AN enduring security dilemma for Pakistan has been the issue of cross-border havens in Afghanistan for militants, particularly the banned TTP. While cross-border attacks also occurred when the Western-backed government ran Kabul, figures for the period since the Afghan Taliban have been in power do not present a comforting picture. According to a report by the Pak Institute for Peace Studies think tank, the number of terrorist attacks in Pakistan saw a 73pc rise between August 2021 — when the Taliban rolled into Kabul and sent the Ashraf Ghani dispensation packing — and April 2023, as compared to the corresponding period preceding the Taliban’s seizure of power. The number of people killed in terrorist attacks saw a phenomenal rise of 138pc, while KP and Balochistan were the worst affected. In between the Taliban takeover and the present day, there has been a botched attempt by the state to make peace with the TTP, which is believed to be behind the majority of attacks. The Afghan Taliban had supported talks, and while officials of the de facto government in Kabul deny that their soil is being used for terrorism, there is strong evidence that the TTP has found shelter in Afghanistan under the Taliban’s aegis.

Complicating matters is the fact that the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban share the same ideology, and that groups that later coalesced into the TTP are believed to have hosted the Afghan Taliban in their strongholds in Pakistan after the US invasion of Afghanistan. Be that as it may, the TTP problem, and indeed that of other extremists sheltering in Afghanistan, needs a permanent solution. The issue of militants finding sanctuary is not that of Pakistan alone; other regional states, most notably China and Russia, have shared similar concerns with Kabul’s present rulers. While there have been no large-scale terrorist attacks for several months, the militant threat remains, as frequent smaller-scale incidents have shown, the latest being the martyrdom of a soldier protecting polio workers in North Waziristan on Wednesday. A TTP ‘commander’ was also gunned down in D.I. Khan by law enforcement. Along with kinetic operations, Pakistan will need to keep up the heat on the Afghan Taliban, bilaterally and together with other regional states, and keep reminding them that despite their linkages with militants, providing them sanctuary to attack Pakistan is simply unacceptable.

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2023