Tuesday, September 7, 2021
Opinion | Pakistan Wants to Cash in on Its Taliban 'Victory.' But China Is Wrecking Its Plans
Kunwar Khuldune Shahid
Twitter: @khuldune
From politicians to cricketers to Islamists, Pakistan is celebrating the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.But, as Beijing flexes its muscles, its attempts to start a bidding war for access to Kabul will be short-lived.
After an interlude of two decades, Pakistan has conquered Afghanistan, again. Or so you would think, looking at the reactions of Pakistani leaders over the past three weeks. From leaking intelligence meetings to celebrating Western leaders’ calls, Islamabad is relishing, loudly, the attention it is getting.Imran Khan is lauding the Taliban for breaking Afghans’ "shackles of slavery," while he leads a country that received billions of dollars to maintain exactly that "slavery." Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, head of a military that has been taking orders from the U.S. for 20 years, is now lecturing Washington on the failures of its geopolitical strategies, while peddling a Taliban that, he asserts, would champion human rights. This, only a month after Bajwa expressed concerns about cracking down on the Pakistan Taliban for fear of violent "blowback" within Pakistan itself, acknowledging that the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban are "two faces of the same coin."For Pakistan’s real rulers, the military, the time has come to cash in on that coin.Pakistan’s triumphant tub-thumping began last year, after Donald Trump’s deal with the Taliban in Doha. The U.S., by legitimizing the Taliban as a critical stakeholder, signified a victory for Pakistan’s decades-old plan to establish an Islamist regime in Kabul. That plan even predates the U.S.’s utilization of the jihadists to drive out the Soviets. Pakistan formulated the policy of cultivating an extra-territorial mujahideen force under its writ soon after the state’s inception, to counter Indian influence and ‘liberate Kashmir.’ To those ends, it sought ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan and first sent jihadists to target the Daoud Khan regime in the early 1970s. Pakistan has also been anxious about an Indo-Afghan ploy to incite separatism among the Pashtun-majority areas on Islamabad’s side of the Durand Line that no regime in Kabul has ever officially recognized as a border.
In addition to being the foundation of the Pakistan’s regional policies, the jihadists also help the military suppress civilian leaders to maintain its position as the omnipotent hegemon at home. Therefore, a lot was at stake when, in the wake of 9/11, the U.S. threatened that if Islamabad didn’t uproot its jihadist superstructure, it would bomb "Pakistan back to the Stone Age" — even if George W. Bush didn’t in fact use those exact words.
But Pakistan barely even paid lip service to its pretense to clamp down on jihadists, including those responsible for 9/11, gambling, correctly, that an overextended U.S. wouldn’t make good on its lurid threat. In addition to establishing this inherently duplicitous counterterror game with/against the U.S., the then military ruler Pervez Musharraf built a similarly paradoxical ideological narrative at home, selling "enlightened moderation" to the West, while radically Islamizing Pakistan.Little wonder, then, that Taliban’s takeover has also been met with jubilation by Pakistanis across ideological and political divides. Some Islamists are exalting the return of Islamic rule, while simultaneously plugging in the timeless ‘Jewish-Hindu’ conspiracy theories. 'Moderates' use half-baked sarcasm ("Pakistani women should wear hijab to make us as powerful as the Taliban!") to test the waters on where their mass audience stands on the Afghan Islamists. Cricketers, senior female judges and even some women’s schools and organizations vocally back the Taliban. Their victory is our victory, say the educated women, journalists and cultural figures who would be forced into silence across the border.
As is evident, during the decades of turmoil it fostered in Afghanistan to facilitate the Taliban’s rise to power, Pakistan has successfully completed its own Talibanization. Indeed, last year, just as it became clear that a second Taliban reign was imminent in Afghanistan, Imran Khan began paying tribute to Osama bin Laden, whom he called a "martyr," (while his own foreign minister refused to call bin Laden a terrorist) talking up Islamic modesty codes as solution to growing sexual violence against women, and even rallying for the country’s murderous blasphemy laws to be exported to the West.But the establishment doesn’t appear to be entertaining the possibility that this grand strategy could backfire: instead of propping up Afghan puppets in a satellite state, Pakistan may just have empowered a jihadist regime to expand over the border into its own de facto territory. Instead, Pakistan’s rulers see only victory: The victory of their Islamist narrative, of their patronage over the Taliban, which they still hope means control, and the boost to their Muslim world leadership pedigree. Pakistan hopes to win credit with both Iran and Saudi Arabia by selling the story of its influence over Taliban and as kingmaker in Afghanistan, compensating for the dent in Islamabad’s budding bromance with Turkey, caused by Pakistan pushing its way much of the Afghan refugee flow, aided by the extremely timely erection of a fence on the Afghan border last month. Pakistan knows it can play both sides of the Shia-Sunni divide because, as the Taliban’s rise indicates, the Muslim world is no longer bipolar: those spheres of influence are permeable and elastic, with Iranian and Saudi officials now meeting regularly, and power struggles within the Gulf and beyond. Fighting intra-Muslim sectarian proxy wars won’t be as lucrative as it used to be for Riyadh and Tehran. Pakistan’s army, a longstanding beneficiary of big powers’ proxy jihad in the Middle East, now needs something new to attract Saudi funds. And just like good old days of anti-Soviet jihad, Pakistan is all set to vend the same product to both Saudi and the U.S. albeit under different packaging: Leverage with the Taliban – or else. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi chose to urge Western leaders to stay invested in Afghanistan by, in effect, warning them that instability could lead to another 9/11, while accusing India of supporting jihadist groups. Pakistan’s narrative – that the West needs it to access and influence the Taliban – comes with spikes for extra persuasive power. Islamabad is concurrently blackmailing Western powers into accepting Pakistan’s primacy in Afghanistan, or at least that of its omnipotent army, by alluding to its status as a potentially turbulent nuclear-armed state. Pakistani military leaders since Pervez Musharraf have repeatedly asserted that its nuclear bomb might fall into jihadist hands should whatever it is demanding isn’t done. Few Western leaders appear to have paused to contemplate if they’re now giving a helping hand to a Pakistani military which has refused to cede even the minutest bit of authority to civilian leaders over seven decades, ensconced in an alliance with an Islamist militia, highlighted again by this weekend’s visit by the head of Pakistani intelligence to Kabul. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal has been within jihadist proximity for decades, but now, that access could be even closer, compounded by Gen Bajwa’s own admission that jihadist elements (including those heavily sympathetic to the Taliban) are present within the Pakistan army itself. Pakistan is eagerly publicizing the attention it's won since the Taliban takeover, and not only to attract U.S. President Joe Biden’s attention. It is simultaneously intended as a message for Gulf rulers, whose plans for the Middle East, and especially formalization of ties with Israel, might be derailed by events in Kabul not least if Pakistan takes over the antisemitic conspiracy hysteria mainstreamed in the past by the Arab states now queuing up to recognize the Jewish state. Islamabad’s advertising of its own significance might even be a soft whisper towards China, which has increasingly asserted economic control over Pakistan, but was recently given a painful reminder of the jihadist threat from within Pakistan looming over the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, the spine of Beijing’s much touted Belt and Road Initiative. While the U.S. withdrawal left China to deal with a jihadist regime, armed with arsenal worth millions, Pakistan will struggle to bleed Beijing the way it did Washington. Thanks to territorial contiguity, and an autocratic, neoliberal diplomacy that puts modern-day Western imperialism in the shade, China can micromanage its interests in Pakistan, leaving little margin for double play. Just have a look at Pakistan’s ‘counter-terrorism’ record: While allied to the U.S., it shielded Osama bin Laden, the world’s most wanted terrorist, but is now eagerly hunting down second-generation Uyghur shopkeepers who found sanctuary in Afghanistan, on China’s orders. Pakistan might have hoped that the Taliban takeover, and the bidding war for influence it aspires to foment, would give it some breathing space to negotiate better terms on the China front. But for all Pakistan’s noisy attempt to claim ownership over access to the Taliban and Afghanistan, it can’t compete with Beijing’s economic attractions, on which the survival of the new Kabul regime depends. Having this week declared China its "principal partner," if the Taliban can prove itself to be a more reliable guarantor of stability along the Af-Pak border, then the now-preening Pakistani army will, at best, now quickly sell the West one more delivery of empty reassurances for one last hefty payday, before China takes over. https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium-pakistan-wants-to-cash-in-on-its-taliban-victory-but-china-s-wrecking-its-plans-1.10185530
