Pakistan possibly holds the world record for unleashing Frankenstein’s monsters. The Afghan Taliban are one of them. Pakistan backed them during the civil war following the exit of Soviet forces from Afghanistan and, later, against the US-led NATO forces. It hailed their military victory in August 2021.
Over three years later, the relationship lies in tatters. Besides the Taliban’s refusal to accept Pakistan’s hegemony and recognise the Durand Line as the border, their reluctance to rein in the activities of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP),also known as the Pakistani Taliban, has become a major bone of contention. They characterise the TTP as Pakistan’s internal problem and counsel dialogue to resolve it.
With Pakistan losing 685 security personnel in over 400 terror attacks, many involving the TTP, 2024 has proved to be the deadliest year for its security forces in a decade. The TTP has also developed links with Baloch insurgent groups. Pakistan has so far failed to resolve the problem. The dialogue route adopted during Imran Khan’s premiership was discredited as it enabled the TTP cadres to regroup and allowed many of them to return to Pakistan’s tribal belt. Restrictions on Afghanistan’s transit trade through Pakistan have often led to protests by the Pakistani constituency that benefits from it. Pakistan expelled a large number of undocumented Afghans to build pressure on the Taliban, but to no avail It has resorted to airstrikes on purported TTP hideouts in Afghanistan on a few occasions, the latest occurring on 24 December in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktika province.
