On July 25, a couple of weeks before Qari Ansaar was to tie the knot, the 20-something decided to take a different journey through the rugged Shalman valley — a few kilometers northeast of the Torkham border crossing — to enter Pakistan.

Holed up in a mosque in Khyber district’s Jamrud area, he blew himself up, bringing down the mosque and killing a police officer.

The interrogation of a suspect picked up from the spot yielded not just the identity of the bomber, but also links to the network that operated from across the border in Afghanistan.

Such attacks have heightened tensions between Kabul and Islamabad, drawing a sharp rebuke from the top brass, which received an uncharacteristically terse response from the Afghan leadership.

Now, an edict from the Taliban’s supreme leader has raised hopes for a solution to the longstanding issue that has become a major spoiler in the relationship between the two neighbours.

Brass perturbed

The Khyber bombing came on the heels of a series of militant attacks in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In unusually strong comments in the wake of the attacks, army chief Gen Asim Munir slammed the Afghan Taliban for “the safe haven and liberty of action available to TTP in Afghanistan”.

Three days later, the 258th Corps Commanders’ Conference at GHQ “noted” as major reasons impacting the security of Pakistan “the sanctuaries and liberty of action available to terrorists of proscribed TTP and other groups of that ilk in a neighbouring country and availability of latest weapons to terrorists. “

Then, last week, speaking at a jirga of tribal notables in Peshawar, Gen Asim expressed his concerns yet again to remind the Afghan Taliban of their commitments in Doha Agreement.

Evidently, to borrow a few words from the famous rem­arks of former spymaster at Kabul’s five start hotel, everything is not “okay”, between the two neighbours.

The banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its leadership’s presence in Afghanistan presents the most challenging and single biggest irritant between the two countries leading to public sparring in recent days.

And there is a reason

The security situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has gone from bad to worse since the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August 2021. Militant attacks in KP recorded a 93.6 per cent spike from January to June 2021 and 2022, according to official statistics seen by Dawn.

Militant attacks in the province saw a further increase of 48.8pc in the two years since the Afghan Taliban returned to power. Comparing the percentage increase between the two years shows a whopping 188.2 percent increase in attacks.

Peshawar alone saw a 290.9 percent increase in attacks between Jan to June 2021 and the corresponding period in 2023, while KP’s southern districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — including North and South Waziristan continue to bear the brunt of militant attacks, while violence in the Khyber and Bajaur tribal districts has also registered a considerable spike.

Armed with sophisticated night vision and thermal gadgets and sniper weapons, the TTP has also escalated night attacks on outlying and isolated police stations in the districts including Peshawar, from just ten in Jan-June 2021 to 40 in the corresponding period in 2023, killing 29 policemen compared with just seven before the return of the Afghan Taliban.

Afghan reaction

In a rejoinder to statements from Pakistan, the spokesman for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan “strongly” rejected the allegations, denying that his country’s soil was being used against any country in the region.

“The IEA once again reiterates its principled position that the territory of Afghanistan will not be used against the security of any country, however, it does not mean that Afghanistan is responsible for the security failure of any country in the region,” Zabihullah Mujahid said in a rather terse statement last week.

“It is not our responsibility to prevent and control attacks inside the territory of Pakistan,” he said.

He recalled that Kabul had shared information with Pakistan and other countries that militants from the so-called Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) would target clerics and seminaries, but no action was taken.

He claimed that the Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) had killed 18 Pakistani members of IS-K and captured several others.

“All the documents and evidence are with us.”

But instead of blaming Pakistan, the ‘IEA’, he said, strengthened its own security. Instead of blaming Afghanistan, he said, it was Pakistan’s responsibility to find a solution on its own.

Backchannel efforts

Despite the public sparring, the countries have been engaged in quiet diplomacy, away-from-the-public eye, to find a solution to the TTP problem.

Officials familiar with the talks say the Afghan side had offered to relocate the TTP away from the border region and had sought ‘assistance’ from Pakistan to do so, but little or no headway was made as no concrete proposal was brought to the table.

While Pakistan acknowledges the Islamic Emirate’s “TTP predicament” owing to their mutual and long-standing ideological and tribal affinities, there is also growing unease and concern in Islamabad over the escalation in attacks and Kabul’s inability or reluctance to rein in their Pakistani brothers in arms.

While there are several proposals on the table over how to sway the Afghan Taliban to take Pakistan’s concerns more seriously, officials say Islamabad would need to “manage” its relations with its western neighbor. “It is a long haul.”

Religious decree

Recently, the Afghan Taliban revealed a little-known decree by their spiritual leader Mullah Hibatullah, barring Afghans from participating in militant activities across the border.

This was lent credence by their Defence Minister Yaqoob Mujahid, who told a gathering that “obedience and compliance of the emir’s order was obligatory and binding” and that anyone going abroad to wage holy war or jihad without the emir’s permission, would be indulging in an act of war and terrorism.”

The IEA’s Council of Religious Decrees following this up with a ruling that barred mujahideen from participating in war without the explicit approval of the emir.

Many in Pakistan, including the Jamaat-i-Islami leader Sirajul Haq, hailed the decree, even though some analysts were quick to point out that the edict was being taken out of context and that it pertained to Afghan mujahideen only.

The 27-page document in Pashto however, doesn’t draw any national distinction.

It refers to ‘mujahideen’ at large and points out the three conditions that could lead to declaration of ‘jihad’ which could only be undertaken on the orders of the emir.

Officials say senior Afghan Taliban figures have been making efforts to spread the word around and enforce the edict as the final word of their emir.

The outlawed TTP has so far not formally commented on the edict, but officials say they were aware of some arrests of Afghan Taliban by the GDI who were motivating others to join the so-called ‘jihad’ in Pakistan.

While officials say the edict offers a glimmer of hope, its impact would only become clear in the weeks to come.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2023