The Taliban have posted four elderly officers and dozens of inferior operatives at the Afghan delegacy and consulates in Pakistan in recent weeks, reflecting Islamabad’s close ties with the setup in Kabul.
One of the elderly Taliban officers was stationed at Afghanistan’s delegacy in Islamabad and the others at consulates in Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta, people familiar with the matter said.
“ This has happed indeed though there’s no formal recognition of the Taliban’s interim government in Kabul by any country, not indeed Pakistan. It’s a de facto recognition of the Taliban administration,” said one of the people cited over.
Dozens of inferior Taliban operatives have been transferred to the four operations to take over operations and to keep an eye on diplomats posted during the term of the former Ashraf Ghani government, which collapsed when the Taliban marched into Kabul on August 15.
An Afghan diplomat appointed by the Ghani government in Bangladesh switched over to the Taliban side and was also transferred to Pakistan lately, the people said.
The Taliban have sought to play down the advertisement of officers to Pakistan, with spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid contending that they aren’t sanctioned envoys. The Taliban have said these officers were meant to help Afghan deportees living in Pakistan and to grease the trip of people who wish to visit Afghanistan.
Muhammad Shokaib, who has used the aliases Mosa Farhad and Qari Yousaf Ahmadi and served as a Taliban spokesperson, is the de facto minister in Islamabad. The Taliban’s acting foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, known to be close to the Pakistani establishment, issued sanctioned letters regarding the appointment of the officers in Pakistan.
The Afghan delegacy in Islamabad had been without a head since July, when the Ghani government recalled minister Najibullah Alikhil and other staff to protest the hijacking and assault of the envoy’s son by unidentified men. She was kidnapped from a marketable quarter in the heart of Islamabad and held for several hours. Pakistan denied she was abducted, taking ties to a low at the time.
The Taliban have also been making sweats for several months to invite diplomats appointed by the Ghani government in crucial countries, including West Asian countries and India, to work for the setup in Kabul but have been unfit to make important advance. In some cases, Muttaqi himself has been involved in these sweats, the people said.
Some 70 Afghan operations around the world are still using Afghanistan’s tricolour flag and issuing a limited number of visas, substantially for philanthropic workers. Still, they’re scuffling with a finances crunch that has redounded in cutting down the number of original staff and some functions.
Diplomats appointed by the former government have also been effused by the UN General Assembly’s move on Monday to postpone a decision on who’ll represent Afghanistan at the world body. This effectively allows the Ghani government’s representative, Ghulam Mohammad Ishaqzai, to remain as the envoy.
Sameer Patil, fellow for transnational security studies at Gateway House, said that in the absence of recognition from the world community, the Taliban is trying “ out of the box results to gain some kind of de facto legality”.
He added, “ Obviously, the fact that Pakistan has allowed the charge in Islamabad to be run by the Taliban has given them the confidence that they can try commodity analogous in other countries. There will be some drive back from the former governance’s diplomats but this opposition will be delicate in the absence of fiscal support.”
