Cornered Kabul may resort to escalating violence
Interim Prime Minister of Pakistan Anwar ul-Haq Kakar made a sharp criticism of the ruling regime of the Taliban movement (banned in the Russian Federation) in Afghanistan on November 8. Kakar announced that the Taliban leadership supports the anti-government subversive activities of the terrorist group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, banned in the Russian Federation), and this contributes to a significant increase in the level of violence in Pakistan. According to Anwar ul-Haq Kakar, the TTP terrorist attacks have led to the deaths of 2,867 Pakistanis since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021.
Over the past two years, Islamabad has been cautious about characterizing the ties between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, despite evidence of support for the TTP by the Taliban through the provision of shelters and other forms of material assistance. But this time, Kakar said that "in several cases" there was "clear evidence of Taliban encouragement of terrorism by the TTP." A few days after Kakar's speech, Pakistan's Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Asif Durrani, continued his attacks on the Taliban, noting that "peace in Afghanistan has actually become a nightmare for Pakistan."
Although Anwar ul-Haq Kakar is the "interim" Prime Minister of Pakistan until the country holds general elections (postponed to early next year), he is believed to be close to the military establishment. Shortly before his statement, the Pakistani authorities made a controversial decision to expel 1.7 million Afghan refugees without legitimate documents from the country. By mid-November, more than 327,000 refugees had already been forced to return to Afghanistan due to the announcement of the expulsion decision. Kakar's statement was also preceded by serious attacks from the TTP, including an attempt to seize land in the border area in northern Pakistan.
The timeliness of these statements is important. Their character illustrates not only the position of Kakar himself as the interim leader of the country, but also the rhetoric chosen by the military circles of Pakistan, which consists in increasing pressure on the Taliban if the leadership of the movement does not reconsider relations with the TTP. Increasing pressure from Islamabad is setting relations between Pakistan and the Taliban on a path of long-term deterioration.
THE POSITION OF THE TALIBAN AND KABUL
The leadership of the Afghan Taliban continues to deny its involvement in the extremist activities of the TTP, calling it exclusively a problem of Islamabad. Instead of responding to the statements of the leaders of the neighboring country, the Taliban movement focused on the decision of the Pakistani authorities to expel Afghan refugees from the country. The reaction ranged from a restrained statement by the supreme leader of the Taliban, Haibatullah Akhundzadeh, expressing concern about the treatment of Afghan refugees, to the Prime Minister of the Taliban, Hassan Akhund, openly rebuking the government of Pakistan and the military establishment of the neighboring country for taking excessively radical measures.
Taliban Defense Minister Mohammad Yaqub warned Pakistan that it should be mindful of the consequences of its decisions and that Pakistan will reap what it sows. And more importantly, the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Taliban government, Sirajuddin Haqqani (it is believed that the Haqqani Network, which he heads, is banned in the Russian Federation, has links with the Interdepartmental Intelligence of Pakistan) also condemned Islamabad's decision, qualifying it as "un-Islamic".
The statements of the Taliban leaders partly reflect the depth of anger that Afghans themselves feel about the mass deportation of refugees by Pakistan. The Taliban are disappointed by the growing pressure from Islamabad, its unwillingness to negotiate and make concessions in relations with the TPP – especially after the breakdown of negotiations mediated by the Taliban between the TTP and the Pakistani government at the end of 2022.
The rapprochement of the leaders representing various factions within the Taliban on the issue of refugees demonstrates an important aspect of the movement's internal policy, indicating that hardliners and moderates can still be on the same wavelength when it comes to Pakistan.
ISLAMABAD'S RESPONSE
A number of signs indicate that Pakistan is ready to continue and increase economic pressure to force the Taliban to reconsider its support for the TPP. Islamabad's economic leverage, in particular, is used by the fact that Afghanistan has no access to the sea, so Pakistan is its main artery of transit trade and its main export market (more than 50% of Afghan exports go through Pakistan).
Border crossings with Pakistan generate more than 40% of Afghanistan's customs revenue, which makes up a fair portion of the total revenue of the Taliban government. Meanwhile, Pakistan has already tightened transit trade rules, imposed strict bank guarantee requirements for Afghan merchants when importing, expanded the list of goods that Afghanistan cannot import through Pakistan, and imposed a 10 percent duty (called a "processing fee") on selected goods imported by Afghanistan. According to the Afghan Taliban, Islamabad has also slowed down the movement of containers heading to Afghanistan from Pakistani ports.
It is important to understand that these measures will have a certain negative impact on the economy of Pakistan itself, although it is much less dependent on trade relations with Afghanistan. At one point, Pakistan imported large volumes of Afghan coal. But as global coal prices have fallen, Pakistan's imports from Afghanistan have declined.: other attractive sources have appeared.
