EDITORIAL: A month on, the Taliban leadership is still beset with confusion, or so it pretends: it’s unsure whether or not Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in Kabul in a drone strike. Strangely, he had been living with his family in a posh locality of Afghanistan’s capital and the Americans successfully spotted him.
Last week, the Taliban government’s spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told a Dubai-based Akhbar al-Aan that his government had not found the body of al-Zawahiri, who succeeded Osama bin Laden as al-Qaeda leader. Probably then the thinking in Kabul was that the Taliban government should deny al-Zawahiri’s presence in Afghanistan. Earlier, too, his killing had been claimed a number of times.
However, it is but a joke that the attack on al-Zawahiri as he sat in the balcony as it was his habit to spend some time on that terrace daily and everybody in the neighbourhood knew it was not in the knowledge of the otherwise sharp-eyed Taliban intelligence. Unfortunately, however, the Taliban have given a new twist to that pretention. Now they insist that drones keep flying over Afghanistan and they enter from Pakistan airspace.
The Taliban’s acting defence minister Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob has accused Pakistan of allowing American drones to use its airspace to access Afghanistan. And he also asked Pakistan “don’t use your airspace against us”. His allegation comes as a shock to the government and the people of Pakistan alike, forcing them to ask ‘how long you would nourish this snake in the grass’.
Taliban must be told that there are hard facts. They must also be told that these facts are definitely true and do not need to be questioned. First, nobody buys the Taliban claim that al-Zawahiri was not their guest. Or, some renegade or disgruntled Taliban members might have supplied the information about al-Zawahiri’s abode in Kabul to the United States.
Second, if the Taliban haven’t found his body it does not necessarily mean that he was not killed.
Third, Taliban leadership’s double-talk is its cover against the extremists militants like al-Qaeda, IS-K and ETIM who must be accusing them of helping Americans to kill al-Zawahiri. Fourth, US media have suggested that a drone carrying Hellfire missile flew into Afghan airspace from Kyrgyzstan. There the Americans have a military base at Ganci, near the Bishkek international airport — though President Joe Biden has refused to disclose where the drone took off from and what route it used.
How ironic it is that the Taliban seem to have ignored the fact that in the entire world if there is one country that wants to go all the way to secure international recognition of Taliban regime in Kabul, it is Pakistan.
Even when the Taliban government is reluctant to restrain the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) from carrying out forays into Pakistan the government in Islamabad still remains positive for friendly behaviour towards the Afghans, be they in their country or as refugees in Pakistan. This is an idealistic state of mind, and counterproductive and it should undergo a serious appraisal to help Islamabad refashion its approach to the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. If there exists no dead body even after one month of the purported attack on al-Zawahiri then why Mullah is Yaqoob levelling wild allegations against Pakistan? Be that as it may, there are tons of factors that play into the al-Zawahiri debate. Ironically, every new factor happens to be more complicated than the previous one.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022