One of the early leaders of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan was Maulana Sufi Muhammad, a Tajik from Dir
Author: Siamak Khorasani, source: halva. tj
As the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, terrorist attacks in Pakistan increased at an unprecedented rate. The country's authorities said that terrorist attacks have increased by 60% over the past year, most of which were committed by the Tehriki Taliban Pakistan (TPP). The terrorist group also claimed to have carried out more than 150 attacks in Pakistan in November this year alone. TTP militants operate in the Pashtun province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and have blood and ideological ties to the Afghan Taliban. At the same time, millions of Tajiks live in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, some of whom are allegedly members of the TTP.
Author of Halva. tj conducted an exclusive interview with Arif Hasan Akhundzade, a regional analyst and one of the leaders of the Pakistani Tajik community, about the reasons for the sudden activation of the TPP and the fate of Pakistani Tajiks in the context of growing destabilization in the country.
THE US'S DEFEAT IN AFGHANISTAN AND THE RESURGENCE OF THE TPP
- On what factors does TPP activation depend?
- The collapse of the Pakistani state and its government is due, first of all, to the internal factor of its corruption, which served as the revival of the TTP. This corruption is enabled by the fact that the idea of Pakistan has no valid political or ethnic basis as a nation-state. It serves as a tool for Western regional imperialist interests, and those interests are now invalid because the Western focus has now shifted.
So where there is a vacuum, another more effective political force has to replace it in order to take over. That is the sole factor that will now ensure the success of the Pakistani Taliban.
- It was said that this group is a product of Pakistani intelligence. Is it out of control now?
- After America defeated the USSR in 1991 and won the Cold War, the American proxy Pakistan began to employ the instrument of “Jihad” as its policy in the region – to create mischief and instability so that Pakistan could extend its influence under the excuse of “Islamic ideology” to newly exposed and vulnerable areas such as Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Central Asia…..and also Chechnya, and in those days also Bosnia. After the overthrow of the socialist government in Kabul, the original Mujahideen basmachis had become quarrelsome and were hard to control by their Pakistani handlers – so in November 1994, they had been replaced with the Taliban by the Pakistani intelligence service ISI. Since Pakistan was primarily an American proxy, this was done with the full connivance of the USA which eventually hoped to use Jihadi mischief to gain control of old Soviet oil resources in the Caspian region and to build the pipelines necessary for the conveyance of that oil to areas under their control.
In that respect, the influence of the Taliban also began to get popular in the Pashtun regions bordering Afghanistan in 1995, because it was these regions and this ethnicity that the Pakistani army used as a base from where to conduct this drama in other theatres of interest. However, after the incident of 11 September 2001, the policy of Jihad failed and flew back into the faces of its American and Pakistani creators. America consequently demanded that Pakistan destroy the Taliban – which was impossible because by this time they had become the basis of Pakistan’s security policy and Jihadism had become a part of the Pakistani military establishment in the manner of a flesh-embedded nail. Pakistan took limited action against its Jihadi proteges to please its American masters because without American and Western aid Pakistan’s survival was impossible. America also threatened Pakistan with direct war if it failed to control the Taliban and its Jihadi policy.
After 2001 most of the Taliban from Afghanistan took refuge across the border with their Pashtun brothers in the autonomous Pakistani Pashtun tribal areas. Their rage against the double game played by the Pakistani rulers increased, and an insurgency began to develop in the next few years. The local Pakistani Taliban began to take control of large parts of the countryside and remote areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. In this, they were helped by the fact that the government’s corruption and dysfunction were also increasing exponentially and this not only affected its public image but also its capacity to rule effectively and perform its expected duties. By 2007 the Pakistani Taliban were organized to the extent that they could wage a full guerrilla war against the Pakistani state and military. By 2015 with American help, the insurgency had largely been stamped out – but last year’s defeat of America in Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban to Kabul has ensured a revival of the TTP which had lain low for the past seven years.
- In your opinion, how serious is the TPP threat for Pakistan?
- As I said, the TTP can threaten this country because the state machinery running the government has become rotten due to corruption. Pakistan’s infrastructure was once one of the best in the world – a gift is given to them by the British rulers – but now it is in ruins because of plunder. The Pashtun areas of Pakistan are totally threatened because Pashtuns are basically lawless and tribal people whose traditions take precedence over all other considerations. Their areas comprise Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province and parts of Balochistan Province.
