“Pakistan Gave Birth To Taliban To Counter India”: Former Afghan Envoy

Pakistan had birthed Taliban in an attempt to counter India, a former Afghan envoy has said citing former Pakistan president General Pervez Musharraf.

Mahmoud Saikal, former Deputy Foreign Minister of Afghanistan and Ambassador to the UN and Australia on Saturday tweeted, “According to @P_Musharraf, Pakistan gave birth to the Taliban to counter Indian action against it. @ImranKhanPTI believes the Taliban have broken the shackles of slavery. @SMQureshiPTI & @YusufMoeed are currently busy lobbying the world to engage with the Taliban.”

Mr Saikal also referred to a paper titled “The Sun in the sky: The relationship between Pakistan’s ISI and Afghan insurgents by Matt Waldman Carr Center for Human Rights Policy Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

“Only a policy of pressure/sanction and condition-based rapprochement with Pakistan can bring real positive change in Afghanistan and maintain international peace and security,” the former Afghan envoy said in a subsequent tweet.

Mr Saikal also said that a fresh UN report establishes the symbiotic ties between ISIL-K, Taliban and the al-Qaeda.

The UN in its latest 12th report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team said that a significant part of the leadership of Al-Qaeda resides in the Afghanistan and Pakistan border region, alongside Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent. Large numbers of Al-Qaeda fighters and other foreign extremist elements aligned with the Taliban are located in various parts of Afghanistan.

The group’s leader, Aiman Muhammed Rabi al-Zawahiri, is believed to be located somewhere in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Previous reports of his death due to ill health have not been confirmed, the report stated.

Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) operates under the Taliban umbrella from Kandahar, Helmand (notably Baramcha) and Nimruz Provinces. The group reportedly consists primarily Afghan and Pakistani nationals, but also individuals from Bangladesh, India and Myanmar. Its current leader is Osama Mahmood, who succeeded the late Asim Umar.

The group is reported to be such an “organic” or essential part of the insurgency that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to separate it from its Taliban allies.

Several member states characterised this relationship by noting that the wife of the former leader of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent leader Asim Umar was among 5,000 Taliban prisoners freed by the Afghan Government in 2020 as part of the Doha agreement, the report added.