Report in Dawn, February 19th, 2023
• Urges world to help Afghan authorities build capacity to counter terrorism
• Calls for opening Kabul’s banking channels, unfreezing its funds
• Top Chinese official says Beijing firmly supports Islamabad in maintaining security
ISLAMABAD: Even if the Afghan rulers demonstrate the will to counter terrorism, they certainly don’t have the capacity to do so, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said on Saturday, warning that the threat will soon spill over outside the region if the international community doesn’t get serious.
Speaking at a panel discussion at the 59th Munich Security Conference in Germany, Mr Bhutto-Zardari said the most important issue regarding Afghanistan in the region was the “security and terrorist threat emanating out” of the country, adding that there was a whole “alphabet soup” of terrorist organisations that were based out of Afghanistan.
Lamenting that not enough seriousness was paid to the issue by the world or the Afghan government, he urged the international community to help Afghan authorities build their capacity to take on the threat of terrorism, according to Dawn.com.
“The concern is that … if the interim government [in Afghanistan] doesn’t take these groups seriously and doesn’t demonstrate first the will and then the capacity to take on terrorist groups, then they [the groups] will conduct terrorist activities in the region first — we are already witnessing an uptick in terrorist activity in Pakistan since the fall of Kabul — but it won’t be long before it reaches somewhere else,” he said.
Urging the international community to act proactively rather than reactively after the “nightmare scenario”, the foreign minister said, “The key is to convince … the interim government in Afghanistan with the international community’s consensus, to take on terrorism within their borders and demonstrate the will to do so.”
He further told world leaders to find a way to build the capacity for the interim Afghan government to help it build a standing army.
“They don’t have a standing army, nor a counterterrorism force or even proper border security,” he said. “In that situation, even if they have the will, they don’t have the capacity to deal with this [terrorist] threat which is a problem, first for the immediate neighbours and then the international community”.
Noting that little attention was given to Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul and the ongoing Ukraine war, Mr Bhutto-Zardari gave an example of how banned militant groups such as the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, Balochistan Liberation Army and Al Qaeda were operating from Afghanistan while the international community was not doing enough to contain the threat.
“A lot of my time is taken to convince Afghan authorities to take on terrorists and address my security challenges,” he said, observing that the international community was working in silos and perhaps the militant groups had more coordination in Afghanistan than “we all do”.
He said Pakistan did not want to “invade Afghanistan and go in after them and repeat the mistakes of the past,” so the best scenario was for the respective law-enforcing institutions in Afghanistan to become functional.
The minister stressed that Pakistan would continue to help Afghanistan in any way it could and also called for opening the country’s banking channels, unfreezing its funds and building a “consensus based on Afghanistan’s realities”……..
https://www.dawn.com/news/1737942/terrorism-a-threat-to-pakistan-and-beyond-warns-bilawal
