Taliban Links Fuel Afghan-Pakistan Tensions

AlArabiya English

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00:00Let's talk then a bit about the hostilities between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

00:05I mean, the two countries share a long border.

00:08It's 2,600 kilometers in length.

00:11Just tell us, what is the situation as far as you understand it right now on that border?

00:16You see, that's the irony.

00:17The irony is that in Afghanistan and Pakistan, ever since the creation of Pakistan,

00:21we had some differences, particularly around this borderline.

00:26And also, you know, in terms of the sort of the colonial legacy,

00:32which was left in many places in the Middle East and South Asia.

00:37But this recent episode is ironic because the Taliban were basically brought

00:42in the Pakistani madrassas and seminaries.

00:46They were trained, they were supported.

00:48And in the past 20 years, they're fighting against, you know,

00:51the legitimate government of Afghanistan, democratic government of Afghanistan,

00:55but also international coalition, you know, UN and everybody else.

00:59The Taliban were supported.

01:00And there was some sort of an understanding within some groups in Pakistan,

01:05particularly in the military and some of the extremist groups that, you know,

01:10a government in which there is Taliban strongly presented or a government by Taliban

01:15will be, you know, one of the best policy options for them.

01:20But the way it's turning out is that since the Taliban themselves were, you know,

01:26an amalgamation of a different terrorist groups,

01:30because in their first instinct in Afghanistan, stint in 1996 to 2001,

01:36they actually gave base to al-Qaeda.

01:38You know, we know that, you know, bin Laden was there, al-Zawahiri was killed.

01:43And then most of these international terrorist groups,

01:46they find refuge among the Taliban.

01:49And when they were also the NATO and international coalition was fighting against them.

01:53So these groups have allegiances with what the Taliban,

01:56including regional ones like Islamic movement of Uzbekistan, the Ansarullah,

02:02but the major and the Chinese ETIM, al-Qaeda, different groups of al-Qaeda.

02:09But the major link was between the Taliban of Pakistan, TTP,

02:13and this Taliban, because they are kind of, you know, friends and cousins to some extent.

02:19So the idea for Pakistan was that once the Taliban come into power,

02:24and they will also dash Indians' prisons in Afghanistan,

02:28what we can do is we can, you know, get rid of this group,

02:32both the Baluch group, which threatened Pakistan,

02:35but also the TTP, which is mostly Pashtun Taliban.

02:40But that didn't happen.

02:42And instead of that, the level of hostilities, the level of attacks,

02:46the casualties of the Pakistani army increased almost two to 250-fold.

02:52It means that, you know, during the NATO, during the previous government,

02:55it was much lower than what it is right now.

02:58When this was not what Pakistan expected it.

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