Pakistan and its Taliban Connections

ON THE face of it, prospects for lasting peace in Afghanistan look as bleak as at any time in the 13 years since NATO-led forces ousted the Taliban—only for them to regroup in a long, bloody insurgency. Last year a record 3,700 civilians died in the fighting. As America and other NATO countries pull out their troops, Afghanistan’s own army, less well trained and equipped, is being hammered. It has struggled to find enough recruits to replace those who die or desert. And now the Taliban and other insurgents are preparing for a spring offensive.

Fortunately, this grim picture is not the whole story. The bright spot is the efforts made by Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan’s president since September, to improve his country’s tattered dealings with Pakistan. Closer relations hold out the tantalising possibility of making peace with the Taliban.

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From meddling to making

Peace in Afghanistan is inconceivable without help from Pakistan. Machinations by the Pakistani army’s spy agency in the 1990s helped bring the Taliban to power. The country’s military establishment still backs them and related groups, such as the Haqqani network, which have wreaked havoc in Afghanistan from their bases in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The Taliban’s senior leaders live unmolested in the Pakistani cities of Quetta, Peshawar and Karachi.

Yet whereas his predecessor, Hamid Karzai, went out of his way to taunt Pakistan, not least by flaunting his friendship with India, Mr Ghani is staking his political career on finding ways to work with it (see article). On a visit to Pakistan in November Mr Ghani broke with protocol by calling on the all-powerful army chief, General Raheel Sharif, as well as on the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif (who is no relation). Mr Ghani understands that General Sharif needs help to deal with Pakistan’s own terrorists, its version of a home-grown Taliban: a threat that Pakistani commanders and politicians for too long refused to acknowledge, but which was brought home by a murderous attack on a school in Peshawar in December that killed 132 children. So the Afghan president has sent forces to fight anti-Pakistan militants in their refuges in eastern Afghanistan, an unthinkable course under Mr Karzai. The army claims that it is now reciprocating by making it hard for Afghan militants to train in Pakistan. General Sharif is helping Afghan forces secure the long border. And he appears to be urging Taliban leaders to sit down with Mr Ghani and discuss peace.

There are good reasons for them to do so. Although the Taliban can cause mayhem inside Afghanistan, they struggle to hold territory. Last year’s election saw a clear vote against them and their violence. Plenty within the group have long been keen on a deal; talks were mooted in Qatar in 2013. Some Taliban might settle for more autonomy in the Pushtun heartland in southern Afghanistan, which is their main base of support. Many Afghans resent an overcentralised state.

The goal, in the long run, should be a new constitutional settlement. If he hopes to fix a fractious, multi-ethnic country and lay the foundations for peace and prosperity, Mr Ghani must come round to the idea that power should be devolved. All sorts of other issues will arise, including education for girls, which the Taliban abhor. But that is not for now. The urgent task is to get the two sides round a table. Pakistan is critical in achieving that—and China and America, acting in concert, could help press it into action. Moreover, outside powers, including Iran and India, must also make clear to both sides that they will stand behind a deal and offer plenty of economic assistance if one is done. Mr Ghani’s chance may prove fleeting. He deserves all the help he can get.

Taliban v. ISIS...too much terror, too few people

With the Taliban dominant, ISIS will have trouble making space in Pakistan—though the group is becoming more popular

The brutal methods that the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) has become notorious for were already seen some years ago, first in Afghanistan and later in Pakistan, as the two branches of the Taliban in those countries took root. The Pakistani Taliban, in many ways, are the closest analogue of the terror group now expanding across the Arab world.

Formed in 2007, the Pakistani Taliban seized territory, imposed its own brutal brand of Islamic law, executed opponents — including landowners, politicians, and others they deemed to be guilty of crimes of “vulgarity” and “heresy”. Women from among the famous “dancing girls of Swat” were found dead, their bodies dumped in the central square of Swat’s main town. Preachers of Sufi Islam, a syncretic form of the religion that puts a heavy emphasis on ascetic practices, were brutally killed – their bodies cut apart and hanged publicly.

Beheadings were also a constant feature. When the Pakistani Taliban kidnapped over 100 Pakistani soldiers in South Waziristan in 2007, they severed the heads of many, especially the Shia soldiers. A sword was used to cut across both ways and the head then lifted from the torso. The bodies of journalists were also discovered in some cases, dumped, with bullet holes in their backs.

READ MORE: Inside ISIS, a TIME Special Report

The Taliban, like ISIS, share a sectarian ideology. Those whom they do not deem to be in line with their brutal brand of Islam, they declare to be non-Muslims. Those who aren’t Muslims, they deem to be “worthy of being killed.” This has led to attacks on army officers and religious minorities of various stripes — Shia Muslims, Ahmadi Muslims, Hindus and Christians.

The Taliban work closely with both al-Qaeda and long-established anti-Shiite groups like Sunni extremists Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. There is a lot of slippage between these groups; the boundaries between them are often ill-defined. Also, like ISIS, these groups will turn to kindap and ransom as a means of generating funds. Warren Weinstein, an American academic and development expert in his 70s, is still being held by al-Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas after having been sold up through various groups.

This makes Pakistan both an attractive breeding ground for ISIS, but also one that is so crowded out by entrenched terror groups that they may struggle to break into the market. “It’s an already busy landscape for militant groups,” says Simbal Khan, Pakistan scholar at the Wilson Center in Washington. “There’s no vacuum for a new group.”

That doesn’t mean they are not trying, and in some cases, already finding success. The Pakistani government has issued reports warning that “ISIS” or “Daesh” (as it is known by its Arabic acronym) has collaborated with sectarian militant groups, like Jundallah and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, along the border with Iran. Elsewhere, in November 2014, a series of former Pakistani Taliban militants announced their allegiance to ISIS and al-Baghdadi.

In Pakistan’s second city of Lahore, graffiti has appeared celebrating ISIS. Government officials and analysts say this is a more a feature of ISIS propaganda than any evidence that the group has operational capacity in Pakistan. Still, that same month, a number of ISIS activists were arrested from Lahore — they are thought to have been former members of anti-Shiite organizations that have a foothold in Punjab province, of which Lahore is the capital.

After the Peshawar massacre, where Taliban soldiers slaughtered nearly 150 people at a public school, there appears to be greater clarity among Pakistan’s civilian and military leadership about the need to fight terrorism. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced near the end of 2014 that there would no longer be any distinction made between “good militants” and “bad militants.” The policy of backing militants who attack Afghanistan and India while only fighting those who launched terror attacks at home in Pakistan would be reversed.

While the jury is still out on whether this will become official and lasting policy, the army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif — the most powerful man in Pakistan — has said that he will not allow a group like ISIS to establish a base inside Pakistan. They are watching events in the Arab world with mounting anxiety, but Pakistan and Afghanistan’s focus remains very much local for the moment. “The Pakistani leadership, in civvies and in uniform, are on one page,” says Khawaja Asif, Pakistan’s Defense Minister. “We must fight for our existence, and the existence of all humanity