Tag Archives: Islamabad

That is the shout and plenty of you will not agree, I get that but lets look at the stage that we ourselves created. 25 years ago the Taliban was small, insignificant, just another wannabe party. Then Osama Bin Laden made a failed attempt on the US. The action was successful, the outcome less so. You see, he wanted the Twin towers to burn throughout the day and night. At night billions would see the twin towers burn and like torches illuminate New Yorkers, it would have been some sight. In one strike a demoralised America. The outcome was different, the towers collapsed and America got angry, really angry and you know what happened next. On May 2nd 2011 he was killed. One martyr and now the Taliban are in charge in Afghanistan. NATO and America lost. They got beat. The one word that got them there was ‘indecisiveness’, when they acted they did not. Actions I saw coming a mile away on 2005 onwards were ignored and the Taliban went largely asleep, only to awaken when America pulled out and within a week the Taliban had control of over 80% of all hardware, they took the country in less than a week. This you can look up, this is all there for the reading and now we are about to face the same setting again. The Taliban (via the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan) will do this again, now they are going for Pakistan. So what will be the epitaph of the west? “If only we acted” that is today’s lesson. The first part we get from ‘Pakistan mosque bombing survivors traumatised but undeterred’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/31/never-imagined-pakistans-blast-victims-mourned) we see all the grandstanding as we are told that “At least 100 people killed and more than 225 wounded in a suicide attack in the northwestern city of Peshawar” a mere 150 kilometres from Islamabad. We also get “The sheer scale of the human tragedy is unimaginable, This is no less than an attack on Pakistan.” We get this from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and we get his answer, we really do. But the USA and NATO showed the Taliban the path to success the last time around, as such this time around the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan knows what to do. They are willing to fight 25 years to get the job done. And there is a clear setting. For whatever reason Pakistan has been left weaker through years of sanctions and other actions. Now that there is a path to success the 

Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan are grabbing their options. So, as we also are given ‘What is behind the rising violent attacks in Pakistan?’ (At https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/2/what-is-behind-the-rising-attacks-in-pakistan) we need to realise that the quote “Pakistan decided to cooperate with the US when it invaded Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks. US forces targeted armed groups, including TTP, along the Pakistan-Afghan border for decades. Washington-Islamabad ties have remained cold since 2011, when al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad. The US accused Pakistan of sheltering the Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders.” And all that could be true, but the aftermath was not properly taken care of and now that these forces are reinvigorated in part by the success that the Taliban has by governing Afghanistan these two players are ready to tackle a much larger target. They are ready to take the war for governing to Pakistan, which will also have larger impacts in India as well. The Ukrainian situation merely works FOR the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan as both the US forces and NATO forces and their equipment is spread too thin all over the theatres of action. We see the news of actions intensifying in Al Jazeera but the other places do not mention it as much, it is not sexy enough. But I reckon that this changes when the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan makes one successful blast in Islamabad. That will wake people up, but depending on the damage there it might be too late. I reckon that if Pakistan is left without serious resources the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan has a decent chance of changing governments by 2030, perhaps in time to attend festivities in Riyadh, that is the jackpot for them and if you say, this is one event, you would be right, but the setting is that TTP spokesperson Mohammad Khurasani has been blamed for more than 100 attacks since walking out of a ceasefire with the Pakistani government last November. 100 attacks in three months. That shows that they have resources, equipment and a mindset to resolve the issue with that plenty of people willing to be a martyr. Pakistan is in serious troubles and we need to take heed, because Afghanistan was merely one nation. Pakistan is the 23rd-largest worldwide in terms of GDP based on purchasing power parity (PPP). According to a 2021 estimate, the country has a population of 227 million people (5th-largest worldwide). That is not merely a nation that is the jackpot price that the Taliban awaits getting. And make no mistake, this time around the indecisiveness of the USA and NATO will have a long lasting global impact. That is what we face. Feel free to check data, feel free to check the papers, but also realise that any new day of inactions merely helps the TTP (Pakistani Taliban) to get closer to THEIR goals and they are not YOUR goals. 

Enjoy the weekend!