Troubled ties with Afghanistan

EDITORIAL: While tensions have been rising between Pakistan and its western neighbour over the TTP sanctuaries inside Afghanistan, the recent corps commanders’ conference, according to an ISPR statement, iterated the concern that terrorist groups operating from Afghanistan posed a threat to regional and global security, besides acting as proxies against Pakistan and its economic interests, especially the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The statement names no names.

However, addressing a group of students earlier this year in Islamabad, Army Chief Gen Syed Asim Munir had strongly criticised Afghan Taliban for harbouring Baloch insurgents. Although they have little in common, there is enough evidence of a nexus between Baloch insurgents and the TTP, with grave implications for the security of this country as well as Chinese interests.

Baloch militants have been attacking various Chinese-funded projects with an increasing frequency and intensity. They make no secret of receiving assistance from India. In fact, a while ago an Indian intelligence operative, naval officer Kalbhushan Yadav, was arrested red-handed by law enforcement agency from the Sarawan region of Balochistan.

Just last March security forces repulsed a gun-and-bomb attack on the strategic Gwadar Port, a keystone of CPEC, flagship project of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative. It offers huge economic benefits to Pakistan in diverse fields, including energy, agriculture, and infrastructure development. There are other outsiders, too, wanting to undermine the project for providing China with an efficient and cost-effective trade and energy route to the Middle East, Africa and beyond.

The principal challenge to it, nonetheless, comes from India, whose declared objective, as openly articulated by its national security adviser Ajit Doval, is to destabilise Pakistan through what he described as an ‘offensive defence strategy’. That is where Baloch militants and their strange ally, the TTP, become useful. Hence the military leadership’s genuine concern that these groups act as proxies to harm Pakistan and its economic interests.

Relevant to the context is a recent UN monitoring team assessment report that noted these groups, particularly TTP, pose a serious threat to the region from their sanctuaries in Afghanistan. Furthermore, said the report, a newly emerged group, Tehreek-e-Jihad, is operating from Afghan territory, and possibly with support from al-Qaeda, providing TTP with “plausible deniability to alleviate the pressure from Pakistan on the Taliban government.” The latter, of course, rejects all such assertions as propaganda.

Pakistan has been trying to persuade the Afghan Taliban to prevent cross-border militant attacks, without any success though. Meanwhile, despite its concerns about the presence of terrorist groups in that country Beijing has developed economic and diplomatic ties with the Taliban government, which has expressed its interest in formally joining the CPEC.

Where Pakistan’s requests have failed to prevail upon the Afghan Taliban, nurturing new economic prospects might press them into reining in their TTP ideological brothers, who give shelter to Baloch insurgents in their Afghan safe havens.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024