How A Covert Relationship With The Taliban Backfired For US Ally Pakistan

About two weeks after the Taliban retook Afghanistan in 2021, the then head of Pakistan's spy agency arrived at one of Kabul's plushest hotels, smiling, sipping tea and appearing at ease with the militants' return to power.

Lieutenant-General Faiz Hameed of Inter-Services Intelligence had reason to believe Pakistan was about to reap the rewards of clandestinely supporting the Taliban in their fight against US-led forces. In return, Pakistan expected the group to help rein in an offshoot at home.

Almost two years later, relations between the Taliban and Pakistan have soured, terrorist attacks by Tehreeke-Taliban Pakistan have jumped and some Taliban leaders are even seeking to establish ties with Pakistan's archrival, India.

The increased instability is adding to the turmoil in a Pakistan buffeted by simultaneous economic and political crises, as the country edges closer to a default, inflation rages and the military instigates a sweeping crackdown against former premier Imran Khan's political party.

Pakistan saw the Taliban as deeply connected to the TTP and able to persuade it to stop its attacks, people familiar with the matter said. The

TTP has long said it wants to overthrow the government in Islamabad.

But some Taliban factions strongly oppose helping Pakistan's efforts to fight the TTP, and many are upset the government in Islamabad didn't recognize their regime, according to people familiar with the situation. Hundreds of Taliban fighters also joined the TTP to pursue another holy war, they said.

Pakistan made a "remarkable" miscalculation, said Farid Mamundzay, Afghanistan's ambassador to India, a holdover from the country's previous regime who doesn't represent the Taliban.

The TTP carried out the most militant attacks on Pakistani soil last year since 2018. This January, the group killed at least 100 people in a suicide bombing in the northwestern city of Peshawar — one of the deadliest attacks in its history. Four people were killed in a suicide car bomb on May 24, which hasn't been claimed by the TTP or other militants.

Some key Taliban members want the group to distance itself from Pakistan and show its independence, people familiar with the matter said. They include Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Afghanistan's deputy prime minister for economic affairs who spent years in a Pakistani jail after he was captured in 2010 during the war with the US, and Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, the defense minister and son of Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar, the people said.

Yaqoob has publicly been leading efforts to build relations with India, including urging the Indian government to train Taliban forces.

"SOME OF THE TALIBAN FIGHTERS HELPING the TTP have brought over weapons that the US left behind, including M-16s and sniper rifles with night-vision thermal goggles, the people said..