Afghan Nemesis

For years, Pakistan imagined itself as the grand chessmaster of South Asia in managing militants, manipulating neighbours and moulding Afghanistan into a pliant satellite. No longer. As Pakistani jets struck Kabul, prompting a lethal Afghani retaliation in which several Pakistani soldiers are believed to have been killed, Pakistan’s decades-long gamble on jihad and manipulation collapsed, leaving it bloodied and at war with its own creation.

Earlier strikes last week, aimed at the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), had coincided with the Afghan Taliban’s foreign minister visiting New Delhi. They revealed the full collapse of Pakistan’s long-cherished Afghan policy.

The airstrikes were intended to assassinate Noor Wali Mehsud, the TTP’s shadowy leader and Islamabad’s sworn enemy. Mehsud, who branded Pakistan’s post-9/11 alliance with America an act of apostasy, has masterminded an unrelenting campaign of terror. His group’s ambush earlier this month that killed 11 Pakistani soldiers was merely the latest in a string of bloody attacks.

Pakistan’s generals, accustomed to controlling events from the shadows, now face a Frankenstein’s monster. The Afghan Taliban, once regarded as ideological protégés, accuse Islamabad of violating their sovereignty and colluding with the Islamic State Khorasan Province, a shared enemy. Today, Islamabad’s edifice of militant patronage is collapsing.

Since the 1980s, Pakistan’s military establishment has cultivated jihad as an instrument of policy. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) trained the mujahideen to fight the Soviets, midwifed the Taliban’s rise in the 1990s, and later provided safe haven to al-Qaeda fugitives. It armed and abetted outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed to bleed India in Kashmir, convinced it could harness extremism as a controllable tool. Today, the state became hostage to the very networks it created.

The Taliban’s victory in 2021 seemed to vindicate Pakistan’s long game. American troops departed in humiliation, and Islamabad congratulated itself on the return of ‘friendly’ rulers in Kabul. The euphoria soon curdled. The Taliban refused to act as pliant proxies, ignored demands to curb the TTP, and began to assert Afghanistan’s independence in rhetoric and diplomacy. Their outreach to India, which is the bete noire of Pakistan’s strategic imagination, was the final straw. Muttaqi’s visit to New Delhi last week, and his meeting with Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar, underscored a geopolitical realignment that leaves Pakistan on the margins.

Afghanistan’s rulers are no longer beholden to Rawalpindi. Their pragmatic courtship of India and refusal to crack down on anti-Pakistan militants have shattered Islamabad’s illusion of control. Pakistan, once the puppeteer, has become the pawn. The airstrikes over Kabul betray not confidence but impotence and a desperate attempt to reassert dominance long since lost.

The irony is as brutal as it is deserved. For decades, Pakistan’s generals believed they could manipulate jihadists, dominate Afghanistan and outmanoeuvre India. Instead, they have conjured a nemesis that now strikes from both sides of the border. The empire of deceit they built in the name of ‘strategic depth’ is imploding. No amount of bluster or bombing will save it.