Militants are proxies of choice for uneasy neighbors Pakistan, Afghanistan and India; used by all; denied by all

Militancy in this South Asian region is deeply rooted and worsening, driven by deteriorating relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as the enduring tensions between India and Pakistan. Both Pakistan and Afghanistan have strong and historic ties with militants, which are challenging to dismantle.

Recent peace negotiations aimed at resolving the current conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan have yielded limited progress. A sustainable peace is unlikely to be achieved until the underlying complexities of the region and the dynamics among the neighbors are acknowledged, understood and confronted.

First to understand is that neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan trusts or likes the other, though both have exploited each other. Pakistan has used Afghanistan as some kind of extension of its territory, a strategic depth against hostile neighbor India, often undermining Afghanistan’s sovereignty in the process.

While acknowledging strategic depth may have been a strategy in the past, Pakistan will say today that it is no longer true, but it is. One need only look at Pakistan’s reaction to last month’s visit to India by Afghanistan’s foreign minister and India’s decision to upgrade the Afghan mission in Delhi. Pakistan was not happy, expressed its dissatisfaction and sees it as a threat.

Another important consideration to understand is the strong sense of nationalism held by Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers who returned to power in 2021. Think what you will of their government and their interpretation of Islam and mindboggling restrictions on women and girls — rejected as wrong by all Islamic nations — the Taliban are nationalists, which Afghanistan’s minority ethnic and religious groups would likely interpret as a form of Pashtun nationalism.

While the current Afghan Government denies discriminating against Afghanistan’s other ethnic nationalities, its actions say otherwise. The government, known as the Islamic Emirate, is not inclusive, does not give equal or even fair treatment to its other ethnic and religious groups in the country. Its makeup reflects the Taliban movement, which is Pashtun dominated, with the inclusion of perhaps one or two from other ethnic groups, but their influence is negligible.

The Taliban, like previous Afghan governments before them, refuse to recognize the border, known as the Durand Line, drawn by the departing British in 1893 after losing a second Afghan war. Afghanistan rejects the line, instead claiming as its own a huge chunk of Pakistan’s northwest where ethnic Pashtuns dominate.

This border region has been the focal point of conflict between the Afghan Emirate government and Pakistan, with periodic airstrikes conducted by Pakistan deep inside Afghanistan. Pakistan asserts that these operations are carried out under its right to pursue anti-Pakistan militants regardless of their location.

While international law should and does protect sovereignty, those laws have become irrelevant as both Israel and the United States routinely attack wherever and whenever they like, arguing their right to go after their enemies wherever they may be. They also have shunned any suggestion of providing proof that those they are killing are terrorists and have treated sovereign borders as meaningless.

Pakistan’s actions can be attributed to this newly established international lawlessness.

History also shows that the Taliban do not respond to demands, as seen during their first rule when the Taliban founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar, repeatedly refused Pakistan’s requests to surrender Pakistani militants hiding in Afghanistan.

Omar also denied Saudi Arabia’s 1998 request to hand over bin Laden, even as Riyadh threatened to remove its support. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were two of only three countries to recognize the Taliban’s first government. The United Arab Emirates was the third.

Still Pakistan does not treat Afghanistan as an equal; instead, it views itself as the dominant force dictating the terms of a troubled relationship. These opposing mindsets remain fundamentally incompatible and continue to stand as a major obstacle to any lasting peace agreement.

While Pakistan has been criticized for its disregard for Afghanistan’s sovereignty, Afghanistan also bears scrutiny, having used Pakistan as a safe haven for more than 5 million of its citizens fleeing the 1980s Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. More than 2 million still live in Pakistan, many of whom have remained in Pakistan for more than 40 years.

For decades Pakistan has been host to one of the world’s largest refugee populations, receiving little, to no international support. Pakistan is relentlessly criticized by the international community when it seeks to reduce their numbers, even as countries such as the United States have snatched children from the arms of migrants seeking refuge in America as a means to stop the influx of refugees to the United States.

The double standard is not lost on Pakistan.

Today in Pakistan most Pakistanis feel their hospitality has been betrayed by Afghans, who almost to a person, feel animosity toward Pakistan, while in turn Pakistan blames most of its militant problems on Afghanistan.

