Peshawar, Pakistan: Several Kashmiri freedom fighters living in Pakistan had been killed in the last year and Foreign Secretary of Pakistan Muhammad Syrus Sajjad Qazi twice claimed that Islamabad had credible evidence of links between Indian agents and the assassination of two Pakistani nationals in Sialkot and Rawalakot. He cited only two killings but in certain circles, there were claims that more than two assassinations were conducted by Indian operators inside Pakistan.
Similar allegations regarding the Indian government’s involvement in murders in other countries were also made by the US and Canada last year. However, credible reports coming from Afghanistan are painting a more serious and horrific scenario in which Indian intelligence agencies are manning the security of top Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Habatullah and in return, Afghan Taliban are conducting a sophisticated campaign of extra-territorial and extra-judicial killings inside Pakistan and India is also using Afghan network all over the world for to terminate its adversaries spreading over multiple jurisdictions. Reports indicate that Indian agents provide resources, payments, and technology-based information to the Afghan Taliban for committing assassinations in Pakistan, and the Afghan Taliban recruit, and finance criminals, and unsuspecting civilians to play defined roles in these assassinations. This nexus of top leadership of Afghan Taliban with Indian intelligence networking targeting Kashmiri freedom fighters in recent months expanded to such a level that first time in history, riots were seen in Azad Kashmir where the possible nexus of Afghan Taliban, TTP, and PTI-managed rioting. It is pertinent to mention that Afghan Taliban have their roots in Pakistan’s political system (through JUI’s historic relations with the Taliban), among journalists (who had been a mouthpiece of Afghan Taliban during the war on terror), bureaucrats belonging to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and even within ranks of retired military men due to a long history of operational relationship spreading over 40 years. In the years 2021-2022, Indian media indicated this relationship of the Afghan Taliban with Indian intelligence agencies but then stopped sharing such information. Hindustan Times and Indian media confirm Afghan Taliban and Indian nexus for killing alleged Pakistani intelligence operators in Afghanistan. One such report was “How Taliban Killed India’s Wanted Pakistani Commander from Kashmir”.
In the past, Islamabad avoided confrontation with the Afghan Taliban, claiming that ‘some Afghan Taliban’ are involved against Pakistan’ and the government also tried to establish that ‘there are factions within Afghan Taliban and Kabul government is weak so some factions are harming Pakistan’. Meanwhile, television analysts, Pak-Afghan experts, and journalists belonging to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa kept bailing out the Afghan Taliban by establishing a narrative that Afghan Taliban are pro-Pakistan but certain elements within the Kabul government are not happy with Pakistan’s top leadership but the Kabul government stood with Pakistan. They are the same security experts who in the past created dictions of “Good Taliban and Bad Taliban” and then added another diction that was ‘Punjabi Taliban’. However, reports coming from Afghanistan are quite disturbing for the Pakistani government as reports claim that Indian intelligence agencies are not only giving $10 million for security arrangements for top Afghan leadership but in return Afghan Taliban execute assignments given to them by New Delhi. Reports also suggest that the killing of Chinese citizens in the Besham area was an eye-opener for Pakistan’s intelligence networking that has information about the Indo-Afghan Taliban nexus but was still giving the benefit of the doubt to Afghan top leadership. However, no doubt is left now and Pakistan as indicated by its Defence Minister Khawaja Asif is categorically clear that Afghan Taliban leadership stands behind TTP that executes terror operations within Pakistan.
Sources in the Ministry of Interior and Foreign Office indicate that now things are crystal clear and no doubt left about what is going on inside Kabul. The most dangerous part of the story is that the Indo-Afghan Taliban nexus can execute an operation within Pakistan because Afghans live almost in every city in Pakistan and this is almost impossible to find out who is Afghan and who is a citizen of Pakistan. India in the past used to harbor Pakistanis living close to the Indo-Pakistan border and invest time and resources to train them and then use them for subversive activities but border intelligence used to keep an eye on such elements. However, intelligence networking cannot question every corn seller or scrape picker all over the country because Afghanis are everywhere and during the PTI regime, their settlements had increased in rural Sindh and rural Punjab.
Moreover, religious and political cadres of Pakistan openly supported the Afghan Taliban while India did not enjoy this leverage and anybody found supporting India was immediately called a traitor because of the bitter history of the Indo-Pak relationship. However, this is dangerous to call politicians or journalists a ‘traitor” who are supporting the Afghan Taliban. Moreover, Afghan Taliban have best of the best US-made weapons to equip TTP for attacking Pakistan’s soil, and reports coming from the Middle East indicate that some Afghan Taliban factions are also buying Russian-made weapons from Libya, Iraq, and Syria because Pakistan is putting pressure on US and Afghan Taliban to surrender NATO weapons to Pakistan so adding Russian-made weapons would make the situation further complex.
