The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC): An Analysis of Challenges Faced from Afghanistan

Pakistan faced several external challenges of a complicated nature that could affect the CPEC project. Perhaps, the foremost challenge was the Afghanistan situation. The Afghanistan factor

was therefore considered at first. Today’s Afghanistan situation was proving a formidable challenge to Pakistan. The country was a mess. President Ashraf Ghani came into power in September 2014. His government was widely seen as weak, corrupt, and ineffective. Poor governance, and incapacity were the norm and not the exception in Afghanistan. Although the same can be said of the Nawaz government also. However, Pakistan was no failed state. America’s longest war was now in a downward spiral a as insurgents scored significant territorial gains; Afghan casualties reached a new high; political rifts between Afghan leaders hindered long-overdue governance reforms, and opium production increased by 43 percent compared with 2015 output. Meanwhile, security posed the gravest concern. Emboldened by their battlefield success after foreign troop drawdowns, the Taliban appeared “even less inclined to make peace and are likely to escalate violence to project power and seize more territory…one thing is certain: an abrupt reduction in US military and financial commitments would undo precarious gains and make Afghanistan, once again, Grand Central for international terrorism”.[i] 

Meanwhile, the Taliban and IS threats are on the increase and the Ghani Government couldn’t get its act together. Plus, the possibility of a peace deal with the Taliban seemed to be remote. Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan remained strained. The Ghani Government alleged that Pakistan-based terror groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Taliban, JeM and al-Qaida target India's interests and goals in Afghanistan and pursue other objectives like creating sanctuaries and safe havens in tribal areas between Kabul and Islamabad. In Afghanistan, regional terrorist groups have cooperated with the Taliban based on their common goals and mutual interests. These groups included LeT, TTP, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), al-Qaida and Lashkar-e-Islam, Sipah-e-Sahaba, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Eastern Turkistan Islamic movement. These groups pose a strategic threat to the security and stability of Afghanistan. In a scathing attack on Pakistan last month, Afghanistan had said the killing of notorious terrorist leaders, including Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Mansour in "safe havens" in Pakistan, prove that it violated sovereignty of other nations. The Ghani government had accused "elements within the state structure of Pakistan" of facilitating most of the terrorist groups active in the region and had warned that a country using "good and bad terrorists" against each other is "playing with fire".[ii] To many Afghans, the roots of their country’s problems were in Pakistan. The role of Pakistan’s ISI support of some elements in the Taliban has been well documented by now. It's hardly a secret that the HQN and the Quetta Shura operated from safe havens inside Pakistan.[iii]

Meanwhile, the Afghanistan peace talks were at a dead end with no hopes of starting in the immediate future. Earlier, the Quadrilateral Coordination Group had been discussing a roadmap to peace talks, and even that process had been off to a sputtering start. In April 2016, a Taliban delegation in Pakistan said it was ready to meet with officials. The Afghans refused to take part, and accused Pakistan of refusing to use its influence over the Taliban to push for peace. Pakistan’s relations with both the United States and Afghanistan have been further strained because of these incidents Peace talks in Afghanistan have been stalled. Pakistan’s involvement in any peace talks is key, and that would require a shift in Army policy that was not forthcoming.

Given the political, economic, and security situation playing out right now, the Taliban has little incentive to talk, and rather more to take advantage of the chaos. The Afghan government was also so consumed by its multiple crises that it is in no position to push for negotiations. [iv]

Pakistan expects the current stalemate in its ties with Afghanistan to continue after recent efforts to repair the strained relationship received a lukewarm response from across the border. The decision by the two countries on June 24 to set up a high-level ‘bilateral mechanism’ to discuss matters related to border management and security renewed hopes the two neighbors would overcome the strains in their ties. However, since then there has been no forward movement. The plan to set up a bilateral mechanism headed by the foreign ministers of Pakistan and Afghanistan was agreed upon last month after troops from the two countries clashed over the new border rules Islamabad started enforcing at Torkham. Pakistan was particularly upset at the tirade launched by the Afghan leadership, including President Ashraf Ghani, who used his speech at a recent NATO summit to blame Islamabad for the mess in his country. President Ghani accused Pakistan of continuing to distinguish between ‘good and bad’ Taliban. Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah made a similar charge by suggesting that “sanctuaries of terrorists still exist in the neighborhood. This pattern shows that Afghanistan was not keen to engage with Pakistan.[v]

The Pakistan Army had now moved to tighten controls along a porous border with Afghanistan. Pakistan’s building of fences and fortifications has triggered cross-border skirmishing in the past. And it has periodically shut the border when it wanted to express annoyance at Afghanistan. On May 10, 2016, the border was closed for four days after Afghan forces blocked Pakistan’s efforts to erect border fencing. But this time passport controls look set to become permanent. Officials promise to extend them to the six other border crossings in due course.

Pakistan’s Army insists that tighter controls are a security measure, unrelated to the region’s power politics. The Army believes that three terrorist attacks in and near Peshawar, including the gruesome slaughter of more than 130 boys at the city’s Army Public School, involved terrorists who had freely crossed into the country at Torkham. Demands that Afghan refugees, some of whom have lived in Pakistan since the Soviet invasion of the 1980s, return home have grown louder.[vi]

On June 1, 2016 for the first time, Pakistan imposed full border controls at Torkham near the Khyber Pass, used by around 15,000 people daily. For Afghanistan, the closure inflamed the conflict over the Durand Line, which defined the border. The first meeting of Pakistan Afghanistan joint technical working group on border management and related security issues will be held in Kabul on July 26. The meeting of the group will be held under the high-level consultation mechanism for coordination. Pakistan delegation to this meeting will be led by Director General Military Operations and include representatives of the concerned ministries and departments. Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz and Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani had agreed to constitute an elevated level bilateral mechanism at the level of Foreign Ministers that would also include two National Security Advisers. It was decided that the mechanism will also have a joint technical working group to deal with the mutual concerns.[vii] Ina sign of strained relations there was a media report that Pakistan had ‘punished’ landlocked Afghanistan for signing deals for wheat flour imports with India, Tajikistan and Iran by “temporarily suspending” its own supplies that traders had committed and contracted earlier. Reports from Kabul and Peshawar say Afghanistan faced acute shortage of wheat. The Pakistani traders have told their government that they feel competed out because India, they allege, subsidizes its exports. The export of flour from Pakistan to Afghanistan was suspended temporarily on July 12 after Afghan authorities increased custom duty on the commodity along with signing an agreement with India for import of wheat and flour.[viii]

Meanwhile, Afghanistan was facing a political crisis and the Ghani Government was plagued by internal bickering. It had been unable to stem the loss of soldiers or persuade the Taliban to enter peace talks. President Ghani have yet to ease tensions among ethnic groups and crackdown on corruption. [ix]. Factions within the Ghani government were squabbling over reforms meant to decentralize power. The economy had also weakened and Afghanistan was also faced with a refugee crisis and a sharply deteriorating security situation. This was mainly due to the massive return of the Taliban and the expanding activities of Islamic state and other Jihadist groups which led to a tremendous increase in terrorist attacks leading to an extraordinarily elevated level of civilian casualties. [x] Even after years of training and billions in U.S. spending, Afghan forces are not yet ready to stand alone. [xi] The US troops in Afghanistan will again take on a more robust and offensive posture, which will most likely result in more combat missions. Earlier, at NATO’s summit in Warsaw, Poland, the alliance renewed its commitment to the Resolute Support mission and agreed to fund Afghan forces until 2020. President Obama had previously said he wanted to cut the 9,800 U.S. troops currently in the country to 5,500, but decided recently to maintain a force of 8,400 through the end of his presidency in January 2017.