Pakistan cheers Taliban out of ‘fear of India’ – despite spillover threat
Tom WHEELDON
After years of accusations that Islamabad was covertly backing the Taliban, Pakistan's prime minister overtly hailed the fall of Kabul on Monday. Experts say geostrategic concerns about its archenemy India motivate Pakistan’s pro-Taliban stance – making it unlikely to change course, even amid fears that the militants’ control of Afghanistan accentuates the jihadist threat at home.Islamabad’s reaction to the Taliban’s victory was the opposite of the despair in Western capitals: Their triumph showed that Afghans had “broken the shackles of slavery”, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan asserted. Khan’s special assistant Raoof Hasan framed the fall of Kabul – for many, a moment encapsulated by footage of hundreds of Afghans running alongside a departing US plane, desperately trying to flee – as a “virtually smooth shifting of power from the corrupt Afghan government to the Taliban”.Perhaps most tellingly, Pakistani Climate Minister Zartaj Gul Wazir singled out the country’s perennial antagonist India as the audience for her delight, in a subsequently deleted tweet: “India gets an appropriate gift for its Independence Day”. New Delhi’s backing of Afghanistan’s pro-Western governments under Hamid Kharzi and then Ashraf Ghani was anathema to Islamabad – as three wars and repeated skirmishes over disputed Kashmir have marked Pakistan’s relations with India since the British Raj ended in 1947. “Under Ghani, Afghanistan was seen as particularly close to India, and this of course caused a great deal of consternation because Pakistan’s entire foreign policy is shaped by fear of being encircled by India to the east and by a pro-Indian Afghan government to the west and north,” noted Farzana Shaikh, a Pakistan specialist at Chatham House in London, speaking to FRANCE 24. Consequently, Shaikh continued, “Pakistan sees the return of the Taliban as the success of a longstanding policy designed to ensure a friendly government in Afghanistan.” ‘The wrong enemy’ Many analysts and journalists – notably former New York Times Afghanistan correspondent Carlotta Gall in her 2014 book, The Wrong Enemy – have accused the Pakistani state of surreptitiously backing the Taliban, pointing the finger especially at Islamabad’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. Richard Holbrooke, the veteran US diplomat and then special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, furnished Gall with her title shortly before his death in 2010: “We may be fighting the wrong enemy in the wrong country,” he said – implying that, behind the scenes, the ISI and Pakistani military were the real US nemeses in the region.Pakistan pledged its support for the post-9/11 US invasion of Afghanistan that toppled the Taliban – and has repeatedly denied backing the Islamist insurgents.However, the country’s Interior Minister Shaikh Rashid Ahmed admitted in June that, “Taliban families live here in Pakistan” and “sometimes they come here in [sic] hospitals to get medical treatment”. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani president from 2001 to 2008, told The Guardian in 2015: “Obviously we were looking for some groups to counter […] Indian action against Pakistan. That is where the intelligence work comes in. Intelligence being in contact with Taliban groups.” “There’s no doubt among scholars, officials and people on the ground in Afghanistan that Pakistani intelligence agencies strongly supported the Taliban right from its inception in the 1990s, that this support continued beyond 2001, that the group’s leadership was based on Pakistani soil – and that this is an important reason why the Taliban was able to sustain itself for so many years,” Shashank Joshi, defence editor of The Economist, told FRANCE 24. US ‘kid gloves’ Concerns persist that Pakistan is Janus-faced in the fight against jihadism. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a Paris-based multilateral organisation combating terrorist funding and money laundering, announced in June that it was giving Pakistan another four months to enact an internationally agreed plan to stop the financing of jihadist groups on its territory. If Islamabad does not comply, the FATF will call on its member states to add the country to its blacklist of nations, including North Korea and Iran, that are shut off from global financial institutions. Long before the FATF report, many observers were asking why recurrent allegations of Pakistani support for the Taliban never prompted US sanctions. “A lot of people remain mystified by the US kid-glove handling of Pakistan,” as Shaikh put it.Decision-makers in Washington felt their hands were tied, she explained. “The most immediate reason was that the US needed access to Pakistani territory to move supplies into Afghanistan; a more fundamental issue was US concern that the costs of alienating and destabilising a nuclear-armed power like Pakistan, containing scores of jihadist groups, were incalculable.” ‘Fear across the establishment’ But now analysts say the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan is what risks destabilising Pakistan – and that the exultation in Islamabad is myopic. The Taliban’s win does pose a security risk for Pakistan, a member of Khan’s cabinet admitted to the Financial Times under condition of anonymity. The Afghan militants’ closeness to Pakistani jihadist group Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP or, simply, the Pakistani Taliban) is a particular source of concern. The TTP have carried out scores of deadly attacks since their inception in the 2000s, including the infamous 2014 Peshawar school massacre. The Taliban and the TTP are “two faces of the same coin”, Pakistani Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and ISI boss Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed acknowledged at an off-the-record briefing in July. Indeed, the Taliban reportedly freed a senior TTP commander earlier this month during their sweep through Afghanistan. “Pakistan definitely worries about the galvanising effects the Taliban’s victory will have on other Islamist militants, and especially the TTP, which was already resurging before the Taliban marched into Kabul,” Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC, told FRANCE 24. “It’s a fear across the establishment.” Pakistani military ‘will not budge’ Trying to contain the damage from its pullout as Afghan cities fell like dominos, the US repeatedly warned the Taliban it would face pariah status among the international community if it seized full control of the country. But Washington tried this approach in the 1990s and it did not diminish the Taliban’s grip over Afghanistan – with Pakistan acting as the militants’ key ally. This time, US-Pakistan relations are at a low ebb – auguring badly for any attempt to enlist Islamabad in Washington’s plan to isolate the Taliban. Joe Biden has not yet spoken to Imran Khan since he became US president. https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20210818-pakistan-cheers-taliban-out-of-fear-of-india-%E2%80%93-despite-spillover-threat
What ISI chief Faiz Hameed’s visit to Kabul has to do with new Taliban govt
Monday, September 6, 2021
#Pakistan - The Khorasan chapter threat
Muhammad Amir Rana
WITH the Afghan Taliban takeover of Kabul, the militant Islamic State group’s Khorasan chapter (IS-K) has also come under the global radar after its horrific recent bombing in the Afghan capital. Many experts are projecting the terrorist group as a major threat to the Taliban regime as well as to regional peace and security. The terrorist attack in the high security zone of the Kabul airport during the evacuation of foreigners and under-threat Afghans have strengthened perceptions that IS-K will become a major factor of instability in Afghanistan and beyond.
