More Afghan peace talks without a ceasefire is like putting the cart before the horse. How can the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG), comprising Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and the US, expect a different outcome from previous tries without the Taliban halting attacks? Could it be that this multilateral confab exists for a multinational threat, meaning Islamic State (IS), and peace in Afghanistan would be a pleasant byproduct?
The QCG probably realised three things after its second meeting in Kabul on January 18. One, that the word Taliban as a collective noun no longer represents the monolithic, militant entity of Mullah Omar’s heyday. Two, Pakistan only has a few Taliban factions under its thumb to nudge towards detente or use as proxies against IS. Three, the self-styled Khorasan province of IS (IS-K) is becoming a real headache in Nangarhar. Consequently, the quartet’s first order of business may be to form another “coalition of the willing”, terrorists and peaceniks alike, to strangle IS-K before it turns into a transnational threat for Asia.
For a long time, international actors took the ostrich approach towards IS-K because it suited the status quo to keep their heads firmly buried in the sand. It was only after the group released a gory propaganda clip titled ‘Khorasan: the graveyard of the apostates’ in December that alarm bells started ringing. The US State Department now classifies IS-K as a bonafide menace but, until August last year, Washington dismissed the militants as “operationally emergent” but largely inconsequential. Moreover, an unnamed US counter-terrorism official gloated to ABC News in September that IS-K and the Taliban “fighting each other makes our job easier”.
Such hopes of mutually assured destruction waned quickly. As IS-K continues to wrest territory in Nangarhar, Washington warns the group is past its “initial exploratory phase” and poised to wreak substantial havoc. To prove this, IS-K struck both Pakistan’s consulate and an Afghan tribal elders meeting in Jalalabad within the space of a few days in mid-January, leaving over 20 soldiers and civilians dead.
The Taliban, for their part, fret that IS-K could eclipse them as the primary antagonists in Afghanistan, thereby eroding hard-earned leverage to gain self-rule in the southern provinces. This fear propelled last year’s vicious spring offensive that continues through winter without pause. Tellingly, Russian media reported that the new Taliban chief, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, met President Vladimir Putin in Tajikistan last September to solicit Moscow’s aid in defeating IS-K. The former’s vanishing act after an internecine gun-battle in Quetta last month, however, dents the Taliban’s attempts to appear united.
Though suspicion clouds Pakistan’s motives every time new Afghan peace talks surface, Islamabad now has real interest in shoring up Kabul. On December 29, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah revealed the arrest of six IS-K militants from Daska and the discovery of a jihadist training camp nearby. Up to that point, Islamabad had outright denied reports that last year’s Safoora Goth massacre was IS-K’s doing, emphasising “no footprint” of the Middle Eastern group existed in Pakistan.
After Sanaullah’s sobering announcement, the state can dither no more on proactively culling these homegrown mutants. The last thing Pakistan needs, then, is a new jihadist nursery in Nangarhar, a stone’s throw away from its perpetually restive tribal areas, and especially as the Torkham crossing point is vital for trade. Also, with ground officially broken on the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline, energy-starved Islamabad may need to nuance its ‘strategic depth’ doctrine to stay in lockstep with QCG partners.
Other quartet members have their own reasons for desiring a stable Afghanistan. US President Barack Obama, for example, needs IS-K liquidated to protect the sacrifices of over 2,300 US soldiers killed during Operation Enduring Freedom and to ensure that Afghan militancy does not snowball on his watch in an election year. Russia, meanwhile, admits that its interests “objectively coincide” with the Taliban on IS-K and that channels for intelligence sharing are operational. Though they make strange bedfellows, Moscow’s primary concern right now is to prevent a militancy spillover into its “near abroad”.
China, similarly, fears for Xinjiang’s stability if the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) fighters in IS-K ranks return home and escalate the ongoing insurgency. Beijing, of course, also has significant economic interests tied to the region. Other than high-stakes investments in Afghan minerals and fossil fuels, a stable Afghanistan is critical for China’s new Silk Road ambitions.
The QCG will huddle anew on February 6 in Islamabad, again without Taliban representation. Curiously, if the group was worthy of invitation last July, what has changed? The only plausible explanation is that IS-K has leapfrogged the Taliban as a regional security nightmare. That said, the spate of suicide bombings timed around QCG talks suggests the Taliban will not take this demotion lying down. Sadly, yet another bloody year has begun.
The writer is a freelance columnist and audio engineer based in Islamabad