In general, it is reasonable to expect that the measures taken by Islamabad will put much more significant pressure on the isolated Taliban regime, significantly reducing its revenues and trade volumes. At the same time, Pakistan retains other instruments of pressure, such as the closure or suspension of border crossings, aimed at further reducing the Taliban's income and causing even greater damage to the Afghan economy.
POSSIBLE MILITARY INTERVENTION BY ISLAMABAD
If economic pressure from Pakistan fails, the next step in the escalation of relations between Islamabad and the Taliban, as recently hinted by the Pakistani military, may be a cross-border military operation involving strikes against the leadership and camps of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan in Afghanistan. However, the result of such a forceful action is unpredictable.
Pakistan's military actions could strengthen support for the TPP in Afghanistan, as well as provoke retaliatory violence. At the same time, it is quite possible that Islamabad's cross–border attacks will force the Taliban to reconsider its position - at least tactically. Moreover, such a precedent has already taken place. In April 2022, Pakistan launched airstrikes in the eastern regions of Afghanistan, and shortly after that, the TTP, most likely at the insistence of the Taliban, agreed to a cease-fire.
A more controversial scenario is Islamabad's support for groups opposed to the Taliban's rule. In this case, it is unclear whether Pakistan will be able to work with a fragmented opposition dominated by the political and military leaders of the former Republic of Afghanistan. Historically, they have had poor relations with Islamabad, partly due to Pakistan's support for the Taliban during their first regime (1996-2001). Pakistan is also trying to establish ties with non-Pashtun political leaders, who are a key part of the Taliban opposition.
KABUL'S POLITICAL TOOLS
The Taliban may resort to several solutions to the current problem in order to ease pressure from Pakistan and at the same time provide political space for the TPP.
First, the Taliban may try to establish ties with its neighbors in Central Asia and Iran in order to overcome the economic difficulties provoked by Pakistan. For example, access to the port infrastructure of neighboring Iran will help Afghanistan minimize losses from restricting transit trade with Pakistan. However, it is unclear whether this will be a full-fledged replacement.
The Taliban may also try to establish "feedback" with representatives of the Pakistani authorities. In the past, at times of tension with Islamabad, the Taliban relied on Pakistani officials in solidarity with their regime to reduce the degree of tension. It is quite possible that some Taliban leaders will turn to them for support again.
There are also several international players to whom the Taliban can turn for help in de-escalating the conflict. Qatar is one of the States most accessible to the Taliban as an intermediary. However, it is unclear whether the Qatari government, currently engrossed in the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, has enough capacity and interest to resolve tensions between Pakistan and the Taliban.
Hypothetically, China can also act as an intermediary. However, the Chinese authorities have legitimate security concerns of their own regarding terrorist groups based in Afghanistan, so Beijing may share Islamabad's views on the threat to regional security.
Another (less realistic) scenario for the Taliban is to achieve a warming in relations with the Western world in general and with the United States in particular, seeking to establish bilateral trade and economic ties, as well as receive multilateral assistance. The Taliban may also resort to a provocative scheme, expanding cooperation with Pakistan's main enemy, India, and offering New Delhi greater diplomatic access to the country in exchange for economic assistance.
KABUL'S MILITARY TOOLS
The most obvious option, which, according to the Taliban leadership, will give it sufficient leverage, is extremist violence against Pakistan – a variant of the military strategy, sometimes called "escalation for de-escalation."
The leadership of the Taliban movement may resort to this measure against the background of the ongoing economic downturn and internal political turmoil in Pakistan. To this end, the Taliban will ease restrictions on the actions of anti-Pakistani paramilitary groups. If this happens, the TPP will become a key ally of the Taliban, either directly or through the Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan organization that exists to cover it.
The Taliban may also turn to other extremist groups that have had experience in conducting subversive activities against the government of Pakistan, such as Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (banned in the Russian Federation) or the faction of Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Lashkar-e-Islam.
It is known that the Taliban also provides shelter to separatist rebels from the Pakistani province of Balochistan, which hypothetically gives the movement leverage over regions of Pakistan of economic interest to China.
However, the escalation of violence may not lead to the changes that the Taliban want to see in Islamabad's politics. Since there is no domestic political electorate in Pakistan calling for negotiations with the TTP, it is unlikely that new attacks, even if they entail casualties and additional economic costs, will put pressure on the country's military leadership and encourage it to negotiate with TTP extremists. On the contrary, it may push Pakistan to increase pressure on the Taliban.
Larisa Shashok
Larisa Alexandrovna Shashok is an expert at the HSE Institute for Advanced Strategic Studies.
