Pakistan's envoy to the United Nations has told Newsweek that, unless the economic situation improves in Afghanistan, the ruling Taliban may begin to lose members to the even more violent, hardline Islamic State militant group, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
Speaking to Newsweek at the United Nations Headquarters on Thursday, Pakistani permanent representative to the U.N. Munir Akram told Newsweek that he and his government were "concerned" with the upward tick in militancy plaguing the region within and near the nation's borders.
Specifically, he named the threat posed by insurgent outfits such as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Baloch separatist movements like the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), both of which have increasingly targeted Pakistani personnel and civilians, but also the regional ISIS Khorasan branch, called ISIS-K or ISIL-K. Akram asserted that sometimes these groups worked together against Pakistan's interests.
"We have to deal with this," Akram said, "and we are determined to deal with this internally."
And while he said, "we've dealt with this in the past," he warned that new challenges have emerged in trying to influence the Taliban-led government of neighboring Afghanistan that taking on all of these groups was in its immediate interest.
"Now we have we have a situation in Afghanistan where the Taliban need to be convinced to deal with all of the terrorist movements not only ISIL-K, which they are fighting, but others," Akram said. "We understand the situation, but we have to find an effective strategy of dealing with it."
In addition to TTP and BLA, he said that other groups such as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) comprised of Islamists of Uyghur descent, and Islamist Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) comprised of Islamists of Uzbek descent also needed to be combatted. But he said such efforts on the part of the Taliban would be difficult to achieve as long as the government found short on income.
"It's obvious that ISIL-K is becoming stronger and they're getting money from outside," Akram said. "If the Taliban do not have enough money, they may lose some of their factions to ISIL-K, so it's a very disturbing situation."
Since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban nearly a year and a half ago, Newsweek has reported on the ties between ISIS-K and regional militant organizations, as well as the threat of defection posed by the jihadi group to the Taliban itself.
The Taliban has largely downplayed security issues in Afghanistan, though they remain locked in conflict with ISIS-K as the group continued to wage deadly attacks throughout the country. In the most recent strike, ISIS-K claimed a suicide bombing by operative "Khyber al-Kandahari"—indicating a potential connection to the longtime Taliban stronghold of Kandahar—that killed at least 10 people near the Afghan Foreign Ministry in the heart of the capital Kabul on Wednesday.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari spoke with his Taliban counterpart, Amir Khan Muttaqi, who serves as interim foreign minister of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, on Thursday, offering his condolences over the attack. Muttaqi thanked Bhutto Zardari for his sentiments, adding that "the enemies want to disrupt security, but our government and nation will resist them firmly," according to the Afghan Islamic Emirate Foreign Ministry.
Newsweek spoke last month with Bhutto Zardari in an exclusive interview in which the top Pakistani diplomat argued that the Taliban "has to be" part of the international fight against militant groups in the region.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price also offered his condolences to those affected by the Kabul attack on behalf of the United States during a press briefing Thursday but included harsh words for the Taliban as President Joe Biden's administration continued to press the ruling organization on human rights concerns.
"Our approach is well known," Price said. "We have made no secret of the fact that the Taliban's actions are inconsistent and at odds with what they have pledged to the international community, but more importantly what they have committed to the Afghan people."
He said the administration was "going to continue to condemn the actions that they take that are inconsistent with the rights, with the liberties, with the freedoms, with the opportunities that should belong to the people of Afghanistan."
U.S. objections to the Taliban's governance of Afghanistan have led to continued sanctions against the Islamic Emirate, and the freezing of up to $7 billion in assets owned by Da Afghanistan Bank, the county's central state financial institution. Washington has sought to divide the funds by allotting up to half to victims of the 9/11 attacks orchestrated by the then-Afghanistan-based Al-Qaeda militant group in 2001 and has rejected appeals by the Taliban to release the money to address the country's ongoing humanitarian crisis.
Price also addressed during a press conference last week Pakistan's lingering concerns about the Taliban's ability to pursue militant groups when the U.S. and partners of the NATO military alliance were unable to stabilize the country over of two decades.
"It's clear that this has been an enduring challenge," Price said. "It's been an enduring challenge for the United States, for NATO, but certainly for Afghanistan's neighbors, who have often most frequently been the victims of attacks that have emanated from Afghanistan."
"Pakistan is a close partner, a close security partner," he added. "We work closely together to do what is appropriate to confront shared and mutual threats as well as shared opportunities, but I'm not going to speak to any plans or operations that the Pakistanis may be taking or contemplating."
Regional unrest has roped in other neighboring nations as well, including Iran and China, whose nationals have been targeted by insurgents in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, with several Chinese businessmen reportedly injured when gunmen stormed a hotel in Kabul last month.
Deputy Afghan Islamic Emirate Information and Culture Minister Muhajer Farahi said in the wake of the most recent attack to strike Kabul on Wednesday that a Chinese delegation was set to attend a meeting at the Foreign Ministry at the time of the blast, though Taliban officials later said no foreign diplomats were present.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin confirmed Thursday that "there have been no Chinese casualties in this terrorist attack." He too offered his condolences and called for the Taliban to crack down on security threats.
"We hope Afghanistan will take resolute and effective measures to protect the safety of the people and institutions of China and all other countries in Afghanistan," Wang said.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Based in his hometown of Staten Island, New York City, Tom O'Connor is an award-winning Senior Writer of Foreign Policy ... Read more
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