Are attacks on the terrorists' lairs in Afghanistan planned by Pakistan?

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Last week, Pakistan's defense minister and spy chief went to Kabul to talk to Taliban leaders about how to deal with Islamabad's worries about the Pakistani Taliban and IS-K, who they say have safe havens in Afghanistan and indulge in attacks on Pakistan's security agencies.

Following a day-long visit to Kabul by a delegation led by Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif, the Pakistan Foreign Office claims that the Afghan Taliban have committed to working with the Pakistani government on its concerns about the presence of terrorists’ safe havens on its territory after Islamabad issued "a stark warning" regarding the Pakistani Taliban.

The visit came on the heels of a border clash at the Torkham crossing on February 20 between Afghan and Pakistani forces and although there have been no reports of casualties on either side.

Last year, Pakistan's military drones destroyed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) hideouts in the Afghan provinces of Khost and Kunar. This happened just two days after terrorists attacked a military convoy near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in North Waziristan District, killing eight Pakistani soldiers. Officials in Pakistan say that the TTP lost a lot of people because of the attacks on their positions near the border with Afghanistan. The attack was Pakistan's way of getting back at the TTP for announcing on March 30 that it would start a spring offensive during the holy month of Ramadan, which led to a rise in terrorist attacks across the border. 

Borders closed

The Taliban guards locked down the crossing after the border skirmish between Pakistani and Afghan forces, which caused thousands of transport vehicles stranded on the border, making it hard for commercial products to transit.

"There are enormous queues of heavy vehicles stopped on both sides of the border," Zia Ul Haq Sarhadi, Director of the Pak-Afghan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PAJCCI), told Al Mayadeen English. He said that since Sunday, 6,000 goods-laden vehicles had been stranded on both sides, and they are currently in talks to fix the shutdown. Sarhadi said that Afghanistan was dependent on Pakistani goods and that many trucks went through Afghanistan to get to Central Asia. "Traders, especially those dealing in fresh food products like fruits and vegetables, are incurring losses as trucks have been stalled on the route for the previous three days," he added.

Security situation

Following a string of high-profile attacks by the outlawed TTP and Islamic State-Khurasan (IS-K) on law enforcement organizations that left hundreds of security personnel dead across the nation, the law and order situation in Pakistan hit rock bottom. The terrorist activities in the country saw an uptick following a fragile truce between the government and TTP being unilaterally terminated in November last year.

Last month, almost 100 people were killed in a horrific suicide bombing in a mosque inside a tightly guarded police enclosure in Peshawar. Most of them were police officers, which raised concerns about the security lapse in such a sensitive area. A few weeks later, the police headquarters in Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, has become the target of a deadly suicide bombing by Pakistani Taliban insurgents, killing five security personnel and a civilian and wounding 18 others in the attack. Two suicide bombers were also killed in the operation, while one blew himself up after entering the police building. Pakistani Taliban in a brief statement claimed responsibility. Sporadic incidents of attacks on police checkposts are reported daily, which is a source of concern for the country’s security circles.

With the security situation getting worse and attacks on the forces happening all the time, Pakistan decided to reach out to the top leaders of the Taliban to ask them not to support the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). A security source in Peshawar, where the suicide attack happened, told the news agency AFP last month that the Pakistan delegation would meet with the "top brass", which means Hibatullah Akhundzada.

Terrorists havens   

Islamabad has asked the Afghan government many times to rein in TTP operatives who, according to them, are sheltering in Afghanistan thanks to the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan says that TTP terrorists attack Pakistani forces and then run back to their sanctuaries in Afghanistan. Some international news agencies also confirmed these allegations and claimed that anti-Pakistan insurgents are living and working freely in Afghanistan, which makes Islamabad a bit worried.

Analysts believe that the TTP is known to have ties to al Qaeda and wants to topple the Pakistani government to set up an Islamic caliphate like the one the Taliban set up in Kabul. Islamabad asked the Taliban regime again and again to either do something about the anti-Pakistan militants or kick them out of Afghanistan.

In 2021, after the Taliban took over Kabul, a Pakistani Taliban fighter told a Western news outlet that TTP fighters were ecstatic because they could now roam freely without fear of drone attacks.

The Taliban's support for TTP is not the only issue that has caused friction in Pak-Afghan relations. Long-standing territorial disputes between the two countries exacerbate tensions. The feud got worse when Pakistan quickly built a border fence along the so-called Durand Line, which Kabul does not acknowledge as a legitimate demarcation because it was established by the British while Afghanistan was under their control.

UN report

According to a group of UN monitors, the banned TTP has still between 3,000 and 5,000 fighters in Afghanistan.

The assessment which was sent to the UN Security Council early last year, says a Taliban-run Afghanistan "has the potential to become a haven for Al Qaeda and several other terror groups with linkages to the Central Asia region and beyond. Al Qaeda has been involved in Afghanistan since the start of the Afghan struggle, according to the US government and several UN organizations.

However, according to US officials and debunked by the Taliban, the new Taliban commanders in Afghanistan are not abiding by their public promise to stop supporting Al Qaeda and other terror groups including TTP.

The 29th report of the UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team covers the events that took place between June and December 2021 and deals with a variety of terrorist organizations functioning in South Asia and beyond.