Abstract
(As Pakistan grapples with a monumental economic catastrophe, the repercussions from lethal floods and a stormy political confrontation, the TTP’s increasing menace presents yet another ticking ultimatum for a nation on the brink. There is a New Cold War brewing between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban which imperils the whole region and will only intensify over the months to come.
In addition to conventional diplomacy and bi-lateral confidence building measures (CBMs) this report will focus more on a truly comprehensive, holistic toolkit for Pakistan to deal with the Afghan Taliban 2.0 and the TTP. The recommendations in this report are realistic, leverage both hard and soft power and are rooted in both modern technology and tribal codes. – Author)
Pakistan’s Sacrifices and Challenges
For years Pakistanis were on the receiving end of terror. From our APS martyrs to our valiant soldiers, blood and sweat spilled endlessly. Such sacrifices must be immortalized in the collective national psyche and can never go in vain.
Both the war on terror and the rehabilitation of (mostly Afghan) internally displaced persons (IDPs)1 consumed a huge portion of the Pakistani government’s already strained financial resources, hence deepening the fiscal deficit and suffocating economic growth. Pakistan has endured heavy losses due to the protracted resource-draining “war on terror”. According to a report by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, at least 23,372 Pakistani civilians and 8,832 Pakistani security personnel were killed in the War on Terrorism.
These figures have further surged in 2022 due to the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP hereafter) reincarnation and increasing footprint in Pakistan (directly after the Taliban`s take-over2). According to Voice of America, Pakistani officials have confirmed the death of at least 350 soldiers and security personnel from multiple attacks perpetrated by the TTP in the first nine months of 2022 alone. The TTP has claimed these attacks.
Previously commendable kinetic militant clean-up operations by Pakistan’s army (such as Operations Radd-ul-Fasaad3, Khyber and Zarb-e-Azb, etc.) have now unraveled, given the rebirth of TTP and other factions. This proves that “hard power” and kinetic operations (alone) cannot eradicate the generational menace of terror, both from across the border and within Pakistan itself. Such Operations need to be complemented by “soft power”4 and the dynamics of yielding concessions through negotiations, without militant appeasement.
Pakistan’s counter-terrorism challenge is a civilizational battle for changing “the hearts and minds” of militants, which never happens solely over the barrel of a gun overnight but takes decades (if not generations) of grass-roots education, de-radicalization, mainstreaming, mentoring and offering correct economic opportunities and incentives with upward social mobility.
Pakistan’s Precarious Merger of Faltering Finances and Surging Terrorism
Pakistan is beset by interconnected impediments, the toxic convergence of faltering finances, political paralysis and sky-rocketing terrorism. An economic breakdown is trickling into an in-depth trade deficit emergency. An International Monetary Fund bail-out is hindered since Pakistan’s government is hesitant to initiate fundamental reforms and austerity. Concomitantly, an anti-Pakistan terrorist organization, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has regrouped, bolstered by the arrival of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
These ‘dual dilemmas’ of Pakistan’s faltering economy and rising terrorism are interlinked and likely to worsen. Although they are evolving distinctly at present, they will nourish off each other if not nipped in the bud.
The economy remains in a declining state, a kleptocratic elite is not changing its ways, and there are shortages of goods and energy pulling the masses below the poverty line, placing commodities out of reach and catalyzing food insecurity, leading to a political crisis on the streets of major cities. This will further empower the TTP and other terrorist organizations to start striking at the government more directly.
Pakistan’s foreign reserves have diminished to a meagre $3.7 billion, hardly sufficient for a few weeks of energy imports to keep its cities and businesses afloat, while its public debt has bloated to a staggering $270 billion. Pakistan was especially hard-struck by the war in Ukraine, which compelled it into a bidding war over scarce liquid natural gas that it is unable to afford. In addition, devastating floods had placed one third of Pakistan’s landmass under water and displaced millions of its poorest citizens. International aid has been achingly sluggish and meagre, leaving Pakistan mostly on its own to pick up the pieces5.
Pakistan needs to abide by the stringent conditionalities of the IMF. Once a deal is inked, the lender will issue more than $1 billion from the $6.5 billion bailout agreed, however this is, at best, a quick fix. Pakistan must rectify its circular debt and has already initiated price hikes in fuel and power, establish a market-based exchange rate, withdraw subsidies, and increase its taxation revenue to bridge the fiscal deficit.
Elites, including known religious clerics, have rigged politics and economics, which has dis-incentivized not only the masses but also foreign direct investors. These elites have avoided reform while arguing that Pakistan is too big to fail as they seek assistance, in aid from the United States, the Middle East, as well as expensive debt-laden projects from China.
Pakistan’s iron-clad Chinese allies, with lucrative investments in Pakistan as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, may offer last-ditch economic backing as the crisis intensifies, but their conditionalities for such succor will increasingly gnaw at Pakistan’s sovereignty without mitigating either the economic or terrorism plight.
China, has thirty per cent of Pakistan’s $100 billion external debt, and has offered a $700 million refinancing loan. However, Beijing has not been obliging in the way Islamabad aspired for—for instance, by offering fast-track loan rollovers and additional financing to substantially counterbalance Pakistan’s debt liability. In the present financial year, Islamabad owes nearly $9 billion out of $15 billion in debt servicing to China.
