In recent months, the Pakistani Taliban has staged a series of high-profile attacks.
This has raised fears that the group may be re-emerging as one
of the most significant challenges to the country's peace and security.
However, it's also led to important questions about the relationship
between Pakistan and the Taliban regime in neighbouring Afghanistan.
So, what exactly lies behind the growing violence?
And why could it potentially lead to a far more significant conflict between the two countries?
Hello and welcome. If you're new to the channel, my name is James Ker-Lindsay and
here I take an informed look at international relations, conflict, security, and statehood.
Over the past half century, Afghanistan has been a central issue in international relations.
Having been invaded by the Soviet Union in 1979, and then by the United States in 2001,
it's frequently been at the forefront of the news.
But while analysts and observers have long pored over the geopolitical aspects of the issue,
there's one important element that's often seemed oddly confusing and
contradictory to outside observers: the role of neighbouring Pakistan.
Although many credit Pakistan with having created the Taliban,
which is now back in power in Afghanistan,
the wider relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan is both fascinating and complex.
Pakistan and Afghanistan lie in South Asia.
At around 880,000 square kilometres,
or 340 000 square miles, Pakistan is the 33rd largest member of the United Nations.
Meanwhile, lying to its Northwest is Afghanistan.
At 650,000 square kilometres, or 250,000 square miles, it's the 40th largest UN member.
Although relatively similar in size, their populations differ enormously.
In contrast to Afghanistan, which has around 40 million inhabitants, it's believed that
Pakistan's population currently stands at around 230 million - ranking fifth in the world.
While both countries are predominantly Sunni Muslim, ethnically they're extremely diverse.
However, for our purposes, the key group to focus on are the Pashtuns.
Speaking a language related to Iranian, and spread across South Afghanistan
and the West and Northwest Pakistan, they number around 50 million people.
Representing around half of Afghanistan's inhabitants,
they make up 15 of Pakistan's population; making them the second largest group after the Punjabis.
Pakistan and Afghanistan have a long and extraordinary history.
However, our story really begins in the 19th century.
Having Consolidated its position across the Indian subcontinent, including present-day Pakistan,
Britain began pushing northwards into Afghanistan - a growing target for Russian imperial expansion.
Despite failing to take the country, in 1855 Britain and the Emirates of
Afghanistan established friendly relations.
But as Russian influence continued to grow, Britain launched another invasion in 1878.
While this too was beaten back, a new agreement saw Afghanistan now become a British protectorate.
And in 1893 they formally defined their border along the so-called Durand Line,
a boundary that now divided traditional Pashtun lands.
Having terminated the protectorate in 1919, Afghanistan became a fully independent
Kingdom in the 1920s, before becoming a member of the United Nations in 1946.
Meanwhile, in 1947, British rule over India came to an end and the country was partitioned.
While the mainly Hindu areas now became the Republic of India, the Muslim areas in the north
formed the new Dominion of Pakistan, which then became the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in 1956.
From the start, relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan were
strained as Afghanistan questioned the borders of the new Pakistani State.
Arguing that the Durand Line was never meant to be an official boundary,
it called for the Pashtun areas to be handed over to its control.
This would lead to significant tensions.
Aside from being the only country to vote against Pakistan's membership of
the United Nations, Afghanistan now began to support Pashtun separatist movements.
This would in turn see the two countries sever diplomatic
relations for several years in the early 1960s.
These problems continued even after the Afghan King
was deposed and the country became a republic, in 1973.
In December 1979, everything changed.
After a coup by Marxist Military Officers faced growing opposition,
the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.
This would completely transform the relationship.
As a close Western ally, Pakistan now became a vital route for U.S. and international assistance
to the mujahideen - the armed Islamic movement leading the fight against Soviet occupation.
And this would continue even after the USSR finally withdrew from Afghanistan, in 1988.
Rather than ushering a period of stability,
the country descended into civil war as the various mujahideen groups turned on each other.
This provided an opening for a new group to emerge.
Drawing on ethnic Pashtuns educated in Pakistan's religious schools, the Taliban - or Students
- soon came to the attention of Pakistan's powerful military and intelligence establishment.
Seeing an opportunity to gain control over Pakistan's historically troublesome
northern neighbour, they now began to support the new group of fighters.
As a result the Taliban rapidly grew in strength.
Having first emerged in 1994, by September 1996 it had seized the Afghan capital, Kabul.
Once in power, the Taliban introduced an extreme form of Islamic rule.
As well as strictly applying Sharia law, it severely curtailed human and
women's rights, and destroyed much of the country's rich cultural heritage.
At the same time, the Taliban also made Afghanistan a haven for other
militant islamist groups that were waging war against the West.
This all came to a head on the 11 September 2001,
when one of the groups, Al-Qaeda, attacked the United States.
Just weeks later, the US and its NATO partners invaded Afghanistan.
And by the end of the year the Taliban had been forced from power.
But rather than disappear, the group remained an active force in the country - launching
an armed Insurgency against U.S and NATO forces operating in Afghanistan.
