OPINION | Pakistan experiences ‘two-front’ conflict

Over the weekend, Afghan Taliban forces reportedly launched an unprovoked attack on Pakistani border posts, killing 23 troops, according to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).

Pakistan-Afghanistan relations have hit a new low after fierce border clashes between their security forces over the contested Durand Line during the weekend (October 10-11). Both sides have confirmed that their troops have been killed and while the official figures are Pakistan 23 dead and Afghanistan nine killed, the unofficial death toll is reported to be much higher, going into the hundreds.

These clashes are the most serious in scale since the Taliban seized power in Kabul in August 2021.

Pakistan bombs its own creation

While the demarcation of the 2,600 km Durand Line (drawn in 1893 as the Afghan border with British India)   as a consensually accepted border between Pakistan and Afghanistan remains bitterly disputed and is an intractable  colonial legacy, in recent years Islamabad has accused the Taliban of providing shelter to the  TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan) – a largely Pashtun  terror group that has been attacking Pakistan.

In a sharp spike in the military escalation, Pakistan conducted air strikes (October 9) on Kabul and Khost, targeting (TTP) leader Noor Wali Mehsud and other militants. Given that Afghanistan has a very poorly equipped military – the erstwhile ANA (Afghan National Army) - Pakistani military superiority over its western neighbour is not in doubt. But the use of air power against the Taliban, a creation of the Pakistani ISI in the mid -1990s, is an ironical twist in the tangled security dynamic of the region whose genesis goes back to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979.

Taliban calls Pakistan a ‘terrorism exporter’

In an unintended overlap, the Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi was in India during that period, marking a major improvement in the Delhi-Taliban relationship (severed in 2021)   and the joint statement dwelt on the shared concern of both nations over terrorism.

Muttaqi endorsed the Delhi position that Pakistan is a ‘terrorism exporter’ thereby angering Islamabad – and this is yet another layer of irony.

It may be recalled that in December 1999, India experienced a major security setback over the hijacking of IC 814  by terrorists and the then PM AB Vajpayee had to face the ignominy of freeing Maulana Masood Azhar,   leader of the terror group   HuJI  (Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami) that later morphed into the dreaded JeM (Jaish-e-Mohammed). The hijacked aircraft and the prisoners at that time were given sanctuary by the Taliban – then in power in Kabul. Delhi remained helpless.

Many ironies of Pak-Taliban engagement

The deep ISI-Taliban linkages remained robust though covert, after the enormity of 9/11 in September 2001 and the al-Qaeda attack on New York.

Pakistan fine-tuned the art of hunting with the US hound against the al-Qaeda but also ran with the Taliban hare and sought to advance its own regional agenda in acquiring ‘strategic depth’ against India.

In July 2008 a Taliban affiliate (Haqqani network) attacked the Indian embassy in Kabul with a suicide car bomber and 58 people were killed, including senior diplomats and military personnel. This remains one of the most dastardly attacks on an Indian embassy abroad.

The ironies and duplicities mounted with the Taliban resisting US attacks and in one of the biggest setbacks to US credibility globally – despite the massive military campaign over two decades – it was compelled to withdraw from Kabul and the Taliban came back to power in August 2021. And Pakistan was among the first and only three countries at the time to accord official recognition to the Taliban, while India along with many nations closed its embassy in Kabul and ostracised the Taliban.

Afghanistan also brings rivals onto the same page

Against this backdrop, the recent developments add a new texture to the very complex Afghanistan-Pakistan-India triangle with Pak-Afghan discord simmering and a tentative thaw in India-Afghan/Taliban ties.

But in yet another twist, Afghanistan has also been the rallying point for a rare show of regional unity and this was evidenced in a Moscow meeting.

In a little noticed geo-political development of considerable import that may have been glossed over due to the cascading events related to Gaza, a diverse cluster of non-Western nations met in Moscow (October 7) under the aegis of the Moscow Format and issued a joint statement that was a strong pushback to US President Donald Trump and the balloon he floated regarding taking back Bagram – the Afghan air base near Kabul.

Conceived in 2017, the Moscow Format Consultations on Afghanistan is fa Russia-led counter to Western-led Afghan dialogues which  excludes the US and its allies. The October 7 joint statement was endorsed by Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, and the Central Asian states, excluding Turkmenistan. For the first time the Afghan delegation headed by Foreign Minister Muttaqi participated in the meeting as a member.

The last paragraph of the joint statement noted: “They called unacceptable the attempts by countries to deploy their military infrastructure in Afghanistan and neighbouring states, since this does not serve the interests of regional peace and stability.”

Trump doesn’t take no for an answer

While the US and Bagram have not been identified explicitly, the sub-text is self-explanatory and the choice of the word ‘unacceptable’ has a diplomatic resonance that is distinctive. The unity over Afghanistan among the signatories is significant, given the deep rivalries among the participants over regional matters, such as that between India-Pakistan, Pakistan-Afghanistan and China-India.

But hold on, the ironic layers continue.  The Pak-Afghan border violence has caught the attention of Trump and despite the rebuke over Bagram, he has promised to turn his ‘benign gaze’ to this troubled region and bring peace between the two warring neighbours.

Watch this space – for there will be more layers to the Afghan story in the near future.