It is difficult not to sympathise with Pakistan. After sitting on top of the world for having outfoxed Uncle Sam, and facilitating return of the Taliban to Afghanistan, Prime Minister Imran Khan and his Army Chief Gen Bajwa are now facing a deeply embarrassing situation—the Taliban is killing Pakistani soldiers inside Pakistan.

The latest bloodshed took place on Sunday, the 6^th February; five Pakistani soldiers were killed inside the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) province. The attack was attributed to the Tahreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, (TTP), which despite its Pakistan origin, is practically an affiliate of the Afghan Taliban and operates from there, apparently with freedom.

Recent weeks have witnessed many such attacks on Pakistan security personnel in the K-P province. Of course, attacks on Pakistan soldiers inside the south-west province of Balochistan have been a regular affair for decades.

To turn people’s attention away from the continuous mayhem in Balochistan, the Pakistan authorities invariably blame India as the perpetrator. All that the foreign office says is that they had intercepted ‘communications’ that showed an India hand and the   Taliban (TTP) working in cahoots with Indian agencies. It gets a bit confusing here because the Taliban is supposed to be a Pakistani protégé while the Taliban is widely accepted as TTPs’ preceptor. 

The stepped-up attacks from Afghanistan have worried the Imran Khan government   which does not know how to react or prevent such attacks. The beleaguered Pakistan Prime Minister is losing patience but is unable to convey the sentiment explicitly for fear of alienating the Taliban and thus find himself in deeper trouble. Adding to his miseries is the reality that Islamabad cannot publicly ask Kabul to curb attacks inside Pakistan as the Afghans might not find it amusing.

Since last August, Pakistan has been in the forefront in urging the world to recognize the Taliban regime and Kabul has been publicly pledging not to allow Afghan territory for any attack on Pakistan.  

It is possible that Islamabad’s diplomatic outreach on its behalf has not impressed the Taliban rulers. Firstly, because Pakistan itself has shown no interest in recognizing the Kabul regime. Secondly because, Pakistan campaign has not pump primed even its iron friend, China to go beyond lip service.

Well, the Taliban on their part have not helped their case for recognition by refusing to renounce some of their outmoded beliefs and practices that have been denounced the world over, especially matters relating to the rights of women.   But that is   neither here nor there. 

What is germane in this context is the fact that like the Taliban, China is also unhappy, nay angry with Pakistan. It is because of Islamabad’s failure to protect the thousands of Chinese working on the prestigious China Pakistan Economic Corridor, (CPEC), projects.

The staging of Winter Olympics in Beijing provided the latest opportunity for Imran Khan to genuflect before his Yuan Masters. And the Chinese to play along the Pakistan charade and express ‘satisfaction’ that Pakistan is doing all it could to protect the Chinese working on CPEC projects.

For Xi Jinping regime CPEC is a showpiece under its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI); it is getting soaked with the blood of Chinese engineers and workers despite Pakistan raising a special force for their protection. And the Chinese leadership conveyed concerns to the Pakistani guest in no uncertain terms.

There is one big positive in Pak – China relations, from the Rawalpindi -Islamabad perspective. It is that the Chinese ‘iron brother’ prefers to overlook the deep resentment in Balochistan over the exploitation of their vast natural resources for the benefit of people in the all-powerful Punjab and to some extent Sindh. Also, the anger among the Balochs that the so-called ‘game changing’ CPEC projects will largely benefit the Chinese who have found a gateway at Gwadar to the warm sea waters of the Arabian Sea from their western province of Xinjiang.

The Generals in Rawalpindi and the Punjab dominated political and bureaucratic set-up in Islamabad have been treating Balochistan as a colony. This is the condition that has remained unadulterated right from the time Balochistan was forcefully made part of Pakistan soon after it was carved out of British India in 1947 as the home for Muslims of the sub-continent.

It is remarkable that though Pakistan manages to install a supplicating government in Balochistan, it has miserably failed to win the hearts and mind of Balochis, some of whom have taken the insurgency route to achieve their rights. The province is destined to remain in turmoil—and, the authorities in Pakistan will continue to fool their people by pointing fingers at India.  

Outwardly, a façade of normalcy is being maintained by Pakistan about the Taliban shenanigans. The Year 2022 opened to the killing of a number of border guards by Afghan Taliban protesting against Pakistan fencing the Durand Line. The Pakistan Army said it was the result of some ‘misunderstanding’ and was being sorted out. That was an outright lie because border fencing is a unilateral exercise undertaken by Pakistan without keeping Kabul in the loop.

No Afghan, much less no Taliban, support the fence proposal since they do not recognise the Durand Line between the two countries. Afghan rulers rejected the border line when it was carto-graphed in 1893 at the end of the first phase of the Second Anglo-Afghan War.  Kabul has stuck to the same refrain since then maintaining that the people living on either side of the Durand Line are closely linked and cannot be separated.

Pakistan has no answer to the Afghan opposition. It, however, persists with its fencing project as a security measure and thus continue to face the wrath of their Afghan ‘brothers’.

On August 15 last year when President Ashraf Ali Ghani fled Kabul as the marauding Taliban marched into Kabul, the bragging Pakistani leadership did not hesitate to take credit for the ‘victory’ of its proxy. The whole of Pakistan was celebrating the Taliban victory, convinced that it will not only make Afghanistan a subservient neighbour but would make Pakistan a big global player in geo-politics.  So far, it is case of biting the feeding hand.

Hoping to humour the Afghan Taliban, Pakistan had sought their good offices to arrive at a ‘peace agreement’ with the TTP. The mediation effort did result in a temporary peace early last winter and the accord ended on December 9. Since then, attacks inside Pakistan from Afghan soil have resumed unabated. The Imran Khan regime has been fretting and fuming with an eye on the domestic audience which is already into an agitation mode over a host of issues that range from prices to fertilizer and energy shortage.  

With the Afghan Taliban not renouncing the TTP, and TTP getting aligned with al Qaeda and ISIS, Pakistan can hope for terrorism nirvana only if it returns to the drawing board to find ways to exit from its decades – old terrorism centric foreign policy that has led the country to terrorist mayhem.   (POREG)