However, the potential threat posed by IS-K must be assessed objectively and scientifically without falling for any vague ‘evidence’. The Taliban may also tend to exaggerate the threat with a view to winning the support of the regional powers especially Russia, China and the Central Asian states, which are concerned about the terrorist group. IS-K may also want to make Afghanistan a launching base in its efforts to restore its lost ‘caliphate’ of Iraq and Syria. But does it have the potential to convert Afghanistan into a new battlefront?
First, one must investigate the strengths of the terrorist group. After taking over power in Afghanistan, the status of the Taliban has apparently changed from a non-state to a state actor. That has ‘elevated’ the status of IS-K as a major violent non-state actor in Afghanistan. Now the group can use all those strategic and propaganda tactics against the Taliban regime, which the Taliban once used against the outgoing regime. IS-K has a history of effective use of its propaganda capabilities. After the Kabul attack, it fed the media with the propaganda it had long been desiring to unleash in Afghanistan. The group conveyed a message that besides being “filthy nationalists”, the Taliban were merely America’s puppets like their predecessors in Kabul, and were not capable of bringing peace to the country. Most importantly, it has challenged the ideological credentials of the Taliban while declaring them apostates and companions of the ‘Crusaders’. IS-K has also claimed that it is the sole custodian of the ideology of an ‘Islamic state’.
The potential threat posed by IS-K must be assessed objectively and scientifically.
In recent years, IS-K has managed to survive in Afghanistan in the form of small cells, which were also found involved in sporadic high-impact terrorist attacks. Some reports suggested these cells were used as proxies in many instances. After the Taliban takeover of Kabul, IS-K can make a global call for intensifying its violent campaign. There is no demonstrable evidence available that the group can survive long if it changes its strategy and launches big-scale guerrilla operations. According to the group’s own accounts, the current head Shahab al-Muhajir is considered a great strategist and expert in urban warfare, and he will continue relying on his terrorist strategies. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the central body of the terrorist group, is also focusing on the restoration of its image and glory and has ordered its chapters all over the world to raid prisons to release its detained members. Hundreds of IS-K prisoners were among those recently freed from Afghan jails and are reportedly being hunted by the Taliban.
Even before the Taliban takeover, the IS-K was creating new pockets in Afghanistan, especially along the borders of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. These border areas have large Salafi populations that suits IS-K because of their sectarian affinity. Also, apart from Afghan and Pakistani members, several IS-K fighters come from Central Asia and China’s Xinjiang region. If the group succeeds in its relocation plan, it could hit several targets. One of the reasons for Russia’s engagement with the Taliban was to seek assurances against the IS-K’s march towards northern Afghanistan and further to Central Asia. The Taliban have taken over the northern regions first, not only to reduce the prospects of any local uprising but also to eliminate the chances of IS-K’s advance. However, IS-K will continue focusing on these areas, as unlike the border with Pakistan, even a smaller resistance by IS-K can create problems for the Taliban regime and can disturb their relations with China and Russia.
The IS-K will also be of advantage to the Taliban regime to get legitimacy through acting against it and winning the support of its regional allies. Meanwhile, it will be a major security concern, and IS-K will remain a big ideological challenge as well.
The real potential of the IS-K will be determined by its ability to survive in Afghanistan including through displaying political and ideological flexibility. Since its inception in January 2015, the group’s ideological differences with the Taliban have remained a major bone of contention. It is less likely that the terrorist group will show any flexibility in that regard in the future and allow the entry of recruits from either the ranks of Taliban rebels or from the TTP without their conversion to their brand of Salafism. A recent IS-K statement reflects that the group will not amend its ideologically oriented policy just to gain more recruits. Rather, the group is focusing on expanding its urban network and is hunting for educated youth which was alienated after the Taliban victory and become prone to ideological radicalism.
It is interesting that the IS-K and TTP have survived long while living together in the same vicinity in the Kunar and Nangarhar provinces. Neither have challenged the other and even when the Haqqani Network expelled IS-K fighters from some areas of Kunar, the TTP remained a silent spectator. The TTP might have avoided confrontation with IS-K because many of its former commanders are now in the group. Thus, despite having ideological differences both have tried to keep their human resources intact. There are few chances that the TTP will join hands with IS-K as it is an ally of Al Qaeda with allegiance to Mullah Haibatullah, the Taliban’s supreme leader.
The probability is also very low that the defeated Afghan army and police will join IS-K ranks as happened in Iraq. Unlike the Iraqi army, the Afghan army was demoralised and was not ready to fight. Secondly, the IS-K is an external and weak terrorist outfit, which cannot manage massive inclusions.
