The modern Afghan state itself came into existence when direct military confrontation between the expanding Russian Empire and British India became inevitable in the 18th century. Three big powers—Russia, Britain and the United States – financed the Afghan state to avoid trouble of one or the other kind. The lawless expanse that is Afghanistan was a source of trouble for great powers and in the words of many credible historians, this was the prime reason for the establishment of the modern Afghan state. The British wanted to give a semblance of stability to this lawless expanse and created it as a buffer between its colonial territory in India and the vast Russian empire, which was expanding into Central Asia in the 18th century. During the Cold War, Afghanistan’s importance for the erstwhile Soviet Union and its rival power, the United States of America, was beyond any doubt. There are still some historians and commentators who claim that the Soviet leadership decided to intervene militarily in Afghanistan in December 1979 after they received reports that some factions of the Afghan Communist party, the notorious PDPA, was hobnobbing with the American CIA and this situation could lead to the Americans making inroads into Afghanistan. This would, the Russians feared, lead to the unravelling of the Communist Revolution in Afghanistan.
Between 2001 and 2021, Washington spent trillions of dollars in their ultimately doomed mission to create a viable Afghan state. They failed miserably. The Afghans, for cultural reasons, don’t seem to take very well to central political authority in their midst. So when the Americans left, a ragtag insurgent force took over the state machinery created by the Americans, which in any case descended into a state of chaos upon American withdrawal.
During the past two years, Russia, the Iranians and the Chinese, all have gone public with their expectation that the Afghan Taliban would not allow Sunni extremist groups to use Afghan territory for terror attacks in the neighboring countries.
Now what we have in Afghanistan is not a functioning state or a functioning government. Neighboring regional countries and other great powers will display extreme naivety if they expect two things from the Taliban government in Kabul. Firstly, it will be naïve on the part of regional powers to expect that the Afghan Taliban will be able to effectively control territory under its jurisdiction. Second, it would be naïve to expect that the Taliban will respond to diplomatic pressure, primarily because the state structure that feels this pressure is not functional at the moment. During the past two years, Russia, the Iranians and the Chinese, all have gone public with their expectation that the Afghan Taliban would not allow Sunni extremist groups to use Afghan territory for terror attacks in the neighboring countries. ISIS-Khorasan, since the last two years, has been engaging in rampant terror attacks on Afghan government officials and infrastructure facilities. ISIS, after they were evicted from Eastern Afghanistan by American forces, have abandoned their policy of controlling any territory and now have turned towards urban terrorism.
The Afghan Taliban forces have carried out some successful operations against ISIS - an ISIS-Khorasan chief was killed in one such operation last year. These operations are more akin to fighting between two groups rather than policing operations to stabilize urban civic life in Afghan cities. The basic problem is that the cadre of Afghan Taliban fighters who are now doing policing jobs also come from the same pool of fighters from which other groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS-Khorasan draw their membership. There are clear reports in the media that the initial recruitment by ISIS-Khorasan was carried out from the more radicalized members of the Afghan Taliban. Whether the Taliban could transform into a viable functioning state force is a big question only time will answer.
Even today, they are treating separatist groups from Chinese Turkestan and Central Asian States as guests, who, because of external pressure, have to be kept under surveillance and monitoring. Whether the Afghan Taliban will ever be able to develop an identity different from these regional groups will determine the fate of Afghanistan.
As far as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan is concerned, the Afghan Taliban have so far failed to separate itself from this group. For instance, the Pakistani Taliban have been using American weapons left behind by the withdrawing American forces, in their terror attacks in Peshawar and D.I. Khan. How did these weapons get into the hands of the Pakistani Taliban? Obviously, Afghan Taliban have failed this test of performing the function of a viable state on Afghan territory. Only last week, the Pakistani military identified the availability of modern weapons, along with sanctuary and liberty of movement provided to terrorists by the Afghan Taliban government as the prime threat facing Pakistan. A conference of military commanders was held in Rawalpindi which reviewed Pakistan’s security situation, especially the situation on the Pak-Afghan border.
