The TTP and the Pakistan-Afghanistan Conundrum

(Staff Reporter) Late in the night on December 24, 2024, Pakistani jets targeted locations in the Barmal district of the bordering Paktika province of Afghanistan. Authorities in Pakistan believed the targets were hideouts of terrorists affiliated with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a group responsible for most of the terrorist attacks in Pakistan. While Pakistani officials asserted that the airstrikes had resulted in the death of 71 terrorists, the Taliban government of Afghanistan claimed that 46 people, mostly women and children, were killed. The veracity of the divergent claims regarding the victims is yet to be ascertained, but the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) backed the Taliban government’s assertion of civilian casualties, including women and children. However, the Taliban’s Information Minister Khairullah Khairkhwa also hailed his government’s support for the TTP “guests” in a rare official admission of the group’s presence on Afghan soil. The strikes did not sit well with the Taliban government of Afghanistan, which lodged a strong protest with Pakistani diplomats. That was followed by border clashes between Pakistani and Afghan security forces on December 28. Even though the situation at the border subsequently de-escalated, tensions persisted as the TTP continues to conduct terrorist attacks in Pakistan.
Pakistan’s airstrikes inside Afghanistan are usually sparked by a high-profile terrorist attack targeting security forces personnel in Pakistan. For instance, the December airstrikes came days after a TTP terrorist attack resulting in the death of 16 security forces personnel in the restive South Waziristan district on the border with Afghanistan. Pakistan had conducted similar airstrikes in March last year as well after terrorists struck a paramilitary camp in the North Waziristan district, killing seven personnel including two senior-level officers. That episode also followed the same pattern of the Taliban government’s demarches, border skirmishes, and subsequent de-escalation. Whether the March 2024 airstrikes resulted in the deaths of its purported targets or not, the TTP launched one of its deadliest high-profile terrorist attacks against foreigners, resulting in the death of five Chinese engineers, within days following those strikes. The fallout of the December airstrikes in terms of subsequent high-profile terrorist attacks is yet to emerge. Even so, given the outcome of the March 2024 strikes – an increase in terrorist attacks in Pakistan – it’s hard to imagine that such airstrikes will serve the desired goal of ending the rising level of violence and lawlessness in the areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan. Despite the lack of success of cross-border kinetic operations in terms of reducing terrorism in Pakistan, Islamabad has been shying away from talks with the TTP. Policymakers in Pakistan are now openly critical of the Afghan Taliban-mediated talks between the TTP and Pakistani interlocutors in May 2022. Pakistani military’s spokesperson as well as Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar separately voiced disapproval of the 2022 dialogue with the TTP recently. Quite ironically, the latest airstrikes came at a time when a Pakistani delegation, led by recently reappointed Special Representative for Afghanistan Ambassador Mohammad Sadiq, was in Kabul. At the time of the strikes, the delegation had already held meetings with the Taliban’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, and Minister for Industry and Commerce Noorullah Azizi. The delegation even went on to have its scheduled meeting with the Taliban’s Deputy Prime Minister for Political Affairs Maulvi Abdul Kabir the very next day. Nevertheless, the airstrikes shut the diplomatic window that had opened after a hiatus of 15 months, narrowing the prospects of any negotiations with the Taliban government of Afghanistan on the TTP or any other subject. Absent the kinetic action, the delegation’s visit could have set the ball rolling for continued high-level engagements to resolve the differences between the two neighboring states.
Conducting negotiations with any adversary cannot be termed as a wasteful exercise in itself. The fault usually lies in the way the negotiations are conducted. Islamabad’s checkered history with conducting negotiations with terrorist groups indicates that Pakistan has not had much success with it. This means that the only option left with Pakistan for now is to continue with the operations of its security forces against the TTP inside the country to address this increasingly complicated challenge.
Such an approach, however, comes at a heavy cost.