Pakistan’s top diplomat in charge of Afghanistan affairs on Wednesday claimed that the country had recorded a 500 percent increase in terrorist attacks and criticized the Taliban’s permissive attitude towards terrorist activities in its territory.
Ambassador Asif Durrani, Pakistan’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, blamed the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a jihadist terrorist organization commonly known as the Pakistan Taliban, as the main culprit for the attack. . This comes as a result of President Joe Biden’s disastrous decision to extend the 20-year war in Afghanistan beyond the agreed-upon May 1 deadline, with the undisputed Afghan government in the role of It is a separate organization from the Afghan Taliban.
“After the withdrawal of NATO troops, it was hoped that peace in Afghanistan would bring peace to the region. However, such hopes did not last long,” Durrani said. Said According to a Pakistani newspaper on Wednesday, dawn. Durrani was speaking at a conference titled “Pakistan in the New Geopolitical Landscape,” which focused on the impact of the Taliban’s return to power on its neighbors.
“The TTP’s intensification of attacks against Pakistan while exploiting Afghan soil is of serious concern to Pakistan,” Durrani said. “Another worrying aspect is the participation of Afghan nationals in these attacks.”
Durrani said that in addition to a 500 per cent increase in suicide bombings, TTP attacks, particularly on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, had increased by 65 per cent since August 2021.
Nevertheless, Mr. Durrani suggested that a positive relationship with the Taliban is possible. He said that in contrast to decades of tensions with neighboring India, Afghanistan was an “inevitable irritant” to national security that could be resolved through “skillful diplomacy”.
A major obstacle to counterterrorism cooperation with Afghanistan is that the Taliban are themselves a terrorist group and maintain close ties to many similar jihadist groups. The Afghan Taliban also vehemently deny any association with any terrorist organization or the presence of terrorists in Afghanistan if challenged. Afghan Taliban leaders, who call themselves the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, have long maintained that they do not support any terrorist organization around the world, a claim that has been documented by the United Nations, neighboring countries, and human rights. A group that has been refuted by vast amounts of evidence.
Chief among the evidence showing support for TTP terrorists is the presence of state-of-the-art U.S. weapons in the hands of Pakistani Taliban terrorists and other threats to Pakistan, including the separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), documents state. This is something that has been standardized. According to a report released in February 2023 by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), Biden’s extension and abrupt end to the Afghanistan war in 2021 will allow the U.S. military to transfer $7.2 billion worth of military equipment to the Taliban. abandoned. Taliban terrorists have repeatedly organized celebratory parades to show off their current arsenal of U.S. taxpayer-funded equipment, including armored vehicles, advanced communications technology, missiles and ammunition.
Video: Taliban display some of the military equipment captured during the occupation #Afghanistan outside #kandahar — The spiritual birthplace of an extremist movement — after the last U.S. troops leave the country pic.twitter.com/pKTZBYDl6x
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) September 1, 2021
In addition to the TTP, the Taliban have also led the spread of al-Qaeda across Afghanistan and the rise of ISIS’s Afghan arm, Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), as the most dangerous and prolific international force.
The friendship between the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda originally led to the US invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban dictatorship following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US mainland.
Relations between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban deteriorated significantly in October when Islamabad announced it would proceed with the deportation of about 2 million Afghans living in the country illegally.Pakistan Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti I got it. At the time, Pakistani police identified Afghans as responsible for 14 of the 24 suicide bombings carried out against Pakistan between January and October 2023. Afghans were given one month to return home before deportations began in earnest in November.
Taliban fighters stand guard over Afghan refugees as they line up to register at a camp near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Torkham, Afghanistan, Saturday, November 4, 2023. Huge numbers of Afghan refugees entered the Torkham border to return home hours before the border crossing. The Pakistani government has passed the deadline for illegal immigrants to leave the country or be subject to deportation. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Norouzi)
Taliban chief spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid: “Pakistan’s actions against Afghan refugees are unacceptable” condemned at that time. “The Pakistani side should reconsider its plans. Afghan refugees are not involved in Pakistan’s security issues. Pakistan should tolerate them as long as they leave Pakistan voluntarily.”
As recently as March, Pakistan announced that it had carried out an “intelligence-based counterterrorism operation,” or airstrikes, targeting groups associated with the Pakistani Taliban in Afghan territory.
“Pakistan has great respect for the people of Afghanistan. However, some in Afghanistan’s powers are actively favoring the TTP and using it as a proxy against Pakistan,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement regarding the strike. said in a statement. “Such an approach to a brotherly country that has always worked with the Afghan people shows short-sightedness. It ignores the support that Pakistan has given to the Afghan people over the past few decades.”
The Taliban responded to the operation and claimed to have carried out their own bombing raids on Pakistan shortly thereafter.
