Islamabad:
For the first time, the Taliban reported threats from Pakistan, which they considered the safe haven from 2000-2021, independent journalist Bilal Sarwary said, citing an internal memo.
Sarwary said on Twitter: “A leaked Taliban internal memo reports an ISKP training camp in the Pak tribal area and warns of ISKP masses moving from Pak to Logar. This is an interesting twist in the story with the first Taliban reports of threats from Pakistan, where once had their safe havens from 2002-2021.”
The relationship between the Taliban and Pakistan is now on a strained path. On the one hand, the Taliban felt threatened by Pakistan, while on the other hand, Islamabad faced severe repercussions for supporting the group.
Pakistan, which has always been involved in state sponsorship of cross-border terrorism from the start and has even praised the Afghan Taliban in the past, is now facing the consequences, the South Asia Democratic Forum (SADF) reports.
Now, however, it faces two-sided attacks from the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban, which is backed by its ideological sibling from Afghanistan, according to the recent SADF report.
When the Taliban conquered Afghanistan in August 2021, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan praised the Afghan Taliban saying they had broken the “fetters of slavery”.
It should be noted that December 2022 turned out to be the worst month for the country, said SADF, a Brussels-based think tank dedicated to South Asia and its relationship with the European Union (EU).
Since the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, Pakistan has seen a 50 percent increase in terror attacks, most of them by the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) with the support of the Afghan Taliban. Even the peace talks between TTP and the Pakistani regime were dropped, it said.
The report further said that in the past two decades, Pakistan has had an opportunity to stop using jihadism as a foreign policy tool and end the use of extreme Islamist factions as influence. This could have improved relations with India.
Pakistan could have improved on unhealthy civil-military relations, the protection of ethnic minorities and sustainable economic development. Instead, the leaders decided to continue their support for the Taliban against both the US and its NATO allies, the SADF said.
According to SADF research director Siegfried O Wolf, the terrorism Pakistan faces today is not the result of Imran Khan’s government, but the result of “multiple missed opportunities and policy blunders by both military and civilian leaders since 1947”.
“Pakistan’s approach to the Afghan Taliban has failed because Islamabad’s objectives in Afghanistan were not achieved – on the contrary, we are now witnessing the destabilization of Pakistan itself,” it said.
In addition, Pakistan did not have a comprehensive Afghanistan policy, so it assumed that the Taliban they help will be eternally grateful to them.
The same Wolf report further claimed that there was a perception in Pakistani security circles that ties, particularly the military alliance between the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban, would “gradually weaken” and that the new rulers in Kabul would take concrete action against the TTP. and other anti-Pakistani elements on Afghan soil.
This is astonishing as Islamabad had a previous experience that the former Taliban regime (1996-2001) also failed to respond positively to Pakistani demands, especially the recognition of the Durand Line as an international border and the hoped-for decisive action against anti-Pakistani groups that remain on Afghan territory,” the SADF concluded.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
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