Last August, the leading Pakistan celebrated after the Taliban seized power in Kabul, including Prime Minister Imran Khan, the leaders of Islamic political parties, media personality, and retired military officers. The group had long received Pakistani support, and his victory delivered several strategic wins for Islamabad: it ensured a friendly government in Kabul and his reduced role for New Delhi, a partner near the non-Taliban government after 2001.
But the last days showed that Pakistan’s involvement with the Taliban regime would not be Cakewalk. Taliban fighters have clashed with Pakistani soldiers who put up the fence along the Afghan-Pakistani border, known as the Durand line. Pakistan began the fence in 2014 to reduce cross-border and smuggling militancy. 94 percent of the borders have been fenced off.
On December 19, Taliban members won barbed wire were installed by Pakistani forces in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, and warned them not to do more fences. On December 30, similar incidents occurred in Nimroz Province. Taliban officials played the importance of first clashes, but the second incident produced a stronger reaction.
A spokesman for the Afghan defense ministry said on Sunday that Pakistan had “no right to barbed wire along the line of Durand and separated the tribe” – reference to ethnic pashtun, which lives on both sides of the border. Another Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, rejected the fence and border itself: “The Durand line has divided one country on both parties. We do not want it at all.”
The Durand line emerged from the agreement of 1893 between Afghanistan and a British colonial official, but the Afghan government had denied the border since Pakistani independence in 1947. Taliban, including the founder of Mullah Mohammad Omar, has too many who seem to be maintained now leading the government.
However, the Taliban have other motivations that are possible to fight the construction of the fence. They can affirm their independence to prove that they are not the Pakistani proxy and play Pashtun nationalist cards to obtain the legitimacy of the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. There are other practical considerations. The fence limits the border and human transit trade – there are no small problems given that Taliban members still have business and family in Pakistan.
This week, Pakistan and the Taliban government promised to resolve border tensions with the conversation. But Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi did not sound completely convincing. “We … come into contact with the Afghan government,” he said. “Hopefully, we will be able to solve problems diplomatically.” He added that the fence would continue.
The source in Pakistan told me Islamabad hoped to achieve an understanding of continuing the construction of the fence while making concessions that allow more transit cross borders. But this will not discuss deeper problems of the Taliban opposition to the border. Maybe the group would not push it harder because of its dependence on Islamabad for economic and diplomatic assistance. But his will recently criticized Pakistan on other problems showing it was not depreciation.
Pakistan is much at stake in disputes. Tension with the Taliban can complicate the efforts of Islamabad to control the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a terrorist group based in Afghanistan which has increased attacks in Pakistan in recent months. Talk mediated talks caused a brief ceasefire in November 2021, but TTP refused to expand it; Pakistan must now hope for new talks.
Alternative – ask for the Taliban to drive TTP from Afghanistan – it is impossible. The Taliban accommodated the old link to TTP, and any punishment movement could worsen internal divisions. It leaves the Pakistani option that targets the TTP base in Afghanistan, something that has been done in the past and may have been repeated in the last few days. Such military steps will not sit well with the Taliban.
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