Pakistan continues to be the major villain as Taliban is surging forward with considerable territorial gains as fresh reports indicate Afghan families are fleeing towards Kabul for safety. Meanwhile, confirmed news points out that Kunduz, the 2,70,000 strong population strategic town remains vulnerable to Taliban capture. Why is Pakistan a villain? Knowledgeable sources reckon that the Taliban is playing a proxy war for Pakistan against Afghanistan. Pakistan was earlier accused by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani for facilitating crossing over inside Afghanistan of nearly 10,000 jehadis. It is also reliably gathered by the experts that Taliban has regularly received armed training and logistic support from the Pakistani military about the latter’s grand design of helping Taliban to annex as many territories it can.
Reeling under a guilt complex, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi “regretted” on Aug 9 that Pakistan was being made a scapegoat for the mistakes committed by Afghanistan. Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, Qureshi claimed that Pakistan was paying a heavy price having suffered over 80,000 casualties.
If Pakistan doesn’t retract from its selfish
and parochial stand on Taliban, it has to
suffer heavily and price would be exorbitant
He even said that Pakistan never favoured a military takeover in Afghanistan and preferred a civilian and popularly elected government. This, analysts say, is a whitewash to cover up Pakistan’s dirty hand in supporting the Taliban primarily to have a favourable government in place which is essentially anti-India ignoring the devastating consequences of a regressive Taliban government in place with a medieval mindset. The Pakistani Foreign Minister, in his feverish pitch rhetoric, averred that Pakistan wanted to play the role of a facilitator and not a guarantor in ensuring peace in Afghanistan.
Such a statement, ostensibly a cover up exercise, to extricate Pakistan’s role in being complicit with Taliban, further confirms its part being played as a major villain. Pakistan Foreign Office in general, and the Foreign Minister in particular, are believed to be edgy over the reports that the Indian External Affairs Minister, S Jaishankar is scheduled to address the UNSC on August 18 and 19 and they apprehend Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan in extending support to Taliban may be further exposed.
More significantly, criticising India for its role as the President of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), Qureshi blamed India for disallowing discussion on Afghanistan. However, this didn’t augur well with the audience as his argument, as always, was feeble and bereft of any sound reasoning. Not deterred by any lack of response to his continued anti-India allegations, Qureshi even went a step further in shifting the blame on India in ‘engineering’ terror assaults to disrupt the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in Quetta, Casiore and Dasu. Such allegations against India by the self styled suave FM do not cut the ice as they have become quite a routine in the absence of any substance.
In the meantime, Doha is bracing up to host a fresh round of talks of Special Representatives on the Afghan Taliban ongoing imbroglio. While the upcoming meet scheduled for August 12, is seen as significant there do not appear any hope for a breakthrough as the Taliban continues to register territorial victories all over. Sensing more problems in the offing threatening security to Indian nationals, India is in the process of evacuating its nationals from Mazar e Sharif by a special aircraft for their safety. This depicts the seriousness of the emerging scenario in Afghanistan.
What Pakistan is not understanding or trying not to comprehend is feigning ignorance that in case of a radicalised Taliban’s assuming full power in Kabul, it’s Pakistan which will be hurt the most. It will have to take the brunt of the consequences.
Pakistan has not learnt it’s lessons from the history unfolding not very long ago. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Pakistan propped up the Taliban. That also eventually gave rise to the birth of several ultra-terror groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and multiple of their affiliates. The Soviets withdrew alright but Pakistan continues to struggle itself to rid from the home grown terror outfits who have become unwieldy, put Pakistan in the grey list of the FATF and above all, got Pakistan branded as a rouge and terror state. Here, if Pakistan or the deep state are rejoicing over the Taliban's surge, it’s very tentative. It will evaporate soon when a resurgent Taliban will target Pakistan drawing support from the religious extremists pushing it backwards as against Prime Minister Imran Khan’s dreams of making his country as Naya Pakistan. Such fantasy will be believed. This month happens to be the completion of three years in office of the PM Imran Khan in office. August is also the month when Pakistan became a new nation. The same month also saw the brutal end to the rule of military dictator Gen Zia ul Haq.
It would perhaps be advisable if Pakistan takes a fair stance in dealing with the Afghan govt to defeat the Taliban and encourage for a popular civilian government for the proud Afghans. It’s a testing time for Pakistan to prove its friendship with Afghanistan instead of bringing India in for all its mischievous acts and brazen support to Taliban to ensure its victory. If Pakistan doesn’t retract from its selfish and parochial stand on Taliban, it has to suffer heavily and price would be exorbitant.
Shantanu Mukharji is a security analyst and a former National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of Mauritius.
(Views are personal)