By Abubakar Siddique
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
November 28, 2023

Pakistan has issued an ultimatum to the Afghan Taliban: Expel the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) extremist group from Afghanistan or face the consequences.

Pakistan’s special representative for Afghanistan, Asif Durrani, repeated the warning on November 11, saying that the Afghan extremist group must “choose Pakistan or the TTP.”

The Afghan Taliban denies sheltering the TTP, with which it has close ideological and organizational ties. The TTP has intensified its deadly insurgency against Pakistan since the Afghan militants seized power in Afghanistan in 2021.

By refusing to rein in the TTP, Pakistan believes the Afghan Taliban has made its choice. Islamabad has sought to strongarm the Afghan militants by expelling hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees from Pakistan, shutting key border crossings, and temporarily blocking Afghan transit goods in recent months.

Experts said the relationship between Pakistan and the Taliban, which have been close allies for decades, has reached a crisis point. They warn that further escalation could have major security and economic ramifications for both countries.

“Pakistan and the Taliban are on a collision course,” said Asfandyar Mir, a senior analyst at the United States Institute of Peace.

“Pakistan’s pressure campaign has the potential to be very painful for the Taliban and the Taliban’s retaliatory measures, like letting the TTP undertake even more attacks, can impose serious costs on Pakistan as well,” Mir added.

Pressure Tactics

The Afghan Taliban has accused Pakistan of using pressure tactics to make the group bow to Islamabad’s demands.

Last month, Islamabad ordered 1.7 million undocumented Afghan refugees and migrants to leave the South Asian country or face arrest and forced deportation after November 1.

Over 400,000 Afghans have returned to their homeland since then, in a move that has further aggravated the devastating humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the world’s largest.

Pakistan said its decision was in direct response to the Taliban’s alleged refusal to expel the TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban.

“After noncooperation by the Afghan interim government, Pakistan has decided to take matters into its own hands, and Pakistan’s recent actions are neither unexpected or surprising,” Pakistani caretaker Prime Minister Anwar ul-Haq Kakar said on November 8.

Kakar claimed that terrorist attacks inside his country have increased by around 60 percent since the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan in August 2021. Since then, he said, some 2,300 Pakistanis have been killed in those attacks.

Pakistan also temporarily blocked the transit of thousands of containers filled with imports bound for Afghanistan that were stranded at Pakistan’s port city of Karachi for months.

To open alternative international trade routes for landlocked Afghanistan, the Taliban has sought access to Iran’s strategic Chabahar Port, located in the country’s southeast.

Pakistan has also sporadically closed the border with Afghanistan, stranding thousands of mostly Afghan civilians and halting hundreds of vehicles carrying goods between the two countries.

Pledge Of Allegiance

Some experts said Pakistan’s tactics are unlikely to change the Afghan Taliban’s calculations.

Sami Yousafzai, a veteran Afghan journalist and commentator who tracks the Taliban, said it was unlikely that the Afghan Taliban would expel the TTP.

In 2001, the Taliban refused to hand over the Al-Qaeda leaders that Washington held responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In response, the United States invaded Afghanistan and ousted the Taliban regime from power.

“Today, the TTP is a much closer ally,” said Yousafzai.

Successive TTP chiefs have sworn allegiance to the Taliban’s spiritual leader. Like the Afghan Taliban, many TTP fighters are from the Pashtun ethnic group. The TTP also hosted and fought alongside the Afghan Taliban during its nearly 19-year insurgency against the Western-backed Afghan government and international troops in Afghanistan.

“The TTP made many sacrifices to enable the Taliban to return to power,” Yousafzai said. “How can the Taliban abandon them now?”

Yousafzai said the Afghan Taliban’s confrontation with Pakistan has also allowed it to shed its image as a Pakistani proxy. Islamabad has been the Afghan Taliban’s key foreign sponsor since the mid-1990s, when the extremist group first emerged.

“The current tensions give the Taliban a golden opportunity to undo those accusations,” he said.

Military Option

Islamabad could resort to military force to compel the Afghan Taliban to change its behavior, according to some experts.

The Afghan Taliban has tried to appease Pakistan. In June, the Afghan Taliban relocated TTP fighters and their families away from the border with Pakistan to other areas of Afghanistan, a move intended to placate Islamabad.

Last year, the Afghan Taliban brokered yearlong peace talks between the TTP and Islamabad that broke down.

Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud, an Islamabad-based director at Khorasan Diary, a website tracking militant groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, said that senior Pakistani officials feel they have exhausted all diplomatic and political options.

“Here, the current mindset is that the TTP can only be contained through force,” he said. “One possible option being considered here now is to begin cross-border strikes on suspected TTP bases and hideouts inside Afghanistan.”

In April 2022, Pakistan carried out unprecedented air strikes in eastern Afghanistan, killing dozens of people. Pakistan said it was targeting the TTP. The air strikes provoked harsh exchanges, with the Taliban issuing threats against Islamabad.

There have been reports of other Pakistani cross-border attacks that have targeted the TTP over the past year. Some of those incidents have led to the TTP launching retaliatory attacks against Pakistani forces, Mehsud said.

Pakistani attacks inside Afghanistan have raised fears of a direct conflict between Islamabad and the Afghan Taliban.

But experts said they expect the sides to reach a compromise that would prevent a worst-case scenario.

Mir of the United States Institute of Peace said that the Afghan Taliban is unlikely to rein in the TTP unless Pakistan offers concessions to the Pakistani militants.

During the failed peace negotiations with Pakistan, the TTP demanded that Islamabad withdraw a large portion of the tens of thousands of Pakistani troops stationed in northwestern Pakistan, the extremist group’s former stronghold.

The TTP’s other demands included the implementation of Islamic Shari’a law in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the reversal of democratic reforms in the same province.

“Pakistan may settle for less than a Taliban crackdown or expulsion of the TTP,” said Mir. “But, at a bare minimum, it will want an end to the TTP violence.”

Copyright (c) 2023. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.