The Taliban press is slated to bandy the vital issue on Friday. The Sunni Pashtun group is considering handing over the Bagram airbase forcounter-terrorism operations inside Afghanistan to a third power for air dominance against groups like ISKP.
With a number of transnational terrorist groups now operating from Afghanistan rising, the Taliban press is convening on Friday to examine if Bagram airbase, north of Kabul, could be handed over to a third country for helping the Sunni Pashtun Islamists to launchcounter-terror operations in the country. The two countries in reckoning are Pakistan backed China and the US, which left the airbase on July 5, 2021, after two decades of operations.
The squeezing of power within the Taliban government with defence minister Mullah Yaqoob on one side and Pakistan ISI backed interior minister and global terrorist Sirajuddin Haqqani on the other side has led to total chaos in governance as a consequence of which terrorist groups have roomed in Afghanistan as a base for operations. It’s precisely because of this unfolding script that Pakistan army principal Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa differed with gregarious ISI principal Lt Gen Faiz Hameed as the former felt that there would be a huge Islamic fall- eschewal on Pakistan. While both Pakistan PM Imran Khan and DG ISI exulted over the Taliban occupation of Kabul, army principal Bajwa differed from them as the fear was that Pakistan would turn into a rabid Islamic state like Afghanistan under the Taliban.
At present, the US is upset about al Qaeda, the Haqqani Network whose master runs the Taliban government, and the so- called Islamic State of Khorasan Province growing in figures in Afghanistan and exporting terror to the west, China is upset about three terrorist groups operating in Af-Pak region that have taken explicitlyanti-Beijing positions and followed through violence. India specific groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba who have ideological confederations with the Taliban vis Deobandi and Ahle-Hadith platforms have also started using Afghanistan for launching operations across the Radcliffe Line.
While China has decided to open another military base in Tajikistan to cover the Wakhan corridor that juts into largely restive Xinjiang fiefdom, it’s courting the Taliban governance via Pakistan to insure that Uighur terrorists don’t start launching operations against the Xi Jinping governance from Afghanistan. Indeed for the safety of its Belt and Road Initiative, China is upset about three terrorist groups. They are
- Balochistan Liberation Army They attacked the Chinese consulate In Karachi with three self-murder bombers in 2018/
- Tehreek-e-Taliban, Pakistan An offshoot of Taliban, they claimed responsibility for the April 2021 auto lemon explosion next to a hostel in Balochistan’s capital megacity where the Chinese minister to Pakistan was due to stay. The lemon exploded just twinkles before the minister arrived.
- ISKP An off- shoot of ISIS, the rabid Sunni force has started targeting the Chinese through propaganda if not losers.
It isn’t only China that’s upset about the security situation in Afghanistan but also Central Asian Democracy as terrorist groups like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and theEast Turkestan Independence Movement have taken base in Afghanistan.
With the Biden administration now openly admitting the presence of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, the Taliban governance doesn’t have the important-required air power to fight these terrorist groups as none can go a prolonged battle on land again.
Under the circumstances, the Taliban is considering handing over Bagram airbase forcounter-terrorism operations in Afghanistan to a third power. While Pakistan wants the Taliban to hand over the strategic base in Parwan fiefdom to China for monitoring, a section of the Taliban group is opposed to Beijing and would rather hand it over to the US again. As Central Asian Democracy have denied base installations to the US for over the horizon capabilities and Pakistan is still trying to cut out a deal with the Biden administration on this issue, the option of theUS conducting CT operations from the Bagram base isn’t ruled out. The benefit of the Bagram base being handed over to the US is that Washington will accompany this Taliban gesture with important needed philanthropic and development aid for a country that’s facing a severe failure situation. The great game is still not over in Afghanistan.
