By Shazia Baloch
Some people, particularly Pakistanis, have little knowledge of geopolitics, especially regarding Afghanistan, or they are influenced by Pakistan’s false narratives. Many people believe that the Afghan Taliban fought against the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) and its backed communist government in the 1980s, and that today the Afghan Taliban are Russian strategic allies.
However, the reality is that the Afghan Taliban did not fight against the Soviet Union. The Afghan Taliban themselves were formed in 1994.
The so-called Mujahideen (Ahmad Shah Massoud, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Burhanuddin Rabbani, Commander Ismail, etc.), who were proxies of Pakistan, America, and Saudi Arabia, fought against the Soviet Union. Later, in 1992, due to conflicts involving Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Mujahideen factions fought among themselves and became a cause of the Afghan civil war, which destroyed Afghanistan’s well-developed cities and led to a human catastrophe.
The Afghan civil war wasted the sacrifices of thousands of Afghan Mujahideen who had fought against the Soviet Union and its backed communist government, proving that it was not a holy war but part of a great game played by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan to destroy Afghanistan.
Later, the Afghan Taliban emerged in 1994 under the full military and financial support of the Pakistani military and were used against Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and other warlords who had previously been Pakistan’s own proxies against the Soviet Union and the communist government.
However, after 9/11, Pakistan turned against the Afghan Taliban and became a frontline ally of America and NATO for 20 years, and its entire policy changed. The TTP was formed, and the Baloch national armed struggle resurged under the command of the BLA. An exhausted United States eventually withdrew from Afghanistan, and the Afghan Taliban took control of Kabul on 15 August 2021.
Today, Pakistan has been suffering and struggling against the TTP and the BLA, which are security threats to the country. In short, the Afghan Taliban-led government is now doing to Pakistan what Pakistan had been doing to Afghanistan since the 1980s. Meanwhile, the Afghan Taliban-led government has no other option but to support the TTP and the BLA against Pakistan in order to install a pro-Afghanistan Islamic Sharia system in Pakistan or to disintegrate Pakistan and form Loy Afghanistan. Otherwise, based on past history, Pakistan may once again politically intervene in Afghanistan and support factions against the Afghan Taliban.
The policies of the Soviet Union and those of present-day Russia are completely different. The Afghan Taliban and the present Russian Federation have never been enemies. Russia is the only country that has officially recognized the Afghan Taliban-led government of Afghanistan and has restored full diplomatic and strategic relations.
