In what seems implicit acknowledgment by Pakistan of the relations between the Afghan Taliban and the Tahreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Pakistan Interior Minister Shiekh Rashid said they expected the Afghan Taliban not to allow TTP militants to carry out attacks in Pakistan. 

Rashid said on Saturday that Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has categorically said that Pakistan would not give any bases to the United States to use against Afghanistan, adding, “…But, we also expect from [Afghan] Taliban that they will not allow TTP [Tehreek-e-Pakistan Taliban] and other elements to carry out any activity which causes harm to the lives and property of Pakistani people.” 

The TTP, commonly known as the Pakistan Taliban, is the most prominent anti-Pakistan militant group, with its stronghold in Pakistan’s Waziristan region. In recent years, the group has stepped up its activities, staging several attacks against Pakistani forces both in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The Saturday public statement, which seems inadvertent, is the first official admission from Pakistan about the cordial ties that the Afghan Taliban and TTP enjoy. Significantly, all these years, Islamabad has put the blame on Afghan intelligence and Indian agencies for aiding and funding the TTP. 

For years, the TTP enjoys close contact with the Haqqani Network--one of the most powerful subgroups of the Afghan Taliban-- and also what is left of al-Qaeda in the region. 

After 2015, when the Pakistan Military launched large-scale military operations against the TTP in the Waziristan region, the group leaders and militants took refuge in Afghanistan what many believe with the grace of the Afghan Taliban. 

Earlier, the report by the UN analytical support and sanction monitoring team had also estimated around 5000-6000 militants of the TTP present in Afghanistan. Afghan officials, too, have repeatedly claimed about the Afghan Taliban giving shelters to foreign militants in Afghanistan. 

For the last two decades, Pakistan has been harboring the Afghan Taliban and even supported it to stage insurgency in Afghanistan to gain strategic influence in Afghanistan. In all these years, the Afghan Taliban developed close ties with extremist and militant groups inside Pakistan.  

Experts have long been warning about what eventually might have come true, with the Afghan Taliban gaining strategic influence in Pakistan through its ties with anti-Pakistan insurgent groups. 

(SAM)