Carnage at Kabul hospital

On Wednesday in one of the worst terrorist attacks Kabul has seen, three gunmen and a suicide bomber dressed as medics entered a hospital, massacring more than 38 people, including doctors, patients and staff, and wounding 50 others before they were taken out by the special forces soldiers. The IS later issued a statement claiming credit for the attack, while the Afghan Taliban distanced themselves from the atrocity saying they had "no connection" with it. Which is not surprising given that the Taliban and the IS have very different agendas and hence clash of interests. Meanwhile, Afghan commentators have been claiming the terrorists were Pakistani Taliban acting in the name of the IS. In fact, as the commander of the US forces in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson Jr., acknowledged last month before the Senate Armed Services Committee, "majority of the fighters in the IS right now came from the TTP, the Pakistani Taliban, and joined the banner of the IS."
The carnage at the Kabul hospital highlights what Pakistan has been saying all along, that the TTP militants using sanctuaries on the Afghan soil to launch terrorist attacks in this country are a common enemy and hence need to be fought jointly. While condemning the attack, the Foreign Office in Islamabad, once again, affirmed Pakistan's commitment to cooperate with the Afghan government and the international community to fight the scourge of terrorism. Unfortunately, so far Kabul has been ignoring this side's demands to eliminate TTP sanctuaries from its border provinces. Instead, the tendency has been to level counter allegations, which only help the terrorists. Surely, the latest horror in Kabul was not planned by anyone in Pakistan, but by those indiscriminately targeting people in both countries. Just last month, the IS, TTP and one of its breakaway factions, Jamaatul Ahrar, now paying allegiance to the IS, carried out several attacks all over this country claiming the lives of more than 100 civilians.
Admittedly, the Kabul government has no control over vast swathes of its territory. And its security forces lack the capacity to fight and defeat the TTP terrorists camped on Afghan soil. Even though the US recognises - as General Nicholson did in his appearance before a Senate committee - that the TTP is morphing into IS, it too continues to look the other way as these terrorists go on using Afghan safe havens to cause mayhem in this country. In fact, when following the recent spate of terrorist strikes, Pakistan shelled TTP terrorists' Afghan hideouts, they were helped to shift to safe places, according to reports, by certain elements suspected to be from within the government, whilst Kabul reacted angrily to the action. It is about time the Afghan government recognised the threat for what it is and extended full co-operation to Pakistan in decimating the common enemy. Reason suggests if it cannot do the needful, Kabul should allow Pakistan to use its own resources to decimate the TTP-IS terrorists ensconced across the border.