Previously, President Obama's had also decided to grant expanded powers to the Resolute Support commander, Army Gen. Nicholson, allowing the general to authorize offensive strikes against the Taliban. Gen Dunford said that “When all of those things align and the Taliban figure out that they have no chance of winning on the battlefield then the prospects of reconciliation will increase." [xii]

Meanwhile Pakistan-Afghanistan relations remained problematic as they were determined by deep mistrust, suspicion, persisting resentment which had contributed to political deadlock and conflict in the whole region. The Afghan Government had routinely accused Pakistan of sponsoring the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan had long rejected accusations that it had provided support and sanctuary for the Afghan Taliban and its leaders, saying it had for years itself been a victim of terrorism, much of it from groups based in Afghanistan. It was alleged that Pakistan's "double game" – in which the country serves simultaneously as a military partner of the United States. and a patron of its enemies – has been evident since the very beginning of the war in Afghanistan. But only recently, following the withdrawal of most U.S. forces from Afghanistan, had the United States seriously begun to consider withholding substantial amounts of aid from Pakistan over its alleged double-dealing.

Ultimately, the best reason given by many in United States to cut aid to Islamabad was Pakistan's extensive and longstanding support to radical Islamist groups that have been responsible for the deaths of countless U.S., Afghan lives.[xiii]

In response, the Pakistan Army was increasingly adopting an aggressive policy with Afghanistan which it accused of playing a “blame game” instead of cooperating effectively to stop terrorism. Pakistan’s critics had alleged that it supports Islamist militants in Afghanistan to maintain influence and counter attempts by arch-rival India to gain a foothold, effectively surrounding it. [xiv] Pakistan Army believed United States was fighting an unwinnable war in Afghanistan and that time was on the its side in the country.

Pakistan also blamed Afghanistan for the failure of the peace process to go anywhere. A spokeswoman for the Pakistani government cited the “absence of a national consensus in support of the reconciliation process,” as well as the “worsening security situation, corruption and other administrative problems.” The United States however believed that the Taliban and their unyielding allies are to blame as well. In June, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of one militant Islamist faction, demanded that the Kabul government send all foreign troops home and disband itself. Ironically, he was America’s (and Pakistan’s) primary ally during the war against the Soviet Union, despite (or because of) his reputation for pathological brutality and leadership of Afghanistan’s drug trade. So much for grateful allies.[xv]

 The Pakistan Army believed that Pakistan was being scapegoated by Afghanistan while it wasn’t itself doing enough to secure the border. for all the wrongs of the Afghan war, Pakistan has lately taken new measures to strengthen security along its 2,600-kilometer border with Afghanistan, including construction of new check posts at eight established crossing routes, saying it would help counter terrorist movement on either side. The project, however has enraged Afghan authorities who dispute the border being an international frontier.

Recently, return of Afghan refugees became a political issue between Pakistan, US and Afghanistan. There are 1.5 million legally registered (and another 1.5 million living there illegally). Pakistan was now publicly pushing for Afghanistan to take many refugees back, even if that meant putting them in camps on the Afghan side of the border.[xvi] Although Pakistan has extended Afghan refugees stay for six months until December 2016, Islamabad’s stance on the issue had hardened in recent times. Pakistan has alleged that the refugee camps were being for subversive activities. [xvii] Pakistani Army said they need to return the refugees as part of a "border management program. However, Afghanistan wasn't now prepared to embrace a large influx of Afghan immigrants from neighboring nations, given the security problems and lack of resources.

But there are signs that the threat of forced mass repatriations may be mostly a rhetorical salvo in the complicated political game between Pakistan and the United States over Pakistan's role in the ongoing Afghan conflict. The United States now visualized Pakistan as a hindrance to peace negotiations with the Taliban and was trying to put pressure on the Pakistan Army. In turn, Pakistan Army was using the refugees as pawns to remind the United States of its essential role in the region as it seeks more foreign military aid and a dominant hand in shaping the peace talks.

The issue has already created new tensions along the Afghan-Pakistan border, where fighting has broken out several times since Pakistan tightened security after Mansoor's killing and troops tried to erect a new gate at the busy main border crossing Pamela Constable in her Pakistan uses 1.5 million Afghan refugees as pawns in dispute with U.S., published in The Washington post on June 17, 2016 stated that:[xviii]

The Pakistan Army had now claimed that it would follow a pragmatic policy on Afghanistan and would end support to the Afghan Taliban’s sanctuary inside Pakistan.[xix] Most probably, the Pakistan Army will continue the old policy of supporting the HQN and the Quetta Shura and try to seek a friendly Afghanistan government to counter Indian influence in the region. This was part and parcel of a policy of maximizing Pakistan’s influence in the region and minimizing that of India, an arch enemy. The Pakistan Army believed that the country was threatened from arch-rival India which was bent on making mischief in the region. Pakistan had no choice but to take measures to secure itself against the menace of India. This policy had long been an obsession for Pakistan’s Army. However, Pakistan Army faced a predicament because of its very narrow view of regional situation seen through the prism of national security only and missing out the complexities of global and regional politics. Thus, the Army saw the regional situation as a zero-sum game only and was also obsessed with India’s enmity. It sees Indian advancements in Afghanistan as necessarily detrimental to Pakistan’s national interests, so defined by the Army itself. The Army believed that India was using Afghanistan’s soil to stage terrorist attacks inside Pakistan and that the US and Afghanistan government was tolerating the TTP which was involved in terrorist activities inside Pakistan. Both Pakistan and Afghanistan blame each other for supporting terrorism in their countries. Thus, the Army remained convinced that development and support of proxy forces like the HQN and Quetta Shura was in Pakistan’s best interests. Pakistan was playing a double game like India and Afghanistan. It was unlikely to stop playing this game due to the Army’s perceived national interests. Pakistan’s relations with both Afghanistan and the US will remain strained. The Army mindset insists on continuation of the policy as it sees Pakistan under perpetual treat from arch enemy India. Perceptions matter as it shapes reality and in the Army thinking Indian aggression is a constant factor. The siltation is complex because there is some truth in allegations of Indian interference inside Pakistan, Afghanistan was indeed a staging area for Indian interference in Baluchistan in support of the insurgency in the province. India had also supported the MQM terrorism in Karachi in the last decades which had all but destroyed the peace of the city. However, due to the weakness of Pakistan’s foreign policy establishment it couldn’t convince the world on the blatant Indian interference in supporting terrorism in the country. The Army considered itself as perhaps one of the best institutional fighting forces in e world that can certainly take on India in any fight for regional influence. 

Meanwhile, Afghanistan had become a waste basket cause and an example of bad planning and poor governance. The Ashraf Ghani government in Afghanistan was a grave failure. Corruption, ineffective governance, and incapacity are the norm and not the exception in Afghanistan. Although the same can be said of the Nawaz government also. But Pakistan is no banana republic. Given its large nuclear arsenal, it is one of the strongest military powers in the world. Developments on the ground suggest that fighting, in some shape or form. Meanwhile, after successful military operation in Pakistan the TTP command had fled the country and amassed in neighboring Afghanistan. The TTP was under Afghan state and warlord patronage. While Afghanistan Ambassador Zakhilwal’s latest admission that the TTP was based out of a part of Afghanistan over which the state has no jurisdiction is a sobering reminder of the limits of state capacity, neither United States nor Afghanistan was willing to seriously take on the TTP hunkering down in Afghan provinces.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan were going nowhere. Pakistan broke with past policies and shared intelligence and made overtures to Afghanistan which wasn’t reciprocated by the Afghan side. Kabul will also have to scale up ongoing operations against TTP militants sheltered by the Afghan state.[xx] Meanwhile, the war raged on in Afghanistan. Seemingly, the Taliban about to make a final push to capture Kandahar and Kunduz. The IS was also infiltrating in the east of Afghanistan which threatened to submerge the entire region, not only Afghanistan, in further turbulence and conflict.[xxi] Last year, the Taliban captured a provincial capital for the first time since their hardline Islamist government was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion in 2001.[xxii]

Today, Afghanistan was weak and unstable as result of bad governance, government corruption and the prolonged conflicts. It was threatened with further instability because of threats from the IS and a resurgent Taliban. The instability in Afghanistan can threaten Pakistan as well. Meanwhile, CPEC was threatened by the nexus of India and Afghanistan against Pakistan which was now simultaneously fighting on two external fronts. Pakistan’s foreign policy needed a serious rethink now. It was dangerous for Pakistan to continue supporting the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani Network because it will keep Afghanistan destabilized. And an unstable Afghanistan means unstable Pakistan which had obvious implications for CPEC.

