By Afshain Afzal

The United States Institute of Peace, in its Special Report No 494 of May 2021 reported on page 4, “Espousing a Deobandi ideology—a revivalist movement originating in India that seeks to purify Islamic practices—the group’s key goals included implementing sharia law, fighting US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and engaging in jihad against the Pakistan Army (especially in Swat District and North Waziristan)." In reality, powerful Western and Indian media linked popular sentiments of the Pakistani nation for the enforcement of Constitutional provisions for the enforcement of “Sharia” with the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaida. Later all individuals and groups favoring Sharia were dubbed as members of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and subsequently, agencies generated splinter groups of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and included all of them in the list of terrorists. The present situation is that the Western, Indian, and Pakistan military authorities blame Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan for terrorist attacks on the Pakistani navy’s largest airbase in 2011; an attack on Karachi’s international airport in 2014; and, also in 2014, a massacre at the Army Public School in Peshawar that killed 150 students and many other terrorist attacks.

In an interview with a Turkish news channel, TRT World, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan Saidthat the government was in talks with some factions of the TTP for peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan and that the Government of Pakistan is willing to forgive the banned groups’ members if they lay down their arms and become normal citizens.” However, the Pakistani Prime Minister said, “we might not reach any conclusion or a settlement in the end but we are talking. The Government statement said, “The North Waziristan faction of the banned Three-e-Taliban Pakistan has announced a three-week-long ceasefire that started on Friday (1 October) and will continue till the 21st of October, 2021”. It cannot be a coincidence that the timing of the meeting of Pakistan’s Prime Minister with Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan’s splinter group on 1 October and the deadly blast that targeted a memorial service and took the lives of five persons near the Kabul mosque on 3 October 2021, as it was aimed to give a coordinated impression. According to a Taliban interior ministry orator, at least five civilians had been executed in an explosion outside the EidGah Mosque in the Afghan capital, Kabul on 3 October 2021.   

In the past, major peace agreements between the Government of Pakistan and Tehreek-e-Taliban included Shakai Agreement in 2004, Sargodha Agreement in 2005, Miranshah Agreement in 2006, Swat Peace Agreement in 2009. All agreements were between TTP and Military except Swat Peace Agreement in 2009, aimed to enforce a   Sharia Nizam-i-Adl Regulation, 2009. Such peace agreement in the past was aimed to eliminate those who concluded these peace agreements due to their involvement in terrorism. If we recall, ironically, despite peace talks, Maulana Sufi Muhammad’s Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) remained banned and since 2001, Sufi Muhammad was jailed upon returning to Pakistan from fighting in Afghanistan. He was released in 2008 to trace his links with militants who were pro-Taliban but again arrested after military operations in Swat and was only released from prison in January 2018 after Peshawar High Court's noted that Maulana Sufi Muhammad was suffering from multiple diseases including hypertension, breathlessness, enlarged prostate, retention of urine and cardiac problems. Hence he was released on bail mainly on medical grounds and due to a delay in the commencement of his trial. Since he was extremely ill so he died on 11 July 2019.

The Pakistani military’s Operation Zarb-e-Azb, begun in 2014, coupled with an indiscriminate US drone campaign killed some TTP members and thousands of locals as collateral damage. This year, Pakistan authorities claim that there is a surge in TTP’s activity which suggests that the group is eager to consolidate its base and reinvigorate its violent campaign. It is being projected that in the first two months of 2021 alone, the group claimed at least thirty-two attacks but there is no ground evidence that these attacks have ever occurred anywhere in Pakistan. The propaganda aims to announce Pakistan as the most dangerous area in the world as TTP's resurgence is being linked with getting influenced by its evolving relationship with other militant organizations in the region, particularly the Afghan Taliban, al-Qaeda, and Islamic State Khorasan (ISK). Last week foreign agents furnished fake information to Pakistan’s security forces regarding the presence of terrorists in the area, upon which they conducted an operation that led to martyrdom Pakistan Army Captain. In another incident, a Frontier Corps (FC) soldier was martyred and another injured after terrorists targeted a check post from across the Iran border. In the recent past, such incidents have in fact increased.

The blame game against the Taliban of Afghanistan and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has gained new heights as the international and local media including organizations like Amnesty International are leaving no stone unturned. In the latest development, those 13 innocent Hazara Afghans killed in Daykundi on 30 August 2021 are claimed to have been killed by the Taliban. The latest report by Amnesty International is one of the several thousand websites propagating anti-Taliban propaganda. One wonders why the United Nations Organization and countries including Turkey and Pakistan are stoping foreign interference and allowing the people of Afghanistan to consolidate their government, irrespective they are Taliban or not. The bottom line is that let Afghans decide their fate.