CNN
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When the United States withdrew its troops from Afghanistan after 20 years in Afghanistan, it did so with a promise not to provide shelter to terrorist groups once the Taliban returned to government.
The Taliban’s pledges not only covered Al Qaeda, the terrorist organization that led to the 2001 invasion of the United States, but also the neighboring Taliban’s ideological twin, the Pakistani Taliban or Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
But the recent collapse of an already fragile one-year ceasefire agreement in neighboring Pakistan between the TTP and Islamabad raises some thorny questions about whether that promise will be kept.
Ending the ceasefire in Pakistan could not only escalate violence in the country, but also threaten escalating cross-border tensions between the Afghan and Pakistani governments.
And it’s already spotlighting links between the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Taliban in Pakistan.
Last spring, Pakistani Taliban leader Nour Wali Mesud told CNN that his group would expect help from the Afghan Taliban in return for helping drive the US out of Kabul.
Like their brothers who once fought in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s Taliban want to overthrow their government and impose their own rigid Islamic laws.
In an exclusive interview with CNN this week, Mesud condemned the collapse of the ceasefire in Islamabad, saying it “violated the ceasefire, martyred dozens of comrades and arrested dozens.”
But when asked directly whether the Afghan Taliban were supporting his group as they once wanted, he was more alarmed.
Here is his answer: Using Pakistan soil. We have the ability to fight for decades more with the weapons and spirit of liberation that exists on Pakistani soil. ”
These words should not only concern Islamabad, but Washington as well.
The FBI has been chasing TTP for at least a decade and a half, long before he radicalized and trained Faisal Shahzad for the brazen attack that set fire to his vehicle in New York’s Times Square in 2010.
After the Times Square attack, the TTP was designated a terrorist organization and is still considered a threat to US interests.
And while Islamabad is keen to downplay the threat from the group, Home Affairs Minister Rana Sanaura said Pakistan had “total” control over the dispute with the TTP, and that conversations with the TTP during the ceasefire were “total”. He explained that the talks would take place in a state of war. – Remaining within Pakistani borders, he is in control of the situation under the TTP.
Doubts have been raised about the reach of the TTP, and Islamabad’s perception of the situation is at odds with Mehsud’s.
In April of this year, Pakistani forces attacked targets in Afghanistan, warning that “terrorists are innocently using Afghan soil to carry out their operations inside Pakistan.”
And in late November, a day after the ceasefire broke down, Islamabad again claimed that the TTP was using Afghan territory as a safe haven, sending Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar to Kabul to express its concerns. .
The next day, the TTP claimed responsibility for the attack in the border province of Quetta. There, a suicide bomber targeted a police van supporting a polio vaccination team, killing three and injuring 23.
When CNN pressed Meshud over Islamabad’s claims that he had Afghan support and asked if the support was kept secret, he refused, saying: What’s the point of hiding it? ”
Nonetheless, cross-border Afghan/Pakistan government tensions have escalated, with an exchange between the two armed forces again deadly last week near the Chaman/Spin Boldak border post, a vital commercial link between the two countries. It popped into my head.
Six people were killed and 17 injured. There is no evidence of direct involvement by the TTP, but at least, not yet, the end of the ceasefire is clearly heating up.
The situation is only getting worse, with the TTP this week announcing that three other jihadist groups have joined their ranks along the troubled Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.
The United States has also accused the Taliban of Pakistan of using Afghan territory, and in a statement three days after the ceasefire ended, the State Department designated TTP Defense Secretary Khali Amjad as a “specially designated world nominated as a “terrorist”.
This raises the possibility of the US targeting a TTP commander found operating in Afghanistan, much like the drone strike that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri in Kabul in September. increasing.
“As part of our relentless efforts, the United States has developed a counter-terrorism policy to counter the threat posed by terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan, including al-Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent and the Telik-e-Taliban (TTP) in Pakistan. We are committed to using a complete set of tools to prevent terrorists from using Afghanistan as a platform for international terrorism,” the State Department said in a statement.
Interestingly, the Pakistani Taliban are the only terrorist group in the region to admit to the killing of al-Zawahiri.
However, in an interview with CNN, Mehsud was defiant and said he “didn’t expect America to act like that” towards his group.
“America should stop needlessly interfering in our affairs and making fun of us with Pakistani agitation. This cruel decision shows the failure of American politics,” he said. I was.
However, he also said, “If the United States takes such measures, the United States itself will be responsible for its losses. The United States has not yet understood Pakistan’s dual policy. Pakistan’s history is , proves that Pakistan continues to change course in its own interest.”
Washington, on the other hand, faces confusion. Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto, currently in the United States, said on December 14, when he met with UN Secretary-General António Guterres for the Security Council debate on “Maintaining International Peace and Security,” The TTP was likely on the agenda. Featured in his meeting with senior US government officials in Washington, DC, scheduled for December 19th.
But as the United States has already discovered at its price, there are no easy solutions for Afghanistan.
More than a year after its withdrawal, the humanitarian situation in the country continues to deteriorate, with the Afghan Taliban expelled from former terrorist groups despite the recent easing of restrictions restricting their access to international funding. The changed government continues to fail even with modest international support. Hope for good governance.
The head of the UN human rights department recently accused the Afghan Taliban of “continuing to systematically exclude women and girls from almost all aspects of life” and last week carried out its first public execution since coming to power. rice field.
But if the Taliban in Afghanistan are shown to be backing the TTP, the US faces another troubling prospect.