Earlier, on May 21, 2016, a U.S. drone strike killed the leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Mansour in Baluchistan, Pakistan. Many in the US were convinced that the drone strike was evidence of Pakistan’s longstanding support for terrorist groups. General Raheel expressed Pakistan’s serious concerns over the drone strike. He denounced "such acts of sovereignty violations" as "detrimental to relations and counter-productive for the ongoing peace process.” He reiterated that US drone attacks were regrettable and must stop as they were a threat to the sovereignty and security of the country. The COAS further said border management with Afghanistan was also improving, and now the responsibility lies with Afghanistan as there are fewer check posts on the other side."[xxiii] On June 6, 2016 the Army again stated that because of the drone strike, the trust between Pakistan and the United States had been affected and that the drone strike had also affected Pakistan's sovereignty. The Afghan reconciliation process had also been impacted in a negative way due to the drone strike on May 21. [xxiv] The leadership resolved to protect the country's core national interests and effectively counter negative external influence.[xxv] Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar said some countries were conspiring against the CPEC, but vowed that no world power would be able to sabotage the project.[xxvi]

On July 23, 2016 two explosions rocked a peaceful demonstration in Kabul in which 80 were killed. The Islamic State claimed responsibility. The attack puts further pressure on President Ashraf Ghani’s struggling government. As it tries to build momentum by introducing reforms, Ghani’s coalition government had struggled with infighting and meeting deadlines to hold parliamentary elections. [xxvii] Meanwhile, the 14-year war against the Taliban in the countryside is as bloody as ever. While the Taliban is the dominant insurgent force in the central Asia country, IS has been establishing a presence. Earlier, U.S. President Barack Obama announced on July 6 that he would drawdown of the 9,800 troops supporting the Afghan country because of the precarious security situation, including the emerging threat from IS.

In 2015 and first half of 2016, 38 Americans, both civilian and military, have died in the country. Then President Obama had noted the United States was no longer engaged in a major ground war as it was in 2009 when he took over with plans to end American involvement, but he said, "Afghanistan ... remains one of the poorest countries in the world. It is going to continue to take time for them to build up military capacity that we sometimes take for granted. And given the enormous challenges they face, the Afghan people will need the partnership of the world, led by the United States, for many years to come."[xxviii] In July 2016 Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had announced a major assault against fighters loyal to the IS group, who over the past year captured positions along Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan, mainly in Nangarhar province. That goal to uproot IS from Afghanistan had taken on new urgency in the wake of a deadly suicide bombing of a protest march in Kabul that killed at least 80 people. The IS had claimed responsibility for the attack, the first IS attack in the Afghan capital and one of the deadliest ever to hit Kabul.[xxix] In July 2016 the Taliban forces had dominated the battlefield and the IS group has been building a foothold — and that has meant mounting losses among Afghan troops. Casualty numbers are not officially released, but according to figures provided by military officials, at least 5,000 troops were killed in 2014, rising to more than 6,000 in 2015. Deaths were still higher in 2016. President Obamas directives, issued in June 2016, enabled the U.S. military to work alongside Afghan forces in the field on offensive missions against insurgents, though still in a non-combat role. Since 2014, their role was confined to battles in which the Taliban directly threatened U.S. and NATO forces. In a further acknowledgement of the deteriorating security situation, President Obama this month pledged to keep 8,400 troops in the country through 2017. Afghanistan's government and military also received a boost at NATO's summit in Warsaw this month, when the alliance agreed to fund Afghan forces through 2020.

In 2016, the Taliban had stepped up the fight, deploying more men and weapons than in previous years and expanding to new parts of the country, spreading Afghan forces thin. Their temporary seizure of Kunduz city and several districts unnerved the Afghan population. Meanwhile, there an internal leadership squabbles following the killing of leader Mullah Akhtar Masood in a U.S. drone strike in May 2016. Mansoor's replacement, the conservative cleric Haibatullah Akhundzada, was a weak leader with limited access to funding. The Taliban's strategy under Akhundzada had not yet become clear.

In July 2016 Afghanistan plans for a military offensive in coordination with U.S. troops against the IS have become more urgent as the country marked Sunday a national day of mourning for 80 people killed and 230 injured in Kabul's worst attack in 15 years. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani recently announced a major assault in the Nangarhar province along the country’s eastern border with Pakistan. Then President Obama issued a directive in June allowing the U.S. military to work with Afghan forces on non-combat missions. About 9,800 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan. Obama pledged this month to keep at least 8,400 troops in the country through 2017, which delayed plans to drop to 5,500 by the end of this year.

The military situation is deteriorating. While official casualty totals aren't released, military officials said 5,000 Afghan troops were killed in 2014, more than 6,000 were killed 2015 and the pace is running 20% higher this year.[xxx]

Afghanistan ’s security situation was described as ‘precarious” by United States President Obama on July 6, 2016. He had announced that he will draw down troops to 8,400 by the end of his administration, a remarkable change from the initial target of 5,500. Now, there are around 9,800 soldiers deployed to fight supporting the Afghanistan government in its struggle against the Taliban, Haqqani Network (HQN), al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Also, President Obama's allowed more aggressive U.S. military action in support of Afghan combat operations against the Taliban. The decision was welcomed by Afghanistan.[xxxi] 

Present Situation

Afghan forces had struggled against a resurgent Taliban in the past years. It had lost territory and suffering record casualties, while American strategy on the conflict was mostly considered stagnant here. The Taliban now controlled vast tracts of the Afghan countryside and threatens several cities. The commander of American and NATO forces in the country had asked for thousands of more troops to be deployed in the country to assist Afghan forces. The new Trump administration was reviewing its options in Afghanistan in the face of a resurgent Taliban.

Lately the international community had expressed increasing concerns about the deterioration of security in Afghanistan since large numbers of international security forces withdrew from the country in 2014, and its interest in benefiting from a reconstructed Afghanistan. Last year, the Taliban controlled up to 70 districts (out of the country’s 398), unexpectedly even including Kunduz for a brief period. The Taliban’s 2016 “Spring Offensive” – a series of attacks the group launches each year after the end of winter – included a major bombing in Kabul in April, which killed and injured more than 400 people. In June, security guards at the Canadian embassy in Kabul were attacked; in July, the Taliban drove a truckload of explosives into a foreign military facility; in August, militants stormed the campus of the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul.[xxxii]

In early January 2017, the Marine Corps Times reported that Afghan forces seek to rebuild, following an exhausting 2016 fighting season; 33 districts, which are spread across 16 Afghan provinces are under insurgent control whilst 258 are under government control and nearly 120 districts remain "contested". [xxxiii]

