So far, it is unclear where the United States launched the attack. If it turns out that Pakistan has given it support, the Taliban’s relations with its neighboring country will also suffer, writes ‘s Pakistan reporter Maija Liuhto.
On Sunday morning, Kabul was woken up by an explosion reminiscent of the sound of a rocket attack. This has been commonplace for a long time for the masses, fed up with war and terrorist attacks.
Since the Taliban came to power about a year ago, the attacks have decreased – after all, the Taliban itself was behind many of them before. What remains now is Isis-K fighting against the Taliban, i.e. the Afghan and Pakistani branch of Isis, which has used to target its attacks on the Shiite Hazara minority.
This time it was a US airstrike – most obviously the first of its kind since the final withdrawal of American forces from the country.
The target was the leader of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda Ayman al-Zawahiri. He had been rumored to be dead many times before over the years. This time the Hellfire missile hit the right man.
Al-Zawahiri had already kept his lodge in the middle of Kabul for months. The area used to be favored by Western-backed warlords and international organizations.
The Taliban called the actions of the United States a violation of the country’s right to self-determination and a violation of the Doha agreement. In the agreement signed between the Taliban and the United States in Doha in February 2020, however, the Taliban itself committed to prevent the activities of international terrorist groups on its soil.
The last days of the Taliban the delegation has been to the Afghanistan-related conference organized in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to meet the international community. There are also representatives of the United States, the EU and the UN.
The assets of the Afghan central bank held in the United States and frozen in August have most obviously been on the agenda. The Taliban demands the money back – the United States, on the other hand, wants concessions from the organization regarding human rights and especially the status of women.
While the conference is still ongoing, it is unclear how the news of al-Zawahiri’s death will affect the US’s stance on negotiations with the Taliban. It will hardly have any positive consequences.
One key question is where the drone strike was carried out – the United States no longer has bases in Afghanistan.
During the war against terrorism, the Americans used air bases in Afghanistan’s neighboring country, Pakistan, for drone attacks in the Afghan border region.
Last year, the bases became a topic of discussion again when it was reported that the US had asked Pakistan to use them as the withdrawal from Afghanistan was imminent.
In the end, both Western diplomatic sources and the Pakistani government denied that any discussions had even taken place. The subject is sensitive in Pakistan and anti-Americanism is high.
The then Prime Minister Imran Khan famously answered “absolutely not” to an American journalist’s question about whether Pakistan would allow the Americans to use its soil for attacks on the Afghan side.
Now Khan has been voted out of power by a vote of no confidence, and the country is led by other parties. Khan accuses the Americans and the country’s powerful military of a conspiracy.
If it turns out that the blow was made from Pakistan, or that even the country’s airspace was exploited, it will further complicate relations between the neighboring countries.
Although Pakistan has been seen as close to the Taliban regime, the country’s relationship with the organization is complicated. In Pakistan’s opinion, the Taliban has not done enough to intervene in the activities of the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, in its ground chamber.
Pakistan has also made a strike against the terrorist leaders staying on the side of Afghanistan. The attack, which caused civilian casualties, momentarily strained the relationship between the two countries to the extreme in the spring. Now Pakistan is negotiating with the TTP with the help of the Afghan Taliban.
If even Pakistan can’t get the Taliban to act against terrorist organizations, other countries may have even less of a chance.