The IS-K is a potential terrorist threat, but not beyond being controlled. If the Taliban and regional actors craft better strategies and the ‘drone support’ from the US remains intact, the IS-K can be neutralised effectively.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1644581/the-khorasan-chapter-threat
Taliban confirms meet between leader Mullah Baradar & Pakistan’s ISI chief Faiz Hameed
پاکستان پیپلزپارٹی کبھی بھی چور دروازے سے اداراتی دھاندلی کرنے کی اجازت نہیں دے گی اور اس کی ہر فورم پر مخالفت کرے گی۔ سیکریٹری جنرل پاکستان پیپلزپارٹی پارلیمنٹیرینز سینیٹر فرحت اللہ بابر
پاکستان پیپلزپارٹی نے سینیٹ کی کمیٹی برائے پارلیمانی امور کی ساخت میں یکطرفہ تبدیلی کرکے اسے حکومت کی جانب جھکانے کی سخت مذمت کی ہے۔ ساخت میں یہ تبدیلی اس وقت کی گئی ہے جب حکومت الیکٹرانک ووٹنگ مشین پر متنازعہ قانون سازی کرنا چاہتی ہے سیکریٹری جنرل پاکستان پیپلزپارٹی پارلیمنٹیرینز سینیٹر فرحت اللہ بابر نے ایک بیان میں کہا ہے کہ پاکستان پیپلزپارٹی کبھی بھی چور دروازے سے اداراتی دھاندلی کرنے کی اجازت نہیں دے گی اور اس کی ہر فورم پر مخالفت کرے گی۔
جمعہ کے روز سینیٹ سیکریٹریٹ نوٹیفکیشن کے ذریعے پی ٹی آئی کی ایک رکن کو پارلیمانی امور کی کمیٹی میں شامل کر لیا اور اس کے لئے نہ تو قائد حزب اختلاف اور پارلیمانی امور کمیٹی کے چیئرمین سے کوئی مشاورت بھی نہیں کی۔ ایک نیا ممبر شامل کرنے کا مقصد اس متنازعہ بل کو بلڈوز کرنا ہے۔ انہوں نے کہا کہ اس کمیٹی کی اصلی ساخت میں 13ممبر شامل تھے جن میں اپوزیشن اور حکومت کے چھ چھ ممبر تھے اور اس کمیٹی کے چیئرمین پی پی پی کے سینیٹر تاج حیدر ہیں ۔ اس کمیٹی میں توازن خراب کرنے کے لئے پہلے چیئرمین سینیٹ نے یکطرفہ طور پر پی پی پی کے سینیٹر مصطفی نواز کھوکھرکو بغیر کوئی وجہ بتائے کمیٹی سے نکال دیا حالانکہ یہ ان کا اختیار ہی نہیں ہے۔
جب اس اقدام کی پرزور مخالفت کی گئی تو مصطفی نواز کھوکھر کی کمیٹی کی رکنیت بحال کر دی گئی۔ جس کے بعد سینیٹ سیکریٹریٹ نے ایک نوٹیفکیشن کے ذریعے پی ٹی آئی کی ثمینہ ممتاز کو اس کمیٹی میں اضافی رکن کے طور پر شامل کر دیا۔ سینیٹر فرحت اللہ بابر نے کہا کہ کچھ عرصہ قبل سینیٹ سیکریٹریٹ نے اس کمیٹی کے چیئرمین کو اس بات کی اجازت نہیں دی کہ وہ فافن کو الیکٹرانک ووٹنگ مشین کی بریفنگ پر دعوت دیں۔ یہ تمام اقدامات یہ ظاہر کرتے ہیں حکومت ہر صورت میں انتخابات میں دھاندلی کرنا چاہتی ہے۔ انہوں نے کہا کہ پیپلزپارٹی کا موقف اس بارے میں نہایت واضح ہے۔
اس سے قبل 2018ءکے انتخابات میں آرٹی ایس کو بٹھا دیا گیا تھا اور اس کے علاوہ مشین کے ذریعے پلاٹوں کی قرعہ اندازی میں بھی ٹیکنالوجی کی ساکھ پر سوالات اٹھا دئیے ہیں۔ اس تجرے کے بعد الیکٹرانک ووٹنگ مشین پر اعتماد کا سوال ہی پیدا نہیں ہوتا اور جب تک تمام سیاسی پارٹیوں کا اتفاق رائے نہ ہوجائے الیکٹرانک ووٹنگ مشین استعمال نہیں کی جا سکتی۔ اس کے علاوہ الیکشن کمیشن اوار تمام اسٹیک ہولڈروں کو بھی اس تمام معاملے میں شریک کرنا انتہائی ضروری ہے اور یہ بات بھی دیکھنا ہوگی کہ دیگر ممالک میں الیکٹرانک ووٹنگ مشینوں کا استعمال کیوں کامیاب نہیں ہو سکا۔
پاکستان پیپلزپارٹی چوری چھپے اس قسم کی دھاندلی کی ہر قیمت پر مذاحمت کرے گی۔
https://www.ppp.org.pk/pr/25445/
شہداء کی لازوال قربانیاں، فوجی جوانوں کا غیرمتزلزل عزم اور عوام کا ناقابل تسخیر اتحاد ہماری طاقت اور ہمارے روشن مستقبل کی ضمانت ہے، چیئرمین پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی بلاول بھٹو زرداری
اسلام آباد / کراچی (5 ستمبر 2021) پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی کے چیئرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے کہا ہے کہ شہداء کی لازوال قربانیاں، فوجی جوانوں کا غیرمتزلزل عزم اور عوام کا ناقابل تسخیر اتحاد ہماری طاقت اور ہمارے روشن مستقبل کی ضمانت ہے۔ یومِ دفاع کے موقعے پر میڈیا سیل بلاول ہاؤس کی جانب سے جاری کردہ اپنے پیغام میں پی پی پی چیئرمین نے کہا کہ پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی کی جدوجہد پاکستان کو مضبوط سے مضبوط تر بنانے کے لیے ہے۔
یومِ دفاعِ پاکستان کے موقعے پر قوم کو مبارکباد دیتے ہوئے چیئرمین بلاول بھٹو
زرداری نے کہا کہ یوم دفاع منانے کا مقصد پاکستان کی جغرافیہ، اس کے نظریے اور جمہوریت کا تحفظ کرنا ہے۔ پی پی پی چیئرمین نے نشاندہی کرتے ہوئے کہا کہ یہ ملک کے پہلے منتخب وزیراعظم شہید ذوالفقار علی بھٹو تھے، جنہوں نے قوم کو ایٹمی پروگرام کا تحفہ دیا، جبکہ یہ ان کی دختر وزیر اعظم شہید محترمہ بینظیر بھٹو تھیں، جنہوں نے ملک کو میزائل ٹیکنالوجی پروگرام دیا، تاکہ ملک کے دفاع کو ناقابل تسخیر بنایا جائے۔
بلاول بھٹو زرداری کا کہنا تھا کہ وہ تمام فوجی جوان، جنہوں نے پاکستان کے دفاع کے لیے اپنی جانیں قربان کیں، ہماری قومی تاریخ کے ناقابل فراموش ہیرو ہیں۔ انہوں نے مزید کہا کہ میں آج یوم دفاع کے موقع پر پوری قوم کی جانب سے اپنے شہداء کے خاندانوں کو مکمل یکجہتی کا یقین دلاتا ہوں۔ انہوں نے کہا کہ وہ ان تمام شہریوں کو بھی سلام پیش کرتے ہیں، جنہوں نے دہشت گردی اور انتہا پسندی کے خلاف جنگ میں بے مثال قربانیاں دی ہیں۔
بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے اس عزم کا اعادہ کیا کہ وہ قائد اعظم محمد علی جناح کے فلسفے کی روشنی میں نظریہ پاکستان کی پیروی مضبوط دفاع کے ساتھ کریں گے۔
https://www.ppp.org.pk/pr/25442/
Sunday, September 5, 2021
OPINION: How Has Joe Biden Become So Unpopular?
JAMELLE BOUIE
President Biden’s job approval rating is on the downslope. As of Friday morning, he was at 45.8 percent approval and 48.5 percent disapproval — from a high of 54 percent approval, 41 percent disapproval at the end of his first 100 days.