Although Pakistan had been one of just three countries
that recognised the Taliban regime - alongside Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates - 911 made continued support for the regime impossible.
But while Islamabad publicly disavowed the Taliban, and joined the so-called "War on
Terror", it nevertheless retained close ties with its former allies;
providing sanctuary for many of the leadership and fighters.
However, in the years that followed,
it came under increasing pressure to be seen to act against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
In 2004, it therefore launched a massive military operation in the Pashtun-dominated
border with Afghanistan - an area then known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
Having been all but off limits to the Pakistani government for decades, the incursion,
which involved around 70,000 troops, led to widespread anger amongst local leaders
and the thousands of Pashtuns who'd fought for the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.
In 2007, following a particularly controversial military raid,
a new group emerged, Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan.
Otherwise known as the TTP, or the Pakistani Taliban,
and drawing on various militant groups, it launched an uprising with the aim
of ending Pakistan's efforts to control the Pashtun tribal areas.
From the start, there were questions about
the exact relationship between the TTP and the Afghan Taliban.
On the one hand, they clearly shared close personal and ethnic ties,
as well as the same broad ideology.
Moreover, TTP Fighters were taking part in attacks against NATO forces in Afghanistan.
However, at the same time, the two groups clearly had very different agendas.
While the TTP wanted to oust Pakistan from the tribal areas,
the Afghan Taliban was focused on forcing NATO from Afghanistan.
To this end, the Afghanistan Taliban needed to maintain its good relations with Pakistan
and the elements within the security services that were providing it with valuable support.
Despite this, in the years that followed, the conflict between Pakistan and the TTP escalated.
This came to a head in 2014 when,
following a major crackdown on the TTP, the group attacked an army-run school,
killing over a hundred 130 children - an act that sparked International revulsion and condemnation.
In the aftermath of the attacks, the TTP threat appeared to decline.
Weakened by the Pakistan Army's ongoing operations, which forced it to relocate to
Eastern Pakistan and Afghanistan, it was also hit by defections to other islamist insurgent groups;
including the Afghan Taliban's arch rival, the Islamic State of Khorasan Province.
Meanwhile, as the United States appeared to be drawing down its presence in Afghanistan,
the relationship between Pakistan and the Afghan
Taliban gained ground - much of the anger of Pakistan's Western Partners.
This was graphically illustrated in January 2018,
when President Trump publicly accused Pakistan of deceit for sheltering terrorists.
Just days later, the U.S announced that it was
withholding at least 900 million dollars of security assistance.
However, Pakistan's bet on the Afghan Taliban and appeared to pay off in February 2020
when the Trump Administration signed a landmark peace deal with the Taliban.
In return for withdrawing U.S troops, the group pledged that
the country wouldn't again become a base for armed anti-western groups.
Just over a year later, in August 2021, the last remaining U.S and NATO forces
staged a hasty retreat as the Taliban swept back into the country's capital, Kabul.
While the Taliban's returned to power was greeted
with horror around the world, Pakistan saw it as a victory.
Although Pakistan joined the rest of the world and refused to recognise the
Taliban as Afghanistan's new government, the Pakistani prime minister nevertheless
made it clear that his country intended to be a link between the Taliban and the wider world.
But Pakistani hopes that it would now become the new power broker were premature.
Moreover, the Taliban's victory in Afghanistan heralded a revival of the TTP,
which stepped up its attacks as the Taliban swept a victory.
Despite Islamabad's hopes that the Taliban would now rein in the TTP,
it showed little willingness to do so.
Instead, Kabul organised talks between the sides.
And although this led to a ceasefire,
this eventually broke down in November 2022 - thus sparking the latest wave of serious attacks.
But what makes things even more significant is that the
border issue now seems to be emerging once again.
This was highlighted in early 2022 when a dispute arose over a new fence.
Responding to the incident, the Afghan information minister explicitly raised
the unresolved status of the Durand Line and the way it had divided the Pashto Nation.
On top of this, there have also been other interesting
signs that things seem to have changed in the Pakistan Taliban relationship.
Aside from the fact that the Taliban regime in Kabul seems to have little
want or need for Pakistan's role as an intermediary on the world stage,
it appears to be going out of its way to push back against Islamabad.
For example, it's been engaging with India,
Pakistan's arch enemy - a relationship that New Delhi seems open to developing.
All this suggests that, having regained control in Afghanistan, the Taliban, or at least important
elements of it, seem happy to push back against Pakistan's efforts to control it.
To this end, its apparent refusal to crack down on the TTP, coupled with its references to the
contested border and a divided Pashtun nation, will no doubt be read with concern in Pakistan.
Having created, or at least nurtured, the Afghan Taliban for its own ends to try to
control Afghanistan, Pakistan may now face the very real possibility that the tide is turning.
And if the Afghan Taliban is now embracing its Pakistani offshoot,
as well as building relations with India, this would of course mark a dramatic
reversal of fortunes in relations between Pakistan and the Taliban.
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