Pakistan has been fighting a prolonged war on terror for the last 2 decades now. This conflict has claimed thousands of lives including both terrorists and security forces. Massive collateral damage to local properties and hundreds of thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) were also outcomes of this prolonged conflict within Pakistani borders.
Pakistan eventually pushed TTP into Afghanistan after launching a comprehensive military operation in North Waziristan in 2014 after the APS Peshawar tragedy. By the end of 2015, Pakistan Army had established a stronghold over the entire FATA region and had begun the rebuilding process in all the former agencies of FATA (Now these agencies are called Newly Merged Districts or NMDs after the merger of FATA with KP province.)
After Pakistan Army’s successful COIN operations, TTP leadership moved to Afghanistan where they got support from hostile intelligence agencies who provided them shelters, money, and tactical support. With this backing, TTP continued attacks on Pakistani security forces from across the border. TTP took advantage of prevailing unrest in Afghanistan and established training and launching areas near the Pak-Afghan border. Despite intense monitoring of this western border after fencing it, attacks on security forces continued. Pakistan launched protests over these attacks in Kabul and requested the Afghan government to ensure proper border management to prevent a repeat of the same. Pakistan demanded the Afghan government and NATO forces properly man the border between the two countries to ensure peace and stability but all in vain. Attacks on Pakistani forces continued.
After May 2021, the US left Afghanistan and a new government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) was established in Kabul. TTP cadres join the ranks of IEA. Afghan Taliban released many TTP members held by the previous Afghan government. These developments provide fresh impetus to some elements in TTP and the Afghan Taliban to launch more attacks on Pakistani forces guarding the Pak-Afghan international border.
Pakistan had asked Kabul again to prevent such incidents. The top leadership of IEA ensured Islamabad of proper action against such elements. The first signs of these actions were the arrests of elements involved in damaging the border fencing. Once this issue was resolved, Pakistan Army continued to fence the border. But some factions in TTP continued to breach the stability at the border forcing Pakistan to take punitive action in the form of aerial strikes on TTP hideouts across the border.
IEA offered mediation between TTP and the state of Pakistan. Pakistan accepted this initiative for the greater good of the region while TTP was forced to accept it as it has no other choice. In Pakistan, this development met with hopefulness and positivity while few elements showed their reservations citing previous experience of peace deals with TTP which were breached by terrorists after getting time to regroup. Though these concerns are not without merit a lot has changed this time. Afghanistan is no longer an occupied country, it has a central government. NMDs are no longer outside the fold of the Pakistani constitution hence all the peace talks with TTP now are being done within the ambit of the constitution of Pakistan. Notwithstanding all the propaganda spread by distractors of peace, the fact remains that the only way these talks succeeds is the complete dismantling of TTP and accepting the sovereignty of the state of Pakistan.
No country can remain engaged in a perpetual war. All conflicts come to an end eventually in one way or another. Despite all sorts of pressures, Pakistan Army has fought the war against terrorism like no other force in the world. Pakistan Army liberated the largest swathe of areas under the physical occupation of terrorists. Pakistan Army ensured that not only physical access to Pakistani soil is prevented for terrorism but their financial lifeline was also severed by Pakistan Army’s special efforts during the FATF implementation plan for which a special cell in GHQ was established. Pakistan’s eternal enemies want us to engage in perpetual low-intensity conflicts. If peace talks succeed and stability comes to NMDs, it will not only revitalize the socio-economic uplift of locals but will impact positively across the border as well.
