EDITORIAL: Bearing the brunt of relentless attack by TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan) terrorists ensconced in Afghanistan, Pakistan has constantly been expressing its frustration over the Afghan Taliban’s disinclination to rein them in.
During her recent weekly press briefing Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch rightly averred that this is not Pakistan’s concern alone.
Islamabad, she elaborated, had repeatedly presented evidence (to the relevant UN quarters) of activities carried out by terrorist outfits based in Afghanistan, and the UN had highlighted the same in its reports. Indeed, ISIL (Daesh) and Al Qaeda/Taliban Monitoring Team’s periodic reports submitted to the UN Security Council Committee show that it is a challenge for the international community as well.
Although the Afghan Taliban insist they do not allow TTP to use their soil for terrorist operations against this country, a UN Monitoring report notes that the TTP militants engage in cross-border attacks in Pakistan.
Besides, members of this terrorist outfit and their families are said to receive regular aid packages from the Kabul regime, signifying a deeper level of support. Some Afghan Taliban members, driven by a perceived religious duty, have joined TTP’s ranks, bolstering their operational capabilities.
The Monitoring Team’s latest report submitted to the UNSC committee this past July iterated that the TTP is continuously using Afghan soil for terrorist operations against Pakistan, and is also getting operational and logistical support from terrorist networks like Al-Qaeda.
Furthermore disclosed the UN report the presence of new Al-Qaeda training camps; and that the transnational militant organisation is running seminaries in several Afghan provinces. Then there is the IS-K consolidating its position — despite an unsavoury relationship with the Afghan Taliban — and conducting its activities, taking advantage of the weak government control.
As Afghanistan, once again, becomes a hotbed of global terrorism, besides Pakistan this developing scenario should worry all states farther afield.
While regional countries, especially China with which the Kabul government is happily strengthening economic and diplomatic ties, are understood to be telling it to rid the country from all militant groups, though so far without any discernible success.
The situation being as concerning as it is, speaking in a UNSC session earlier this year Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UN, Munir Akram, urged the world organisation to call on the Afghan interim government to prevent cross-border attacks and infiltration by the TTP and other terrorists into his country, duly warning the member states that if left unchecked, the TTP could “soon pose a global terrorist threat”.
It is about time therefore that in addition to human rights issues, in particular imposition of constraints on women and girls — unthinkable and unacceptable under any circumstances — normalisation of relations by the international community with the interim Afghan government must be linked to its approach to all violent extremist groups involved in transnational terrorism.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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