its purely violence. They are criminals and need to be delt as criminals under the law of the land. TTP and other groups’ terrorism is not the battle of ideologies either.
Pakistan needs cooperation from the Afghan interim regime. The Afghan Taliban would be meeting the US delegation in Doha in the coming days. Hopefully, our government must have told the Americans to push the Taliban for fulfilling its promise made during the Doha agreement in 2019 that Afghan land would not be used by any terrorists’ groups against any country.