As Pakistan slides toward an economic cliffhanger it endures lethal attacks from the TTP who exploit grievances of the masses, using it as a recruitment tool also. The additional pressures that the TTP pose to Pakistan are distinct from the TTP ten years back. At that time, even though their ferocity was fever-pitched, America was giving Pakistan $1 billion in annual assistance, pursuing terror organizations through over-the-horizon UAV strikes within Pakistan, and were combating the Taliban in Afghanistan. In 2023, Pakistan has no financial assistance from abroad, no Coalition Support Funds, and the Taliban 2.0 in Afghanistan rule the roost.
Terrorists like TTP and other militants will take full advantage of Pakistan’s spiralling inflation at 27.50% and the economic malaise to agitate discontent and mount a militant recruitment spree amongst the masses who increasingly feel dejected and disenfranchised, and do not deem themselves stakeholders in a social contract that since long has been torn to shreds. They see no hope for the future. Extremists try to fill their void, brainwash them and take them in.
These masses need to be economically incentivized in order to not go rogue and anti-state.
Afghan Taliban’s Duplicitous Double Game with the TTP
Last year alone, Afghanistan under the Taliban directed more than USD $ 1 billion in exports to Pakistan and earned meaningful income from taxes levied on border crossings between the two states. Still, the Taliban remain intransigent and continue to back the TTP. A portion of the Taliban’s top brass has, at times, tightened the noose on the TTP. However, most Taliban leadership support the TTP’s lethally insidious anti-Pakistan campaign6.
The Afghan Taliban has contributed to terror in Pakistan, if not directly then by offering the TTP ‘safe havens’ which provides them with ‘operational space’ to plot and plan from within Afghanistan. The Afghan Taliban selectively ‘look the other way’ as the TTP weaponize and cross over the border to Pakistan. The Afghan Taliban seem to be using the TTP for strategic leverage to extract concessions from Pakistan’s government.
The Afghan Taliban`s increasing schism with Islamabad is a sign that the Taliban seek to assert their independence from Pakistan’s government, its former patron. The Taliban want to show the Afghan population that they no longer kowtow to Islamabad. They are capitalizing upon the anti-Pakistan sentiment that pervades in Afghan society.
Support for the Afghan Taliban in Pakistan is also fast eroding. The Afghan Taliban once enjoyed public support in the Pashtun-majority areas of Pakistan. But many people in these areas have now come to resent the group because of the ensuing unrest. There is a level of political consciousness in Pakistan not seen before.7
The Afghan Taliban are not living up to their promise of keeping their land terror free; on the contrary, extremist attacks have increased manifold. Swifter investigations and apprehensions must be intensified.
All relevant TTP and ISKP terrorists must be handed over to Pakistan for swift justice. The onus is now on the Afghan Taliban.
The TTP’s mounting strategy of lethality is a consequence of its expanding footprint, magnitude and tactical resource power, witnessed in its operational unity, broadening corps of skilled combatants, suicide bombers, ammunition, logistics and gadgetry. According to a July 2022 report from the authoritative U.N. Security Council, as many as 4,000 TTP fighters are based across the border in Afghanistan8. Despite such empirical evidence, the Afghan Taliban blatantly deny sheltering militants; in response to the TTP attacks, the Taliban’s foreign minister irresponsibly suggested that Pakistan should find its own solution to its security challenges. From mid-August 2021 to March 2022, 119 Pakistani officers and soldiers have been killed in fighting with terrorists who enjoy safe operational space in Afghanistan9.
Most of the TTP’s senior ranking members operate out of eastern Afghanistan (primarily Nangarhar, Khost, Paktika and Paktia). The fact that attacks have expanded beyond Pakistan’s tribal belt implies that the TTP, which is hand-in-glove with its Afghan counterpart, has regrouped from inside Afghanistan.
The Taliban are likely to cautiously remain non-committal on the TTP beyond offering bland half-hearted clichéd guarantees to Pakistan. When the Taliban assumed the reins of power in Kabul, Pakistan handed over a list of wanted TTP terrorists to the Taliban. Had the Taliban sought to generate bilateral goodwill the Taliban would have immediately handed over to Pakistan all the culprits on that list. Though the Taliban did set up a three-member committee to investigate the credibility of Pakistani security fears, their findings were uninspiring. It is high time that a new lease of life is given to a similar committee, with clear investigative, extradition and prosecutorial powers.
Last August, the Taliban’s Information and Cultural Minister, Zabihullah Mujahid, told GEO TV that “Pakistan, not the Taliban, need to decide whether or not TTP’s war is legitimate and to formulate a strategy in response.”
The TTP do not recognize the Durand Line and desire the application of Sharia law in KPK, the release of Taliban prisoners and the permit to open a political representation bureau in a third country. Since they unilaterally shred the ceasefire with Pakistan, all these demands will remain pipe dreams.
Islamabad, (previously) wanted the TTP to abandon violence, extend a public apology for its past violence, respect Pakistan’s constitution10, and reside like normal citizens. In the aftermath of a failed peace process, Pakistan must justifiably harden its posture to now include a total crackdown, arms renunciation, and surrender11.
The Afghan Taliban’s reluctance to crackdown on, expel or disarm the TTP from its Afghan safe havens compelled Pakistan to strike back clandestinely. For instance, in December 2021, TTP’s deputy chief, Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, narrowly fled a UAV assault. In January 2022 two TTP leaders, Khalid Balti and Mufti Burjan, were neutralized in Kunar12.
Islamabad would be well advised to remain deeply skeptical of the Afghan Taliban who are now a more mobile and autonomous entity. Since 2019, the Taliban’s dependence on Pakistan has persistently reduced13. However, Kabul can never totally untether itself from Islamabad. The Taliban, in a land-locked Emirate, still rely on Islamabad as a bridge to secure international humanitarian aid and transit trade.
