Pakistan hopes steep cost of airstrikes on Taliban targets will protect against terror attacks | Pakistan
Pakistan’s escalating airstrikes against targets in Afghanistan are aimed at forcing Taliban officials to abandon support for Pakistani militants, officials and experts say.
The strategy is to impose a high enough cost on the Taliban leadership to force them to take action to prevent attacks from Afghanistan. Still, it risks spiraling violence.
An overnight airstrike in Kabul hit a drug rehabilitation center, killing 400 people, Afghan officials said Tuesday. Islamabad described this claim as propaganda and said that the targets were “military and terrorist infrastructure”.
Since the Taliban took over in 2021, terrorist attacks launched from what Islamabad sees as a safe haven in Afghanistan have shaken Pakistan. Pakistan says it has run out of patience with the operation, which launched late last month, dubbing it Ghazab lil-Haq, or “Righteous Wrath.”
A senior Pakistani security official said that Afghanistan should also suffer in an environment where bloodshed is increasing in Pakistan, “Why should they live in peace?” he asked.
The Taliban condemned the airstrikes as a violation of sovereignty and vowed retaliation. There have been hints that the suicide bombers will be released. “They should not think that they can martyrs people in Kabul, destroy the city and undermine its security, while remaining safe in Islamabad,” Taliban defense minister Mohammed Yaqoob, son of the movement’s founder Mullah Omar, said earlier this month.
On Tuesday, Taliban foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi likened the airstrike to Israeli actions in Gaza that were “repeated with complete cruelty by a Muslim neighbour.”
Some of the airstrikes are said to target Taliban leaders. Pakistan may eventually seek more radical options.
In recent years, Islamabad has supported armed opposition in Afghanistan, including the Taliban. But while there is currently no clear group to organize an uprising, experts in Pakistan say this strategy has repeatedly backfired. Islamabad called for a more “inclusive” government in Kabul.
In recent months, Pakistan has implemented other measures, such as closing the border with landlocked Afghanistan to trade and deporting hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees.
Mosharraf Zaidi, spokesman for Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, said that Pakistan has no problems with the Afghan people. He said the airstrikes were based on intelligence and were as accurate as counterterrorism operations anywhere.
“There is only one goal: to protect the people of Pakistan from further terrorist attacks,” Zaidi said. “Under this[Taliban] “The regime’s open and constant protection, nurturing and support for terrorist groups must end.”
Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, formerly Pakistan’s most senior career diplomat, said Islamabad had tried to negotiate with the Taliban bilaterally and with the participation of other countries, including China and Middle Eastern countries, as mediators, but to no avail.
“The Taliban are running the state as a militia rather than a government that cares about its people,” Chaudhry said. “Pakistan’s actions are defensive, not offensive.”
Pakistan’s former special envoy to Afghanistan, Asif Durrani, said that with the withdrawal of foreign forces in 2021, the West washed its hands in Afghanistan and Pakistan was left alone with the consequences.
“Pakistan has endured pain,” Durrani said. “This is a time of reckoning.” Durrani predicted that the Taliban government would not last long due to the emergence of tribal groups or other dissidents at some point in the future.
After the September 11 terrorist attacks, international forces led by the US, who have been in Afghanistan for 20 years, accused Pakistan of harboring the Taliban. Islamabad says Pakistani militants are now in Afghanistan and have been joined by Afghans.
Some analysts have warned that just as international and Afghan troops have failed to defeat the Taliban, a military offensive from Pakistan would not work and would not have a clear way out. Pakistan has always tried to avoid being caught between the threat of hostile Afghanistan to the west and enemy India to the east; a scenario he is currently facing. The current US-Israeli war against Iran is further increasing instability along another of Pakistan’s borders.
Qamar Cheema, managing director of the Sanober Institute, a think tank in Islamabad, said Pakistan’s current military leadership, led by Field Marshal Asim Munir, is different. Munir was described by US president Donald Trump as his “favorite marshal”.
“The military leadership is now of the view that we need to act tough, we need to act strong, we need to be brave and we need to deal with the threat wherever it is,” Cheema said. “Nothing is off the table.”
