ARMY chief Gen Raheel Sharif believes that the drone strike that killed former Afghan Taliban leader Akhtar Mansour is “counterproductive for the ongoing peace process”. The interior minister does not know what he believes or even what he knows about the strike. Meanwhile, the Taliban leadership has gathered and already chosen a new leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada. It is futile to speculate at this stage what the new chief’s ascension means for Afghan dialogue. After all, Mullah Mansour was an alleged Taliban peacemaker until he was not and then was killed by the US for his intransigence. What does appear to be the case is that dialogue is not dead as an option. Gen Sharif himself does not appear to believe that to be the case — ‘counterproductive’ and ‘ongoing’ are words that do not suggest dialogue is dead. And for all his confusion, Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan too could not bring himself to suggest that dialogue is no longer possible.
If and when dialogue does resume, the killing and its aftermath have exposed issues that Pakistan needs to address urgently. It has been nothing short of alarming to learn of the extent of freedom that Mullah Mansour, and presumably other Afghan Taliban leaders, enjoyed in Pakistan. The unspoken argument for providing sanctuary to Taliban leaders has been that it gives Pakistan influence over them. But even as Mullah Mansour defied Pakistan and refused to open talks with the Afghan government, he appears to have had few restrictions on his movements. Pragmatic association is one thing; giving the Taliban free rein is something else altogether, and ought to be unacceptable. Haibatullah Akhundzada, allegedly coronated on Pakistani territory, should be informed of the new rules on the ground in Pakistan — do the right thing and help Pakistan make Afghan dialogue possible or else expect restrictions on what he can do in Pakistan and where he can go.
Clarity, too, is needed on how and why Afghans like the late Taliban leader can come to posses Pakistani identities. When dialogue is conducted in a third country, it may perhaps make sense to provide travel documents to facilitate travel. The Taliban office in Doha is an example of why Taliban officials could need a passport. But the CNIC and Pakistani passport that Mullah Mansour is alleged to have possessed under an alias go far beyond the narrow needs of dialogue or even back-channel communications. Was he officially provided with a fake Pakistani identity or was it acquired secretly through bribery and local contacts in Nadra? The difference matters because the more important question now is who else among the Taliban have Pakistani identities. Yousuf Raza Gilani once famously denounced a state within a state here and asked who gave Osama bin Laden a visa. Several years on, there are ever-more troubling questions and even fewer answers. http://www.dawn.com/news/1260622/afghan-dialogue
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