By James Crickton*

Pakistan’s quest to secure “strategic depth” in Afghanistan by installing a ‘friendly’ government in Kabul has resulted in what security analysts have begun to call “strategic death”. 

There are clear signals from Islamabad that it has no option but to launch an all-out military operation against the resurgent Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) holed up in the Af-Pak region. Terror attacks are taking place almost daily in various Pakistani cities in which 261 security personnel have died since last November.

Islamabad has sought help from the United States, which is ready to return to the region it evacuated in a chaotic manner in August 2021.  The State Department has announced American readiness to help with spokesperson Ned Price telling the media on Tuesday, Jan 3 that the US supports Pakistan’s right to defend itself from terrorism.  

Both the US and NATO have no presence in Afghanistan as they did during 2002-2021. The Afghan Taliban, which is in the driver’s seat in Kabul will do everything to prevent an American return to the region and this has a direct bearing on Pakistan on whose piggyback the US hopes to stage a comeback.

The situation in the Af-Pak region is complicated by the presence of Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP). This franchise of the mother IS surged since the latter shifted base from Syria to Afghanistan.

This is a stark reminder of the way al Qaida under Osama Bin Laden had shifted its operational base to the land locked country nestled in the Hindu Kush mountains.

The ISKP is strengthened by radical elements of the TTP, the Afghan Taliban and several groups hailing from Central Asia and China’s Xinjiang.

Simply put, the Af-Pak region has once again become the world’s most dangerous terror hub – worse than what it was under al Qaida at the turn of the last century.  

There is little doubt that the rulers in Kabul, running a ruthless regime, are both unwilling and unable to evict the TTP fighters, their ideological brothers and comrades-in-arm. Being engaged in insurgency for two decades with Pakistan playing the host, they know precisely how Pakistan operates and would react to them.

They are bound to react if the Pakistan Army stages operations like the “Zarb-e-Azb” and “Radd-ul-Fasad” against the TTP, when Nawaz Sharif was the prime minister and General Raheel Sharif was the Army Chief. The key point is that Kabul then had a US-backed government.  

Unsurprisingly, Kabul has been defiant and has warned Islamabad against any military operation to secure the TTP fighters. Taliban leader and deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Yasir has even mocked Pakistan, reminding it with a recall of the Pakistan Army’s surrender to India in 1971.

Despite their heavy dependence upon Pakistan for supplies and access to the outside world, the Afghan Taliban, can make things difficult for Pakistan. Security experts foresee a prolonged military operation and the resultant diplomatic spat. Even the earlier votaries of the “strategic depth” concede that now in power, the Afghan Taliban will remain un-obliging on the TTP – like they had refused to hand over Osama to the US.

As city after city in Pakistan comes under TTP attack, raising the casualty figure, analysts have begun to see through the propaganda by the government – of Imran Khan earlier and now Shehbaz Sharif – blaming India’s alleged fomenting of trouble.  

“It is highly questionable as to how India would be able to support TTP while the Afghan Taliban – deemed as Pakistan’s “strategic assets” for decades – are in power in Kabul,” says Shemrez Nauman Afzal, a columnist for the sedate Lahore weekly, The Friday Times.  “The country’s security is challenged by a resurgent TTP, while ‘traditionalists’ blame India and not the Afghan Taliban”, he wrote in his latest column titled, “How Taliban Unravelled Pakistan’s ‘Strategic Depth’ in 2022”.

Writing in the same weekly, Islamabad-based journalist and analyst, Umer Farooq warns that the TTP is too close to the Kabul regime and the latter fears that if forced to evacuate or surrender to the Pakistani authorities, the TTP fighters may join the ISKP and other foreign groups, accelerating a process that has already been on since 2016.

Farooq blames Imran Khan and now the Sharif government for talking directly to the TTP, giving up Kabul’s channel easily.

In what has been dubbed as ‘soft’ treatment of the TTP for the sake of old times, talks were held at the military level by now-retired Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed in his capacity as the chief of Inter- Services Intelligence, ISI (It is the eyes and ears of Pakistan deep state, and handles terrorists of all hues), and then, a delegation of the clergy.

This only allowed time for the TTP to consolidate, to call off the cease-fire and boldly stage violent attacks across Pakistan.  

Dealing with the TTP might eventually seem like the tip of an iceberg but there is no guarantee that the nature of military action itself will not change much.  More so because of TTP’s latest policy shift threatens to target two mainstream parties – Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N). Both parties are the mainstay of the ruling multiparty coalition of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

“If these two parties remain firm on their position and continue to be slaves of the army, then action will be taken against their leading people,” said a statement issued by the terror outfit on Wednesday, Jan 4, 2023.

The emerging scenario depicts an extremely precarious security situation for Pakistan with the Islamists determined to convert the land of the pure also into a Sharia complaint Emirate.

This is a direct fall-out of military dictated foreign policy pursuits for a strategic depth in Afghanistan.  (POREG)

*The writer is a regular contributor to Poreg