Why All Regional Attempts to Make Afghan Taliban Change Course Ended in Failure ?

ISLAMABAD: When the foreign ministers of four regional countries urged the Taliban government in Kabul to effectively check terrorism in the territory under their control, it was not their first effort to convince the Taliban that they are presiding over a country which has become a hub of international terrorism.
Since August 2021 when Taliban took over Kabul, the regional countries like Iran, Russia, China, Central Asian states and Pakistan have repeatedly urged Afghan Taliban to do something to eradicate the menace of terrorism from their territory.
On several occasions these regional countries promised Taliban to provide real-time intelligence to Afghan security forces in order to make them capable of chasing terror groups stationed in Afghanistan.
In their joint statement, Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan also urged the Taliban rulers to take “effective, concrete and verifiable actions in fulfilling the international obligations and commitments made by Afghanistan to fight terrorism, and dismantle, and eliminate all terrorist groups, and to prevent recruitment, fundraising and their access to weapons, as well as their collaboration with foreign terrorist fighters”.
The four countries further urged the Afghan authorities to dismantle any terrorist training camps or any other terrorist infrastructure on their soil.
“The four sides expressed deep concern over the security situation related to terrorism in Afghanistan, noting that terrorist groups such as ISIL, Al Qaeda, the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Jaish ul Adl, Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) and other similar groups in the region including Majeed Brigade, as well as others, based in Afghanistan, continue to pose a serious threat to regional and global security.

“They emphasized that strengthening peace and stability in Afghanistan and countering the threats of terrorism, radicalism, and drug crime emanating from its territory are in line with their common interests in the region.”

To this end, Fitrat termed the idea of “Afghanistan posing any threat to other countries baseless”.

“Afghanistan is taking serious steps against corruption, drugs and all kinds of undesirable issues and considers this process its responsibility,” he said, stressing that the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan wants to establish positive relations with all countries on the basis of mutual respect”.

Afghanistan’s regional neighbors have demonstrated less than keen interests in counter terrorism efforts and towards evolving a mechanism for joint action against militant and terror groups operating in the region, especially in Afghanistan.
All the regional countries including Central Asian States, Iran, China, Pakistan and Russia have their fully developed counter terrorism programs. But experts say what is needed is a joint mechanism for counter terrorism operations in the region.
Afghan Taliban were the central focus of initial efforts to develop joint counter terrorism mechanisms at the regional basis. Taliban didn’t fulfil the expectations of the regional countries during the past four years.
“At least the regional countries need to have a joint intelligence gathering and analyzing mechanism to provide real time intelligence to military forces in the region” said a Pakistani official. One such attempt towards evolution of joint mechanism was made in the last months of 2021.In the wake of Taliban takeover of Kabul, Pakistani ISI hosted the conference of 8 regional intelligence chiefs in Islamabad in which all the neighboring countries of Afghanistan participated. In this conference it was Russia which proposed that the neighboring countries should provide timely intelligence to the Afghan Taliban so that they could curb the activities of Sunni extremist groups inside the war-torn country
Similarly, Russians have stressed that the Pakistani security establishment must deal with the threat from ISIS and other radical Sunni groups with a transnational agenda to consolidate their position in Afghanistan. There have been reports in local and Russian media about the close interaction between Pakistani and Russian intelligence services in connection with the rise of ISIS in Afghanistan.
Russia’s primary security fear with regards to Afghanistan stems from the possibility of a spillover of violence from Afghan territory into Central Asian states — that Russia still considers part of its strategic backyard and within its security parameters. Similarly, Russia also fears that the terror groups with transnational or global agendas, if allowed to consolidate their positions in Afghanistan, may attempt to reach the Russian heartland through the Central Asian territory.
While Americans were present these regional powers were happy to support the troublesome Taliban to keep Americans on the tenterhooks. But Americans are now gone and these regional powers are no less wary of Sunni militancy. They also perceive threats from Sunni militant/terror groups hiding in Afghanistan. Iran is extremely anxious about the rise of ISIS in Afghanistan. ISIS with its furiously sectarian ideology and terror agenda would pose a threat to Shia communities within Afghanistan. Similarly Iran also fears that ISIS and its affiliated groups could penetrate deep into Iranian territory, bordering Afghanistan. Already there are signs of Sunni extremist groups and ideologies penetrating into Iranian Balochistan, where separatist tendencies have deep and old roots.
Russians are also afraid of the rise of ISIS in Eastern and Northern Afghanistan—areas and regions close to Afghanistan’s border with Central Asian States including Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, all these three states Russia still considers within its security parameters. All these three states have Sunni extremists groups operating within its border and some of them are using Afghanistan as their hideouts. Russians have made their threat perception about the rise of ISIS in Afghanistan known to its regional partners including Pakistani military and intelligence services.
Chinese are fearful of the presence of separatist elements belonging to the Eastern Turkestan Movement using Afghanistan as their hideout. When a Taliban delegation visited Beijing recently, a Chinese foreign ministry official made their concerns about these separatist elements known to Taliban leaders. This was reported by Chinese state media.
Pakistanis should be no less concerned about the rise of ISIS in Eastern Afghanistan and its linkages with Pakistani sectarian groups based in Afghanistan. Most Sectarian attacks in and around Quetta in 2018 and 2019 were carried out by ISIS with the help of their Pakistani sectarian partners. No less of a headache for Pakistani security planners is the presence of TTP leadership and cadre on Afghan soil.
Initial Iranian enthusiasm towards the Afghan Taliban have now started to fade and so is their enthusiasm towards evolving a joint mechanism for intelligence sharing and joint operations. Russians and Chinese are happy with their bilateral level of dealing with the Afghan Taliban.