However, the actual nerve centers of Pakistan lie in its Indian ethnic regions of Punjab and Sindh. Pakistan’s Indians are more educated and sophisticated and rule the country….but are ruined by greed and corruption. It is they who manipulate the crude Pashtuns to further the so-called Jihadi state policy. Although the TTP is largely a Pashtun-based organization, it has its allies among Punjabi and other Jihadi groups connected to the military, who can pose a problem to the central government of the regime if it gets too weak. Pakistan has secular separatist movements in Sindh and Balochistan, which can also ally themselves with the TTP for convenience.
- Meanwhile, as you say, the interests of the West have changed, but the US has said it will help Pakistan in the fight against the TPP. What does it mean? Is this a significant threat to this group or is there another game going on?
- Nowadays, American promises and pronouncements are largely verbal and empty. America is no longer the superpower it once was – last year it shamelessly fled Kabul, after wasting 20 years and trillions of Dollars in Afghanistan. American involvement in this region was due to a 200 year old geopolitical policy called the “Great Game” firstly created by Britain, in which it tried to oppose the expansion of the Russian Empire into Central and South Asia, initially to protect their Indian Empire and later the technologically vital petroleum assets of the Gulf Arab states. The creation by the British in 1947 of the unreal puppet state called Pakistan was a part of this strategy. After World War 2, Britain was replaced on the world stage by America which in reality is the second British Empire.
The Anglo-American “Great Game” policy went through many major phases of evolution, but now the West has zero interests in this region because Russia is confronting NATO directly in the European theatre (Ukraine). Continued Western orchestration of the Great Game would be counterproductive because of the defeats already sustained since last year, and a lack of any solid reasons for further prolongation in this regard….not to mention the fact that even if continued Western presence here was a viable strategy, Pakistan is now too corrupt to serve as a useful instrument for Western designs.
- To what extent are the TTP inspired by the Afghan Taliban and does he consider them his mainstay?
- The Taliban – both in Afghanistan and Pakistan – are in reality a single phenomenon, with the latter being a recent offshoot of the former. Any differences in their respective nomenclatures refers only to a formal labelling which derives from their particular areas of operation.
THE PRESENCE OF PAKISTANI TAJIKS IN THE RANKS OF THE TTP
- The TPP operates in areas where the majority of Pakistani Tajiks live. Are there Tajiks among the Taliban?
- Yes, one of the major strongholds of the TTP is the Swat and Bajaur region – which includes the District Dir, bordering on Afghanistan’s Kunar and Badakhshan Provinces. The Tajiks of District Dir are noted for their strong Jihadi activism, and many of them now serve in the ranks of the TTP. But the roots of the involvement date to the time of the CIA’s anti-Soviet Jihad, and even earlier. The reasons for that are several: Dir is a very backward area that has been neglected by an already corrupt government as regards the provision of development facilities, education, and health. The people of Dir are in need of a strong organizing force, and that need seems to be fulfilled in the Taliban. Unlike the rest of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Swat, Bajaur, and Dir were independent princely states till 1969 and were ruled by medieval tradition instead of modern secular government.
- Can you give specific examples of the presence and role of Tajiks in the ranks of the TPP...
- One of the first local Taliban leaders who emerged thirty years ago, and later laid the foundation of the TTP in this region was the late Maulana Sufi Muhammad (in the photo) – who was a Tajik from Dir. His family’s profession was “ahingar” but Sufi Muhammad became a religious teacher, who rose to become the head of a religious madrassa. He was an influential preacher. Later in life, he became involved in the Afghan Jihad, including Ahmad Shah Massoud and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and he became part of the Pakistani government’s Jihadi mechanism. 1994 was the year in which the Pakistani intelligence formed the Taliban in Kandahar – and in the same year, Sufi Muhammad formed his own local organization called “Tehrik-e Nifaz-e Shariat-e Muhammadi”. These basmachis soon became the most influential Jihadist organization in the Swat area, and Sufi Muhammad started developing differences with the Jihadi policy of the Pakistani government. He soon controlled Swat and Dir and led an armed insurrection in which he captured key government offices and installations including the airport of Swat, and declared independence with himself as Amir. The government had to quell the rebellion using the air force, and in 1999 Sufi Muhammad fled across the border into Kunar, Afghanistan. He soon returned and signed a surrender agreement with the government. In 2001 with the 11 September incident, he again formed another army and crossed the border into Kunar and Badakhshan, with the intention of fighting against the Americans.
