ECHOING Pakistan’s concerns, a UN Security Council report has rejected the Taliban’s claim that terrorist groups are not using Afghan territory for cross-border violence, calling the assertion “not credible” and warning that neighbouring states increasingly view Afghanistan as a source of regional insecurity.
The assessment is contained in the sixteenth report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, submitted to the UN Security Council, as international concern grows over Afghanistan’s security landscape more than four years after the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.
Pakistan has long been sensitizing the international community that Afghanistan has become a major source of terrorism, hosting different banned outfits, which carry out terrorist activities in other countries and pose threat to regional and global peace and security. The latest report is surely yet another confirmation that Pakistan’s complaints and concerns were not misplaced and that it is time for the world to join hands to eliminate the threat. It says a wide range of member states consistently report that ISIL-K, Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Al Qaeda, the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, also known as the Turkistan Islamic Party (ETIM/TIP), Jamaat Ansarullah, Ittiha-dul Mujahideen Pakistan and others are present in Afghanistan. Several of these groups have used, or continue to use, Afghan territory to plan and orchestrate attacks beyond its borders. The UN report identifies the TTP as the most serious threat to regional stability, noting that it receives significant support from elements within the Taliban and operates from Afghan sanctuaries. Some senior members increasingly view TTP as a liability, unnecessarily disrupting and antagonizing relations with Pakistan, while others remain supportive of it. According to the report, the TTP has conducted “numerous high-profile attacks in Pakistan from Afghan soil”, making it the most serious immediate challenge to relations between Kabul and Islamabad. The report also substantiates Pakistan’s evidence-based assertions that Afghan nationals are involved in most of the incidents of terrorism. The findings of the report carry significance as these come in the backdrop of calls by religious scholars of Afghanistan not to allow terrorists to use Afghan soil against other countries, which is an indirect confirmation of the presence of such elements in Afghanistan and the support they receive officially and unofficially. Proofs of Afghanistan harbouring terrorism are there and there is also a growing understanding among the international community of the threat posed by Afghanistan-based terror outfits. It is now for Pakistan and other like-minded countries to join hands and draw a comprehensive strategy to root out the menace.
