Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid repeated accusations that Pakistan backs ISIS-K, which was one of the reasons why the Taliban attacked along the Durand Line over the weekend, but added that attacks on Iran and Russia were also orchestrated from there: “Training centers for ISIS-K have been established in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and trainees are being brought there through Karachi and Islamabad airports. Our findings show that the attacks in Iran and Moscow were orchestrated from these centers.”
Indian media reported in late April that a key plotter of last spring’s Crocus terrorist attack might have been detained in Pakistan, but that was never confirmed, so some skeptics therefore dismissed it as a propaganda stunt after the Pahalgam terrorist attack and ahead of the Indo-Pak clashes that it led to. This analysis here assessed that “[the report’s] larger relevance is that it reminds readers after Pahalgam that some terrorists seek sanctuary in Pakistan, thus prompting the present analysis about why that is.”
Since then, former Russian Defense Minister-turned-Secretary of the Security Council Sergey Shoigu published an intriguing article about Afghanistan in his government’s official newspaper in late August, which condemned Western spy agencies’ transfer of foreign terrorists to ISIS-K cells in Afghanistan. He didn’t mention how they entered the country, however, though this analysis about his article here argued that the easiest route is through Pakistan. Shoigu and other Russian officials certainly know that.
Nevertheless, Russia still carried out its annual counterterrorism drills with Pakistan in early fall and there were recent rumors of closer fighter jet engine cooperation too, thus signifying that Moscow doesn’t believe that “official” Islamabad colludes with terrorists. That said, its “official” political leadership is widely considered to be subordinated to its military and intelligence leadership, which has been accused of such collusion in the past. The political leadership even admitted that this is true.
India, previously the US (but perhaps no longer due to their rapid rapprochement), occasionally Iran, and now the Taliban have all leveled these claims as did the USSR during the 1980s Afghan War due to Pakistan’s support of the CIA-backed Mujahideen. Given the decades-long closeness of Russian-Indian relations and the newfound closeness between Russia and the Taliban, it’s possible that Russia will soon take the former’s consistent claims more seriously and possibly even investigate the latter’s latest ones.
After all, it’s no small matter that the Taliban alleged that the Crocus terrorist attack was orchestrated from Pakistan, albeit by people that its military and intelligence services likely brought into the country without their political counterpart’s knowledge if true. Furthermore, although Pakistan doesn’t vote against Russia at the UN and has sought to expand their economic ties during the special operation, its pro-Western pivot and Trump’s preference for Pakistan raise suspicions about its new regional role.
For these reasons, Russia might soon request that India, the Taliban, and perhaps even Iran share whatever intelligence they have about Pakistan’s ties with terrorists, especially ISIS-K. It’s imperative that Russia determines the veracity of this latest accusation as soon as possible. If its intelligence services conclude that it’s undeniable or at least plausible, then ties with Pakistan will predictably worsen, while Russia’s trust in the Taliban would be greatly damaged if it turns out that the group lied.