Pakistan pimps in favor of jihadist Taliban regime

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Less than two months ago, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan declared the opposite, replying “absolute nonsense” to reports that Pakistan was helping the Taliban. Writes Christine Douglass-Williams

For years, Pakistan denied helping the Taliban, even as its support for the group was an open secret. Yet Westerners continue to take Islamic supremacist leaders at their word, including the Iranian regime that continues its pursuit of a nuke deal. For decades, Pakistan has been playing a double game and pretending to be an American ally. In a full display of idiocy, the Biden administration quietly pressed Pakistan to help America by cooperating “on fighting terrorist groups such as ISIS-K and Al Qaeda in the wake of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan”.

In the first week of September, Pakistan’s interior minister Sheikh Rashid admitted that Pakistan did everything for the Taliban, declaring: “We are custodian of Taliban leaders. We have taken care of them for long.”

Less than two months ago, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan declared the opposite, replying “absolute nonsense” to reports that Pakistan was helping the Taliban.

According to an Associated Press report in mid-August, “Pakistan has tried unsuccessfully to convince Afghans they don’t want a Taliban government back in Afghanistan.”

Pakistan’s national security adviser Moeed Yusuf “called for world powers to engage with the Taliban rather than to freeze ties with the government led by the armed group, which waged a bloody 20-year battle against occupying US and NATO forces that killed tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and security forces.”

Yusuf spun his plea to world powers against the backdrop of claims that Afghanistan is now led by a different Taliban from the brutal jihadist one that everyone has come to know. The only thing new is the presentation of the Taliban as becoming more moderate. This utter nonsense is being successfully propagated with the intention of further aiding the Taliban after Biden’s catastrophic failure and betrayal.

Nothing has changed about the Taliban, and the most defenseless religious minorities (especially underground Christians) and women will bear the brunt of its persecution and abuse.

Pakistan calls for world to ‘engage’ with Taliban government,” September 15, Al Jazeera, September 15, 2021:

Pakistan – Pakistan’s national security adviser has called on the world to “engage” with the Taliban’s caretaker government in Afghanistan or risk a return to the instability that characterized the group’s last era in power three decades ago.

In an address to foreign media in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Wednesday Moeed Yusuf urged the international community not to repeat past mistakes.

“We are trying to make sure that the world understands the importance of not making the mistakes of the past again,” he said.

“For us, it is an imperative to seek peace and stability in Afghanistan, that is what we are focused on.”

Yusuf’s comments come as world powers debate whether and under what conditions to recognize the new government in Kabul dominated by the Taliban, which swept across Afghanistan in a lightning offensive last month. The group seized control of the capital, Kabul, on August 15 as former President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.

Pakistan, Afghanistan’s southeastern neighbor, has repeatedly called for world powers to engage with the new government and to provide immediate humanitarian and other aid to stave off an imminent economic collapse.

On Monday, several countries pledged more than $1.1bn in food aid at a United Nations conference to address immediate poverty and hunger concerns in Afghanistan. Roughly $10bn in Afghan central bank reserves, however, remain frozen at banks abroad, notably with the US Federal Reserve.

Remain engaged

Yusuf called for world powers to engage with the Taliban rather than to freeze ties with the government led by the armed group, which waged a bloody 20-year battle against occupying US and NATO forces that killed tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and security forces.

“By engaging, you essentially are saying we are constructively going to try and look at how to help Afghanistan for the sake of the average Afghan,” said Yusuf.

Asked if there were human rights concerns under a Taliban government, the Pakistani national security adviser said international powers could only exercise leverage on those issues if it engaged with the country.

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