There is a laundry list of reasons for this. Not only is the United States still in the grip of a pandemic, but also the Delta variant of the coronavirus has led to record infections and deaths in Florida, Texas and other states with relatively low vaccination rates (and where officials have taken a stand against mitigation efforts). At the same time that Delta took hold, Biden also faced a huge backlash from the press and his partisan opponents over the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, which began in chaotic fashion with the collapse of the Afghan National Army, the subsequent advance of the Taliban and of course the suicide bombing in Kabul that killed 13 U.S. service members. The administration quickly adjusted to the chaos, though, and by the time the last American soldiers left on Monday, the U.S. military and its allies had evacuated around 124,000 people, including thousands of U.S. citizens and tens of thousands of Afghan nationals. And as seen in the latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy is growing at a slower rate than it did at the start of the summer. Taken together, you have a pretty good explanation for why Biden is doing much worse with the public than he was at the beginning of the year. One of the most consistent findings from the past 20 years of public opinion research is that each new president is more divisive than the last. George W. Bush was more divisive than Bill Clinton; Barack Obama was more divisive than Bush; Donald Trump was more divisive than Obama; and Biden may well end up more divisive than Trump, at least in terms of approval rating by partisan affiliation. Some of this reflects circumstances, some of it reflects the individuals, but most of it is a function of partisan and ideological polarization. Modern presidents have a high floor for public opinion but a low ceiling. This is a major change from the 1970s and 1980s, when the public was less polarized and numbers could swing from the low 30s (even the 20s) to the high 60s and beyond. At the peak of his popularity, in the wake of the Persian Gulf War of 1991, George H.W. Bush had a job approval rating of 89 percent, including 82 percent among Democrats and 88 percent among independents. Those numbers are just not possible in today’s environment. Biden’s slide is noteworthy, but it is also exactly what we should expect given the structural conditions of American politics in the 21st century. But this cuts against the unstated assumption that a president should have an approval rating above 50 percent. It’s an assumption that, as Sam Goldman, a professor of political science at George Washington University, observed, is “another example of how we’ve adopted the deeply exceptional midcentury interlude as our baseline — partly because it remains our vision of normality, and partly because that’s when reliable data start.”The “deeply exceptional midcentury interlude” — roughly speaking the years between the end of World War II and the election of Richard Nixon in 1968 — is the source of a lot of our normative understandings of American politics, despite the fact that the conditions of that period are impossible to replicate. When politicians and political observers pine for an era of bipartisanship, they are pining for the 1950s and 1960s (and to an extent the 1970s).If we were to look farther back in time, to say, the late 19th century, we might find an era that, for all of its indelible foreignness, is closer to ours in terms of the shape and structure of its politics, from its sharp partisan polarization and closely contested national elections to its democratic backsliding and deep anxieties over immigration and demographic change. We don’t have polling data for President Grover Cleveland. But we do know that he won his victory in the 1884 election by 37 votes in the Electoral College and a half-a-percent in the national popular vote. His successor, Benjamin Harrison, lost the popular vote by a little less than 1 percent and won the Electoral College by 65 votes. Those narrow results suggest, I think, a similarly narrow spread for presidential approval — high floors, low ceilings. American politics eventually broke out of its late-19th-century equilibrium of high polarization and tightly contested elections. In the 1896 presidential election, William McKinley became the first candidate in decades to win more than 50 percent of the popular vote, beating his Democratic opponent, William Jennings Bryan, by 4.3 percent. He won re-election in 1900 and after his assassination the following year, his successor, Theodore Roosevelt, would win in 1904 by the most lopsided margin since Abraham Lincoln’s 1864 re-election victory. What changed in American politics to produce more decisive national victories? Well, that’s not a happy story. Suffrage restrictions of immigrants in the North, the rise of Jim Crow in the South, and the success of capital in suppressing labor revolt and setting the terms of political contestation had removed millions of Americans from the electorate by the turn of the 20th century. Political power was concentrated and consolidated in a bourgeois class (mostly) represented by the Republican Party, which, with the exception of Woodrow Wilson’s twin victories in 1912 and 1916, held the White House from 1897 to 1933. It would take another catastrophe, the Great Depression, to change that landscape. As for the tectonic force that might break our partisan and ideological stalemate? It is impossible to say. Oftentimes in history, things seem stable until, suddenly, they aren’t. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/04/opinion/biden-job-approval-rating.html
Pakistan faces accusations of undercounting Hindus, Christians in latest census
- The results of Pakistan's sixth Population and Housing Census were delayed after some provinces, including Sindh and Balochistan flagged the issue of undercounting.
Religious minorities in Pakistan have accused the government of undercounting them in the latest census data published in May, four years after the survey was conducted. The survey for the sixth Population and Housing Census was undertaken under former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and got completed in 2017. The results, however, were delayed after some provinces, including Sindh and Balochistan flagged the issue of undercounting.Pakistan Bureau of Statistics published the data of the sixth Population and Housing Census after approval from a constitutional body that resolves power-sharing disputes between the provincial and federal governments. While Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan caved in under pressure from the Imran Khan government, Sindh continued to raise objections on the census data. According to the 2017 census data, Pakistan’s overall population has grown to 207.68 million, an increase of around 75 million since 1998 when the country recorded 132.3 million people. The census suggests that the Muslim population in Pakistan grew by 96.47% while the population of other religious minorities reported negligible growth and even shrank in some cases. Hindus in Pakistan account for 1.73% of the total population while Christians make up for 1.27% of Pakistani residents. Other minorities like Ahmaddiyas account for less than 0.1% of Pakistan’s population. Karachi Supreme Court attorney Neel Keshav claimed that the Hindu population in Pakistan is likely to be much higher, reported Pakistan Today. "The 1998 census data showed a Hindu population of nearly 2 million. Yet the new census showed that it had only risen to 3.5 million in 20 years," the Pakistani daily quoted Keshav as saying. Human rights groups have frequently raised concerns over the condition of religious minorities in Pakistan. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) had said in a 2019 report that both the Hindu and Christian communities in Sindh and Punjab continued to report cases of forced conversion. "Even though Christians have migrated overseas and converted to Islam, our church records make us suspect that Christians may have been undercounted by at least half a million. We're struggling to find accurate data, and somehow the government is not helping. It is not investigating," Pakistan Today quoted Center for Social Justice Director Peter Jacob as saying.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news
How the Taliban's Afghanistan takeover could hurt US-Pakistan ties
By S Khan
NATO has said Pakistan has a "special responsibility" to make sure Afghanistan lives up to its international commitments. But some Pakistanis say they refuse to be the "scapegoats" of the West's failure in Afghanistan.The fall of Kabul to the Taliban has left many people in Pakistan questioning their country's future relations with the US.
Some hard-liners in Pakistan say Washington will blame Islamabad for the Islamic fundamentalist group's takeover of Afghanistan.
Pakistan's Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari wrote an article on Tuesday asserting that "her country would no longer accept being scapegoated for the failures of others."
Bill Emmott, former editor-in-chief of The Economist, wrote last week in a commentary for Project Syndicate that "the blame" for failure in Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban "lies largely with Pakistan and America's inability to bring the country onside."
Pakistan is said to be the largest backer of the cloistered group of the Taliban whose regime was recognized by Islamabad when they governed Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
Husain Haqqani, the South and Central Asia director at the Hudson Institute — a Washington-based think tank — says Pakistan's past role in Afghanistan has always created friction between Washington and Islamabad.
"Most Americans believe Pakistan's consistent support enabled the Taliban to succeed," Haqqani told DW.
"There is resentment against Pakistan's role in Afghanistan which may not help improve US-Pakistan ties in the near future," he added.
Waning interest for Pakistan
Pakistan in the past relied heavily on the US military and financial assistance, with some estimates suggesting that the country may have received over $30 billion (€25.5 billion) from Washington since 2001.
Islamabad also received generous aid packages and financial assistance during the Cold War when it was a close ally of the US.
But Haqqani says there is very little support in Washington "for resuming large-scale economic or military assistance for Pakistan right now." Author Ayesha Siddiqa believes Washington has "lost interest" in Islamabad. Pakistan has always sought funds and military assistance from the US, but such support would no longer be on the cards, Siddiqa told DW.
