While international and regional news sources are prominently hinting at Balochistan and Pakistan factor in the killing of Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor, the chief of the Afghan Taliban, none of them have noticed a fact. That Mansoor — if his killing is confirmed — was killed while travelling from Iran, and on his way to Quetta from the Taftan border point. This apparently inconsequential fact reveals a great deal, not only about the killing of the Taliban supremo, but also about the use of Pakistani territory by Afghan insurgents, and suspicions and mistrust between Pakistan and the Afghan government or the United States in this regard.
While the United States and the Afghan government have again lamented presence of the Afghan Taliban inside Pakistan, the latter has seriously resented the drone strike in its territory as violation of its sovereignty.
Mansoor, according to reports, entered Pakistan from Iran at 03:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 21, 2016, hiring a taxi for Quetta at the border town of Taftan. He was killed in the purported drone strike in Kuchaki or Ahmadwal area of Naushki district at 04:30 p.m. Almost all Afghans travelling to or from Iran use the same Chaman-Quetta-Taftan route for plying between Afghanistan and Iran. Therefore, the question of Pakistan government or security agencies providing shelter if the Afghan Taliban leaders also use the same route for their journey to and from Iran does not carry much weight.
The border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is admittedly porous, and Afghans have lived for several generations inside Pakistan, or its semi-independent tribal area, travelling to nook and cranny of the country, living even in Sindh and Punjab provinces, and having full command on local languages. Even an alleged Indian agent, Kulbhushan Yadav, was arrested on the same route while travelling from Iran to Afghanistan just a few months ago. Similarly, dozens of illegal Afghan immigrants were suffocated to death while being shipped to Iran in an oil container several years ago.
It is also an open secret that due to rampant administrative corruption, securing of passport or other identity documents has never been a problem in Pakistan, Afghanistan, or even India, from where Yadav ostensibly obtained a fake Indian passport with Iranian visa stamped on it. Afghans living in or travelling through Pakistan are mostly Pashtuns, and they can be hardly differentiated from the local Pashtuns of Quetta or the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. It is very much possible that these Afghan Pashtuns also have anti-Afghan government militants among themselves. Therefore, the question of Pakistan harbouring Afghan insurgents also does not make much sense.
Pakistan government’s objection to US drone-strike inside its territory does have a point. The pilotless US planes could also target Mansoor inside Iran or Afghanistan as he traversed the three neighbouring countries. By hitting him inside Pakistan, the US Special Forces — not CIA as per the US claim — tried to assert several things, which Secretary of State John Kerry and other US and Afghan officials divulged consciously or unconsciously in their statements after Mansoor’s killing.
As regards Pakistan using its clout over Afghan Taliban in the quadrilateral arrangements or in previous frameworks, the matter is understandable as the country has been hosting Afghan mujaheedin groups and even financing and arming them on behalf of the United States and other world powers for several decades. All liberation and resistance struggles in the world have such windows from neighbouring countries, which are necessary for brokering peace, as has been witnessed in the case of Afghanistan, particularly in the Qatar peace process or peace overtures under the Quadrilateral Cooperation Group (QCG). Pakistan could certainly be given grace marks in the handling of Afghan turmoil and the war on terror, if there is no international politicking or adverse regional nexuses.
Another remarkable point to cite in the killing of Mullah Mansoor is his visit to Iran. What was the reason for which he had proceeded to Iran, and why that link is not highlighted if all fingers are being raised towards Pakistan? If Mansoor was so confident that he visited Iran without any escort, it means he enjoyed the trust of someone on that border, and it must have certainly not been his first visit, as he crossed the Iranian border into Pakistan and hired a taxi for Quetta alone like a man fully versed with the process would do.
If international media hints at Mansoor’s confidence in travelling through Pakistan “without any convoy or security guards”, why are they not making the same objection to his similar travel inside the Iranian territory? And, if US officials claim that US Special Forces, not CIA, conducted the drone strike or if the Afghan intelligence says that Mullah Mansoor was under strict surveillance, then could it be without a tip from inside Iran, where Mansoor is supposed to have spent some time before being targeted in the US drone strike.
The writer is an Islamabad-based freelance journalist, and he can be reached at [email protected]