On February 9, 2017, General John W. Nicholson, Jr. told Congress that NATO and allied forces in Afghanistan are facing a “stalemate” and that he needed a few thousand additional troops to more effectively train and advise Afghan soldiers. Additionally, he also asserted that Russia was trying to “legitimize” the Taliban by creating the “false narrative” that the militant organization has been fighting the Islamic State and that Afghan forces have not, he asserted Russia’s goal, was “to undermine the United States and NATO” in Afghanistan. However, he said that the area in which Islamic State fighters operate in Afghanistan had been greatly reduced. A U.S. Special Forces soldier was severely wounded that day when the base he was at was attacked in Helmand province, raising the number of U.S. troops injured in combat nationwide so far, this year to at least 6, Nicholson indicated the soldier was wounded in Sangin. The Military Times reported that on February 26, 2017, a USAF airstrike that killed the Taliban leadership commander Mullah Abdul Salam in Kunduz province in a joint operation with Afghan security forces. The airstrike marked a renewed strategy by U.S. forces under the Trump administration to remove the Taliban leadership/commanders from the battlefield. The Obama administration strategy had focused much of its efforts in pushing reconciliation between the Taliban and the central government of Afghanistan; although in June 2016, to turn back the tide of Taliban gains, President Obama changed the rules of engagement to give U.S. commanders more flexibility to provide airstrikes and ground support to struggling Afghan forces, if those efforts were perceived to provide “strategic effects.” It made a concerted effort to kill high profile al-Qaeda and Haqqani terrorists-groups officially designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department-while attempting to draw down U.S. and NATO forces in the region, having a tangible success. I[n April 2017, the Washington Post reported that Captain Bill Salvin, a spokesman for NATOs' mission to Afghanistan that Afghan and international forces had reduced IS controlled territory in Afghanistan by two-thirds and killed around half the their fighters in the previous 2 years. Since the beginning of 2017, 460 airstrikes against terrorists, with drone strikes alone killing more than 200 IS militants. The affiliate has an estimated 600-800 fighters in two eastern Afghan provinces.[xxxiv] The IS was also trying to get a foothold in northern Afghanistan, where it aims to link up with Central Asian, Chechen and Chinese Uighur militants. But it had largely been eliminated from southern and western Afghanistan by the Afghan Taliban and military operations conducted by Afghan and US/NATO forces. Estimates about IS's numerical strength inside Afghanistan vary, ranging from 1,000 to 5,000. [xxxv]

On April 13, 2017, the United States dropped a bomb with an explosive force equal to 11 tons of TNT on a cave complex used by the Afghanistan branch of the IS. The bomb is officially called a GBU-43 or Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), the origin of its nickname as the “mother of all bombs.” Weighing more than 21,000 lbs., the weapon is the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat.

President Trump called the mission “another very, very successful mission.” Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai tweeted his anger at the strike, posting in a series of tweets that he “vehemently” opposed the U.S.’s action.[xxxvi]

Previously, the IS had announced the establishment of its Khorasan branch - an old name for Afghanistan and surrounding areas - in January 2015. It was the first time that IS had officially spread outside the Arab world. It was the first major militant group to directly challenge the Afghan Taliban's dominance over the local insurgency.

However, experts say it has struggled to build a wide political base and the indigenous support it expected. It has steadily lost territory and fighters to US air strikes and an assault by Afghan forces on the ground. Estimates about IS's numerical strength inside Afghanistan vary, ranging from several hundred to a few thousand fighters. US forces say their number has been cut in half since early 2016 due to military operations. The MOAB strike followed the death of a US special forces soldier fighting IS in Nangarharin early April 2017. The bombing was part of an intense air campaign against the IS, with American airstrikes in Afghanistan averaging as many as 10 a day in the first two weeks of April. Initial information indicated that 36 militants had been killed and three large caves destroyed in the bombing in Nangarhar Province. However, Attaullah Khogyani, a spokesman for the provincial governor’s office, said 82 militants had been killed. The IS’s regional affiliate in Afghanistan, largely made of former members of the Pakistani Taliban, was rapidly expanding in eastern Afghanistan during much of 2015 and 2016. In March 2016, American military officials estimated that the group had 2,000 to 3,000 fighters across 11 districts. After multiple operations and extensive airstrikes, that number has been reduced to about 700 fighters across three districts, officials say. The efforts involved several ground operations by Afghan soldiers and commandos advised by American military special forces. But they were also accompanied by an intense air campaign that included B-52 bombers last year, staples of the early part of the war that had not been used for many years. The IS had claimed responsibility for several suicide bombings in urban centers, most recently at the gates of the presidential palace in Kabul on Wednesday, an attack that killed at least five people. In the past, urban attacks were often the work of the Haqqani network, a brutal arm of the Taliban. In a sign of the complexity of the war, Afghan and American officials have expressed concern that there might be an overlap in the enabling networks used by the Haqqani group and the Islamic State for bombings in cities. “One of the things we are concerned about, and the reason we think the entire world needs to be focused on Afghanistan, is the potential for convergence among the various terrorist groups in this area,” General Nicholson said.[xxxvii]

U.S President Donald Trump’s national security adviser H.R McMaster visited Kabul on April 16, 2017.[xxxviii] Gen. H. R. McMaster seemed to take a “tougher line” on Pakistan, which has been accused of “using the Taliban as a proxy force and giving its leaders sanctuary”. Many analysts, as well as some coalition partners, had been critical of the United States’ “uphill struggle to persuade Pakistan to crack down on the Afghan Taliban leadership, which has used Pakistan as a base for its battles in Afghanistan”.

[xxxix] General McMaster said:[xl]

What is necessary at this point is to consolidate gains and to deal with what is a big security problem now… Taliban fighters who refused the Afghan government’s call for peace will have to be defeated on battlefields, and that the United States was committed to give the Afghan state, the Afghan security forces, the strength they need. As all of us have hoped for many, many years — we have hoped that Pakistani leaders will understand that it is in their interest to go after these groups less selectively than they have in the past…. The best way to pursue their interests in Afghanistan and elsewhere is through the use of diplomacy, and not through the use of proxies that engage in violence.

Analysts had long questioned the American consideration of Pakistan as an ally, as the country’s Army was accused of assisting Taliban pains to disrupt objectives of the United States. Davood Moradian, the director of the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies, argued that:[xli]

Many people in Afghanistan are wondering about the nature of relations between the United States and Pakistan, particularly the fact that everyone recognizes the principal role of Pakistan in supporting Taliban and other terrorist groups…. the new administration realized that the prior “appeasement policy” with Pakistan had not worked and needed to be reconsidered.

Ronald Neumann, David Petraeus and Earl Anthony Wayne, in their essay “An Afghanistan Strategy for Trump”, published on April 16, 2017 argued that:[xlii]

Afghanistan is America’s longest-standing commitment in the post-9/11 struggle against terrorism and remains a frontline state in that effort. In February, the commanding U.S. general in Afghanistan testified that some twenty terrorist groups are operating in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, the “highest concentration” in the world. Despite massive investments by the United States and its allies, Afghanistan still faces a vigorous Taliban insurgency with safe havens in neighboring Pakistan, as well as serious governance and development challenges. The Trump administration is wisely taking a careful look at the U.S. approach, including the request by the U.S. commander to add troops. …The surge and subsequent drawdown have been criticized for setting unrealistic timetables to end the U.S. presence, for not effectively countering pernicious Afghan corruption, for not building Afghan security forces with all the capabilities needed to hold the Taliban in check, and for not having the right programs, staffing patterns or policies to produce more capable Afghan partners. A widely-heard criticism is that the United States ended up fighting the war one year at a time, rather than with a long-term plan. Yet, in 2017, the United States still has a strong coalition of international partners who are willing to provide military and development assistance. The U.S.-Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement and Bilateral Security Agreement provide a foundation for multiyear commitments. The government of President Ashraf Ghani is much more committed to reform and good governance than the previous Karzai government, and both he and his governing partner, Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah, seem genuinely committed to a positive partnership with the United States and others in the international coalition, especially on counterterrorism. In general, Afghan security forces have been willing to fight hard against the Taliban. Also, the international situation is more dangerous than ever, with ISIS and other extremists looking for places to operate. The Trump administration can present a strategy that plans for its four-year term, and beyond, to help strengthen Afghan partners militarily, politically and economically, and to assure that the Taliban does not effectively win on the battlefield. A key task is to help the Afghan government strengthen its legitimacy in the eyes of a worried and pessimistic population, by reducing corruption, creating economic opportunity and fighting effectively against its foes. Improved government performance will also sustain the support from international partners. A credible anticorruption plan is essential. Additionally, the U.S. strategy will need to explain how to engage regional actors, especially Pakistan, to diminish support for the Taliban and other extremists…. Many American-Afghanistan watchers stress the need to find paths to a political solution that ends the fighting and brings elements of the Taliban and the government together. Few argue that a purely military defeat of the Taliban is possible; however, and the how and when of any negotiated solution, or the potential U.S. role in that process, remain to be defined. Most observers do not expect the Taliban to be ready to engage in any negotiations, if they think they are gaining inside Afghanistan….Afghan president Ashraf Ghani is much more serious about improving government performance and the justice system than was his predecessor, Hamid Karzai. Ghani is renowned for his detailed efforts to redesign government programs, launch anticorruption efforts and oversee government work, with the aim of making them more efficient and effective. While Ghani is criticized by some for micromanagement, the big challenges have come from factional fighting between Ghani and his former rival and now government chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah. The struggles between them and their teams have slowed appointments, reforms and government decision making significantly over the last two years. …The basic political challenge is for the Afghan government to be seen by the Afghan people as increasingly legitimate and effective. The means delivering more security, jobs and public services, while reducing corruption, and having a credible way forward on elections……The new U.S. strategy will need to conceptualize how to create a regional environment more supportive of Afghan partners and which promotes an end to the fighting. There is widespread agreement that Pakistan’s role is vital, and that it has largely been negative because of Pakistan’s direct or indirect support for the Taliban. A number of U.S. observers argue that until Pakistan and the Taliban conclude that the battlefield momentum has shifted decisively against their interests, the prospects for a negotiated peace process will remain dim. Some argue that Pakistan must be pressured to play a less nefarious role. The United States has tried for years to encourage Pakistan to stop allowing Taliban leaders, financiers and fighters to have sanctuary inside its borders. How to handle Pakistan will likely be one of the most challenging issues in the strategic review. The range of options proposed will likely include imposing sanctions and reducing military assistance, but some will likely argue in favor of persuasion, given U.S. dependence on Pakistan for access to Afghanistan. ….There are also regional economic initiatives, including trans-Afghanistan energy and trade corridors, that the United States could use to encourage to build momentum for a peaceful solution.

