Pakistan: The Afghan Boomerang

The first peacekeeping consultations aimed at stopping the bloody fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which began ten days ago, were held in the Qatari capital, Doha. The warring parties agreed to a ceasefire. However, predicting additional outcomes from these negotiations is difficult. The current statements from their participants only scratch the surface. Islamabad accuses the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan of supporting the armed formations of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) operating in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Afghan Taliban deny everything, saying, "Why would we need Pakistan when we have the whole of Afghanistan in our hands?" In reality, everything is much more complex and tragic.

Shortly before this escalation, former Pakistani consul in the border Afghan city of Kandahar, Umarali Sherzai, stated in an interview with Afghanistan International TV that without his country's help, the Afghan Taliban movement would not have been able to seize power in Kabul in 2021. Truth be told, even then, there were few who doubted this. After the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, the Taliban needed only three months to enter the Afghan capital. First, they rearmed themselves from abandoned American military depots. The M16 assault rifle with a night vision device became an available trophy. Heavy weapons were also captured - helicopters, armored personnel carriers, and even airplanes.

The advancing forces had no shortage of fuel; convoys of oil products flowed continuously from Pakistan. Its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) accompanied the Taliban all the way to Kabul, where its then-director, Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed, arrived just days after the capital's fall. Pakistani military advisers received high awards from his hands. This was the realization of Islamabad's long-standing dream of the notorious "strategic depth" through the absorption of Afghanistan.

But the real sensation was another statement by the former Pakistani diplomat regarding the Taliban movement, whose core consists of representatives of the Pashtun tribes inhabiting Pakistan and Afghanistan—totaling about 50 million people on both sides of the border. He arrogantly suggested that just as Pakistan brought this movement to power, it could also overthrow it if necessary. These words demonstrate how a significant part of the Pakistani elite still overestimates its strength and fails to realize that Afghanistan now and four years ago are two very different things.

Although it is obvious that key figures in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan are graduates of Pakistani religious madrasas (schools), where education is based on strictly orthodox postulates and Pakistan's strategic priorities in the region. It is also obvious that thousands of their graduates, not without the influence of the ISI, were later recruited into anti-Afghan armed formations. For years, Pashtun refugees from neighboring Afghanistan, who disagreed with the actions of first the pro-communist and then the pro-Western government in Kabul, were inevitably caught in these grindstones. The vanguard of the latter were precisely the residents of Kandahar, where Umarali Sherzai worked for a long time.

The victory of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan in 2021 raised the self-esteem of all Pashtun tribes on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border to an extreme level. It is quite comparable to the level that in the fifties of the last century made a guerrilla war against Islamabad possible with the aim of creating "Greater Pashtunistan." Back then, many still remembered the events of 1919, when the Pashtuns, in the course of fierce clashes with the troops of the British Empire, were victorious and brought it to the brink of collapse.

For Pashtuns, regardless of where they were born, the main guiding principle in life is "Pashtunwalai," a unified tribal code of honor. It is dominated by concepts such as "dignity," "good name," "equality," and "free choice," implying that all decisions are made based on internal dialogue and consensus. And for centuries, nothing changes, and violations can ultimately be paid for with blood. Even not necessarily as a result of "badal" - revenge.

To deny shelter to the persecuted and suffering - one can answer for that too. Especially if one refuses to help a tribesman!

The very first year after the Taliban's victory in Afghanistan showed that the local Taliban do not intend to distance themselves from their brethren in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. ISI Director Faiz Hameed acknowledged in an interview that misunderstandings between Islamabad and Kabul were growing. In early 2022, the Rubicon was finally crossed. This happened after clashes in the area of the Durand Line, drawn by the British over a century ago and still unrecognized by anyone.

Their trigger was the decision of the Pakistani authorities to begin implementing the "Barrier" plan, which involved the construction of a reinforced concrete wall topped with barbed wire along the line of the nominal border with Afghanistan. The corresponding budget was $500 million. But as soon as the builders and Pakistani border guards began work, sniper fire started from the Afghan side. As a result, several people were killed. The Pakistanis responded by bombing border areas of Afghanistan.

The reaction of the Islamic Emirate was as follows: we do not recognize the Durand Line and consider any development of it illegal. The Afghan Taliban also stated that attempts to artificially divide the Pashtun tribes are doomed to failure. The Emirate's demarche cost the career of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, whose mother came from the Burki Pashtun tribe. He was even called "Talib Khan" for his support of orthodox Taliban movements on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghan border. In April 2022, he received a vote of no confidence in parliament. And in November, an assassination attempt was made on Imran Khan in his native Lahore, the administrative center of Punjab province. He miraculously survived, undergoing several operations.

The political purge of Imran Khan and his supporters immediately led to an escalation of tensions in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The few economic and humanitarian projects here were suspended. The army top brass threatened the TTP's military wing with complete forced disarmament. This only added fuel to the fire: personal weapons for a Pashtun are a sacred attribute of daily life, without which there is no security for himself or his family. The TTP hastily regrouped its armed formations and carried out dozens of attacks on local army garrisons.

Since then, tensions in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have only grown. ISI agents have been and continue to record the tactical movements of armed TTP supporters towards border areas of Afghanistan and back into Pakistan. Often this happens with the sole purpose of covering their tracks and shaking off the pursuing Pakistani special forces. However, periodic airstrikes from Pakistan deep into Afghan territory do not change the balance of power; they only increase the level of tension in bilateral relations. Recently, even Kabul was attacked for the first time. At the same time, the Pakistani authorities, in their defense, stated that they were targeting the allegedly visiting TTP leader Noor Wali Mehsud in the Afghan capital.

It is obvious that Islamabad is currently experiencing a period of collapse of stereotypes and illusions in both domestic and foreign policy. The non-alternative bet on force and diktat calls into question state stability as a whole. Former ISI Director General Lieutenant General Asad Durrani, assessing the current situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said that military escalation in the "tribal areas" would achieve nothing. People here are accustomed to living in extreme conditions of tension and confrontation. Dialogue with the center and overdue socio-economic transformations are needed, which have been absent for all the recent decades. The retired general believes that this approach will help harmonize relations with neighbors, primarily with Afghanistan.