Military commanders were briefed in detail about the prevailing internal security environment, especially in the aftermath of recent incidents, including the terror attack on a garrison in Balochistan and the emerging security situation elsewhere in the country. The statement issued by the military’s media wing said that the availability of modern weapons to terrorists is the major threat Pakistan is facing. The statement didn’t mention the origin of modern weapons, but it was obvious they were referring to availability of American weapons to terrorists that is cause of concern to the Pakistani military. After one such attack in the suburbs of Peshawar, police officials had said that the reports had revealed that the TTP had conducted a "coordinated" strike using high-tech equipment like thermal weapon sights. Officials said TTP militants used similar equipment in ambushes in Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu and Lakki Marwat, the most volatile districts in the province.
The Pakistan government and military have very limited options available to them to deal with Taliban government of Afghanistan in case they fail to evict the TTP from Afghan territory, experts and strategists opine.
US-funded military equipment valued at $7.12 billion was in the possession of the former Afghan government when it fell to the Taliban in August 2021, according to a U.S. Department of Defense report last year. In March last year, the Pentagon reported to Congress that nearly $7.2 billion worth of aircraft, guns, vehicles, ammunition, and specialized equipment like night vision goggles and biometric devices were left behind in Afghanistan. A Taliban official told Al Jazeera that the group seized more than 300,000 light arms, 26,000 heavy weapons, and around 61,000 military vehicles. Some of TTP’s propaganda videos show fighters using American weapons including M24 sniper rifles, M4 carbines with Trijicon ACOG scopes, and M16A4 rifles with thermal scopes.
The Pakistan government and military have very limited options available to them to deal with Taliban government of Afghanistan in case they fail to evict the TTP from Afghan territory, experts and strategists opine. The Taliban government is presiding over a ravaged infrastructure, and it hardly controls every part of Afghan territory. Experts say it will be extremely naïve to expect that the Taliban government could control TTP and its fighters who are residing in the border towns and cities of Afghanistan. The Afghan Taliban’s control over the state machinery left behind by the American backed President Ashraf Ghani government is minimal. Experts of Afghan politics say that the Afghan government is neither in a position to run the day-to-day affairs of governance, nor it can run a coherent foreign policy, apart from issuing declaratory statements.
“In this way it will be meaningless for Pakistan to apply diplomatic pressure on the Taliban government in Kabul,” said a Pakistani official who is doubtful about Pakistan’s ability to influence the Taliban’s decision- making process. When a Pakistan delegation led by Defense Minister Khawaja Asif visited Kabul to talk to the Taliban leadership about Pakistan’s TTP problem, the response they got was simply a suggestion to start talking to TTP. Last year, the Pakistani Air force also carried out an air strike against TTP hideout in the Pak-Afghan border areas. The air strike caused some collateral damage, but failed to eliminate the intended target, killing the Taliban leader. A few TTP leaders have been assassinated in Afghanistan, for which TTP blamed Pakistani security forces. The Pakistani military never officially admitted that it had any part in the assassination. However, TTP responded by launching suicide bombings against Pakistani security forces.
The last option of militarily intervening in Afghanistan is not an option at all - Pakistani military leaders are smart enough to understand the lessons of American and Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Pakistan doesn’t have the financial or military capacity to intervene in Afghanistan. On the other hand, the Pakistani government is under severe pressure to do something about the TTP problem. Terror attacks are on the rise in the nation’s cities and against security forces personnel. Pakistani officials said that the origin of these attacks have been from across the border in Afghanistan.
For the Pakistani government, the ideal policy would be to try to develop a diplomatic consensus among regional countries, which are also facing the danger of violence from Afghanistan spilling over into their territory. At the moment, the Afghan Taliban may be the best option available to deal with the situation in Afghanistan. But firstly, the Afghan Taliban will have to broaden their political and social base—by accommodating other political groups into the government's fold, and secondly, it will have to start behaving responsibly, which it is not at the moment.