Undoubtedly, CPEC provided a golden opportunity to resolve the conflict in Afghanistan. The United States must now become a part of the imitative for the sake of regional peace and security.

The prospect of improved relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan are dim because of India. There is a long bitter history of Pakistan -Afghan relations whose roots go back to centuries. Afghanistan has an identity problem with Pakistan. The two countries have a whole border that Afghanistan does not officially recognize and has had irredentist claims in the past. Both the two countries are now providing sanctuaries to terrorists and insurgents operating against the other. For the past four decades, Afghanistan has seen nothing but conflict and strife in which Pakistan has been both a part of the problem as well as the solution.

On April 16, 2017 Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Omar Zakhilwal yesterday hinted that a joint operation against TTP leader Mullah Fazlullah could be possible in near future, as he expressed hope for improvement in Pak Afghan relations this year. Afghanistan could never allow India to use its soil against Pakistan, terming such an impression to be an insult to the whole Afghan nation. He expressed the hope that the relations between Islamabad and Kabul would see an improvement despite the current chill in bilateral ties.[xliii] To a question about handing over of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan leader Mullah Fazlullah to Pakistan, who is hiding somewhere in Afghanistan, he said that he was not a lame duck which the Afghan authorities could hand over to Pakistan. But he said that a joint operation against Fazlullah could be possible.

He, however, demanded of Islamabad to also act against those militants who were openly roaming around in Pakistan and were engaged in the terrorist attack of heinous nature in Afghanistan. The Afghan ambassador also said that trade between the two countries was adversely affected by these border closures and claimed that bilateral trade had sharply declined over the past five years from $5 billion to $1.5 billion. Now, Iran had captured the vacuum created in the trade to the border tension, he added.[xliv].

Given the deteriorating security situation. Pakistan, India and Afghanistan have problems that are intertwined and need to be redressed through a fundamental change in relations. Given their historic nature, it is not going to be easy and required a lot of prudence, wisdom and patience. With the support of both China and the United States it was a doable though. Meanwhile, it was time to rethink Pakistan’s foreign policy and move on from an Indian-centric worldview. Easier said than done, however. The Indian attitudes towards Afghanistan were hampering this rethink in many ways. The Indian stance on Afghanistan was simplistic, at best. It was premised in the believe that Taliban was being used by Pakistan to control Afghanistan, which then as in the past, would become “strategic depth” for anti-Indian Jihadis to operate from. Pakistan, which now has forces to deploy heavily on its borders with Afghanistan, can then focus its entire attention on “low intensity conflict” against India. The United States should pressurize Pakistan further by stepping up pressures through drone strikes on Taliban safe havens. Pakistan wanted to make Afghanistan a client state. China appeared to believe that it can insulate its Muslim majority Xinjiang Province bordering Afghanistan from Islamic radicalism by getting a Government dependent on its friend Pakistan installed in Kabul. Meanwhile, Iran would prefer to see American forces leave Afghanistan. India should undertake a closely coordinated diplomatic effort with the Afghan Government to see that their mutual concerns about the Pakistan/Taliban/Haqqani nexus are addressed.

An editorial entitled “Mother of all bombs” published in Dawn April 15, 2017 stated:[xlv]

Under Donald Trump, the US seems to be entering into a new era in its history of militarism. On Thursday, the Trump administration created another first by dropping the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal – rather nauseatingly named the Mother of All Bombs (MOAB) – in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan bordering Pakistan. The official target has been declared to be a ‘system of tunnels and caves’ used by IS terrorists. The US has declared that the attack killed at least 36 IS members. As far as official claims go, no civilian deaths were reported. Going by this latest incident, Trump seems to be interested in escalating US involvement in world conflicts – and that too by using new and potentially devastating weapons. In the aftermath of the Thursday bombing, the Afghan government will find it even more difficult to stick to claims of sovereignty post troop withdrawal by the US. And, with US Commander in Afghanistan General Nicholson having asked for a few thousand more troops, the likelihood of peace talks with Afghan Taliban succeeding is slim. Already, the Afghan Taliban and the US are both not attending the 11-country talks on Afghan peace that started in Moscow on Friday. The talks were being seen as an attempt by Russia to play the role of a key broker, but Thursday’s bombing could be another reminder than the US remains a critical stakeholder in Afghanistan. If the Afghan government has prioritized a path of peace, then the US bombings go against that agenda since any further weakening of the Afghan government is likely to worsen the conflict in the country. The US military and administration have chosen a dangerous path. It is still easy to remember that it was US intervention that plunged Afghanistan, Iraq and the broader Middle East into unending civil wars and destruction. To many, the missile strikes in Syria and dropping the MOAB in Afghanistan are both part of the push to show Trump as a ‘tough’ American president. The reality, however, is that more bombings are just a continuation of US militarism in the world. They can hardly be expected to offer hope to a people and country ravaged by war. Instead, all the bomb confirms is that the Trump presidency is not the opening of a new chapter in American history, but rather a continuation of the same one.

The Afghanistan conflict had been going on for more than 15 years with no end in sight. Matters were further complicated with the Russian support of Taliban. New global politics had dictated strange bedfellows something unimaginable in the past. Given the desire of Russia to regain influence in the Central Asian region, the Russian-Taliban nexus had developed at the cost of the United States and its Western allies. Russia had acknowledged political ties with the Taliban. It had for years branded the US effort in Afghanistan as a failure.

In March, head of US European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti accused Moscow of "perhaps" supplying Taliban with weapons, at a United States Congress hearing. Iran's support for the Taliban risks adding another front to tensions with the United States after Trump the very recently ordered a missile strike on an airbase in Syria.

Meanwhile, NATO had carried out 460 airstrikes against terrorists since the start of the year, with drone strikes alone killing more than 200 IS militants. At present, there were around 13,000 United States and NATO troops were in Afghanistan and the top US commander was pushing for several thousand more.

