Copyright deccanchronicle
The story of Hafiz Gul Bahadur is a fairly typical one from the unforgiving swathes of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan, adjoining Patika province of Afghanistan. People here do not recognise the Durand Line separating the two countries. In these virtually uncontrolled areas, the local tribal code of the Pashthunwali runs supreme. Powerful and feudal tribal chiefs dictate the societal norms. Fidelity to the concept of nationhood, be it towards Pakistan or Afghanistan, is fickle and susceptible to the proverbial “exchange of suitcases”. The only unchanged insistence here is on the inviolable principle of “nang” (honour) as contextualised as freedom from all foreign forces.Gul Bahadur is a direct descendant of Mirza Ali Khan (of the Madda Khel clan of Uthmanzai Pathans), a revered Waziristani warrior, who fought against the British and later against the newly-established nation of Pakistan. Like most warlords, he too received religious education in a Deobandi madrasa in Pakistan and fought in the Pakistan-supported anti-Soviet jihad in the 1980s. But this background ensured no permanency of loyalty to the Pakistani State, as he was to rebel against the Pakistani military in 2005, when it conducted operations in his borough of North Waziristan Agency. But, as is the changing fate of ground narratives in the region, Taliban supremo Mullah Omar urged the likes of Gul Bahadur to sign the infamous 2006 North Waziristan peace agreement and join hands with the Pakistanis yet again. It wasn’t a perfectly functional agreement as it was given to multiple retractions and reiterations, but by 2014 the Gul Bahadur faction had no option but to declare open confrontation against the Pakistani forces, after they launched Operation Zarb-e-Azb. Under pressure from the advancing Pakistani military, the Gul Bahadur cadres sought sanctuary in Afghanistan and then fought along with the Afghan Taliban against the US and Nato forces. With the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, Gul Bahadur cadres redirected their focus on their home turf, albeit, from bases in Afghanistan. There was an unmistakable angle of territoriality for the Gul Bahadur group and its myriad affiliates to operate predominantly in their North Waziristan region, whilst tactically aligning with the larger Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in taking on the Pakistan armed forces. A similar storyline of initial patronage to now open hostility befalls the much larger TTP cadres, who too sprung from the Pakistani dalliance with religious extremism, and have now turned into Frankenstein’s monsters for Islamabad. For both the Gul Bahadur group and the TTP, the Afghan Taliban ruling the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is the principal patron, host and instigator of the Pakistan-facing terror groups now. While Islamabad has tried all possible levers of engagement like a charm offensive – with then ISI head Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed dashing to Kabul in the initial days of the Taliban victory, to vacuous diplomacy of “brotherly Muslim countries”, to even brazen cross-border attacks into Afghan soil, the Pakistanis have simply failed to control the groups attacking Pakistan. Besides the longstanding disregard of the Durand Line, some notions of “Pashtunistan” (common Pashtun nation which includes Pakistani and Afghan territories) and age-old distrust of Pakistani intentions in Afghanistan -- there is yet another cultural context that does not allow the Afghan Taliban leaders to turn in the Pakistan-facing groups, as routinely demanded by Islamabad. It is the Pashtunwali code of melmastia (hospitality) that debars turning in hosted guests, irrespective of the price to pay for the same. It was exactly this belief system that disallowed turning in Osama bin Laden to the Americans, even though the Taliban had no role to play in the 9/11 attacks on America in September 2001. Today the Afghan Taliban can’t be seen to be turning in its fellow Pashtun brethren of the Gul Bahadur group or the TTP. Pakistan’s misplaced bravado in initially imagining a beholden Afghan Taliban or overestimating its levers, such as economic blockade, forced the return of a million Afghan refugees, or its ability to “hit” targets in Afghanistan, have all worsened perceptions of Islamabad, within Afghanistan. More people have died on either side of the violent Durand Line than they have in all wars put together between India and Pakistan. The Afghan-Pak relations are at an all-time low with portents of an imminent “war” looming, except for the announcement of a “ceasefire” -- an unbelievable situation for Pakistan, after having birthed the phenomenon of the Taliban. The successful culmination of Afghan foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi’s recent visit to India has only added to the discomfiture of Islamabad. The prophetic words of former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, that “snakes in your backyard will not just bite your neighbours”, has come back to haunt Pakistan. The successful creation of...
