Pak PM’s DG ISI returns to Kabul, wants Taliban to get minority reps on board

For the record Prime Minister Imran Khan says that Pakistan neither controls the Taliban government in Afghanistan nor is Islamabad spokesperson of the Sunni Pashtun Islamist force.

That being said, today, Pakistan Foreign Minister Makdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi landed in Kabul along with Lt General Faiz Hameed, who is still functioning as DG, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and were received by Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.

According to Kabul watchers, Hameed, who is at the centre of a fight between PM Khan and Army Chief Gen Qamar Jawed Bajwa, had recently visited Tajikistan to win support for the Taliban terrorist regime. Despite Gen Bajwa transferring Hameed as XI Corps Commander at Peshawar on October 6 and replacing him with Karachi Corps Commander Lt Gen Nadeem Ahmed Anjum, Gen Hameed is staying put in Rawalpindi under the protection of Imran Khan. Gen Hameed was publicly seen at Serena Hotel in Kabul on September 6 as he brokered the Taliban government formation.

It is understood that Qureshi and Hameed landed up in Kabul today to convince the hardline Sunni regime to make their government open to more minority representation particularly women so that the international community gets a face-saver to recognize the rabid Islamist regime. To date, even China, Russia, Qatar, Turkey, the closest supporters of the Taliban regime apart from controller Pakistan, have not recognized the Sunni Islamist government in Kabul. The democratic world has made it clear that the Taliban must fulfil conditions stipulated in UNSC resolution 2593 as the first step towards recognition.

While Pakistan is using its good offices with other countries to secure recognition for the government in Kabul, there is infighting within the Taliban government with Defence Minister Mullah Yaqoob on one side and Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, head of eponymous terror network, his chief rival. Such is the level of mistrust among the Taliban leaders that Deputy PM and Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Gani Baradar has refused to take personal security from the Interior Ministry and has decided to keep his own trusted people to guard him.

It has been two months since the Taliban militarily occupied Kabul but there is no sign of any governance in the ventilator state with rival factions imposing their diktat through guns. Recently, when the Taliban government issued order allowing women to work at the Culture ministry, they were stopped by the guards saying that this was against the Islamic tenets and threatened to use force on women who just wanted to work.