Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,
While there are reasons to suspect that the Taliban has self-interested political motives in peddling lies about Pakistan, there are also reasons for Russia to take its latest claim very seriously…
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed over the weekend that “American drones are indeed operating in Afghanistan’s skies; they pass through Pakistani airspace and violate our airspace. This must not happen. They [Pakistan] are helpless here, they can’t stop it. Naturally, this should be seen as a form of incapability, and we understand that. We suspect that major global powers, those who once clashed with us or claimed Bagram are behind this pressure.”
He concluded by observing that “They don’t come directly, but they assign others to provoke unrest in the region and create pretexts. We stand firm against any conspiracy and won’t allow misguided ambitions to become reality in the region.”
His latest claim follows a similarly scandalous one from early October alleging that the Crocus terrorist attack was orchestrated from Pakistan.
The larger context concerns the cross-border violence between them that prompted fears of Pakistan invading Afghanistan.
This didn’t occur in a vacuum but amidst the rapid US-Pakistani rapprochement and Trump’s renewed demands to return US forces to Afghanistan’s Bagram Airbase, both of which preceded a report from the Financial Times about Pakistan offering the US a port ostensibly for economic purposes. Given this background, while there are reasons to suspect that the Taliban has self-interested political motives in peddling lies about Pakistan, there are also reasons for Russia to take its latest claim very seriously.
It’s not the first time that the Taliban claimed that those two are conspiring against it in this way.
Defense Minister Mohammad Yaqoob alleged around the one-year anniversary of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan that “US drone aircraft are coming from Pakistan and entering Afghanistan territory.” Pakistan denied that allegation just like it denied the latest one, but it wouldn’t be surprising if the CIA secretly reobtained access to drone bases there in exchange for Trump backing Pakistan over India lately.
Russia should therefore investigate the Taliban’s claim about US-Pakistani drone cooperation. Despite their own rapid rapprochement, Russia twice hinted in recent years that Pakistan might be playing a double game. The first indication came in November 2022 when Russian Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov said that “The Americans are openly blackmailing Taliban leaders, threatening them with a drone attack and forcing them to distance themselves from Russia and China”.
The innuendo was that these drone attacks would be facilitated by Pakistan letting the US use its airspace given that it’s the only realistic way for them to bomb Afghanistan. In late August of this year, Secretary of the Security Council Sergey Shoigu then wrote in an article that “The situation is aggravated by the recorded facts of the transfer of militants from other regions of the world to Afghanistan. There is reason to believe that behind these actions are the special services of a number of Western countries”.
As with what Kabulov said nearly three years prior, the innuendo is that Pakistan is facilitating the Western intelligence-backed infiltration of these terrorists into Afghanistan, once again due to it being the only realistic way for them to enter that country. Coupled with the Taliban’s recent claim that the Crocus terrorist attack was orchestrated from Pakistan, the pieces are in place for Russia to investigate whether its new partner is playing a double game and then reconsider their relations if this is confirmed.
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