Pakistan urged Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders Wednesday to explain their relationship with a globally designated terrorist group waging cross-border bloodshed and address concerns about sweeping restrictions they have imposed on Afghan women.
The remarks by Islamabad’s special representative to Afghanistan, Asif Durrani, came as the militant group in question — Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP — has intensified deadly attacks on Pakistani soil from its alleged sanctuaries on the Afghan side of the border.
The violence has claimed the lives of hundreds of security forces and civilians in recent months, with TTP formally claiming credit for most of them.
“The TTP-led terrorism is linked with the Afghanistan problem. Therefore, both countries will need to address the menace of TTP together,” Durrani told a seminar in the Pakistani capital.
The Taliban “will have to come clean about their image as ideological cousins of TTP. This is the minimum for a durable [bilateral] relationship that [they] can do,” he stressed.
The Pakistani envoy spoke just hours after the Taliban army chief, Qari Fasihuddin Fitrat, rejected previous allegations that TTP was based on and orchestrating attacks from Afghan soil.
“There is no evidence, nor anyone can prove, that TTP is present in Afghanistan,” Fitrat told a news conference in the Afghan capital, Kabul. “TTP has bases in Pakistan and controls some areas from which it launches attacks inside Pakistan,” Fitrat said without elaborating further.
TTP has publicly pledged allegiance to the Taliban leadership. The militant group sheltered Taliban commanders on Pakistani soil and provided recruits to support their insurgent attacks against U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan for years until their withdrawal three years ago when the Taliban swept back to power.
Durrani highlighted on Wednesday that despite the mutual tensions resulting from TTP attacks, his government is assisting landlocked Afghanistan in conducting international trade through Pakistani land routes and seaports to help Kabul address national economic and humanitarian challenges.
The United Nations has, in a recent report, described TTP as “the largest terrorist group in Afghanistan.” It noted that Taliban authorities are supporting stepped-up TTP attacks against Pakistan, and the militants are being trained, as well as equipped, in al-Qaida-run terror training camps on the Afghan territory, charges Kabul rejected.
On Tuesday, the United States reiterated its worries about the growing threat of terrorism in Afghanistan.
“We know that we can't turn a blind eye to the threats from organizations such as ISIS-K and that we must keep a relentless focus on counterterrorism,” Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder told reporters in Washington, referring to the Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State. “But there are many other terror groups that are resident right now in Afghanistan,” Ryder added without elaborating.
Curbs on Afghan women
Durrani on Wednesday praised the Taliban for establishing national security since their takeover but reiterated concerns about restrictions on Afghan women’s access to public life and supported international demands for their reversal.
"Many have acknowledged the positive aspects of the changed Afghanistan, including less corruption, a drastic reduction in poppy cultivation, and an improvement in the overall security situation,” Durrani said. “[However], there are concerns for girls’ education and women’s right to work, which no society, whether Islamic or otherwise, should allow to happen."
Durrani also noted the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, comprising 57 Muslim-majority countries, had “unequivocally” called on the Taliban to lift the ban on girls’ education and their right to work.
De facto Afghan leaders have persistently denounced the U.N.-led global criticism of their policies, saying they are governing the country strictly in line with Islamic law, or Shariah, and local customs.
The Taliban have barred girls from attending school beyond the sixth grade and women from most public and private sector employment, as well as prohibiting them from making road trips without a male guardian.
Last week, the radical rulers enacted new regulations prohibiting women from speaking aloud or showing their faces in public at any time, drawing international outrage.
On Monday, Taliban chief spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid lambasted the U.N. and Western critics of their governance, claiming that the objections of “non-Muslims” stemmed from their “lack of understanding” of Islam.
“We view this as disrespect to our Islamic Shariah,” he said.
