Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi’s visit to India has taken the global strategic community by surprise. Back in 2021, when Americans left Afghanistan, the Taliban captured power within hours. India’s chief concern focused upon the impact of the Taliban’s return on the Kashmir jihad.
India’s secular, multicultural, and democratic ethos stands in contrast to the Taliban Deobandi ideology.
India’s concerns were valid. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s intelligence service, fathered the Deobandi Jihadist network, including Taliban, and financed, sheltered, and equipped it over the last three decades. Under Pakistan’s tutelage, the Taliban perpetrated brutal terror attacks, including the 2008 attack outside the Indian embassy in Kabul. In 1999, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen terrorists hijacked Indian airliner IC-814 and flew it to Kandahar airport, where, under the protection of the ISI and Taliban, they blackmailed India, forcing its Hindu-nationalist government to release three terrorists, including Al Qaeda operative Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who later murdered journalist Daniel Pearl, in exchange for freeing 166 passengers.
India’s secular, multicultural, and democratic ethos stands in contrast to the Taliban Deobandi ideology. Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, two key Pakistan-sponsored terror groups, have ties with the Taliban and fought alongside the Taliban against American troops. Additionally, transnational terror groups such as Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, operating in the Indian hinterland, also maintain strong ties with the Taliban.
For these reasons, Indian agencies did not visualize tensions between Pakistan and the Taliban. However, frictions between the Taliban and the Pakistan army existed even during the heyday of their cooperation in the 2000s and 2010s. The Durand Line border dispute fuels Afghanistan’s dislike of Pakistan. Pakistan alleges that the Taliban shelters the Deobandi terrorist group Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has attacked the Pakistani Army for almost two decades. The TTP has a large contingent of Pashtun cadres who share kinship ties with the Taliban. After 2021, the frictions intensified because of increasing TTP terrorist attacks on the Pakistan Army and the Taliban’s alleged involvement in aiding the Baloch rebels. Further, the Taliban’s growing proximity to the TTP and Baloch rebels ignited Pakistan’s ultimate fear—the strengthening of India’s strategic foothold in Afghanistan.
Lately, Pakistan has begun nurturing Islamic State-Khorasan Province to keep the Taliban under check.
India follows the Mandala doctrine, deepening its strategic footprint in Afghanistan to contain Pakistan. As a result, Afghanistan has witnessed an intense turf war between the Indian and Pakistani intelligence agencies. However, since 1980, Pakistan has been the dominant player.
Lately, Pakistan has begun nurturing Islamic State-Khorasan Province to keep the Taliban under check. To restrain the Taliban’s quest for strategic autonomy, the Pakistani air force conducted raids in Afghan territory, allegedly to kill TTP chief Noor Wali Mehsud. The Taliban’s retaliation—killing 58 Pakistani soldiers—concluded with a Qatar-mediated ceasefire.
The Pakistan-Taliban conflict will simmer, but it is unlikely to escalate. With the intervention of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Pakistan can exert pressure on Afghanistan. The recent Saudi-Pakistan defense pact has strengthened Pakistan’s diplomatic and military stature in the Middle East. The Taliban also needs Islamic theocracies, for finance, and for religious and diplomatic legitimacy. Moreover, it lacks an air force, and its military is no match for Pakistan’s professional army.
Within the Taliban, the orthodox Kandahar faction differs from the Kabul faction’s anti-Pakistan policies. Further, Pakistan’s utility for powers like China and the United States as regional mediators with the outfits can limit the Taliban’s options.
Even though India has upgraded its technical mission in Kabul to an embassy, it does not formally recognize the Taliban.
For India, the path ahead is risky. Delhi’s risk-averse, diplomatic bureaucracy realizes this. Even though India has upgraded its technical mission in Kabul to an embassy, it does not formally recognize the Taliban. If Prime Minister Narendra Modi can show political will and Indian agencies an endgame in Kabul, Delhi-Taliban relations can win short-term strategic importance and bring tactical gains. With Indian weaponry, the Taliban, its cohorts like TTP and friends like the Balochistan Liberation Army, can be a nightmare for the Pakistani forces.
If India envisions restructuring in South Asia, these groups can be critical. Such ambitions, however, although a necessity to deal with rogue states like Pakistan, are not always safe and involve expenditures on covert actions that align poorly with India’s strategic culture.