In the past, Russia had generally supported the Afghan government and United States -led military campaign, but it had always criticized the coalition for its alleged failure to prevent a massive increase in opium production, much of which is smuggled to the West via Russia.[xlvi]

The Future

The future of Afghanistan appeared dark for myriad reasons. The United States simply cannot defeat the IS and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Taliban are very resilient and have support in the local Pashtun Afghani population. It was advisable that the United States enter a peace deal with the Taliban and empower them in the eastern parts of the country where the Pashtuns are in a majority. The longest war in American history must end now. Pakistan can play a useful role in the peace deal. Varghese K. George, in his article “Military strategy alone won’t solve Afghan crisis” published in the Hindu on April 17, 2017 which gave the thoughts of Nisha Biswal, former Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, who argued that:[xlvii]

There are some indications that there is a willingness (of the Trump administration) to increase the level of troops in Afghanistan. That would be welcome. But a security strategy that is not paired with a diplomatic and economy strategy has limitations. I would urge there must be a comprehensive strategy, working with the countries in the region, as the durable way forward. … Pakistan, Russia, China and Central Asian countries were all stakeholders in Afghanistan. You have multiple stakes at play. We have to show American leadership in forging that partnership.

The United States believed that the standstill in the Afghanistan military conflict could be broken using more military force. This was not a prudent policy at all. Biswal was correct in her advice that the United States now must lead the regional powers in enacting a new partnership. The United States policy on Afghanistan must combine a military strategy with a diplomatic and economic plan, as advised by Biswal above. The United States must partner with Pakistan and China to bring peace to Afghanistan and the best approach would be to bring the country into the CPEC initiative immediately.

China Interests in Afghanistan

China’s relations with Afghanistan are steadily growing. China has so far contributed in the way of development assistance, investment projects, and in its more recent and less typical contribution to peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban. China increased its contributions to Afghanistan’s development significantly in the last two to three years: it provided roughly $240 million in development assistance and aid between 2001 and 2013, and around $80 million in 2014 alone. During the visit of Abdullah Abdullah (the government’s chief executive) to China in May, both countries signed an agreement on technical cooperation (worth around $76 million) and on non-emergency humanitarian aid. China’s contribution may still be insignificant compared to that of the US or Europe, and far from that of the largest donor of Afghanistan in the region – India, which has provided roughly $2 billion to date -, yet its increase signifies China’s will to stay in the country for good. So far, a planned $3 billion lease of the Aynak copper mine in 2008 by a consortium of Chinese state-owned companies never launched due to security issues and disagreement over the terms. Ever since, China remains reluctant to make large investments in Afghanistan, but this might change if security improves.[xlviii]

Further untapped natural resources in Afghanistan are supposed to be worth $1 trillion, according to a US report from 2010. In particular, Afghanistan has been a source of the gemstone lapis lazilus, which reportedly generated roughly $125 million trade value in 2014. But the mining of the stone has led to a conflict in recent years between local security forces and the Taliban as they gained more control over the country. Mining had the potential to generate copious amounts of revenue and growth for Afghanistan if the country could establish capacities to impose legal mining. China indeed might have an interest in improving Afghanistan’s institutional capacities to ensure the security needed to pursue further investment. China’s OBOR initiative was almost cut out for Afghanistan’s need of infrastructure on the one hand and potential vast natural resources on the other. The country could become a core part of China’s trade and investment network, and Beijing has already sent out a signal that points towards more cooperation. During Afghanistan’s leader Abdullah’s visit to China, both countries signed a memorandum of understanding on the OBOR initiative.

There are also signs that China’s security stance towards Afghanistan is changing. China has always remained reluctant to engage in security issues that carry too great a risk of going wrong. This has been the case in Afghanistan too, where China would have been meddling in what the United States and ISAF were doing. Also, China needed to be concerned about becoming a target of terrorist groups such as the Taliban, who might have links with Islamic independence groups in Xinjiang. So far, China’s role in matters of security is even smaller than in development assistance.

Beijing has been slowly and gradually increasing its security relations with Afghanistan since Afghan President Ashraf Ghani came into power in 2014. In February, the chief of the Chinese army, Fang Fenghui, announced roughly $70 million of military aid to support the Afghan government’s anti-terrorism efforts. Chinese president Xi Jinping reiterated China’s commitment during the visit of Abdullah in May. At the beginning of July, the Afghan forces received the first batch of Chinese military equipment.

China is also involved in multilateral and regional efforts to approach Afghanistan’s problems, ranging from tackling security and institutional capacities to improving border control, fighting criminal networks, and counterterrorism. For example, the so-called Heart of Asia process, initiated in 2011, engages countries including China to encourage regional security and economic cooperation in and around Afghanistan. China is also a leading member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a group that promotes regional cooperation on economics, politics, and security. Afghanistan has had full observer status since 2012, and has asked for China’s support to become a full member in early 2016. Such formats engage Afghanistan’s neighbors in the country’s development, but would still need larger common efforts to change the situation on the ground significantly. [xlix]

In addition, China is now setting up an anti-terrorism alliance with Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan, to tackle the threat of terrorism and extremism. The four countries agreed on establishing a “four-country mechanism” to share intelligence and training. China’s participation in such an alliance reflects Beijing’s growing worries about an eruption of insecurity that could endanger its security of its border province Xinjiang, and possibly also its investments in the Central Asian region. Tensions have increased notably between Beijing and its Muslim Uyghur minority in the Western province Xinjiang, some of whom have formed an opposition movement. Therefore, Beijing is concerned about possible links between its Muslim minorities and the Taliban, as well as other Islamist groups in Afghanistan.

China is also working to create an Afghan peace process and has been holding talks in Islamabad since early 2016 along with Afghanistan, the US, and Pakistan (the Quadrilateral Coordination Group). While the Taliban are refusing to negotiate so far, it is important to keep the effort alive, not least because it reduces mistrust between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In July, a delegation of Taliban negotiators visited China, apparently to report on the situation in Afghanistan from their perspective. The Afghan government expressed concern about China providing “a platform to those groups that are responsible for the killing of the people of Afghanistan.” While China might make some progress towards a peace process with the Taliban, the actual danger of such bilateral meetings is that they might undermine the efforts of the quadrilateral group.

So far, China has evolved into a notable though not yet major player in Afghanistan in the areas of investment, economic and humanitarian assistance. Beijing remains reluctant to consider a security role in Afghanistan, but has made major diplomatic efforts to promote the Afghan peace process. Although the outcome remains to be seen, China’s role as a mediator and confidence-builder may be crucial, as it appears that only Beijing’s constant pressure has kept its long-time ally Pakistan relatively peacefully engaged.

But what Afghanistan needs is long-term and sustainable support – and China would be able to provide it, be it in the frame of its OBOR scheme or other initiatives. There may also be several areas of common interest for China to explore with other countries that are present in Afghanistan already, such as the US or European countries. This could include joint infrastructure projects, and training and professionalization for Afghans. China has already taken the first steps in exploring this option: China and Germany announced recently their cooperation in third countries, notably in Afghanistan. Both countries agreed to establish a disaster management office and to cooperate on training Afghan personnel in the mining sector.

 The Uyghur Issue

China was concerned about Uyghur separatist tendencies in their western frontier region of Xinjiang who were suspected to have ties to the Afghan Taliban in the northwestern belt of Pakistan. The Xinjiang region is the traditional home of Muslim Uighurs who speak a Turkic language, and China has blamed a series of attacks on Islamist separatists it says seek to establish an independent state there called East Turkestan. Chinese authorities point to the existence of terrorist group called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). However, exiled Uighur groups and human rights activists say the government's own repressive policies in Xinjiang have provoked unrest, something Beijing denies. They have expressed doubt there exists a coherent extremist movement as China claims. Recently, Islamic militants in China had expanded their fight against the government and had developed links with terrorist groups in the northern Pakistan-Afghanistan border regions. As expected, Pakistan was certainly doing its best to eliminate anti-China elements from its territory. China had made substantial investment commitments in Afghanistan and was playing a role in the mediation of peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Meanwhile, there was a disconnect between United States and China as ’s interests in Afghanistan remained largely tied to the Uyghur issue. China’s policies toward its Uyghur population had long raised human rights concerns in the United States which had frustrated China in bilateral discussions. The U.S. has also hesitated to expand counterterrorism cooperation with China for fear that China would use its newfound capabilities to persecute the Uyghur population.