Pakistan’s Support to the Taliban is One of the Greatest Feats of Covert Intelligence
The presence of the Inter-Services Intelligence chief in Kabul this week is an in-your-face reminder of Pakistan’s role in protecting and promoting the Afghan Taliban during the course of the latter’s war with the United States. Pakistan’s aim throughout was to use the Taliban as a proxy to curtail Indian influence in Afghanistan. and, circumstances permitting, to perhaps escalate violence in Kashmir. During this period, India invested $3 billion worth of goodwill in Afghanistan – building civilian infrastructures like dams and schools – but its efforts came to naught in a matter of few days. This is because the Indian strategic establishment’s military assessment of the war in Afghanistan – which relied on ‘wisdom’ borrowed from the United States – was wrong from the very beginning. It should have been clear to New Delhi that something was fundamentally flawed in the American strategy when the 21,600 pound MOAB (Mother of All Bombs), the 15,000 pound Daisy Cutter and 2,000 pound Thermobaric bombs failed to break the will of the Taliban to continue fighting. However, India persisted with American blinkers on its vision. We did not wake up even when the Taliban, beginning in 2005, stopped engaging the Americans in direct combat and started laying emphasis on asymmetrical warfare tactics like suicide bombing and IED attacks. We could never appreciate the fact that the US counterinsurgency strategy floundered because ‘securing’ the territory won or liberated proved enormously difficult, both operationally and in terms of cost. What Pakistan has gained and stands to gain On the other hand, by helping the Taliban come back to power, Pakistan has ensured that its eastern frontier is rendered safe from two of its old fears: Afghan alignment with India; and a refugee flow that could cause destabilisation among Pakistan’s Pashtuns. The Taliban have also, as Anatol Lieven points out, given the Pakistani military an assurance that they will not, at least for the time being, support any Pashtun Islamist rebellion within Pakistan. Contrary to what some Indian diplomats think, the mere fact that the Taliban still do not recognise the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is not likely to make much difference to the equation. The Durand Line might not be buried but there are issues and forces much larger than that which are at work, and its ghost cannot haunt Pakistan to its detriment.On August 17, Noor Wali, the emir of the TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan) congratulated the Taliban. However, so far there is no indication that the Taliban will help the anti-Pakistan establishment TTP merely on grounds of ethnicity. Even if morality is not their strong suit, they know that fighting Pakistan on Pakistani soil would be materially different from fighting the US on Afghanistan soil.More importantly, the Taliban know that the Pakistani army had never gone whole hog in its 2003 counterterrorism operations in the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) bordering Afghanistan against pro-Taliban insurgents enjoying a safe haven there. Gen. Musharraf undertook the action basically to appear to be doing a favour to the US under its pressure. However, as K. Alan Kronstadt et al had pointed out in their 2008 study for the Congressional Review Service, long-held doubts existed about Islamabad’s commitment to some core US interests and the operations were largely ineffectual with the militant groups having only grown stronger and more aggressive in 2008. Finally, I do not think that too much should be read into the release of TTP ex-deputy Maulvi Fakir Mohammad from a Bagram prison. When the Taliban freed hundreds of prisoners, there was no good reason that they would hang on to a TTP leader. Pakistan’s 22-month long counterterrorism operations in North Waziristan were undertaken after 2014 far more seriously and were effective too, having killed some 3,400 militants. However, by that time their concerns were different. The fate of Afghanistan was sealed by then. In 2011 itself, Robert Gates had confirmed that the US was holding reconciliation talks with the Taliban; two agreements were signed in March-April 2012. This time, Pakistan knew that investments from China would not materialise if Chinese workers kept getting killed. How US intelligence floundered in Afghanistan Christine Fair writes that Washington failed to understand the perturbing nature of Pakistan’s interests in Afghanistan, and ignored very early signals that Musharraf had in fact done a U-turn on its U-turn on the Taliban. This assessment, though corrret, does not capture the whole sordid story. Pakistan’s support to the Taliban prior to 9/11 was not a closely-guarded secret. When analysts say that the Taliban regrouped across the border in Pakistan at the end of 2001, from where they waged an insurgency for 20 years, they forget that the ‘border across Pakistan in FATA’ was not a black hole where the Taliban simply got lost. The US was using Pakistani air bases and was in full contact with the Pak military. It stretches credulity to believe a nation that spent over $500 billion during 2001-13 on intelligence – as revealed by the Washington Post – and $527 billion more during the next seven years, was so utterly inept that it had no idea of Pakistan’s relationship with the Taliban for over two decades. Logically, only two conclusions are possible: either the famed capability of US intelligence is a hoax or, finding itself mired in a faulty strategy in Afghanistan, Washington was left with no option but to ignore what Pakistan had been doing. It was an open secret that Pakistan had given safe haven and support to the Taliban while overtly denying their presence on Pakistani soil except in the FATA on the border with Afghanistan. The Pak army even had the gall to claim that they had carried out a 20-month long operation in the area and cleared it of the Taliban. In 2016, Sartaj Aziz had admitted in a talk at Washington’s Council on Foreign Relations, “We have some influence on them because their leadership is in Pakistan, and they get some medical facilities, their families are here. So we can use those levers to pressurise them to say, ‘come to the table’.” Had the US not given up on Taliban by then, could they have not pressurized Pakistan or used their HUMINT to take those leaders out? Were they so naïve as to blindly believe in the claim of the Pak army regarding military operations against the Taliban in FATA? Could US intelligence not verify their claims? If they chose not to verify, it was their mistake. Apparently, the ISI was so persuasive that they took the US for a ride or the US had run out of options. Later also, it was indeed very clever of the ISI to make it clear that Pakistan could not negotiate with the Taliban on behalf of the Afghan government. ISI gained its expertise during mujahideen war The US-driven mujahideen war against the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s was one of the most brilliant covert operations ever designed in the history of warfare and intelligence. The CIA’s covert operation was called ‘Operation Cyclone’, in which they recruited, armed and trained fighters on a massive scale—according to some estimates, the mujahideen casualties were in the range of 150,000 to 180,000. It cost the US about $20 billion in that era. Since the US was extremely particular about ‘plausible deniability’ for the entire operation, they had no option but to involve the ISI in recruiting, arming and training the mujahideen. Since the training had to be imparted secretly, the invented the device of the madrasa. The CIA and ISI opened a large number of such ‘Islamic schools’ in the remote, border areas. Instead of religious education, they were given military training there. Arms for the mujahideen were arranged from the illicit arms bazaar across the world. Weapons were shipped to Pakistan and from there they were sent over land to the fighters in Afghanistan. Brig. Mohammad Yousaf has described the operation in detail in his books, Afghanistan: The Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower and Silent soldier: The man behind the Afghan jehad General Akhtar Abdur Rahman Shaheed. The whole operation was brilliant in theory. There was but a small undesirable side-effect. And the world is paying the price of that side-effect even now. ISI, being closely involved in the whole process, pilfered a great quantity of arms. Citing arms-trades specialist James Adams in his book, Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, John K. Cooley writes that between the delivery point at Karachi to the border checkpoints of the Pakistani army from where they were meant to be distributed to the Mujahideen, the ISI pilfered about 50% of the