Kabul-TTP ties overshadow talks
AFTER Doha a week ago, the venue for talks on Saturday between Islamabad and Kabul shifted to Istanbul in an attempt to find ways to prevent the TTP from using its sanctuaries along the border in Afghanistan to mount terror attacks in Pakistan. A wave of lethal attacks on its security forces in the erstwhile tribal districts along the Durand Line had triggered a response by the Pakistani military in which aerial assets were used to target TTP safe havens on Afghan soil as deep inside as the capital Kabul.
The Afghan Taliban forces had retaliated by firing artillery on Pakistani positions along the border and as Pakistan responded with military muscle, international calls for restraint led to a ceasefire which was cemented in the Doha round between the two sides mediated by Qatar. In Doha, the Afghan Taliban delegation was led by the militant movement founder Mullah Omar’s son, Defence Minister Mullah Mohammed Yaqoob, who is said to be aligned with the Haqqani group led by Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani rather than the hard(er)-line ideologues’ Kandahar group under the supreme leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhunzada.
To a rank outsider like me, some of the speculation of serious internal differences within the Afghan Taliban movement between the Kandahar group and the Haqqanis seems exaggerated as decisions taken by the supreme leader are implemented by all, even if this happens after a bit of to and fro, indicating a process of consultation.
Despite some Taliban leaders’ apparently feigned unease over issues such as the bar on women’s education and consultation which led to the rescinding of the recent decision to ban the internet after realising it would not be in the Afghan Taliban’s interest, the movement seems united. For now, at least, both the Kandahar ideologues and the Haqqani group seem to be on the same page on the TTP.
There can be no stressing enough the ideological affinity the Afghan Taliban feel towards the TTP.
Of course, this poses a huge dilemma for Pakistan’s security agencies which had patronised and harboured ‘Haqqani Network’ leaders and foot soldiers throughout the two decades of the occupation of Afghanistan by the US-led Nato forces, in the hope of cashing in one day. When the US withdrew and its propped-up Afghan government collapsed in a day, leaving the field open for the Taliban to take over the capital and the country (large parts of which they controlled during the US occupation too), Pakistan soon realised there was nothing for it to cash in on.
With the defence and interior ministries firmly in the Haqqani group’s grip, the hope was that the TTP would be put on a tight leash. That did not happen. If anything, the TTP’s terror attacks on Pakistani forces intensified, drawing considerable blood. The resultant escalation eventually led to the Doha ceasefire, which went from temporary to ‘permanent’. The Istanbul round of the consultations will focus on how to ensure the permanence of this cessation of hostilities. The Hangu IED blast that took the lives of three policemen including an SP underlined the difficulties in ensuring the ceasefire lasts.
Dawn’s defence and foreign affairs correspondent Baqir Sajjad Syed in his lead story on Saturday suggests that the Turk mediators are likely to play a role in evolving a verification mechanism for the terms of the ceasefire agreement, given their experience in dealing with their own violent Kurdish rebel group — the PKK.
It is still not clear how much leverage Qatar, Turkiye and Saudi Arabia have with the Afghan Taliban. These are some of the major players who brought both sides to the negotiating table, but can they convince the Afghan Taliban to place restrictions on the TTP, or to, as was suggested at one point, relocate them far from the Pak-Afghan border areas?
Sources familiar with the thinking of the Afghan Taliban do not find credible the speculation that Kabul fears antagonising the TTP because the terror group may join hands with Daesh or IS-K terrorists in Afghanistan and challenge them. On the contrary, they say, that the Afghan Taliban at least privately justify their inaction against, even support to, the TTP, saying the latter supported them and fought alongside them during the long US occupation and, therefore, they would be reluctant to turn their back on their ideological twins from across the Durand Line.
The irony of this state of affairs can’t be stressed enough. Many TTP factions were the creation of the Pakistan’s security establishment, so that, in future, influence could be exercised over the Afghan Taliban to ensure a rock solid Western border with no vulnerabilities. But now, the TTP itself has become that vulnerability, the Achilles heel.
Also, there can be no stressing enough the ideological affinity the Afghan Taliban feel towards the TTP. All our theories of the ‘good vs bad Taliban’ have been shredded in the terror attacks which have claimed the lives of thousands of Pakistanis.
What can the mediators offer the Afghan Taliban to prise them away from their TTP twins? For now, whatever is in the public domain suggests very little. Who knows, recognising the Taliban regime and other forms of political and economic incentives might work. Or for that matter if there is a will at all in the first place to dangle good behaviour prizes before them.
What Pakistan can do in the meantime is to revise and implement the National Action Plan which was approved in 2014 after the Peshawar APS massacre and revised in 2021. This must be done whatever the long-term outcome of the Istanbul talks. Not just this. The state, which injected the body politic with the CIA-developed-supplied ‘extremism virus’ to counter the Red Army in Afghanistan, must ask itself if it has an antidote for that? Like me, I am sure, you’d be eager to learn the answer too.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2025
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