Afghan Taliban; Reluctant Facilitator

After the emergence of Taliban 2.0 era in Afghanistan, the outlawed TTP has increased its activities to a remarkable extent in Pakistan. From time to time, the militant group has targeted security personals in various areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. At the end of 2021, Pakistan urged Taliban regime in Afghanistan to take serious measures against TTP. In return Afghan Taliban requested Pakistan to address the So-called grievances of TTP and offered its role in this regard. Thus, Afghanistan Taliban helped Pakistan in bringing TTP to negotiations table. However, Afghanistan Taliban didn’t fulfil its commitments and played the role of reluctant facilitator between Pakistan and TTP peace talks. More importantly, Afghan Taliban call themselves as government of Afghanistan, so instead of facilitation, it was the legal obligation of the De-fecto regime to resolve Pakistan’s concerns over TTP. However, up to now, the Self-proclaimed Islamic Emirate played a very ambiguous role in the whole process.

Ideology is considered one of the major binding forces among communities. Serious confrontations and cooperation have been witnessed among groups in the history due ideological differences or similarities. Pakistani Taliban and Afghanistan Taliban enjoy cordial relationships as a result of such homogeneity in ideology. Both have common understanding of Jihad. Since 9/11, various factions of TTP assisted Afghanistan Taliban in the war against US and its western allies. As a result of same goals, ideology and common beliefs, Afghanistan Taliban never let TTP to any weak position, when it comes to talk with Pakistan. Neither it will force Pakistani Taliban to surrender their demands in front of Pakistani state.

More importantly, it is clear that, Taliban 2.0 has greatly changed in dealing with other states. Although, they are still rigid and harsh in domestic social and political policies, yet on international level, it wants to adopt alternate policies; as compared to its previous rule. This time, Afghan Taliban wants to decrease its dependency on Pakistan. It is increasing its ties with Arab states such as UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and other regional powers such as China, Russia and Iran etc. Keeping this in view, the role of Afghan Taliban is not that sincere as a mediator, which was expected.

Similarly, it is a bitter truth that within Afghan Taliban, there are several hard core factions which keep negative sentiments when it comes to Pakistan’s interests. Apart from Haqqani network other Taliban leaders like Mullah Yaqoob etc, haven’t any proper coordination with Pakistan. They possess typical Afghani mindset and value issues related to the matters of Durand line and Pakistan’s role in war on terror etc. Such thoughts in Afghan leadership, always become a source of misunderstanding and miscommunication between Pakistan and Afghan Taliban. Likewise, it equally impacted Peace talks with TTP and mediation role of Afghan Taliban.

Moreover, it has been more than one year that Afghan Taliban has taken the control of Afghanistan, yet it still faces numerous issues. The social unrest within Afghan’s society, economic issues, lack of inclusiveness and poor administrative system are some of the major areas of concern for the Taliban regime. Similarly, the rising security challenges are serious headache for Taliban administration. From the very first day as Taliban took control of Afghanistan, Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K), has challenged Taliban rule in Afghanistan. For last few months, it has targeted several high profile figures of Afghan Taliban. In the coming future, Afghan Taliban May acquire alliance with TTP in order to counter IS-K, as both Afghan Taliban and TTP share common grounds. Keeping the fact in mind, Afghan Taliban will never want to make its natural ally angry on permanent basis.

Nevertheless, Afghan Taliban should not forget the fact that Pakistan is one of the important regional actors, and its role can neither be ignored nor undermined. Above all, Pakistan and Afghanistan share lengthy border, religious, social and cultural commonalties, and it is rightly said that enemies can be changed but one can’t change neighbors. Cooperation between Pakistan and Afghanistan is not only vital for both neighbors, but is significant for the whole region as well. Therefore, more pragmatic and rational approach should be adopted in order to deal security issues related to both countries.       

By Barkat Ullah.

The writer currently works as a Research Associate at the International Parliamentarians’ Congress Islamabad. He has wide experience in writing for various newspapers. He tweets @BarkatViews.