Taliban blames Pakistan of supporting IS

The conflict between the Taliban and the Pakistani military is intensifying. The Taliban has officially accused the Pakistani government of supporting ISIS.

The conflict between the Taliban and the Pakistani military is intensifying. The Taliban has officially accused the Pakistani government of supporting ISIS, and the number of armed clashes on the Afghan-Pakistani border is rapidly growing. In addition, the Taliban, who captured Afghanistan in 2021, are confident that the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the so-called Durand Line, is unfair. It is worth noting that it was the Pakistani military and its main intelligence service, the ISI, that have long been the main sponsors and mentors of the Taliban movement. In general, it can be said that without Pakistan, the Taliban would not have existed: it was in Pakistani madrassas that active Pashtun youth, fleeing the war to a neighboring country, were distracted from nationalism by the radical form of religion – and at the same time by military training.

Pakistan’s military is allegedly training ISIS militants and sending them to Afghanistan. Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Emirate, has confirmed that ISIS operates training centers on Pakistani soil, where they are armed and deployed to carry out attacks in Afghanistan. Stanikzai claims ample evidence, including confessions and videos, supports these accusations. “We have sufficient evidence on this matter and have made it public multiple times. The confessions and videos demonstrate that ISIS operates bases in Pakistan, receives training there, is armed by Pakistani military personnel, and is then sent to Afghanistan,” he stated.

Afghanistan was already a source of constant worry for Pakistan at the start of the Soviet invasion: the border commanders, who were subordinate to no one, robbed caravans of trucks carrying goods belonging to Pakistani traders, and the local tribes and clans generally did not recognize the state border, on both sides of which they had lived for centuries. These tribes, overwhelmingly Pashtun, were a particular irritant to Islamabad. There are relatively few Pashtuns in Pakistan — less than 20% of the population — but almost all of them live in the north, near the border with Afghanistan, where this ethnic group dominates. The central authorities, almost from the moment Pakistan emerged in the late 1940s, were afraid of Pashtun separatism aimed at annexing the border regions to Afghanistan or even creating an independent Pashtunistan. They decided to distract the active Pashtun youth, who fled the war to the neighboring country, from nationalism with religion. Afghans began to be accepted en masse into Pakistani madrassas, where, along with religious education, military training for the Taliban was also conducted. Islamabad raised its future allies in the border madrassas. People who could be trusted with the security of their northern regions, cargo, and business. Well, and to set up camps on the territory they controlled to train militants needed in other regions. First of all, in Kashmir, which is disputed with India. The Pakistani military and ISI actively recruited Pashtuns from Afghanistan and directed their anger against India, actively using terrorist methods.

The Taliban managed to win the bloody civil war in Afghanistan in the early 1990s. The Pakistani military played a significant role in this. Islamabad decided to support a new and young organization that had serious positions and energy to seize power.

The situation was somewhat transformed after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The United States openly accused Pakistan of supporting the Taliban and terrorist groups in Afghanistan. Serious pressure was exerted on Islamabad, including the economy and trade. After that, the Pakistani authorities supported the US-led coalition, but the sympathies of the authorities and residents were on the side of the Taliban. Pakistan was even one of the main countries of this coalition. It was through it that the lion’s share of all the goods necessary for conducting military operations passed in transit. But the sympathies of both the authorities and ordinary Pakistanis were largely on the side of the Afghan Taliban. Well, it is not for nothing that in 2021, immediately after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, then Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said that Afghans had “broken the chains of slavery.”

Thus, the alliance of the Pakistani military and the Afghan Pashtun Taliban was a given, which was in the interests of both sides. However, after the victory of the Taliban in 2021, the situation began to change. The Taliban, having become the power in Afghanistan, no longer needs close mentoring and constant care from the Pakistani military. The conflict will escalate. At the same time, certain clans and groups of the Taliban are still under the influence of the Pakistani military.

Georgi Asatrian
Georgi Asatrian
Georgi Asatryan, associate professor, Lomonosov Moscow State University and Plekhanov Russian University of Economics.