Pakistan has used allegations of widespread infiltration of militants as reason to order hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees to leave Pakistan and return to their homeland, many of whom were born in Pakistan and have never been to Afghanistan.

Still the “militant problem” is real, and it is a burden both countries share and both have contributed toward.

During the 1980s Afghan war against the former Soviet Union, Afghan fighters and pretty much any other young man in the Islamic world, willing to pick up a gun to fight in Afghanistan against the Soviets, were cheered, trained and financed by Pakistan and the United States.

It was then that Pakistan and the United States together laid the foundations of the Islamic militancy that burdens the world today by using religious fervor as the inspiration to propel Afghans fight against the “godless communists” as US President Ronald Reagan referred to the Soviet Union at the time.

Since then Pakistan’s security agencies have nurtured some of those same militants, while also creating new ones. The same is true of successive post-Soviet Afghan governments, all of which comprised former mujahedeen or holy warriors as they were known then. To Ronald Reagan they were freedom fighters.

When the first mujahedeen government took power in 1992 dominated by the famed anti-Taliban hero, Ahmed Shah Masood, also a leading anti-Soviet fighter, his closest ally, Abdur Rasool Sayyaf, had deep links to the Arab speaking militants, including Osama bin Laden and he protected and nurtured those ties throughout Masood’s rule. Terrorist training camps flourished throughout eastern Afghanistan some protected by Sayyaf, some by other members and allies of Masood’s government, which was headed by Burhanuddin Rabbani.

It was during Masood and Sayyaf’s time in power and BEFORE the Taliban’s first rule that bin Laden returned to Afghanistan to eventually plot the 9/11 attacks against the United States.

The 1980s Soviet invasion of Afghanistan might seem a long time ago, but many of the players are still around, have deep links to the many militant groups and have the potential to still be troublesome.

Sayyaf is still a player and was even embraced by the United States in 2001 when the US-led invasion threw out the Taliban. The Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani, which fell to the returning Taliban in 2021, embraced warlord and former mujahedeen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, signing a peace deal with him in 2019.

Like Sayyaf, Hekmatyar too had close ties to militants and was a particularly brutal mujahedeen leader. Today he is in Kabul and still has close ties to some in Pakistan’s security agency.

Several of today’s Taliban leaders including its supreme leader, Mullah Hibaitullah Akhunzada also fought in that 1980s anti-Soviet war.

That war and the militants it spawned remains a deadly legacy today.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have yet to exhibit both the capacity and willingness to fully eliminate their associations with militant groups. Additionally, there are instances where such groups have reportedly been leveraged by neighboring India in actions directed against Pakistan.

The anti-Pakistan militants, now in Afghanistan, and known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), fought alongside the Taliban in their 20-year battle against the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. Not all of today’s Afghan leaders have ties with the TTP, but some do, as do many of the foot soldiers.

It must be understood that Afghans don’t easily give up their former allies, Bin Laden being a prime example.

Add to the complexity of the problem is the fact that Pakistan’s own intelligence agency, known by the acronym, ISI, also had past affiliation with some within the TTP using those they saw as “good” Taliban as proxies and fighting those they saw as “bad” Taliban. Although certain ties have been definitively severed, others remain uncertain or unresolved.

But the TTP is but one of many militant groups operating in the region.

Today in Pakistan and Afghanistan there is a cacophony of militant groups and each country in the region uses one or more against the other __ Pakistan uses militants against India, India against Pakistan and Afghanistan against Pakistan. None of the three neighbors is without blame and each of the three countries uses militants as proxies against the other.

Since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, Pakistan has borne the brunt of escalating militant violence, suffering thousands of casualties among both military personnel and civilians.

The broader region has also felt the impact of the militant havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In Afghanistan, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) primarily targets China, while the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) presents a security concern for Russia and the Central Asian republics.

The Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP), based in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, is a recognized affiliate of the Islamic State and represents a significant international threat. Investigations have linked several unsuccessful attacks in Europe to ISKP, and the group also continues to pose risks within Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The use of militant proxies has been a persistent feature in this region. Accurately identifying shifting alliances, underlying interests, and the nations supporting these militants is increasingly critical. This necessity is heightened by the risk that intensified military operations could exacerbate instability in an area already challenged by nuclear armament.

Kathy Gannon has lived and worked for nearly 40 years in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Middle East and Central Asia. This piece first appeared here on Substack.