arms, which ended up either in their warehouses or sold off in international black market. During the Battle of Kandahar (2011) as a part of 2011 Taliban Spring Offensive, foreign-aid officials leaving the city at the time or shortly before fighting broke out, reported seeing grease paper everywhere as the Taliban removed the wrappings from the packed weapons. It is understood that the weapons had come directly from ISI warehouses. An idea of the scale on which Pakistan siphoned off money can be had from a revelation by Andrew Elva of the Federation for American Afghan Action, who had claimed before the US Senate that between 1980 and 1981 itself, the ISI had siphoned off $700 million out of $1.09 billion in aid earmarked by the Congress for the rebels. The still unexplained 1988 Ojhri arms depot explosion in Rawalpindi may also have been part of this process. ISI’s crowning glory In the 20 years from 2001 to 2021, the ISI pulled the wool over the American eyes with such panache that, despite a constant uncomfortable feeling all along about what they had been doing, the Americans could never pin any clear blame on Pakistan. Having earned their spurs in the Mujahideen War, the ISI, while pretending to be an ally of the US in their two-decade long war in Afghanistan, pulled the rug from under their feet. They duped the only superpower in the world. They made them believe that they were undertaking counterterrorism operations against the militants hiding in FATA in 2003, whereas they cleverly avoided putting all their might behind it. They continued to equip the Taliban with weapons from the Mujahideen War. The smallarmssurvey.org publication ‘Surveying the Battlefield: Illicit Arms in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia’ infers from an analysis of the seized caches that most Taliban weapons were of older models. It also says that in 2005, the Afghan Defence Ministry had reported 475 seizures of weapons, including more than 2,000 rockets, 4,000 land mines, and 5 million cartridges on the border with Pakistan. Similarly, in January 2007, Afghan forces found 40 truckloads of machine guns, explosives, and rockets belonging to the Taliban that were hidden in mountain caves near the border with Pakistan. Obviously, the ISI had ‘made’ them ‘survive’ the 2003 military operations! As Stephen Tankel discloses in his US Institute of Peace study, they established a pattern of military incursions into FATA followed by peace deals that empowered the pro-Taliban Pashtun militants. These included a February 2005 peace agreement with Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan and the September 2006 Waziristan Accord in North Waziristan. From a purely professional angle, what Pakistan has achieved in Afghanistan today has to be regarded as one of the greatest feats of covert intelligence. If anyone deserves to celebrate the Taliban victory, it is surely the ISI.
N.C. Asthana
https://thewire.in/south-asia/pakistans-support-to-the-taliban-is-one-of-the-greatest-feats-of-covert-intelligence
Several soldiers killed in southwestern #Pakistan suicide bombing
At least three soldiers killed and 15 others wounded near Quetta in Balochistan province, police said.A suicide bomber has detonated his explosives near a security checkpoint in restive southwestern Pakistan, killing at least three paramilitary personnel and wounding 15 others.The attacker walked towards the checkpoint manned by the paramilitary Frontier Corps on Quetta-Mastung Road, 25km (15 miles) south of Quetta, capital of Balochistan province, senior police officer Azhar Akram said on Sunday. A suicide bomber on a motorcycle packed with 6kg of explosives rammed one of the vehicles in a convoy, Akram said. He said some of the wounded were in critical condition and the death toll could rise, adding body parts were found at a distance from the security post after the bombing. Banned armed group Pakistan Taliban, known by the acronym TTP, claimed responsibility for the attack. It was the first time TTP claimed an attack on Pakistani security forces since the Taliban – a separate organisation – took control of neighbouring Afghanistan.TTP, which renewed its allegiance to the Afghan Taliban after the fall of Kabul, has recently stepped up its campaign against the Pakistani army.“Condemn the TTP suicide attack on FC checkpost in Mastung Road, Quetta,” Prime Minister Imran Khan said in a tweet. Attacks continue Balochistan has also seen a low-level armed uprising by Baloch separatist groups for nearly 20 years, calling for independence for the gas and mineral-rich province. Most attacks on security forces in Balochistan in the recent past have been claimed by Baloch separatist groups Balochistan Liberation Army and Balochistan Liberation Front.Balochistan, bordering Iran and Afghanistan, is a key province in southwest Pakistan, where China has been working on projects related to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. The projects, including road construction, power plants and agricultural development, have cost billions of dollars. China has in recent years also played a key role in developing the deep-water port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea. But there have been attacks on Pakistanis and Chinese working on the economic corridor projects. A suicide bomber last month detonated his explosives near a vehicle carrying Chinese workers, killing two Pakistani children playing by the roadside and wounding a Chinese national and two other Pakistanis in the port city of Gwadar. Suspected separatists also last month hurled a hand grenade at a store selling national flags in Quetta, killing one man and wounding four others who were buying flags to celebrate Pakistan’s independence day.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/5/several-troops-killed-in-southwestern-pakistan-suicide-bombing
Saturday, September 4, 2021
Don’t Assume a Taliban-Ruled Afghanistan Means Smooth Sailing for Pakistan
By Maryam Raashed
@maryam_raashed
Don’t Assume a Taliban-Ruled Afghanistan Means Smooth Sailing for Pakistan.With the withdrawal of the U.S.-led coalition forces from Afghanistan and reclamation of political power by the Afghan Taliban, countries in the region are shifting to respond to the emerging scenarios. For nearby countries like China, Russia, the Central Asian republics, India, and Pakistan, the political, economic, and security stakes in Afghanistan remain high. To Afghanistan’s east, Pakistan has been preparing to cope with the changing political and security dynamics in Afghanistan, and whatever may follow in the future. From pressing for a politically inclusive settlement to evacuations and delivery of medical supplies, Islamabad is trying to keep its position in Afghanistan strong. As simple as it may sound, engaging with the Taliban will not be an easy affair for Islamabad. Contrary to the general belief that Islamabad exercises considerable leverage over the Afghan Taliban, the coming days may reveal the limitations of Pakistan’s influence. The Taliban of today possess a renewed vigor. The group has emerged as a dominant political force in Afghanistan, poised to assume the reins of government. The United States’ direct talks with the Taliban, resulting in a U.S. withdrawal, and the unexpectedly quick fall of Kabul have bolstered the Taliban’s image as victors in a war against a mighty superpower. Moreover, the world’s major powers, European states, and the world at large, have developed the uneasy understanding that Taliban are a political reality in Afghanistan. Hence, the Taliban’s power quotient, domestically and internationally, has considerably risen since the last time they were in power. Pakistan is no longer their only option for international support. Even during the last period of Taliban rule, Pakistan’s leverage over the Afghan Taliban was overestimated. Pakistan remained unable to exercise its leverage on the issue of Durand Line, which is a key national security concern for Islamabad. During the Taliban’s rule in the 1990s, Pakistan was unable to pressure the Taliban into observing human rights. These examples are telling of the limits of Pakistan’s leverage over the Afghan Taliban. Most recently, three incidents particularly raise concerns over how Pakistan’s engagement with the Afghan Taliban will evolve. First, the Taliban freed Pul-e-Charkhi prisoners which included a senior TTP commander Maulvi Faqir Muhammad. Second is the Afghan Taliban’s display of discontent over the fencing of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. And third are the Afghan Taliban’s claim that the issue of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has to be dealt by Pakistan, and not Afghanistan, though Islamabad has long complained that TTP militants find safe harbor across the border.Pakistan is closely following the developments in