Pak-Afghan border is spitting fire

Crossfiring with heavy weapons across the Pakistan -Taliban Afghanistan border has been active for some time but more fiercely this week. This is a curious turn in the contemporary history of the region. Pak-Afghan relations have not been cordial since the creation of Pakistan in 1947. Afghan monarchy in 1947 had serious concerns about the partition of the subcontinent with which it had long and deep relations. The essential question before the then-Afghan government was the status of the controversial Durand Line after the partition.

 

No regime in Kabul has accepted the Durand Line ever since the British colonial power in India had drawn it. The important reason was that the contemplated line divided thousands of Pakhtun families and relatives which was bound to greatly weaken the Pakhtun society in the region. The Kabul regime expected the retreating British to declare the Durand Line null and void and thereby leave a fiercely independent community of Pakhtun Pathans unscathed.

 

That did not happen and the nascent state of Pakistan claimed that it had inherited the legacy from the British and would ensure that the Durand Line remained intact. This became the source of deep acrimony between Pakistan and Afghanistan. As time passed, Pakistan volunteered to serve as a proxy of the Anglo-American bloc of the Cold War era. It accepted membership in military blocs like the Baghdad Pact SEATO and CENTO. The US provided Pakistan with military hardware obviously to serve bulwark against the expanding Soviet influence in Asia.

 

ALSO READ: Gilgit- Baltistan: 21st century hotspot of new Great Game – THE NEW INDIAN

 

While circumstances were shaping in Moscow for the implosion of the then Soviet Union, Pakistan was emboldened by the military and political support from the US. She began to talk about “space westward”. This narrative became shriller in Pakistan’s deep state after the 1971 war and the separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan. The hawks in Pakistan harped on the rhetoric of depth westward. They openly said that Pakistan had the fear of attack by India and as such they needed space to her west. This objective was not attainable as long as an elected national government was in power in Kabul, Pakistan looked for other options. Pak ISI had already taken the Mujahideen on board who were well armed and trained. In 1996, the Taliban formed the first regime in Kabul.

 

The emergence of the Taliban was the handiwork of Pakistan’s ISI and Lt General Babar, Islamabad’s Governor at Kandhara was the person who worked out its nitty gritty. The plea forwarded by him was that after the ouster of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, the Mujahedeen had turned into gangsters, looting the people at the point of a gun. They submitted to no authority and took law and order into their hands. This situation, he pleaded was a threat to the security of Pakistan. As such a new force from among the Mujahedeen had to be raised that submitted to discipline.

 

Thus came the Taliban into existence in 1996. But no sooner did their commanders ascend the power than they began to behave as badly as in their earlier chapters. They cared not a farthing for the human rights of the people, especially the women and children. They cared not even for the American interests. For this and other reasons closely linked to regional security and the likelihood of China trying for a foothold in Afghanistan, the American war against the Taliban broke out and lasted at least two decades.

 

ALSO READ: Should India take back POJK? – THE NEW INDIAN

 

This was the high period of Pakistan’s late General Musharraf playing the well-known double game. When 9/11 happened, President George Bush announced that the countries which did not stand with the US in their hour of peril were not friends. In the same tone, he asked General Musharraf whether Pakistan was with the US on the issue of terrorism. The General was left with no option but to blatantly betray the Muslim umma for which his country had created the OIC.

 

Pakistan assured Washington that it was with the US but extended covert help to the anti-American elements in Afghanistan. ISI created its moles and won over Taliban commanders. The Taliban accepted their support and assured them of the Islamic fraternity. When the Americans fled Kabul, the then ISI chief Faiz Hameed was the first to arrive in Kabul and sit with Taliban commanders to discuss the future policy of serving Islamabad’s proxy against the Americans and the Indians. The ISI lionised the Taliban as the leaders of the ummah sent down on earth by Allah to eradicate Kufr.

 

ALSO READ: Kashmiri Pandits and Assembly Elections – THE NEW INDIAN

 

With time, the entrenched Taliban now confronted Pakistan with the long outstanding issue of the Durand Line. The die was cast. The first armed conflict took place somewhere in the province of Khost bordering with KP. Pakistan is reported to have used air power in that conflict. It was now clear that for the Taliban, territorial integrity and sovereignty were greater than Islamic fraternity. So many skirmishes have taken place between the two and these have escalated to a bigger confrontation in which fighters including some commanders on both sides have lost their lives. Taliban have moved heavy armour to the border and it is the same armour that the Americans had left behind following their flight from Afghanistan.

 

The Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan or TTP are the kith and kin of the Afghan Taliban. The two have made a common cause and reinforced their ranks with the cooperation of the dissident Baluch. Today the country that was created by the British and fanatical Indian Muslims is now fighting tooth and nail not against kafirs, Christians, Ahmadis or Shia but the Sunni Muslims who, until the other day, had been swearing in the name of Islamic fraternity. The ultimate result of this fighting is not difficult to predict. The Pakhtun are not going to allow division of their homeland. Pakistan, actually meaning Punjabi ethnic dominants, are bound to eat the humble pie.

 

The writer is the former Director of the Centre of Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University, Srinagar.