Pakistan Under Siege From Taliban’s Influence – OpEd

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Afghanistan poses an existential threat to Pakistan. As it is obvious geography plays a critical role in any country’s foreign policy-making which is creating total anarchy in the state. Unfortunately, geography is something that cannot be changed and a state cannot change its neighbors.

Particularly, Pakistan, holds a significant place in South Asia. But here disagreements among states are always in the limelight the most prominent among them is a conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Although negotiations have occurred time and again but remained temporary. When the Taliban took charge in august 2021, its been more than a year since the Pakistani government is engaging with the Taliban but with nothing productive outcome.

Pakistan has not yet recovered from the previous decision to intervene in the Afghan war, which has already created social, political, psychological, and economic instability. Another setback to Pakistan from the Afghan government is that from October, Afghan government-trained TTP started to take hold in some regions of KPK, Pakistan. This intervention was not taken seriously by the provincial and federal governments, the result was obvious TTP gradually spreaded its network all over Pakistan.

It all started in 2021, according to the UN report four to six thousand TTP fighters had been given shelter and training by the Afghan Taliban. In October, TTP came openly forward when they captured the local DSP of Swat and announced that we are behind this. From there Pakistani government initiated talks to sign the ceasefire agreement. In the same month, TTP targeted a school van in swat, killed the driver, and injured two students. TTP even cracked down on family parks in Swat, beating women not to come out of their homes. Finally, in November 2022 people of swat came out with regional political parties including PTM for demanding peace in swat and denounced the influence of the Taliban. But in the month of November 2022, TTP announced unilaterally to abandon the ceasefire agreement and issued orders to carry out attacks across the country.

According to the UN report over 155 attacks are conducted by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan only in the year, 2022. On 19th of December 2022, TTP took hostage on Bannu Counter Terrorism Department, thereafter, after 40 hours this department escaped from TTP’s influence. Attacks are not stopped here, TTP even attacked the Chinese in Gwadar. It was a shock when TTP was behind the recent attack on police in Islamabad and it gave a very insecure image of Pakistan because the capital was under attack. A clear statement from US Embassy came out to prohibit government staff to not stay in the Marriot Hotel (Islamabad), the UK embassy, Australian and The UAE embassy issued the same statements, due to security reasons. On the other hand, UAE imposed a visa ban on twenty-four cities in Pakistan.

According to the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies (PIPS), the TTP carried out 282 attacks in 2021, in these attacks 500 Law enforcement personnel died. On 29th of November 2022, the Deputy foreign minister of Pakistan Hinna Rabbani Khar visited Afghanistan to prevail bilateral negotiations but remained frozen because some reports say that the afghan officials refused to do a conversation with the female delegate. From 26 to 27th December, 18 attacks were done by TTP in 48 hours in Balochistan. Whereas the Interior Minister of Pakistan said that there are seven to ten thousand trained Taliban in Pakistan. For almost the last three months 141 attacks are accepted by Taliban those were from their side.

What TTP wants to achieve and what are the threats to Pakistan?

Tehreek-e- Taliban Pakistan is a militant organization its foundation started when the USSR invaded Afghanistan there with the help of the US, they were assisted and trained by Pakistan to fight against the non-Muslim regime. And then in 2007 Pakistan trained them against the Afghan Taliban. Now TTA has reversed the same game to train TTP against Pakistan to fight for bringing sharia law and make greater pashtoonistan.

The TTP announced making a parallel government in KPK. They even appointed their governor. These incidents are weakening the national security of Pakistan. In this social, political, and economic turmoil, Pakistan can’t afford another front to fight with. 27 percent inflation was recorded last year. Furthermore, Pakistan has to repay $75 billion loans in the next three years. According to UNHCR last year over 90,000 asylum seekers came to Pakistan from Afghanistan due to various insecurities. In 2021, $532 million were invested to build a fence on the Pak-Afghan border. On the other hand, there is no political consensus among politicians on how to tackle the issues. TTP is continuously posing threat and it would not be possible if, they were\are supported internally by Pakistan.

There are reports which predict that in the coming months TTP and BLA will join hands to fight against Pakistan. This will strengthen the desires of our rivals to fund them excessively in order to disintegrate Pakistan. On the other hand, if Pakistan accepts the USA, CENTCOM chief’s offer for providing security to Pakistan will bolster the aggressive actions of the Taliban.

TTP’s threat is regional it threatens China, Central Asia, and India by supporting the insurgents in respective areas. If the Taliban destabilizes the region it will have spillover effects globally. Whereas ISKP is another monster in Afghanistan that has three franchises and they also want to dominate the Asian region as well as the whole world by spreading the Islamic ideology. Tehreek- e- Taliban Tajikistan is another threat to the regime. These all non-state actors are in Afghanistan and they are challenging the regional and global world order. TTA is supporting TTP because it does not want that TTP to join hands with ISKP, which is against TTA. Pakistan has to take rational actions and must not repeat the same mistake to make a soft corner for the Taliban, otherwise, no one will come to secure our sovereignty.

“It is better to out-monster the monster or to be quietly devoured?” — Fredrick Nietzsche

One thought on “Pakistan Under Siege From Taliban’s Influence – OpEd

  • January 2, 2023 at 7:43 pm
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    Alarmist article with a lot of exaggeration and misleading the public. All the above mentioned groups were created by the state of Pakistan and these action by the state of Pakistan has destabilizing effects on the whole region as a whole. Zia-ul Haq foreign policy for region was the fund and create militant groups through the region. So the biggest threat to the security of the region has been Pakistan itself. Please don’t pass blame on to others. Look in the mirror.

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