ISomething strange happened in Pakistan earlier this week. Pakistani army formally blamed his former friend and ally, the Afghan Taliban, for promoting terrorist attacks by hosting terrorist sanctuaries inside Pakistan, which he said were affecting “Pakistan’s security”.
sounds familiar? Is money falling into Rawalpindi, the headquarters of the Pakistani military establishment and its infamous intelligence services, the ISI? Are the chickens coming home to move an English proverb to a warmer, subcontinental locale?
For decades, India has been making exactly the same allegations against Pakistan. Which means, controlling the tap of terror by hosting safe havens of terrorists in its territory and infiltrating them into India – making India “bleed with a thousand wounds”.
Long before the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which Pakistan never acknowledged, let alone apologise, long before the 2001 Agra talks, which broke down because of the then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Post On Kashmir, and even before the 1999 Kargil conflict, Pakistan has used terror as an instrument of state policy towards India.
Pakistan’s refusal to close its safe havens for terrorists, it believes it can turn on and off the tap for “good” and “bad” terrorists – the good ones, presumably, were the ones that got India were targeting, and the bad guys who turned off the tap. Aiming inward – Now coming to troubling it.
Perhaps it is cruel to quote the Bible here – you reap what you sow. And when you sow storms, you reap famine, flood, and calamity in every season. No one should aspire to this, let alone 200 million people living in the neighbourhood.
Of course, this is not the fault of the people. They do their best to choose the one they choose. But Pakistani army and ISI are so powerful that if you refuse to obey orders they will not only destroy you personally but they have distorted the whole country for last 75 years as they want to stay in power Want to Ask Nawaz Sharif, living in exile for the second time in his life – at least he is in London this time and not in the god-forsaken Attock Jail, where he was sent after the 1999 coup by Musharraf.
Pakistan is definitely nervous. On the one hand, the Pakistani economy is barely surviving with $3 billion Part From the IMF, and on the other hand, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is demanding the imposition of Sharia law in the areas bordering Afghanistan.
neglecting neighborly duties
Back to the conversation the Pakistani military held last week about the Taliban government in Kabul. In the 258th meeting of all Corps Commanders, which was presided over by Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir, the Taliban government’s inability to shut down the TTP was directly pointed out in a detailed briefing on the security situation.
Pakistani Defense Minister two days ago Khwaja Asif Afghanistan was scolded for “neglecting its duties as a neighboring and fraternal country”. He said with some anger that Pakistan has given shelter to several million Afghans for the last 40 years.
The irony, of course, is that when the Taliban entered Kabul on 15 August 2021, the Pakistani military did the loudest applause behind closed doors. After supporting the Taliban for the past 20 years against the Americans and against elected governments in Afghanistan, Rawalpindi believed it was his moment.
For decades they talked about the concept of “strategic depth” in Afghanistan – finally, their time has come. Former ISI chief Faiz Hameed was so arrogant in his behavior that instead of meeting the Taliban behind closed doors, he was publicly photographed having a cup of tea at the entrance of the Kabul Serena Hotel.
Dawn quoted, quoting, “The banned TTP has been enjoying safe havens and has managed to get its hands on state-of-the-art weapons as it operates freely in Afghanistan,” and that it was the mastermind of a terror attack . military post in Zob, Balochistan, in which 9 soldiers and one civilian died. The TTP terrorists used M-16 rifles, carried night vision equipment and wore uniforms commonly used by the US military in the Zhob attack. dawn informed of.
It is true that TTP terrorists are using state-of-the-art military equipment left behind by US troops. Given that the TTP and the Afghan Taliban are very close, it is more likely that they are sharing the loot.
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Taliban denied
Certainly, no one in Rawalpindi would have dreamed that their real brothers, the Afghan Taliban, would do to them what they have been doing to India for some time now. This should not have happened.
But here’s another one of those delicious ironies that make foreign policy reporting worthwhile. Just as Pakistan routinely rejects all allegations made by India about its policy of state-sponsored infiltration, Afghanistan is now doing exactly the same.
“We do not allow them (TTP) to live and work in Afghanistan. We have faced the consequences of wars and we do not want others to suffer…It is a problem, but it is also the responsibility of the other side (Pakistan) to find a solution,” Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid Said The dawn
Afghans on Afghans will tell you in Kabul and elsewhere that “the Pakistanis” have “destroyed us”, that they have refused to allow peace and stability in Afghanistan. that he would never allow the Americans to stabilize the country, or allow India to become the regional market towards which the rest of the region was gravitating.
As the Taliban prepare to rule – despite no international recognition of their status – and adopt the qualities of the Afghans they once loathed, they are beginning to realize what the Pakistani military establishment able to do, which is to completely control Afghanistan. Which self-respecting nation would allow this?
And as relations between Kabul and the Taliban government in Rawalpindi deteriorate, here’s another question: How does this affect relations between Delhi and Kabul?
Jyoti Malhotra is Senior Consulting Editor at ThePrint. She tweets @jomalhotra. Thoughts are personal.
(Editing by Therese Sudip)