Since the 9/11 attacks, China has claimed to be the victim of a sustained terrorist campaign by "religious extremists," who it has said have links to the Taliban and al Qaeda. In support of this claim, it has cited a string of violent incidents targeting Chinese civilians over the last year, including the killing of 29 people by a knife-wielding gang in Kunming in this past March. The government has used these episodes to justify a religious crackdown on the predominantly Muslim Uighur ethnic minority in Xinjiang.

The disclosure that some of China's citizens are looking to connect with IS echoes fears expressed by other nations that combatants trained in Iraq and Syria might return to their countries and launch attacks at home. The Global Times, a state-run newspaper in China, quoted an unnamed anti-terrorism official as saying that militants from Xinjiang "not only want to get training in terrorist techniques, but also to expand their connections in international terrorist organizations through actual combat to gain support for escalation of terrorist activities in China."

Many scholars have heavily criticized China's earlier claims of links between Uighur terrorist groups like the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and "hostile foreign forces." Much earlier, James Millward, a Georgetown University professor specializing in Chinese and Central Asian history, argued in a 2004 study that the Chinese government's characterization of the threat posed by organized Xinjiang militants "contains much inaccurate, questionable, or contradictory reporting and slanted conclusions reflecting ulterior agendas."

Previously, China’s former special envoy to the Middle East declared that roughly 100 Chinese combatants were training or fighting in the Middle East. While China's latest assertion about links between its citizens and international Muslim extremist organizations remains yet unsubstantiated. China's government clearly intends to signal that it will not tolerate opposition to its policies in Xinjiang. But if the government continues to reject any form of dialogue between disenfranchised Uighur communities in Xinjiang and itself, the threats it claims to face could become even greater than it already fears.[l]

Much earlier, in 2014 China began a campaign to purge the Internet of content it says promotes terror and violence, enlisting the aid of major websites, state media said, as the country moves to damp violence in its restive far west.[li] Aa suicide bombing killed 39 people at a market in Xinjiang's capital of Urumqi. 29 people were stabbed to death at a train station in the southwestern city of Kunming. The government aims to stop circulation in China of terror-related materials made overseas, remove such information from the Internet, punish websites that break the rules and urge Internet firms to "uphold their responsibilities", Xinhua said. China already exercises tight control over the Internet, with the cooperation of the country's Internet companies.

Beijing says most suspects in recent cases had been spurred by terror video and audio products to carry out attacks. China faces a serious challenge cleaning the web of such content, as the volume of materials released by the ETIM has increased dramatically, the report added.

"These materials, which propagate jihad, terrorism and religious extremism, have been spread incessantly in China," the statement said. "They have had a strong instigation effect and are extremely harmful."

It is unclear how broadly the government will define terror-related content.

Websites aimed at ethnic Uighurs, Tibetans and Mongols have been banned in the past following government accusations that they spread separatism, although rights groups say they simply provide a forum for discussion about issues like discrimination.

In the past, China viewed Afghanistan as an extension of its Uyghur concerns which limited its willingness to cooperate in Afghanistan. China was concerned about any support for the Uyghur in the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderland regions and would like the eradication of any Uygur militants in the region.

 However, CPEC could change all that if coordinated properly. Expanding China’s direct interests in Afghanistan would open new avenues for United States-China cooperation there. It would motivate both sides to boost coordination on Afghan security, while shifting the focus of this cooperation away from the fraught issues of counterterrorism and China’s domestic concerns..[lii] Andrew Small, an expert on China-Pakistan relations at the German Marshall Fund in Washington, argued that China's recent offer to assist mediate talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan was a real departure from decades when Beijing's official policy has been that of “non-interference in the politics of other countries”. Now, in Afghanistan, China had become a stakeholder and wasn’t just a bystander anymore. .[liii] Given Pakistan’s “complicated” relationship with the Afghan Taliban, China will have to exert its influence on Pakistan to guarantee stability in Afghanistan. Finally, China was “easing into its role as a great power." And, indeed, it's using Pakistan as a corridor”. [liv] 

China will increasingly play a greater role in Afghanistan’s future since it was part and parcel of the OBOR initiative. For China OBOR was a very serious global venture and it included Afghanistan.

[i] Ahmad Majidyar, Afghanistan: Hanging in the Balance, Special Briefing: The Middle East in the Year Ahead. January 5, 2017, https://www.mei.edu/content/article/special-briefing-middle-east-year-ahead, accessed March 16, 2017

[ii] Pakistan-based terror groups target India's interests in Afghanistan: Envoy, The Times of India, July 23, 2016

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Pakistan-based-terror-groups-target-Indias-interests-in-Afghanistan-Envoy/articleshow/53351033.cms, accessed July23 2016

[iii] Siegfried O. Wolf, “Opinion: The US will Maintain an Offensive Anti-Terror Approach in Afghanistan, IndraStra Global  Saturday, July 16, 2016,https://www.indrastra.com/2016/07/OPINION-US-will-Maintain-Offensive-Anti-Terror-Approach-in-Afghanistan-002-07-2016-0022.html, accessed July 17, 2016

[iv] By Joanna Chiu and Jared Ferrie, “Why is China getting involved in Afghan peace talks?, IRIN , July 4, 2016

https://www.irinnews.org/analysis/2016/07/04/why-china-getting-involved-afghan-peace-talks, accessed July 21, 2016

[v]  Kamran Yousaf, “Islamabad pessimistic about upturn in ties with Kabul”, The Express Tribune, July 19th, 2016, https://tribune.com.pk/story/1144614/islamabad-pessimistic-upturn-ties-kabul/, accessed July 19, 2016

[vi] “Frontier stand-off”, The Economist. Jun 11th 2016, https://www.economist.com/news/asia/21700457-why-pakistan-has-tightened-controls-along-porous-border-frontier-stand?zid=306&ah=1b164dbd43b0cb27ba0d4c3b12a5e227, accessed July 21, 2016

[vii] Pakistan Afghanistan to hold first TWG meeting on border management,  The News, July 22, 2016

https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/136834-Pakistan-Afghanistan-first-TWG-meeting-border-management, accessed July 22, 2016

[viii] Manzoor Ahmed, “Why Pakistan stopped supplies to Afghanistan, Kashmir”., July 23, 2016, https://dailykashmirimages.com/Details/116126/why-pakistan-stopped-supplies-to-afghanistan, accessed July 23, 2016

[ix] Giving Afghanistan’s army a chance, Sentinel, https://www.sentinelsource.com/opinion/columnists/guest/giving-afghanistan-s-army-a-chance/article_85e4c92a-a117-5895-92c3-59b7325ad4cd.html, accessed July 17,

[x]  Siegfried O. Wolf, “Opinion: The US will Maintain an Offensive Anti-Terror Approach in Afghanistan

 IndraStra Global  Saturday, July 16, 2016  , https://www.indrastra.com/2016/07/OPINION-US-will-Maintain-Offensive-Anti-Terror-Approach-in-Afghanistan-002-07-2016-0022.html, accessed July 17, 2016

[xi] Hassan Naqvi, Thank You Raheel Sharif, Daily Times,19, 2016, https://dailytimes.com.pk/blog/19-Jul-16/thank-you-raheel-sharif, accessed July 19, 2016

[xii] Lisa Ferdinando, DoD News, US Department of Defense, July 17, 2016, https://www.defense.gov/News-Article-View/Article/842115/dunford-cites-optimism-momentum-after-visit-to-afghanistan, accessed July 18, 2016

[xiii] Nishant Atal, "More harm Than Good", USA News and World Report, November 25, 2015, https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2015/11/25/time-to-reevaluate-us-aid-to-pakistan, accessed July 22, 2016

[xiv] Afghanistan blames Pakistan of supporting terrorism

https://dailytimes.com.pk/pakistan/15-Jul-16/afghanistan-blames-pakistan-of-supporting-terrorismaccessed July 17, 2016

