Can Afghan Taliban afford to offend Pakistan beyond a point?
AFGHAN Taliban assured the world by signing the Doha Agreement of not letting any militant organization use the soil of Afghanistan to regroup, reunite and reorganize to carry out strikes against other countries.
Afghanistan has been at war for the last forty years and the Afghans were punished for crimes that they had not committed themselves.
Talking in terms of the ‘war on terror it was Osama Bin Laden who is believed to be the mastermind behind 9/11 was an Arab nationalist who came to Afghanistan and used its soil to attack the USA and what happened after that event is a two-decades-long history of sufferings, violence, destructions, bloodshed, fits of hunger, fears and tears.
This sad episode of massive humanitarian tragedy could have been avoided if both sides would have acted logically to deal with the situation that emerged after the 9/11 attack.
The horrible nightmare of history seems to be unfortunately repeating itself with the Taliban showing a soft corner for the terrorist organizations using the Afghan land to carry on terror attacks across the border.
Already, the world has abandoned the Afghans after the withdrawal of the US and NATO from there and the subsequent violations of the Taliban of the commitments and assurances they gave to the world in the Doha Agreement.
Forming a non-representative and exclusive government by marginalizing a very large number of ethnicities, cracking down on all the free voices, preventing girls from going to schools and colleges and banning all female lawyers, doctors, professors, and nurses from performing their functions are some of the acts which turned the international community against the Taliban rule.
On the other hand, ISIS-K, which is an armed and ideologically motivated organisation existing in many Arab and Asian States, is known for its utter disregard for human lives in the wake of the inhuman brutalities its members committed in Syria and Iraq is now passionately working in Afghanistan to destabilize Taliban rule through attacks to get space here to get recruits to take over Afghanistan.
They have attacked the Taliban and broken the unity of the Taliban which resulted in offended Taliban joining ISIS.
This is a serious threat and a challenge and does not seem to be easy for the Taliban to counter it.
America is ready to extend military support to Pakistan because now America needs the help of Pakistan more than ever because the USA has no physical existence there in Afghanistan while its targets still exist there.
America does not have a better option than Pakistan in the region to carry out strikes in Afghanistan to hit its targets which is extremely counter-productive for the relationships between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
It is imperative for the two countries to jointly devise a win-win approach to peacefully resolve the issue which denies the involvement of third parties because geographically we are attached and we sink together and swim together.
—The writer is columnist with interest of international issues.