However relentless aerial bombing by NATO destroyed his forces, and he returned back to Pakistan – where the government put him in jail. Sufi Muhammad was too influential for them to try on charges of sedition and rebellion which would have seen him hanged. He died in jail in 2019. In jail, he lived the life of a prince and was provided with luxurious facilities by the Pakistani government. They used to tell him that he was being imprisoned “for his own safety”. The later leader of TTP in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was Mullah Fazalullah from Swat. He was an ethnic Tajik of royal Swati ancestry and was the son-in-law of Sufi Muhammad.
- Apart from Pashtuns and Tajiks, what is the popularity of the TTP among other ethnic groups in Pakistan such as Punjabis and Balochs?
- As I said above, TTP is a Pashtun creation – but is supported by all the influential Jihadi groups and organizations of other ethnicities in Pakistan. Major examples include Lashkar-e Tayibba, Lashkar-e Jhangvi, Sipah-e Sahaba, and so on.
- Can we say that the presence of Tajiks in the ranks of the TTP will help to persecute non-Taliban Tajiks less in case of a crisis?
- In Pakistani society, tribal and ethnic motivation generally prevails above all other considerations. Although there might be differences in ideology between those Tajiks who are in TTP and those opposed to it – generally people from one ethnicity tend to treat their fellows as belonging to one tribal family, and do not target them. However, it is hard to tell to what extent this attitude will prevail in the coming times.
- TTP is called an Islamic group, given its ethnic composition, how does it reflect the spirit of Pashtunwali?
- The outlook of the TTP is colored by an effort of trying to combine a rural and simplistic interpretation of Islam with the practices of the prevailing local Pashtun tribal culture known as “Pashtunwali”. This is based on personal and clan pride, egotism, the spirit of revenge, hospitality to guests, and misogynistic concepts. That is the only form of Islam they know, and the one that they appreciate. However, the influence of foreign Jihadi fighters in their ranks should also be considered as reinforcing such tendencies. These are Arabs, Europeans, Uzbeks, and Chechens who tend to follow an extreme form of the simplistic Wahhabi doctrine.
THE FATE OF TAJIKS IN PAKISTAN
- Why didn't Pakistan recognize Tajiks as a separate nation in this country?
- That is a good question. Till now Tajiks in Pakistan regarded themselves as a subordinate extension of the Pashtuns and their polity. However, my efforts and those of my associates have awoken in Pakistani Tajiks a separate sense of Tajik identity. They still have a lot to learn, but our influence is rising – and it will be hard to tell what happens in the near future as dramatic developments unfold. However, it should be clear that I am not in favor of the Taliban, and will not promote any such trends.
As I have detailed above, Pakistan was a state founded on the excuse of a crude political doctrine of preserving Islamic identity within British India. It was founded by Western imperialist interests whose primary motive was plunder, not nation-building. As such, those running the Pakistani show have underplayed the ethnic factor and tried to cover it by saying “What does ethnicity matter? All are Muslims!” In the past, the ethnic factor in Pakistan was central to pro-Soviet leftist politics, which the pro-American Pakistani state opposed and suppressed strongly. Pakistani policy was opposed to leftist Pashtun nationalism of the Soviet era which advocated the reunion of Pashtuns with Afghanistan….however, they supported the Pashtun oppression of Tajiks and destruction of local Tajik identity – as sadly these subjects have been publicly forgotten and were not even a matter of concern to any party. Even Soviet ideologists were unaware of the presence of Tajiks in Pakistan – and therefore supported a Pashtun nationalism that suppressed the Tajik element.
It is only now, with my efforts of the past five years that hidden history has been revived and is being discussed publicly. And now the Pakistani government may be sympathetic to us because of the TTP factor. All Tajiks in this country are pro-Pakistan and are traditionally opposed to Pashtun separatism. Not all are with the TTP. We will have to see what happens further. But at the moment the problems facing Pakistan’s continued survival and that of its statehood are very immense and very basic. They are existential in nature and of internal origin because corruption is an illness of wrong attitudes and morality.
- Using bilateral good friendly relations with Pakistan, can Tajikistan help in officially recognizing the Tajiks?
- We, the Tajiks of Pakistan….would request the Government of Tajikistan to take formal notice of the existence of the Tajik ethnicity in Pakistan…although it exists locally only as a little-known caste name in the past five hundred years, with the rest of our cultural attributes such as language and individuality having been wiped out. The leaders of the local Tajik communities in Pakistan need to establish a working relationship with the government in Dushanbe. We need to revive our history, identity, language, and culture – and in this regard recognition as well as support and cultural assistance and moral support from established entities of Tajiks abroad, such as t *In Tajikistan, it is considered a terrorist group.
The Tajikistan government will be among our first priorities and requirements.