[xv] Jonathan Marshall Afghanistan: President Obama’s Vietnam, Consortium News, July 24, 2016, https://consortiumnews.com/2016/07/24/afghanistan-president-obamas-vietnam/, accessed July 24, 2016

[xvi] Don Murray, “After 15 years of war and billions in aid, Afghanistan remains a basket case: Kabul trip begins with deadly wake-up bombing:, CBC news , July 16, 2016 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/afghanistan-kabul-violence-war-refugees-1.3677440accessed July 17, 2016

[xvii] Kabul’s plan for Afghan refugees, Daily Times, July 18, 2016, accessed July 18, 2016

[xviii]  Pamela Constable “Pakistan uses 1.5 million Afghan refugees as pawns in dispute with U.S.”, The Washington post on June 17, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/06/17/pakistan-uses-1-5-million-afghan-refugees-as-pawns-in-dispute-with-u-s/, accessed July 22, 2016

,

[xix] CYRIL ALMEIDA , “The big Afghan bet”, Dawn, July 24th, 2016, https://www.dawn.com/news/1272771/the-big-afghan-bet, accessed July 24, 2016

[xx]  Fahd Humayun. Winter of discontent, The News International, March 09, 2016, https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/103863-Winter-of-discontent, accessed March 9, 2016

[xxi]  Khayyam Mushir, "Baptisms of fire”, March 08, 2016, The News International, https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/103620-Baptisms-of-fire accessed march 8, 2016

[xxii] Pakistan hints at progress on Taliban talks within days, Reuters, March 8, 2016, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-taliban-idUSKCN0WA1T0, accessed March 8, 2016

[xxiii] Drone strikes deplorable: COAS, The Nation, June 1, 2016, https://nation.com.pk/national/01-Jun-2016/drone-strikes-deplorable-coas accessed June 1, 2016

[xxiv] Drone strike affected Pak-USA trust: ISPR, June 07, 2016

https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/126010-Drone-strike-affected-Pak-USA-trust-ISPR accessed June 7, 2016

[xxv] MATEEN HAIDER, "High-level civil-mil huddle at GHQ discusses national security”, Dawn, June 7, 2016,  

https://www.dawn.com/news/1263338/high-level-civil-mil-huddle-at-ghq-discusses-national-security, accessed June 7, 2016

[xxvi] Civil-military heads resolve to counter hostile intelligence agencies, Express Tribune, June 7, 2016

https://tribune.com.pk/story/1117883/civil-military-leadership-resolves-counter-hostile-intelligence-agencies/, accessed June 7, 2016

[xxvii] MUJIB MASHAL and ZAHRA NADER, ISIS Claims Deadly Blasts at Demonstration in Kabul, Afghanistan, The New York Times,  JULY 23, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/24/world/asia/kabul-afghanistan-explosions-hazaras-protest.html?_r=0, accessed July 23, 2016

[xxviii] Steve Visser and Masoud Popalzai ISIS claims Afghanistan explosion that kills dozens, CNN, July 24, 2016https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/23/asia/afghanistan-explosion/, accessed July 24, 2016

[xxix] After Obama's green light, Afghan forces on the offensive

Lynne O'Donnell, The Associated Press, July 24, 2916

[xxx] Bart Jansen, “Afghan offensive planned in aftermath of Kabul bombing”, , USA TODAY, July 24, 2016, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/07/24/afghan-offensive-planned-aftermath-kabul-bombing/87499124/. Accessed July 24, 2016

[xxxi] Carol Lee and Felicia Schwartz, “U.S. Slows Troop Pullout in Afghanistan”, The Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2016

[xxxii] Angela Stanzel, “China’s interests in Afghanistan”, China Policy Institute Analysis, https://cpianalysis.org/2016/09/05/chinas-interests-in-afghanistan/, accessed April 13, 2017

[xxxiii] War in Afghanistan (2015–present), Wikipedia,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2015%E2%80%93present), accessed April 8, 2017

[xxxiv] Ibid

[xxxv] IS in Afghanistan: US special forces soldier is killed, BBC News, April 8, 2017

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39542834, accessed April 9, 2017

[xxxvi] CBS News, April 14, 2017, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-drops-mother-of-all-bombs-in-afghanistan-marking-weapons-first-use/, accessed April 14, 2017

[xxxvii]   MUJIB MASHAL and FAHIM ABED, “Mother of All Bombs’ Killed Dozens of Militants, Afghan Officials Say, New York Times, APRIL 14, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/world/asia/mother-of-all-bombs-afghanistan-us-moab.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0, accessed April 14, 2017

[xxxviii] McMaster Adamant That Taliban Will Be Defeated https://www.tolonews.com/afghanistan/mcmaster-adamant-taliban-will-be-defeated

Accessed April 17, 2017

[xxxix][xxxix][xxxix] Mujib Mashal, After U.S. Talks With Afghanistan, Hints at a Harder Line on Pakistan, New York Times, April 16, 2017https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/16/world/asia/us-afghanistan-talks-hard-line-pakistan.html?_r=0, accessed April 17, 2017

[xl] Ibid

[xli] Ibid

[xlii] Ronald Neumann, David Petraeus and Earl Anthony Wayne, in their essay “An Afghanistan Strategy for Trump”, published on April 16, 2017 argued that: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/strategy-trump-afghanistan-20189?page=show

[xliii]  Javaid Siddique. “Joint operation against Fazlullah ‘possible’ hopes bilateral ties will improve this year” The Nation , April 17, 2017, https://nation.com.pk/national/17-Apr-2017/joint-operation-against-fazlullah-possible,essed April 17, 2017

and see Geo TV, April 17, 2017, https://www.geo.tv/latest/138372-Joint-operation-against-TTP-chief-Fazlullah-possible-says-Afghan-ambassador, accessed April 17, 2017

[xliv] Ibid

[xlv] An editorial entitled “Mother of all bombs” The News, 15, 2017, https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/198627-Mother-of-all-bombs

[xlvi] Elias Hubbard, “U.S. military: USA soldier killed in Afghanistan during operations against Islamic State” Click Lancashire, April 16, 2017, https://clicklancashire.com/2017/04/16/u-s-military-usa-soldier-killed-in-afghanistan-during.html, accessed April 17, 2017

[xlvii] Varghese K. George “Military strategy alone won’t solve Afghan crisis”, The Hindu on April 17, 2017, https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-international/military-strategy-alone-wont-solve-afghan-crisis/article18069953.ece, accessed April 17, 2017

[xlviii] Angela Stanzel, “China’s interests in Afghanistan”, China Policy Institute Analysis, https://cpianalysis.org/2016/09/05/chinas-interests-in-afghanistan/, accessed April 13, 2017

[xlix] Ibid

[l] Nick Holdstock, “Militants from China's Xinjiang Region Really Being Trained by the Islamic State?”, Vice News, September 25, 2014, https://news.vice.com/article/are-militants-from-chinas-xinjiang-region-really-being-trained-by-the-islamic-state

[li] China launches campaign to cleanse web of terror content, Chicago Tribune, June 20, 2014 June 20, 2014 https://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-06-20/news/sns-rt-us-china-internet-xinjiang-20140620_1_xinjiang-east-turkestan-islamic-movement-state-internet-information-office, accessed March 12, 2016

[lii] Andi Zhou, “Can China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ Save the US in Afghanistan?” The Diplomat, March 11, 2016, https://thediplomat.com/2016/03/can-chinas-one-belt-one-road-save-the-us-in-afghanistan/

[liii] Ishaan Tharoor , “What China’s and Pakistan’s special friendship means”, The Washington Post, April 21, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/04/21/what-china-and-pakistans-special-friendship-means/ accessed March 12, 2016

[liv] Arif Rafiq, How China and Pakistan Are Beating India in the New Great Game

The national Interest, June 12, 2015 https://www.nationalinterest.org/feature/how-china-pakistan-are-beating-india-the-new-great-game-13096, accessed March 12, 2016

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