UNSC informed: Afghan officials complicit in escalating TTP attacks

NEW YORK: Highlighting the threat posed by the 6,000-strong Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to Afghanistan’s neighbours, a top Pakistani diplomat has told the UN Security Council that the Kabul authorities were complicit in the conduct of the TTP’s cross-border attacks against Pakistan.

Taking part in a debate on the situation in Afghanistan at the UN Security Council in New York on Monday, Ambassador Munir Akam, permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, said the TTP was collaborating with other terrorist groups seeking to destabilize Pakistan and disrupt its economic cooperation with China, especially the CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor), through their terrorist campaign. “The TTP also receives external support and financing from our principal adversary,” he told the 15-member Council in an obvious reference to India.

The Pakistani envoy said that TTP and its affiliates have carried out a series of cross-border terrorist attacks on Pakistan’s soil, noting that the group has access to weapons originating in the stock left behind by foreign forces, which were led by the United States.

Opening the debate, Roza Otunbayeva, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan, said that the Taliban were failing to honour their international obligations of not allowing the Afghan territory to be used for cross-border attacks. In this regard, she took note of the continued activity by ISIL-KP and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and pointed to “legitimate questions about the de facto authorities’ ability or commitment to uphold their own guarantees that Afghanistan will not become a threat to other countries”.

In his remarks, Ambassador Akram warned that TTP, which has Taliban rulers’ patronage, was emerging as an umbrella organization for other terrorist groups, whose objectives, he said, were the destabilization of Afghanistan’s neighbours.

In fact, he said, the greatest threat to security and stability in Afghanistan – and the entire region, and indeed the world – arises from the over 20 terrorist organizations present in Afghanistan.

Noting that the Taliban government was not effective in fighting its challenger — Daesh (ISIL-K)– the Pakistani envoy referred to the numerous attacks claimed by Daesh in Afghanistan as well as its attacks in Kerman, Iran, Moscow, Russia and more recently, in Peshawar.

On its part, Ambassador Akram told delegates that Pakistan successfully foiled attempts by ISIL-K terrorists to cross over from Afghanistan into Pakistan and prevented its external operations branch from establishing itself in Pakistan, detaining several high-profile operatives involved in the Kerman and Crocus attacks.

“Among those detained was an individual named Muhammad Sharifullah, an Afghan, who plotted the Abbey Gate bombing during the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan in 2021.”