Afghanistan. This focus on Afghanistan stems from the idea that any untoward development in Afghanistan will have a direct and impactful bearing on Pakistan. To put this into perspective: Pakistan lost over 80,000 lives and suffered over $150 billion worth of economic losses owing to the global war on terror in Afghanistan. Therefore, for Pakistan, a politically negotiated settlement is the only viable way to stability in Afghanistan. This policy orientation hinges on Pakistan’s desire for a stable Afghanistan — one without the internecine power struggles that provide operational spaces for militant groups. In tandem, Pakistan sees engagement with Afghanistan as a bedrock for encouraging the Afghan Taliban to conduct themselves responsibly in world politics. Pakistan’s concerns help explain its actions since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. From August 14 to August 28, Pakistan had evacuated more than 7,000 foreigners from Afghanistan, via some 400 special flights. Pakistan International Airlines was the first airline to carry medical supplies to Afghanistan on August 30. The plane flew from Dubai to the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, carrying 12.5 tonnes of supplies. Pakistan is engaging with the Afghan Taliban, but this engagement should be cautiously delimited by Pakistan’s prime national security interests. Anti-Pakistan militancy is the primary concern. Apart from the threat of militancy, three other major issues should form the basis of Pakistan’s security calculus vis-a-vis Afghanistan: mutual border management, repatriation of Afghan refugees from Pakistan, and an earnest commitment by the Taliban government to human rights. In particular, anything less than the Afghan Taliban’s active role in taking on anti-Pakistan militants operating on Afghan soil and mutual border management should be unacceptable to Pakistan. Pakistan has long pressed the Afghan Taliban to crack down on TTP and Islamic State Khorasan (ISK, also referred to as ISIS-K). While the Taliban are fighting against ISK, they have not taken decisive action against the TTP. On the issue of the TTP, while speaking on a talk show on August 29, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said; “The issue of the TTP is one that Pakistan will have to deal with, not Afghanistan.” That is a worrying sign of the Afghan Taliban’s interest in tackling the issue. Hence, how the TTP question will develop Pakistan remains to be seen. In particular, Islamabad must press the issue of TTP leadership residing in Afghanistan. Pakistan considers border management critical for beefing up its security against terrorist infiltration, terror attacks, and illegal border transgressions from Afghanistan. Historically, management of the border has remained a contentious issue owing to Afghanistan’s refusal to recognize the Durand line. In fact, contesting the legality of the Durand line as an international boundary can be considered as one of the few issues that unites the differing Afghan political factions. While Pakistan has unilaterally fenced around 90 percent of the border, it must continue to pressure Afghanistan to initiate border patrolling at the Afghan side. To give perspective, attacks against Pakistani forces along the border have continued even after Kabul’s fall to the Taliban. The repatriation of Afghan refugees from Pakistan and Afghanistan’s commitment to human rights can be viewed as two sides of the same coin. Currently, Pakistan is hosting over 4 million Afghan refugees (around 90 percent of the total Afghan diaspora). So far, Pakistan has not registered any new incoming refugees. However, this should not dilute Islamabad’s concerns over the issue of refugees. In this regard, Islamabad will need meaningful engagement with the Taliban, prioritizing the facilitation of a formal repatriation of Afghan refugees. The Taliban should also be pushed to forge a domestic environment that is conducive to refugee repatriation. The issue of human rights under Taliban rule generally gains the most traction in external audiences. While the Afghan Taliban are notorious for their human rights violations, we should not forget that Afghanistan’s human rights crisis has continued even under other governments. To put this into perspective, a 2013 report by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada revealed how gross human rights violations by the power elites remained a characteristic feature of Afghan society even under the U.S.-backed government. However, fears over an escalation of human rights violations under the Taliban rule are justified due to the group’s history. Human rights violations should be condemned irrespective of who is in power; for Pakistan, there is also the practical concern that abuses in Afghanistan will translate into an expanding refugee crisis. In terms of geoeconomics, which is the overarching theme of Islamabad’s foreign policy currently, Afghanistan remains vital for Pakistan. Historically, policymakers in Pakistan had largely viewed Afghanistan through a geostrategic lens. While Pakistan may seek to approach Afghanistan with a multidimensional, economically-driven approach in the longer run, the overriding focus on security cannot be overcome unless these issues are addressed. Hence, more than anything, political stability in Afghanistan remains paramount for Pakistan. As of now, Pakistan is trying to secure its interests in Afghanistan, while remaining in step with the international community. As a first step, Pakistan decided to await other countries’ recognition of the Taliban’s government in Afghanistan and refrained from recognizing it right away. This posture could be understood as Pakistan’s diplomatic move to remind the Taliban that Pakistan is not an unconditional backer; a give-and-take will form the basis of Pakistan’s engagement with the Taliban. Islamabad’s Afghan policy needs to be prepared for many topsy-turvy developments. It is still highly uncertain if the Taliban will establish an all-inclusive government by peaceful negotiation or consolidate their control through military might. Other unanswered questions include the extent of political and military resistance to the Taliban, how far the new government will decentralize and devolve power to local authorities, and much more. Afghanistan’s stability is the most desirable scenario for Pakistan. Like any other country, national security imperatives are and shall remain foremost for Pakistan. However, the resources that Pakistan has at its disposal, including its much-hyped influence over the Taliban, are limited. Pakistan may seek to be a partner in peace, but the responsibility of ensuring a peaceful Afghanistan lies on the bigger players. Stability in Afghanistan has to qualify as a concern for the international community at large. Multilateralism was not an option after the Soviet Army withdrew; it must be the choice following the U.S. withdrawal.
https://thediplomat.com/2021/09/dont-assume-a-taliban-ruled-afghanistan-means-smooth-sailing-for-pakistan/
Top Pakistani official travels to Afghanistan
BY CAMERON JENKINS
Pakistan's intelligence chief made a trip to Afghanistan's capital on Saturday, according to two country officials who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. Pakistani Gen. Faiez Hameed reportedly met with Taliban leadership during his trip, but it was not made clear at the time what was discussed.
According to the AP, the Pakistani intelligence service holds the greatest amount of outside influence when it comes to the Taliban. Leaders of the Taliban have previously located their headquarters in Pakistan and kept in contact with the country's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
Both the U.S. and former Afghan governments have accused Pakistan of providing the Taliban with military aid in the past, but the country has repeatedly denied it, the AP noted.
India’s ambassador to Qatar held a formal meeting with the Taliban early last week, discussing the safe return of Indian nationals to their homes.
At the time, India had faced criticism for not communicating with the Taliban after the country invested over $3 billion in Afghanistan.
“India is very important for the region and we want to trade and economic relations with it. We expect the relationship will continue like before,” Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, the head of the Taliban’s Political Office in Doha said, then.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/middle-east-north-africa/570836-top-pakistani-official-travels-to-afghanistan
https://thehill.com/policy/international/middle-east-north-africa/570836-top-pakistani-official-travels-to-afghanistan
https://thehill.com/policy/international/middle-east-north-africa/570836-top-pakistani-official-travels-to-afghanistan
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