The Afghan Taliban government has been under global scrutiny and condemnation for not taking enough action against terrorism, especially by its initial benefactor, that is Pakistan.

But recently, dreaded terrorist Sanaullah Ghafari (designated a ‘global terrorist’) was killed in an operation by the Afghan Talibani forces. With a $10 million bounty on his head under the Rewards for Justice Program (U.S. Department of State’s programme for tipping information) and slammed in the 14th report of the UN’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team as “the most ambitious leader of the affiliate”, does Ghafari’s killing signify a change in the narrative and relief for the Pakistanis across the restive Durand Line? The short answer is No.

The fine print accompanying the antecedents of Sanaullah Ghafari shows that he is not from the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP) but instead from the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) faction which is Afghanistan-facing (unlike TTP which is Pakistan-facing), even though both reside in the scraggy swathes of Afghanistan.

The principal aim of the TTP is to overthrow the existing Pakistani government by violence and establish a theocratic state (much like the Taliban government in Kabul), whereas ISKP has a more Pan-Islamic ambition with Khorasan as a suggested ‘province’ of the core Islamic State (Caliphate).

The ISKP directly threatens and targets the existing Afghan Taliban state and wherewithal, while the TTP takes on the Pakistani armed forces and state assets, singularly.

The neutralizing of the socalled Emir of the ISKP and a high-value target in Sanaullah Ghafari shows the capability and intent of the oft-discredited Afghan Taliban forces, and it also simultaneously and tellingly suggests the obvious disinterest of the Afghan Taliban to take on the TTP to the chagrin of the Pakistanis.

While it is true that in recent times the ISKP had undertaken daring attacks on the diplomats of Pakistan, Russia, China etc., that was driven by the fact that these nations were trying to legitimise the otherwise ‘pariahiased’ government of the Afghan Taliban, initially.

Thus the Afghan Taliban reneged from acting like a beholden, ‘controllable’ or even extended arm of the much-bandied Pakistani ‘Strategic Depth’ from the Rawalpindi General Head Quarters, and therefore resisted subsequent pressures from Pakistan to act on co-ideologically aligned TTP. Pakistan was horrified and hapless at the uncontrollable mutation of its own creation.

Ironically, ISKP seems to be brutally ‘out-talibanising’ the Afghan Taliban to an extent that it could emerge as an inadvertent and common rallying point with the West (especially with the United States). The ISKP has been responsible for multiple bombings that have killed hundreds of Afghan civilians and even specifically targeted the vulnerable Shia community.

All this makes the ISKP the latest enfant terrible of Afghanistan, replacing even the Afghan Taliban. The ISKP was also a growing threat to neighbouring countries like Iran, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan (who have had a historical beef with the Afghan Taliban) after having conducted bloody attacks there.

Therefore, any action on the ISKP front (like the Sanaullah Ghafari incident) earns the Afghan Taliban unstated brownie points with its neighbours as also with potential donors in the West, whereas action against the TTP earns it ire from within, and at best, meaningless appreciation from the otherwise bankrupt Pakistan. There is simply no upside for the Afghan Taliban to act on the TTP, only a downside. Not so on ISKP – hence the selectivity of action.

This means that the bugbear of TTP for the Pakistanis is here to stay. With over 5,000 highly trained and motivated fighters in its ranks and millions of supporters across the lawless and tribal Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, it is of little surprise that the TTP has been able to conduct more than 100 terror attacks on Pakistani soil since the end of its ceasefire last year. The major reason for TTP to end the ceasefire had been totally local with the Pakistani government failing to reverse the merger of former FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Area) with the newly formed KP (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) province. Again, unlike the ISKP agenda ~ the TTP agenda and grouses are wholly local and Pak-centric.

Misplaced bravado by Pakistani politicians with an eye on their own cadres with suggestions of political ‘muscularity’ and even openly warning that they were open to strike against TTP hideouts across the Afghanistan border did not go down well with the Afghan Taliban.

Even the United Nations was to note the obvious when it said, “The Afghan Taliban [do] not consider TTP a threat to Afghanistan, but rather as part of the emirate”.

This is where the Pakistani conundrum and underestimation of the larger Talibani coaffiliation (Afghan Taliban and the TTP) exists.

The TTP phenomenon, besides thriving in tribal areas and populace with co-ethnicity and accompanying sensibilities (read Pathans) are aided immeasurably via their social media outreach that is preying on the failed state imperative, socio-economic morass and sheer desperation that has consumed the Pakistani narrative and its discredited ‘establishment’.

The Pakistani socio-economic distress is here to stay and that makes it fertile territory for the TTP agenda to extend beyond the invisible and unrecognised Durand Line, and ingress into the Punjabi heartland, as well.

The TTP ranks on Afghan soil also afford a priceless bargaining lever to the equally desperate Afghan Taliban government to seek their pound of flesh from the Pakistanis ~ historically and culturally, this sits well with societal dissonance between Islamabad and Kabul.

For the United States (euphemism for West), the Afghan Taliban (and its accompanying imperatives) is a fait accompli after having negotiated the terms of withdrawal, but the more globally ambitious ISKP is a pertinent threat that needs to be countered.

Paradoxically, the Afghan Taliban by taking on the ISKP may well be making a case for rapprochement by ostensibly taking on ‘terror’ whilst leaving out the TTP from its menu card to the irritation of the Pakistanis.

Given the duplicitous role played by the Pakistani ‘establishment’ in ousting the US/ NATO from Afghan soil and the limited reach and role of TTP, the selective silence of the Afghan Taliban on the TTP may well be overlooked. TTP is a mutation of a genie unleashed by the Pakistanis that has gone rogue.