\n\tKABUL: As fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan escalated into rare, bloody combat this month, Islamabad pointed fingers at another adversary, accusing India of fueling the conflict.<\/p>\n
\n\tPakistan\u2019s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that New Delhi had \u201cincited\u201d the Afghan Taliban, while his Defense Minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, described Kabul as acting like a \u201cproxy of India.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tExistential archrivals, Pakistan and India have fought repeated wars since partition cleaved the subcontinent at the end of British rule in 1947.<\/p>\n
\n\tThey have also long swapped claims of stoking militancy in each other\u2019s territory as part of alleged destabilization campaigns.<\/p>\n
\n\tBut in recent months, Islamabad has warily watched India cosy up to Taliban-governed Afghanistan, even as its own relations with Kabul sharply deteriorated.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe diplomatic reconciliation culminated in the Taliban foreign minister\u2019s arrival in New Delhi on October 9, the first visit by a top Taliban leader since the hard-liners returned to power in 2021.<\/p>\n
\n\tAs India rolled out the red carpet for UN-sanctioned minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, explosions rocked Kabul as well as a market near the Pakistan border.<\/p>\n
\n\tWahid Faqiri, an Afghan expert in international relations, said rapprochement between India and the Taliban had compelled Pakistan to react.<\/p>\n
\n\tBy inviting the Taliban foreign minister for a week of talks, New Delhi aimed to \u201caggravate the ongoing tension between Pakistan and Afghanistan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhile the October 9 explosions officially went unclaimed, the Taliban government accused Islamabad of an \u201cunprecedented\u201d incursion, and retaliated with its own offensive.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe exchanges set in motion more than a week of deadly artillery barrages and drone strikes \u2014 the worst violence between the South Asian neighbors in years.<\/p>\n
\n\tAfter an initial truce collapsed, a second ceasefire was inked on October 19.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u2019BLAMING ITS NEIGHBORS\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\tOne-time allies Afghanistan and Pakistan have had frosty relations since the withdrawal of US-led troops and return of the Taliban government.<\/p>\n
\n\tInitially, Islamabad struck an optimistic tone, with then-intelligence chief Lt. General Faiz Hameed giving public assurances that \u201ceverything will be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tBut Islamabad has since continuously accused the Taliban authorities of providing a safe haven to militant groups as deadly terror attacks in Pakistan surge.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Pakistani Taliban (TTP) and its affiliates are behind much of the violence \u2014 largely directed at security forces.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn October alone, over 100 security personnel and police officers were killed in attacks carried out by assailants from Afghanistan, a Pakistani security source told AFP.<\/p>\n
\n\tFor two years now, the rising violence in Pakistan has also helped fuel a mass deportation campaign, with millions of Afghan migrants and asylum seekers blamed for driving up crime and pushed back across the border.<\/p>\n
\n\tFormer Pakistani diplomat Maleeha Lodhi said the Taliban foreign minister\u2019s trip to New Delhi may have been an \u201cirritant, but wasn\u2019t the motivation for the Pakistani reprisals.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe principal driver for Pakistan\u2019s ire and frustration with the Taliban authorities is their refusal to rein in TTP,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\n\tPakistan\u2019s military has also accused New Delhi of supporting the TTP.<\/p>\n
\n\tIndia\u2019s foreign ministry denies the charge, and instead accuses Pakistan of trying to evade responsibility for its domestic turmoil and security problems.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt is an old practice of Pakistan to blame its neighbors for its own internal failures,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u2019SOLIDARITY\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\tThe bonhomie between New Delhi and Kabul was initially \u201cdifficult to justify\u201d in India due to the dominant public perception of Islam as contrary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s popular Hindu nationalism, said Praveen Donthi, an analyst at International Crisis Group (ICG).<\/p>\n
\n\tThe absence of women journalists at an initial press conference during Muttaqi\u2019s visit also sparked strong criticism, but public opinion shifted, Donthi said, when the Taliban minister expressed \u201csolidarity\u201d with India over an April 22 terrorist attack in Pahalgam.<\/p>\n
\n\tThat attack in the flashpoint Kashmir region precipitated a four-day war between the nuclear-armed foes, with New Delhi accusing Islamabad of backing the \u201cterrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Afghan minister\u2019s solidarity may have bought him some fans in India, but it aggravated Islamabad, with the joint statement describing the disputed region as \u201cJammu and Kashmir, India\u201d \u2014 suggesting Indian sovereignty.<\/p>\n
\n\tAt the end of the Afghanistan-India exchange, New Delhi announced it would upgrade its diplomatic mission in Kabul to a fully fledged embassy.<\/p>\n
\n\tThat represented another stepping stone toward the Taliban government\u2019s ultimate goal of formal international recognition, a move only Moscow has made and that analysts say remains far off for India.<\/p>\n
\n\tFor now, the rekindling is a significant win for the Taliban authorities, and a pointed shift in the complex India-Pakistan-Afghanistan relations.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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